Day 3.5 - A Late Night Break-In

Three hours past midnight, the guild dormitories hummed with preservation runes keeping tomorrow's soufflé bases from falling. Marron's bare feet hit cold stone—she'd memorized which floorboards creaked during her first week here.

"Still think this is brilliant?" Mielle's glow barely registered, like a match held underwater. Her voice carried an odd tremor—excitement? Fear?

"The records are too neat." Marron's stomach twisted, but not from nerves—from the lingering taste of yesterday's failed hollandaise. "People don't just disappear without leaving something behind."

"Not people like Juno," Mielle whispered, and there was something reverent in her tone that made Marron pause. "You don't understand what you're looking for, do you?"

Mokko's fur rippled with reluctance. For a guardian bear, sneaking felt fundamentally wrong. "Old magic down there. The dangerous kind."

On her shoulder, Lucy had been jittery since dinner, pulsing sickly amber. The slime's usual curiosity had curdled into something that felt almost like recognition.

The undercity tasted of rust and regret. Their footsteps echoed off walls that remembered when this place had been kitchens, not crypts. Ward-stones lined the corridors like teeth, their symbols shifting when nobody looked directly at them.

Marron's fingers found warmth in one stone's cold surface. "These aren't just barriers. They're... sampling us."

The wards hummed, cataloging their fear-sweat and determination like a sommelier testing wine. Fear had notes of copper. Curiosity tasted sharper, almost citrusy.

The sealed door ahead bore layers of official guild magic, but underneath lurked something hungrier. Something that recognized the ghost-spices clinging to Marron's hands—cardamom from Tuesday's disaster, vanilla from this morning's success.

Her palm pressed against ancient wood. The door's signature felt like standing in her grandmother's kitchen at dawn, when the bread was just starting to sing.

Click. The mechanisms remembered her.

Lucy recoiled like she'd touched flame, flashing panic-red.

Time had gotten stuck here like caramel on a spoon. Dust motes hung frozen mid-dance, and basil still smelled garden-fresh despite decades of abandonment. The copper pots hadn't aged a day—they gleamed like they were expecting company.

Mielle's light flared bright for the first time tonight, her voice breathless with awe. "It's really her. This is actually Juno's workshop."

"Memory kitchen," Mokko breathed. Even his skepticism had gone quiet.

Marron felt something stir in her chest—a hunger that wasn't quite her own. The workstation at the room's heart hummed with power that made her fingertips tingle. Each tool glowed faintly, pregnant with technique beyond anything she'd seen in class. A leather journal lay open, its pages crisp as fresh parchment:

Notes on Emotional Precision: Juno, Entry #147

Perfect harmony today—sorrow and sweetness in chocolate soufflé. The secret isn't drowning the bitter notes. Pain gives weight to joy. Loss makes found flavors precious.

Guild's getting nervous about my methods. "Too close to forbidden arts," they say. They don't understand. What I'm creating goes beyond hunger. Beyond healing. Some flavors can wake the sleeping. Others can still the storm.

I've stopped telling them what I'm really working on.

Marron's pulse hammered against her throat. This wasn't just advanced technique—this was something else entirely. Something that made her own instinctive emotion-infusion feel like child's play.

"Marron," Mielle whispered, and her voice was small now. "Do you know what this means? What she was trying to do?"

Lucy wouldn't go near the second doorway. The slime had shrunk to half her normal size, radiating terror so intense it made Marron's skin crawl.

Beside that sealed door, words were etched in what looked like burnt cinnamon, glowing faintly:

"What we stir survives us."

A familiar chime echoed in Marron's mind as her system processed the information.

[Location Unlocked: Juno's Workshop (Memory-Synced Access)

Codex Entry Added: Legendary Chef Archives Fragment I

Trait Acquired (Passive): Taste of the Forgotten

Faint awareness of legendary techniques when near preserved culinary magic]

+

Marron reached for a whisk—silver-bright and practically vibrating with stored skill. The moment her fingers brushed it, power rushed up her arm like lightning.

Lucy exploded into motion, wrapping around her wrist like a crimson tourniquet, but it was too late.

The workshop vanished. Marron stood in a different kitchen, her hands moving with impossible confidence.

She folded meringue that sparkled with starlight and whisked custard that tasted like childhood summers she never had. 

It was the bliss of creating something that completely transcended food.

The knowledge flowed through her—not just technique, but purpose. She was cooking for someone who would never wake again unless...

The vision shattered like dropped crystal.

Marron stumbled backward, gasping. Her hands still tingled with borrowed skill, and she understood with bone-deep certainty that what Juno had been attempting wasn't just advanced cooking. It was resurrection.

"What—" she started, but Mielle's terrified expression stopped her cold.

"You felt it, didn't you?" the pastry chef whispered. "The real power. That's why they sealed this place."

Above them, guild alarms stirred to life—distant but getting closer.

"Move!" Mokko was already at the door.

They ran through twisting corridors while Marron's world tilted sideways. Her trial wasn't just about controlling her emotion-infusion anymore. If she could access memories like that, connect to power like that...

What exactly was she becoming?

+

Dawn light crept under the inn's curtains, but sleep had been impossible. Juno's workshop had left her fundamentally changed—the borrowed vision of starlight meringue and resurrection custard replayed behind her eyelids.

Her trial suddenly felt like something else entirely. What if the guild wasn't just testing her emotion-infusion control? What if they suspected what she might become?

The thought sent ice through her veins.

Voices drifted from the corridor outside—instructors making their morning rounds. Marron pressed her ear to the door.

"—readings were off the charts last night. The wards detected a massive resonance spike in the undercity."

"From her?"

"Who else? We knew this might happen when we agreed to the trial period. A potential SSS-Grade can't be left unchecked, especially one with her instinctive abilities."

"The other ten took decades to reach their current power levels. She's doing it naturally, without training. That's..." A pause. "That's terrifying."

"Which is why we have seven days to determine if she can be controlled. If not..."

Their footsteps faded, leaving Marron's heart hammering against her ribs.

Other ten? There were more like Juno? And they thought she might become one of them?

She stumbled backward and nearly tripped over something that hadn't been there when she'd fallen into bed. A folded piece of parchment by her door, smelling faintly of cinnamon.

Her hands shook as she opened it:

Some hungers are inherited. The guild's walls have ears, but they also have cracks. If you want answers about what you're becoming—and what happened to the chefs who came before—meet me in the herb gardens after your morning trial.

The starlight meringue was beautiful, by the way. Juno would have been proud.

—A Friend

The note crumbled in her grip. Someone had been watching. Someone knew about the workshop, about her vision, about techniques that should have died with Juno.

Someone who knew exactly what she was becoming—and might be the only person willing to help her survive it.