Book Five, Chapter 56: Happened A-Pawn Again

Book Five, Chapter 56: Happened A-Pawn Again

Our next stop was Happened A-Pawn. I had hoped it would have some answers—or maybe even the omen for the Werewolf storyline itself—but that was a little too much to hope for.

"So, normally, it's a lot different than this," I said as the group filtered into the pawn shop, looking around at the mostly barren shelves.

Behind the counter stood a tall, bald, heavily muscled man named Tar Bellows, a Paragon, one of the Bruisers, as far as I understood it.

"I can only stock used goods. Business hasn't been good," he said, barely looking up from his newspaper.

Typically, the pawn shop was stocked with items related to recently run storylines, and since the reset, there hadn’t been many storylines, so the shelves were nearly empty. What little inventory remained included some gardening implements from The Final Straw, some astronaut food from Itch, and a bunch of other items that might have been from storylines in the fake tutorial. A very small amount had tropes attached.

Seriously, the place looked like it was either just opening or about to go out of business. When we had been here previously, there was a ton of stuff—props that could be used for various purposes, even before trope items existed.

There were all kinds of electronics and supplies and weapons.

"A lot of competition has been moving into my neighborhood," Tar said, pretending that our arrival wasn't the most exciting thing to happen to him in weeks. “Just can’t keep up.”

"What's going on?" Antoine asked. "Are you allowed to tell us?"

"Seems like everybody's in the business of selling specialty items these days," Tar replied. "Nobody needs to come to the pawn shop anymore."

And then I understood.

Until recently, most of the stores in Carousel only held props and survival supplies. Trope items didn't exist, so the pawn shop had been a kind of one-stop shop for most of the props someone could need. While the concept of having tropes that worked well with props—or that required props—existed, for the most part, the things you bought and brought into a storyline were for narrative purposes.

Or weapons. You always needed weapons. Weapons didn't need tropes to be useful. Still, the pawn shop’s supply of guns and knives had dwindled.

"We're gonna look around," Antoine said.

"Knock yourself out," Tar replied.

There were a few Omens for sale: a haunted cuckoo clock, or perhaps just an Omen for a haunting that happened to be a cuckoo clock; a glove with dried, sticky blood on it, which could not have been legal to sell even at a pawn shop and would throw you into a murder mystery; a golf ball that bewilderingly launched you into an alligator-based horror film (or maybe it was a crocodile—I couldn't tell from the poster).

But no werewolves.

A broken Silas, the mechanical showman, stood in the corner as he always did, doing nothing, as broken things usually do.

It didn’t take five minutes to cover the entire store. There was just nothing there. The camera used in The Final Straw was for sale, but it was so big and bulky that it wasn't ideal for me to use as a prop.

One thing the pawn shop did have, however, was tropes. The selection of tropes changed with every visit. Sometimes, there were powerful, game-changing tropes; other times, there weren’t.

This time, it seemed like a mixed bag.

I'm Your Biggest Fan | Film Buff | Fanatic | Savvy |Insight: The user obtains information about characters who are famous or celebrities by acting as a fan.

Hold the Door | Bruiser | Gentle Giant | Mettle |Action: When the user blockades or holds a door, it will hold for a time. Timer: Indicates how long the door will hold.

Out in Left Field | Athlete | Sport | Hustle |Buff: All projectile attacks using a bat or similar object to launch a projectile receive a buff.

Knock on Wood | Psychic | Exorcist | Moxie |Action: The user can "un-jinx" a pessimistic prediction, creating alternative outcomes or potentially debuffing the enemy's attempt to fulfill the prediction.

There Was One Thing | Detective | -- | Moxie |Insight: Witnesses of a crime will remember one unique detail that, if used effectively, will help solve the case or lead to a breakthrough.

Duck and Cover | Hysteric | Craven | Grit |Rule: The user will not be targeted in an all-out brawl as long as they stay low to the ground in a defensive position, allowing them to crawl safely.

