"You're saying Jennifer and Niddy's souls got pulled into the game world?"
Lilith, who'd been possessing Jennifer's body for months, was familiar with video games but still sounded shocked.
"Yeah. Their bodies aren't responding at all, but their characters in the game are moving on their own. I think their souls are inside the game characters," Roy explained.
"What's the spatial anchor?"
"I'm guessing it's the game disc, but I'm not sure what caused them to get sucked into the game world. Ashley and I weren't affected."
Lilith paused, thinking it over on the other end of the call.
"Was there anything particularly weird during the game?"
"Weird? Well, if I had to pick something, the game forced us to watch this strange prayer text twice."
"The prayer? Do you remember what it said?"
"Of course."
With Roy's memory stat at 85, he could recall pretty much anything after one glance.
"Roy, find somewhere away from the disc and recite the prayer to me," Lilith instructed.
"You think the prayer's the problem?"
"Yeah, but I need to hear it to be sure."
So, Roy left Ashley to watch over Jennifer and Niddy's bodies and went to the bathroom to recite the prayer to Lilith.
"Lilith, get anything from that?"
"It's definitely a spell—a ritual spell," Lilith said, quickly explaining its meaning. "If you hear it twice while playing the game, your soul gets pulled into another dimension for a ritual."
"So the game itself is some kind of ritual?"
"I think so, but I need to check it out in person to know for sure."
"Lilith, get over here then!"
There was a brief hesitation on Lilith's end. She had to keep an eye on Dorothy.
Dorothy was currently plagued by bad luck. Left alone, she could end up in some irreversible disaster.
But since Roy was calling the shots, Lilith made up her mind.
"I'll give Dorothy some instructions and head to you right away."
The call ended, and Roy returned to the living room.
Jennifer and Niddy's bodies were still motionless, while in the game, their characters were facing the second boss.
After Dr. Stoke finished chanting a spell, a massive flower bud bloomed beside him, revealing a naked woman inside.
Nicole: Mrs. Stoke?
Jack: Nicole, you know her?
Nicole: No! But there's a portrait of Mrs. Stoke in the mansion's hall. Didn't you see it?
Jack: Alright, I didn't notice the paintings. Looks like we're in big trouble now!
The woman in the bud opened her eyes, glaring at the two protagonists with malice. Let's call her the Flower Demon.
Dr. Stoke: Good girl, take care of them!
With that, Dr. Stoke turned and pressed a button behind her, revealing a hidden passage.
So, the "flower thief" the gardener mentioned might not be Annie, the blonde maid—it could be Dr. Stoke himself.
But Jennifer and Niddy didn't have time to ponder this. The cutscene ended, and they regained control, signaling the start of the boss fight.
A vine whipped toward them, aiming to catch them off guard.
Luckily, both reacted quickly, dodging the attack.
The game world didn't restrict their movements like a controller would. Unlike the limited "walk or run" mechanics, dodging here relied on their real reflexes.
"Open fire!" Niddy shouted.
They unloaded on the Flower Demon, but the results were underwhelming.
Their police revolvers were .38 caliber—pretty weak. The bullets only left small holes in the Flower Demon. Even emptying their ammo wouldn't take her down.
"Damn it! These revolvers are too weak!" Niddy cursed.
"Should we try using the roses against her?" Jennifer suggested.
"Are you kidding? We're gonna fight a giant flower with a tiny rose?"
It sounded ridiculous—using a rose to defeat a Flower Demon.
But since this was a game, there had to be a way to beat the boss in this room.
Niddy scanned the area and spotted some fertilizer bags in the distance.
A lot of fertilizers are flammable, which gave her an idea.
"Jennifer, I found some fertilizer. Maybe we can burn the Flower Demon. Cover me!"
"I'll try!"
Jennifer fired at the Flower Demon, trying to draw its attention.
It worked somewhat—the Flower Demon focused on Jennifer, chipping away at her health bar.
Niddy sprinted to the fertilizer bags and checked them.
"Damn! It's urea!" she groaned.
"What's wrong with urea?" Jennifer called, still shooting.
"It's not flammable on its own. We need an ignition source or an open flame!"
In the real world, Niddy might've dismantled a bullet for its primer, but in the game, that wasn't an option.
"Ignition? Flame?" Jennifer glanced around and noticed a male corpse in the corner. "Niddy, there's a guy's body over there. I'll check it out. Cover me!"
"On it!"
Niddy aimed for the Flower Demon's head, landing every shot and pulling its aggro.
The game's boss aggro system was simple: whoever attacked it got targeted.
Jennifer made it to the corpse easily, triggering an investigation prompt and finding a lighter.
"Niddy, I got a lighter!"
Now it was clear what to do.
They took turns shooting to keep the Flower Demon's attention, moving urea bags under it and opening them. Finally, they lit the pile with the lighter.
The game cut to a cinematic. The urea ignited quickly, flames spreading from the Flower Demon's base to its whole body. It let out a piercing scream.
The cutscene was short, just showing the boss entering a new phase.
Niddy couldn't help but gripe. "Urea burns way slower than that. Looks more like we lit solid alcohol!"
"Forget that. The Flower Demon's still alive. We might need to keep shooting!" Jennifer said.
