“The Spirit of Vengeance requires a delicate touch,” Madam Celia said after we had gathered inside and settled in the downstairs living room. “You were supposed to use its magic once and then return the flask. My sister tells me that you have sent it after half the town and now the flask is missing?”

“I didn’t say it was missing,” Cassie said. “The guy who had it said he ditched it, but I don’t know.”

The conversation involved a little bit of backtracking. I got the feeling Carousel was just using it to provide editing options to help tell the story.

Madam Celia was apparently Cassie’s sister in this story. She was also an NPC, not a player, so there were no meta-chats. There were plenty of lore chats, though.

“The Spirit takes on the essence of that sin it avenges,” she said. “It chokes drowners with a watery grave, arsonists with ashes, and all manner of evil with evil in kind.”

We let that realization wash over us. We kind of figured that, but it was good for our characters to understand.

“Gale Zaragoza died in a supposed accident,” I said. “Hence the bad luck wafting every which way.”

Isaac cursed.

“What do we do?” Cassie said. “If the Spirit grows too strong, then the town is doomed. Not just the Geists. Everyone.”

“That is not our concern, sister,” Celia said. “We will be moving on. If what you say is true, then we have no further business here.”

Madam Celia was playing a shady evil psychic in this story, but she still stood with the poise and elegance she always had. She was not much of an actor. I could tell she felt it was beneath her.

Cassie and Celia bickered for a while longer until Celia said, “The Spirit needs a host. As long as it has one, it will only grow in power until it has completed its duty.”

“How do we take away its host?” I asked. “Can its body be killed?”

Celia paused and then said, “It will maintain authority over its host regardless of your actions. None of you have a better claim to the host than it does.”

There was a brief pause of confusion.

“You never told me about this. Who could have a claim to the host?” Cassie asked.

We were suddenly Off-Screen.

That was odd. Premature. Something else must have happened to take attention away from us. Normally, we would just wait for our turn again, but then Celia picked up her bags and started to leave.

She couldn’t speak out of character; even Off-Screen, she was limited. She turned to Cassia and then to each of us. She rested on Ramona, who had sat cross-armed in a chair for the entire scene, perplexed.

“Venture forth. Tiny victories. Tiny defeats. That is the way. Do not lose heart.”

Then she left.

~-~

When the door closed, Isaac said, “Wait, is that the lady who writes the fortunes for the fortune cookies? I need her autograph.”

Cassie shoved him. “Be serious.”

“Things are going pretty well, aren’t they?” Kimberly asked. She moved next to Antoine. They had not seen each other in weeks, though Antoine had reportedly been “taken off the board” for much of that time. He was really starting to withdraw inward, but he definitely perked up now that Kimberly was back around.

No one had seen Dina. The photo of her with pre-Die Cast Gale Zaragoza was the only clue we had that she existed. Cassie didn't even have her vitals on the red wallpaper. She was in the wind.

Bobby was in the kitchen looking through my shelves and fridge for food. There was a ton of it.

“I’ve been parking out on a farmer’s land out east,” Bobby said. “His wife makes me fresh-cooked meals, and they have a fenced-in place for the dogs. I just woke up there and never left. Still, I can’t say I’m not jealous of what you’ve got going on here.” He eyeballed the pseudo-modernist glass house my character lived in.

“Thanks,” I said.

Now that someone had commented on it, everyone piled on.

“Oh my god, Riley, this place is so tacky,” Kimberly laughed. It was hard to argue when she and Antoine were sitting in a chair that was shaped like a giant red hand.”

“Yeah, well, it’s home,” I said as I scooped some tortilla chips into a bowl and started making nachos.

We shared our accounts of the places we had been staying.

Ramona and I were in the glass house my tool of a character had designed, likely with his eyes closed.

Antoine slept in a spare room of a halfway house, and the woman who owned the place provided meals.

“There are multiple unmarked graves in the back,” he said. “There are spots where the grass grows greener, and the landlady always has a creepy smile.”

He concluded that she belonged to a horror story of her own and was just filling in for this one.

“Between that and seeing my daughter every other weekend, I’ve had work at a mill a couple of days, but mostly, I just jumped forward weeks at a time.”

He wasn’t under the scrutiny of a Geist. He didn’t need to be around all the time like I did. We all knew Carousel could put us in stasis or whatever it did. It had demonstrated that power multiple times. It had never done so to this extent, however.

Cassie slept in a travel trailer with her “sister.” They were fly-by-night psychics who sold magic elixirs and palm readings. Of course, if you asked correctly, they sold more than that.

