It began, as all great excess does, with a single steak. Not just any steak, mind you. This was a Prime Cut, aged for precisely 73 days in a subterranean vault beneath the Argentinian Pampas. The air, saturated with the ghosts of gauchos and the scent of wild thyme, imbued the meat with an almost unsettling sentience. Professor Alistair Finch, a disgraced anthropologist obsessed with the migratory patterns of giant bison, purchased it, believing it held the key to unlocking a forgotten civilization. He called it "The Heart of the Beast."
Finch’s obsession quickly spiraled. He established “The Sanctuary of the Prime,” a sprawling estate nestled within the Nevada desert. It wasn’t built for observation; it was built for consumption. The architecture itself defied logic, a chaotic blend of Victorian extravagance and brutalist concrete, as if designed by a fever dream. Rumors circulated of nightly gatherings, fueled by aged scotch, holographic projections of extinct megafauna, and the unsettlingly cheerful pronouncements of Bartholomew “Bart” Higgins, Finch’s self-proclaimed “Chief Curator of Gastronomic Anomaly.”
Bart Higgins, in his perpetually enthusiastic pronouncements, articulated the core philosophy of the Prime: “Embrace the excess! The greater the indulgence, the closer we come to understanding the fundamental rhythms of existence. The universe, you see, is fundamentally… meaty.” He frequently punctuated these statements with a flourish of his hand and a loud, unsettling chuckle. The Sanctuary’s security team, comprised primarily of ex-military personnel and trained Tibetan monks, actively discouraged philosophical debate. They were, primarily, there to ensure the steaks were served at precisely 72 degrees Celsius.