Arc II, Chapter 13: Reply the Departed, Updated

Player Stats:

Player

Plot Armor

Mettle

Moxie

Hustle

Savvy

Grit

Riley

24/2

3

7

4

7

3

Antoine

22

6

4

5

1

6

Kimberly

19

3

6

4

1

5

Dina

19

2

3

4

3

7

Bobby

18

3

4

4

3

4

Isaac

11

1

4

3

3

0

Cassie

11

0

5

3

3

0

Player Tropes: (I would like to remind readers that this is a reference. I will describe tropes before they come up. You don’t have to read this unless you want to)

Riley Lawrence is the Film Buff.

“Trope Master” grants him the ability to perceive enemy tropes, but at the cost of sacrificing half of his Plot Armor.

“Cinema Seer”

buffs the Savvy and Grit of his allies when they hear him predict cinematic and impactful plot elements.

As an “Oblivious Bystander,” Riley remains untargeted by enemies as he convincingly acts oblivious to their presence.

“Escape Artist” buffs his Hustle to help enact plausible escape plans.

“The Insert Shot” makes allies aware of an object the player chooses. The object will be shown to the audience and its use will be buffed in the Finale.

“Director’s Monitor” allows him to watch the rest of the storyline after his demise via Deathwatch.

“Flashback Revelation” allows him to communicate with allies from Deathwatch through flashbacks to his past dialogue.

“Casting Director” gives him a summary of his team’s roles in the storyline.

“My Grandmother Had the Gift…” A background trope that gives Riley’s character some ambiguous connection to “The Gift” through his heritage.

He did not equip “Coming To A Theater Near You,” “I Don’t Like It Here…,”“Out Like a Light,” “Location Scout,”“The Wrong Reel,” “Raised by Television,” or “Dead Man Walking.”

Kimberly Madison is the Eye Candy.

“Convenient Backstory” allows her to believably change her backstory to assist with the current task, buffing the relevant stat.

“Social Awareness” allows her to see the Moxie stat of all enemies and NPCs.

“Get a Room!” boosts the odds of important discoveries when exploring with a love interest during the party.

“A Hopeless Plea” forces the captor to explicitly deny her release when she asks to be released.

“Pregnancy Reveal” buffs her Grit when she pretends that she is pregnant and buffs the father’s Mettle if she dies.

“When in Rome” buffs her Grit until Rebirth if her performance matches the tone of the movie.

“Does anyone have a scrunchy?” allows her to shift Moxie’s points into another stat by putting her hair up.

She will be targeted for First Blood because “Looks Don’t Last,” but the longer she survives, the weaker the enemies get.

She did not equip “Carousel Academy Awards,” “Breaking the Veil of Silence,” “The Woman in Mourning,” or “That’s What I Said!”.

Antoine Stone is the Athlete.

His “You were having a nightmare…” trope allows him to repress or heal mental trauma (he is not strong enough to use its plot-resetting powers yet).

“Gym Rat” buffs Mettle and Hustle by revealing athletic backstory.

“It’s Part of the Uniform” gives him higher Mettle when attacking with sports equipment.

“Just Walk It Off” heals the Hobbled status by walking.

“Knight in Shining Armor” buffs his Mettle and Grit when defending a love interest.

“Time Out!” allows him to go Off-Screen during a fight, reducing enemy aggression.

Brandishing a weapon is “Like a Security Blanket,” buffing his Grit and soothing his and his allies’ fear, whereas swinging a weapon will temporarily halt an enemy’s attack because of “Swing Away.”

He did not equip “Everyone Loves a Winner,”“The Playbook”, “Reload After Cut.” “A Race Against Time,” “Coyote in a Trap,” or “Bad Luck Magnet.”

Dina Cano is the Outsider.

“Guarded Personality” resists all insight abilities.

“An Outsider’s Perspective” alerts her to new, out-of-place, or unusual information.

“Better Late Than Never” buffs Mettle and Hustle if she waits until the Finale to assist allies On-Screen against the enemy.

“A Haunted Past” A background trope that gives her character some past trauma that haunts her and gives her access to various tropes.

“Encouragement from Beyond”

soothes her when stressed, scared, or in pain and may provide useful information.

“Outside Looking In” grants her the ability to discern ideal spots to linger and observe events without actively participating in the narrative.

“They Fell Off” allows her to quickly get out of handcuffs and similar restraints.

