Transcription
I gotta be honest with ya, Amphoreus is actually pretty great. The atmosphere is excellent, the dialogue is purposeful, the characters are endearing, and while the plot so far is a bit predictable, there are quite a few hints that suggest that things aren't exactly as straightforward as they appear to be on the surface, which is good, because the story is supposed to span eight patches over the course of an entire year. And if the story really was too straightforward and predictable the entire time, well, that would just be a bit boring. But the writers had given themselves a lot of time to flesh out something that I think is gonna turn out to be quite interesting. So, I'm pretty excited about all of this.
That said, the longer story format does have a small downside in that it's gonna take a while to put out, and the longer something takes, the easier it is to forget important details. So, to ensure that nothing goes "mr. forgotten," I've decided that from now until the end of Amphoreus, I'm going to be doing full quest recaps for every patch, complete with auxiliary information coming from readables, character profiles, monster descriptions, side quests, real-world mythology and science, and probably a whole lot of other stuff I haven't thought of yet. This video is the first recap in the series, and it condenses the full 10-hour quest as well as a quick rundown of Amphoreus' worldbuilding into about 30 minutes, which is quite the accomplishment for someone as long-winded as me.
Now, do note that while I am trying to steer clear of theorizing for these videos, I am going to be throwing in some reasonable speculative connections here and there—when appropriate—just because I think they might be important or irrelevant, and I kind of wanna draw attention to them—so just be aware that they're there. And with all that out of the way, I think our expectations are set, butts are in seats, and we can finally launch this recap of Amphoreus version 3.1, so let's go.
After saying our goodbyes in Penacony, Sunday and Black Swan join us as temporary passengers of the Astral Express. Sunday, at least, plans to join us on our next Trailblazing expedition, but we haven't exactly decided where we're going just yet. Deciding our next destination is usually a pretty straightforward process, but this time there's a slight problem. The Astral Express is very low on Trailblaze Power, which is what the train uses for fuel. No Trailblaze power, no Trailblazing. Fortunately, getting new Trailblaze power is pretty easy. You just go on Trailblazing expeditions and you generate more power. But the tank is a little bit low for a normal Trailblazing expedition to be able to top it up, so we're gonna need something a bit more special; an expedition that really pushes the boundaries of what it means to Trailblaze. And that's where Amphoreus comes in.
See, Amphoreus is a world surrounded by a mass of chaotic matter that keeps it concealed, hence why no one knows about it. But that also includes the Aeon of the Trailblaze, Akivili. Now, this is great news for us because a planet as unknown as this one is gonna have the perfect conditions for the ultimate Trailblaze mission. We're gonna generate so much Trailblaze Power that we'll never have to worry about fuel again. It is a bit odd though for there to be a planet that even the Aeon of the Trailblaze hasn't been to yet, 'cause, you know, the whole goal of the Trailblaze was to connect all of the worlds in the universe via the Silver Rail; feels kinda weird that they missed one. But it's not just unknown to Akivili. It seems like even Fuli and their followers didn't know about this planet until very recently. In fact, the only reason the Garden of Recollection even knows of Amphoreus' existence is because they detected traces of multiple unusual Emanator-level or higher entities. And then they looked really hard at the location where those readings were coming from, and that's when they noticed that there was a planet present that had been deliberately concealed by something or someone that we don't know about yet.
Now, the existence of these powerful entities seems to be what's actually causing the three Paths of Erudition, Remembrance, and the mysterious third Path to overlap in Amphoreus. But I dunno, man, like, something about the situation just doesn't sit right with me. Like, Black Swan has this line about how only Pathstriders of the Trailblaze can venture into the heart of this vortex of Amphoreus and reveal the truth behind its existence. And I don't know about you, but that really makes it sound like this whole situation is just orchestrated, like it's pre-planned by somebody. I don't know who it is, but it's somebody. But we're never gonna find out who or what it is until we actually go to Amphoreus. So, we should do that.
