Chapter Sixty-Seven: Make History Part of Your Story! (Patreon)

All in all, there were seven teams at the library. Of course, my friends and I hardly counted.

The other teams had been put together strategically for the better part and they could adapt seamlessly to different storylines. Players tend to plateau at around 40 Plot Armor. Most of the Lodge existed around that range. Those that are really dedicated like Chris and Valorie might break free and attain a higher level, but most will not. Most never break level 50.

There are benefits to that though. Pretty much all of the players in that range can group together for storylines. In fact, it was difficult to tell which players had come to Carousel together just by looking at their current groups. They end up dividing themselves into teams based on the task at hand. In order to make that work, they developed a signup sheet.

The original signup sheet was comprehensive, requiring you to fill out information on every single detail of your stats and build. In time, those were seen as overkill. They knew each other well enough that they didn’t really see the need to fill out a long form every single time.

So they made a shorter sheet. Hannah, one of several Final Girls at the Lodge, was very proud of the role sheet. The other players liked it too for the most part. It looked like this:

This sheet simply asked what you had to offer at each notable stage in the game. They would then discuss the team’s build based on what people wrote down. This system mostly worked for them on day-to-day runs.

The library was not a remarkable run for them.

“Don’t touch the books unless you are sure they aren’t an Omen,” Grace reminded us as we walked in.

Anna assured her that we would be careful.

“I smell the children’s section,” Camden said as we entered.

Everyone could. The whole first level of the library had a layer of smoke in the air. NPC firefighters put out the flame and made small talk with a library administrator. It wasn’t long until they had left. They were only here as background for the storyline that had just been run.

I stole a glance at the section where the burned-out children's section was. The books were mostly ash. NPCs worked blocking off the section from view with a large movable curtain. I managed to see a smoke-damaged red box against a wall. It was a Silas the Showman display, one of several permanent installations around town. Of course, it was not in working condition. Bad luck for him.

The building was large. Each section had its own room cordoned off somewhere in the stacks. The library had all of the normal sections you might expect: fiction, nonfiction, biographies, genealogy, etc. It also had a few Carousel-specific sections. Ancient tomes, Witchcraft and folklore, History of Carousel, and the Bartholomew Geist Private Collection (which you needed a special key to enter) were among them.

A lot of the rooms were just designed to be settings for scenes in different storylines, usually one-offs. Do you need a scene of a scholar pouring over books searching for some obscure fact? There was a place for it on the second floor called the Leatherbound Vista. That wasn’t the name for it on the library map, no, but my Location Scout trope told me it was there. There was also a place for college kids to study together on the top floor called the University of Carousel Group Study Annex.

The library was actually quite pretty in the way libraries often are in movies.

But it was filled with Omens, most of which could be triggered by some variation of “touching the book”. Some were more generous and actually required you to check out or read the book. Interestingly, most of the storylines triggered by these book-omens took place outside the library. Location Scout assured me of this. In fact, some didn’t even have scenes in the library.

Upon asking Roxie about this, her explanation was that while most storylines were ready to go at a moment’s notice. Others had to be set up. Making sure you could only trigger the storyline from far away ensured that the NPCs could get everything into place before you got on set.

Of course, many of the storylines were directly related to the library and the books involved. I saw a litany of storylines around the library. Most of them were a high difficulty. That made sense. No use putting beginner storylines in a place where beginners couldn’t get to them.

We found a table on the second floor that was separated from the rest of the library but was on a landing that could look over the librarian's desk. We wanted to watch as the other teams approached the Head Librarian for information about the lore tickets.

Each team moved separately through the library so that if someone accidentally triggered an Omen, other teams wouldn’t have to be involved.

In the Grotesque storyline, everyone who had gotten close enough to the Omen for their plot cycle indicator to switch on was subject to be included in the storyline. The theory was that if we divided up the library and stayed separate, we wouldn’t have to worry about that.

We were waiting our turn to talk to the Head Librarian.

In the meantime, we decided to read up. I helped everyone find books that were safe to read from the section that we had been allotted. We were eager to see what kinds of information the library held. I half expected the books to be blank. Why go through the trouble of writing enough books to fill a library if they aren’t part of a storyline? I was wrong. The books were all filled.

Though, they were a little strange.

“I found a President Eli Morris as the 28th president of the United States,” Camden said, holding up a book that claimed to be a US History textbook. “I don’t remember learning about him in school."

“That’s not right,” I said. “We all know that the actual 28th president was… uh… you know.”

“And the section on the Salem Witch Trials is a trip,” he said. He flipped it around and showed me what looked like a pilgrim woman absorbing the souls of some townspeople. “It talks about it like they were actual witches.”

The actual Salem witch trials were famous for being false accusations.

He handed me the book. I scanned the page. Sure enough, the entire county was abandoned to keep the “Coven” separate from the rest of the country. However, when they checked on those lands years later, they were unable to find any evidence of inhabitance. The section concluded that the witches had either died off, left with the townspeople, or simply never existed.

“Maybe it’s randomly generated,” Camden suggested. “Or maybe that’s just what happened in the fictional version of the US that Carousel is set in.”

I shrugged.

“It might have been made for a specific storyline,” Anna theorized. “One with witches.”

That seemed possible.

“Here we go,” Antoine said, lifting a book onto the table. He seemed better after a few days' rest. Or at least, he had gotten better at hiding his trauma. “This book references a Catalogue of Eldritch Entities. Maybe that would work. You guys said it was an Eldritch deity, right?”

