“No… romantic… subplot,” I said as I wrote it on the piece of paper we were using to gather our plans on.

“And I think he was suggesting that I use The Penthouse trope,” Kimberly added. “The note about accommodations was pretty clear.”

“Right,” I said, adding that bit.

Sal had talked so fast and so scattered that I feared I might have missed some of the actual clues he gave Kimberly.

“So I gather from the Atlas entry and Sal’s advice, that Antoine will be a cop, you will be a reporter, Dina will be the missing girl’s mother, and I will be your news producer,” I said as I went over my notes. “Anybody got anything else?”

Isaac was the only one to speak. “How does Sal know who is going on the storyline? I mean, he just assumes that Antoine will be there and that you, the Filmmaker aspect will be the news producer. What if you two just don’t show up?”

Isaac questioned everything. It wasn’t a bad thing.

“Tropes always make assumptions,” I said. “Even my I don’t like it here… trope makes assumptions about who will be on my team. Speaking of, when we were looking at the Omen, it said the difficulty was ‘I’m getting goosebumps’ but that was with eight of us there, so it will probably be a bit harder than that with fewer players.”

The Final Straw had been offered to us before on the jobs board where we found the Subject of Inquiry storyline, but that must have been a different version. This one seemed harder.

“Location Scout told me the movie will be shot all around Eastern Carousel,” I said. “There were no notable hidden locations or anything. That’s good to know.”

“Makes sense,” Antoine said. “A missing child would involve a wide search. I could see the story going anywhere.”

I nodded.

“My Lifting the Veil of Silence trope never activated while we were over there,” Kimberly said. “That means the enemy does not target women specifically. We already knew that, though. It’s Benny.”

“You had a much more pleasant experience with the scarecrow than some of us,” Dina said. “Of course, my experience probably doesn’t mean anything.”

When we played The Final Straw II, Dina had dared Benny to kill her. He obliged. Meanwhile, Kimberly and I got out without a scratch. Benny picked favorites, only killing those he believed were worthy of death based on his own judgment.

“Atlas says no deaths are required,” Kimberly added. “Thank god. That means no Looks Don’t Last, and no Deathwatch, right?”

I thought for a moment.

“Yeah,” I said. “If we can walk away unscathed, we should try it.”

“We shouldn’t plan on dying if we don’t have to,” Antoine added.

We were in agreement.

“Okay,” I said. “Cassie, did you get any readings?”

Cassie put her fingers to her temples. Her I’m Blocked trope was proving difficult for her to activate on command, but that was probably built into the trope.

“I sense the supernatural,” she said.

“The supernatural?” Isaac asked with a smirk, “In this storyline? I wonder if the flying scarecrow knows.”

Cassie glared at him.

“Let her work,” Antoine said.

And she did, but with little success.

“I’m sorry,” she said, as she realized all eyes were on her. “I’m just not getting anything.”

“Take your time,” Kimberly said. “We aren’t in a rush. Just get to know your trope.”

Cassie went back to her meditation.

We stared.

“Maybe we should leave,” Isaac suggested. I wasn’t sure if he was being a jerk or if that was his legitimate suggestion.

Cassie was wearing her emotions on her sleeve for whatever reason. “I’m trying, I swear,” she said. “I’m not normally this stupid, I promise.”

She squinted hard.

“No one thinks you’re stupid,” Kimberly said.

Isaac looked like he was about to say something, by Antoine stared him down.

“Cassie,” I said. “You’re putting a lot of points in Moxie, I notice.”

“I’m supposed to,” she said. “The Atlas said so.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m not criticizing that. It’s just, putting in the stat points isn’t the whole picture. Moxie is about performance. Maybe if you actually tried to play it up, it might work better. Like when you use the Anguish ability.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

My meager experience with psychic power might have been coming in handy.

She nodded. Her fingers came down from her temples. “That’s easier because the pain kicks in and I don’t have to pretend so much.”

She took a deep breath and lifted her hands, “I see, yes, I see…. There is a presence,” she started to say. Whatever her I’m Blocked trope was meant to do, it hadn’t kicked in yet.

Isaac got up from the table, hiding a giggle from Cassie. It was for the best.

Eventually, with lots of flailing and attempts to tap into her abilities, she succeeded.

“They’re angry!” Cassie screamed. Tears started flowing down her face. Her power was working. “They don’t like me looking, the spirits. They don’t like me looking!”

“Keep looking, Cassie,” Kimberly said. “What do you see?”

I’m Blocked was all about opposition. It was designed to detect opposing spiritual forces.

“There is great magic at play. Forces that ought to be left alone. They are angry and they want blood spilled. A child of the earth, life endangered, heartbroken. … someone violated the sanctity of that land… You are old, but we are older,” Cassie stopped talking for a moment and then, in a soft whisper, said, “Your choices transform you. What will you become?”

In a split second, Cassie’s head was thrust downward and hit the table before we could stop it.

We crowded around her in concern.

“Oh my god,” Kimberly screamed.

“Cassie?” Isaac screamed from across the room. He ran to her side. “Cassie, are you okay?”

For a moment, there was silence. Then, she moved.

She looked up, a lump forming on her forehead. “I can’t see any further,” she said. “I’m blocked.”

And so she was.

~-~

Kimberly reminded Cassie of how well she did for hours after that. Her vision had been chaotic and had certainly set the tone for the storyline we were about to take part in. Sal’s information almost made it seem light-hearted, if only from his humorous way of speaking. Cassie’s vision spoke of anger and retribution.

I had always wondered what Benny’s deal was.

“We have to talk about the thing we all already kind of know,” Antoine said. “We have to talk about who is going.”

“I think Kimberly should go. I know she’s a bit of an odd choice…” Isaac started. Before he could continue with his little joke, he said, “Look. It’s got to be the highest level players. You already know your roles, right?”

We all knew he was right.

“I know that Kimberly, Antoine, Dina, and I are going. I know,” I said. “But someone has to point out how we are the only ones with rescue tropes. If we die, Project Rewind is a failure. No one can save Anna and Camden. No one saves the Vets.”

We took a moment for that to sink in.

“We don’t have a choice,” Antoine said. “We are the best players for this storyline.”

“What about Bobby?” Kimberly asked. “He’s got a high level. Why aren’t we considering him?”

Antoine and I looked at each other. We both knew.

“If we die, the lower-level players need to have enough players for a team. We have eight players. If we take five and die, then they are left with three players and are basically dead in the water. This storyline won’t be easy, but no one has to die. It’s our best shot.”

I nodded.

Four players to a run was on the light side, but it could be done. It had to be done until we rescued more players.

“The only question left,” Antoine said. “Are what tropes we bring.”

~-~

Antoine was not Kimberly’s leading man for this run, so he didn’t need his romance-based tropes. No Arm Candy, no Knight in Shining Armor.

The Atlas (and Sal himself) had strongly implied that Antoine would be cast as a police officer. He took Play It Cool. Without Kimberly there to soothe him using You were having a nightmare…, he would need a mental health trope to help him out. He was doing great lately. He told us everything was better than before and we didn’t need to worry.

My Moxie was higher than his, so I knew he was hiding something, but still, he had come through before, so I trusted him.

“I’m going to use my social trope,” he added. “Everyone Loves a Winner should be nice for a cop.”

“Yeah,” Kimberly said. “Should help with early interviews with NPCs.”

He also went with his basic buffs and melee tropes, as well as, The Playbook. Since he wasn’t going to have as good of a reason to be with Kimberly, that trope would help him know when it was time for him to act from a distance.

Kimberly tossed Looks Don’t Last, of course, and built around her Scrunchie trope that let her turn Moxie into other stats, like Savvy or Hustle. Her old standbies like Convenient Backstory and Social Awareness came along, as did The Penthouse and Breaking the Veil of Silence, which had useful in-story abilities.

“Everything a leading lady needs,” Antoine said. He was trying not to be offended that he would not be a love interest in this story.

Kimberly blushed.

Dina equipped Out-of-Town Cousin to help tie her to the action of the story and kept her background setup, which was ideal for this plot. She kept Guarded Personality and An Outsider’s perspective, though I wasn’t sure she actually needed it. No Return Address was added to the rotation in place of Pen Pal, just to change things up. This was a multi-day storyline so she thought it would work well.

She debated bringing her growing collection of Criminal tropes, but I wasn’t sure whether they would come into play. Ultimately, it was her decision.

I brought Oblivious Bystander, to no one’s surprise. I also brought my background trope, My Grandmother Had The Gift, which would be useful in a supernatural storyline and allow me to equip my Detective trope, He has a Tell… If we were not using Deathwatch, I didn’t need Director’s Monitor or many of my Deathwatch tropes, but I brought Off-Screen death so I could still work from the sidelines if necessary. Raised by Television made a return to the rotation, as well as The Dailies. I didn’t know how much help it would be to see the raw footage, because I didn’t think Carousel would give away too much, but I needed to practice with it.

The Insert Shot made a return, as did Escape Artist and, of course, Trope Master. There might be a day where I would not use Trope Master, but it wasn’t that day.

We chose a lean, simple, flexible loadout for out outing. We didn’t want to mess with the plot too much and we wanted every player available at all times to help.

One of us would also have to bring in Bobby's Craft Services Are The Real Heroes trope to maximize our gains when we were searching for food.

We were as ready as we were ever going to be.

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

“How’s my favorite table doing?” Edwin, the bartender said as we got the nice corner table down at Grain Matter for one last meal before we hit the road.

Kimberly told him we were doing great. He gave us menus and said our server would be there soon. If he remember being shot in the head a couple of days earlier, he didn’t act like it. The senior Dr. Halle had told me NPCs only remember what made them better at their jobs, which was ironic given that he clearly didn’t remember a lot.

Edwin, with his sequin shirt and chipper attitude didn’t need a memory of a gruesome murder.

We ate our steaks and veggie bowls.

We even laughed, though that might have been helped by the drinks.

Things felt normal, even as a hyena person salivated at us from outside the window. Kimberly’s writ would keep him out, along with all of the other dangers.

We bought Ramona some grilled skewers. That was the traditional present for someone who just found out their life was a lie and they were just being used as some Narrator’s pawn, right?

This was going to be a storyline where we made no mistakes. We were going to get in, play our parts better than we had ever done before, and bring home the bacon.

Edwin brought us more drinks. We laughed more, Isaac was funnier when we had been drinking. We took deep breaths and tried to stay in the moment.

Because soon, we were going to be fighting for our lives.

But, hey, that’s every day in Carousel.