Chapter Forty-Seven: Happened A-Pawn (Patreon)

Dina said that she arrived in Carousel in 2011. We got here in 2022. Either someone was very confused, or Carousel didn't really care much about continuity.

“The letters talked as if things were being moved into place,” Dina said. “Maybe...”

She didn't finish her thought.

She started walking back toward town.

“Maybe what?” Antoine asked.

She glanced back at us as she walked. “Maybe it isn't a coincidence. Any of this.”

We stood up and chased after her.

“You think we were brought here for you?” Camden asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Makes me sound egotistical, doesn't it?”

It sounded like she was suggesting that she started driving down the road to Carousel in 2011 and didn't actually arrive until we did because… we were supposed to help her save her son. That sounded a little out of pitch with what we knew of Carousel so far. Why would Carousel care about some kid?

Surely, this was all just part of the cruelty of the entity we were all captive to. It was ridiculous to think that Carousel had told the complete truth to Dina in those letters. There had to be an angle.

“Where are we going?” Kimberly asked.

We had just been following Dina.

“I thought you had a storyline that we were going to do. Wasn't that the whole reason you came out today?”

Anna ran up ahead of Dina. “Stop. We have to talk about this.”

Dina shook her head. “We have to keep moving forward. You know everything I know. You can come to your own conclusions about whether or not you’re going to help me. I'm not going to sit around and wait like all those people back at the lodge.”

Anna took a moment and thought about how she was going to respond.

“We'll go do the storyline,” she said, “We’ll help you, but you have to keep us involved. The minute we confirm that this is a trap, we're out.”

Dina said, “Fine by me.”

They both started walking toward town. I ran up ahead so that I could scout out omens.

It occurred to me that the storyline we were headed toward was on the other side of town so we would have to cross through to get there. I had an idea.

“Actually, before we do the storyline, I'd like to stop by a pawn shop in the town square. Arthur told me about it. It’ll only take a bit. It's on the way, I promise.”

~~~

Navigating through town was more difficult than going through the outskirts. There were more omens packed closely together. Luckily, I was able to get us through. All it took was a ton of stress and an extra helping of caution.

We couldn't go directly through town square. That place was filled to the brim with omens. We could only go there in between scenes like the last time. Luckily there was a way to get to the pawn shop without going through town square.

There was a back alley.

Now I know what you're thinking: the back alley must be filled with omens.

You'd be wrong. There were only three.

One was inside a dumpster, and I didn't know what it was but I could hear it growling. Another involved a man wearing a tinfoil hat and talking to himself. Those were easy to avoid.

The third was a little bit trickier. There was a green ooze rising up out of a sewer grate. The sewers of Carousel had to be filled with storylines because this was the third omen I had seen related to them.

“Don’t step in the ooze,” I said.

“Avoid the glowing sludge, you say?” Camden asked with a grin. Maybe he was starting to get past his first death. I didn’t think I’d heard him joke since… who knows when.

“You'll just have to trust me,” I answered.

Everyone made it past with little trouble.

Once we were through the alleyway, we had made it.

We gazed up at Happened A-Pawn Pawn Shop. Our destination.

~~~

Walking into the pawn shop, I immediately noticed that something was different about this place. Nearly every object in the entire store displayed information on the red wallpaper. I'm not just talking about omens, though there were those too, I mean everything.

The guns hung up on the wall behind the counter told me how much ammunition they could hold and how powerful they were. I hadn't really considered the idea that some weapons might be more powerful than others. I mean obviously, I know a handgun isn't as deadly as a shotgun or a rifle, but comparing rifles to each other felt ambiguous and pointless when it was Mettle that actually mattered.

However, it was very clear that hunting rifles were not as strong as the kind you might see in a military movie. As silly as it was, having a cool paint job seemed to be the distinguishing feature between some weapons. A wooden rifle stock didn't look as powerful as a metallic one On-Screen, so it wasn't.

There weren't just guns, there were knives, swords, weapons of all sorts. A mall ninja would go crazy in this shop. If there were ever a citywide zombie apocalypse, this would be the first place I would go.

But the supplies didn't end there. There were things that I would never think of as being useful but on reconsideration, I understood why they might be. The shop was filled with all types of props, outfits, and tools.

