Sync and Savor

Morning arrives in Emberward like a practiced sous-chef: precise, inevitable, and smelling of smoked sea-moss. The market stretches along a shallow canal where merchants braid steam and song into their wares. Cassian Vale keeps his stall in the narrowest stretch, two battered burners, a brazier scorched to a deep, earnest black, and a singing bell he rings whenever a real timing window opens. Players and passersby think of him as a street chef, but the UI hovering above his counter sings a different name: Culinary Conductor — Tempo, Infusion, Presentation — three trees that once meant reputation. Today that reputation is a tucked-in apron and a folded poster advertising lessons: The Live Cycle, by Cassian V. Nothing flashy. No automated modules.

Maya moves like steam, efficient and bright, wiping a counter, arranging spice vials into little constellations. She hums a soft rhythm that matches Cassian's bell. Lio, who trades odd ingredients and even odder gossip, is late as usual, blessing the market with a bag of peppers that look like tiny suns. A small crowd watches as Cassian trims a slab of marinated eel, eyes scanning the lilting HUD that only those who perform their craft see: micro-windows pulsing in silence, a faint glyph that marks a beat.

The city itself provides detail that has nothing to do with syncing raids: Emberward holds a morning ritual each week where torch-sellers balance a single ember on porcelain plates to prove their trade is honest. Today the embers hover like dull stars above the walkways. A baker three stalls down will, at noon, launch a dozen pastries into the air for reasons no one can remember except that last year it saved a child from boredom. The culture here favors performance; people clap for anything that smells good and moves on two feet.

Cassian calibrates his knives with a surgeon's patience. He teaches Maya to listen to the pan as if it told jokes about oil and heat. He does not joke back. His cynicism is practical, worn like an apron: the game's shift toward canned conveniences left him with a taste for careful work and an aversion to turning skill into a purchasable shortcut. A nearby vendor mutters, "Resurrection toast, two for a quest," and Cassian deadpans, "One for pride, one for appetite." Maya laughs, the sound a small bell of its own.

Cassian's hands move. He steeps broth, slams down a pestle, flares a spatula as if conducting wind. Each movement twitches the in-game bars: a tempo gauge slides right, a subtle aroma pulse blooms in the air, and a small text announces, sync potential detected. He is not showy about it; technique is practice, not spectacle. He is careful because his method is fragile and because he remembers what happens to fragile things when someone packages them and calls them convenience.