The first forge bracket reached the mine road before sunset, where workers bolted it across a timber brace that had shifted twice that week.
Hajin returned after Marrick closed the wage line, finding the eastern worksite cleared except for Ferra and one covered lantern beside the anvil.
The repaired bellows sat idle while charcoal settled inside the furnace, leaving the ceramic basin warm beneath its new clamps.
Ferra had placed the apex core inside a shallow iron cradle, with four tools arranged near it and a local steel billet waiting on the anvil.
"You sent the workers home," Hajin said, stopping outside the marked heat line.
"The test may break the basin," she said, checking the cradle with one finger, "so I kept the people who cannot survive it away."
Marrick emerged from behind a stack of empty charcoal baskets with a ledger pressed against his coat.
"She kept me," he said, looking at the core, "though I explained that the forge inventory can be recorded tomorrow."
