Chapter Sixty-Two: A Lesson in Wishing Well & Chapter Sixty-Three: The Bad Luck Magnet (Patreon)

Even though the horse ran even, graceful strides, every hoofbeat sent a jolt of pain up my leg from my shattered toes. An onlooker might have thought I had ridden a horse all my life as I guided the creature through the trees and over obstacles. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The NPC horse knew the way. I was a passive rider. Pulling the reins did nothing except help me to hold on.

Douglas rode ahead of us. He was the only person that knew the way to the well. I watched his face, looking for some trace of the madness that I suspected lay underneath his foolish angst. Invoking the power of the Unknowable Host came with a cost, after all. It had driven Hesper to sacrifice his wife and attempt to do the same to his son.

Douglas continued to invoke that power time and time again even as every wish turned back on him.

As I watched, I saw his hand hover over to his right ear several times. He was picking at the wax plug—the only thing standing between us and the Cloven Women's spell. I couldn’t tell him to stop; he wouldn’t be able to hear me. Instead, I just watched as he touched it, rubbed it, and fidgeted with it every moment he could get one of his hands off the reins.

Shadows danced alongside us as we rode. The Cloven Women weren’t attacking directly, but still, we kept our weapons at the ready. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I was coordinated enough to use my pitchfork while riding a horse. Luckily, the threat of it kept them at bay for a time.

Douglas held out his hand, directing us to follow him through a tight footpath that weaved between some large trees. The horses followed him without missing a beat.

I could hear very little but hoofbeats and heartbeats echoing inside my ears. Everything outside was muffled.

I saw a hand waving in the corner of my eye. I ducked down, believing it to be the hand of one of the Cloven Women, but I soon saw that Anna was trying to get my attention. I looked over at her. She mimed that she had seen Douglas messing with his earplugs. She was mouthing something. I couldn’t tell what.

I could see the creatures moving behind us to the left and right. The horses were faster than them, but only just.

We broke from the footpath into a clearing. Ahead, we saw a cobblestone path leading up to a well sticking out of the earth. A large rock lay leaning against the side of the well, that was probably what had been used to seal it before Douglas moved it.

Someone had spent a lot of time creating a stone pathway, a bench, and a flowerbed around the well. All of it had become overgrown and run down with time, but I imagined that Douglas’ great-grandfather had really devoted himself to this place. It was his temple.

We were a hundred yards out from the well when Douglas reached up to his right ear and rubbed it for the twentieth time. This time, the wax plug lodged within it came dislodged and fell from his ear down to the earth.

His horse slowed down almost immediately. He mindlessly dismounted before his horse even came to a stop. He fell to the ground undeterred. Anna was yelling something that I couldn’t make out.

Douglas looked at us, then past us. He started walking forward, then running.

“Stop him!” I yelled.

Anna reached out to him to no avail. The horses turned toward him but steering them toward an unscripted goal was a fool’s errand. Horse riding likely required a special trope. Luckily, we had someone with a trope that could do the trick.

Kimberly handled her horse with grace and skill. She must have used her Convenient Backstory ability. I wasn’t able to hear her do it. She had rerouted her path so that she rode right past Douglas, she swung the end of the crude spear she was holding like a club and crushed Douglas’ nose with it. He stumbled backward onto the ground.

I jumped off my horse and fell forward onto him. I quickly removed the stopper from my ear and shoved it into his. The pain in my foot was immense. At this point, getting him back to that well was too important. I wasn’t sure if someone other than him could undo his wish. I’m not sure anyone else would want to, with the effect it had on people who tried.

Suddenly, I heard the sounds of the night again. I quickly put my finger in my ear to ward off the spell of the Cloven Women.

Douglas was dazed. He stood up and Anna beckoned him forward back to his horse.

All around us, I could see a dozen or more of the Cloven Women arriving at the tree line.

“Hurry!” I screamed as I scrambled back to my horse. My injured foot was useless. Stepping on it sent a shock through my body. I fell down to the ground before I could make it.

Fighting against the Hobbled status required Grit, a stat I had woefully neglected.

