Yeah I tracked down a German wiki that went so far in depth about her I think they were straight up inventing some lore, but they didn't say how she died
so my biggest thread for Stuff from here onward is Preservation because we never found out anything else about them other than that Robor and Alayla worked for them and were hunted down after they were like, NOPE
like post game people are still wearing their regulators but at least this far I've taken it more as comfort / having some leftover soul cells / habit rather than anything else.
Anyway ... I loved a lot of a lot of things here. My real crying was on.... the first area of last zone. (There were tearing ups at other points but my crying on first run was there)
My big sadness was that they went in a direction with Sphene that was very close to Meteion, both visually and emotionally. The similar-yet-different attempt I think detracted from making her stand on her own. But overall, I did get pulled in emotionally
the final piece re Sphene, that the one we see was adjusted by Preservation, made a lot of what they were doing make sense (and the Meteion similarities stronger)
overall. I was given a LOT of wondeful new characters to keep me engaged. I love all expansions, but this is the first one since stormblood that gave me so many side-but-important characters (in sheer numbers) that I adore. (Endwalker is complicated because it had an amazing side cast but the best of them had all been previously introduced)
the last trial took one wipe and I died ... a few more times than I should have (that's on me). Healer lb3 was used twice. I did go in as smn and was rezzing consistently, too
the fact that Koana was explicitly, Estinien and Alphinaud helped me get Vrtra here had me going all, OT3 OT3 OT3 (don't at me, yes, I know.)
key was created by azem in the days between zodiark and the sundering in an attempt for an alternative to rejoining
after it was used for the 5th calamity exodus, it ended up on the unknown shard
preservation is ascians prepping the shard for a rejoining, hence they could operate the key