She can leave physical or mental messages in the story that her allies can detect when in the location she left them with “Pen Pal.”

She did not equip “You don’t know me, but…”

Bobby Gill is The Wallflower.

“Background Noise” allows him to get background information from NPCs when Off-Screen.

“The Good Samaritan” buffs his Mettle and Grit for helping allies in a crisis if they have not met On-Screen and are strangers.

“The “Wisdom” of Crowds” can source plans and information from a crowd of NPC privy to the situation at hand. The crowd will give him this information, but he will have to sort out the good from the bad.

“Last-Minute Casting” recasts him as an NPC that is moderately involved in the plot. The selection is seemingly random. He will get some limited background information for the character and some access to the NPC script.

“From Humble Beginnings” debuffs the player’s stats 30% in the Party, then but buffs them 15% in Rebirth, the Finale, and the Final Battle resulting in a net 15% buff by the end of the story.

“Craft Services Are The Real Heroes” ensures that there is edible food and water on set somewhere during the storyline.

“My Only Role is Exposition” gives him some useful information to be relayed On-Screen but takes it away if he starts to bore the audience.

“And That’s Lunch” extends the amount of time between scenes and give the player a timer for when their next scene is.

He did not equip “The Hidden Infection.”

Cassie Hughes is The Psychic.

“The Anguish” lets her see her allies’ health stats from anywhere and lets her take some of their pain by feeling it herself. This can reduce their overall injuries.

“We are not abandoned…” can keep her allies’ spirits high by weaving a narrative of some higher power in control. When done well, this trope can heal Incapacitation, certain forms of spiritual Infection, and even buff Grit.

Isaac Hughes is The Comedian.

“If he’s still cracking jokes…” allows the player to reduce or eliminate injuries by using humor the next time he is On-Screen before the audience know how injured he is. Works on allies situationally.

“Weapons of Mass Absurdity” using humorous weapons Buffs his Mettle and Hustle. The buff extends to weapons that are used if the original weapon fails.

??? is The Stranger

“An Early Warning” allows him to activate an Omen early from a distance by acting as the Omen himself. This guarantees that whatever events required to trigger the Omen will transpire, but gives the player and his allies more time to look around the setting before the storyline begins. This period is treated as the Party Phase.

“A Dark Secret” gives him insight into the enemy, but also makes his character canonically complicit in some way. Upon revealing the secret, the player’ Plot Armor drops to zero until he and his allies have played out the shock (at the dark secret) and reconciliation beats of his character arc and resolve to work against the common enemy.

Constance Barlow is The Researcher (Scholar)

“The 911 411” allows her to spend the majority of the storyline in a separate setting where she can do research for her allies. Her allies can call her for information she can look up, but she has a delay in how quickly she can provide the information. Her Plot Armor lowers for each piece of information she shares. Warning: if she is made aware of the reality of the danger and tries to help in any way other than providing research, the enemy will target her next her if possible.

“Eureka” allows her to locate desired information within a body of text at an accelerated rate.

“Where did I see that?” allows her to use props, like books, newspapers, or even the internet, as a cover to receive information on a subject matter when she had no real sources. She must pretend to

As soon as the story started, I was quick to check everyone’s roles using Casting Director. What I found shook me to my core.

Riley Lawrence, Kimberly Madison, and Antoine Stone: A dwindled trio haunted by the specters of companions lost, originally arrived to search for Antoine’s brother Christian, but now they search for the searching.

Isaac and Cassie Hughes: A pair bound by blood, their optimism dissolves into the night as they seek their missing brother Andrew, a quest marred by cruel machinations.

Dina Cano: The forlorn mother roaming an endless maze, her soul aching for her belated son, a poignant portrait of hope against hope.

Bobby Gill: The quintessential geek, now apparently a ditzy hotel employee, his role twisted by tragedy, playing the part of a man searching for his lost wife amid a sea of indifferent faces.

Constance Barlow: The diligent custodian of the town’s forgotten lore, she is the historian and librarian, her mind a vault of eldritch knowledge. She is only a phone call away.

The Stranger: An enigmatic figure draped in shadows, harboring a secret so vile it twists the very fabric of their being. Unlike the others, their search for a missing loved one is a path riddled with unspeakable truths, a journey that delves into the abyss and beyond.

We weren’t playing roles in this story. We were playing ourselves. I told the group as much but left out the colorful language. They didn’t need to be taunted.

