Book Six, Chapter 35: The Extra Player

“I am so sorry, sir, but I have to say, you look so familiar. Is there somewhere I might have seen you?” The receptionist at the front of the casino was gushing to Antoine.

“I don’t come around here a lot,” Antoine said. “I just have one of those faces.”

“Maybe,” the receptionist said, but she stared at his face, intent on figuring out where she had seen him. She was a young woman, bright-eyed and freckle-faced, possibly in love with Antoine.

“Miss Tanner,” a voice sounded from behind us. “Help get these people’s room keys figured out, and then leave them be.” I turned to see that it was Jules talking. Bobby walked behind her meekly.

“Yes, Miss Romanski.”

The receptionist continued digging through a drawer, trying to find all the necessary paperwork, but at the same time, she kept glancing up at Antoine.

I was there with Daphne, Kimberly, and Andrew. We had been exploring the casino, learning its layout, trying to find any NPCs that might be important. There couldn’t have been more than twelve in the entire building.

Management had sent most of the employees home, and it seemed like all of the guests were from the wedding.

We were seated in the large leather chairs at the entrance to the hotel area. There was a fountain and some statues.

We had been taking pictures nearly all day.

They were going to be some gloomy pictures, taken in an empty casino on the cloudiest day possible, but Daphne didn’t let that get her down. She really played into it, and when she was into it, it was hard for me not to be.

We were holding hands on the loveseat.

In the distance, I heard something rolling across the floor, and I turned to look and saw that an old-fashioned 1970s television was being rolled into the reception area. The NPC rolling the TV was a great big guy named Ed, on the red wallpaper.

It had great big bunny-ear style antenna sticking out of the top, and as soon as it got plugged in, the receptionist yelled out, “That’s it! I knew I recognized you from somewhere!”

We all stood to look because she made a big deal out of it.

The television had come to life, and a show was playing on it, although there was a fair amount of static. Apparently, with this storm, they needed to bring it near the doors to get a signal, or at least that was their logic.

It took me a moment to figure out what it was she was talking about, but then I was able to see through the static and the dancing images to an exercise show, one of those workout-style things with fast-paced music, an energetic host, and a bunch of women in tights in the background doing exercise moves to the instruction of the host.

I couldn’t believe it when I realized who the host was.

It was Antoine.

“This is Carving Stone with Antoine Stone,” he called out in his most energetic voice, wearing a red hoodie that looked like mine, but the sleeves were torn off at the shoulder, as well as some yellow athletic shorts that came up above the mid-thigh, that was more popular in that era.

Antoine was dancing around, exercising to the music.

“Remember, if you’re sweating,” he said, and then he and everyone else in the studio audience called out, “You’re sparkling!”

“That’s right,” Antoine said. “Now we’re gonna move into the lunges. You never know when you’re gonna need to lunge, so follow along!”

It was an absolute out-of-body experience. If the killer was in that room, they could have killed us all in that moment, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

“Turn this off! I told you to get the TV so we could watch the weather station,” Jules said. She turned to Bobby and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Gill. I’m training them as best I can, but with this storm, they’re a bit distracted.”

“That’s okay,” Bobby said. “It’s hard to blame them. Just don’t let it happen again.”

Jules returned to look at the receptionist and gave her a frosty look.

We were On-Screen, so we couldn’t exactly play our surprise and shock as anything else.

Kimberly looked at Antoine with a smile and then said to the group, “We didn’t want you to find out this way. We were going to delay the news until after the wedding, so we didn’t steal your thunder. But, Antoine got his own show.”

“They picked up the show?” I said. “I thought that was a pipe dream.”

We all walked over to Antoine and congratulated him. It was hard for me to suppress a smile. He looked embarrassed. We had wondered what he had gone off to do when the storyline started, but filming a workout video wasn’t even in my top hundred guesses.

“It was a pipe dream,” Antoine said. “But sometimes they come true.”

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He had brought his Everyone Loves a Winner trope that endeared him to NPCs because of a recent victory. The workout show was his victory.

“Don’t I know it?” I said, putting my arm around Daphne.

Kimberly cooed at the adorableness.

“I’m just glad that I get to help people,” Antoine said, “even if I have to dance like a clown to make it happen.”

I glanced up at the television, which was now on a weather station, and I saw, in the old-fashioned graphics, an impossibly large storm covering all of Carousel. Things were going to get bad in the coming hours.

Off-Screen

As soon as we weren’t On-Screen anymore, we all broke down in laughter.

“Joke all you want,” Antoine said. “Apparently, I’m making a bunch of money from this, so my character doesn’t care.”

“It’s not your character we’re laughing at,” I said.

Moments later, Logan appeared, dressed like a pastor, and saw us laughing.

“Did you find out the workout thing?” he asked.

We nodded our heads.

He had a good laugh himself. “I was in my room watching my television when that came on,” he said. “I nearly had a heart attack.”

“Well, maybe if you followed the workout, you wouldn’t have to worry about those,” Antoine said.

After a while, the laughter faded, and the jokes halted, as a clap of thunder so loud it shook the doors sounded outside.

That sobered us up real quick.

“So, have we learned anything?” I asked.

We had, but nothing too strange. We had just gotten to know some of the NPCs that were staying. There weren’t that many wedding guests, just a few family members.