The warp itself is uneventful, but immediately afterwards, March begins to feel a bit unwell. She's not sick (not technically), but Black Swan and Sunday seem to agree that there seems to be some sort of presence, be it an Emanator or Amphoreus itself, that's causing a sort of weakness to appear within March's memories, whatever that means. And since we're not really sure what's causing the problem (and we know very little about the planet itself), March is gonna sit this one out, while the Trailblazer and Dan Heng will be sent down in one of the Express' auxiliary cars with March's camera in tow, of course. Gotta get those souvenirs.
But as we come in for a landing, a huge spear hits us and knocks us out of the sky, sending us hurdling to the ground and crash-landing into the back of a temple in the Abyss of Fate. Fortunately, no one's hurt, but the car is completely totaled. And with no other way to contact the Express, we're kind of on our own for real this time. Well, except for this little pink flying bunny thing that keeps changing the time period on us as we chase after it. And, much like how chasing the white rabbit got Alice into a world of trouble in Wonderland, chasing this pink bunny lands us in a pretty sticky situation as well, cornered at the edge of a cliff by weeping angel-like statue monsters. Whether we needed the help or not, we are saved by a man named Phainon, who not only wipes out the enemies in the blink of an eye but also swipes the Trailblazer's bat and snaps Dan Heng's spear in two, and soon after, he's joined by his companion, Tribbie.
Now, the strangest part of this first encounter is not the fact that there's actually humans living down here—because there were probably always going to be humans living down here. Let's be real, humans are everywhere; they're kind of like a virus—but instead, the weird thing is that we share a language. 'Cause remember, Amphoreus is a completely isolated planet that no one knows about, so we shouldn't share a common tongue. But you probably wrote this off as some kind of convenient plot device or something. I mean, we're space travelers. Surely we have those Star Trek-y auto-translator things, right? And, yeah, technically you're not wrong. Those who do a lot of interstellar travel are typically injected with a little device called a Synesthesia Beacon. But despite being a little device that uses telepathy to auto-translate languages for you, the Synesthesia Beacon has to be able to pull from a database of languages. If the language isn't in the database, then Synesthesia Beacon can't really translate it.
The fact that we can understand the language of Amphoreus suggests one of two things: either there was a point in time when Amphoreus was connected to the IPC's database and therefore had its language stored in it, or they were part of the greater universe and spoke the common tongue, which honestly has the same implications and for that reason, it's the most probable explanation. But alternatively, this could also be the work of one of the Titans of Amphoreus, like, maybe, Cerses, the reason or wisdom Titan, since their domain is thoughts and words and stuff, which I know sounds kind of like a weird suggestion. But the reason I say it is because Talanton, the Law Titan, apparently auto-adjusts and calculates currencies in real-time, so you can use any currency anywhere to buy anything in Amphoreus, which means our IPC credits are actually valid here. So, I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume that this could be a Titan feature and not our Synesthesia Beacon, but I do think that is the less likely of the two options. But, okay, moving on.
After rescuing some refugees from the Temple of Oronyx, Phainon and Tribbie take us to the Holy City of Okhema, and just in time too, for creations of the Strife Titan, Nikador, are laying siege to the city. But they're no match for the combined might of the Nameless and the Chrysos Heirs, and Mydei, Castorice, Tribbie, and Phainon make very quick work of them. And that's when we meet Aglaea, bearer of the Titan of Romance's Coreflame and the current leader of the Chrysos Heirs, and also the one who's temporarily in charge of Okhema in general. You can kind of think of her as a crisis leader, get it? Crisis, Chrysos... Anyway, the real governmental body of Okhema isn't exactly fond of having their authority undermined by these Chrysos Heir demigods, which does lead to a bit of friction that's not really important just yet, but probably will be in the future, so I'm mentioning it.
Aglaea then takes us to the bathhouse so she can tell us more about what's actually going on in Amphoreus. Now, what follows here is basically foundational information that fleshes out the world of Amphoreus. But because Aglaea isn't exactly omniscient—and doesn't know the contents of all this external marketing information we get that gives us more context for the stuff that's actually going on on the planet—allow me to provide a more detailed explanation of what's actually going on in Aglaea's place.
