As I looked over the group of mercenaries, all eyes trained on me, I was hit with memories from my basketball days. That era was so long ago. Damn. I guess it really just hit me again—I was a retired basketball player. I’d been itching to quit for years, but when the time finally came, it wasn’t on my terms, and somehow, I hardly even noticed. Anyway, these mercenaries—they were like my old teammates back then.

There’s nothing like having a team, the common goal, the camaraderie, the clarity of purpose. That’s what sports had been for me. My teammates were a kind of family… back when my actual family was not.

And somehow, I’d found something close in this group of men, all of us in way over our heads. I could sense their camaraderie, feel their hands reaching out to me, inviting me into their strange, reckless chapter. They wanted me to be one of them, a fighter.

Hell, that’s what everyone seemed to want me to be.

“When are we gonna go out there and skin some pups?” one of the men called out, sparking a round of cheers from the others.

He had long blond hair tied up in a bun, deep blue eyes that almost pierced through you, and even a scar over his eyebrow. But I knew he wasn’t anyone important—he didn’t even have a name on the red wallpaper. He was a mercenary, and that was all there was to him—a mercenary who hoots and hollers and gets everyone riled up.

But wasn’t that what I was, too?

I surveyed the group. A lot of them were buzzing with rage, itching to kill something, but that didn’t sit right with me. Rage wasn’t what they needed; it didn’t make sense here. They didn’t have anything to be angry at. Maybe they just wanted blood, or, more likely, they were scared.

But why didn’t they run? They didn’t have to be here.

I knew what Riley would say—that they were “scripted” to be here. But I was thinking about them as people, as men. Why would they stay when everything we’d told them had been nothing but bad news? They weren’t going to massacre the werewolves; it wasn’t going to be some killing spree, and they sure as hell weren’t going to skin any pups.

All I could figure was that they were afraid. And with practice, you can turn fear into anger, and anger can make you feel so damn powerful. But anger fueled by fear… that’s a dangerous thing—something you can’t control.

Because when the killers come, the anger fades, and the fear comes back twice as strong. I knew that. I’d been in Carousel long enough. I’d looked for power within myself so many times—the power to keep going, to just survive a little longer—and anger didn’t cut it. Not for long.

Sometimes, you run out of power, and you don’t die. That’s the worst thing that can happen. I knew that better than anyone.

Even as I stood there, my brain tried to remind me it was broken.

Calm. I had to stay calm, project strength, and be a leader.

I took a deep breath. I looked at the men again.

There are no mercenaries in the forest, I thought to myself.

I further surveyed the courtyard.

There are no stone walls in the forest.

There are no campfires in the forest.

I must not be in the forest, then.

Surely.

It’s true what they say: you can take a man out of the Straggler Forest, but you can’t take a man out of the Straggler Forest.

“Our first line of business,” I said, “is to find out where their hideout is. We have to make a full frontal attack during daylight hours when only the mature wolves will be able to shift.”

They looked at me, waiting for me to say the right thing. They didn’t want a plan—they wanted reassurance, wanted me to fan the flames inside them, make them feel invincible.

“Then we’re gonna go skin some pups!” I yelled.

The applause was thunderous, the cheering, the screaming.

When I’d first met these mercenaries, they were skeptical of me. I hadn’t had enough Moxie to keep them under control effortlessly; I had to win them over with actual words. I had to play the scene right because, whether Riley knew it or not, we weren’t in a horror movie anymore—we were in a sports movie. And an inspirational speech had power in those.

I’d watched enough of them in the locker room before games.

Our team had to win. The other team had to lose. And maybe, if I played this right, I’d get the big kiss from the leading lady.

I looked across the courtyard to where Kimberly was talking to the blacksmith, an older woman whom I could now see was probably a much more important character than most of these mercenaries.

Kimberly sure knew how to pick a lead. She took a bit to get the hang of this game, but when she set her heart to it, she thrived.

Kimberly was not in the forest.

So neither was I.

“Now, it’s my understanding that you’ve been doing Recon here for the last week or so. I need you to get me up to speed; it’s been a while since I’ve hunted in these parts,” I said.

Most of the mercenaries dispersed as I was led to a large table with a map of Carousel’s parks spread across it.

Michael was already there. He didn’t need a map, and it almost seemed like he didn’t like us looking at one like that, which might make him obsolete. He really wanted to help save his friends. I understood. I had friends—and a brother—to save too.

