Book Eight, Chapter 61: Intermission

Even while I was sitting in a cage with nothing to occupy my mind but planning out the final stages of the movie, I still didn’t know how Antoine, Anna, and Cassie were going to resolve the plot. Sure, there was the stated plan of throwing the maps into the brew, thus broadcasting that knowledge to the masses. It had come together well, but at the end of the day, walking into the room and throwing canisters into a giant pot wasn’t very satisfying. Carousel wouldn’t allow it.

So what was going to be that satisfying conclusion, or at least something close enough to satisfying that Carousel wouldn’t actively try to stop it?

I stood from my seat in the theater and walked to the end of the row, passing by a few people who were sitting and staring up at me. I didn’t have to go anywhere technically, but I didn’t want to be in the theater at that moment. I had never used the Intermission ability when it mattered, but I knew that it was actually pretty powerful. It was Savvy-based, which meant I was going to get approximately a whole scene beat back. That would be enough time to make one new decision, to fix one mistake.

But what would it be?

I headed toward the exit of the theater, where my adoring masses stood silently. They must have been watching the movie and realized how bad our odds were. They must have known that we were a hag’s breath away from defeat.

They must have, because even the paparazzi refused to call out my name. It was like a funeral out there. They still took pictures, though I couldn’t see most of the cameras except for the flash.

The silence was more annoying than the constant hounding that had happened last time.

Eventually, one brave soul, a woman, some kind of journalist who dressed like she was from the nineteen twenties, called out, “Riley Lawrence, are you aware of the current state of your fellow players?”

I wanted to ignore her, but the question was so weird. I was literally watching the movie with my fellow players in it. How could I not know? Unless she wasn’t talking about the current storyline.

“Which ones?” I asked.

“Ramona Mercer, Bobby Gill, Isaac Hughes, and Kelsey Van Note,” the woman said quickly.

I looked around at all the people around me. My initial plan was to ignore everyone. I would stick to the center part of the red carpet and not answer any questions, but now it was me who had the questions.

“Lost on the river last I knew. Playing a storyline,” I said hesitantly. “Why? Do you know something? Have they triggered an Omen?”

The woman began to answer, but she was interrupted.

The voice was someone I recognized. It came from down at the end of the red carpet, where all the narrators and high-level executives stood. I was going to travel down that way and talk to Lucky, if only to see if he had something to say, but when I looked for him, he was sheepishly standing in the back, looking at me like I was walking to my death. As best I could tell, he was trying to avoid eye contact.

It wasn’t him who talked to me.

It was Vincent St. Vane, the Proprietor of Carousel, as he called himself. Carousel probably didn’t care for that name. He was the man upstairs who glowed in violet lights. He was taller than the rest, wearing a suit of red and gold, his signature colors, and smiling, playing his character just like any captive of Carousel, except he played of his own volition. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since I had tricked my way backstage across the mountains so long ago.

“Come here, my friend. I’m afraid that we have some bad news,” he said before the reporter could tell me anything.

And so I did, my face red and numb. This was out of the ordinary. These people usually went out of their way not interact with players, but circumstances were unprecedented, and I knew as I walked to him that I was only going to get bad news.

Somehow, it was going to be worse than the fact that we were about to lose a storyline.

“What is it?” I asked when I walked to the end of the roped-off area that I was permitted to walk around in.

“Come here, my boy,” he said, unhooking one of the velvet ropes and letting me out of my little play area.

I walked through.

When I did, he put his arm around me and began speaking softly in my ear. The worst part was that he actually sounded human, like he cared.

And what he told me made no sense.

“Unfortunately, the four players who fell in the river have now been captured. They will need saving,” he said.

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I looked over at him, certain that he was playing at something.

“What do you mean by captured?” I asked. “They triggered an Omen?”

“Unfortunately not,” he said. “It is rare, but on occasion players can be captured in a storyline without triggering it, only able to be saved by players who do.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What exactly happened?”

The last I had seen, they were playing through a storyline. Anna had reported they were in fairly good spirits with her trope. What could have changed that in the meantime?

I was vaguely aware that something like what he described could happen. After all, the bad guys were cordoned off to monster lairs when they weren’t in storylines, but not all monsters killed. Some kidnapped.

I had heard a campfire story about a player who was held captive by a cult, winding up brainwashed and acting as an enemy, so much so that he had to be abandoned and never rescued some time later.

I knew that the game had its twists and turns, but I didn’t know the details.