Antoine laid back on the overstuffed chair I had grown fond of in our ti at the hilltop suite that had once been Jedediah Geists ho. Every few monts, it looked like Antoine was about to get up and go sowhere else, but he didnt.
We sat and had the sa conversation we had been having ever since the second Tutorial storyline. It was going nowhere.
Thats it, Antoine finally said as he started to get up, Im making myself sothing to eat. I cant think about this anymore.
At last, I had the chance to reclaim my seat.
Or so I thought.
I ordered room service, Bobby said, They make pizza from scratch in the kitchens.
Antoine plopped back down in the chair. Thanks, man, he said.
Bobby nodded.
And so I never did get to sit in that chair again.
What a pity.
We had gone over all of the information we had gathered a half dozen tis.
After Lillian Geist made her appearance, we were more certain than ever that the news articles attached to the junior high history display at the Centennial were more than just story flavor. They were so kind of checklist.
Kimberly had written the information we had on the wall with a marker.
Geist Buys Town (1922): Bartholow Geist acquires bankrupt township with help of Silas Dyrkon, plans revival.Carousel Revival (1924): Geist seeks partners for agricultural, industrial, tourism boost, etc.Film Sets & Criticism (1934): Geist family's film set projects in Carousel face local safety concerns.Asylum Project (1964): Cherise Geists asylum construction speculated as film set/tax write-off.Pageant Win (1972): Lillian Geist wins Miss Carousel, highlighting familys local influence.Factory Fire (1984): No injuries in Geist factory blaze due to upstanding citizen; Bensen Geist plans innovative rebuild.Film Set Tragedy (1984): Fatal accident on Geist horror film set kills 4, including Carlyle Geist.Manor Blaze (1984): Mysterious fire destroys Geist Manor during event; all family mbers present affected.
So of these were just background, but we still knew nothing about the movie sets, the asylum, or the various fires except that they happened.
When we tell Camden about this, were going to pretend we figured it out a lot sooner, I said.
I pulled my hair as I looked over the info.
Yeah, everyone else gets to die and we have to play a ga, Antoine said.
Kimberly was still writing things on the wall. She was convinced that if we just saw it all in front of us, we would stop going in circles.
She wrote about the events of The Ten Second Ga and Cold Blooded Things. She wrote what the Paragons had told us and what Howard Halle had told .
What are we missing? I said in frustration.
Are we thinking that Madam Celia was talking about a player or sothing else? Kimberly asked. I had told them everything I could rember about my chat with the Psychic.
I think it's from the Throughline, I said. She was in character when she said it. If she was talking about a player, I dont think she would have ntioned it at all. She had to be talking about a character in the story, soone who knew about storylines from the sound of it, soone who thought they could change the past by triggering one.
Kimberly started to write things out on a numbered list.
1. Mystery Woman X changed the past (storyline?)
2. X also wants to save the people who died sohow at the original centennial, where the ti capsule is from.
3. Celia tells X to contact Jeds ghost.
4. X steals the murder weapon.
5.
6. Continuity loop
7. Thirty years pass
8. Ga starts
What do we know? Kimberly asked. She does the ritual?
She had to have, Antoine said. It would be weird if she didnt.
Which ans the fireplace poker was brought here to the hotel, Dina added. Where Jed Geist died. But its not here now. Weve torn the place apart looking.
We had literally torn it apart. The NPCs had to fix it. Everything slled like paint.
Why is this mystery person just now showing up? Cassie asked. Is there a chance we t her already?
If we did, we didnt talk to her, Antoine said.
It was really late to introduce an important character. If this person was important, why are we just now hearing about her?
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Is it possible we just arent able to beat the Tutorial the first ti around? Bobby asked. Thats sothing Carousel might do. The first storyline told us barely anything about the Throughline, and the second one was designed so that the Throughline information could be skipped, too.
No one wanted that to be true, but it did make sense. Carousels first storylines were designed to be beatable without learning important plot points.
I hate it when demonic interdinsional towns play tricks like that, Isaac said. Its just not neighborly. Worse than that, its cheating. Im starting to think all those protestors are right. We really should have a recall election. The leadership in this town is lacking.
Would Carousel flat-out cheat? If the information Celia had was necessary for a player to learn, then newcors couldnt possibly get it because it cost money to do the reading. They would have to play through twice.
Why cheat, though? Kimberly asked. New players are going to be so freaked out they have no chance of solving it. Why hide things like this?
Its a fool who looks for reason in the mind of a cosmic entity, Isaac said.
It felt like we were missing sothing essential.
Alright, I said. We thought about it from a story perspective. How about a ga perspective?
We did talk about that, Isaac said. Carousel cheats.
Isaac could sotis get caught in cycles of evangelizing cynicism.
We technically cheated too, Bobby said, I doubt any players in the history of the ga were set up as well as we were to win.
We did have experience. We knew what we were getting into. Project Rewind had set us up to win and the Atlas often made questions of gaplay knowledge trivial.
Carousel knew what we had done. How would it respond?
We did cheat, I said. We really did. I turned to Bobby. Tell about the script again. In the second storyline, how did you know we were headed in the right direction?
In the last storyline, Bobby had seen enough of the script to know that the path of the story diverged based on whether soone ended up going under Dr. Halles knife. He had made one of the hybrids capture Isaac in hopes that I would follow.
We hadnt told anyone about Bobbys involvent in Isaacs injuries. That was a post-tutorial conversation.
One script was titled The Fray, Bobby said. The other was titled Possible True Ending. That second one only triggered if the hybrids captured soone, and since you and Isaac did, we were on the right path.
The ability to see the script made Wallflowers incredibly useful. They might not help you in a fight, but even a glimpse at different alternate script titles could be helpful.
Im glad I could be of service, Isaac said. It's a good thing I just happened to be attacked.
Isaac had been sedated nearly the whole storyline, so he felt very little pain. Hopefully, he would forgive us in ti.
What about the first storyline? I asked. Did that one have a true ending that we missed?
Bobby thought for a mont.
I didnt see anything like that, he confessed. That weird enemy Xander Black or whatever kept going off-script. I dont even know what the story really was. There wasnt much to it. The pages didnt flip very often unless he did sothing unplanned, so it was a short storyline.
That was my mory of the story, too. It was an uneven ss, not at all what Carousel appeared to have intended.
Or did it accomplish precisely what it was ant to?
The original first storyline was called Reply the Departed, I said. The Ten Second Ga, which we played, was a reboot of that with the sa props and setting and a new enemy.
Punishnt for Project Rewind, Antoine said. Carousel made a harder version of the story. Isnt that what we decided?
Was that really our punishnt? Strander Black had made things scary and hectic for us, but most of that was when he broke character. Carousel didnt seem to plan on most of that happening.
This hotel room is the last known location of Jed Geists murder weapon, assuming our mystery woman perford the sance, I said. But the poker isnt here. Anymore.
Anymore? Antoine asked. You an
Based on the dates of the printout for the rules, the Ten Second Ga appeared to have taken place in the modern day, I said. But the fireplace pokerthe murder weaponobviously wouldnt be here in the modern day.
Of course not, Dina said. The hotel was renovated. In fact, NPCs were literally renovating it the mont we showed up for the first ti. The Stranger even pointed it out.
Isaac sat up from his place on the rug. You guys just realized sothing important, didnt you? I was paying attention. Can you go over that again?
Carousel didnt give us a rebooted version of the first storyline because it wanted to make things harder, I said.
It was trying to hide sothing inside the original storyline, Bobby said.
Yes, I said. The original storyline, Reply the Departed, must have had the information we need to find the murder weapon, but Carousel hid it under an extra layer because we cheated.
That would explain why the second storyline wasnt changed to be harder, Antoine said. Carousel was just trying to throw us off the trail from the beginning. Sothing about Reply the Departed would have made this ga too easy for soone who knew what to look for.
Antoine was getting excited about our recent theory. We were starting to connect the dots where, before, there were too many to see a pattern. He almost jumped up out of his seat, but before he did, Kimberly ran to him and jumbled into his lap.
He sat there eating pizza until it was ti to pack. We had to leave for a bit, and that ant Carousel was liable to reset the place. We didnt know what would happen to our stuff if we left it there.
The thing was, even if we knew we were supposed to play through the original Reply the Departed storyline, we had little idea of how to do so. There was no On any longer. The board ga itself had been cleared out when the suite was repaired after we played The Ten Second Ga there.
Where are we going exactly? Cassie asked as we were moving out the door.
Pawn shop, Dina said.
If youd told that, I would have dressed up, Isaac said.
The pawn shop sells items from storylines you recently did, Kimberly explained.
Truthfully, I didnt know if this was the right path to take. If we assud the things we were shown were clues, then the pawn shop made sense as a place to start.
Getting there was far easier this ti around. There were no Ons to navigate, just the occasional construction barrier from the repairs being made to town square.
Despite the enormous damage many of the buildings had taken, Happened A Pawn was completely untouched. The frogs hadnt even broken a window.
That was reassuring.
We entered the store to find that most of the shelves were empty. No tropes were for sale, and no specialty items were available.
All the pawn shop carried were a few odds and ends. In the back of the store, under the Gas section, was the singular item in the store that registered on the red wallpaper.
An old rectangular box read, Reply the Departed: A ga not for the faintly-hearted, to seek replies from the departed.
We might just be onto sothing, I said.
I picked up the box. On the red wallpaper, it read, Reply the Departed.
It was an On. My, I dont like it here. The trope told it was triggered by taking it to Jedediah Geists house and playing the ga.
The difficulty was, Im getting goosebumps. That was a low difficulty. Made sense for a first storyline.
Dont worry, a voice bood from across the room. It ca from a tall, bald man wearing a Hawaiian shirt. It was Tar Bellows, level 50. He was a Paragon and owner of the pawn shop. Its hard to play without all the pieces.
Tell about it, I said.
Tar smiled.
Now, you kids wouldnt be thinking of taking that ga into the old abandoned Geist place up on Overlook Hill Road, would you?
Overlook Hill Road was the road the resort was on, the sa resort that had renovated Jed Geists house into the suite we were staying in.
Abandoned? Antoine asked.
Yeah, Tar answered. Its been abandoned ever since Jed Geist was skewered with a kitchen knife. Never mind. I thought thats where you all were going.
The abandoned Jed Geist place. That was more like it. We paid for the board ga and left. It just so happened to cost every penny we had.
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