We made our way through the paths that would take us to the back of the hill. Once we got there, it was like we were in a completely different place. The suite we had been assigned was far larger than we required. Though it had been renovated, its style only matched the other buildings of the resort superficially.

This building was clearly older than the rest. I imagine that Carousel had done some mixing and matching to create this story. This building had many rooms according to the map we had been shown. I could now see that each of those rooms had a large window. The lights inside the building were on and the blinds were open.

The front door to the house was already open and I could see two people inside wearing uniforms and walking around.

One of them was Bobby. He was carrying several trash bags that had been lightly used by the last guests. He was staring at something on a coffee table in the center of what I assumed was the living room, which was in the middle of the house along with the kitchen and dining. All of the other rooms branched out from there.

As we got closer, I could tell what he was staring at–an open board game. It was a large board with a strange metal object in its center. It looked like one of those bells you might see on the desk of a hotel, but instead of the little button that you might press to get the staff’s attention, is had a winding key that you might find on a wind-up toy.

As we walked in, a woman’s voice rang through the living room, “Bobby, can you at least pretend to help? We have to get this room done before the guests arrive and you haven’t done anything.”

Bobby started to respond, but before he could, he saw us walking up the path.

“They’re here?” he called out and started running around straightening things up.

“It’s weird,” the woman, Cindy, said as she entered the room. “Someone put sheets over the mirrors in the bathrooms. Oh, sorry,” she said as she saw us.

“We just about have things ready,” she said.

“Thank you so much!” Kimberly said.

“We already brought your luggage up,” Bobby said, pointing next to the door in the hall.

There was luggage, but it wasn’t ours.

“We appreciate it,” Antoine said.

The team filed into the room and started spreading out, taking the place in. It looked less like a resort suite and more like someone’s home. A clean home, but a home nonetheless.

I walked to the game board that Bobby had been staring at and took a look. It was an antique, that was for sure. The game’s box said it was called, “Reply the Departed.” The game board was divided up into rooms with square tiles spread throughout, some of which were special.

“Neat,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” Bobby said. “Real neat. Have you played before?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“It’s a great game. It’s a ghost-hunting game.”

“Bobby,” Cindy said, “Let’s leave these people alone.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

“So, the way the game worked is that you would travel around the board if you landed on a space that required you to draw a card you would draw it and the cards would tell everyone what to do based on where they were on the board and what objects they had found and also what archetype their character was….” Bobby paused for a moment. It was as if he had been reading this off of his script and only suddenly realized what he had just said.

He turned the board and found that there was a small rectangular legend titled Archetypes that listed seven different character types that players could use in the game. Detective, Reporter, Adventurer, Scholar, Psychic, Outsider, and Soldier.

We looked at each other In a joint realization that this game was meant to introduce concepts to new players similar to those that they would deal with every day in a carousel.

But we couldn’t just focus on that. Bobby needed to continue with his spiel or else his trope might stop working.

“What was the goal of the game?” I asked, hoping to spur Bobby back into action.

“Oh, right. You go to the clock right here in the middle to change the date and then you travel to one of the rooms with a specific murder weapon in order to try to channel the spirit of one of the deceased. Then you wind up the timer and it ticks down for 10 seconds and at the end, it either rings or it doesn’t. It was a special timer designed just for that. If it rings it means that you’ve channeled the ghost and you get a point. If it doesn’t you have to try again on your next turn…”

“Sounds fun,” Kimberly said.

“Yeah,” Bobby agreed. “But this one has its pieces missing. No cards to draw, no character pieces. It’s a shame. Of course, when I was a kid, we liked to try to use the bell to communicate with real spirits. There was a whole urban legend abo—”

“Ahem,” Bobby’s coworker cleared her throat. “I think we should leave these people alone, don’t you think, Bobby?”

“Oh, right,” Bobby said. “Well… take care.”

He got up slowly and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Off-Screen.

The rest of us continued to stare at the strange game board on the table.

“The walls,” Kimberly said, “Look at them.”

I stared down at the gameboard. Thought now faded, the walls of the house interior depicted on the game board were red. They had red wallpaper. Tiny paintings were hung in elaborate golden frames, just like those on the red wallpaper.

“So we’re dealing with ghosts,” Antoine said. “I can see the bell on the red wallpaper. ‘The Ten Second Bell.’ Does it have tropes?”

