CAKE GOD

takes place immediately before the part 1 wish, in a universe where Choi & Bronze were keeping an eye on Go Yeongeun and followed her to the station where she's just grabbed a very valuable box

Kim Soleum tries to distract them when they start arresting her - both bolt, the agents follow - and happen to trigger this darkness

Lee Jaheon, Lee Seonghae, and Baek Saheon are all on their way to or from an assignment via this particular station - not even to the same places - and just happen to also get caught up on account of knowing/having heard of everyone else who's just been sucked in

so: Choi, Bronze, KSE, GYE, BSH, LSH, LJH, and (somewhat secretly) Braun. plus all the versions that of those people that others have met but not realised are the same person - so Lee Kangheon and 130666 (LSH doesn't know those were Choi & KSE), Jisan Agent (BSH), Sekwang Agent (Bronze), and two Lord Cats (Choi & Bronze). also this isn't in the comic bc it was too clumsy to explain concisely, but there was also gonna be an extra Soleum - Mirror Soleum. bc i miss that guy.

also. bc GYE grabbed the box of wish potions. and both KSE and Braun know that's what's in that box. both their versions of her also have real functional wish potions. for a total of 6 wish potions in play. only 2 of which can actually leave the ghost story.

KSE has a small existential crisis over the wiki since while this darkness Was on the wiki, it was a new one - and there'd been excited discussion about it, specifically about how Daydream could use it to "recycle" employees and several people pitching exploration records for older characters whose characterisation had gotten a bit flat or inconsistent or just boring over the years as, retroactively, employees who had been replaced this way - including Viper.

... and, critically, nobody had actually written and submitted that yet, but it was being discussed. so KSE's also here like: shit. would BSH have gotten replaced here? is the Viper in the wiki genuinely, actually, just a polarised version of this guy i know? which also invites further existential questions about the nature of time and the universe (that are now at least partially answered by part 3 lol).

ALSO Choi's ghost story detection device is, somehow, (semi-)canon? which i absolutely did not remember until i reread a couple weeks ago. (KSE mentions that Braun was confident he wouldn't be detected by it)

the two Soleums in normal jackets are specifically the real one and Braun's version. which is almost identical except could potentially be persuaded to cohost again. (i would 100% have ended this fic with our POV Soleum being left behind, alone and terrified, unsure if he's really the real one or Braun's version. lol)

anyway there's a bunch more notes on this as well as an actual table for all 70+ resulting characters and a number of possibly fun combos, which is terrible.