[ she walks over but stays just standing nearby. ]

... It's something like what happened last time, you said?

It's... sort of, yeah. He was the first person in our group to get possessed by a monster and kill someone.

[ frowns. ]

It was someone from the same world as him then, come to think of it, and in a way, that's what Essek was this time. [ ... ] Don't know what the hell he was talking about at the end, though, about colors or whatever.

It has something to do with one of the games—Chroma? But I don't really get it and... that wasn't where he came from.

Bad luck, it happening twice. And first both times. [ but she just sounds tired and like that's really, really unsurprising to her. ]

[ chroma...? squints. ]

Whose was that again...?

[ ... ]

I guess they're already getting us involved in stuff that came from other games before, so it probably doesn't matter if it's where he came from or not. Though I don't know how they would have gotten whatever was affecting people there to do the same here... I don't even want to think about them bringing our stupid monsters over here.

Just Roxana.

[ all alone from her game... ]

It's a re-creation. Or an echo. It doesn't have to be the real thing, necessarily, just a convincing copy. [ she just talks as if she understands how this works when she doesn't. ] But that means it would be good to know more about the monsters.

Oh... I guess that explains why I hadn't heard about it, I haven't really spoken to her yet.

[ aside from arguing over voting ethics or whatever that was in trial today ig. ]

Do you think it's just something else mimicking those effects, rather than coming from the original source? Like, maybe they could hypnotize someone into thinking they were possessed when they really weren't, or something.

She's nice.

[ is. she? anyway alex gives that some genuine thought. ]

... If whatever or whoever can bring us here, that proves that they could potentially be tapping into the original source. It's possible. But I think that it being some kind of shadow is more likely. I'm not sure I'd go to hypnotism, though. I'd expect it to be a little more... real than that.

I don't want it to be more real than that...

[ ugh. ]

I've got all the monsters written down in a note on my phone somewhere, I guess I can look for that later and give everyone in the lounge a heads up.

At a point, what's real and fake doesn't matter if it has the same impact on us.

That would be helpful. And also, uh, what it means to have? be? a monster? Is it possession too, or...? [ she doesn't know anything. if someone told her i am just stupid and now she has to be too as consequence. ]

Yeah, don't I know it...

[ his entire life being fiction makes it really hard to properly gauge this stuff, actually. ]

Mostly...? When they summoned us there, each of us had our soul partially fused or something with a monster's in the process. And normally they were pretty much dormant, but if they got activated — which I think happened because of some ritual shit the cult was doing — then they'd make you kill people and force you to keep quiet about it.

...At least until they felt too ganged-up on and snapped and went way deeper into monster mode.

[ well that description is really making her just. pause. ]

... So—definitely another kind of possession to look out for.

Yeah. There was also this thing that happened sometimes where they'd summon a chimera of two different monsters, and then the people with both of those monsters would get possessed and work together.

That was... the more unique part of it, it sounds like. So I feel like if they're going to use our situation for a premise at some point, they'll probably use the worst variation of it and go for that.

That part is definitely unique. But the basics of it... are familiar.

[ another pause, realizing how many ways there are to misinterpret that into something more helpful than it actually is. ]

Not from a game. Just from—before. Ghosts soaking into hosts to hurt people.

The basics of the possession thing in general, you mean, or like you had cases where two ghosts were in one person at the same time?

Kind of both, but... More than two. It was 97 ghosts at a time. It had been so long. Their individual identities were kind of... faded.

Holy shit.

They'd make it easier to lean in to negative emotions. Anger and resentment would take over and the possessed would lash out.

Though—they usually hurt the person they were possessing, if anyone.

Jeez... That does sound sort of similar though, yeah.

[ at least he thinks it does?? he's kind of just making inferences and assumptions since it never happened to him personally. ]

I don't know if it's a hard rule of possession. Maybe just a frequent commonality.

Yeah, I figure there are some cases where it's just like, a straight-up one-to-one thing where whoever or whatever is doing the possessing completely replaces the personality of the host.

[ like when maya channels people, though he has no idea that's actually a thing! anyway i feel like this must have happened at some point in his old 60s/80s anime in a stupid way ]

But it does seem like just influencing rather than overwriting is more common as far as these things go.

I've seen moments of one-to-one. But I'm a lot more familiar with it being more of a nudge.

I don't know if that's any better, though.

Probably worse that way, since you can't be sure how much of it was really you.

Yeah. That's true.

It's nicer to have something to blame besides yourself. And given that we know people in these situations just go somewhere else to deal with the aftermath alone...

Yeah... better to have less to feel guilty about.

Guilt never does anyone any favors.