The Soundstage
It seems strange that there is no entry on this despite the term being so widely used in the Atlas.
Most stories are set physically here in Carousel. If you arent careful and you ignore the NPCs trying to shoo you away, you can find yourself on the set of an active storyline that you arent a part of. Its pretty surreal until you get chased off by whatever killer or monster is at the center of that story.
So stories dont work like that. After being activated, theres no way to find where the players went. They arent physically in Carousel anymore, at least not the part of it we have access to. This place is called the Soundstage. If a storyline is set in a world that Carousel cannot portray in real life, like a dream, hell, or even the far past, youll find yourself on the Soundstage. Everyone learns that eventually.
Its common knowledge.
The reason Im writing this is because I found a storyline out in the Gourmand Housing district that acted weird. It was set in the past, maybe the 1940s. That much was certain. The entire district was still being built during the storyline. After we finished, I expected to find ourselves back in the modern neighborhood, but even as we left, the houses were still under construction. I went back there today. Still, the whole place is like it was during the setting of the story.
We were not on the Soundstage.
Carousel changed when we ran that story. I swear it did. I cant figure out why for the life of . Arthur thought it was interesting too and he hasnt found anything interesting in a long ti.
Why was this storyline not on the Soundstage? Running the story appears to have permanently changed this neighborhood. I wish I knew what was going on.
March 5, 2017
-AW
In the end, I could almost understand how a stubborn new player could finish this storyline without believing they were in another world. It was so easy to think it was all an elaborate prank.
Normally, we were supposed to have a Paragon who could help guide us through the first storyline gently after dropping us off at the original resort. The second ti around, we didnt even have the Stranger there to help us.
Still, I didnt think it mattered. We didnt need handholding.
As we hiked up the Overlook Hill and found the little resort we had been staying at, two things beca imdiately apparent.
First, we were in the past. The hotel we originally stayed in was being renovated to a more modern Scandinavian aesthetic. This version of the resort looked like it was last renovated in the early eighties.
Most of the buildings were still there; they were just uglier.
Second, it was clear that our suite, Jedediah Geists old manor, had not beco part of the hotel yet. There were no paths to the other side of the hill, and many of the trees had not been trimd back. We would have to hike to get around unless we could find the actual road .
We might be on to sothing here, Antoine said as he looked around the hilltop resort.
We must have been.
We made our way to reception. It was pretty similar except for the style change.
I expected to see Mandy, the sa employee working at the front desk that I had seen every ti we ca by here for food or towels, but she was gone and replaced by an older man nad Ned I didnt recognize.
We didnt have any money, and frankly, we werent sure if we were even supposed to be here.
We were sent here for a room because of the Centennial, Antoine said testing to see if the old story still worked.
Stragglers, huh? the man asked.
Excuse ? Antoine asked.
I thought we already had everybody, Ned said. Guess you were the last to arrive. Stragglers. Let get your keys.
He turned around to a large pegboard, retrieved a large brass key with a room number on it, and handed it to Antoine.
Sorry about the key. We still havent updated things to the keycards. Do you need help finding your suite?
Antoine looked back at the rest of us before saying, Is it on the other side of the hill?
Ned shook his head. All of our units are on this side of the hill. We dont have any over there for obvious reasons.
Obvious reasons? I asked.
Yeah, Ned said, looking for one of us to understand. The old Geist place. Its not sowhere people would want to stay, you know. Youve heard the legendsghosts haunting the place, murderers about, and whatnot.
That makes sense, Isaac said. Everyone knows ghosts and murderers stick to their side of the hill.
Ned shrugged unenthusiastically. Anyway, we have room service if you want to call from your room. If you need anything else, you can call . I would be happy to help.
Thank you! Kimberly said.
We left to find our new suite.
It ended up being the furthest suite from the office.
If I were new to Carousel, I would never go play a creepy little ga in an abandoned murder house, Kimberly said.
I doubt youd have a choice, I said. Could be like the version we played where the Stranger has a trope to trigger the story before we even get here.
Could be the town just loops unending until you go over there, Bobby suggested. Or maybe Carousel uses mind control.
I had no doubt Carousel had so foolproof way of getting a group of players into a creepy house for a ga of murder Monopoly. Still, it was hard to imagine. How would you get soone like Jeannette in there?
Antoine unlocked our new suite. He opened the door, and we all basked in its visage.
