The shadow always appears after the dungeon, yeah
As for "How many people are trying to control the MC?". We actually talked about this a while ago when we were overanalyzing the lore, but IIRC the grand list of people lying, manipulating or otherwise conspiring with the MC include... pretty much everyone minus John
- Vaila appears to have lied about pretty much every single thing she ever told the MC, given how it generally doesn't line up with what everyone else says.
- Dominic is a sussy baka who's also pretending to be on Vaila's side
- Maven and Noo have their own separate political conflict and use the MC for it
- Caroline is also using him to investigate. It's not really clear how much about what she says is a lie but her goal appears genuine.
- Bonnie is up to shady shit
- The school cult has its own weird shit going on and it's not clear how the MC fits into it (though they appear to despise succubi)
- Vhidna, Ayleen and Miki don't appear to be lying per se but y'know, they definitely don't mind keeping a slave around
- The mindsink shows at least two different entities trying to take over the MC.
- Then there's that other secret character with CGs who seems somehow linked to mindcontrol and the MC going insane... though that part of the plot isn't very clear (at least to me and so far)
I've said this before but the plot is ridiculously complex for a porn game. I love it like that, but even in non-porn standards this is approaching Kojima levels of insanity.
Just a few comments, keep in mind that I wasn't present when y'all were "overanalyzing the lore":
1. It is possible that Vaila is lying, but also that she herself is not as knowledgeable as we might be lead to believe. When teaching you fire magic, Noo says that whoever made us is either not telling us everything or doesn't know everything. Also, remember that Vaila was years late with her info on Jalie, as seen in the cutscene in the tower where she talks to Miki
2.What clues has Dom given to having his own interests, separate from Vaila's? Except for trying to free Miki
3.Who is Caroline? I don't remember any character by that name
4.Concerning Vhidna and Ayleen, both of them are in contact with characters we know nothing about. Vhidna knows some nameless character, as was seen in the cutscene where the MC arrives for the first time at Ayleen's library and Ayleen also knows 2 other characters, one named Svelva that she mistakes us for at first and yet another nameless character
5.What's the mindsink?
6.Whatsecret character are you referring to?
And to end this post, concerning the ridiculously complex plot, I definitely don't think that is by design. That is to say, I don't think Teary sat down and mapped out a Kojima style plot in its entirety before putting pen to paper, or in this case, code to game. What I assume happened is: Teary wanted to make a femdom game, ala Tower of Trample or Domina, where the MC grinds battles, farms XP and levels up until they can move on to the next opponent, and as development went on, more and more story elements were added. Unless Teary is a good writer and is able to bring everything together in the end in a cogent, coherent and satisfying way, I'd not get my hopes up concerning the quality of the story in the finished product. That's not to say that it won't be cool or fun to follow mind you, but more so that it'll feel disjointed/incoherent/schizophrenic, as different story elements are brought up, developed a bit and then forgotten
