Arc II, Chapter 8: Nondescript

“Why did they not put the booths all in one place?” Dina asked as we made our way up yet another row of carnival rides.

We had seen booths for every company, social club, public utility, and college organization. There was nothing out of the ordinary at any of them. We wandered without progress for so long, I started to doubt that we should be there at all.

This place was a good microcosm for Carousel itself, though. It was the first time players would see important names like the Delta Epsilon Delta fraternity, which was running a carnival game where players armed with a long foam hammer tried to strike the heads of various frat members as they popped out of holes in a large plywood construct. It was whack-a-mole. All of the frat guys were tipsy but seemed to be having a good time. I didn’t see any faces I recognized.

KRSL, the company that had been behind the research facility in the Subject of Inquiry storyline with the psychically manifested poltergeist had a giant wheel contestants could spin for various prizes (all of which were KRSL products).

And it went on and on like that. They were spread around the concessions, carnival rides, and t-shirt booths.

Eventually, though, we found the booth we had been looking for. Hallowed Heart Hospital was doing a blood drive, giving out free healthy snacks, and administering flu shots all in one area.

As we approached, Cassie, who had said few words, found the nearest nurse and asked her bluntly, “Is Dr. Andrew Hughes here?”

“Excuse me?” The woman plastered on a smile. She was a level 3 NPC. No title. I doubted she would know much.

“Dr. Andrew Hughes,” Cassie said. “He was supposed to be working at this booth.”

The nurse didn’t appear to recognize the name. Still, she looked around quickly, and said, “I don’t know of a Dr. Hughes.” She leaned back and yelled back into the booth, “Do we have a Dr. Hughes?”

A buff male nurse with a long dark ponytail simply shook his head from within the booth and then went back to sorting through some things in boxes.

“I’m sorry honey,” the nurse said. “You said he was supposed to be working the booth for Hallowed Heart?”

Cassie didn’t answer at first. “I apologize, I must be mistaken.”

She turned back around toward us.

It doesn’t matter how much proof you have. Hope blinds you. She had been holding out hope that her brother would be there.

At least we let her and Isaac search. The players that we met at the lodge didn’t indulge our curiosities. Adeline had trained them not to.

“We need to keep moving,” Dina said quietly but firmly. She looked spooked.

She must have seen something. Her Outsider’s Perspective trope alerted her when things were new, unusual, or out of place. She didn’t necessarily know what was causing the trope to trigger, but it was still useful information.

We picked up the pace and continued our path around the booths and rides.

“There,” Dina said, pointing to the observation tower ride.

Unlike all of the other rides, it didn’t require tickets. That was important because we hadn’t taken the time to win or buy any.

It consisted of a large octagonal cabin with windows in every direction. It would slowly rise up a few stories high, and then slowly descend. It was small compared to some of the larger versions at amusement parks, but it still went high enough to see the whole area.

More than that, it was practically empty, despite how crowded the rest of the rides were.

We stepped into the cabin. Dina kept a watch out behind us until the doors closed and the room began its slow ascent. Unlike most observation towers, where the room would spin all the way up the tower, this one simply rose. It was lifted by a large pair of jacks.

“What was it?” Antoine asked Dina as soon as the doors closed.

“We’re being followed,” Dina said sharply.

We rushed to the window facing the way we had come in.

“A man,” Dina said. “I can’t describe him.”

“What was he wearing?” Kimberly asked.

We scanned the crowds for someone looking up at us.

“I can’t describe him as in I magically can’t describe him. I can’t focus on details,” Dina said.

“Like from a trope?” I asked.

Dina nodded. “He’s right ther—” she started to say, “No… I lost him somehow.”

I looked around the festival grounds. I saw no indescribable men as if that was a thing I could look for.

“Did you see him on the red wallpaper?” Bobby asked.

“No,” Dina said. “He wasn’t there.”