“She used magic to make a man break up with his fiancé,” Cassie said. “It was a whole ordeal. The first thing we did in the story. I guess we aren’t nice little witches.”

“Carousel really has your number, huh?” Isaac said. He got punched.

Kimberly had a loft in the entertainment district with a tab at the bar downstairs paid for by Geist Productions. She wanted for nothing except Antoine. She could even plunder the costume department for clothes. She was happier than she had ever been. I couldn’t blame her. I would have taken clothes too if I had thought of it.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Most of their month had been uneventful if it happened at all. Except one thing. Future Mayor Roderick Gray. He had been in and out of Antoine, Cassie, and Isaac’s stories.

“Acted funny,” Cassie said. “Asked Celia about the flask, weird questions. He said he threw it away. He was lying. I didn’t need Moxie to tell me that. Said he was worried someone else might find it and use it. He wondered if that was something to worry about. Celia brushed him off.”

Isaac and Antoine reported similar encounters.

“He didn’t talk to me,” I said. “Wasn’t I a part of the cabal?”

“Maybe he saw the house and thought better than to come,” Isaac said.

They were just jealous.

“You’re just jealous,” I said.

“Wait,” Antoine said. “Where have you been staying, Isaac?”

Isaac had fixed himself a plate of nachos and salsa dip. He sat on the long fainting couch with a great big grin and started telling his tale.

“I’ve been crashing in a furniture store,” Isaac chuckled. “They've got snacks in the vending machine that I’ve been munching on. I guess I have Bobby’s food trope to thank for that.”

Cassie laughed. “You’ve been eating like, cheese puffs and beef jerky or what?”

“No. Wrapped subs and tuna and crackers. Fresh-cut fruit snacks. Cobb salad. This place has ridiculous snacks. It’s one of those machines with revolving plates, and you pick a plate, and it spins to your selection and opens up.”

“How has that been free?” Antoine asked. “Doesn’t a vending machine cost money?”

We had no money anymore.

“Nope,” Isaac said. “It’s broken. Customers have to ask us to unlock it, and then they pay at the register. All I have to do is write down what I take and pay the guy that fills it right from the till.”

“Wait, do you work at this furniture store?” I asked.

“Yep.” He started to laugh.

“You’ve been stealing from your character’s job?” Antoine asked.

Isaac smiled and shook his head. “Nah, I own the place.”

“Right,” Antoine said. “Your character’s family is rich?”

Isaac shoved a chip loaded with salsa into his mouth and said, “Yeah, well, no. They were. I started out living in this big house in a nice part of town about a month ago. Then, I got evicted by the sheriff, who is like a level thirty NPC, by the way.”

“You got evicted?” Antoine asked.

“They threw me out of the house like two days after the factory fire. On Screen and everything.”

I laughed at Isaac’s misfortune, but everyone did.

“So, how’d you get to the furniture store?” Antoine asked.

“Carousel sent me on this goose hunt looking for a place to stay. I had an address book. Is that what it’s called?” He grabbed a small black book from his pocket. “It listed everyone I know, but all the names except for three were crossed out, so I just started going down them one by one. The first one was an ex-girlfriend who was dating an accountant. Not interested in me anymore.”

“Because she wised up,” Cassie said.

“Cause she was a gold digger,” Isaac corrected. “Then my uncle, who just blamed me for the family money troubles and got madder and madder at me every time I asked about what happened because I never got the full story. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. Had to leave so he didn’t throttle me. I think he embezzled money from the company, but I didn’t pull that thread because it was late, and I was tired.”

“Then the furniture store?” Antoine asked.

“Then the furniture store,” Isaac said. “It was the last property my character owned. I had a key to the back door. I unlocked the back, went in, and slept on a giant bed.”

“Was this On-Screen?” I asked.

“Enough of it was,” Isaac confirmed. He ate another chip. “I figure Carousel is trying to make me look pitiable.”

“Did you wake up with shoppers walking around?” Kimberly asked.

Isaac laughed, “Yep. I swear, the place was closed down when I crawled in there. Windows were boarded up. Dust everywhere. Then I woke up. The guy there says, ‘Hey boss didn’t see you there,’ and I thought he meant ‘boss’ as in buddy or pal or sir, but was really calling me boss. I owned the place. I wake up and there are customers browsing around the store. So I put my pants on—”

“Oh no,” Cassie said with a chuckle.

“So I put my pants on, and the guy, my employee, an NPC named Earl, says that my character had fired the sales staff, and now it’s my job to sell the furniture,” Isaac said.

“Is that what you’ve been doing between scenes?” I asked. “You’ve been selling furniture?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s easy, too, because my Moxie beats their Moxie. Piece of cake.”

Isaac's story was funny, and just about everyone laughed—everyone except Ramona, of course. She was genuinely disturbed by the tale. It made sense. Carousel as a vengeful, evil hell was something you could wrap your head around. Carousel, purveyor of petty torments, was something else, something even harder to understand.

“Okay,” Antoine said. “So why were you running when I saw you?”

“Cops,” Isaac said.

“What did you do?” Cassie asked.

“I punched a guy. He wouldn’t leave me alone. Kept hounding me for money. He was a creditor. Called himself that constantly. Followed me day and night. Watched me in the furniture store. Wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“In front of customers?” I asked, acting appalled.

“Yeah,” Isaac admitted. “He got more and more aggressive until, eventually, I punched him. I tried smooth-talking him, but he was level 10, and it all must have been in Moxie or Savvy or something because I could not convince him to leave me alone. I punched him and knocked him out in one hit.”

“He definitely didn’t have any Grit if you knocked him out,” Antoine said.

“Must not have,” Isaac said solemnly. “A woman nearby called the police. Now, there’s a cop posted up outside the store. They’ve been looking for me for days. Haven’t gotten any sleep. I have no idea what’s happening.”

And there it was. The funny story of a ne'er-do-well heir down on his luck became part of the plot of a horror story.

“Jail?” Cassie exclaimed. “I saw a silhouette of someone hanging behind jail bars. I’ve been seeing so many premonitions. Dozens every day. I’m not sure if it’s in my head or what.”

That made some sense. Cassie could see premonitions of death, but the Die Cast was not bound to kill any particular character. Her premonitions changing rapidly was understandable.

So jail was Carousel’s plan, apparently. Put Isaac in jail, where he was a sitting duck. The Die Cast wouldn’t even have to get to him. Just get close enough for Isaac to die of bad luck.

“What do we do?” Cassie asked.

I closed my eyes while I thought things through. When I opened them again, everyone else was looking at me again.

“So we know what Carousel’s plans are, or at least one of the scenes it’s setting up,” I said. “Rebirth. The moment we learn that Future Mayor Roderick Gray has used the flask thing to target us. You said he was acting weird?”

“Suspicious,” Antoine said. “Yeah.”

“As you might expect, he’s turning on us. Thinks we might rat him out. The cops did get there too quickly with the factory fire. He’s going to get paranoid. When he sees Isaac go to jail, that’s going to be the moment that pushes him over the edge because he thinks you’ll talk for a reduced sentence. He sends the Die Cast after you. We learn that we are now being hunted. I’m sure he’ll find a way to tie Kimberly and Bobby in with it somehow. Just wait.”

I couldn’t know for sure, but it was my best guess. I had heard their descriptions of his behavior. Gray was a liability, and he saw all of us as liabilities, too.

“I can’t die in jail,” Isaac said. At first, I thought he was telling a joke, but he was serious. “I can’t deal with that. Trapped, nowhere to run. I—”

The jovial storyteller from moments ago was gone. He was suddenly facing his own mortality again.

“We may not want to prevent it completely,” I said.

“Carousel will just change plans,” Kimberly said. “Or escalate the danger.”

I nodded. Adeline had drilled that part into our heads during our stay at Dyer’s Lodge. Carousel was the type of place where you could win a battle and lose a war.

“So, sacrifice me?” Isaac said.

I put my hands up. “No,” I said. “This isn’t Second Blood. No one has to die. Or at least none of us do.”

I relayed to them my experience with the Die Cast and the straight razor.

I whipped the blade out of my pocket. “Carousel set me up with a kind of test. I could see the killer’s tropes, but I might die if I wasn’t careful. This is similar. We need the revelation that Gray has turned on us, that he is the guy pulling the strings. It’s so much easier to beat a person. If that is never revealed, we will have a much harder time winning.”

The Die Cast was a really tough customer. The guy holding the flask, not so much.

“So we just kill him?” Isaac asked. “He’s not even an enemy. He’s a level 3 NPC. I could kill him.”

That was an option. Carousel did make him an NPC instead of a proper enemy.

“That’s a trap,” I said. “We would kill him, and then Carousel would make the Die Cast himself even more dangerous somehow. We need Gray to be pulling the strings. We can win under those circumstances. Plus, that is probably necessary to get the true ending.”

“I don’t want to die,” Isaac said. He was having a minor freak-out, but I didn’t blame him.

“Well, then, we’re just going to have to take special care of you,” I said.

Then, the planning began.