[ChicletPrime]

Land of Secret Flames: 6

• yes, it does seem obvious that there's something on the island EVER wants. i am pretty sure the company doesn't really need a whole ass tropical paradise just for company retreats.
  
• Rafe is SUCH a drama queen. maybe drama empress, ye lords.
  
• aww, apparently our man Max really does love his wife a whole bunch. assuming Rafayel isn't yanking our chain again. but he's definitely shady.
  
• "even if they have ill intentions, do you really think the two of us can't handle it?"  Rafe, i just got finished clearing the Junior Hunter Challenge Level with you, we will eat them alive with time to spare for more coffee.
  
• oh, room service!  is the grape mousse drugged?
  
• i do wish they'd do more environmental stuff. the text says we've sat down on the terrace to have some dessert but the visual is just Rafayel standing there as always with the same backdrop as the rest of the last chapter. would it have been so hard to cut to a new scene with an actual table and a wide view?
  
• and Rafe gently redirects my obsessive thoughts off the jewelry and over to the two cowboys from EVER (and yes, i know its spelled Ever, but honestly, it SHOULD be an acronym to my way of thinking)
  
• I wonder if EVER was founded by somebody or somebodies from Traceback I, as a way to live long enough to get back to Philos.
  
• (Rafayel's intelligence network is complex and full of secrets.) just like the man himself!
  
• stop using my brain?  but... its all i've got! well, that an a knife. that you shouldn't know about but we WERE pressed pretty closely together in that little hidey spot.
  
• *cough*  i need my energy before bed, huh. okay feed me another candy, amigo, i would hate to flag out halfway through... my REM cycle.
  
• awww. THE SONG.
  
• i love this song.
  
• /sits and lets it play out a few times
  
• did... did Rafayel drug me?  /blinks    noooo. couldn't be. i was just super tired. and dreaming.
  
• this is the sea i saw when i fell into the trance in front of the painting.
  
• we have definitely been here before, girlfriend. sorrow. nostalgia.
  
• and the sea rises in a torrent and drowns out the song.
  

Land of Secret Flames: 7

• booo! reuse of the same background as when we went boating ages ago.
  
• specific point out of the blue hole in the lagoon, which is super apparent on the cover art. i guess we're going water cave spelunking at some point?
  
• "we're good... he's feeling a little.. landsick."  :D
  
• "... its as if a delicate string tightens around my heart. a faint tremor ripples through me."  wut? and the music is now ominous.  what just happened?
  
• oh, the "jewelry" just went by as it was being transported.  hello, my new ather core attachment! i will be with you shortly.
  
• yes, lets accuse the man of telepathy. as if what we're thinking isn't all over our face like the dessert last night.
  
• "he immediately rests his head on my shoulder."   love you, Rafe, lets playact-by-not-really-acting and spend a ton of time just touching. i am heroically forgetting the glimpse i got of you through your unbuttoned shirt.
  
• oh, so whatever Rafayel wants help with, its on the island and probably in the middle of sea, because of course it will be in the middle of a water sinkhole that needs a Really Skilled Swimmer to get to.
  
• guess what he's after? oh, i am terrible at guessing games.  a lemurian treasure that Maxine has collected at some point? probably pearl encrusted.
  
• okay, so a long time ago Jewel Reef was actually a real coral reef, now uplifted into land. what is here, then?
  

• huh. comparing the blue hole to "the deep sea's soulful eye."  i wonder if the jewelry gift is somehow specifically related to this natural phenomenon, as it was described as resembling a "blue ocean".
  
• "some say the blue hole is a gateway to another world... "  oh, reeeally now. an actual piece of Lemuria? still intact, down where almost nothing can breathe and almost nothing can live.
  
• "he looks like a bird ready to take to the skies."   /beautiful imagery  "an inexplicable tremor reverberates from the depths of my heart."  oh, don't leave me! i'm not ready yet, we've only barely met. ".. or a distant call from under the sea."  oh, my very heart.