[ChicletPrime]

Tower of Secrets / Foreseer

• oh. FINALLY. i keep running into this name "Astra" and this is where it comes from. Okay, so in this myth Zayne is the high prophet or something of the god Astra, to carry out His will. So says "Philos: The Tome of the Foreseer".
  
• Tower of Thorns in the coldest part of Philos (so okay, this is future), every hundred years the royal family listens to his prophesies. oh. nice. the last number of envoys to the Tower have gone missing and there have been no prophecies for hundreds of years. i like it already.
  
• Rumors are he's trapped in an icy tomb. Which.. wouldn't explain the missing envoys unless they tried to kiss him awake or something and he smote them out of existence, sort of like whacking your alarm clock.
  
• So our Foreseer is (like the rest of Philos) immortal and has been around for thousands of years. although that does beg the question of if its a Philos thing or an Astra thing or a both thing.
  
• "I am not a real envoy. I'm here to treat my illness. To do that I must take the Creatio Protocore from the Foreseer's sceptre. I have no other choice."
  
• okay! so the Foreseer has control of "Creatio" which i guess just by the name is capable of creating.. worlds? destinies? if its needed to treat an illness (hello, Dr. Zayne) then its a way to (re)create life? isn't that what the girlfriend has? an aether core in her heart that grants her true life?
  
• Oh. wow. there's a visual. Zayne encased in brambles and thorns, shackled to a throne of ice. Apparently "encased in ice" as well, his eyes shut as if sleeping. The cut scene doesn't show that though, he's just sitting there with ice crystals merged onto his body. More ice chains I guess than ice coffin.
  
• we take a stab at the protocore and naturally he wakes up - but still doesn't move. poke poke poke.
  
• "Winter punishes every wrongdoing in due time."  well, that's not ominous or anything.
  
• "This ice is more like crystal."  oh. oh, man. that ain't good. i still do not get how protocores and crystals and Wanderers mesh together, but if crystal takeover turns people into things, subverts them somehow into a different state of being, the Foreseer covered in not ice but crystal takes on a new element of This Is Probably Not Great. what happens when you corrupt an avatar of a god?
  
• oh, we're back to trying to steal Creatio and that did not go well at all. Our hand is half frozen, we were kicked back from the dias of the throne and several huge crystals formed behind him making the throne bigger. did we Resonate without meaning to?
  
• nice. we're now mostly an ice statue, with feet welded to the floor by frost and an ice grip around our throat. there was an audio thing with something like this! we were welded to the wall in that one as Zayne came and went, taunting us. I need to listen to that again.  oops, now our mouth is covered.
  

• minor ambiance detail: there are roses around the windows (ice roses?)
  
• wow. okay. breakfast won't be for nine days. get comfortable.
  
• so much for idle chit chat. he's covered my mouth in crystals again. i like this guy, he's not putting up with my sass at all.
  
• note: the Forseer is identified as a demi-god. mmmkay. there are golden runes that flash in his book. (how very Tome of the Sea God, as it were)
  
• ohh, okay. he releases me from my ice prison because i said i could take care of flowers? /beauty and the beast theme track plays in the distance
  
• At the top of the Tower, the distant mountains are like white sea shells.  they have to be deliberately invoking imagery to tie into Rafayel's thing, aren't they?
  
• hmmm. a singular jasmine flower.
  
• this is another reoccurring thing. a single flower in the midst of some form of desolation. there's one near us at the Chronorift distaster. Sylus walks by a single flower when he comes to earth. the King of Darknight tends a blue forgetmenot. and now here, a single jasmine in the ice and snow.
  
• aaaaand he makes a similar deal to King of Darknight. if i can make the flower bloom, i can leave this place alive.
  
• Yes, girlfriend, he definitely likes the flower better than he likes you. duh.
  
• oops, i have fractured blue streaks on my skin now. or... okay, I've always had these, this is symptom of my illness? "Cryoriasis". i'm ice-infected? "...will eventually lose consciousness and be unable to move as if frozen solid."
  
• i find it somewhat annoying that the cut scene of the top of Tower does NOT actually have a flower showing in it. you'd think they'd have made an effort there with that budget, but no.
  
• nice! he writes some silver things onto the air and calls down a blizzard. i'll be honest, i love magical shenanigans.
  
• "Fate cannot be changed. Instead of acknowledging this truth, humans still fight against it."
  
