hopefully this isn't TOO weird

When in your drunken haze, you have quite the out of body experience / dream.  You find yourself observing this dream from the eyes of another person - he’s taller than you, broader shouldered, and has a decently length, bushy beard.  He also lacks a tail - which luckily doesn’t influence your sense of balance, cause this is a dream; you’re inside the body of a human.  Things aren’t entirely alien to you though - the weapon he has slung over his shoulder reminds you of your own (his is much...more ‘first menny’ or high tech).  The scenery is also familiar to you - a thick jungle with sporadic hills, and a wide river that runs westward toward the ocean.  These lands are clearly near your homeland, the Imperial capital in particular.

Or at least, the capital should be here.  Instead you simply see a sea of dense jungle.  The man (you know his name is William Ryans - you’re not sure how) seems to be enjoying the hiking trip.  He’s being followed by the fire cat spirit thing - which is pretty big, about the size of a tiger.  The cat usually is stuck to Erica like glue, but on occasion it likes to follow William on his scouting trips.  He doesn’t have a damn clue why, and the thing always keeps a safe distance so he’s not sure it even is fond of him, but he welcomes the fact it scares off any would-be predators.  William is a soldier and hunter by trade, but he’s not looking to die in a stupid fight against some random wild boar.

Your access to William’s memories isn’t very great.  It’s mostly what he’s thinking at the moment.  And in this case, he’s somewhat annoyed.  Erica didn’t explain to him why it might be important to follow these layline things out of the city, just that he should chart out where their origins are.  Sure, he gets they are important and the fact so many of them intersect under Chicago is noteworthy, but why does HE gotta do this?  With so few staff on hand, sending the lone person with combat experience out seems boneheaded to him.  He looks down at the red-gemmed necklace around his neck.  “Well sorry Morrigan - guess Erica was worried if she sent you out with a drone on your own, you might get antsy and torch half the jungle.”

A voice comes from the gem with a laugh.  “Hey!  I got more self restraint than that!  I’d probably cut down a few trees with bullets...but my sentry drones don’t have flame throwers on them.  Well, least not anymore after the first accident.  Oops.”

William chortles.  “Least you’ll get some recon done for your records.  Don’t think you’ll get much first hand combat experience thanks to Kho’Tah,” he points at the fire tiger.  “Anything you can tell me about what the landscape, though?”

Morrigan: “I detect several heat signatures dead east of here - looks like there’s a basin, and...a structure?  Weird, there’s no indigenous population here that we know of.  It’s sitting atop the source of the layline, to boot.”

William hrms and fiddles with his beard.  He takes out a flask and takes a swig - its booze, a very licorice tasting one.  “Well, hopefully we don’t have to pump them full of lead.  Like Erica and the labrats always say, and Minerva always say, this is a peaceful operation!”

William and Morrigan banter for a while as they hike.  She’s as curious as a young child - lots of ‘oh what’s that’ and ‘oooooh that’s pretty.’  She doesn’t seem to have any of the malice and EVILNESS she reeks of now.  They speak to one another in a way that feels very familiar to you - not too different than how siblings would talk to one another.  Eventually the trio gets down to the basin, and see a stone made...Japanese shrine?  That’s the word that William would use for it at least.  “What the hell, Morrigan is this Erica’s idea of a joke?  You better not be in on this.”

“N-no William I wouldn’t do that to you...maybe one of the spirit animals did this?”  William looks at Kho’Tah.  The big cat tilts its head in a coy manner.

WIlliam sighs.  “YOU made that, didn’t ya?  On top of the lay line source?”  He does a hike around the basin and assesses this must be the remains of an ancient volcano, turned natural hot springs somehow.  William has been watching Kho’Tah closely, and based on the tigers body language feels pretty confident this is its doing.  “Well you clearly did this for a reason and you’re basically taunting me - Morrigan if this furball gets me killed I give you FULL PERMISSION to fire a molten laser of fuck you at this location.  Erica’s will be damned.”

Morrigan laughs - “Okay, William!  I don’t think it’ll come to that though - pretty sure that cat is more fond of you than you are of it.”

William approaches the structure, weapon drawn and ready - it’s a very stereotypical looking shinto pavilion, including torii gates.  The entire thing is made of charred stone - you’ve seen this before, once.  At the heart of the Imperial palace, there’s a pavillion / park area with this very shrine.  It’s also where you can see Kho’Tah’s ever-charing bones.

It’s clear to him that something is alive here.  He keeps whipping around just in time to catch a shifting shadow.  “You catch that, Morrigan?”  “Barely - they are quick, and its too bright to rely on thermal vision.  I can’t tell if they are bipedal or quadrupedal.  I think there’s five or six of them?”  William very methodically scans this area, full operator mode - moving precisely and tactfully to minimize his blind spots.  He eventually clears the area, except for the shrine proper.  He hmmms and asks Morrigan “They are in there, right?  I don’t want to bust out my thermal goggles, just tell me.”  “Yup...I dunno what they are, but they look humanoid.  Also more curious than hostile.  Maybe you don’t gotta shoot them!”

William looks back at the tiger, which is just sort of chillin’ behind him.  “Well, if he’s calm about it…”  He lowers his gun and proceeds toward the shrine.  He pokes his head in and sees a barren room occupied by six creatures.  At first glance they look human, but when you look closer you notice how beastile they are - almost like something out of one of those Chinese cartoons Erica is so fond of, but more...feral than cutesy.  They are clearly female and eyeing this STRANGER from a safe distance.

As William is about to say something, Kho’Tah jumps on him from behind and merges into him.  His consciousness is flooded by another entity, ah hell he thinks.  This was one of the chief fears the non-psychics in this crew were worried about - that these spirit animals might possess someone who isn’t Erica at some point.  And William clearly fell for this trap.  As the possession begins, some thoughts flood his head from the animal
Kho’Tah, like the others, is obsessed with Erica.  It loves her like a mother and like many of the others, wished to create life in her image.  Kho’Tah succeeded at that, but unlike its more clever siblings (like Hlifrun and Oki in particular) didn’t consider the ability for his creations to fend for themselves and reproduce.
Of the humans, Kho’Tah respects William the second most.   He’s a capable warrior and hunter, and has an air of arrogance and assertiveness about him.  These are traits that Kho’Tah holds high, and wishes to pass down.

“Oh son of a bitch you can’t possibly mean to - Morrigan, close your eyes, earmuffs!”  The possession takes hold and the vision time skips. It resumes with William climbing out of the basin.  His clothing is tattered, his hairs a mess, and he’s drenched in sweat.  Kho’Tah is following at his side.  William looks at the tiger.  “You smug son of a bitch, your realize what you’ve done, right?  Ugh I’m going to be the laughing stock of the rest of the crew if your fucking gambit just worked.  Don’t look at me like ‘oh like you didn’t enjoy it and wouldn’t mind going back’, you cat bastard.  Ugh you’ve put me down a dark path...wait, is the orca one of you planning to do the same thing with - oh Jesus.  Erica, and Morrigan, can never know of this, you hear??? This secret is with US...and...them,” he nods back a the shrine.  “And possibly the marine biologist.”

And then you wake up.