Let's start with Amphoreus’ history. It's said that in the ancient past, the Coreflames were cast down by the gods, and from those 12 Coreflames came 12 Titans. Each Titan came with their own divine authority to match the respective Coreflame, which they then used to create the world of Amphoreus. The Fate Titans: Oronyx, Janus, and Talanton oversaw time, space, and the laws of the world. The Foundation Titans: Georios, Phagousa, and Aquila made the earth, sea, and sky. And the Creation Titans: Kephale, Cerces, and Mnestia created humans and granted them thoughts and emotions. And the Calamity Titans: Nikador, Thanatos, and Zagreus brought conflict to Amphoreus in the form of war, death, and trickery.
The era of the Titans was considered to be Amphoreus’ golden age, but it wasn't to last, for a Black Tide would descend from beyond the sky, bringing death and destruction to everything. Now, the Black Tide is a bit enigmatic in nature. We're not really sure exactly what it is—although I have made two videos about it if you want to speculate with me—but what we do know is that it's an incredibly corruptive force that seems to be capable of straight-up deleting objects from reality, which also might be why it's described as a water that dissolves souls. It can also drive both humans and Titans to madness, and to make matters worse, it can also spawn monsters. In fact, defeating all of the monsters that a Black Tide has spawned is how you get rid of it. But this only really seems to work on smaller Black Tides, as a larger one spawns so many monsters that getting rid of them is nearly impossible, even for a Titan.
Now, it is worth pointing out that in the promotional material for Amphoreus, the Black Tide was said to have come from beyond the sky, while public record in Amphoreus seems to suggest that the three Calamity Titans: Nikador, Zagreus, and Thanatos brought the Black Tide with them to Amphoreus when they first appeared in the world. But this is most likely in-game propaganda, because, on the one hand, Nikador is the one who gets most of the blame for this, mostly because they govern over strife and war, and that seems to be what the Black Tide brings. But technically speaking, despite being the Titan of War and Strife, he's actually supposed to be the guardian deity of Amphoreus, and this guardian status was the reason why they were the first Titan to fight against the Black Tide when it appeared all those years ago, and it's also the reason why they were the first one to be corrupted by it. And this makes Nikador an incredibly convenient scapegoat for my second reason as to why I think this is propaganda.
Aglaea tells us that going beyond the sky is a very, very dangerous thing to try and do. Apparently, Aquila, the Sky Titan, shoots down anyone who tries to leave Amphoreus and then sets fire to the town where they came from. This appears to have happened to some unknown city from across the sea who apparently tried to build some spaceships, and they got shot down, and then, uh, their town was set on fire. Aglaea does not want this happening to Okhema, so she can't risk the possibility of anyone thinking that there might be something beyond the sky. So, blaming the Black Tide on Nikador is pretty convenient because then no one thinks that there's anything beyond the sky where the Black Tide could have come from.
Now, this is actually pretty good information to have, because had our express car not been shot down, we may have tried to leave Amphoreus, and we might have gotten blown up even worse by Aquila. But it also means that we can't repair the car and leave (not without taking care of Aquila and their missile launcher first, anyway.)
Now, Aquila's isolationist behavior is likely because of the Black Tide's corruption, because when the Black Tide arrived in Amphoreus, it kind of drove all of the Titans mad—and when your gods go mad, the world gets a bit crazy. Not only did Aquila start shooting down anyone who tried to leave at this time, but they also just turned off the sun, because, apparently, the sun in Amphoreus was just one of Aquila's eyeballs. And this had the effect you would expect: the entire world was shrouded in darkness; it was now nighttime, all of the time.
The arrival of the eternal night marked a period of war where it was Titan versus Titan, and people versus people, and people versus Titan, and it was just a big free-for-all. It was everybody versus everybody. Survivors of the war sought refuge in the holy city of Okhema, where the Worldbearing Titan, Kephale, had forced themselves into an eternal slumber to resist the Black Tide's corrosion. The Dawn Device on his back is the only source of light in Amphoreus. And because it's acting like an artificial sun and looks suspiciously like an eye, I do have to wonder if this belonged to Aquila at one point; like, maybe Aquila lost their eye and it fell out of the sky, and Kephale caught it. But again, speculation.
Now, the problem with the Dawn Device is that it only covers the city of Okhema, and its light also seems to serve some sort of protection against the Black Tide's effects, which means you can't turn off the sun unless you want the Black Tide to invade the city. So, while the rest of the world is stuck in eternal night, Okhema is stuck in eternal day.
Now, around the time Kephale went to sleep, a prophecy appeared. It proclaimed that there was only one way to stop this war: 12 people with golden blood must assemble, defeat the Titans, and seize their Coreflames, thereby taking the Titans' powers for themselves. These heroes of mankind would be known as the Chrysos Heirs, mortals who would transcend their humanity and become demigods capable of saving this dying world by offering all 12 flames to the Vortex of Genesis. This would not only bring an end to the war but would also eradicate the Black Tide, thus ushering in a brand new era of peace and prosperity. And so, from that moment on, the war was known as the Chrysos War—at least as far as I can tell.
As it currently stands, six of the 12 Coreflames have already been collected by the other Heirs over the years, so we've only really got six to go. Aglaea already possesses the Coreflame of Mnestia, the Romance Titan, and Tribbie currently possesses the Coreflame of Janus, the Titan of Space and Passages. We've met an additional three Chrysos Heirs who have yet to claim their own Coreflames, but it's pretty obvious who's getting which Coreflame. Phainon will get the Coreflame of Kephale, the Worldbearing Titan; Mydei will get the Coreflame of Nikador, the Strife Titan; and Castorice will get the Coreflame of Thanatos, the Death Titan. Even if you set aside the relationships between the characters and the Titans' constellations that we have so far, we also know that every Chrysos Heir has a really unique flaw or special power that they appear to be born with. And these special abilities are based on the powers of the Titans whose Coreflames they're gonna get. For example, Castorice doesn't have a Coreflame yet, but she does have the ability to rouse recently deceased souls and send them on their way to the afterlife, and she also has a death touch. The only one that seems to be without a flaw is Phainon, but that's probably a plot point we'll get to at another time.
Now, as straightforward as this "save the world" setup seems, there are some problems with this whole prophecy and the Chrysos Heirs that come with it. For starters, no one actually knows for sure where the prophecy came from or who issued it. Some say it came from the whispers of Kephale before he went to sleep, and that also seems to be echoed by a loading screen, and it appears that Kephale was the one responsible for producing the golden blood that made the Chrysos Heirs in the first place, so this is my preferred explanation. Although I do find it kind of odd as to why Kephale would be the one to issue the prophecy, because that's really more of Oronyx's thing, as opposed to Kephale's... but then again, Kephale is the Titan of Creation, so I guess if you're gonna have a prophecy about how to recreate the world, then it would make sense if it came from them.
But there is a bigger problem with the prophecy than just who issued it, and that problem is that it appears as though the prophecy has been altered in some way. But whoever made these alterations was not human. Like, this wasn't an instance of some normal person walking up to, like, a chalkboard and erasing some words and writing something new in its place. This is straight-up memory manipulation-level stuff, which does make you wonder if there's something like a History Fictionologist present on Amphoreus, and if they might be one of the Emanator-like entities that we have to be on the lookout for. This feels probable, because I suspect that the third mysterious Path that's fettered to Amphoreus is actually that of the Enigmata, and the History Fictionologists are the followers of the Enigmata. But whatever the case, there is definitely something wrong with the prophecy, and we can even get confirmation of this from the Time Titan Oronyx later on, which also means that we're gonna talk more about this later, so just keep it in mind. But I think that's all you really need to know for right now, so it's time to move on and explore!
Wandering around the city, we learn how to use time-rewind powers from Tribbie, get our weapons fixed with Phainon, beat some Dromas with Castorice, and we almost get Damionis killed by giving him evidence that there's life outside of Amphoreus, and then he spreads a rumor about some sort of Rosy Maiden that lives beyond the sky, and that gets everyone in trouble because it reveals our identity as someone who came from beyond the sky, which, as we talked about earlier, is a really big problem because it could get everybody killed. So, basically, we almost got Damionis killed, and then we almost got ourselves killed as a result, and all in all, it was a pretty eventful day. And also a pretty eventful night, haunted by a pink rabbit. Excellent.
Well, seeing as we can't contact the Astral Express and we can't actually leave Amphoreus without figuring out how to get rid of Aquila, I guess we've got nothing better to do than to help the Chrysos Heirs with whatever crisis they have on air. And the crisis of today is: capturing the Coreflame of the Strife Titan. Sounds like fun.
Ok, so the Strife Titan and his followers reside in a moving fortress called Castrum Kremnos, which was evacuated and abandoned by the people who lived there because they didn't want to die at the hands of their Titan. So, they're hunkering down in Okhema until Nikador falls, which is funny because, apparently, Nikador and Kephale never really got along. In fact, Nikador has kind of been planning to kill Kephale for a really long time. And the siege from the previous day was a result of their planning. But the recent siege means that Castrum Kremnos should be within range of Aglaea's thread network, which means that we can accurately pinpoint its location. And this is a big deal, because Castrum Kremnos is mobile and thus it moves around a lot, and that normally makes it really hard to track down. And if you can't get to Castrum Kremnos, then you can't get to Nikador, and if you can't get to Nikador, you can't take his Coreflame. And, you know, we need that Coreflame, so we've got to move quick before the fortress disappears on us.
Phainon really wants the Coreflame of Strife for some reason (even though he's definitely not gonna get it), so he volunteers to go on the mission, and so does Mydei because, apparently, Mydei is also the exiled Prince of Castrum Kremnos and feels like he needs to take some responsibility for the actions of his deity, which, you know, fair enough. Off to Castrum Kremnos we go.
Now, venturing through the fortress is rather uneventful, but once we reach Nikador's body, it's pretty easy to tell that something's not quite right. We came here expecting to see Nikador infected by the Black Tide, but it kind of feels like his mind is gone. Like, he's not even crazy; he's just empty. No one thinks too much about this because the point of this mission isn't to figure out what's wrong with Nikador; it's to take his Coreflame. So, we rush into battle and... ehm... yeah... turns out that was a trap. Apparently, Nikador had had his soul ripped out a long time ago, and it left him with an immortal body, which means that we are fighting an empty immortal husk that we can't take the Coreflame from, because we can't kill it. So, if we want to take him out and seize his Coreflame, we need to make sure he's not immortal, which means we've got to find out where his soul went.
Now, we're definitely gonna need some additional help in finding the Titan's missing soul, but we can't just leave Nikador unattended. At best, he may disappear into the fog again with Castrum Kremnos, making him really difficult to find, but at worst, he might shoot Kephale with a giant laser beam from his sword that's hovering over the city, that's also been absorbing the power from the souls of the dead. Now, we could let Nikador shoot Kephale, since that would mean we could take Kephale's Coreflame without any trouble, but shooting Kephale also means breaking the Dawn Device that's keeping the people of Okhema safe from the Black Tide, which means that we probably wanna get Kephale's Coreflame last. So, we'll need to keep Nikador distracted while we look for his soul so he doesn't shoot Kephale. Lucky for us, Mydei is up for the task.
You remember how I said every Chrysos Heir has a special ability or flaw that links back to the Titan's Coreflame they're supposed to have? Well, it turns out that Mydei, much like Nikador, is also immortal. So, we leave the two immortals to duke things out while we get help from Aglaea and Castorice, who aren't actually that much help at all because they don't actually know what to do. But they do know someone who might know what to do: the Time Titan Oronyx. Oronyx knows the past, present, and future, so surely they'll know something about Nikador's current predicament. Only problem is, Oronyx isn't interested in helping us. They think that the Chrysos Heirs are butchers who treat Titan kind like prey to be hunted rather than gods to be respected, and in doing so, they perpetuate a cycle of rage, cruelty, and darkness. But that's weird. I thought we were supposed to be the good guys. Like, the Chrysos Heirs are supposed to enact the prophecy, which is supposed to end the war and delete the Black Tide and make everything better. But Oronyx isn't convinced that this is the case. They think that the prophecy is actually cursed, and for that reason, they will not help us. Or at least they weren't going to help us until they noticed the Trailblazer, who they seem to mistake for their mother at first—which is a little bit weird because I wasn't aware that Titans had mothers—or was I?