There were hunting supplies, hiking supplies, and an entire section devoted to used art supplies. There were canvases, one of which was an Omen, paint, and a portable easel. There was a typewriter that you could carry around in its own little case. There were musical instruments, cameras, and a variety of other electronics.

The selection of Omens was even greater than that at the psychic’s shop.

“Do not touch anything,” I said to my friends as we walked in.

“Riley,” Anna said, “I think… I think we can see them too.”

“The Omens?”

She nodded her head.

This place really was special.

As I looked around at everything the shop offered, my eyes eventually rested on a familiar sight. In the corner of the shop, broken down and inoperable, was Silas the Showman. It didn't move; it didn't speak. Its lights we're off. And yet I could never really feel like he wasn't watching.

In addition to seeing information about the objects in the shop, I could see their cost and rarity. I could also see whether any of them required special tropes to be able to use in a storyline. Some said that tropes were required, and others said they were merely recommended.

After looking around the shop for a while, I saw under the glass of the counter, a collection of tropes. Tropes of all kinds. There was a great variety of different rarities. I took twenty minutes just to read them all. Unlike the other objects in the pawn shop, these did not have prices on them. I suspected I would have to haggle.

[There were nearly forty tropes here so I put them in a Spreadsheet. If you have any trouble reading them, please let me know. Thank you for your understanding.]

In addition to the information that I already knew was included with tropes, I also saw something extra on the red wallpaper, something I had never seen before. There was something called an ‘Aspect’ Which appeared to modify the base archetype. I had heard some of these words thrown around before at the lodge but never knew any context for them. If this were a video game, an aspect appeared to be a subclass or something like that.

Ever since I got back from the grotesque storyline, things have been awkward between my friends and me. They sensed that I was hiding something from them. I wanted to make it up to them. The collection of tropes under the glass appeared to be largely random, but there were a few tropes that I thought my friends could use. I had just gotten a bunch of money and a bunch of useless tropes.

I figured that I could get them something, maybe as an olive branch. I had about 230 dollars and nine tropes. I hoped that would be enough.

“If you see anything you could use,” I said. “I might be able to help you buy it. I mean, I just got a lot of money. I don’t think there’s anything better to spend it on.”

“Thanks,” Antoine said, “Just need a little.”

He was holding a wooden baseball bat that cost 60 dollars. His tropes would give him a bonus for using that and allow him to carry it into storylines. Seemed like a good buy.

“I don’t know what I want,” Kimberly said in frustration. I couldn’t blame her. There was no obvious prop that Eye Candy might need. A purse, maybe? But she brought one with her and never used it in storylines so that was probably not right either.

“I could get you this Pregnancy Reveal trope,” I suggested.

She looked at me like I had slapped her.

“Just because... it would be useful. It’s a buff,” I said. “Or not. It’s probably too expensive anyway.”

Did she just take that as rude?

“Anna,” I said, “Pregnancy Reveal? If you want. No offense.”

Anna smiled. “Thanks, but I can’t use it as well. I probably won’t, you know... I’ll make it to the end of the story.”

Of course. She didn’t need more Plot Armor because hers would be the highest already and buffing someone when she died made no sense when she would outlive everyone.

“I’ll take it,” Kimberly said. “But I don't want any jokes.”

“I wasn’t going to…”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Good.”

Camden was easy. He wanted Photographic Memory.

“It would have made the Astralist a breeze,” he said.

That was three friends down.

“Anna?” I asked.

She looked through the selection. She didn't seem to find anything that appealed to her, though, I think she was just being polite.

“You're already giving me that other final girl trope,” she said. “You don't need to get me anything else. Unless that one ends up being affordable.”

She pointed to Shared Experience.

I could see that being useful. It wouldn’t have much in-story use, but ensuring every player got good rewards was a good effect.

I started thinking about what I would want for myself. There were a couple of tropes available that I liked. Hang a Lamp Shade and Don't Dead Open Inside would both work for me and seemed useful. But something else caught my eye.

A portable tape player. Yellow plastic. Thin metal headphones with bright yellow earpads. The kind that sat on your ears, not covered them. The kind you might have seen back in the 90s. They were bright and visible. They were perfect for someone who wanted to pretend that they couldn't hear you.

They cost 80 dollars. They didn't require a trope to bring them into a storyline unless you were trying to listen to ghosts, in which case you would need a trope for that. The record function would not work without the associated trope for that either. It didn't matter. I just needed them as a prop.