I was about to ask her another question but then thought better of it. There were only two ways to not appear on the red wallpaper that I knew of. The first way was to have an Outsider trope called Guarded Personality, which would prevent any type of insight into a player. Dina had that trope. Travis, one of the Outsiders at the lodge, had that trope. That trope was beatable with a high Moxie or Savvy though.

The other time I saw someone not show up on the red wallpaper was when I saw the axe murderer. I couldn’t say anything to my friends about that though.

Unable to see the man who was following us, we reverted to trying to figure out where we were supposed to be.

“Maybe the booth you go to has something to do with what happens next?” Kimberly suggested as she looked down at the grounds. “Maybe we’re supposed to be doing the activities.”

“I wonder what the face painting booth would do, then,” Isaac said, unable to even summon the energy to smirk at his own remark.

“I don’t understand how nothing is happening,” Antoine said. “Shouldn’t there be a guide or something?”

They discussed our situation. As they did, I started trying to think about this place as if it were an actual game. I looked around. My eyes rested on Isaac and Cassie. They stood there, still holding the luggage that they had brought with them.

“What if we’re not supposed to do anything at the fair tonight?” I asked.

They paused and waited for me to explain.

“Cassie and Isaac,” I said, pointing to them. “They’re still holding their luggage. If this was a real fresh start, then there would be eight or nine people, all lugging around bags and boxes. I mean, think of all the crap we had when we got here. We had to ditch it at the front of the corn maze before we did The Final Straw II.”

Something clicked.

“We need to find a place to stay,” Antoine said.

“I think it makes sense,” I said. “It’s dark, things are winding down,” I looked out at the festival, “Kind of. This isn’t even the real start of the Centennial. That’s tomorrow. A bunch of new players would be looking for a place to put their things. Especially since whoever invited them… isn’t going to be here to pick them up.”

We had been so obsessed with completing the tutorial and moving the story forward that we had forgotten to act as if we were new players who thought they were on vacation. The first thing that new players would do when they got to the Centennial event would be to find a place to stay the night. That hadn’t even entered our minds.

“That would explain why nothing’s happening,” Bobby said.

“So we need to look for a hotel,” Dina said, scanning the horizon as the observation deck lowered down.

“Yeah,” I said. “Though the process of searching for a hotel may be the thing that causes something to happen.”

“If we’re leaving,” Isaac said, “I could really use a bite to eat.”

That didn’t sound half bad. I walked across the observation cabin and stared west. In the distance, a sign flickered with the word “Diner” though the “N” and “R” sometimes weren’t visible.

We had prepared for the man Dina had seen to be standing at the doors of the observation deck as soon as the doors were opened, but he wasn’t there. We quickly made our way out.

The Diner had been a staple of the diet of the players of the lodge. By going there, we could get some food and visit the Community Board across the street where player’s missing posters could be found. If we could get ahold of their brother’s poster, it might help Isaac and Cassie get their heads in the game.

We wound down our way through the Centennial toward the Diner. No one jumped out to stop us from leaving.

The Diner was a bit of a walk, but it was much faster than we were used to given the Omens were not present. We could actually walk in a straight path.

As we approached, I could see that the NPCs had graciously left us an empty booth, as they always did at the Diner.

We stepped onto the street and walked toward the end.

“Uh oh,” Dina said.

At first, I assumed the mysterious man was back, but as I followed her gaze, I saw that she had noticed something completely different.

The Community Board that held all of the missing player posters was gone.

In its place, there was an NPC operating a pair of post-hole diggers.

We approached. The whole wall of the building had been covered with boards and posters the last time I had been there. Now, there was nothing.

“Howdy,” the man with the post-hole diggers said as we got close.

“Hey,” Antoine said. “What happened to the…”

“The Community Board?” the NPC said. “Tore it down. Mayor wants all of them refurbished. He said the whole network of them was rotting in place. He wasn’t wrong. Gonna get a new board up so that the community has a place to post about lost cats and coat drives and whatnot. Should be done in a few days.”

