The storekeep might have been right about Eastern Carousel being a different world. This part of Carousel was trapped in a perpetual autumn, an unending harvest. All the trappings of the fall season could be found on the homes and in the fields as we walked toward Bobby's claim.

His Writ of Habitation had given him access to a small cottage rented from a farmer. It wasn't until we got to that farm that I realized how odd his little home away from home was.

Where the rest of Eastern Carousel was filled with golden and amber hues, the farm where Bobby's cottage was built remained green and full of life. They grew pumpkins and squashes. They were still harvesting melons and tomatoes. The pumpkins were the size of wagon wheels, and the squashes were the size of pumpkins. The tomatoes were just normal size, but they still looked delicious.

The main house on the property had a wrap-around porch. On that porch, an NPC sat with a shotgun leaned up against his rocking chair as he whittled a piece of wood—not into some piece of woodland art but just whittled it smaller.

There was a post on the fence with a simple sign that said, "In Eastern Carousel, old ones roam— Pines whisper, Sheaves dream, Moon quilts fields, River sings, Ancient songs breathe here."

“I think my grandma had a quilt with that on it,” Isaac said to a reply of chuckles.

There was an odd feeling in the air, an aura, but not a depressing aura like that of the Unknowable Host. It was still an ancient feeling.

I wondered to myself if it was my psychic background trope that was giving me these insights, but the others felt something, too, which they would later report, if not as profound. In a magical place like Carousel, this place was still special.

We couldn't wait to get Bobby's things and get out of there.

Bobby’s Writ of Habitation meant that he could alter the premises of his base. Practically, this meant he was going to gut it of everything we might need, and we were going to lug it back downtown to Kimberley's loft.

Bobby's gaggle of dogs would follow him wherever he went, so they weren't much trouble. But the barrel of dog food needed to be wheeled out of there on a hand truck, which was luckily included in the property. Bobby's bedding and all of the toiletries and dining accoutrements were also packed up for us to take.

"I'm sorry I tried to have it ready to go, but there's just so much," Bobby said as I looked around the room. I wasn't sure what he was talking about; the place was as bare bones as Kimberley's, but it did have some touches of home.

Kimberley was not happy with the style of Bobby's throw pillows and curtains, but she didn't complain. We weren't shopping at IKEA. The place was smaller on the inside than Kimberley's loft, but it had a lot of land where we could have grown a garden under the mystical haze that this property seemed to exude.

There was plenty of room for the dogs to run. The cottage itself wasn't in great shape and would need repairs.

We weren't going to worry about it; sticking together was more important.

Everybody was carrying as much as they could as we walked back toward the downtown, down the dirt road that Bobby's base had been on. The NPC on the wrap-around porch watched us as we went but said nothing.

"We're not going to be bringing anything from the prison, are we?" Isaac asked. His Writ of Habitation had given him access to the historical jailhouse. Everything there was bolted down, but if we needed to during our brief moment of having access to it, we could take some of the reinforcements and metal grading to help secure the loft.

That wasn't on our minds at the time.

"I thought you were staying in the jail," Antoine said. "Don't you have to finish your sentence?"

"Haha. My life sentence ended when I died there," Isaac said.

The banter continued back and forth, but I mostly focused on watching for omens and getting us back to our new home.

~-~

It was well past midnight when the knocking started.

Each of us exited our rooms and entered the central loft, one at a time. Cassie was still wrapped in her threadbare blanket, and the rest of us wore whatever we slept in.

We said nothing. We stared at each other, solemnly understanding what our lives would be like at the loft.

“Please,” the man on the other side of the door pleaded. “Please, I need help. Please open up.”

He was crying and screaming and banging on the front door of Kimberly’s loft apartment.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

None of us dared say a word.

Kimberly stood wrapped in Antoine’s arms. His baseball bat was in his hand. He was ready to strike at whatever lay on the other side of the door.

I gestured to the others to be quiet as I inched closer to the door. I was shirtless but wearing pants and my hoodie. I had to because my blanket was too small for a grown man.

I took a deep breath as I approached.

I put my eye up to the peephole.

The man on the other side of the door was named Edwin Morales. I didn’t need the red wallpaper to see that. He was a bartender at Grain Matter downstairs. He was a nice enough guy. He wore a lot of hair gel to spike up his mid-2000s hairdo.

We had gotten to know him over the past few days as we spent our money downstairs at the bar and restaurant.

He asked us questions about our lives and our families. He was nice.

Was this why? Had he been nice to us to make tonight even harder on us?

Edwin’s rhinestone-fringed button-up shirt was ripped.

“Kimberly!” he screamed from the other side. “It’s Edwin. Please let me in. Please.”

Through the peephole, I could see that he was an Omen. We had been expecting one soon, and we expected them to start ramping up.

I could see how to trigger the Omen. Letting him in, of course. But it wasn’t phrased like that. Kimberly’s Writ of Habitation made it so Omens would leave if they were “denied.”

The red wallpaper revealed that he could be “denied entry by telling him to leave.”

That meant that each Omen that appeared required some special variation. Locking the door would not be enough.

I took in the air to try and yell at him to run him off, but I thought better of it. We had a plan for this.

I turned to the others.

“Isaac,” I whispered as I gestured for him to come closer.

“You’re going to be doing this when we’re on a run,” I said quietly. “Take a shot at it.”

I stepped aside so that he could get a view through the peephole.

Isaac had a scouting trope that would allow him to spot Omens. His was called How is this normal? and it required him to call out how an Omen was unusual to get info about it.

One glance woke him up quickly.

“Come on, guys,” Edwin said. “I can see you looking through the peephole. Please let me in.”

Isaac thought for a moment. “Why do you keep looking to the right?” he asked. “That’s strange.”

Sure enough, it was strange.

Edwin had been looking at something or someone to the right of the door that we could not see.

Moments later, I heard a shot from outside, followed by a body dropping. Someone had shot Edwin.

“Let us in now, or I will make you regret it!” some man screamed from outside.

“We’re just looking for a good time,” a woman’s voice said in an exaggerated, sultry tone.

Isaac looked back at us.

“Did you see the Omen?” I asked.

Isaac nodded. “Kids’ Games,” he said.

That was the title of the storyline the Omen triggered.

I nodded.

“Go away!” I screamed.

Antoine joined in with me. “You all had better get your asses out of here.”

Laughter echoed in the hallway for longer than should have been humanly possible.

Then silence.

After a moment, Isaac looked outside and said, “They’re gone.”

But none of us really believed that.

We stayed ready for them to return all night, but they never did.

~-~

“I am the master,” Isaac said the next day. “I am the sentry on the top of the tower.”

He stood on the astroturf at the top of the building, his eye firmly planted on the telescope that had been included with the loft. He swerved it from side to side as he watched for Omens.

“A sentry stands at a gate,” Cassie said. “You’re a lookout. Lookouts stand at the top of a tower.”

Isaac laughed.

“I was a sentry last night,” Isaac said. “Last line of defense.”

Cassie rolled her eyes.

The roof of Kimberly’s loft building was clearly a part of the bar downstairs originally. Her Writ of Habitation had given us rights to it, but it was clear the place was some type of rooftop bar once. Half of the roof was built out like a deck so that patrons could get a good view of the city.

The other half had a mini golf course that would make Happy Gilmore nauseous, with its twisting tubes and spastic fountains. It only had three holes. There were also bean bag toss and axe throwing setups, but no axes to throw. That was a cheap omission.

Kimberly laid out in the shade of a large black net that covered much of the decking.

“You really think dogs could be happy up here, Bobby?” Antoine asked from his place behind the bar. There was a little bit of alcohol but not much else. “I found cutlery!” he cried out.

It was a big deal. We needed to make an inventory of everything we had available to us.

“I think they love it. They have room to run and they can stay in the snow cone shack,” Bobby said, pointing to an empty snow cone hut that had been used to make adult snow cones. It didn’t really have much other use, but there it stood, insulated and ready for a pack of pups.

We also had a nice grill to use. It even had a propane tank with a trope. Backyard Bomb was a Brute-Bruiser trope that allowed the large but portable tank to blow up based on a player-set fuse and deal a lot of damage.

In movies, you would see muscle-bound characters chuck these things into zombie hordes. They could definitely clear away some enemies.

That was a nice thing to fall back on, at least.

“Hey, Riley,” Kimberly asked. “Have you talked to Ramona? She’s not still in her room, is she?”

“She doesn’t want to talk,” I said. “Unless we agree to reach out to Silas Dyrkon to join his throughline, she won’t have anything to say.”

“It’s just that you were closest to her and she needs to know we are still thinking about her. We don’t want her to… disappear. You know,” Kimberly said.

Wait, I was closest to her? She wasn’t close to anyone.

“The guy talking to his pocket is back,” Isaac said, looking down at the street. “Bet he’s going to make a run for the door sooner rather than later.”

It was nice to see Isaac taking his job seriously.

“There’s something else I saw,” he said. “A few blocks down, at the park. There’s a red wagon. I figure we could use it, you know, for groceries.”

That was an interesting idea.

“Let me see,” I said. I took the telescope and pointed it where he told me to.

It was a humble wagon. It would definitely make transporting goods easier.

I let Antoine get a look. He was apprehensive. I could tell.

We had a silent conversation.

“Can’t do it,” I said. “Too much risk. Too close to stealing.”

Stealing was okay in storylines or in a place you have rights to like a base, but outside of them, it was a big no-no. The Atlas was clear about it. Steal to your heart’s content between scenes or after the end, but don’t take things otherwise.

The Vets even harped on us about that, and they were missing a lot of information.

I did wish I didn’t have to be so careful. That wagon could have been really helpful.

Oh well.