• so. the Foreseer isn't human. and i bet at the end of this, we change his mind and he also fights his own fate (and probably fails, but still). i guess that's Zayne's.. thing? to be cursed with inevitability but he still tries to find a way out. Dr. Zayne became a doctor to give back life when before he only gave death. and Dawnbreaker is where its overwhelmed him again, to fight against something he can't stop with no end in sight nor even a moment's softness or reprieve.
  
• i guess whatever is in his Book about me, i am not going to like it at all.
  
• i am such a liar in this incarnation.
  

• oh, that is such a pretty visual! silver crystal birds, flying suddenly in their thousands to the Tower of Thorns where the Foreseer stands at the top as if waiting. "Arcticyons" apparently. a type of Wanderer? they migrate, but its been eons according to the Foreseer. well, buddy, you were stuck on your throne for how long? maybe you just missed it.
  
• "Humans are the least of their concerns."  oh. huh. hmmm, even.
  
• "You're not quite as merciless as Winter."  wow, damned with faint praise, i guess. we are not making friends here.
  
• "O Omniscient Astra the Almighty, please don't let me become like ice. There are so many places I wish to visit, things I wish to do. I want to live a little longer..." and i fling my sky candle upwards to carry my wishes and it promptly falls apart. oh dear.
  
• although it really begs the question. if Astra knows all and its all fated to be, to the point that the Foreseer could (at least in ages past) prophesy for royalty, how did the general culture eventually have a day to throw out their wishes to Astra? Astra doesn't grant desires, Astra tells you your future. Sounds kinda some combination of aggressively wishful thinking and opposition to your god.
  
• oh, he does have a heart. he makes me an ice lantern to light with fire, and then sends it into the air with a few magical symbols. i guess a vessel created by the god's own Voice will probably get somewhere although i have a feeling it will carry no specific weight.
  
• OH SHIT, the game is playing White Salvation. SO PRETTY. i love this piano piece almost as much as i love Song of the Lost.
  

[ChicletPrime]

• we haven't killed the flower yet. all is not yet lost. go, little flower! all i see to do is water you but hey, i'm trying.
  
• hey, Library of All Libraries! and the ice carpet thingie takes me right to a book called "Philos: Floral Inquiry". i guess we are about to learn us some stuff about flowers.
  
• The pages about jasmines appears well-read. huh! "When I turn to the title page, there is a single word on it: Zayne."
  
• i am a klutz. startled by the Foreseer and struggling to come up with a good lie as to why i'm currently in his Library, i manage to fall off my ice carpet but thankfully don't splat on the ground because he catches me. and apparently this "Zayne" is who i'm looking for.
  
• i thought i wanted the Creatio protocore. apparently i am wrong and the Foreseer... foresees it.
  
• this would have been good to know when the wedding banner came out. this is all that.. or more, that is all this!
  
• oh. so the crystal elevator that took me up to the book seems to be its own sentient thing. or a part of the Library itself?
  
• the crystal thing (a 'phantasm') resembles a spread jasmine (nice!) and the Foreseer remarks that its more forgiving than he is.  i'm forgiven for invading the Library at all. and it slides under me and picks me up! whee! and i can walk in the air as i want, as ice just keeps forming beneath my feet.  awww, the Library (or its caretakers, whichever) love me!
  
• we name the Foreseer 'Zayne' and he appears unmoved by it.
  
• later that night back in whatever passes for 'my' room, its definitely odd that even though we gave him what we are pretty sure is his actual name, he didn't get angry.
  
• I'm still dying to ice stuff.
  
• great! whatever the phastasm is, its part of the Tower (or is the Tower itself) not just the Library since its here at my command. Creatio Heist Is Still A Go!
  
• oh. oh dear. the phantasm has... taken me right to the Foreseer's sceptre, only its his bedroom and Zayne is bathing?
  
• bwahahahah! fantastic. that visual is not leaving my forebrain anytime soon. and again, Zayne does not appear in the least put out. wow. what would it take to get this man to blush?
  
• "With the slight curl of his finger, the steam around us turns into a white cloth that hangs around his waist."  well, after JUST seeing the Edge of Continuum trailer, i can picture that quite clearly! "And with another wave of his hand, an unseen force pulls me in his direction."  halp. oh, halp. somebody save meeee.... /buffs nails /hurriedly inspects teeth in hand mirror for unsightly green bits /smiles winsomely upwards into his impassive face. hello there, undressed stranger who is full of magic and foreknowledge. i am here to lick you dry.
  
• for once the girlfriend is on board with me! we are sympatico in our desires, tracing all the droplets running down his arms and chest with our eyes.
  