“Thanks,” Antoine said in shock.

“Are the missing posters gone?” Kimberly asked in a panic.

That would be one heck of an oversight for Project Rewind. If the missing posters were gone that meant that none of the other players could be rescued.

“Are they gone for good?” Kimberly asked again.

“That part’s not my job,” the NPC said.

“Let’s not freak out here,” I said. “He said that he would have the board done in a few days. That doesn’t mean the missing posters are gone it means that we haven’t unlocked them yet. Think about it. You have an NPC out here working in the middle of the night on a glorified bulletin board. He gives us some line about when the board will be back up.”

“Straight out of a video game,” Isaac said.

“Right,” I said. Truthfully, I wasn’t certain, but somebody needed to say something positive. Of course, it would make sense to prevent players from seeing the missing posters before they had completed the tutorial. Especially if the goal was to prevent players from panicking and trying to run.

“Wait,” Bobby said. He looked to the NPC. “How many boards are you putting up in this spot?”

The NPC was struck by the question. He grinned. “Now that I think about it, I’m putting up six boards here. Gonna have an extra connected community in this part of town.”

He laughed to himself and got back to work.

That was a clever question. Bobby’s Background Noise trope allowed him to gather information from NPCs as long as they weren’t on-screen. We knew that there was originally only one Community Board in this area but that more got added as more players died In order to accommodate the extra missing posters. Since the NPC was adding six boards, it stood to reason that there were a lot of missing posters to go on them.

Even with that good bit of news, the missing poster being gone was quite the gut punch. Still, we made our way inside the diner. We didn’t speak.

“They’ll be back up as soon as we get through the tutorial,” Antoine said, though I suspected he was trying to convince himself.

“There may be a storyline that’s designed to teach us about rescues. Or we have to wait until we’re awarded our first rescue trope. Of course, we already have some so it might trigger automatically,” I said trying to be reassuring. I wasn’t sure I hit the mark.

The others piled into a booth. I asked Antoine for the Atlas. I sat down at the low bar and started flipping through the pages for answers.

I found the section on the missing poster board. There was nothing about the Community Board returning after the Tutorial. There was also nothing about it disappearing. That was kind of good news.

“There is another missing poster board at the police station,” I said, reading the entry. “We can check that one too if we want.”

Of course, if missing posters were taken from the game when it reset, that wouldn’t matter. Still having another place to look was some comfort.

Dina sat down next to me at the low bar.

“You know, it’s funny,” she said. “We spent an hour telling these kids how dangerous the town was and then when we got here, it almost looked like a fun place to be.”

“Kind of undermines our message,” I said, trying to see the humor.

We ordered our food. We had some money saved up. Not a lot, but some.

As I ate, I looked across the store to see the owner, Gloria. She held a coffee pot and stood next to an empty booth. She looked lost in thought. Almost sad, maybe confused. I wondered why.

Back at the table, Antoine had reverted to planning things out to take his mind off the missing posters.

“So we find an NPC that is wearing one of those Centennial T-shirts and we ask them where to find a place to stay. If Riley’s right, then they should point us toward where we need to—”

“Shit!” I yelled as a face appeared outside the window of the Diner right next to Antoine’s head. He had appeared out of nowhere. It was a man; I couldn’t say what he looked like. Or what he was wearing. I couldn’t say much about him at all.

He said something through the glass that sounded like a whale’s call to me.

My friends practically jumped out of the booth from fright.

The man made his way around the Diner toward the entrance. Antoine started pulling his bat out of his duffel.

He opened the doors and walked across the room to where we were standing.

It was almost like he was more freaked out by us than we were by him.

For a moment, he just looked us over. He was blocking our way to the exit. There was nothing we could do unless we wanted things to get physical.

“You,” he said as he looked over us, his heart clearly racing. “How did you get to this place?”

The confusion on his face was matched by the confusion on ours.

“How did you get to Carousel?” he asked.

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