Alright, just like we practiced.

We all stood around the dining room table, fanned out.

I handed a rolled-up newspaper to Camden—I had just purchased it from a stand down the street.

“Any luck?” I asked.

By the time Camden unfolded the newspaper and had it set out in front of him, he already knew the answer.

“Looks like we got it,” he said, flipping through the pages.

Oh, how I had missed his Eureka trope.

Within a few seconds, he had found the ad we were looking for. It almost looked normal—just an advertisement for a pizza place. Nothing too special: buy five pizzas in a week, get the sixth one free.

Of course, there was some catch. We didn’t know what it was yet, but there was a catch. I had some guesses.

The ad itself was an Omen—but interestingly, you couldn’t see it unless you dialed the number for the restaurant. The Atlas talked about this. As soon as I had typed in the number—555-7468—I could suddenly see the Omen staring back at me on the red wallpaper.

By the Slice.

No one said this storyline was their favorite, but it was still a staple to the old-timers, not the vets from Camp Dyer, from way back before then.

“So we’re good?” Antoine asked.

“We’re good,” I said. “You have the map?”

“I have it right here,” he said, holding up a very old and fragile piece of parchment.

It, too, was an Omen—one that could be activated simply by driving in the direction of the storyline while holding the map. Antoine and Logan had to steal it from a guy at a bar in southeast Carousel.

They would have to steal a car.

The Vets at Camp Dyer had a strict only-steal-from-storylines rule. The players from before them were more nuanced. They knew there were situations where you could steal things, looting Carousel proper itself. Situations like the hostage situation we had plundered.

“So, how did you get it?” I asked.

“Got him drunk. As soon as he was passed out, it was easy pickings,” Logan said.

“All right,” I said. “By the Slice and The Sunken Cradle

—”

“I think you missed a part,” Antoine interrupted.

“Oh, of course. How silly of me. By the Slice and Antoine Stone and the Sunken Cradle—both stories are supposed to be really good for grinding out Rescue tropes. So that is our goal. Always be looking for opportunities to save other people in very cinematic ways. Do it On-Screen if possible—it’s worth taking the risks. We need those new tropes. Without the ability to steadily rescue people, our levels will stagnate, you know the spiel.”

Everyone nodded. There was an energy in the room. A nervous energy. How could we not be nervous? We had storylines to run soon.

“Then after we get the rescue tickets, we have to get a writ of habitation so that we have a place to put all the people we rescue,” Logan said. “It’s like a Rube Goldberg machine. Every single action necessitates a different action before. In the end, we achieve… something.”

He had been drinking, which was to say, pretending to. Logan didn’t actually drink all that much, for as often as he had alcohol in his hand. There was an awkward pause after he was done speaking.

“I think it’s more straightforward than that,” I said. “More like dominoes. Or chess.”

He nodded.

“But none of it matters because all of that is just details until we discuss throughlines,” he said.

I took a deep breath.

“I know that,” I said. “As soon as we figure out the safest way to trigger Carousel’s throughline, we’ll do that. We just don’t want to be caught off guard or go in too quickly.”

“Carousel’s throughline,” Logan said. “Have we even discussed other possibilities? You said there was a whole list.”

“That’s true… Can we discuss this later?” I said. “Whatever throughline we end up picking, our next move is the same.”

“Why later? Why not now?” Logan asked.

Tensions shot up in the room. I wondered if there was a strange hourglass in the mountain-sized tower out west collecting red sand.

“I think Riley just wants us to stay focused on what we’re about to do. We have storylines to clear,” Anna said, trying to be a peacemaker. “We need to tackle one thing at a time.”

“And I need to know the long-term plan so that I don’t feel like a schmuck. I think that’s a fair request,” Logan said. “If I’m about to literally go die for your plans, give me all the information I need to know if it’s a good idea.”

In situations like this, I would normally just leave. Social confrontation was not my forte.

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But I had to stay.

“I don’t have a lot of information,” I said. “I told you about the scientist lady who wants to find the secrets of the universe, and you said you weren’t interested in that.”

“But there were others,” he responded. “You supposedly went and got to peek behind the curtain, but you still keep secrets. I thought that if we went along with your little plan, you’d finally let us in on whatever it is that’s going on. But you come back, having seen so many amazing things, and you’re still secretive. It’s like you have no other mode.”

Angry eyebrows, activate.

“They don’t like being talked about,” I said. “They don’t see themselves as part of the story. They don’t want us to mention them. Don’t you get that?” I asked, gripping the edge of the table firmly. “Carousel’s throughline is the one Project Rewind was designed to revive. It’s the one you were brought here to run, the one with the promise of curing your cancer. I don’t think we need to look at the others.”

“Why not?” Logan asked. “Maybe we’re making bad assumptions. Let’s double check.”

I was at a loss for words. I looked around, hoping someone would support me. But the truth was—they seemed to agree with Logan. If not with his tone, then at least with his opinion.

“Well, I’ll list them off again for you,” I said. “There’s the guy who wants to collect things—like people and objects. A guy who wants to cure some sort of interdimensional zombie virus. A guy who just wants to understand Carousel’s magic. There’s Silas Dyrkon—some of you already know him. There’s a guy looking for his wife. I got to look at these posters for a total of like five minutes—I was in a hurry. And none of that matters because none of them are promising to get us out of here. You understand that, right?”

“How could I understand that?” Logan asked. “We haven’t talked to them. You expect us to see you as an authority because you glanced at a poster or something? But we don’t actually know what they have to offer.”

“Logan, they talk about how players always end up dying in their throughlines. And the proprietor guy? He was very clear that no one has ever survived. At least Carousel is promising us a chance to go home.”

“Well, technically, Carousel never promised that,” Camden said. “Not from what you guys have told me. I am not arguing; I am just putting that out there. Its throughline says, ‘The only way home,’ but that is not actually a promise.”

Even Camden was against me now? I looked around the room, absolutely appalled.

“What is this?” I asked. “I thought we were all on the same page. We have to choose something. And soon. I don’t know if we should choose one of the narrators—I don’t—but we don’t even have options for them on the red wallpaper. I’m not sure what you expect of me.”

“Look,” Logan said, “everything you told us about them makes it sound like they’re the closest thing to the good guys we have. They didn’t cause our problems. All they did was make winning the game more achievable. I just don’t want to move forward until we’ve at least considered them.”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t,” I said. “I just don’t see how helping them gets us closer to our goals.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Maybe we should talk to them,” Anna said after a little while. “It would make us all feel a lot better, Riley. It’s not that we don’t believe you—it’s just… we didn’t get to see what you saw. Maybe we would feel better if we heard their side.”

“So talk,” I said. “They can hear you, I’m sure. As far as I know, they’re basically all-powerful, immortal sorcerers.”

Antoine stretched, exuding an air of confidence.

“I don’t see why we can’t do one of their throughlines just to learn more about Carousel,” Antoine said. “And then maybe we could think about doing Carousel’s throughline after. Cure space zombies, then escape. You said the narrators are supposed to be your mentors. I’m not too proud to say we could really use a mentor.”

We talked back and forth for a long while, with everyone saying something.

Everyone—even Isaac, who would not say the thing we had told him to.

“I say we make our own throughline,” Isaac said. “We know it’s possible. The only people I trust are in this room—and I don’t even trust you all that much. Why bring some shifty people in who don’t care about us?”

Cassie subtly stepped on his toe.

“Didn’t one of the narrators say something about the end of Carousel? Or there being some prophecy?” she asked. “That sounds right up our alley. If we can somehow trigger Carousel to—I don’t know—collapse on itself, wouldn’t that be worth checking out?”

Slowly, we went around and made sure to mention every narrator I had seen. There had been at least twelve of them, though I had not read all of their bios in my haste.

I sat at the table with my head in my hands, exhausted.

“This is great,” I said. “I feel like this is a step backward, but if that’s what you want to do, we can do it. Let’s put an ad in the newspaper,” I said, gently tapping the paper that was spread out on the table.

“Narrator auditions. Must make generous promises.”

I took a deep breath.

“Look,” I said, “maybe I plan too far ahead. Maybe I made too many assumptions about whether you would agree with me or not. I understand that. If you want to try to find a way to reach out to the narrators—just to touch base, see what they have to offer, maybe ask them a few questions—then I’m not going to stop you. But don’t be surprised if they ignore us. To them, we’re just passing through. They’ve seen hundreds—thousands—of players just like us. And they’ll see thousands more. How can we hope to understand people like them?”

I intended a sprinkle of flattery. Maybe that was more than a sprinkle.

“Anyway—we are all in agreement about the next storylines, right? We need Rescue tropes and Writs of Habitation. I guess we’ll talk more about this later. Maybe we can go to the craft store and buy some big pieces of paper and put a message up on the roof. Hope they see it.”

“Riley…” Anna said, upset that I was upset.

I scooted out my chair and started walking away from the table, toward the stairs up to the roof.

“I’m on board with whatever it is you all want to do. Just don’t get your hopes up. Something they told me—multiple times—was that they couldn’t do too much to help us. Narrators can help a bit because they’re also trying to achieve something. But the rule is still true. I just don’t want you to be dejected if none of them come through for us.”

I turned and walked toward the stairwell.

Ramona followed me. She, of course, had thrown in her vote for Silas Dyrkon.

As we walked up the stairwell to the section that Kimberly had assured us had no cameras of any kind, she said:

“You gave in too easy.”

I shrugged.

“I’m trying to be open-minded,” I said. “I just took a big character hit. That was basically a mutiny. And I don’t even know if the audience saw it.”

“I think you should have stormed out of there, cussing and screaming. Stole Logan’s drink. Show some emotion other than frustration,” she said with a smile.

“Maybe,” I said, turning to her. “Do you think they’ll buy it if they see it?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t imagine tricking immortal wizards using a little flattery and melodrama. What do I know? When I met a narrator, I basically agreed to help him immediately.”

“I think our desperation is something they rely on. If this is going to work,” I said, “we have to bring them into the fold somehow. Get them some On-Screen time.”

“Oh, I know,” she said. “You were very clear about that. No, actually, you were vague about it—but you said it multiple times, so I get it.”

The truth was—I wasn’t opposed to running one of the narrator throughlines before doing Carousel’s. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

They need to become part of the meta-story.

And if that’s the only way we have to make it happen, we had to go for it.

Ramona and I walked up to the roof.

I laid out on one of those long pool chairs and stared up at the cloudy sky above…

…hoping that somewhere, on the other side of the mountain, the narrators had just watched our little show.

Hoping they were planning a trip eastward.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep