#will the secret about Nabateans be revealed earlier?

[randomnameless]

how would have Rhea raised Billy if Jeralt failed to take them from the monastery? Aside from actually giving a shit about them and not letting them starve on a semi regular basis I mean

See their enlightened one outfit?

They would have gotten tacky outfits in the same style from age 3 onwards, all "made" by the Archbishop herself.

More seriously, I think the plot would change?

Maybe Seteth wouldn't have been "summoned" at the Monastery, if Billy had been there, or he would and would have acted as Billy's caretaker ?

If Billy was raised by Rhea since day 5, I'm pretty sure they would have told her about the gremlin in their head, and that plot would have been solved way earlier, but as to what happens with Supreme Leader's war... idk.

I personally see Billy, in this verse, as someone raised like Sitri, maybe being a monk/random ward in the Monastery, but Billy likes to help people (and smiles at least in the jp!version!) so maybe they would have became some sort of kickass cleric, or a member of the knights of Seiros (Rhea'd disagree at first, she doesn't want them to be hurt and would have prefered if they became a fisherman or something that would keep them away from the battlefield, but Billy makes their own decisions, and wishes to protect the monastery and the people they cares about, maybe being triggered by another assassination attempt targetted at Rhea, maybe Christophe's or someone's else).

Billy'd be good friends with knighs and members of the CoS, maybe take Cyril under their wing (as much as they can) and have wednesday evening sessions of sitting with their "like" family eating Zanado fruits, or even fishing. When they want to become a knight or know how to use weapons "to protect", they could spare with Seteth'n'Rhea and end the "training" sessions with some of Rhea's cookies and Zanado fruit juice.

If Billy's still a teacher in this verse - well, I don't think the entire "crust + church BaD" spiel affects them, hell, they might be a bit more pissed at this entire nonsense and voice their annoyance, why are those nobles blaming the church for their own failings in ruling their lands?

(that's where Seteth has to remind them about this thing called "tongue in check")

Maybe they can decide to travel through Fodlan to make up for the regional branches' failings (but only after Rhea got from the gremlin the promise that Gremlin will keep Billy safe!) - when Supreme Leader comes crashing down with her army?

If Rhea survives, Billy hangs out in Faerghus, but if Rhea is caught, Billy leads a resistance force (like SS) - granted, in this AU, Sothis is around and less of a gremlin that in her canon appearances, so Rhea's freed from her Enbarr jail way earlier than in the game, the Agarthans are toasted and everything's well that ends well.

[gascon-en-exil]

Crimson Flower lets Edelgard institute all her progressive reforms, and puts a definitive kibosh on both the Agartheans and the dragons. Various other character endings describe the slitherers resurfacing and being foiled again. Dmitri the emperor, and he's a well-meaning lad who probably makes reasonable strides against racism and systemic crest bias, but he largely keeps things going as they were. He makes it very clear that he hasn't thought very hard about his position in the world.

Edelgard, on the other hand, is justified in everything she does by virtue of her circumstances. At no point does she have any options other than declaring war on the continent or dying, because she has been in the clutches of the Agartheans her entire life. They want to use her as a figurehead, but make it very clear that they will bump her off if she steps out of line. She cannot prevent the war, so she instead makes it her own, and rallies her forces until she's can make a move against them.

Dimitri is a hereditary autocrat who secures his family's grip on the entirety of a continent, 2/3 of which he obtains through conquest. Really struggling to see the 'not an autocrat' angle here even if he does some positive reforms later in life. Like we get a fairly decent look at how non-traumatized Dimitri acts in CF and it all sets up that he entered into a political marriage and had a quick child to secure the inheritance. Hereditary monarchy is a scourge even if you have a 'good' monarch

FIrst, let’s get the most obvious thing out the way: there is no evidence that Dimitri has a political marriage and an heir in CF. 

The line about the Blaiddyd line continuing almost certainly refers to his uncle Rufus, who is killed in Cornelia’s coup in the non-CF routes but is presumably still alive in CF because she never gets the chance to carry it out. In the Dimidue death scene Dimitri expresses regret for not being able to get revenge for his family among others, so he’s still thinking of family in terms of his slain father and stepmother. I’ve also pointed out several times that Dimitri’s fondness for orphans is noted in story text and in AM’s ending tapestry, such that it’s entirely reasonable to conclude that he adopts regardless of circumstances as a way of diminishing the role of Crest-based inheritance. In CF his circumstances seem to be nearly identical to the Dimidue paired ending where there is no queen in sight and Dedue is a royal consort in all but name. I highly doubt they chose to adopt while fighting a war that’s by now been dragging on for over five years, so the conclusion about Rufus stands (even more so because he’s noted elsewhere to be a shameless womanizer so it’s likely he’s got one or more bastards somewhere). If you’re looking for a hereditary monarch who founds or perpetuates a dynasty, that would be Claude, or Byleth in various VW/SS endings. Quibbling over monarch vs. emperor has little meaning in this context, especially when Edelgard stepping down after an indeterminate amount of time and naming a successor is fully in line with real world dictatorships. Non-democratic systems of government are the standard for all of FE, although the beginnings of a representative government mentioned in Dimitri’s solo ending might be the single closest instance of a significant movement away from that even if it’s only a constitutional monarchy with the heir to the throne a Crestless adoptee. This follows naturally from the years of the timeskip where Dimitri was homeless and in and out of the slums of the Kingdom, where he saw the suffering of the common people firsthand and, as seen in the AM parley, came to understand their needs better than Edelgard ever attempts. In conjunction with Claude’s ignorance of the lives of the Almyran people as seen in his Cyril supports, it’s actually reasonable to conclude that Dimitri has thought about his position relative to his subjects more than either of the other leaders.

And speaking of Claude, Dimitri does not conquer the Alliance in AM; rather, Claude hands it over to him unexpectedly after the Kingdom army comes to his aid and fights off the Imperial army invading Derdriu. If Hilda is recruited in AM her monastery dialogue the next month reveals that the Alliance council peacefully agreed to go along with Claude’s decision to cede their territory to the Kingdom. This is incidentally a much better deal than the Alliance gets in either VW or SS, where Claude disappears either at the end of the game or after Gronder and it’s given to Byleth with no further discussion (and the same thing also happens to the Kingdom in both routes). The Empire at the end of the game is in much the same situation as every other antagonist nation in FE, with no one to rule it following the counter-invasion from the protagonist nation(s) because they’re all dead. Similar to Genealogy the picture does open up a bit depending on who’s alive, with Ferdinand, Lorenz, Marianne, etc. governing their respective territories if they’re recruited. Ditto unseen noble heirs like Holst and Caspar’s older brother who are still around to inherit their titles even with Byleth or Dimitri ruling the continent. As far as the Empire is concerned the two of them are as much imperialists as Marth, Seliph, the Renais twins, etc., a far cry from Edelgard in CF invading and conquering two sovereign nations without provocation, predicated in part on the basis that centuries prior they were part of the Empire so it’s acceptable for her to conquer them.

Now, onto Edelgard. You must be aware that Edelgard chose to ally with the Agarthans at Hubert’s suggestion, and she continues to make that choice for nearly a decade without any attempt at checking them despite knowing all the terrible things that they’re getting up to behind the scenes at the monastery and that they enacted earlier without her direct involvement to destabilize the continent and make her conquest easier, like the Tragedy of Duscur and the death of Claude’s uncle. As myself and others have noted attempting to spin her as a helpless victim of their machinations only makes her look incompetent and terrible in her choice of allies - not just the Agarthans themselves but also known murderers Hubert and Jeritza whom she cannot fully control with one frequently going behind her back and the other openly disobeying her multiple times on the battlefield. This in combination with Hubert’s status as the Manfroy to Edelgard’s Arvis leaves me very much in doubt of the Agarthans being truly eradicated in the postgame. Not only is this unsatisfying for the player, but given Hubert’s use of dark magic and dabbling in the Agarthans’ experiments (plus that he was the one who suggested the alliance in the first place, for all that he grumbles about Thales ordering him around) it’s more likely that he eradicates their leadership and then installs himself at the head of the remaining cult, folding them into his established network of spies and assassins. Hubert is one of my favorite characters in this cast, but he’s anything but trustworthy especially if his primary motivation really is wanting Edelgard to sleep with him when it turns out she never will, not even in their paired ending. In keeping with his status as the pathetic hopeless suitor pining for this game’s headlining waifu despite her overt attraction to the self-insert, sexual frustration is built into his character even if he gets a wife or if he and Ferdinand become the most notorious lovers in Enbarr.

Plus, if you look Edelgard actually does rather than what she says she aligns more with what the Agarthans want than the stated goals of her own propaganda. She completes their genocide of the Nabateans and unifies the continent with Agarthans in positions of great power. On the other hand she doesn’t eradicate the nobility as a whole but only replaces those who would oppose her seizing absolute power, which goes to support that it was the Insurrection of the Seven and not the Agarthan experimentation that truly shaped her worldview and motivations. The stated reasons she wants to destroy the church are provably incorrect - she knows they didn’t create Relics or Crests thanks to secret Imperial knowledge passed down from Wilhelm, and she must know that they aren’t all-powerful as the Empire disbanded the Southern Church completely a century before the events of the game with apparently no pushback from Rhea or anyone else - and one must therefore conclude that she instead targets them because they, like the Imperial nobles she replaces and like Claud e and Dimitri defending their nations, would oppose her solitary rule of the continent. It’s just awfully convenient that this goal also accomplishes the Agarthans’ main goal of killing or driving into hiding all of the remaining dragons. Saying that the war was inevitable because the Agarthans were slinking around setting it up to happen doesn’t absolve Edelgard of the responsibility of choosing to ally with them and playing right into their hands, especially when her conquest only noticeably improves her own situation, and possibly Hubert and Jeritza’s now that they have a license to kill, torture, etc. for an entire continent. All of the other Eagles go on to inherit what they would have inherited anyway, and all the reforms mentioned in the CF endings are the same or better in endings for the other routes only your side didn’t start a war and complete a genocide to bring those about.

[owainbradys]

The good switcheroo

I'm getting close to the endgame of the Silver Snow route, the only one I have left to play all the routes in 3H, and though I'm enjoying it quite a bit more than I expected to, I couldn't help but notice some rather odd structural problems it has, that I haven't seen anyone talk about before, especially as it concerns the similarities it shares with the Verdant Wind route. I think those two should have been differentiated more to benefit them both in the end.

If you don't want spoilers for VW and SS stop reading here.

At the end of Silver Snow, after Those Who Slither in the Dark have been dealt with, Rhea spills the beans about herself and Byleth's birth, going into even deeper detail than she did in VW, as she reveals the human experimentation side of how she created the previous failed vessels for her mother... and then she goes mad with her uncontrollable power in dragon form and has to be defeated

That... didn't really naturally come out of the route's progression much at all, and moreover it was very sudden... it reminded me of how Nemesis was introduced as a threat in Verdant Wind.

...And then it hit me: Wouldn't both routes benefit from having their final bosses swapped?

Nemesis does have a lot more to do with Rhea's story, both from thematic and personal standpoints, and Claude's speech in the final battle makes a lot more sense if he's talking to someone who really did metaphorically want to "wall off" Fódlan from outside influence! Not only that, but it would also give more payoff to Claude wanting to uncover the Church's secrets during White Clouds.

Claude and Byleth pulling off a joint scheme to fell Rhea would also echo the ending of Crimson Flower, where the same happens to Edelgard and Byleth, which helps to highlight their bond and fulfill Claude's ambitions in one fell swoop.

Rhea and Byleth teaming up to defeat a literal monster from Rhea's past would also be a rather apt and neat allegory for Fódlan's past and present reconciling to make a better future, and it would also give an opportunity for Rhea to atone for her, let's say mishandling, of history. It would turn the lonely and grim defeat of Nemesis at the Tailtean Plains into a triumphant, joint affair.

Good endings still need good setup, so I also started thinking about the earlier points of divergence and I think I have something.

In Verdant Wind, after Rhea is retrieved from Enbarr, she would need to rest longer to recover from her wounds, so she would not join Claude's army's raid of Shambhala. By consequence of not coming face to face with the Archbishop, an ancestral foe of his kind, Thales still believes her dead and thus doesn't take the drastic measures he took in the actual game, to trap the army under Shambhala's rubble through the Javelins of Light.

Returning victorious from dealing with TWSitD, a recovered Rhea is grateful towards them for dealing with it. She then asks what they plan to do with the future and... let's say she's less than thrilled with Claude's desire to go over her decisions and authority to change Fódlan's relationship with other countries. It is still her beloved mother's country, after all.

An argument is born, similar to how fed up Claude is with her lies in game and when he requires her to come clean, it escalates as they back and forth and she becomes enraged. Seteth and Flayn try to calm her down, and she then turns to Byleth who, being Claude's teacher through and through, has two dialogue options:

A) Fully stand by Claude's ideals

B) Ask her to calm down and understand why his goals benefit Fódlan

Broken by one more perceived betrayal from those she thought she could trust, Rhea succumbs to draconic degeneration and has to be slain.

On the flipside, for Silver Snow, Rhea endures her captivity in Enbarr due to an increased fortitude and trust in Byleth, who sided with her instead of with their own House Leader. She is more sure they have survived and that they'll come to rescue her.

After Edelgard dies, Rhea thus takes less time to heal after being freed and decides to join the fray against TWSitD. She would then become a playable unit for the first time for the last two chapters, which would also make her somewhat a Gotoh archetype, as well as making it easier to build an A Support with her.

Going with Byleth to Shambhala, her presence in the battlefield makes Thales realize that, even if he's killed, he can take all his enemies down with him, and he employs the city's self destruct mechanism, but due to being with her full strength, Rhea is able to save everyone as The Immaculate One without being fatally injured herself.

The destruction of Shambhala, however, is what triggers the return of Nemesis, warped further and sealed by TWSitD's experiments.

Catching wind of this, Byleth, Rhea and the Resistance Army clash with Nemesis and the revived forms of the 10 Elites. Though revived Nemesis is stronger, he is taken down by Byleth and Rhea attacking together, his solitary blade being unable to stop both of theirs, and a new future is set for Fódlan, as well as for the Nabatean survivors, as the people of Fódlan are then able to understand that, while Rhea might have erred in rewriting history, she still showed up with a willingness to protect them in the end.

Thoughts?

[randomnameless]

I’m still thinking about how bonkers that “askhually Rhea knew secret passages to get into the imperial palace!” plotpoint was, how it makes a crapton of sense and how it recontextualises her 5 stars resort stay in that very same palace -

Rhea knows paths and issues forgotten to time, Hubert said the plans don’t even have them (when Supreme Leader mentions those issues had been sealed hundred of years ago?) and while Supreme Leader acknowledges the Empire and the Church worked together in the past, she seems to imply it’s odd, to her, that Rhea knows about those issues, like is she still unaware Rhea is the same Seiros who worked with Willy years ago? Or she’s just surprised Rhea’s memory is that good?

But it also reveals Rhea always knew, despite parting with the Empire 1086 years ago, how to get in and out of the castle easily, without being seen - which is 1/ sad, because if she ever heard Supreme Leader and her mystery sibs were experimented upon, she could have intervened 2/ telling about her 5 years stay in her 5 stars resort -> she knows how to get out of Enbarr unseen, so the only reason why Rhea didn’t break out of her prison in all paths bar Tru Piss is not that she didn’t know how to get out of the place, but she couldn’t (unless they used Cornelia’s magical jail, but Rhea can still turn in a giant dragon! Maybe they tickled her feet too much and she was left unable to transform?).

Still, it’d be odd for Rhea to have created those issues/access back then, if she was pretty much welcome in the imperial palace, so maybe those paths and passages weren’t meant to be used to get in the palace, but to get out of the palace - like secret escape routes in Enbarr was ever attacked ?

Coupled to the, at least, 2 forts Rhea and Willy built (Myrddin and Merceus) this makes me thing WoH!Rhea, before fighting in the war proper (or during the war) was preoccuped with protecting her homebase - the army can advance, but Adrestia must still have defences to fight against people who would attack them if the main army was defeated, or was short-circuited and the imperial palace was attacked.

So while Rhea was, per her words in VW “clinging to her desperate desire for revenge”*, she nonetheless wanted to protect and defend her human allies. Was it only because they couldn’t be used as fodder if they died? Idk, but I don’t think so.

But for a Rhea who’s still traumatized by Zanado being painted in red with blood, I’d say she would do her whatever she could to preserve Enbarr from the same fate - thus the secret passages to escape the palace if anything goes wrong and Fort Merceus not being able to hold enemies. 

*there’s at least one incoherence in her story regarding her “I wandered around gathering the scattered nabateans”, iirc Seteth and Rhea mention about how they reunited in Enbarr, but in Flayn’s story to Ignatz, she says Rhea came to them while they were living a secluded life (thus, not in Enbarr!). Or maybe Rhea met them in Rhodos, then told them she made her base in Enbarr and the “reunion” scene Cichol mentions is when he later moved out there with his family, when Rhea returned to Enbarr earlier?

we will never know lol

[randomnameless]

I knew I found an instance where Constance mentionned the “Progenitor God” and it wasn’t just a fragment of my imagination!

It’s against Aelfie!

This is what comes of meddling with a sacred tool commissioned by the progenitor god.

(even if in the Teaspoon translation, JP!Constance wonders what the eff are those artifacts :  So this is the power of the chalice… These holy artifacts created by the progenitor god, what in the world are they…)

And I found it very strange because the only persons who call Sothis by the epithet “Progenitor God” are, afair, Nabateans!

Otherwise it’s Goddess or whatever slurs Agarthans think of, but Constance, a human, talks about the “Progenitor God” as Seteth, Rhea or even Flayn do!

Now, even stranger, is this part :

Ah, yes, the chalice of legend! My father mentioned it to me a very long time ago.

The Chalice is an old and forgotten legend by everyone - save for the Apostles themselves, but given how the precedent Rite of Rising ended up, Rhea asked them not to pass down their blood (lel) and imo, most likely, not to reveal what the frick was that Rite, something Constance’s dad, who’s obviously not Saint Noa, does as if he was talking about her grandma’s canelloni’s recipe.

So, we have House Nuvelle that is privy to secrets no one bar Nabateans are privy (or high ranking members of the Church), calls the Goddess as Nabateans do... and we’re told she descends from Saint Noa.

Now, Nopes highlights how House Nuvelle had super mages and was “favoured” by the Emperor :

Long ago, part of this area belonged to House Nuvelle. They produced a number of distinguished mages, and were even favored by the emperor. Word has it they were utterly obliterated in the wake of the Dagda and Brigid War. I suppose no matter how prosperous a house is, they all fall to ruin eventually.  

(from a kingdom general in chapter 11)

Now bar the eternal question of “are they distinguished because they are super talented thanks to their hardwork, crest or both”, I earlier had a HC about the Apostles being Nabateans, and if Chevalier and Aubin gave their crests by, uh, blood transfusion/ingestion, we don’t know jack shit about Timotheos, but Noa most likely had her own kids - members of House Nuvelle - and did more than just, “have” them, since she told them what was the Rite of Rising, what was the Chalice and most importantly, told them Sothis was the “Progenitor God”.

Constance being 1/7394th nabatean confirmed

[randomnameless]

Do you think Rhea like Dimi hears the voices of all her siblings and her mother? She does mention hearing her during SS' final boss.

:'(

Canon wise, yep, she hears Worst Mom's voice at the end of SS, which makes one wonder why Worst Mom didn't talk to her earlier, but w/c.

Now, about the relics, it's all headcanon land - and if you believe there is still something belonging to the OG Nabatean inside or... not !

I personally think they do, there's still something from the OG Nabatean (thanks to the Crest Stone) inside but whether to say they're conscious or not...

I was thinking of something akin to Envy's philosopher stone in FMA, when he morphs in his... true form and Edwards sees what he thinks are the remains of "people" (are they people??) talking to him.

The Nabatean's soul is still here, but in perpetual agony and with a lot of negative feelings (hurt, pain, betrayal, anger, etc etc).

They are both "dead" but also "still there", are they conscious and able to hold a normal conversation? I don't think so.

They are just here to suffer and be used as tools - this is what Relics are! - so Rhea wouldn't be able to talk to them.

However, her presence (or any Nabatean) "calms" them, because they can feel one of their kind who is still "fine" is around.

A living Nabatean pouring a bit of magic (their own) in a relic can somehow soothe and relieve some stress the Nabatean-turned relic has, but it inevitably stops after a bit of time, and they resume their "life" of hurting.

It is a well-known secret that whenever a relic goes haywire (user uses it too much and it starts to "twitch"/"shine" a lot, continuing this way would ultimately lead to a Momo) a Relic User has to bring the Relic ASAP to Garreg Mach and to the Archbishop, who is supposed to perform some sort of ceremony to make it "return to normal".

Rhea did the "maintenance" on Catherine's relic twice during her tenure as a "Holy Knight" of the CoS, and Rodrigue brought his shield once.

Crested Bearers, when their relic start to go haywire, experience a lot of very vivid nightmares, they cannot talk to the "Nabatean" but at times hear "someone" screaming in agony.

Dimitri, because the world hates him, had a very vivid nightmare where he experienced being torn apart by people wearing masks similar to the ones who instigated Duscur. When asked about his missing eye by Annette after the War, he tells her he already felt like losing every member of his body more than once.

(the dream is odd, he feels like he is towering some people, but then he falls, and there is green liquid everywhere, and he tries to reach out for something only to find out he has no arms anymore, and the people behind the masks laugh and call him a beast, and then they start to hack him in pieces)

Now, it is a tradition (or a sekrit vow, like Willy's sekrit journal) that is passed down from all users of a Relic to other users of Relic that over reliance on a Relic will "eat away at your soul" and also "bring the bearer closer to the land of the dead" - but no matter what, when the "terrible nightmares" about the land of the dead appear, they shall never reveal the contents of said nightmares to any member of the Church of Seiros.

Some people surmised that it is because those nightmares, and the Relics not being super rad actually goes against the Creed of the Church -

But actually, it was a vow made by the descendants of the Elites - who knew what Relics were after the War of Heroes - out of gratitude for Seiros sparing them, they resolved to never tell her about her brethrens's last moments.

The reason for that vow was forgotten, but it still remains anchored in Faerghus's noble houses (and as for the Alliance, some still believe in that old vow, while some dgaf about it anymore but since they are not religious they write it off as superstitious nonsense).

[randomnameless]

I know it’s a general consensus that CF did Edel dirty when the reason why the Empire was in a stalemate during the 5 years gap was because “Sensei is missing :’( “

But can we also talk about Seteth - who has to wait for Judith (or Rodrigue) to give him the “Rhea was caught by Imperial soldiers maybe you should start looking in the Empire to find her” despite everything in the game pointing at the obvious “the empire caught her”?

In SS, when he finds Rhea he’s all :

Seteth: Rhea... I am overjoyed that you are unharmed. I could not stand losing another of our kind.

Well, as overjoyed as static models can be.

Seteth loves his daughter and (loves?) cares about his sister, because he doesn’t want to lose another Nabatean. But the flimsy “i’ve been looking everywhere for 5 years to find her but our church spies couldn’t find her” kind of sucks.

Like, not that complicated but :

Dubious people steal Flayn’s blood knowing she’s part lizard --> Dubious people work with/for the Flame Emperor

Dubious people experiment on humans using crest stones to turn them into monsters --> they work with/for the Flame Emperor

The douchebag who captured Flayn because she has lizard blood and helped Solon’s science project in Remire works for/with the Flame Emperor

Same Douchebag helped zealots to steal Sothis’ bones and/or pillage Rhea’s tomb --> something something Flame Emperor

Flame Emperor is revealed to be Edelgard --> something fishy is happening in the Empire

Edelgard becomes Emperor and declares war on the Church

Edelgard uses Beasts, Emile, and regular Imperial Soldiers in the Battle of Garreg Mach

Rhea turns in her alternate form to fend off invaders and buy time for the church people to escape

Rhea goes missing

Where could she be? Where should we start looking?

She was totally chilling in Dagda?

If only the answer was not “the imperial palace”!

Like, this is the number 1 location anyone would suppose she’d be kept in! Or Enbarr/getting intel from the Empire should be the first priority!

But no, Seteth needs Judith, 5 years later, to know where Rhea is or that “Rhea was dragged off by Imperial soldiers” and maybe it’s time to storm Enbarr?

Wow, dude. So yep, Macuil was the strategist.

If this is not a contrived as fuck reason not to have sent a stealth squad to infiltrate the castle, rescue Rhea before Billy wakes up, I don’t know what it is.

I know Seteth and the remaining Church peeps don’t have the manpower to tackle on Edel and her Army head-on.

But, idk, Leif didn’t have manpower to rescue Nanna and Mareeta in FE5 and yet he still tried. Or how Roy rescued Lilina without the army he has at the end of FE6, before going against Zephiel.

We could had a Billy-less route, or even Gaiden if you still want Billy to be important to the greater plot, where Seteth, Flayn, Catherine, Shamir, Alois, and, idk, Cyril infiltrate the palace, discover a secret lopto temple and after crossing a fow room with craptons of warp tiles find Rhea’s cell, but they can’t force it, they need Sothis’ power to do so so they vow to return with the professor and then the game resumes.

(you could even get a glimpse at the 11 deadlords in the sleeping pods, each one guarding a room, and the Nemesis one is positioned just in front of Rhea’s cell but their sprite is a bit green-ish)

We could even had the Church stealth squad receive help from Manu and her Mittelfrank friends showing that not everyone in the Empire was “make Adrestia Great Again and Down with Religion!” instead of telling us through a NPC. (make Manu have a pass white magic spell, idk, something echoing her “talent and beauty isn’t enough to be a diva” and her alternate Assassin!Manu we see in AM if she wasn’t recruited)

Idk, anything but “well i tried to look for you in Remire, Rhodos and even Zanado but I totally didn’t think the guys who attacked us and know about our secret could have caught you! sry”

“Adrestia also invaded Briggid, you know? I’ve spent 3 years looking for you there”

But of course, if the only source of intel were the local church branches, knowing how Adrestia ejected its own a few centuries earlier wasn’t helping!

[randomnameless]

WTF again with Reptile lore

A lot of things happened with the BL gang that I'm going to comment later but...

I didn't caught it in the earlier SS run, but there are holy weapons (silver ones) who restore hp and are tied to crests belonging to the Elites...

With the upcoming DLC and new relics being teased it makes the red canyon event more mysterious than the "10 dudes came in, slaughtered dragons and partied with Nemesis until Seiros wrecked their shit with that Wilhelm nerd who wasn't part of the 10 dudes"

About the sword of Moralta (and the axe of ukonvasara) :

They're silver holy weapons, like the Saint's relics, they glow blue and restore hp.

I suppose they're the same kind of weapon, made by dragons. So at some point, Moralta (a nabatean blacksmith?) made a weapon tied to the nabatean who would later be turned into the fraldarius crest, or Moralta was the dragon turned into the fraldarius crest.

Or, Moralta, the Nabatean, blood bonded with Fraldarius for some reason, gave him a sword as a token of friendship or something like that, but when Fraldarius returned to meet his pal Moralta he turned his shoulder blade in a shiny shield.

This last theory is contradicted in canon, when Rhea says that the crests weren't given by the goddess or her children to humans (but then, the Saint's crests were).

If we follow the Saint's weapons pattern then the Silver holy weapons are most likely the weapons who belonged to the original Nabatean.

So it's extra... Disturbing to see Felix fighting with the remains of said Nabatean on his back but with its weapon in hand.

But who was Moralta? The blacksmith or the nabatean using the sword? Seteth's Lance isn't called like this, but we have the sword/shield of Seiros. Unless Rhea’s a secret blacksmith or the weapons are named for their wielders. But going here means that Seteth is using Assal's weapon, most likely because Assal is dead - but then this lance is tied to his own blood...

So either Seteth/Cichol is actually named Assal, either I'm thinking too much about it or Rhea named her weapons after herself in her quest to destroy Nemesis.

And uncle Turtle is such a troll that he names his weapon the Inexhaustible when it has limited uses

I suddenly remember that Birdie gives us the sword of Begalta - Moralta and Begalta were the twin blacksmiths of Zanado??

Fig it, I'm out

Oh well, I'm sure everything will be revealed in the Jeritza DLC or in Anna's paralogue