The map didn’t make much sense from what I knew of Carousel’s terrain and layout, but that was why we were here on a sound stage, wasn’t it?

Captain Neil Tiber seemed different from the others. He didn’t need me to play cheerleader or convince him we were bound for success. He seemed to understand the odds weren’t in our favor, yet he never suggested we back down.

That part… that might have been because of the script, though. He was too smart to go along with this.

“We spent the last week checking most of the cave systems to the south,” the captain said. “Didn’t find any evidence of squatting. It’s my understanding that werewolves don’t like to live in the wilderness—they tend to have hideaways that are more comfortable for their human forms.”

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He looked up at me, expecting a response.

“That’s right,” I said. “You’re looking for abandoned buildings, places really out of the way.”

“That’s a tough one,” the captain said. “We’ve scoured the area. There were some factories near the quarry, but no signs of life there, beast or otherwise. The only area we haven’t checked is this section, but that’s because there are so many campers there. And since we’ve gotten here, the numbers have nearly doubled,” he said, frowning.

As we spoke, Kimberly walked over, close enough to see where the captain’s finger was pointing.

“The summer camp,” she said. “Is it still standing?”

“That’s an awful good question, miss. In fact, it’s the next place we need to check,” the captain said.

“I’m going,” Kimberly said. “I’ll go with you.”

Her character had survived a massacre at that summer camp, so it made sense she’d feel drawn to that place. Storyline exploration was almost intuitive; you just followed hunches, looked for clues, and kept looking until something fit. And, usually, you found something.

Kimberly had to go, and so did I, but I knew I couldn’t just let her jump in without a second thought.

I gently took her hand and moved her a few steps from the map. I leaned in close and asked, “Are you sure? We can check it out ourselves, you know. You don’t have to go back. I’m confident you can handle it; it’s just… you might have some bad memories there you don’t need to stir up?”

“I do,” she said, “but I didn’t come here to run from my past. For so many years, I was confused about what happened—my memories all mixed up in a blur. I need to remember.”

“Is it about your friend, the one you saw in town?” I asked.

“That’s part of it,” she said, “but it’s not just that. I need answers. Why did I survive, Antoine? Do you remember that night? I remember I barricaded myself in one of the cabins, but I don’t know why they didn’t break in. They had plenty of time before you got there. I just don’t understand.”

I had no answers for her.

I nodded, touching her arm gently in reassurance.

We walked back over to the table, where the captain was talking to Michael, who, thanks to his tropes, knew the landmarks better than anyone. He knew every trail, where the blueberry and salmonberry bushes grew, where the springs and even old treehouses were located.

“Do werewolves eat berries?” the captain asked suddenly, confused at why Michael had brought it up.

Michael stopped, stumped. His tropes didn’t supply him an answer for that. He was just showing off.

“Humans do,” I said, “and they need to eat, too, when they’re not wolves.” I tried to smooth over the awkward pause, aware we were On-Screen.

We all looked down at the map, at the little icon shaped like a cabin, with the words Carousel River Camp printed neatly next to it.

“Time to go camping,” I said.

It was never too late to learn something new in Carousel.

One thing I was looking forward to in this storyline was the concept of Sanctuary. It was something a trope could do, where you’d be given a location that would be guaranteed to be safe for a certain amount of time based on one of your stats.

I had done a lot of reading about it after discovering that the Speakeasy was associated with a trope. The Speakeasy gave Sanctuary based on the player’s Hustle stat.

In the Atlas, the first thing you learn about sanctuary is to never trust it. It wasn’t fully understood. While it would last longer depending on whichever stat controlled it, it would sometimes just kind of disappear if you accidentally derailed whatever subplot was taking place inside it.

Andrew had not one but two tropes that provided sanctuary.

His first protected him while he was healing someone and only lasted long enough to do that. That sounded fair—he said it was pretty reliable.

His second was called Study Session, and it ensured there would be a miniature library in a storyline. This library would contain lots of information, some of it useful, that the user and allies could use for research purposes. Better yet, that trope said the sanctuary would last all of Rebirth.

However, Andrew claimed that there was more to it than that.

“Sometimes it protects long before Rebirth, and often it cuts out right in the middle. I haven’t quite figured it out yet; it’s a newer trope.”

I didn’t like the idea of a trope I didn’t understand, but I was fascinated by the idea.

We were Off-Screen as we searched through the Manor for The Stacks, which was the name of his miniature library granted by his trope.