Oh my god, Kimberly said.
It was not great. Two twin beds, a pullout couch, and a few old cots provided enough beds for all of us. The television was small, and the place slled old and uninviting.
They really should fix this place up, Isaac said.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
If we had to stay here for weeks, I would be spending the night in the murder house within the first three days, Cassie said.
There was very little space and only a tiny table for working out clues.
I know Carousel only gave us the renovated Geist suite to throw us off the trail, but I am super thankful we werent stuck here, Kimberly said.
We moved our stuff in. I stood outside to get ntally ready to go explore the Geist house while the others got unpacked inside.
I examined the ga box.
Antoine was outside with .
Should we practice this ga, I asked. Once were in there, playing the ga will trigger the storyline. I dont want to learn the ga on the fly like that.
Thats not a bad idea, but there is like a 100% chance soone was murdered in that hotel room, so maybe we do it over at the picnic table, he said.
And so we did.
Here is how the ga was supposed to go when you werent trying to summon dead people in real life.
The ga included:
1 Board
7 Player Figures (Film Buff, Eye Candy, Athlete, Wallflower, Outsider, Codian, and Psychic)
25 Murder Weapons
1 Bell
200 Sance Cards
1 Rule Sheet
200 Ghost Scoresheets (which were just little pieces of paper you could tear off)
It was simple. To win, you needed to capture three ghosts. You captured a ghost by finding its na, the murder weapon that killed it, and a piece of important backstory.
You moved your character around the board, trying to land on special squares that let you draw a card. The cards might list a question you can ask, such as, Spirit, were you killed for money? or a collectible ability, such as, Because of their training, the Athlete managed to run out of the room before the ghost attacked them.
Occasionally, the card would say sothing like, There is a strange presence in the music room that lashes out against all those nearby. Any players in this room must go back to the entrance and reset all progress on uncompleted captures.
When you asked a spirit a question, you would wind the bell. If it rang, the answer was yes, and you would learn sothing about a spirit, be it its na, murder weapon, or backstory. Until the murder weapon is found, any player can try to capture a ghost.
Murder weapon questions stated, Grab a murder weapon from the weapons cache. And then allowed you to ask, Is this the weapon that killed you?
A yes ans that the ghost is yours to interrogate, and no one can steal it from you. A no ant to try again later with a different card and other players can still talk to it.
The ghosts were just hypothetical. They ca into existence when you started asking them questions.
The rule sheet showed a picture of 24 missing posters, indicating that there were only 24 ghosts in the ga.
The ga was okay. Might have been fun under different circumstances.
It involved a lot of luck but so strategy once you realized you could save abilities to use at opportune tis. If you were in the sa room as a player, you could ask your own questions to uncaptured ghosts after they did, effectively giving you an extra turn.
It wasnt until we played the ga in Geists old house that I realized how unnerving it really was.
I told you I was no good at board gas, Isaac said. You shouldnt even bring to this next storyline. Id just get in the way.
If Im going, youre going, Cassie said, pulling him along through the woods.
As we rounded the hill, Jed Geists manor slowly ca into view. It had seen better days.
So of the windows were boarded up, and the siding was falling off. The door still had police tape on it, but that had long been torn, and it just stood there as a reminder that a cri had occurred here.
As we approached the front door, I pointed out a large plastic tub filled with newspapers that had been collected and delivered for a long ti after Jeds death. Sowhere in these would be the paper with a clue as to how Jed Geist was killed, though new players would be unlikely to guess that. These were the sa papers that were used to pad Geists belongings and placed in boxes in the storage room in the future.
The house had been tagged by graffiti artists many tis over.
Carousel must have a lot of gang activity, Isaac said. Im starting to think this isnt a safe place to start a family.
Door isnt even locked, Dina said at a glance.
Ill still knock, Antoine said. He had brought his baseball bat, and he rapped his knuckles on the door. There was no answer.
He reached down and turned the knob, which creaked loudly as it opened.
As we looked in, I could see Isaac getting ready to tell a joke, but I beat him to it.
Maybe we should call housekeeping, I said. I could have done better.
That seed to have deflated whatever joke he was preparing.
The place was completely different than we had seen before. It wasnt as run down as a th den or anything, but it scored a ten out of ten in the murder house category.
Everything inside was old, the things that hadnt been stolen at least. There was spray paint on the wall. The crown molding needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.