• oh no. "What is more astounding is the number of scars etched on Zayne's body".
  
• i have subverted the Tower. Zayne, again for some reason, does not appear upset that its now ferrying me around like we're besties.
  
• aaaand... i am banished from the bedchamber at a wave of his hand. sadface.
  
• "Those scars etched on his flesh... some has stabbed him. Yet no on else lives in this Tower. How could he have been wounded? He is also blessed by Astra. Who could be powerful enough to injure him?"
  
• 1) it happened before he caught the notice of Astra, however many eons ago that was 2) the envoys that come every hundred years had magical daggers and he was trapped on his throne, which is why they stopped coming back a thousand years ago as the Foreseer's magic kept wiping them out in retaliation 3) Zayne does it to himself as 'punishment' 4) Astra does/did it to His avatar as 'punishment'.
  
• And back to the Library we go only to be led again to the Floral book. what does the jasmine have to do with anything? it blooms, and Zayne is freed from his curse?
  
• oh no, the book is magic! we are... transported? or having a vision. on god, this is so pretty. wow. i would screenshot if i could! alas.
  
• Zayne in his Foreseer robes is here but doesn't recognize us. I guess we're in his past? yeah, we can see the sunlight streaming through his robes. he's not really here or we're not really there, whichever. oh, we're in the BOOK! its showing us something, or Zayne has hidden this meadow of flowers inside it. he calls himself "a lonely wraith' and his card title is "apparition".  awwwww!
  
• oh shit. the jasmines are his memories, each one of his lives. he's taken them away and hidden them in this book. and the single jasmine growing outside?!?
  
• /suddenly hauled sideways into the zero-gravity chamber and Professor L cursing the part of Caleb's brain that is warded against all interference, constantly resetting his personality away from 'weapon' to 'person who loves me'.
  
• its why the jasmines are buds only, never blossoms. because he never remembers past each moment. "I stare at the seeminly endless ocean of flower buds."
  
• oh, fuck. oh hell. even Dawnbreaker has a jasmine plant on his windowsill, blighted as his world is.
  
• "The Foreseer cannot see his own (fate). Such is Astra's will."
  
• well, hell.
  
• not a fan. this is terrible. oh, Zayne. no wonder you're always so cold and hard to reach. you see everything but yourself.
  
• wow, he REALLY likes hauling me around by magic. this is a man so solid in his power, he wields it like a hand. which is currently wrapped around my throat for the crime of asking if he has ever thought of leaving the Tower.
  
• The Creatio Protocure flares to indigo life and Zayne shoves me away. Brambles slither like snakes towards Zayne, binding him in place. he's... really not allowed to leave, huh. even the thought of it triggers these things. and then one branch rushes for me as well, drawing blood on my arm before Zayne shields me with ice. Apparently these things can kill (me, I guess, not him).
  
• "He is warning us". ohhhhh. all the scaaaars. And Zayne remembers nothing at all - not even that he ever tried.
  
• and the brambles disappear as Zayne moves past the moment and turns his mind away from it.

[ChicletPrime]

• "Astra gifted one of His eyes to the Foreseer. By walking the winding path of time did the Foreseer understand its passing. This is the power of a god." - Philos: Tome of the Foreseer
  
• An eye, huh. One. Singular. Eye.
  
• Okay, so solar eclipse time. The ring flare strikes Creatio and the light reflects patterns of disorder and chaos, reflecting into the hands of the Foreseer. Ancient symbols appear. Astra's will has presented itself. Those who defy fate are sinners and shall be punished by Him.
  
• /flashback to Fallen Crown and the sinners of dead Philos.
  
• I'm still very much dying. the marks have reached my neck now.
  
• apparently Zayne makes it snow in the Library when he's upset. it seems he doesn't like whatever prophecy came down from on high, but that's not his concern. he will only give it to a true envoy of the King to take away.
  
• when i am upset, i tell him i dance. so.. he promptly asks me to dance, under the falling snow.
  
• THIS GUY
  
• so wedding banner, i can't even.
  
• "The Foreseer cannot truly die." eh? "Remembering things from another era (life) is no different from being in a never-ending snowstorm."
  
• "If the snowfall is eternal, find someone to dance with you."
  
• THE NEXT DAY
  
• the jasmine has bloomed! i guess all it needed was some water and somebody to sing to it.
  
• he wants to take me somewhere else. i am pondering my plan of stealing Creatio, making Zayne powerless and leaving him imprisoned in the tower.
  
