[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 4

• apparently the Apocalypse is only a matter of time. how did that statement appear out of nowhere? i have to admit i like this MC, she's very down to earth with her "if its gonna flood, you should be building dams" commentary.
  
• it sounds like the uncrowned queen ruled for a time and Philos prospered under her and then... she just disappeared or died or left or something, records unknown. everything falls back into squabbling and ruin and the situation gets dire, Xavier steps in at the very last (possibly returned from his time travels or possibly he just makes himself known as the last of the royal lineage or Jeremiah outs him or something) to be the last living King of a dying planet, with all of it population dead by planetary inhalation, living only as shades of themselves in the Upside Down.
  
• "In every historical record.. the fall of Philos is almost universally blamed on that king."  shades of Lemuria, anyone? 
  
• also.. "most important person".  that was a motif in Caleb's thing in Homecoming Wings, was it not? 
  
• also Xavier jumping down from a balcony to meet me is very apropos.
  
• the first 200 years of his reign was "the Golden Epoch." and the uncrowned queen ruled for about 200 years as well during the "Morn Era".  and the time between when Xavier left for his Gladius Ceremony (and went missing) until his return was also about 200 years.  its all very regular.
  
• okay, so girlfriend DOES remember stuff from before .. the Knyghy academy, the oak trees... 
  
• so the act of being dead strips you of memory. how then does this monastery even have a library then? unless every single thing written in these books is made up wholecloth, which we know is wrong because it's got some stuff right. 
  

Chapter 5

• awright Melancholic Revenent! doing the lord's work out there, nearly alone and unsupported.
  
• so a bunch of the faithful are off on this Pilgrimage down the Sinders to try and find the Tree of Life and the gateway back to Philos.  i guess if there's nothing else to do? i suppose if they fall into the waters or something, they just .. wake in in their beds at home? stand up again at some point? 
  
• love this MC as much as i disliked the previous one. re/rumors of me rehabilitating The Tyrant: "Rest assured, he has renounced his old ways thanks to my guidance and spiritual cleansing." aaaand a new wave of gossip sweeps the city like a broom.
  
• yeah, it doesn't even go so far as to imply that she left because she discovered the secret, but that would very much make sense. and Xavier is up to his proverbial lily white neck with sacrifices that only stave off inevitability for a time, unappreciated for even that much from the ungrateful. they pulled down all her statues, after all. 
  
• okay, the Ferryman does seems to have retained a pile more memory than anybody else we've encountered which is super interesting, yes! he's recognized me and knows who I am to Xavier. i checked the portrait, he's not the Bishop in disguise.  
  
  jesus fuck, that might be Amund. I just checked the portrait in the Abysswalker myth and while you only see Amund in profile under his hood, the beard is the same. if true, wow.
  
  
• is the "Apocalypse" cyclical? the Ferryman is talking like its just something that happens and that the river might or might not grow afterwards and that it might or might not reach the Tree of Life. so that's an actual thing, not a myth even if the revenants have never found it and Xavier and the Ferryman obviously know where it is. 
  
• Is Xavier calling the Ferryman a sinner? The Ferryman clung to life until the bitter end and feels his existence here is a punishment but it sounds like Xavier is saying sinners should atone for those who died unjustly.
  
• Jeremiaaaaahh! (i'm not convinced that's Caleb's voice actor but i'm also not not convinced. its awfully rhythmic in the same way, just more.. tenor.)
  
• yeah, she either threw herself into the Forest or they bound her up and tossed her in like a sack of grain, whichever.
  
• and we're back at the beginning, all scrubbed and fresh with a crispy singed mind where memory ought to be. 
  
• if there are shadowy hands in the Sinders trying to pull us in, does the Sinders represent 'true' death?  never mind, creepy voice talking about becoming nourishment. ewww.
  
• i think we're hallucinating? we were just in the monastery, we wandered away from the acolyte (again), we kneel at the side of the river and start to fall in with encouragement and then, wow, Xavier-of-old in his university gear and we remember his name. then bam, the river has us. helllllo, Lethe! I think it was The Tyrant come to find us again but we saw him as he was, not as he is now.
  
• Charybdis was the whirlpool, Scylla was the monster. Revenants that get pulled into the whirlpool are truly dead, it seems.