As the others rode off toward the well, I struggled to even stand. My foot had swelled, and my joints were stiff and unbending.

My horse took off toward the well as soon as it saw the other horses going. I was alone, failing to stand in the middle of a clearing. I could hear the others screaming as they realized I had been left behind.

The Cloven Women started running toward me.

I tried crawling away, but I knew if they got to me, that was pointless. My pitchfork had fallen somewhere when I jumped off my horse. I only had one hand. The other had to block out the sound of the monsters’ whispers.

It didn’t really matter. They were beyond whispering. They weren't even trying to project their human form. They were pure monsters now.

I really only had one thing going for me: I was not the lowest Plot Armor male near the Cloven Women. Normally, I could count on being targeted because of my halved PA. It was even lower than normal now as my Hustle had been cut by being Hobbled. Still, with Douglas nearby, a level 3 NPC, the monsters would technically target him first.

Of course, that didn’t mean they would ignore me. That would be too much to hope for.

The first Cloven Woman to reach me was small. She kicked me as she passed by, which dislocated my shoulder on contact. The second creature picked me up and threw me. I couldn’t do anything to stop her.

I could hear someone yelling my name. I think one of them, maybe Dina, was trying to get to me.

Something hit my face. A hoof? It could have killed me if it tried.

My nose was broken. I wasn’t sure how long this could go on. Whenever the Mutilated status clicked on, my Plot Armor would drop even further, perhaps even enough to lower me below Douglas and permit a kill.

I was Incapacitated by the blow as I lay on my back. I blinked rapidly to try to wake up my senses to the world around me.

I could hear them running over me. Most of their hooves dodged gracefully around me. Others stepped on me—my legs, my chest, my stomach. Still, they wanted Douglas. One made a purpose to stomp on my dislocated arm as she passed by with the herd, snapping it like a twig.

I lay there unmoving.

My mind drifted into a dazed dream as I waited for the story to end. The needle on the Plot Cycle was nearly to The End. I don’t know how long I lay there.

The Final Battle, a race to the well, was over. Whether I lived or not, we would beat the storyline. After all, the Cloven Women would not attack my remaining teammates.

I heard something walking up near my head.

A Cloven Woman?

One of my friends?

No.

I opened my eyes.

It was a deer.

I turned my head and looked up toward the well. My friends were running toward me. Around them, a dozen or so deer pranced off into the forest. The Cloven Women were gone.

I could hardly move. I had some broken ribs, I could tell.

“Riley!” Anna screamed as she got to me. She was crying. I must have looked pretty bad. I had taken a hoof to the face.

She stopped down beside me.

I looked up at her. One of my eyes was swollen shut.

“It worked?” I mumbled. I realized as I tried to speak that I was missing teeth.

“They disappeared,” Douglas answered from somewhere I couldn’t see. “Riley, I… did not know this would happen. I did not ask for this.”

He started to cry for a moment while repeating that he didn’t know this would happen.

Off-Screen.

The Final Battle was over, yet the storyline did not end. We waited for a while hoping to see the needle move forward but it didn't. Eventually, Douglas remounted his horse he went and found wherever it was that mine had run off to and brought it back so that I could be lifted up onto it. Apparently, we weren't going to get the easy way out. We had to go back to the Akers Plot.

The ride back was a lot slower than the ride there. It was still dark outside but sunrise must have been just around the corner.

On-Screen.

While riding through the thick forest, we heard someone talking.

“Who is that?” Anna whispered.

I wasn't sure. It was a man's voice.

“Not a bad place to build,” a man said defiantly. "Plenty of lumber here."

“Quiet down,” another voice said. “What are you trying to attract those monsters?”

We rode along until we spotted the source of the voices. Beyond the thick brush, there was a small opening where the decrepit remains of a covered wagon sat thick with moss. A group of men lay underneath it in hiding. They had stacked up sticks and other debris to try and hide themselves, but I could hear them. What's more, I could see them on the red wallpaper as I stared at them.

They were NPCs. Nothing special. Only one of them had a name: Cooky.

I assume it was a nickname.

As we rode by, the men stopped whispering to each other.

“Who's under there,” Douglas cried out.

The men didn't answer for a moment.

“Refugees,” a voice said. “Only refugees.”

I couldn’t see Douglas’ face, but from the sound of his voice, I could tell he wasn't happy. “What are you doing on our land?” he asked.

“No disrespect,” the voice said. “We have come from the Lord's Glory. There are monsters about. When we heard them start to attack, we fled. Please, do you know if the Lord's Glory survived?”

“This isn't your land,” Douglas said. “You shouldn't be here.”

“We fled for our lives,” the men pleaded.

“I told him this would happen,” Douglas said as he turned to me. “They would use this as an excuse to take our land. He’ll have to listen now.”

Douglas was obsessed.

Anna and Kimberly stayed quiet. Their characters were trying to flee the cult so they must not have felt led to try and help its members.

“Let's go,” I said to the best of my ability. “I need to get back.”

“And just leave them here?”

“Yes!” I said. It was difficult to talk, let alone talk loudly.

I could hear Douglas mumbling to himself. Soon he urged his horse forward quickly. I thought about saying something to the refugees hiding underneath the old wagon, but my mouth hurt and I just didn't care. The storyline was over. The others must have had the same idea.

Kimberly nudged her horse to move forward. The other horses followed.

Off-Screen.

When we arrived back at the Akers Plot, we noticed that Douglas was not there. Neither was Theodore for that matter. Douglas had ridden in this direction. I had assumed he was coming here. NPCs started caring for the horses and one of them began tending to my wounds. The storyline just wouldn’t end.

We sat together, all of us, while the NPCs around us worked on repairing the damage from the attack. They had survived. The Cloven Women had followed us.

On-Screen.

Douglas arrived on horseback.

Something about him had changed. I couldn’t see what though, but then, I was not at my sharpest. My mind and body ached with pain as I laid back on a bale of hay.

He sat down near us.

Off-Screen.

There was a scene change. I could tell because all the NPCs stopped what they were doing and the sun began rising in the sky. The NPCs moved into their new places.

About fifteen minutes later, we were On-Screen again.

“I took care of it, brother,” Douglas said proudly.

“Took care of what?” I asked.

He came close and stood over me.

“I went back to the well. I told Grandfather about the trespassers in the wood. That they even said they were planning to rebuild there. He didn’t care. So, I went back.”

“What did you do?”

He started to laugh, a nervous, crazed laugh.

“I asked the well to curse any trespasser who entered without permission,” he said. “To make them wish they had never come.”

Of course, he did.

“Someone had to protect this land, this family,” he said as he held out his hand. There was a bloody cut on his palm. It hadn’t been there before. “I think I figured out what it wants—”

An NPC approached and cleared his throat. He was one of Akers’ cousins. I didn’t catch his name.

“Have either of you seen Grandfather?” he asked.

We said that we hadn’t.

“That’s strange.” He said. “He went to help some displaced settlers from the Lord’s Glory.”

The NPC looked west and scratched his head.

“He said they were in the western wood. I’ll have to go find him," he said, as the needle on the Plot Cycle clicked over to The End, "It's not like him to get lost. He was supposed to be back hours ago.”

Chapter Sixty-Three: The Bad Luck Magnet

For the final time, we appeared back in front of the campfire. Camden was gone. He either died or hid for so long that he was Written Off. Either way, it was just the four of us, Dina, Kimberly, Anna, and me. My injuries had healed, so I was no longer in terrible pain.

But something else had changed. When I had been in the last story, I noticed there was something off about Douglas, the young character who had been so obsessed with removing perceived trespassers that he had, apparently, created the Straggler curse itself.

There was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on, something being hidden from me.

He had offered his own blood in exchange for his last wish—the conclusion of the same years-long Eldritch-induced mania that had corrupted Hesper.

He was no longer an NPC. He was an enemy. I didn’t find that out until being transported out of the story. Over two hundred years had passed between that story and the present. And yet, Douglas was still here. He had been here the whole time.

“What were the creatures in the dark?” Jake, one of the two teenage NPCs from he beginning of the story, asked.

Douglas Akers laughed. “No one knows. Some say they were sirens, attacking the cult for the way they treated the women. Others say it was spirits of the land, offended that the cult worshiped a foreign god on their soil. I couldn’t say for sure either way.”

Again, it appeared that the story Akers told Rudy and Jake was different than the one my group had played through.

“But when you come out late on a night just like tonight,” Akers continued. “And you are very quiet, you can almost hear the whisp—”

Akers stopped talking.

He slowly looked away from Rudy and Jake, turning his head over to Anna, Kimberly, Dina, and me.

“Wait,” he said. There was a twinge of… desperation, I think, in his voice. “No. you weren’t supposed to see that. That wasn’t what happened! How did you see that?”

He stood up.

“That couldn’t be what happened,” the old man put a hand over his face. “It wasn’t my fault. This land is cursed five times over.”

He fell to his knees.

“The forest cursed the settlers because they did not ask permission!” he screamed.

The scenery changed, melted away.

We were back inside the Straggler’s Forest right in front of Old Man Akers’ cabin. It was the scene where he had explained the Straggler’s Curse to us.

“The settlers didn’t listen. They took more than they were allowed! That’s why they were cursed,” his voice came from somewhere above us. The Old Man Akers in front of us was looking around, wondering where the voice was coming from.

From all around us, Stragglers began appearing from the surrounding area. They were not the same Stragglers we had seen before. These were mostly members of the Lord’s Glory cult. I could tell from their clothes.

They weren’t all cult members.

Among them, several members of the Akers clan stood. In the center was Theodore Akers, the patriarch of the family who had gotten trapped there when Douglas created the curse.

“No,” Douglas cried. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t ask for this.”

Unlike the other Stragglers, which stepped toward us menacingly, Theodore Akers did not. He stood still, unwilling to attack.

“The old man always thought he was so noble, didn’t he?” Douglas Akers continued to narrate. “Well, it took fifty years for that to change. Time changes all.”

The Stragglers changed. Now, they were gaunter, more decrepit. Their clothes had worn out. Theodore Akers had lost weight. Now, desperation appeared on his face. His time as a Straggler had stolen his restraint and better nature. He attacked along with the rest of them.

We ran toward the place we knew the exit to be.

Our Hustle stats were higher than the Stragglers'. We soon left them behind as we ran to escape. It turned out that running was a pretty good strategy if you knew the rules before entering.

Before we could get to the exit, Akers spoke up again. “But then you would know all about escaping the Stragglers’ Curse, wouldn’t you? You left your friend in the forest to rot. Ever wonder what a hundred years cursed to wander in a forest will do to a person? Let's find out.”

Suddenly, a Straggler appeared in front of us, sitting down against a tree. He was gaunt. His clothes were worn down to threads. The muscles that once made up his frame had now atrophied away. He barely had the presence of mind to look our way.

It was Antoine.

Kimberly ran toward him screaming his name.

Anna pulled her away. He was an enemy now. We could only save him by ending the story.

We emerged from the Stragglers’ Forest. We were free.

For a moment.

“The mines where all those poor men died, their lingering spirits reaching out and possessing those who come near, man and animal alike. But you didn’t like that story either, did you?”

We were transported again. This time, we were back in the mine.

“How did you find the cavern beneath the well? Why did you go there? You were just supposed to ride the minecart and escape. There was no evil entity in the mines. No waters brimming with power. It was only the possessed, that’s all.”

Sounds started to stir behind us. Clawing, scuffling.

“Run!” Anna screamed.

We didn’t have to be told twice. We ran forward along the underground tunnel as the possessed animals from the mine story chased us.

“That man from the forest wasn’t supposed to be there. How did you know about him?” Akers said.

The area in front of us opened up. There were trees there now, trees like those from the Straggler Forest. Standing amongst them was Nicholas. He was a Straggler again. Beside him was his mother, still possessed, still the Eyes of the Host.

