Arc II, Chapter 12: Stranger Still

Arc II, Chapter 12: Stranger Still

She was the Researcher Paragon, a Scholar who focused on study and learning. She had been that in real life once too, apparently, and paid the price.

“Who is the Insider,” Kimberly asked.

As usual, when Constance answered, she took a moment. At first, I thought she was thinking, but that wasn’t it. She was reading her script. Deciding what she could or should say.

“Someone who has gone through painstaking effort to ensure their identity never gets brought to light,” she answered. She checked her watch. “We should arrive soon. We can speak again after for a time, assuming I survive, just remember that Paragons can only speak to you candidly when we are in a player role.”

“Wait,” I said. “Can’t we just take a minute to debrief? I have so many questions.”

“And the pursuit of the answers to those questions will take you down the path you are meant to go. Carousel delights in your confusion but it also delights watching you solve its mysteries. Remember that this entity collected thousands of souls and enslaved them as actors to tell its story for whatever purpose. Every thread in Carousel’s history is laced with intrigue both real and manufactured. Don’t shortchange it, Film Buff. It wants you to experience its story firsthand and it has laid all manner of traps for those unwilling to play along.”

As she spoke, it was with an intensity far greater than the words themselves relayed. This was a deeply personal warning.

“Normally at this point,” she said as we turned onto a side street that ran up a hill, “Players would have very little knowledge of what is in store. We would have spent this walk talking about the time capsule, or the events that happened thirty years ago, events that my script has strangely little information about. I also have scant information about the events that are about to transpire, which is not ordinary. Be prepared.”

“Why do you all keep talking like we are marching toward our deaths?” Isaac said. “Is that what we’re doing?”

No one answered him because he was right.

“Already?” he asked. “Wait. You’re not serious, right? About what you said back at the B&B. We don’t die. We have to...”

He was panicking. We had been under the calming effects of some unnamed tropes while we were at the Celebration, but now they were wearing off. This was a potential issue. If he refused to enter the location of the upcoming storyline, that spelled disaster. New players had to play through a storyline.

None of my friends had any tropes that might calm him down.

“You can’t really expect us to walk into a place where we... where we are going to die,” he said, pressing his temples like he was trying to force the red wallpaper out of his mind and make everything normal again.

“Isaac,” Cassie said. “Isaac. We will be okay. Please calm down. We only have each other. We have to do this to get Andrew back. We can get through this like everything else. Family.”

“Cassie,” he answered, “They’re talking about dying. I just can’t...”

Kimberly pulled my arm, and we left them and walked up the road to let Cassie try to calm Isaac down.

“Let her talk him down,” Kimberly said.

I nodded. As inconvenient as his emotions were, I understood them. He was definitely going to die. We all were. Over and over.

In the distance, I could see lights on a large building at the peak of the hill we were climbing. It was obscured by trees, but the glow of the lights showed through.

Then I saw something.

It wasn’t with my eyes, it was on the red wallpaper. It was an Omen. I hadn’t seen one since Carousel reset, but there it was.

My I don’t like it here... trope didn’t let me down. I saw a poster of an old board game sitting on a table. It was viewed from a low angle. In the distance, there was a window out of focus with something on the other side, something humanoid. The title was spread out over the top.

The Ten-Second Game

The poster was modern. My trope told me that the difficulty was “This is scaring me.” That was one of the harder levels.

“Constance?” I asked, “This part of the story is like the Tutorial, right? That’s what the Vets called it. Does it rise to our level?”The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.

She glanced in the direction I was, and then back at me, “The entire Throughline, both canon and otherwise, is difficult. And on top of that... Carousel may have taken your little maneuver as a challenge.”

The high difficulty wasn’t the only concerning part. The other thing I noticed was that the Omen trigger was, “Playing the Ten Second Game” but then it read, “Overridden by Player Trope.”

“No,” Mandy said. “Supposed to rain in a few days though.”

She began clicking through things on her computer. A frown grew on her face. “I’m sorry to say, we just got booked up. Just now. I guess there was a miscommunication somewhere.”

“We walked all the way out here and you don’t even have a room?” Kimberly asked.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the case,” the woman said.

“Don’t worry babe,” Antoine said to Kimberly with a laugh, “I can carry you. I run twice that distance on the football field and there I carried the whole team.”

His Mettle and Hustle jumped a couple of points due to Gym Rat.

“Well try growing a human in your own body,” Kimberly responded, with her hands cradling her stomach. “Then we can compare who’s tougher.”

Her Grit rose by one point. She didn’t have a lot of time to set up Pregnancy Reveal when she used Looks Don’t Last to guarantee her early death. She was getting a head start.

“Are you sure there isn’t anywhere for us to stay?” Dina asked. I had half expected her to wander off already.

“I can ask the other clerk,” Mandy said, “But I don’t think so.”

She got on the phone and pressed some buttons to turn on some kind of speakerphone. The phone began to ring.

“Umm... Office, “the voice on the other end said. I recognized the voice. It was Bobby. His Last-Minute Casting trope had assigned him a role as an employee of the hotel.

“Hey, Bobby,” Mandy said. “I just wanted to know if all of the guests had checked in yet. The computer’s on the fritz.”

“Yep. All checked in,” Bobby responded.

“That’s what I thought,” Mandy said. “Looks like we overbooked. We have a group here without a place to stay.”

“Huh,” Bobby said. “That’s a different question. All of our guests showed, that’s what I thought you were asking, but one group did check out early. Barely even had time to touch the room. The old Geist Suite. Whatever the new owner is calling it now that it’s renovated.”

“Oh,” Mandy said. She looked at the board behind her, “The keys are right here. Thank you, Bobby. Has housekeeping turned it out yet?”

“I think they’re doing it soon,” Bobby answered. “Lupita's out, I’ll do it myself. With Cindy. Cindy and I will do it.”

“Thanks,” Mandy said. “I’ll just go ahead and change the room on your reservation. You can head on out there.”

She pulled out a laminated map and showed us where our suite was. I could see that there were lots of rooms connected to it. It would have been expensive if we had to pay in money instead of blood.

It was a distance away, on the far side of the hill away from the other rooms. It was also markedly larger than the others.

As we left, Constance handed Antoine a business card. “My number is on the back. Call if you need anything at all. I’m a bit of a night owl. I’m going to head home, light my fireplace, and read a chapter before bed. I hope to see you at the Centennial tomorrow.”

I thought about asking if she wanted someone to walk her home out of instinct, but I knew that wouldn’t work out.

She trudged back down the hill toward her house.

Off-Screen.

“So what now?” Cassie asked.

“Party Phase. Or a modified version of it,” I said, thinking of how the Stranger’s trope had extended that part of the story.

It was time to figure out why we had been brought there.