We were still trying to figure out how a player might have found the secret lore on purpose. Stumbling onto them was unreliable (even with help from our friend in high places). If we were going to find ten, then we needed to understand how to track them down.

“None of these people exist,” Kimberly said, as she looked through a celebrity gossip magazine. She had gotten bored of looking through historical texts. By this point, we all had.

We slogged through more of Carousel’s collection of alternate histories.

“We need to go to the History of Carousel section,” Anna said. “Did they say how long they would be?”

I shook my head.

Grace and her team were in the room that contained the actual History of Carousel section itself. It was thought that there would be something more substantial in there.

“If there’s something in there,” Grace will find it, Camden said. “Her Savvy is higher than mine and she has Eureka too.”

His Eureka trope allowed him to sift through books quickly to find relevant information. According to him, it wasn’t as useful here in the library where most things were higher level than us and he had no idea what it was we were looking for.

“Why is it taking so long?” Kimberly asked. “Are they asking the librarian her life story?”

They were using insight tropes to try to get as much information as they could about the tickets. We could see them down there at the librarian’s desk. One team at a time, they would present their Secret Lore tickets and interrogate her about how they might get more. Later, we would all discuss what we learned.

On the red wallpaper, the librarian was called, “Constance Barlow, Head Librarian of the Carousel Public Library.” She had 50 Plot Armor. Like all of the other level 50 NPCs I had met, she had tropes that I assume were enemy tropes. They were grayed out and unreadable, just as the others had been. I chalked that up to my low level.

“What are we going to say that others haven’t?” Anna asked.

“Maybe we won’t have to,” Dina said. She had been silent for much of the time we were in the library.

“Maybe,” Anna said.

We hadn’t told the others about Dina’s letters inviting her to Carousel. We also hadn’t talked about the tickets I had received which had what appeared to be a message hidden in their titles. We were waiting for more substantial proof. Proof that would justify us trusting our anonymous benefactor. Proof enough not to get immediately dismissed by the veterans.

We had asked around, though. It did appear that Dina’s letters were unique. No one else that we talked to was lured here so candidly. They had all been brought in under false pretenses. Most of them by phone call, some by letters.

All we had left to do was wait.

~~~

Forty-five minutes later, all the other teams had finished trying to get information from the librarian. We got the nod. Most of the teams left the library altogether after their turn. They had combed through this place time and time again in the years before we got here.

It was about time. The smoke had cleared from the fire in the children’s literature section. Soon, we might find out exactly why the other players worked so hard to avoid the Omen that lurked there.

We made our way downstairs to the Head Librarian’s desk. Hers was placed in a position of authority behind all of the check-in counters and similar where ordinary library worker NPCs sat with friendly smiles.

When we arrived at her desk, she turned to us and smiled. She was a cheerful woman, not anything like the stern image that the term librarian might normally evoke for some. She wore glasses and a blue blouse. Her hair was tied back in a bun. Books surrounded her, piled up on her desk.

“Hello,” Anna said as we approached.

Constance smiled brightly. “So many tourists! Today is a busy day! Welcome to the Carousel Public Library!”

Anna took her Secret Lore ticket from her pocket and held it up. “Can you help us with this?”

The library glanced over at the ticket.

“It’s great to see the Secret Lore Rewards Program is still drawing in participants after all these years. The program is a joint project between the library and other institutions of learning in Carousel. The project’s motto is ‘Make History Part of Your Story.’ Isn’t that clever? Beverly Canton from the Museum of Natural History came up with that. She’s a hoot. I just think it’s so fun.”

She smiled at each of us in turn.

“I trust your vacation in Carousel has been captivating?”

Anna nodded and forced a smile.

“Wonderful,” Constance said. “If you would like, you can trade that in for a prize now, or collect ten for a secret reward.”

The whole Lodge had discussed this. Lukas had traded his in after several years and had only gotten a treasure map, something that the higher-level players collected with some regularity. We were going for the big one.

“We’d like to save them,” Anna said. “The secret reward sounds tantalizing.”

“I would do the same thing in your position,” Constance said. “You know, it’s great to see young people with such an interest in history.”

Anna glanced back at the rest of us, then leaned forward and said, “We were wondering if there was a way to find storylines with Secret Lore.”

The Librarian smiled.

“Of course,” she said. “History is all over. You’ll find its tendrils everywhere you look. I’m certain you will find another if you keep your eyes open.”

The other players had tropes they could use at this point to try and get more specific answers. We had nothing. None of our information-gathering tropes could help in this situation. Most of ours were designed to be used in a storyline.

Dina stepped forward. “Are you sure there isn’t any other hint you could give us?”

Constance smiled. “You tourists really are curious today, aren’t you? Well, fear not. I am certain that the clues will come to you now that you know what to look for.”

That was actually reassuring.

“I am glad to see you here. I hope you will be back,” Constance said. “If I were you, I would be sure to collect ten Secret Lore tickets before you leave town.”

She stood up and began walking away from her desk.

“Now, if you will excuse me,” she said. “We are about to open up our new Children’s Literature wing. It’s a very exciting day.”

That was our cue to leave. From the sound of it, the children’s literature wing was about to reset after being burned down to make the library safe for us to visit. If it was about to reopen, that meant the traveling Omen it contained might return too.

As we turned to leave, she cleared her throat and added. “Just remember, the motto is ‘Make History Part of Your Story’. Just a part. There's so much here to see in Carousel. I hope you’ll remember that moving forward.”

She paused as if evaluating whether to say more. Then, she smiled before walking away.