The news that the synthetic signal was emanating from Voltagrave Manor sent a wave of cold fury through the Hearthline council. Their sympathy for Reign's tragic fate evaporated, replaced by a sense of betrayal.
"So he's a willing accomplice," Nyelle snarled, pacing the floor of the Listening Kitchen. "He's letting them use his home as a base of operations to poison the entire student body's palate. The coward."
"We can't be sure it's him," Kael cautioned, ever the voice of reason. "His family has immense corporate power and many enemies. It's possible someone else has occupied the manor in his absence, using it as a shield."
"Doesn't matter who," Grit rumbled, flexing his massive hands. "Someone's in there, waging war on us. We need to shut them down. A direct assault. My team can cut the power and breach the gates in under five minutes."
"Absolutely not," a new voice said. Dean Tethys Quirin had entered the cellar, his expression more serious than they had ever seen it. "Voltagrave Manor, while on campus grounds, is the sovereign territory of the Voltagrave Conglomerate. A direct attack would be an act of war against one of the most powerful corporations in the world. They would crush the academy, and us, in the resulting legal and political firestorm."
He looked at the tense faces of his students. "We cannot use force. We cannot use politics. Our enemy is hiding in a fortress we cannot attack."
A heavy silence fell over the room. They were checkmated. They had the location of the enemy's broadcast tower, but it was situated in an untouchable castle.
Izen, who had been quietly studying the holographic map of the manor, finally spoke. "The manor isn't just a fortress," he said, his voice thoughtful. "It's also a kitchen. A very, very large kitchen."
He zoomed in on the blueprints, pointing to a specific, intricate detail. "Look. Like all the elite guild halls, it's a self-contained ecosystem. It has its own water intake pipes, its own air filtration system, its own waste disposal network. It's designed to be sealed off from the rest of the campus."
Nyelle saw where he was going. "You're saying… we can't get in. But we can send things in."
"We're going to poison them?" Grit asked, a savage grin spreading across his face.
"No," Izen said, shaking his head. "We are going to do the opposite. We are going to feed them. But we are going to feed them the truth."
The plan that Izen laid out was audacious, strange, and quintessentially Hearthline. It was not a plan of attack, but of infiltration. A siege of flavors.
"They are broadcasting a single, clean, synthetic flavor frequency," he explained. "We are going to fight that one note by bombarding their environment with thousands of complex, real, authentic flavor 'noises.' We won't shut their machine down. We'll make it impossible for anyone inside to even hear its signal."
The plan had three prongs, a culinary-sensory assault.
Phase One: The Water.
"Kael," Izen instructed. "You're in charge of the water main. I want you to create the most complex, aromatic, and deeply savory dashi the world has ever known. Use the mushroom stems, the kombu, the fish bones. But don't filter it for clarity. Leave all the microscopic solids in. I want every drop of water that enters that manor—for their drinking, for their cooking, for their showers—to be saturated with the undeniable, living taste of the earth and the sea."
Phase Two: The Air.
"Nyelle, you handle the air filtration system," he continued. "You are a master of volatilizing aromas with heat. We will set up your wok right next to their main air intake vent. I want you to perform a continuous, twenty-four-hour 'Aether-Stir-Fry.' Scorch chili peppers, star anise, cinnamon bark. Toast our Shiosai-smoked salt. Vaporize everything in your arsenal. The air in that manor will become a thick, inescapable perfume of real, complex, aggressive spices."
Phase Three: The Foundation.
"Grit, the most important part is for you," Izen said, turning to the engineer. He pointed at a small, often-overlooked detail on the blueprints. The sourdough overflow drain. All academy kitchens had one, a relic of a time when every guild baked their own bread. It was a pipe designed to drain excess sourdough starter, a living, yeasty culture.
"Elara has cultivated our Hearthline starter for years. It's strong. Aggressive. And it carries the taste of this entire guild. We are going to pump gallons of our living starter into their drainage system. It will grow. It will ferment. The entire foundation of Voltagrave Manor will smell of true, living bread."
It was a brilliant, insane, almost-magical form of warfare. They weren't trying to break down the walls. They were going to infuse the very walls with an undeniable, authentic taste of reality. No one inside could eat, drink, or even breathe without being confronted by a symphony of real flavors that would make the clean, synthetic ping of their Auto-Seasoners impossible to notice.
"It's a siege of the senses," Ciela breathed, her eyes wide with the sheer poetic genius of it. She already had the title for her next documentary installment.
The team had their orders. Under the cover of darkness, they moved into position. Kael, with a team of Agronomy students, tapped into the water main. Nyelle set up her wok, her face grimly determined, looking like a soldier preparing a flamethrower. Grit and his team wheeled a massive tank of bubbling, pungent sourdough starter toward the manor's service grates.
They would not fire a single shot. They would not break a single law.
They were simply going to cook. And the meal they were preparing was for the very soul of the house that stood against them.