They didn’t attack us but watched us as we ran by.

As we ran, dozens of possessed people began appearing around us and grabbing for us. They were miners, mostly. Corey, the activist NPC who had been with us in the cavern below also appeared. He lurched out at us as the others had done.

“Why did you go off track?” Akers repeated. “What did I do wrong? You weren’t even supposed to see the monsters hiding in the shadows, but you did.”

Suddenly, we were out of the mines.

We were running through dark woods. Something in the darkness whispered to me. I covered my ears as I ran. If they attacked, I was helpless.

But they never did. I never saw a single Cloven Woman. All I saw were figures moving about in the shadows.

We ran out into the clearing where the well was in the Cloven Women storyline. The young Douglas Akers was at the well. He was slicing his hand and letting blood drop down into the well.

I could hear Akers’ voice even with my ears covered. He was distraught.

“This couldn’t be what happened,” he said. “This mustn’t be what happened.”

And then we were back around the campfire.

Akers had collapsed onto the ground. He was sobbing.

“That is not what happened,” he said. “That is not the story! I can change the story, please let me change the story!”

Around us, the monsters were gone. Rudy and Jake were… all over the place. Maybe they had gotten attacked while we were running from Akers’ narration.

We turned and ran away from the land. As we did, the Plot Cycle hit The End for the final time.

~~~

We waited at the entrance to the property for half an hour. Camden got to us in ten minutes. He explained how he had survived.

“Luckily, my leg was broken, so every time they whispered to me I would try to walk out to them and the pain would snap me out of the trance. Then I hid under the fallen church. Used a pole as a lever to lift up a piece of timber and lower it back down on my foot. Pinned myself down under there. They couldn’t see me. I couldn’t leave. Then I passed out from the pain.”

He wasn’t sure if he died or not. He just woke up on the ground when the story ended.

Clever plan. Still got Written Off.

Antoine still wasn’t showing up. We were talking about going in to look for him, but we weren’t sure if the Stragglers’ Forest was operational still.

So we waited.

“There,” Dina said finally.

Antoine shuffled toward us from the western side of the field.

“Something’s wrong,” Dina said under her breath.

She was right.

As he drew near, he looked exactly as he had when we had entered the storyline, young and healthy, but his face was blank, trapped in a thousand-yard stare. His legs marched forward in an uncoordinated manner as if his mind barely had the will to move them.

He was crying.

“He’s Incapacitated,” I said. His Incapacitated indicator flashed the same as mine had been when I was stabbed. For me, it was because I was in great pain and had lost blood.

Why was his going off? We had just been healed at the end of the storyline.

We ran across the field to him.

As we drew near him, I saw the distant, broken look in his eye.

Oh no.

As Kimberly got to him, she grabbed him in an embrace, and he fell to his knees. Camden and Anna helped catch him from falling all the way over.

Tears rolled down his cheeks slowly in a continuous stream. He barely even registered that we were there.

How long had he been in that forest?

He raised his hand. Crumpled in his fist was a ticket. I couldn’t read what it said.

“Look at his tropes!” Dina said. Her Outsider’s Perspective ability had alerted her to them.

I did as she said. Sure enough, there was something very strange: Antoine had two tropes equipped that he had not possessed when we entered the storyline.

Where had he gotten them?

They were two of the most potent tropes I had ever seen in Carousel.

~

Bad Luck Magnet

Type: Rule

Archetype: Any

Stat Used: N/A

Sometimes,  one character has all the bad luck. They fail at everything they attempt and make the other characters look competent by comparison.

With this ticket equipped, the player will be first in enemy targeting priority regardless of Plot Armor. All of their stat checks will fail. On the other hand, Allies will receive a buff in every stat check as long as the Player with this ticket is alive and not Written-Off. If an enemy casts a spell or aura on the party in any form, the player will be affected first.

If equipped to a Wallflower, the buffs to Allies will last the remainder of the storyline if the Player survives to the Finale.

Some people are born with all the luck. You should invite them to your funeral.

~

Failing every stat check was the same as having a zero in every stat.

