• ".. yet the familiar person from my memories has been eaten away by some indescribable, hidden pain. only fragments remain."  wow. now there's a chapter start. is it only fragments? or maybe you just took a bucketload for granted over the last five years and forgot to see what you were looking at.  i guess you could blame the chip some more.
  
• "the night sky above Skyhaven is clear but all its secrets are somewhere in the bottomless, unfathomable depths of his eyes."   see, its stuff like this that gives me hope for this game's writing team. that is SO good. 
  
• Caleb, don't look at me like that. its always painful to let you go. although maybe this time we won't say it. 
  
• oh MAN, he stopped himself from touching my hair.
  
• oh. oh fuck no. i put my phone back in my pocket and notice that something is already in it. please. please don't tell me its his fucking necklace.
  
• /slumps in so much relief. 
  
• aww man, adorbs! "forgiveness coupon for Caleb, valid 100 years".  cashing that sucker right now.  admittedly i've had two weeks to reconsider my gege grabbing my ankle, shoving me down on a couch and breathing on me. girlfriend might be a little more upset than i am.
  
• "i can't figure out what's real or what's fake with Caleb."  I KNOW.
  
• okay, recap and then... a new district has recently been built near the Aerospace Center. Inside a building researchers prepare to announce the breakthrough of the century.  oooooooh.
  
• eh? Caleb's back already from the Deepspace Tunnel? I guess there's an unannounced timeskip there. or... he didn't go with the Fleet? special clearance research floor, here we go i guess.
  
• uh. garden of ... philos-eden? trees, glass dome, shiny silver roof. 
  
• Viper! my dude! how's the face? 
  
• yeah, Ever's definitely operating against Onychinus in some manner which makes total sense. eh? Skyhaven's thing is wrapping up. alright. i guess you guys wiped your entire operation there to dump into the Fountain.
  
• woah, hang on. Viper: "We practically spoiled Ever and those old people in the Fleet."  Viper.. is not part of Ever? 
  
• /spins wheels for a second.  don't tell me the Professor is on retainer? 
  
• Kevi: "Does he ever stop talking?"  what the yankee doodle dandy is going on?!
  
• ooooh black shadow silhouette lady!  i dunno where you're coming from or going to, but i am pretty sure the Professor's "family" has very little to do with love and kindness.  Assuming the .. three? .. of you are built of spare part, uneasy protocores and control chips.
  
• hah! "Mr Overprotective." gee, wonder who THAT could be. "healthy relationships are ideal. but this twisted ones? that's where the drama...!"  aaaaand Caleb wrenches his head around on his neck. 9.5/10 no notes.
  
• LORE - Josephine and her team 'defected'.  Defected to who? i know the one guy i can't remember the name of went to the N109.  and they buried their research? at least in regards to the 'best test subject' which has to be either me or Caleb.
  
• Gaia Research Center - that would have been the hidden lab on top of the hotel under the now Deepspace Tunnel. ahhh. okay, so with Onychinus in control there and all the gang activity, the Prof can't get much or any of the data and equipment out, even after 14 years.
  
• LORE: Josephine et al kept "their achievement" a secret.  c'mon Prof, spill.
  
• ... why is Caleb working with or under the Prof (name: Lucius), who definitely murdered dearest Grandmama? 
  
• ANOTHER BLACK SILHOUETTE! "That means you've found the child who disappeared back then."  Me, oh, pick me! 
  
• Caleb: "From what we've seen and how she's been acting, her powers haven't activated yet." 
  
• . . . 
  
• . . .??
  
• /hunkers back over this chapter with excitement
  
• Caleb: "Compared to that broken thing, I'm a weapon perfectly primed for Ever." 
  
• jesus fuck, i cannot keep track of the factions. So Caleb has * infiltrated * the Fleet on behalf of the Prof, and is about to be aimed at or implanted in.. Ever? 
  
• that hologram projection is a hospital room/bed? who's in the hospital? /squints
  
• waiting for years... don't make me wait anymore. 
  
• fountain of atei to be put into motion, Ever to release its revolutionary vision yadda yadda
  
• "We'll track down the missing child but now isn't the best time."  i am not the missing child? what other child could there be? 
  
• "He (the prof) glances at the figure long vanished into the verdant vegetation, his gaze lingering on his right arm."  Okay, this is why i despair of the writing crew - that is such an awkward and terrible sentence. how can you gaze on a specific body part of somebody who left eight minutes ago? "there, hidden beneath the surface, lies the price Caleb paid to be 'brought back to life'."   well, i guess they had to tell us somehow, no matter how weirdly. couldn't we just have, i don't know, mangled his arm in a freak dishwasher accident and torn the skin? 
  
• "At least it will be before he becomes completely useless."  oh, i do NOT like the sound of that at all. what the fuck, Prof. 
  
• let me guess. the unknown person in the hospital bed wants his consciousness to be implanted in a new and better body - cybernetic? joint human-wanderer? some other unholy abomination? 
  
• oh woah, not happening. if i'm reading this right, Caleb's cyber arm will eventually overtake him, "replacing" him? 
  
• "Turning him into a weapon perfectly crafted for the task." 
  
• the ominous music feels very ominous
  
• "the old man looks forward to the day it happens."  you flea bitten mutt of a crazy person, i will squash you before you can do anything to Caleb. i just have to know you exist first.
  
• oooh, cryptic stuff!  (as if the preceding was clear as a mountain stream, oy vey)
  
• In a forest where shattered stars rest, a crystalline pool appears. As if infused with the wine of life, it's clear yet murky.
  
• as an aside, wut? you cannot be murkily clear, or clearly murky, they are antonyms.
  
• Young Traveler, do not drink from it. Lost Lover, do not drink from it. But when flowers wither in their sleep, when winds fall silent, when the vigilant owl closes its eyes -- only then can you drink deep of these waters. Let the Dead sing: 'O Fountain of Atei! Cleanse my time, nourish my flesh, spare me from the loneliness of eternal rest!
  

Quote:so, first things first.. suppress his evol so he can recover faster. his left arm apparently is the fulcrum?
oh no, we are NOT leaving you behind as the better option. i don't care if you might actually be the most dangerous thing in here - i've met Sylus and he didn't frighten me (all that much) either.
see?  there! all fixed. all the black stuff is now.. hiding somewhere inside you, probably. but its not on the surface anymore infecting the air with little black particulate spores, so we're counting  that as a win.
* hold his hand
definitely, please don't lose this fight at some terrible moment
what DO you do when you know the corruption is inside you and you can't get it out? that only your strength can hold against it and all strength fails eventually?
aaaand slingshot back into our real body, white mist everywhere and my heart thumping crazy time.
my heart-crystal-disease is having a field day today.
OH HE PICKED ME UP IN HIS BIG STRONG ARMS
god, you're gorgeous.
aaaand i'm out cold.
"But at least, I have one last choice."
DO NOT LIKE THAT ZAYNE.
what.. what are you doing?
are you covering me in ice? no, you're ... what the hell are you doing?
you took something out of me and put it into you?!