I stared down at the board. As Antoine pointed out, while the game board itself was innocuous, if I stared at the bell timer itself in the center, it appeared on the red wallpaper. A single trope appeared along with it.

Indestructible MacGuffin: This plot device cannot be destroyed.

I had seen that trope before on an object—the Astralist’s instant kill weapon. This bell didn’t have any other tropes associated with it, but the fact that it had a trope tied to the antagonist made it intimidating.

“Looks that way,” I said. “It’s an indestructible plot device. It doesn’t have other tropes that I can see, but we may be hitting the limits of what Trope Master can do. If it relates to ghosts, though, we probably have to deal with things like possess—”

Before I could finish my sentence, there was a knock at the door. My friends and I looked at each other. Cassie and Isaac were glued to their places on the couch.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

I sprang up off my knees and walked to the door. I peeked out the peephole. It was the cleaning lady, Cindy. Bobby was behind her. He looked worried.

I opened the door.

On-Screen.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Cindy held out a piece of paper that had been crumpled up. “I found this in the trash we just emptied. It looks like whoever left that game had printed out some game instructions.”

I took the paper and glanced down at it.

It was a printout of a post on a message board of some kind called “Arterial Oasis.” The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. The title of the post was, “The REAL rules of Reply the Departed.”

“Thanks,” I said cautiously. I looked past her and saw Bobby staring at me wide-eyed. He looked worried.

I slowly closed the door and began reading the paper.

“What is it?” Kimberly asked.

As I looked over it, I knew exactly what it was.

“It isn’t instructions for the board game,” I said.

It was a creepypasta, a type of scary story told on the internet, usually poorly. But I recoiled at the thought of saying that word out loud. Some internet lingo should stay on the internet.

“It’s instructions,” I said. “For a séance or something. Like an urban legend, maybe.”

What it said, was this:

The REAL rules of Reply the Departed

by k4r4s4il

Does anyone remember that old board game called Reply the Departed? It was a game about contacting spirits or whatever. It had a strange bell on the board that would like, sometimes ring after you wound it, but sometimes not. Well, you can use that bell to talk to real ghosts. I didn’t believe it until my cousin showed me. He told me that the game was based on a similar practice used by mediums for hundreds of years. That’s where the game designers got the idea.

He said it was called the Ten Second Game originally and he said it is dangerous. You should not play this game.

Some people said the original game was boring and they wanted something new so I thought you might want an update.

Here’s what you need:

• The bell from the game
• A house or building with a similar layout to the one in the game. Lots of rooms with windows. There needs to be a main room in the middle that you can run back to. This is important. You need to be far away from other people. If you can see people outside your windows the game won’t work.
• Items belonging to the spirit you want to contact. Like in the board game, murder weapons or precious Keepsakes work best. If you have antiques in the house, that will probably be enough, but special belongings work better.
• That’s it! Simple, right?

How to play:

• Seriously, don’t do this. It is DANGEROUS.
• Set out the game and get rid of the cards and character pieces to let the spirits know that you are not just playing the game.
• Make sure the bell is visible. This is critical.
• Cover all mirrors in the house. Keep them covered.
• Open all the blinds and curtains so you can see the windows in every room.
• Wind the timer and say aloud: “I wish to receive a reply from the departed.” Or anything like that.
• Then wait until 3 in the morning and turn out all the lights. Anyone in the house is now a part of the game. Any ghosts connected to the objects you collected will gather to speak to you. Remember, if they have gathered and you do not talk to them, they might get angry so don’t chicken out.
• To check, all you have to do is go into a room and stare out the window. Only do two people per room at most. Wind the timer and wait ten seconds. If the timer doesn’t go off, there are no ghosts.
• If it does you have to follow the rules! Do not turn around. Keep staring out the window! You will see faint figures outside as the ghosts try to get to the house. The figures you see will be ghosts. Do not turn around until they are gone or you will allow them into the house. You do not want that. My cousin did not tell me what would happen but he said it would be bad.
• While the figures are at the window, you can ask them questions. Wind the bell. If it goes off, the answer is yes. If not, the answer it no.
• Do not turn around until all the figures are gone.
• If you see a blue light out the window, go back into the main room and cover your eyes.

Seriously, this really works. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Be careful. There are more than just ghosts who want to talk to /post/3f0und/4-fr3shv1lla1n-j4st4u-h0p3ul1k3h1m

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