Chapter Forty-Eight: A Message from High Places (Patreon)

I needed somewhere to think. We were too close to town square. There were omens all over and many of them moved around. It was too dangerous to stay. I had to guide the group across town in the direction of the storyline we were headed to as I searched for a place where I could stop and examine the tickets.

Eventually, I found a park bench and table a few miles away from the storyline we were headed to. I looked through the tickets I had received from Silas as a reward for completing the Grotesque storyline.

“What is going on?” Anna asked. She peered over my shoulder as I laid out the tickets on the table.

I didn't know how to express what I was thinking. These tickets seemed like they were more than just a reward. I hadn't noticed before because I was so focused on what they did that I didn't stop to consider what they actually said. It almost felt like they were a message but... the message wasn't obvious. There were a few things that I had noticed though.

“In the letters that you have Dina,” I said, “The writer says something about how they're watching over you. Right?”

Dina shuffled through her letters and found the excerpt that included that. “Watching Over You. Each word is capitalized.”

“Just like this ticket?” I asked holding the Watching Over You ticket in the air.

I placed the ticket down on the table. Then I put the Friends in High Places ticket right above it, just as the pawnshop owner had.

Friends in High Places, Watching Over You…

I started laying out my other tickets so that my friends and I could get a good look at them.

“The pawn shop NPC also laid these next to each other,” I said. "I think he was trying to tell me something."

A Glitch in the Matrix. Accidentally Captured on Film.

Dina sat across from me and started searching through her letters for other phrases.

Camden hunched over the table. “The psychic said Dina needed a ‘guide who knows the way.’”

“She did?” I asked.

I laid The Intrepid Guide Who Knows The Way out on the table.

“A Story Within a Story is in the letters,” Dina said. “So is Stick to the Plan, kind of.”

“So, they’re just out of order?” Kimberly asked.

“Maybe,” Camden said. “Either that or each of them is a reference to something.”

We started rearranging the tickets in hopes that we would find an obvious message whenever we put them in a certain order. At most we only found snippets. If all the titles were supposed to be laid out into a single message, then that message was not supposed to be a coherent sentence.

”You said that you met the psychic before,” Anna said. “Did she say anything last time?”

I tried to think back but truthfully much of that entire encounter was a blur in my memory.

“She said something about learning our roles,” I said. “I don't know if that helps.”

“Sounds like it might be related to ‘Who you truly are…’” Camden said.

I shrugged.

If that was true then that only left two tickets unaccounted for: This is going to sting a bit… and Back to where it all started…

“A Glitch in the Matrix Accidentally Captured on Film,” Camden started. He paused to look over the tickets. “Back to where it all started?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Back to where what started?” Antoine asked. He had stayed out of our puzzle-solving up until that point. “Us getting here? The town itself?”

“If it’s the town, then we could check out the town’s founder,” I said. “I got a close look at a statue of him in the Grotesque storyline. Roxie said there’s information about him in storylines all over town. Bartholomew Geist.”

We discussed some possible theories on what the tickets could mean. All we could know for sure was that there was a message intended inside them. There were just far too many coincidences to deny that. The question was: what was the message?

Perhaps a better question was posed by Antoine.

“What was the purpose of giving you all of this?” he asked. “Are we really saying that we think there are people somewhere trying to communicate with us? Surely you're not saying Carousel itself sent you this?”

“A friend in high places,” Dina said. “The letter said that my tragedy was tied to other people’s tragedies, including his own. I think there's someone else stuck here. In fact, I think there are a lot of people stuck here; not just the players.”

We took a moment to think about what that might mean.

“The demon,” Kimberly said.

Dina nodded. “Maybe all NPCs.”

The crossroads demon had said he was trapped here. Of course, he could have been talking about his character. Demon’s being trapped in places wasn’t exactly rare in movies. The outburst we saw had seemed much more real than scripted though.

“Or this is all just Carousel entertaining itself,” Antoine said. “Don’t you think the other players would have known if something like this was going on?”

He did have a point. It did seem like the kind of thing Carousel might do if you interpreted everything that had happened as being intentional cruelty. The veteran players had spent decades trying to get west toward the other side of that mountain but with every step they took a new obstacle appeared. What if this message was just a new version of that exact same thing?

What if we just started pulling the thread and we never get to the end of it? What if there was always another message and another lead until we ended up hollow shells of the people we started at just like all the veteran players?

There was one thing though.

“Roxie told me that other Film Buffs had claimed Carousel was talking to them. Secret messages or something like that. Maybe…” I said, gesturing to the table. “Maybe this is the same thing.”

“What happened to the other film buffs?” Anna asked. “There aren't any others back at the lodge.”

I cleared my throat.

“They disappeared,” I said. I wondered if there was ever going to be a time when I could say that without looking over my shoulders.

“Right,” Antoine said. “Disappeared. Like Janette?”

I shrugged.

I still hadn't decided what the exact nature of this secret was. Did I simply have to keep the existence of the Rulekeeper a secret? Or did I have to keep my knowledge of what happened a secret? I still hadn't decided. Until I knew I was just going to have to play dumb and hope they could read between the lines.

Antoine looked like he was about to say something, but Camden spoke first.