• well, it was a stupid plan anyways. everyone dies but i'm still alive today. take me away, avatar of fate! anywhere has to be better than here. maybe you've remembered something.
  
• oh boy. he took me to the ACTUAL flower field of jasmines. its a real place. "Is the person in front of me real or an illusion"?" GOOD QUESTION
  
• "I wish to confirm something... that I won't lose you again."
  
• crap, INDIGO EVERYWHERE. is Creatio about to blast us again in this field?
  
• "The blinding light consumes my vision while my heart feels like its being crushed." /shades of dying in Xavier's arms of pretty much this spring instantly to mind.
  
• "Cradled in Zayne's arms the girl lies still, her cold warmth lingering. The body he's holding cannot be considered one that belongs to a mortal. Under her clothing blue lines manifest at an alarming rate. Astra warns the Foreseer in the form of an eerie indigo gleam from the Creatio Protocore on his scepter. The Foreseer is forbidden from peeking into his own destiny. Or else Astra shall give unto him the sweetness of Death's embrace.
  
• "Even so, the Foreseer must see the future of this girl whose fate is deeply intertwined with his. Following destiny's golden thread, he unveils truths hidden in enigmatic mist. Along his long journey he has met this girl time and time again. He falls in love with her, becomes witness to her changing fate, and watches her die. Astra's tools can never fall in love. And so Astra manipulates his memories of her, plunging them into an incomprehensible mystery: a jasmine bud that never blooms and is out of reach."
  
• . . .
  
• Is this myth implying that this god or power named Astra sentences me to death over and over and over and over again simply because Zayne can't help loving me?
  
• I'm awake again! go go gadget can't really die me.
  
• oh no. i search everywhere but Zayne isn't in the Tower. shit, what happened. oh. hidden staircase that i've only just discovered now, naturally. noises!
  
• crap, White Salvation again.
  
• this is not on. Zayne is shackled to the wall in this icy prison room.
  
• "With not a tinge of emotion, Zayne's eyes are scarlet. His hand emits a white glow and as he clenches it, the black ice suddenly elongates and stabs his body."
  
• NO, BOYFRIEND! DO NOT!
  
• Astra is wielding him as a weapon against himself. It looks like the ice is just erupting through him. "I cannot die. This agony I've experience before."
  
• we free him with the power of being really mad at his god and also apparently a really warm hug. also unlock the shackle (we are a font of interesting skill sets) and toss it away as well.
  
• "I bear the name of Foreseer. So Astra punished me for defying my own fate."
  
• aww. the jasmine at the top of the Tower is wilting, dropping its petals to scatter to the wind.
  
• "Your illness stems from your resonance with the Creatio Protocore." a-HA! creation to creation, life to life. its draining what is in my heart to make itself stronger. i guess i'm a fragment of it, somehow? "This would be your fate after meeting me."
  
• He takes the Creatio in his hand, unlatched from the scepter and the Tower is illuminated with the light. "The power of Astra can curse destiny itself. It can be used to ruin His plan."
  
• oh noes. he puts the Creatio against my chest and it dissipates into my heart.
  
• he puts his hands on me, warm light flowing to let my weakened heart beat once more. Frost forms on his face. the Tower starts to crumble.
  
• HEY! THAT'S PART OF THE NEW MYTH!
  
• "Your destiny is not written in stone." yes, because you broke it and cursed yourself! "Ice embeds itself into Zayne's back."The Creatio Protocore exists inside you. Astra's power is yours to wield. Farewell."
  
• aww, please! " Don't leave me. I want to say by your side."
  
• "I wish to end it on my own terms. May I?" Zayne leans down and kisses me for the first and last time. He smiles and slips away into the light.
  
• I wake up back in the sea of flowers, but all the jasmines have bloomed. and... and Old Woman is asking if I'm all right? oh hell, no. this is terrible and not all right AT ALL.
  
• No passage back to the Tower of Thorns, there's a blizzard in the way. A blizzard that will probably storm for the rest of eternity.
  
• and Zayne's voice asks me not to cry, even as the last petals of withered jasmine form in my hands back into a single pure flower, encased in ice. so he cannot forget this last memory.
  
• THE END
  

[Coldsaturn]

Foreseer! Congrats on finally unlocking this very important LaDS lore: Astra. So much to talk about.

Yes to the references to the wedding banner! Zayne girlies (also called "jasmines") were on the floor crying for his card, and with good reason! Even just because they finally had a kindled animated scene of the dance in the library <3 But that entire card takes place IN THE TOWER where they playfully design their home. It was feels over feels.

