Alright so with the recent ghost event, Takakage went to investigate! This is a post about what he knows ICly and what we know OOCly at the current time. I compiled this for my own sanity so we know exactly how far we can extrapolate about this situation.

I'm still threading with the relevant parties, so this will be updated as the logs progress.

Handy Links in case you wanted to read anything.
+ Event ooc post
+ Elias-mod's post
+ Takakage's threads with: Elias | Hijikata | Rei

After Elias posted the log and they had that conversation, Takakage went to see Hijikata to talk to him. Unfortunately he died due to the chainsaw ghost so he only got to see Rei after the whole situation was cleared up.

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IC Knowledge
This is what Takakage knows at the present time. He will be telling this to his close CR (Sousei (and in turn Tenka), Patchouli, Edgeworth and Oz) , so if you want him to tell your character comment here or PP me so we can handwave an excuse for it to be done!

What is happening?

From Elias:

there's no way to tie and merge code like that unless there is a chimera present. Normally every one of you experiencing these sudden effects would be considered the chimera, but a virus that mutates itself by handicapping itself is unusual. So I'm assuming it's some kind of latent effect due to its presence and ultimate intended function. Never seen it work that way, but just because I haven't doesn't mean it isn't possible.

Basically, something is running around causing havoc with the characters' 'internal coding'.

Who did it?

From Elias:

I've never seen her before personally.
She probably doesn't exist, but Vidia's not exactly a liar or capable of hallucinating, either.

Her name is LILITH. Long blonde hair, has some kind of scythe-like weapon that doubles as a key. I think if you encountered her, you'd know it was her without a doubt.

(on whether Lilith is an AI)
that would be my guess. But she's a rogue presence in this place, if so. But, it's possible she could act like a chimera if she can already create a chimera virus on her own. In that case, it kind of makes sense. But that's a lot of assumptions to make.

(Vidia's opinion on Lilith)
She likes her a lot.
Says she's looking for someone.

That's all we know from Vidia, though. Vidia doesn't trust Elias to not wipe Lilith off the system.

The whole episode is not caused by a computer virus. The ghostly hauntings and everything are caused by actual spirits which have been set loose in the city.

From Lilith:

Supernatural? You refer to your altered code and its effects on you and the others. I am afraid I am not the one responsible that you seek. I merely took advantage of the investigation of the issue in order to get through undetected.

The one responsible is a much more malicious persona that admittedly has no place here.

It is not human or otherwise capable of reasoning. it has intentions to kill, but a spirit is not something that can be killed with traditional weaponry. Elias... does not take well to being responsible for ending a number of lives, even when they are data constructs.

Takakage is about 75% believing this, however. He doesn't really trust Lilith at this point. So he is still considering the possibility that there is some digital manipulation going on.


Chernobyl?

Chernobyl is a computer virus that destroys. She was quarantined in that abandoned reactor site that Hijikata and Rei and Saitou went to investigate.

From Elias:

Chernobyl was not 'released' intentionally. It was quarantined because she mutated and until I figure out how and by what, I couldn't rid the system of her. However, I sent some people to investigate a site that is having some supernatural activity that isn't right. Computer systems aren't supposed to be haunted. But, you can't just go there. You have to change grids. Chernobyl was quarantined on that grid. My gatekeeper went with them but if a quarantined virus or worm is in the area, he shouldn't be able to open any doors to release them while they're in distance of possibly slipping through with. I was an idiot, though, and didn't consider he was overprotective of the others. And somehow, I don't know, he managed to open a door. But, it's not that he opened it so much as it left him vulnerable to getting stabbed. Chernobyl is what we call a spacefiller. You can't detect her until it's too late because she can spread herself through infected files and items via small empty areas of code. It's like smuggling.

When you people get injured, some of your code falls away and leaves space. Starting to see the connection? [ stabbing things to use them as a way to get around security, basically. ]

Remember I said it's not sentient? It's not, it acts a very specific way. All it wants to do is destroy. It shouldn't have been, I don't know—picky? But it definitely targeted him in particular out of the three, which means something definitely doesn't want us getting into the deeper parts of this system space.

I developed ViViD and the current version of this system, but the system itself—it's not originally my work. I can build it from the code up, but there are parts I don't understand, I just know how to use it to do what it's supposed to do. It's complicated and pointless to explain right now, but just because CERES owns this place doesn't make us at fault for everything.

I mean, come on. Do you guys blame your emperor back home for all the bad stuff happening? We are an intergalactic private company. We've told you what we brought you here for, but that's far from the only thing us as a company has stock in. We have people who don't like us. They go out of their way to make life hard, even when we're not doing something for profit. Hell, there are even people who know we are trying to fix things and don't want us to do that.

