The first week of Hearthline's reign was glorious chaos. Nyelle, taking to her new role as the de facto Chancellor of the Academy with fierce dedication, used the power of the Golden Ladle to enact their first wave of legislation.
The "Purity Tax"—officially redrafted as the 'Culinary Heritage and Urban Nourishment Mandate' or C.H.U.N. Mandate for short—was an immediate success. The city food banks, long-neglected, saw their stocks triple overnight. The trendy, elite guilds grumbled, but they had no choice but to comply. Kael's mandatory first-year course was approved, Grit's R&D funding was secured, and Ciela's proposal for transparent duel broadcasting was fast-tracked.
They were changing the world, and it was exhilarating.
But power, they quickly learned, is a magnet for problems.
Delegations from every guild, from the mighty to the meek, began to line up outside the Hearthline Guild hall. They didn't come to challenge; they came for guidance, for judgment, for mediation.
The Agronomy Guild and the Butchers' Union were locked in a century-old dispute over byproduct ownership (who owned the apple peels, the farmer or the pie-maker?), and they wanted Hearthline to settle it.
A group of mid-tier guilds complained that the new C.H.U.N. Mandate was disproportionately affecting their profit margins compared to the wealthier top-tier guilds, demanding a revised, tiered tax bracket system.
The traditionalist guilds, feeling ostracized, formally petitioned for the protection of "classic" culinary arts, which they felt were being endangered by the overwhelming popularity of "reclaimed" cuisine.
The guild hall, once a cozy haven, had become a courthouse. The long dining table, once a place for community meals, was now a constant, grueling session of hearings and debates.
The core team was fraying at the edges. Nyelle, the fiery chef, was drowning in paperwork and bureaucracy. Kael, the gentle cook, was forced into the role of a stern policy writer. Grit, the hands-on engineer, was stuck in endless budget meetings. Ciela's streams, once fun and revolutionary, were now mostly dry, political press conferences.
The worst part was that the food was suffering. The nightly deliveries, the very mission that had started it all, were becoming an afterthought. One evening, an exhausted Kael served a lentil soup that was slightly under-seasoned. The next night, Elara's bread was a little dense. The heart was going out of their cooking because their hearts were no longer in the kitchen.
Only Izen remained unchanged. Every day, he quietly absorbed the new problems. He would listen to the endless debates while calmly sorting the day's salvaged ingredients. He didn't offer political solutions, but he offered everyone who came to their door—be it ally or petitioner—a warm bowl of something delicious. He was no longer just the guild's chef; he had become its steadfast, calming center, the quiet eye of their political hurricane.
The breaking point came late one evening, nearly two weeks into their reign. Nyelle slammed a mountain of parchment onto the table, her face a mask of utter exhaustion and fury.
"That's it! I'm done!" she declared, her voice raw. "I spent six hours today mediating a legal battle between the Spice Importers Guild and the Alchemists' Union over who has the patent on cinnamon-infused smoke! I haven't touched my wok in three days! This isn't what we fought for!"
"She's right," Ciela sighed, rubbing her eyes. "My engagement is at an all-time high, but my passion is at an all-time low. I feel like… like we've become the thing we fought against. We're a system. A bureaucracy."
"We're so busy governing the world, we're forgetting to feed it," Kael said, his voice heavy with the truth of it.
They all fell silent, the immense weight of their victory pressing down on them. They had the power to solve every problem, but they were losing themselves in the process.
Izen, who had been ladling out bowls of a simple, comforting congee for his exhausted friends, spoke.
"A kitchen with too many chefs makes a bad soup," he said, his voice a gentle anchor in their storm of frustration.
They all looked at him.
"You are all trying to be the head chef of the whole academy," he continued, placing a warm bowl in front of Nyelle. "But a good kitchen doesn't have five head chefs. It has one. And it has a butcher, a baker, a saucier, and a person who talks to the customers. Each with their own job. Each trusting the others to do theirs."
The simple analogy hung in the air, a perfect diagnosis of their problem.
Nyelle looked down at the congee. It was a simple rice porridge, made from leftover broken grains of rice. But Izen had swirled in a little of her own chili oil, a few of Kael's pickled mushroom stems, and topped it with a sprinkle of Grit's smoked salt and some crispy fried dough from Elara's bread.
It wasn't one chef's dish. It was a Hearthline dish. Each component was distinct, a representation of their individual strengths, but they came together to create something harmonious and comforting.
A slow understanding dawned on her face. "You're saying… we need to delegate," she said, looking around the table at her teammates. "We need to go back to doing what we're good at."
"We need a government," Kael said, his eyes lighting up as he grasped the idea. "Nyelle should be the Chancellor, the public face of our leadership. But I can handle the policy and the legal drafts—that's what I'm good at. Grit, you should be in charge of all inter-guild infrastructure and resource management. Ciela, you are our Minister of Communications."
The energy in the room shifted. They weren't a disorganized group of friends trying to solve everything at once anymore. They were a cabinet, a council, with defined roles and a shared purpose.
Nyelle looked at Izen, a deep sense of gratitude in her eyes. He hadn't given them a solution. He had just quietly shown them the answer that was right in front of them all along, in a simple bowl of porridge.
"And what about you?" she asked, her voice soft. "What is your title in this new government?"
Izen finished serving the congee and picked up his own bowl. He took a seat at the hearth, away from the big political table, in the place where he was most comfortable.
He gave them the same simple, serene smile that had already changed the world twice.
"I'm the guy who makes dinner," he said. "It's the most important job of all."