If I may reasonably speculate for a minute: if you've been paying attention, you might have noticed that the writers have actually been hinting at the existence of another Titan, or, like, an ultimate godlike figure that's hiding behind the rest of the Titans. Now, I admit that these hints are subtle, and it definitely feels like anything beyond 12 Titans is unrealistic, but there is a faction in Amphoreus that believes a 13th Titan exists. This faction is called the Numerophiles, and they're considered a bit heretical because they don't consider the Titans to be deities at all, but instead consider them to be mere illusions created by the natural structure of a world that is made entirely of numbers. They also believe that the 13th Titan is the origin of all other Titans, which kind of sounds like a mother to me.
Now, they call this Mother-Titan a great machine, and they believe that they had not only created the other Titans but they can also control them, and by extension, they are able to control most aspects of the world itself. Now, if we were to assume that this world really is one that's made entirely of numbers, then we might think of it as a digital world, which could also explain why the Black Tide looks so digital, and why the nymphs we capture for Aglaea have those little kaomojis and the digital effects when we catch them. In fact, it might be possible to classify the Black Tide as a virus in that case, which is very convenient for me specifically because, in my Amphoreus predictions video, I made the case that Amphoreus might actually be a victim of the Machine Emperor's War. Now, this was a very noteworthy event in the universe's history, and it happened to produce this Anti-Organic Equation, which was basically like a mind virus that could affect both organic and inorganic life-forms, and it kind of drove everybody crazy.
If we start to look at things through this digital lens, then the prophecy starts to seem more like a set of instructions on how to reboot a really complex server farm or something. Now, some of the Numerophiles appear to be able to manipulate the Black Tide to some degree, which implies that they want to run counter to the prophecy, or they just wanna watch the world burn; I'm not really sure. But it's interesting that they go against this, because we know that the prophecy was altered, and that casts some doubt on its reliability in the first place. And if the people who believe in the prophecy are misinformed about its contents, then maybe they're also misinformed about the existence of a 13th Titan as well.
But the beliefs of a singular faction isn't the only evidence that we have for the existence of a 13th Titan. Take a good look at this wheel of the 12 Titans. Notice how each Titan is grouped with their respective peers and represented by their own constellation symbol. 12 Titans, 12 constellation symbols, or, at least, that's what it looks like at first. If you look a little closer, you'll notice that the center of this wheel actually has a 13th symbol on it with no name. Now, you maybe just ignored this, or maybe just assumed that it was the symbol of Amphoreus as a planet, and you're not totally wrong about that. But I definitely don't think that's the whole story, because this symbol is actually all over the place in Amphoreus, and not just in marketing materials. And that means that, canonically, the people of Amphoreus must have used this symbol to represent something specific, and that something cannot be the shape of the planet, because they can't actually leave the planet, so how would they know what it looks like?
Now, the only non-architectural place that we see the symbol appear organically is around Kephale. Based on context clues, the symbol appears to be related to the prophecy of recreating the world. But this symbol also appears on structures that should predate the prophecy, so that cannot be the whole story. But you know what I think? I think this symbol actually belongs to the 13th Titan, and I'm gonna go one step further and wager that this "Mother Titan" is actually Cyrene. I'm not gonna go too deep into this—because it's gonna go way too far into theory territory, which is out-of-scope for this video—but I'm making this assumption for a few reasons. First off, we know that Cyrene is a variant of the Honkai Impact 3rd character Elysia. And Cyrene comes from a location called Aedes Elysiae, which obviously shares a name with Elysia. And in much the same way, the Mother Titan is considered the origin of all other Titans, Elysia's powers govern the concept of "origin" in Honkai Impact. Don't ask me to elaborate; it's too complicated. Elysia was also one of the 13 Flamechasers who were part of an organization that was trying to save a doomed world, just like the Chrysos Heirs are. And the Chrysos Heirs are participating in a Flame-Chase. And I'm not just mindlessly making connections, because the developers themselves have straight-up confirmed that the story of the Chrysos Heirs is a variant of the story of Honkai Impact's Flamechasers, or at least they're supposed to parallel each other, so this connection is not groundless.