Jennifer fired, each shot now blasting bigger holes, likely because the fire weakened the boss.
Niddy, with her sharper aim, targeted the head, eventually blowing it off.
But as a plant-based creature, losing its head didn't kill the Flower Demon.
After burning through most of their ammo, they finally took it down.
The dead Flower Demon dropped a key, likely for unlocking a door deeper in the mansion.
As expected, the greenhouse's secret passage was locked from the inside. Jennifer and Niddy had to head back to the mansion.
They didn't rush off, though, searching the greenhouse first and grabbing some supplies.
Entering the mansion through a side door, they found it eerily dark, like the power was out. They had to rely on flashlights.
Their current area was one previously locked, so they'd need to detour to reach the study.
Soon, they encountered more dried-up corpses. These were easy to deal with, but with supplies running low, they avoided fighting unless the corpses blocked a critical path.
They made it back to the main hall. The study was just upstairs.
But then, they spotted a figure crouched on the floor, sobbing softly. Judging by the clothes, it was the blonde maid, Annie.
As they approached, a cutscene triggered.
Jack: Annie? What's wrong?
The maid kept crying, her eerie sobs chilling in the dark.
Nicole, being a woman, stepped forward to comfort her but froze when she saw Annie's hollow eyes streaming with blood tears.
Nicole: What's going on?
Her voice seemed to startle Annie, who shot to her feet, glaring at Jack and Nicole with a venomous look.
Annie: Why? Why do you have to meddle?!
The cutscene ended, and Jennifer and Niddy regained control.
Annie lunged at them, her sharp claws flashing with terrifying speed.
Jennifer reacted fast, throwing a rose to freeze Annie in place. Niddy followed up, shooting her.
But the shot Annie vanished.
Another cutscene kicked in.
Jack: What the hell? How'd Annie just disappear?
Nicole: Something must've happened in the mansion while we were in the greenhouse.
Jack: This damn case just keeps getting worse!
Nicole: Tough or not, it's our job to solve it, right?
The brief cutscene ended, and Jennifer and Niddy, back in control, headed upstairs to the study.
Inside, they were shocked to find a body hanging—Annie, who'd apparently hanged herself.
Jack: Annie? She… hanged herself? Then who was that we just saw?
Nicole: A ghost?
Jack: Let's cut her down.
In the cutscene, Jack lowered Annie's body and examined it.
Jack: She's been dead for a while. The body's stiff as a board.
Nicole: Maybe she hanged herself after we went to the greenhouse. So that was her ghost we saw?
Jack: There's a note here—looks like a suicide letter.
Nicole: What's it say?
Jack: "I'm tired of this life." Guess the mansion's secrets weren't tied to Annie. We suspected her before.
Nicole: May she rest in peace.
Nicole reached to close Annie's eyes, then searched for the stone disc to unlock the tower.
The moment she did, Annie's eyes snapped open.
The cutscene hinted her ghost might reappear, making Jennifer and Niddy extra cautious.
The stone disc was on a bookshelf. They dragged a ladder over and climbed up to grab it, but as they did, Annie's corpse stood up.
Annie: Why do you have to meddle?!
With their prior experience, Niddy threw a rose to freeze Annie, and Jennifer shot her.
Annie vanished again.
Jack: Damn it! We're not gonna have to deal with her a third time, are we? I'm sick of this!
Nicole: It's obvious we will. Brace yourself.
Jennifer stashed the stone disc in her inventory—somehow, the massive thing only took one slot.
Per the game's flow, they needed to head to the garden's tower, but Niddy wasn't convinced it'd be that simple.
They checked the garden's main gate—boarded shut, as expected. The greenhouse door was blocked too.
"I knew it! The tower's obviously the final stage, but we've only beaten two bosses. No way we're getting to the final boss this fast," Niddy said.
"So where do we go? We've opened every door in the mansion," Jennifer replied.
Niddy rubbed her chin, thinking. "Wait! There's one room we haven't checked!"
"Which one?"
"Mrs. Stoke's room!"
Jennifer's eyes lit up. She got it.
They'd only glanced at Mrs. Stoke's room from the doorway earlier, seeing her desiccated corpse before heading back to confront Dr. Stoke.
"Let's go then."
Clearing out a few corpses along the way, they reached Mrs. Stoke's room. The corpse was still on the bed.
So, the Flower Demon from the greenhouse, which resembled Mrs. Stoke, wasn't her—maybe it was grown from her blood.
Nicole: Think Mrs. Stoke will get up like the other corpses?
Jack: Who knows? Stay sharp.
They found a key in the room. Mrs. Stoke's corpse stayed still—she was definitely dead.
Niddy examined the key. "Jennifer, I've seen the pattern on this key in the servants' quarters!"
"So we need to go there to open a door?"
"Pretty sure. Let's move."
Along the way, they dealt with more corpses and ran into Annie's ghost again.
Her ghost seemed to pop up randomly around the mansion, each encounter costing a rose. Their rose supply was dwindling fast.
In the servants' quarters, they found the right room. The key unlocked a door revealing an elevator.
The mansion was only two floors, so the elevator clearly went underground.
It still worked, so Jennifer and Niddy stepped in and activated it.
As it descended, something strange happened in the game.
Niddy