Book Eight, Chapter 63: The Provisions

By the time we made it back to the boat, we were in a dead sprint. The water was rising, and the river, which previously had ended at the banks of the muddy marshland, was now running through it because we had cleared the storyline.

We worried that the boat might get taken away by the current, or worse, that our little homemade homing beacon might be gone by the time we got there. Luckily, that wasn’t the case, because when we got there, there was something pinning the little plastic contraption down to the ground so that it couldn’t float away as the water rose.

It was Silas, the mechanical showman.

As we approached and realized what he had done for us, we were amazed. Water was rising almost a foot up his red wooden box, but he stayed there on top of the tracking device so that it wouldn’t float away. We didn’t have time to marvel at it, although Camden seemed to get a kick out of it, at the implication that whatever controlled this machine was on our side in some small way.

“The only question is,” he said, “is this a servant of Carousel, or did the consortium send it here, or does Silas the mechanical showman have a soul?”

He continued to ponder things.

We were in a hurry as the river rose, so we each quickly hit the red button one after another without examining our prizes. After we collected our stuff, we ran one after another over toward the boat in order to get it ready to start back on the chase.

“So what are we doing?” Cassie asked as soon as everyone had collected their rewards and was aboard the boat. “We just wait for that thing to float away?”

“That’s the plan,” I said. “Once the current takes it, we follow it.”

It was a simple plan.

“I almost forgot that the only reason we ran that storyline was so that we could make a turn in the river,” she said.

So much work just to keep moving forward, and when we got where we were headed, we were in for an even more challenging storyline.

For an animatronic ticket dispenser, Silas was showing a lot of free will all of a sudden, staying in that spot as his red box sank into the mud, his dull lights flickering, and the mannequin’s arms flailing, shining its little usher’s flashlight around. It was like he was waiting for us to be ready, holding down our tracking beacon until, eventually, he just disappeared.

A bunch of water moved in to replace him, and as it did, the plastic bag with the orange water wing and the magic cue ball surged up to the top of the water and began floating with the current.

We used the trolling motor at first because the marshland wasn’t exactly deep, but we didn’t end up in too many tough spots. Eventually, we could relax and follow the river through the marshland wherever the tracker led us.

Only then did any of us actually review our rewards.

I got two stat tickets and some money, as well as two tropes. That was a pretty good haul. I was the highest-level player on the team, and it was nice to start leveling again, even if it was only a bit at a time.

I looked over my tropes.

If I was understanding it correctly, that could be a pretty powerful trope. Being able to review old footage I had filmed to find new insights, even ones that weren’t there to begin with, could be quite useful.

But it would require me to double down on a cameraman build. I still had a camera somewhere in my pockets.

While the power of a cameraman was undeniable in the Carousel meta, it was a real handicap in a lot of ways. It made it hard to develop my character, and it was distracting. But it was nice to have multiple builds I could adapt.

That was quite a useful perk. It seemed clearly designed for a build that would make the player a reanimated dead person of some kind, but it would work with my method of using Cutaway Death. I had to wonder how many benefits I could squeeze out of a trope like that, or if I could justify putting it in my loadout at all. Feeling pain sucked, but I was used to it.

Cassie got three stat tickets as well as two tropes. She was the lowest-level player, and she had a nice streak going where she was stealing scenes and really driving the plot, even though she did kind of die with a whimper in the finale.

As best I could figure, Antoine’s Willpower Is Magic was actually what did her in. It gave her the ability to struggle against the familiar’s magical embrace at the cost of her own health, but she didn’t have the grit for something like that. Ironically, she probably would have survived if that trope hadn’t been in effect, but we would have lost the storyline, so it was well worth it.

That could be an incredibly powerful trope. The only danger was that she would have to have the presence of mind to make some prophecy that would be helpful, but not something that Carousel would warp into a monkey’s paw situation, because she got greedy.

We could probably work through some templates that she could build off of. We weren’t really in a good place for experimentation.

If I understood the text of this trope, it could basically bring someone back from death, or very nearly so. It was also a good emotional beat that paired well with Anna’s build. We might have to incorporate it.

Anna got the most stat tickets, at four. She also got two tropes.

Interestingly enough, neither she nor Antoine got the enemy collector ticket for Ol’ Nonnie. That meant that pushing her into her own brew didn’t actually kill her meaningfully within the world of this story. It was probably impossible to kill a creature like her, but they had done enough to win the storyline.

We never really wanted to rely on Anna being the last one alive. It was just a really precarious thing to plan around. But she was collecting enough tropes to build a good loadout for that strategy.

At the end of the day, it didn’t cost much for her to devote herself to being a really powerful survivor.

Final Callout Type: Debuff/Buff Archetype: Final Girl Aspect: — Stat Used: Moxie

After a full movie of back and forth, fights, verbal spats, and general conflict, it comes down to the end where the hero must stare down the villain and call upon the most powerful words of all: names. Continue Reading You are reading a free preview (50%). Log in to unlock the full chapter and join comments. Log In to UnlockCreate Account Related chapter tags #thegameatcarousel:ahorrormovielitrpgchapter63#thegameatcarousel:ahorrormovielitrpgchapter64#thegameatcarousel:ahorrormovielitrpgchapter65#thegameatcarousel:ahorrormovielitrpglatestchapter#thegameatcarousel:ahorrormovielitrpgreadonline 0 chapter views Related Novels Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (165/?) When the Sirens Count Down Don't be Fooled; Humans require High-Security Cages Accidentally Crowned the Demon Lord's Landlord 0 Comments You must be logged in to comment. Bookmark Quote TTS Link Play Pause Stop Skip Scroll Settings Note DMCATermsPrivacyContact 1 online