[ChicletPrime]

Thorns Under The Moon: 4

• patient situation dire, crystals nearly to the lungs now.
  
• the betacurve Wanderer has been shown to get from one side of the city to the other in five minutes. Chansia City must have great public transit infrastructure.
  
• but realistically, this fucker is warping through space and/or time isn't it.
  
• meanwhile, Dr Zayne is peeling crystalline scales off blood vessels with the world's least shaky hands. i bet i can make them tremble.
  
• oh! i recognize this type of crystal as the same in human/wanderers from the N109.
  
• this is really coming together fast now, in terms of story.
  
• heart palpitations out of nowhere!  incoming metaflux field! who the hell needs a hunter watch anyways, it would only slow me down.
  
• i... i don't know, my friend. i've never tried to Resonate something to be * smaller *
  
• nice! Zayne is going to keep operating while i try my best to keep him and everybody else alive.
  

Thorns Under The Moon: 5

• aww, i am not a fan when they cut out chunks of it. it worked, patient got sutured, Zayne never lost his cool and it all happened off camera and now i'm in a waiting area lounge thingie of some sort.
  
• the metaflux disappated when the surgery ended. i guess his heart was going for one last gasp of mutation before Zayne finished all the unpeeling.
  
• and now Zayne wants to check me out. fair enough, who the heck knows what my crystals are doing other than having a par-tay in the hear-tay.
  
• "the aether core shouldn't be what's causing the mutations. your heart's integration with one is a perfect example."
  
• oooh, is that professional disdain I hear, Dr. Zayne?
  
• i feel like the devs are speaking directly to me. "In this world, many forces covet the Aether Core. You haven't met all of them yet."  soooo fourth wall breaking!
  
• and again, the phrasing is janked about whether there are aether cores, or The Aether Core.
  
• okay, the patient woke up. apparently that is very weird.
  

Thorns Under The Moon: 6

• more tragic NPC VA work. somebody needs to write Infold a letter in condemning crayon.
  
• Dr Carter! what are YOU doing here? and of course Zayne saved the dying patient, who did you think you were dealing with?
  
• oh really now. so you admit that Xander Sciences know something about Protocore Syndrome that they're not sharing freely with the world.
  
• hmm. so the fragment(?) of core that was inside this guy was linking to the Wanderer? so he felt like he was trapped inside it, even though he was actually just on a hospital bed?
  
• aaaand he goes into convulsions after spitting out this revelation
  
• hello, more metaflux! Wanderer probably really incoming this time
  
• yeah, this thing is drilling through space like it really shouldn't.
  
• oh no, MY HEART!
  
• is it trying to draw me in too and subsume me? i have a whole aether core though, this thing shouldn't be stronger than me. right?
  
• (its going to be hard to fight a Wanderer if i'm the Wanderer in question.)
  

Thorns Under The Moon: 7

• oh. i am.. dreaming?.. that i'm in the corridor that Zayne was having a nightmare about.
  
• the energy waves are pulling me around. good guess that i'm somehow in the Wanderer's protofield, but i am pretty sure not in my actual body.
  
• a dark figure. Zayne?  woah, hey! no ice! i'm alive in here.. somewhere. wherever here is.
  
• "within the boundless darkness, it's as if a pair of hands is gently lifting my tired soul."
  
• Zayne, why are you out of your surgical gown with a weird brooch cresty thing on your very heavy jacket?
  
• dilapidated buildings... oh WOW.  Dawnbreaker?!
  
• god, you are just like my Zayne.  "hesitating.. i reach out and touch his cheek."  hello.. boyfriend? mi novio?
  
• do i remember what happened in the ward? yes. but i seem to have lost some time between there and here.
  
• oh. we're STILL in the Wanderer's protofield? but.. this is not the hospital. this looks like what has to be your apartment.
  
• oh. the city is.. ruined? 
  
• Zayne / Dawnbreaker fidgets a LOT less than the other guys. its very noticeable.
  
• me: "This Wanderer's Protocore must possess an Aether Core's energy."  so ... its a regular core boosted to power +1000, somehow? why are we not just calling it an aether core entirely?
  
• he won't let me touch him again
  
• yeah, we're trapped in a dream, girlfriend. but this is a very solid dream, definitely. and it seems Dawnbreaker is manifesting the outer world trappings with what he knows.
  
• I AM SO SMART
  
• "even in a world as broken as this, chocolate still exists. i expected nothing less from you."  amen, sister.
  
• so IS this Dawnbreaker, or is this my Zayne's dream, who remembers being Dawnbreaker?
  
• love it, very convoluted.