The place was a ss.
But that was not the first thing anyone would notice when they entered.
Lets leave, Kimberly said, at least half serious.
That explains so things, Dina said.
We had been debating on whether new players would talk to Jed Geist on their first run. If we got to the house and the fireplace poker was sitting there with an evidence tag on it, surely they would be able to talk to him. That seed too early.
That was not a concern anymore.
Thousands, literally thousands, of weapons littered the living room floor and surrounding hallways. So kids had organized them into concentric circles and other patterns. Knives, crowbars, hamrs, ice picks, screwdrivers, and every other handheld object that can be used to kill a person lay littered around the room. So knives were stabbed into the walls. So were in the furniture.
Anybody got eyes on the poker? Antoine said.
I see at least two, Dina said.
The odds of soone finding the right one on accident were minimal.
So new players fail the first ti, I said. By the ti they realize what weapon to look for, Willis shows up in his car to escort them to the second storyline, assuming they ever figure it out.
Could you at least pretend you're not having fun? Kimberly asked playfully.
I smirk when Im nervous, I said.
We gathered around the center of the room and set up the ga. At the exact mont Kimberly finished shuffling the sance cards and placed them in their designated space, the On was triggered.
We were in the story.
There was much debate over what tropes we would bring. Given what we knew about the story, we decided minimal was best. We wanted the unvarnished story. No Looks Dont Last for Kimberly, no Last-Minute Casting for Bobby, and no Deathwatch for . I didnt even use Trope Master, so I didnt have to worry about being attacked. We assud that we had already seen the enemies for this story, so I didnt need to see their tropes again. Even if that backfired, we would be fine. This was an easy story.
We were just a group of young people playing a board ga with Dina and Bobby.
As the needle on the Plot Cycle ticked from On to Choice to Party, there was a knock at the door.
Antoine answered it.
Three cute girls sward past him, giggling the whole ti and carrying vodka and shot glasses.
You found the ga! one of the girls, Brenda, said. They were all level-three NPCsnothing out of the ordinary.
These werent sorority girls. They were so flavor of alternative, maybe hipsters, but that was a stretch. I wasnt around in the early 90s to know. They acted like they knew us.
Guess what I brought, one girl nad Serenity said, holding out a long, thin object wrapped in a handkerchief. She opened it up to reveal an ancient boning knife. My brother swears this is the real weapon used to kill Jed Geist. His friend was one of the cops on the scene. He says he actually talked to him with this.
Well have to try it, I said.
Serenity sat down on the floor next to and hugged tightly, the boning knife poking in the arm.
This is so exciting! she said with a smile.
She was very physically close to . I was starting to see how Carousel might trick a bunch of new players to go along with playing a creepy ga in an old murder house.
I took my attention off of her the best I could. I could flirt with girls or commune with the dead, but not both.
I noticed that the sun outside was starting to set.
Are we going to play this, or are we just sitting around? I asked.
Oh my gods, Im so excited! Cassie squealed loudly. The three NPCs echoed her excitent, as she must have predicted they would because she laughed at their reaction.
At first, I thought we were in trouble because there were only seven player pieces, but only Serenity was brave enough to play. The others just wanted to drink and watch. Isaac graciously volunteered to sit out. I thought he was going to spend his ti talking to the girls, but he pulled an old chair up behind Cassie and sat in it as if blocking anything in the dark house from getting to her.
Antoine rolled the dice, and we were off.
He rolled an eight, which just so happened to be enough to get him into the hall closet, land on a special square, and draw a card.
He drew a backstory question. Backstory information could be anything; as long as you got sothing, you were set.
He showed us his card.
Did the (player archtype) kill you?
Pick a player character. If the spirit says yes, the nad player will be killed if they ever interact with or enter the sa room as this ghost.
Killed players had to start over.
He had to choose one of us and ask the question.
He made eye contact with . I nodded. He asked, Did the Film Buff kill you?
Better than the newbies, I guess.
Then he twisted the key on the bell.
The bell ticked and ticked, and then monts later, it rang.
I felt sothing move over . A shiver went down my spine.
The others seed to sense it, too, though nothing appeared on the red wallpaper.
I slled sothing vaguely familiar.
It slled like ash. It slled like cigarettes.
Where had I slled that before?
User Comments
0 comments from readers