(On Cybuddies)
It's possible you might be able to lure her out with one.

It's also possible you'll just attract Chernobyl and she kind of already shanked my gatekeeper. Not sure if I have too much guilt over that one to let you go.

Currently, Chernobyl is residing within Hijikata's body and is (presumably) controlled by Lilith. Lilith is 'riding' it for now. This knowledge will only be told to Sousei and Edgeworth.

Who is this Lilith lady?

So far, we know that she is an AI. She is one out of three Liliths (the current one), and is currently waiting to find the other ones. She was quarantined inside the abandoned reactor site alongside Chernobyl and took advantage of the chaos to escape.

Her name is Hrist.

What happened at the reactor site?

The small party of three went to investigate. Hijikata is the gatekeeper (he was given an object to change grids).

There's an abandoned reactor in sector 3 of the city, which is currently restricted access for us normally. I was asked to accompany the originally assigned, a woman named Kurosawa Rei, to this place. From what I was told, it seems like there have been strange disturbances and the like and Sergej was concerned about if it was actually spirits or if it was some weird type of what he called an 'echo'. Which, in explanation seemed to be some kind of string error he could fix.

Anyway, Kurosawa is a medium, so he sent her to figure out which of the two it was. She said there were definitely spirits of lingering people, but nothing hostile. Seemed like Sergej assumed the ghosts were victims of a terrorist attack a while back on the reactor. He actually did leave it at that and say that's all he needed but before we could leave this... thing that had followed us attacked. I split with the others to give them time to get out.

Stupid bitch is incredibly fast though and ran me through from behind. The next thing I know I'm back at the entrance of the reactor in a pool of blood.

Basically, Chernobyl attacked and hid away in the resultant empty 'code space' inside Hijikata. That was how Lilith and Chernobyl got out.

About the spirits?

So far this is knowledge given to me OOCly by Rei's player, since we haven't threaded the whole section out yet. I'll update this when we have.

There were three main ghosts Rei met, but she didn't have much dealings with them. Mostly they whispered things to her, and she assumed they were spirits of workers who just lingered on site. There was also a 4th that mostly just begged for help, so she kind of ignored it. Once further inside there were 3 presences that seemed to be with their group, but quiet. As it turns out those presences were their cybuddies. There was a 4th tailing them, but when it talked to them it came from all over and Rei couldn't actually see it. The actual spirit they came to find was around, but it's still up in the air if they encountered it or not.

Most of what I'm telling you is what the mod has informed me they'll find, since we haven't gotten to it just yet (gives a long hard look at holidays and holiday work hours)

So yeah. Ghostly ghosts. But where's the real, bad ghost? We just don't know.

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OOC Knowledge
This is what we know OOCly right now! Takakage doesn't know it definitely, though he might realize it in the future/somewhere down the logs that I'm threading.

This is mostly given to me by Seiko (Hijikata's player) and I've paraphrased it a little here.

Elias and Lilith are connected somehow. Lilith's personality and methods don't seem too hostile towards Elias right now. Elias used to be a hacker against CERES before actually working for it like he does now HMMM he also won't get rid of Lilith despite him claiming that he will, and Lilith is not afraid of him. Elias kind of lied and played up the situation in hopes someone would go look for her and find her (though at this point we don't know whether it's the current Lilith, or the other two 'inactive' ones).

Lilith apparently chose Hijikata to posses not just because of his gatekeeper status but because of his dedication and resolve for Chizuru - back when the game first opened (they had to handwave it because time constraints but) he went to Vincere because both in Zelien and back home where he last saw her she kind of was dying and so he made a deal with them to get Chizuru back. Which is how he got gatekeeper status. (He will be recruiting for this later on after the event) His job is Basically policing the system rather than the physical police/guard.

Lilith apparently has her own form she is just waiting for Hijikata to heal enough so that she can come out/regain her form/something like that. She's apparently a little sorry for running him through but only a little.

The other thing that was apparently Lilith's fault was that the three humans who went in all had cybuddies but they kinda changed shape/mutated/gained in power levels - this will be expanded on later as a plot that everyone can have in. They are probably meant to change in digital levels to assist them with getting through the levels. After this ghost event ends they will mutate back and won't change anymore until the plot point is available to everyone.

[TBC GREATLY AS WE KNOW MORE. THERE SHOULD BE MORE DETAILS COMING UP EVENTUALLY]

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This is all I have for now, great thanks to Seiko Kalyn and Elias-mod for giving us the side plot and info!

/keels over