Yes to the references to KOD with the flower. That was a very strong "you too???" moment during Xav's myth. Every LI is somehow tied to a flower (Raf to flame lilies, Zayne to jasmines, Xavier to forgetmenots, Sylus to daturas, and Caleb.... huh.... apples? lol), but in Zayne's case it isn't just about symbolism.

The library! Very important place, put a huge pin on it.

You're still missing a bit of info on MC to understand whether Astra was at the origin of everything or not. In general the game has yet to try and make one LI the origin of all the others (no matter what certain fans will tell you about the importance of their main), so we could say that in Zayne's story Astra might be the reason he's so fucked up in the present. In this myth Zayne can see everyone's future but his own, but he's destined to meet MC over and over, and the moment he sees her future he automatically sees his own because they're entwined, which automatically makes him defy Astra's will, hence the punishment and the mess of memories. But it goes even further than that, and you'll get that in the canon lore you'll read/watch with World Underneath and Death&Rebirth.

What is interesting to notice is that Zayne is a human in the present, a demi-god in the Foreseer myth (set in the "future" - if we're talking of omniscient beings like Astra then time is a circle, there's no past or present or future because it's a web that spreads to completion without needing the passing of time, everything is everywhere all at once), and a full god in the new myth (that looks like it's set in the past? Unless we find out ancient Egypt was also on Philos). Social mobility goes brrrrrrr. Jokes aside, he's really going through the entire pantheon what the fuck.

What we definitely know is that Astra is the god of fate or something similar, and MC's story (and the LIs' stories especially) is full of things that were never supposed to exist but do. Philos, Romirro, Lemuria, humans' immortality, [redacted]...
That's a big enough conflict with the god of fate that some fans still like to speculate that Astra is the 6th LI lol. They truly haunt the narrative, that's for sure.

Zayne's hands are full of scars even in the present, you can see them on his model in Glint.

[ChicletPrime]

speaking of which boyfriend might be the progenitor of all of them, i am still of the assumption that they are all incarnations of a single original. realistically, the devs are writing similar pieces in each of them to give everything a sense of unification but part of me just wants to believe that all these multiple tracks and all these multiple personalities with their constant overlaps are just one fractured being split up around us and struggling to... i don't know. coalesce.

all of them just tease at each other in the details, you know? they all defy their place in their respective worlds in order to protect us and are punished for it. Zayne's mountains mentioned as resembling sea shells even as the Tome of the Sea God mimics the Tome of the Foreseer, right down to the golden sigils of magic, that the Bishop in Fallen Crown could be the mirror of Amon in Sea of Golden Sands, that the Sindersfell waters seem to map out to the seven times seven rivers in the imperial palace of Philos in a completely different place and time.

its my pet theory and i will cling to it with fervor.

you ever get the impression that maybe we're the Anomaly, like in the Matrix? the glitch in the system, the fracture that has to exist to relieve the pressure of the strain we represent. If our Aether Core is Creatio, the singular impulse of life to exist... what's our opposite? is that what is going to be shown in Zayne's new myth, with the truly inspired "God of Annihilation" title?

.... if Astra is the sixth LI, i will take myself out for a nice lunch to celebrate. what the hell, Infold. wouldn't that be WILD?

[Coldsaturn]

You wouldn't be the first to theorize that the 5 guys are all meant to be 1 single entity actually, and that they've been fragmented through time and space. And I really like that idea, but I don't think the writers will go that way because they'd risk pissing off entire sections of their audience (some really really REALLY dislike some of the LIs and are insanely jealous of them). If we ever get to the ending, I think it would be a split route thing where you can choose who'll be the one last standing.
But yeah, it's very clear that the LIs mirror each other in different ways. It's why shipping them is so fun, too lol

"maybe we're the Anomaly, like in the Matrix?"
Yes? Yes. In Master Of Fate we're explicitly called the variable, and when you're talking about predetermined fate, a variable might just be the scariest thing you can throw in.

"If our Aether Core is Creatio, the singular impulse of life to exist... what's our opposite?"
Beyond what you'll see with Zayne's new myth, consider how interesting it is that in Foreseer we don't have the Creatio at the start, it's given to us. And we're sick because we've been resonating with it, but if the Creatio is out of us, what's inside? Maybe that opposite.
You'll also see more of this in Caleb's limited myth.

Another theory going around is that Astra IS Zayne, only his omniscient universe-hopping version rather than the single fragmented existence inhabiting a single world. That's also very trippy and fun to think about.