“If these letters and these tickets were intended to clue us in about some hidden message, that would mean that everything that happened was planned out by whoever this friend in high places is,” he said. “Dina was delayed arriving here for 10 years until we showed up. And then everything was put into place so that you would go out on that storyline and get awarded all these tickets. But wouldn't that imply that the entire Grotesque storyline was intended from the beginning? How could that be possible? Didn't it only happen because Janette refused to play?”

I hadn't considered that. Was our friend in high places an opportunist or had they been orchestrating events from the beginning?

“When Silas gave me the trope Janette had, he said ‘It’s a shame to waste a good plan. Luckily, in Carousel, we recycle,” I said. “At the time, I didn’t really understand what he meant by 'plan.' I thought he was just saying something scripted or witty, maybe.”

Dina smiled. It might have been the first time I saw her give a full smile since the corn maze.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Anna said. “We still don’t know if this whole thing is malicious or not.”

Antoine looked like he had a lot of things he wanted to say. He was pacing back and forth. Eventually, he stopped and said, “We came out here to run a storyline. Let’s do that and then we can go talk to Chris about this stuff. He’s been here for years. He’ll be able to tell us if Carousel does this sort of thing.”

After a little more discussion, that became the plan. I collected all of the tickets and put them back in my pocket.

But how could I think about a storyline at a time like this?

~~~

“I’m guessing that's the omen,” Antoine said.

Ahead of us was a busted gate leading to private property. Where normally a gate like this might say something like 'Trespassers will be Shot' or something similar, this one went a different direction.

Say no to the Carousel Turnpike!

Beware! Enter at your Own Risk!

They join you as you go!

You will think they belong!

No Camping

No Hiking.

The Turnpike Will Doom Us All

Keep count of your group.

The signs were put around the gate in no particular order. They were hastily painted on chunks of old plywood.

On the red wallpaper, my scouting trope called this storyline Even More Stories from the Campfire: Fatal Folktales. Its difficulty level was, “Something is Strange Here,” which I assume was not a high difficulty.

“We trigger it by agreeing to join the teenagers behind the bush,” I said. All I knew was how to trigger it. I hadn't seen the teenagers yet.

Everyone turned to look. There was a bush about 15 yards onto the property. If you squinted, you could see that two teenagers had hidden in the bush and were staring out onto the property.

“Wait,” Anna said. “Before we go, we should really be able to see your tropes, Dina. Just in case we need to know.”

Dina considered this. We had been told that Outsider’s information on the red wallpaper was hidden, even from allies. It was because of a trope they got early on.

“Okay,” Dina said.

Suddenly, Dina appeared on the red wallpaper. I hadn’t seen her there since the corn maze. 

Her stats were as follows:

Mettle: 2; Moxie: 2; Hustle: 3; Savvy: 2; Grit: 7; Plot Armor: 16.

She had the following tropes:

Guarded Personality 

Type: Rule

Archetype: Outsider

Stat Used: Grit

Some people put up so many walls that it is painful for them to let anyone in. Characters with this quality often find themselves misunderstood or living on the fringes.

A player with this ticket equipped will block insight abilities used against them.

An Outsider’s Perspective

Type: Insight

Archetype: Outsider

Stat Used: Savvy

Sometimes in a story, characters won't realize something is unusual about the world they live in because it is all they have ever known. It isn't until they meet an outsider that they realize there's something wrong.

The player who equips this ticket will be alerted to information that is out of place, new, or strange about people and places, though they will not always know what is strange about the information they receive.

Better Late Than Never

Type: Buff

Archetype: Outsider

Stat Used: N/A

Sometimes it takes a while for a character to decide to take action. A player with this ticket equipped gets a buff to Mettle and Hustle if they wait to assist allies against the enemy until the Finale.

A Haunted Past

Type: Background

Archetype: N/A

Stat Used: N/A

The player is haunted by a tragedy in their past. This informs everything they do in a story.

The Player can now equip:

· Informative Flashback (Psychic)

· You Get Used To It (Final Girl)

· Unfinished Business (Departed)

· I can’t die until I know (Detective)

· You carry it with you (Soldier)

· Encouragement from Beyond (Psychic)

Encouragement from Beyond

Type: Perk/Insight

Archetype: Psychic

Stat Used: Moxie

Even if a   character is torn apart by the passing of a loved one, it is the memory of   that loved one that can rescue them from a pit of despair. Perhaps it is more   than a memory?

A player with   this ticket equipped will have positive reminders of the ones they have lost.   These reminders will soothe them when stressed, scared, or incapacitated.   They may even provide important information if such a message fits within the   narrative.

~~~

As I looked through her collection of tropes, it occurred to me that I had yet to use my own stat tickets. My plan was to share them with my friends. Truthfully, that was probably poorly conceived. I didn’t even know if I could give them away. I decided not to risk it.

It was awkward to use them all right in front of them. I made my way a few yards away from them as they were discussing Dina’s tropes and quickly tore through the tickets.

I gave myself +2 Hustle, +2 Moxie, and +1 Savvy.

Between these stat boosts, my sunglasses, and my new headphones, my Oblivious Bystander strategy was ready to go. I looked back at the signs on the fence. They pointed to a lot of things. I could only hope to sort it out.