“Are you sure it’s going to be in the Manor?” I asked.

Andrew nodded. “Yes. I spoke with Kirst, and he assured me that he had collected together all of the written works that were in the house—and many of those that had been stolen and sold—and he put them inside the study.”

“He didn’t tell you where the study was, though?”

“Evidently not,” Andrew said.

Reading in the Atlas, I felt like I could understand the idea of a sanctuary—kind of.

For instance, with The Stacks, you had to continue your search for answers. Once you were finished, or if you gave up, the protection would disappear. That made sense.

As for why the trope might protect you before Rebirth despite saying it didn’t, I couldn’t say. Perhaps in some storylines, there was simply a logistical issue—that if someone was killed in The Stacks in First Blood, they might not be available during Rebirth

, so Carousel might extend protection so that no one gets killed there before Rebirth.

But that was all guesswork.

We turned a corner on the top floor of the Manor, and suddenly we found ourselves bathed in candle light. It was early morning, but the windows in the house had been shuttered, so it was pretty dark inside, and we were relying on lanterns.

Once we got to the west wing of the top floor—or the top floor of the west wing, as it was supposed to be—we saw sconces with candles on them leading to a room at the end of the hall, a room whose doorway was hidden behind a bookcase left ajar.

Inside, we saw Egan Kirst, for the first time since he had left us last night, reading his way through a large volume that looked to be hundreds of years old.

On-Screen.

Kirst didn’t get up and didn’t acknowledge us.

We entered The Stacks and gazed upon… well, the stacks and stacks of books, some of which were decades old, others hundreds of years old.

Once we were done gazing in amazement, Kirst finally spoke up.

“I suspect that if this room were not hidden, we would not have the benefit of this bounty. Thieves plundered this place for over a hundred years.”

“I suspect that right along with you,” I said.

He got up from his old leather chair, which barely fit into the room, which was not very wide due to the stacks of books.

“I expect that you’ll be able to learn whatever you might need from this collection,” he said. “Remember, the pack leader must be dead, so study as you must, but don’t think I’ll pay you if you stay tucked into this room for your entire stay.”

He had a smile on his face; he must have seen how excited we were around these old books.

And I was excited—I didn’t have to pretend. I knew there were solutions to our problems in these books. It wasn’t like in normal storylines I’d been in, where you might have been wasting your time if you didn’t have a scholar there to confirm it for you.

I knew there were answers here. I just didn’t know which book held them.

Luckily, Andrew and I both had high Savvy stats, which would theoretically help us find what we were looking for, though it was difficult to imagine how that would work. Savvy wasn’t actual intelligence, after all—it was intelligence that showed up On-Screen. And as far as the Screen was concerned, picking up the right book at the right time was being intelligent.

So what we had to do was start picking up books.

The first volume I picked up was called Anderon’s Book of Salves, which I thought might be useful if it had something for werewolf bites or similar, but I had no such luck. It did, however, have a really cool first line that I found as I sat myself down in a chair I had brought from downstairs and looked through it.

“If you’re reading this book, it’s already too late,” it read.

That was the first line worthy of a better book. With no salves related to werewolves, I put the book in an area we had designated for our duds and moved on to the next one.

As we went along, most of the books were duds—and thank goodness most were obvious duds. We didn’t have to waste too much time on any one book, with few exceptions.

We were on and off-screen for the entire time.

It was strange to think that somewhere in these stacks was, tucked away, a book that could completely tilt the advantage in our direction. But which one?

I looked through the stacks. Lots of old legal texts—you could always tell from the binding. I was looking for something different, something old but not too old. If it was too old, I wouldn’t be able to read it.

My eyes rested on a leather-bound tome buried near the bottom of a large stack.

Something felt special about it, but I couldn’t quite tell what. Perhaps it was that half the book had been damaged by water, giving it an almost ghost-like quality, like I was staring at a half-dead book.

At that point, I had been through so many that I was due for a winner. Andrew had already found a textbook that claimed to be on meta-human anatomy, although calling it a “textbook” was generous. It was very old, and the sketches were not particularly well done.

I opened the book and soon found that what was before me was the journal of a man who used the pseudonym Amadeus Sing.

The date in the first entry of the book was June 11, 1825, and boy, did the handwriting match. It was a real struggle to get through, but it also had a really good first line:

“I write at the behest of monsters.”

Well, alright—you have my attention, I thought.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep