Carousel as a town was strangely accommodating. Every set came with lodgings of some kind. Some were better than others, but it was quite funny to watch as Sidney’s father grabbed four cots from the basement. Her stepmom gathered nice linens for us to sleep with. They gave us big comfortable pillows and set us up around the house with our own little accommodations.

Maybe the Martin’s home actually was stocked like a hotel back in their world, but I suspected that was a Carousel thing.

I ended up in the den area, which was like the living room, but it showed more signs of being lived in. Antoine and Kimberly were allowed to sleep in the guest room, which was hilarious given Sidney had told her parents that we were her fellow high school students. Her parents just went along with it, not noticing any of the oddness of letting strangers sleep in your house all morning and into the afternoon.

I had given my sleeping trope to Antoine, so it took me a while to actually fall unconscious.

I was awoken five or six hours later by a kid around twelve playing video games on the television in the den.

He noticed I was awake soon enough.

“You slept forever,” the kid said. “You were asleep when I left for school.”

He was still wearing his backpack as he played what appeared to be some other universe’s version of a NES.

“Sorry about that. What time is it?” I asked.

“Two-thirty,” he said. “We got out of school early so we could help set up for the Centennial, but I didn’t sign up for anything.”

I could see he was an NPC, level three. His name was Taylor Martin.

“What are you playing?” I asked.

“Beast of the Dark,” he replied. No further explanation was offered. I remembered being a kid and being wholly captivated by video games and movies. Heck, even as an adult…

I got up from the cot and did my best to fold the blanket I had been given. After I had accomplished a passable effort, I went to leave the den and took one last look at Taylor. He had no idea what kind of world he was in. Life must have been so simple.

I made my way out into the living room. Dina and Sidney were there discussing their children. Dina was almost acting like a normal person for a moment. Talking about her son’s favorite games and taking him to SeaWorld. Sidney talked about her daughter and how much she missed her.

I waited for a lull in the conversation before I said, “So, Taylor is your brother?”

Sidney nodded. “Half-brother. He didn’t wake you up, did he?”

“No,” I lied.

She could tell I wanted to know more about how this all worked.

“Taylor didn’t ever get any older than that in my world. He was killed. The storylines based on my life won’t tell you that. He just doesn’t return for the next movie. I think I’m lucky in that. He never dies, not even Off-Screen. Never ages. Perks of being a Paragon, I guess.”

The mood in the room somehow got more depressing.

“Are the others still asleep?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Sidney answered. “Except Bobby. He talked my dad into taking him to go check on some dogs from another storyline or something.”

Those dogs from Permanent Vacancy had captured Bobby’s attention pretty strongly.

“Is that safe?” I asked.

“For now,” Sidney said. “They should be back soon.”

I nodded. “We need to get going.”

“The Centennial awaits,” Dina said. She almost sounded optimistic.

I went to check on the others. The Hughes siblings had been given places to sleep at the ends of hallways upstairs. That wasn’t to say their accommodations were bad. Those halls were large and homey. It was a nice house. A nice neighborhood.

I peeked down the hall to check if Cassie was up.

She was. She sat on her cot and stared at the ground. She had not quite recovered from her death.

We made eye contact. I gave a quick smile as an apology for disturbing her.

“Isaac’s still asleep,” she said. “Unconscious.”

She was using her The Anguish trope to monitor the team’s health statuses.

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll be leaving soon. I’ll come get you.”

She nodded.

“Do we have to do another storyline?” she asked.

Adeline had kept a policy of never giving new players false hope. I didn’t know if that was the best idea, but I didn’t know a better one.

“Yes,” I said.

She didn’t react to the news. She was clearly upset. I was supposed to do something to comfort her.

“Well, with your new trope tickets, you will have more than half my Plot Armor, which means I will be targeted before you. If that helps.”

“It doesn’t,” she said. “But thanks for trying.”

She waited a moment.

“What’s wrong with Antoine?” she asked.