Cyrene also has golden blood, which makes her very similar to either a Titan or a Chrysos Heir. It's really hard to say which possibility is more likely, because, on the one hand, a Chrysos Heir is said to have golden blood, and it would make sense if she was a Chrysos Heir that was supposed to get the 13th Coreflame, but maybe didn't because she died, and maybe that's what set the prophecy on the wrong track. But, on the other hand, we know that Titans can abandon or change their physical forms, so it's possible that she could have just done that and turned into Mem. You know, the pink, flying rabbit that's been following us around. It's pretty obvious to see that Mem and Cyrene have some aesthetic similarities, but what I think is more compelling between the two is that when Mem starts recovering her memories, she triggers an infinity-shaped constellation, which matches the one on the Titan wheel. And with that constellation comes the book "As I've Written," which will eventually contain the complete memory of Amphoreus. And, if the 13th Titan is the one that truly controls the world, then this book is a perfect manifestation of that power, and since Mem manifested this book, she should be related to the 13th Titan. And since Mem resembles Cyrene, Cyrene should also be related to the 13th Titan as well, if not the 13th Titan herself. There's also this scene which seems to imply that Mem and Cyrene are the same person.
Now, assuming this is true, then Cyrene is also the mother that Oronyx wants us to find, and that might be why Oronyx says that we already encountered her, because we've already met Mem several times, actually. And for those reasons and many more that I won't go into right now, I believe that this symbol is the symbol of the 13th Titan, and I think that they may have been the one to issue the prophecy in the first place. And they did so through Kephale, just like how Cyrene read tarot cards for Phainon. So, the infinity symbol floating around Kephale represents mother's power, as does the infinity symbol that seems to be holding the entire world of Amphoreus together.
As for why Oronyx would then consider the prophecy to be cursed? Well, the prophecy has been altered. We have the wrong prophecy. Now, I know I mentioned earlier that the prophecy was likely manipulated by a History Fictionologist or something, but if Mem is part of the 13th Titan, then the fact that they have memory loss could imply that the Mother Titan is also missing chunks of memory. And maybe that's why parts of the prophecy are missing; maybe they just forgot them.
Anyway, setting speculations aside, coming into contact with Mem also unlocks some of the Trailblazer's forgotten memories of their time traveling with the Stellaron Hunters. It's a bit of a surreal experience, but recovering this lost memory is apparently what triggers Fuli's gaze and unlocks the Path of Remembrance for the Trailblazer. Mem takes a liking to us and decides to lend us her power, which is very, very useful and a little bit broken. 'Cause, see, Mem can actually gather memories from throughout Amphoreus and then put them together to open a gateway into the past. And that's gonna come in real handy in solving our little immortality problem with Nikador. 'Cause if we're able to use Mem's power to collect enough memory fragments to open a gateway into the past when Nikador lost his soul, then we can effectively change the future. So, if Nikador had his soul removed in the past, and that's what made him immortal, we can go back in time and prevent his soul from being sealed in the first place, which would then make him mortal, and then we can beat him up and take his Coreflame. And I think this also provides us with a glimpse into what our role here on Amphoreus really is. We're likely supposed to go find instances where something has gone wrong in the past and then go to the past and correct it to bring the future and the past into alignment. In other words, we're rewriting the past using the book "As I've Written," so I guess it's time to rewrite Nikador's story. And for that, we're gonna need memory fragments; three of them will do.
The first memory is a ballad about Nikador's fall. The second is a photo of the final event that was held at Castrum Kremnos in the final days before the city was abandoned. And the third is a memory of a blacksmith, Chartonus, agreeing to forge a vessel that could seal away a titan's divinity. Using these three memory fragments, Mem is able to open a gateway into the past, and we're able to step through it with Castorice, only to find ourselves face to face with a combat festival that was being held in Castrum Kremnos in the final days of the Chrysos War, just the way we saw in that photo we got. Now, the only way to get inside this fortress is to register as participants in the combat festival, but we're gonna need a group of three to do that, and apparently Mem doesn't count. So, we pick up a lone contestant named Gnaeus and head on inside.
