Book Six, Chapter 1: Urban Foraging

Articles and ads from The Carousel Daily Ledger, Carousel’s most trusting news source.

Transcription:

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The Red Chalk Circus Returns Tonight

By W. Averill, Staff Writer (filling in for R. Averill)

Low Top & Co. Present: The Red Chalk Circus — the infamous dusk-only show — has resurfaced on Lot 7, behind the old Dairy Mart (yes, the Dairy Mart is still there, please don’t send corrections).

Flyers appeared overnight with no schedule, no cast list, and no contact info. Just red letters. Just the same tagline: “One Night Only. Every Night.”

Witnesses from prior years recall acts such as The Acrobat Who Cannot Fall, The Mirror That Watches Back, and The Final Act (Subject to Change).

City officials advise attendees to bring exact change and write their names clearly on their wrists and notify a loved one of your evening plans.

The tent opens at dusk. The air smells like popcorn and static.

They’re ready.

Carousel Casino Opens “The Reckoning Room” — All Bets Welcome

By R. Averill, Staff Writer (filling in for W. Averill)

The Carousel Casino has cut the ribbon on its newest attraction: The Reckoning Room, a betting hall where you can bet for or against absolutely anything.

Casino spokesperson Lucien Graves described The Reckoning Room as a “space for speculation, strategy, and a little chaos.”

He boasted: “Want to wager your neighbor makes it through the week? You can.
Bet against your own birthday happening this year? That’s on the board. Will the couple tying the knot at the newly renovated 24/7 Wedding Chapel call it quits by sunrise? Place your chips. Think the plucky survivors crawling around a hell dimension won’t make it to credits? We’ll take that action.”

Bets currently circulating on the whiteboard include:
“Randy finally snaps during horror movie trivia night” (3:1, heavy action)
“Kimmy returns from the cornfield crawl” (25:1)
“It’s all been a dream” (Even odds — suspiciously stable)
“Tonight is The End” (Line shifting hourly)

You don’t need to know the rules. You just need to believe it could happen.

Odds are calculated by The House. Outcomes are final. Disputes are… discouraged.

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I crept slowly toward the end of the aisle, trying to hide the sound of my breath. You had to be intentional in Carousel. You couldn’t just stay hidden—you had to think about it. You had to put your every effort into it. And if your Hustle was high enough—

A sound.
Was he coming this way?

I froze. I didn’t dare take a breath.

On the other side of the aisle, a bearded man screamed and hollered into a cell phone. He hadn’t heard me—he was just pacing angrily, yelling at the CBI agent on the other end of the line.

“They aren’t real,” he said. “Don’t you get it? I can’t kill the hostages because they’re already dead. This is not Red Hammond. This is not his wife, Betty. I am trying to tell you that they’ve been replaced! Why won’t you listen to me?”

He was desperate and earnest.

I was tempted to say he was a good actor, but it felt more like he was repeating lines he had once said in real life. You could almost tell when an NPC was in the storyline that actually got them brought to Carousel—it felt much more real.

Across the room from me, Lila was walking, carrying a bundle of rope. A thick, strong rope. It was so heavy she couldn’t pick it up for long and had to roll the bundle, which was wrapped around a piece of cardboard tubing. Antoine quietly arrived next to her, picked it up, and started sneaking it out the back.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Red has a glass eye. This thing—whatever it is—has two normal eyes. I’m not stupid. I know something is going on,” the man screamed into the phone.

The man, whose name was Coop on the red wallpaper, was desperately pleading with the CBI agents outside to believe him. He swung his rifle around to emphasize his words as he spoke.

I surveyed the shelf in front of me.

There were two omens here. One was a weathervane of a rooster that had been bent up and then straightened back out. It was an omen for a storyline related to a storm. The name of the storyline was Ida Rae. It was a very character-heavy storyline from what we had seen in the Atlas.

It was on the grab list.

Unfortunately, as a weathervane, it was too large to fit into my hoodie’s pocket of holding, so I had to carry it around with me. Funnily enough, as soon as I grabbed it, I could feel my hair blowing, as if in the wind. It was subtle and not too big of a distraction, but quite interesting.

I didn’t have to worry about the omen being activated unless I tripped and accidentally installed it on some outdoor structure.

Gotta love an omen that’s hard to activate.

We were at a hardware store called Better Bea Wares.

Red Hammond had named the store after his daughter, Bea Hammond. I could see them—or at least, the monsters that had replaced them—tied up in the back, acting terrified. Acting.

Bea herself just seemed annoyed. She had been a nice young lady. I wondered what they had done with her. She stared at me as I went along.

These hostages never tried to get us to help them. There had been a stock clerk who would scream and beg if he was taken captive. We had to lure him outside before the hostage situation started.

The players who wrote about this place in the Atlas had it all mapped out. Every action you needed was documented and confirmed.

Coop was right. These were not the Hammonds. They never asked for help. They didn’t need it. They were acting.

Next to the weathervane, there was another omen of interest: a lantern shaped like a goat that would apparently attract some type of… sensual… cult to your door if you hung it outside. The storyline for it was called Clover Hearts.