“He’s under a lot of pressure,” I said. “He’s the only real fighter we have so it weighs on him.”

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“Does that affect Incapacitation?” she asked. “Because his Incapacitation status flickers sometimes. He woke up a few times last night.”

“Oh,” I said. “He… he got a fate worse than death a while ago. It messes with him sometimes. He’s handling it.”

“A fate worse than death?” she asked. The magnitude of death itself was weighing on her. Thinking of what could be worse than that brought a tear to her eye. “It must have been some fate. His status is flickering right now,” she said.

“They’re awake?” I asked. “Antoine and Kimberly?”

She nodded her head.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” I said. “Could you make sure Isaac is up?”

“Okay,” she said softly. She started digging through her luggage as I left. It must have been nice to have spare clothes.

I left her and Isaac upstairs and went to find the guest room.

----------------------------------------

When I found the right door, I knocked.

“Just a second,” Kimberly said.

“Is Antoine okay?” I asked. I wished I had Anna with me. She would know what to do.

“Just give us a second,” she said again.

I waited.

Eventually, Kimberly answered the door, dressed in clothes I hadn’t seen her in.

“Are those Sidney’s?” I asked, distracted.

“Yes,” she answered. “Antoine and I are still getting ready. We’ll be out in a bit.”

As she tried to shut the door, I put my foot in the way. “Is Antoine having problems?” I asked.

“He’s getting ready,” Kimberly said, at first trying to keep up some pretense, but then she said, “He’s having some….”

She gave up on the excuse.

I peered into the room. Antoine was buttoning up his cardigan.

“I’m alright,” he said as I looked at him. “Everything’s okay. Just a nightmare.”

His voice cracked.

There was a pause as I thought of what to say.

“Cassie said your Incapacitation status was going off,” I said.

“It’s just a nightmare,” he said, echoing the title of his best mental health trope, the one that was supposed to make his trauma go away.

It was a very powerful trope.

But we were not very powerful players. Not yet.

“Just tell me,” I said, unsure of the right words. “If there is a problem, I need to know. We, your team, need to know.”

Antoine considered what I had said. I could tell he was worried about something.

“Close the door,” he said softly.

I did as he asked, closing it behind me.

“I just get confused sometimes. My heart beats really fast,” he said. “It’s no big deal. Really.”

He had been trapped in an endless forest for decades, or at least was afflicted with the memories of it.

“Is it the forest from the ghost world?” I asked. I had worried that the forest from the last storyline might have reminded him of the Straggler’s Forest. “Is that what did it?”

Antoine shook his head and sat back on the bed. “No. That was fine. Actually breaking my leg really helped keep me in the moment, you know.” He stared into the distance for a moment, “In the nightmare… there was no pain or any other sensation except panic. It actually worked out.”

“We’re worried that Carousel is going to do something,” Kimberly said. She was crying. “I think it threat—”

“Don’t Kimberly. We don't need to raise alarm on account of me.”

“We need to tell him!” Kimberly said. “Maybe he’ll know what to do.”

“I am just give me a second,” Antoine said.

“Tell me what?” I asked.

Kimberly looked at Antoine, pleading with him with her eyes.

“Carousel's just taunting me,” Antoine said. “It’s fine. It's just trying to get under my skin. I would have told you if it was a big deal.”

“Show it to me,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “I don't think it's an actual threat.”

He drew a ticket out of his pocket and handed it to me. His hand was shaking as he did.

I grabbed it and read.

Play It Cool

Type: Perk/Healing

Archetype: Athlete

Aspect: Stud

Stat Used: Moxie

Even under the crushing weight of a horror movie, some characters never break. Maybe some people really are just that tough. Maybe.

With this trope equipped, the Player’s fear and mental trauma can be suppressed simply by acting like it doesn’t exist. This trope will not heal such issues permanently, but at least while in a storyline, and especially On-Screen, you’ll be cool, calm, and collected. The audience will think you’re a badass.

Until you can’t fake it anymore. When it all becomes too much. When they realize exactly how far gone you actually are, will they still trust you?

What will happen to everyone then?

When they find out the truth?

“Oh, damn,” I said. “What truth is this referring to?”

Carousel was needling him over his mental scars. The Insider should have picked a better way to show us Secret Lore.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I just get nightmares! That’s all.”

He had been using a trope he couldn’t use properly to try and undo serious problems. It wasn’t working well enough.

“We need to talk to the Paragons,” I said. “There has to be a way to deal with this. A day spa or a therapist. Dr. Mentes, maybe.”

Dr. Truman Mentes was a Paragon who had acted as a minor antagonist in the Subject of Inquiry storyline. My guess was that he was the Psychiatrist Paragon. That had to be the way to go.

“He won’t put enough points into Moxie to make his trope work properly,” Kimberly explained. “I try to tell him!”

The You were having a nightmare… trope used Moxie. If the user didn’t have enough of it, it didn’t work well.

“I can’t put all of my points into Moxie,” Antoine said. “I need to boost my physical stats so I can fight. Who else will? Once we get our Final Girl back things will be different.”

They continued arguing for a bit. I hadn’t really seen them argue since we had arrived. Maybe they just didn’t do it in public.

“Whatever we do,” I said, “We need to keep moving forward. It’s the Centennial. Something big is going to happen today. We need to make a plan and stick to it.”

Antoine nodded his head. “Exactly. We just keep grinding it out. This problem will take care of itself.”

Kimberly looked at him, clearly not satisfied with that idea.

“What we really need to do is get in a storyline,” Antoine said. “I can test this puppy out.” He grabbed the Play It Cool trope back from me and waved it.

He actually did look excited to try it out. If he could forget his problems during a storyline, that would make constant storylines a quick fix for him.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

“Meet up in the living room,” I said. “We’ll head out when Bobby gets back.”

~-~

I couldn’t imagine the pressure that Antoine was under. I was familiar with the pressure I was under. It was like a Grotesque perched on my shoulders. I preferred things when all I had to worry about was beating storylines.

I sat in the living room eating lasagna that Sidney’s stepmother made as I waited for everyone to gather back around.

Finally, we heard a car pull into the driveway. Bobby was back.

We all went outside to meet him. I half expected Bobby’s dogs to pile out of the car, but they didn’t. He was in a good mood though.

As soon as he met up with us in the driveway, he said, “So I was reading in the Atlas about background tropes. It said they are most effective on Wallflowers out of all Archetypes because their backgrounds are least likely to constrain the story. What we have to do is keep bringing up my history with animals. I think Carousel will give me some type of trope to let me bring the dogs around with us.”

I nodded and said, “Sounds good. My only worry was that he might not be happy if Carousel didn’t go along with his plan.

Sidney led us out of her neighborhood toward the Centennial.

It was a long walk where I contemplated what I had to accomplish and everything we had left to figure out.

Sidney and Dina talked casually about things I wasn’t interested in and Antoine was back to his tall, confident self. Or at least he was pretending.

The Hughes siblings were quiet, but that was to be expected.

“I have a line on my script that I have to say,” Sidney explained. “After I say it, I won’t be a player anymore. I’ll be an NPC. Any last questions before I say it? I don’t have much time.”

I had already asked her vaguely about help with trauma for Antoine. I even asked about Dr. Mentes. She told me that I would get my answer about medical help soon and not to worry. Somehow, I still managed to worry.

“If there are no more questions,” she said, as we arrived at the entrance to the Centennial grounds near town’s square.

She paused.

No one asked anything. We had asked her every manner of question already, at least the ones we could think of.

She looked at the ground and nodded her head.

“Then this is goodbye for now…” she hesitated but then called out loudly, “I’ll help you in any way I can. If you make it to the day of the Centennial, come find me. I can tell you more then.”