The fortress is full of dead bodies and Titankin, which is never a good sign, especially once we learn that the king of Castrum Kremnos—who is also Mydei's father, by the way—was attempting to seal away the soul of Nikador piece by piece. They've already managed to seal away his courage, honor, tenacity, and sacrificial aspects, but they're still missing the final piece - reason. And that's because Nikador himself removed his own sense of reason just before he succumbed to the Black Tide's corruption in order to protect it. But the king didn't know this and thought that he could bring the corrupted Titan under control by sealing away what was left of his soul. And while the sealing process was going on, they held a combat festival as a means of placating their Titan with artificial war; it feels like giving a toddler a rattle. Now, despite the missing piece, the separation of body and soul made Nikador's body immortal, and that's how we ended up in our current predicament.
The solution, at least, is fairly straightforward: gather all five pieces of Nikador's fragmented divinity and use them to reconstruct his soul. Lucky for us, the missing piece, reason, took the form of our buddy Gnaeus, which also means that Gnaeus is technically Nikador. So, Gnaeus takes the other four fragments and reconstructs his own soul, and this action alone is enough to fix the timeline. The past and future collide for a moment as Gnaeus returns to his body and renders himself mortal once again.
Now, I would say that this is the perfect time for us to beat down the Strife Titan and take his Coreflame, but, uh, maybe we should just let him take himself out, 'cause as he shoots that giant laser at Kephale, Tribbie opens up a Century Gate that captures the laser and then she places the Century Gate's exit just behind Nikador. So, he basically ends up shooting himself in the back; what a way to go. And that's the end of that.
Phainon picks up the Coreflame and carries it back to the Vortex of Genesis, where he will undergo a trial to become the bearer of this Coreflame, a trial he will inevitably fail because, again, the game is not subtle about his relationship with Kephale. Castorice stays behind to ask the remains of Nikador about the location of Thanatos because, apparently, Thanatos and Nikador were once pretty close, which seems pretty fitting, you know, war and death being friends and all. But it seems like Nikador has never even seen Thanatos, so I don't really know how that works, unless it's kind of like that one online friend you talk to all the time and know so much about but have never actually met in person. Castorice appears to be looking for her missing half (whatever that means), and Thanatos appears to have it. Unfortunately, Nikador isn't any help; he doesn't know anything.
And now that we have some downtime, perhaps we should actually set aside our Coreflame chase for a while and figure out how to contact the Astral Express. I know it's not like we can leave or anything, but we should at least let everyone know that we're okay and maybe figure out what we could do next. Not to change the subject, but do you remember how I said that there are three Paths that are fettered to Amphoreus? Well, one of those Paths is a Path of Erudition, which is governed by Nous, and it just so happens that at this very moment, Herta is apparently constructing an audience system that can be used to contact Nous 'cause she wants to ask them a question. Unfortunately, there's a glitch or two in her system which seems to have been caused by a Memosnatcher. Now, don't mistake a Memosnatcher for a Memokeeper. Memosnatchers are a lot more extreme, and this one here is ready to steal the memories of Nous. Imagine what kind of audacity you have to have to steal the memories of an Aeon of all things. Well, Herta is having none of that, so she traps the Memosnatcher in one of her mirrors (that may or may not be full of ghosts) and subjects them to some serious self-reflection.
After rebooting and relaunching the audience system once again, Herta is interrupted again, but this time it's not a Memosnatcher, it's Welt and Sunday. They need her help to try and get in touch with the Trailblazer and Dan Heng, who are stuck on Amphoreus, and they also need her help trying to figure out what's gone wrong with March 7th. And they may be running out of time on that second one, because March is starting to encase herself subconsciously in her six-phased ice.
And thus ends our first episode of the Amphoreus recap! I hope you found this video helpful, and if you did, I hope I see you in the next one. So thank you all so much for watching, stay hydrated, and I'll catch you in the next one. See ya!