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Okay. Going to do some thinking out loud, here. Wall of words warning.
So the way I see it, three Possible explanations for the Stratus / Cirrus problem.
First is that Cirrus became Stratus. He's telling the truth. Either by design or accident, he lost enough of humanity with the demons tearing off bits of his spirit to become a demon himself in death. And/or by assuming the burden for the pain and suffering his suicide caused Nim. It's possible the demons don't seek to be bound simply for personal power / influence / freedom / someone to torment. They might reproduce by convincing humans to give up enough of themselves to become like them.
Biggest problem with believing this is it depends almost entirely on lore Stratus provided us. We're letting him alibi himself, so to speak.
Second is that Stratus is playing us. A demon that spent years, if not a lifetime, with Cirrus would be capable of impersonating him. The angle is obvious. Get what you want by getting the girl to trust you. Can't say for certain what this nets him, since if he's lying to us, you can't be sure the lore he's provided is true, either. (If we assume the lore is true, he wants us to willingly bind to him and gain power consuming the others).
This assumes he's working against the others for his own ends. More elaborately, it's also possible they're all playing us, putting on a big coordinated act to manipulate us. In which case we're probably fucked. I think we have to hope for the best and assume evil being jerks and beings having selfish competing self interests is the case.
Third idea is a little weird. Cirrus and Stratus existed as separate entities- person and demon. And then they merged, somehow. A fail-safe to survive the suicide gambit- cram most / all of your remaining spirit into as weak or benign a donor-demon you can find, so the resulting entity is still mostly you and well intentioned. Kind of the grey option. Maybe he can be trusted, maybe not. Really depends how much of who / what ended up on top.
Okay. So now. Ho do the things we've seen, or that Stratus has said or done, support these theories?
>STRATUS and pentagrams in the pantry.
This could fit with 1 or 3.
Some kind of a ritual, conducted by Cirrus or the demons to convert the remnant of spirit to the named demon Stratus / merge the spirit into Stratus. An attempt at survival or further torment, depending on who did it. (He did promise to be with her, even in death).
Failing that, it's some kind of ward. Meant to keep Stratus trapped down there (he got out by defacing one pentagram?), or keep him out. If Cirrus tried to trap Stratus, that fits 2. If the other demons did, that doesn't tell us anything. They might compete with each other as they might compete with a persistent Cirrus.
>Stratus prevented us from making a hole the other demons could escape from
If he's telling the truth, he's trying to prevent the escape of the demons he died to trap.
If he's lying, the goal was either to trap the others here until he could consume them, or to trap us here with him / them.
>Ｄｅｍｏｎｓ ｈａｔｅ ｔｏ ｂｅ ｓｅｅｎ．
We really haven't seen evidence of that, yet. These might be special circumstances, but none of the four we've encountered seem to have had a problem being in our presence.
>The demons want to leave
This seems to be true, as the others were trying to bargain for an exit.
Unless they're all working together to play us, of course.
>Can't tell you something only Cirrus would know, demons have been with him for years.
Now, on the surface, this seems to support him being honest. A liar might have just taken the easy said something Cirrus once did to earn Nim's trust in the moment. But a smart liar might realize we would discover that on our own, or that one of the other demons might say something to screw that up. So the shrewd con would tell the the truth there too.
>The symbol
Both Nim and Stratus are shown with a symbol in their eyes- a dot or cross with six rays. In context, this symbol seems to represent the ability to see demons. Supports Stratus being Cirrus. ...unless demons can control or manipulate their shape.
>an inconstancy
Although one big question is why the others are letting Stratus have so much time with us. If they really wanted out, all they had to do was rush the room when we almost smashed the window. We would have panicked and done it. This suggests they either weren't aware of the opportunity, or they let it go because the chance to try and get us to bond while we're trapped is more important than escape for them.
And if Stratus really does still have all the powers he made deals with as Cirrus, that means if we bind with him, that puts the other demons in a terrible bargaining position. They can't offer what we already have. Similarly, it's not in their interests to let Stratus talk Nim into signing onto his plan to consume the others. They really should be trying to prevent both these outcomes.
Unfortunately, the simplest explanation for this is Stratus didn't really tell us what was in the other demon's interests. Second simplest is the other demons have their reasons, we just don't know enough yet.
...and that's everything I can think of to paranoia-question, at the moment, I think.
The important thing to do is to keep an eye out for any information that corroborates or conflicts with Stratus' accounts. Books or anything written down by Cirrus before he died (...assuming none of the demons can fake his handwriting), what the other demons say when we talk to them, any hard facts he gives us we can experimentally test.
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