There was a tape inside of it that read 90s Instant Classics. I imagine they were made-up 90s songs like everything else in Carousel, but they would do the trick.

Sunglasses + Headphones = Truly Oblivious.

Combine that with a newspaper and I would be nearly untouchable when using Oblivious Bystander.

Now where was that shopkeeper?

I found a little bell on the counter and rang it.

From the back of the shop, someone with a deep voice yelled, “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Moments later, a door near Silas the Showman opened up and a large man walked through it. He was 6 and a half feet tall and built like a truck. His hair was cropped short. He wore an unbuttoned, short-sleeved collared shirt with a white undershirt and cargo shorts.

Taron “Tar” Bellows. Owner, Happened A-Pawn, Pawn Shop. Plot Armor: 50.

“I see you've raided the place,” he said. He came behind the counter and pulled out a small pair of reading glasses. He stretched them over his face and looked down at me through them. “Now what do you need me for?”

I cleared my throat.

“We were hoping to buy some of these tickets,” I said.

“And a baseball bat,” Antoine added.

“And a baseball bat,” I said. “And maybe that Walkman.”

Tar looked over where I had pointed. “Walkman?”

“The tape player,” I said. Walkman wasn’t a Carousel brand.

“Bat and tape player is 140. What tickets you looking for?”

I pointed out Photographic Memory, Pregnancy Reveal, and Shared Experience.

He gingerly grabbed them from behind the counter. His large fingers made the tickets look small.

“This one is fifty,” he said, placing Photographic Memory on the counter.

I quickly realized I wouldn’t have enough money.

“These are 200 and 210,” he said about Pregnancy Reveal and Shared Experience respectively.

I went over budget quickly.

“I have some for trade,” I said. I pulled out the ten tickets I had gotten from Silas after the Grotesque storyline and laid them on the counter. I grabbed the one I had promised Anna and took it back.

“Let’s take a look,” he said.

He began shuffling through them and rearranging them. I didn't know if he was sorting them by rarity or what.

“You've got some good stuff here,” he said. “Friends in High Places, now that is a useful ticket. Why would you want to part ways with that?”

“I can't use it.”

He shrugged.

“Watching Over You,” he said. “Not as rare, still useful.”

He put Watching Over You down right next to Friends in High Places.

Friends in High Places. Watching Over You.

I paused. Friends in high places watching over you. Was that just a coincidence? Strange.

Anna leaned over and said, “We also have some money, if that’s not enough.”

She put 110 dollars on the counter. All of their combined earnings.

“Just in case,” she said.

“A glitch in the matrix. Did that one confuse you or are you just not interested?” He asked.

I was puzzled. Did he not realize that not everyone could use every ticket?

He placed a glitch in the matrix down on the counter.

“Accidentally captured on film, now that is a run saver,” he said. “You ever thought about becoming an artist?”

I shook my head.

“Alright,” he said.

He placed Accidentally Captured on Film next to a Glitch in the Matrix.

A Glitch in the Matrix. Accidentally Captured on Film.

“Lot of good stuff you have here. Almost hate to take it off you.”

“Wait a second,” I said. I grabbed the tickets I had received from Silas.

A Glitch in the Matrix.

A Story Within a Story.

Watching Over You…

Who you truly are…

Friends in High Places.

This is going to sting a bit…

Accidentally Captured on Film.

Back to where it all started…

The Intrepid Guide Who Knows The Way.

These titles… was there…

“You know, kid,” Tar said, “I got my favorite show on in the back. I’m really not looking to haggle and trade. Tell you what: since the boss isn’t looking, how about I just take the cash? Easier that way.”

I looked him in the eyes. They were dark. He met my gaze.

“What do you say? Just the cash? You keep those tropes just in case.”

I nodded.

“Good. Now get out of here. I’m closing up shop.”

I gathered the tickets and the Walkman. Antoine got his bat. We turned to leave.

“Come back soon, you hear. We have a rotating stock. Never know what we’ll have.”

“Thanks,” Anna said as we left.

“What’s going on?” Antoine asked.

“Was there something wrong with your tickets?” Camden asked.

There was almost certainly something wrong. The titles of the tickets I had received from Silas… I think they had a message.

What was it that Roxie said happened to old Film Buffs?

That they started thinking Carousel was talking to them?

Maybe they were right.