Orochi walked around the table in the center of his private viewing booth, examining the 3-dimensional holographic projections in front of him. There were six -- one per quarter of the table, and two of equal size hovering next to each other at a suitable height above the rest. Four of them showed individual rooms, another showed a whole street, and the final one showed a birds-eye view of the entire city. In all of them, humans marked with glowing dots went about their daily activities.
Orochi shifted his attention to the one of a teenage girl in a cell. She was currently engaged in agitated conversation -- seemingly with herself. If it weren't for the context of this event, Orochi might have mistaken her for a madwoman.
However, Orochi wasn't the only one convinced that she was parasitized by a Participant. The glowing red dot hovering over her head, indicating that at least 10 Patrons thought she was a Participant, was proof of that. Now that it was a few days into the Story, the Patrons' favorite theory was that parasites with intellect were Participants, while parasites without intellect were not Participants. In fact, it was this human (was her name Cecily?) who had become the poster child of the theory.
Chuckling, Orochi pulled up the PAD Chat to see if there was anything worth noting.
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…
▻\\Silas-the-King//: I'm telling you! This girl's one. She just talked about skills but didn't know what they were, as if talking with someone who was trying to explain it to her.
▻▻Fairy.Queen.009: My compatriots and I are in agreement with you. The Participant could've chosen carryover skills as their Boon. If the parasitization reached at least 51%, then the host would have access to those skills; I was here last time this Story was part of the Games. This little feature caused quite the commotion then as well.
▻▻▻Forest_Liquor_Enthusiast1: I believe you, I believe you. Didn't need to write a whole essay about it.
▻▻IH8U: Alright, vote cast. But will it even matter? She's caught already; she gonna die
▻▻▻NoRe$pawnSuckas!: Fr man, fr.
▻ColmSaysStayHandsome: Soo-Ah at this address false alarm. Had an earbud in
▻▻GeekGoddess777: No, she's just put that in to fool others; she's not even on a call or anything.
▻▻ImpostaMogul: I cranked the volume to max, I hear a voice coming through the bud. Is she a spy or something??
▻Fairy.Queen.002: Looking for participant candidates. My friends and I are tag-teaming. Reply with individuals plz
▻▻APyromaniac: Jill Fox, just went batshit on an old dude here
▻▻GeekGoddess777: Randy Goodman, this address. He's talking to himself in his room
▻▻SheOfTheCleverScale: this human
▻▻ImpostaMogul: Quincy Ferris seems like one to me. He's here
▻▻IHeartChz: dont you get tired of posting this same thingevry 2 hours?? Should be bannned for spam
▻▻▻\\Silas-the-King//: You'll be the one getting banned again if you aren't careful, buddy
▻▻▻▻IHeartChz: And who'se fault is thaat?!?
▻▻▻▻▻\\Silas-the-King//: *innocent face*
▻▻▻▻▻▻IHeartChz: *sticks out tongue*
▻▻OrangeChicken: the clergyman here
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Amused, Orochi snorted at IHeartChz's antics. He'd been banned from the chat recently and only just gotten back, but he was acting out again? If he wasn't careful, like \\Silas-the-King// said, he'd lose chat privileges again rather quickly. Not that Orochi cared, though. He rather enjoyed the drama.
The Fairy.Queen.00# gang were very serious about the event, which was great in a different way. They were very proactive about seeking out and keeping tabs on potential participants. Rather than focusing on the competitive aspect of this Story, they seemed more inclined towards the teamwork side of things. They regularly posted in search of participant candidates, were thorough in their public analysis, and even had multiple people who'd been Patrons of this exact Story before.
Clicking on the link provided in APyromaniac's response to Fairy.Queen.002's post, Orochi replaced the display featuring Cecilia with a new scene. Instead of a cell, there was now an alleyway in which a woman in a knit sweater stood over the bloodied form of an old homeless guy. Flexing her red-soaked hands, the woman laughed. "Finally, I got the body!! Oh mother, aren't you proud of me??"
"Hm," Orochi said, cocking his head. "Well that's pretty self-explanatory, I think. Next."
After casting his vote, Orochi checked out Randy Goodman's home, the shortcut to which was provided by GeekGoddess777.
Inside a rather dingy apartment, cluttered by trash and miscellaneous abandoned home improvement projects, a poorly-groomed man perched on a tall stool, fingers steepled together. He was in the midst of a conversation with seemingly no one.
"... -upid thing."
"Come on, really? You didn't think I'd do this for free, did ya?"
"Sure, you can't. You're an alien, right? You gotta at least have some cool abilities you can share."
At that point, Orochi voted the human to be a participant. However, the conversation was intriguing, so he kept listening.
"Bruh, you're speaking in static. What's the big deal? Just tell me what it is."
"... You gotta be kidding."
"Describe what it does then."
After that, he quickly grew bored, so Orochi checked out a few other potential candidates. Some of them were easily probable Participants, but others weren't quite so straightforward. Either they were no longer doing whatever had made their recommender point them out, the recommendation was dubious to begin with, or it was so subtle it required long-time observation.
However, Orochi wasn't feeling very patient at the moment.
"Uggghhhh," Orochi groaned, plopping down into a reclined position on the couch. He flailed his eight limbs (four arms, two wings and two legs) about, curled his tail around the edge of the sofa and groaned loudly, throwing a bit of a tantrum.
"I just wanna meet her alreadyyyyyyyy! It's so boring when I can't tell which one she is!"
Of course, when it came to "her," he was speaking of Alesha. For some reason he couldn't explain, he'd been drawn to her ever since he noticed her behavior in the Werewolf Island Story -- so much so that he'd watched her stream almost exclusively during the Soul Harvest Story, even though she had lost her identity and been swallowed up by her role as Derek E. Remington. Then, he'd even kept track of her for months after her detainment and transformation into a sword in the Hero Summoning Story. Only once he'd assumed she was dead did he stop watching her stream. Of course, she'd then gone on to not only prove she wasn't dead but also stumbled upon the special End Condition of the Story -- as a Hero summoned by the Kingdom, she'd personally killed the King, thus cancelling the Summoning spell and ending the Story early.
He flicked his tail in annoyance, thumping the wall. He didn't understand why he was so fixated on her, nor did he notice how strange it was for him to have done so. All he knew was that, 3 days into the current Story, he found himself wondering how she was doing, wishing he could identify which parasite she was, and hoping she'd survive long enough for them to meet.
He'd begged Zorhellian for spoilers about the 5th Story. Apparently, each Patron would have an opportunity to sponsor a Participant -- however, the chaos demon had refused to say anything more about it.
If she lived until then, Orochi was determined he would sponsor her. Would she make it? He didn't know. All he knew was that he found her entertaining, so he wanted her to win, or at the very least survive.