On the bright side, this trope effectively buffed every ally in any stat they used while they were using it.

Wait…

~

You were having a nightmare…

Type: Perk/Healing/Action

Archetype: Any

Stat Used: Moxie+

In horror movies, the audience often has a view into the character's memories and nightmares. At the end of the sequence, the player wakes to realize that the scene the audience has just witnessed was actually just a nightmare.

Traumatic Memories:

With this ticket equipped, the player can temporarily repress or—at its greatest strength—permanently heal mental trauma by pretending that a traumatic event was actually only a nightmare that the player has been woken up from.

Doomed Sequences:

The paramount application of this trope will allow the player to undo entire sequences within the storyline by presenting them as simply being a dreamed event—healing allies and giving the players a second chance. The Player must be a main character and have interacted with the enemy of the storyline before using this trope. The story can only reset to the midpoint of Rebirth. This application will fail if not perfectly executed and in line with the narrative.

Be warned: unless the player has established Psychic abilities, the second version of events will be completely different than the original version.

The player must be “woken up” by an ally whom they have an established connection with.   Its effectiveness will depend on both of their Moxie.

Wake up from the nightmare of the past. Wake up to the horror of the present.

~

That one was… really good. If used perfectly you could undo Second Blood and a botched Finale. That was incredible. Of course, Antoine surely didn’t have the Moxie to pull that off, but still, he could use that trope to—

“Look at his nightmare trope,” I screamed. “Look. It can heal mental trauma. Read it!”

Kimberly was kneeling down over Antoine. She was tearfully trying to comfort him. She had been so preoccupied that she had not paid any attention to his tropes until I drew attention to it.

“How did that—” Kimberly started to ask. She read the trope on the red wallpaper. “What do we do?”

Antoine moaned dully. He must have been a Straggler for ages.

“Will that trope even work?” Dina asked.

“Yes,” Anna said. “It has too.”

Healing tropes of all kinds tend to work outside of storylines, especially the mental health perk tropes. All of the veterans had their favorites. Reggie used one of his alcohol topes regularly. Valorie always had her little candy “pills” on her. No one goes through these storylines without losing some portion of their sanity. Tropes like this helped you get some of it back.

I couldn’t remember seeing a trope that claimed it could permanently cure trauma at its highest power. That was very powerful.

“What do we do?” Kimberly asked again.

“Do we need to get him to a bed?” Anna asked. “It says he has to be woken up.”

I shook my head. “Just lay him down. We don’t need it to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough for now.”

“Lay him back,” Camden said.

Kimberly helped lower him to the ground.

“Close your eyes,” Kimberly said. “Just lay down.”

Antoine looked over at her. He suddenly appeared to recognize her. He breathed quickly.

“Close your eyes,” she said. She gently placed her fingers over his eyes.

He did as she said. Still, tears leaked out the corners of his eyes.

Kimberly took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself. She was going to give everything she had to this. In a storyline, this would probably not work. Antoine randomly sleeping in a field would not fit most narratives.

But we were outside of a storyline. That shouldn’t matter as much.

I hoped.

I didn't know where this trope had come from or how he had gotten it. I wasn't even sure it would work. I just had to wait.

Kimberly placed her hand on the side of Antoine’s face. “Wake up,” Kimberly said softly. She moved her other hand onto his shoulder. “You’re having a nightmare.”

Antoine’s eyes shot open. He breathed in a deep breath. He looked around at each of us.

He grabbed Kimberly up in a hug. All the while, he was crying and laughing with pure joy and relief.

This continued for several minutes. Antoine would cycle between fits of joyful relief and horrified tears. The trope hadn’t healed his mind completely—we were far too low level to expect that—but he wasn’t catatonic anymore.

“I am so sorry,” Kimberly said. She had been crying too. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you behind.”

Antoine pulled back from her and said through a lump in his throat, “You didn’t… It wasn’t your fault. It was him.”

He pointed a finger back across the field in the direction of the gate.

Placed there, where he had not been before, was Silas the Showman.