Won’t Waste a Tear | Bruiser | Bully | Moxie |Rule: When the user bullies an ally set to be targeted by an enemy, the enemy will target the user instead.

Ramona didn't have enough money for the Hysteric trope, and I could tell she wasn't exactly thrilled about pretending to be scared—or actually being scared. But I still bought it for her. If you had to act scared and pathetic to survive, that was fine. Although, truthfully, I didn't see Ramona as the type to duck and cover or crawl away.

Dina picked up the Outsider trope because, while it seemed limited to human enemies, it was definitely valuable.

Meanwhile, Kimberly picked up Flag Them Down, which would probably work well for an Eye Candy, especially if she was using Looks Don’t Last.

All told, we spent 107 dollars at the pawn shop. And the tropes weren’t even the most valuable thing we picked up there.

"So, Tar," Kimberly said, "you seem to have your finger on the pulse of the Carousel."

"Nope," Tar said, "but go on."

"How might a player find the Omen for a storyline when all they know is where the monster's lair is?"

Tar thought for a moment.

"Gotta ask around," he said. "Aren't so many folks willing to speak candidly on that kind of thing. Aren't too many folks even allowed to."

"Do you know where any of those folks might be?" Kimberly asked, trying to seem sweet. I wasn’t sure that would work on Tar.

"There's a place you can go, and I'm not promising you'll find what you're looking for, but you will find something," Tar said. "Since you've never been there, you get a pass just once. The password is 'pyrite.' It's a place that's mostly peaceful, even in Carousel, but don't trust it too much. If there's gossip to be had about this storyline, you might be able to find it there. You always find something."

"A password?" Kimberly asked. "Is it like a club?"

"Don't let anyone there hear you say that. There's some dangerous folks that go there, but that don't mean the place is dangerous—not before closing time, that is. There's a laundromat over on the corner of Drawn and Quartered. An old place; hardly ever see anyone doing laundry in there. If you go to the back, there'll be a man standing by a door. You tell him that password, and he'll let you in."

"Sounds like a chicken-fighting ring," Isaac said.

Isaac was hardly the only person to comment on the day-to-day happenings at Carousel, yet I always seemed to remember his jokes.

"Well, if you're interested in fighting rings, there's probably someone there to steer you in the right direction. But this ain't that kind of place. This is a... peaceful sort of place. A place where all stripes go to have a drink, away from prying eyes and the law."

"So it's like a bar?" Antoine asked.

"It's like a bar," Tar said. "Although I think they use the word 'Speakeasy.' And you might want to be careful—they change the password and the meeting spot every once in a while, so use your wits. No Omens can go in the Speakeasy, but trouble has a way of finding a foolish man no matter where he goes." I couldn’t help but feel he was looking at Isaac when he said that.

"A Speakeasy?" I said. "The Atlas talks about a bar but not a Speakeasy—a place where a lot of players used to go where they wouldn’t fight."

"Well, it’s called the Speakeasy," Tar said.

I wasn't going to argue with him, but surely the bar I had read about in the Atlas couldn't be the same place as the Speakeasy. Because if it was a Speakeasy, that’s what they would call it—it’s such a cool word.

Either way, the Atlas did mention a place where players from competing groups were said to meet. In fact, by no coincidence, I was sure, the entry in the Atlas where we learned that the monster lair had werewolves had taken place at such a bar.

I had always assumed they were talking about different bars.

And maybe they were. Maybe the Speakeasy was one of Carousel's new changes, like trope items or the Throughline Tracker.

Or maybe the Speakeasy came into existence for our Omen search and had never existed before. Carousel could change things on the fly and we would never know it.

One thing I knew for certain was that we would be taking our Cry Baby doll wherever we went.

We had been given a lead, just like the last lead, and we would follow it wherever it led. The thread unravels in the direction you pull it, so we got to pulling.