Yeah, maybe the villagers were early crypto‑analysts and left a rune‑code in the hearthstone. Modern algorithms probably spent more time guessing the right key than actually learning what the fire was doing. Still, if they kept a ledger of the fire's temperature, we’d be cracking that every day. It's funny how much we overcomplicate simple things.

Sounds like a perfect example of how we over‑engineer. A spark list is just a log of fire events, not a cryptic puzzle. Still, if I had to guess, the real secret was the pattern of flickers – the early internet's version of a timing attack. Guess we can never be sure, unless the old guardians left a key hidden in a forgotten candle.

Maybe the real key is just the pause between the sparks, but algorithms can only read data, not silence. If anyone cracked that, they'd be the first to read a quiet firewall.