The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG Book Eight, Chapter 61: Intermission

Even while I was sitting in a cage with nothing to occupy my mind but planning out the final stages of the movie, I still didn't know how Antoine, Anna, and Cassie were going to resolve the plot. Sure, there was the stated plan of throwing the maps into the brew, thus broadcasting that knowledge to the masses. It had co together well, but at the end of the day, walking into the room and throwing canisters into a giant pot wasn't very satisfying. Carousel wouldn't allow it.

So what was going to be that satisfying conclusion, or at least sothing close enough to satisfying that Carousel wouldn't actively try to stop it?

I stood from my seat in the theater and walked to the end of the row, passing by a few people who were sitting and staring up at . I didn't have to go anywhere technically, but I didn't want to be in the theater at that mont. I had never used the Intermission ability when it mattered, but I knew that it was actually pretty powerful. It was Savvy-based, which ant I was going to get approximately a whole scene beat back. That would be enough ti to make one new decision, to fix one mistake.

But what would it be?

I headed toward the exit of the theater, where my adoring masses stood silently. They must have been watching the movie and realized how bad our odds were. They must have known that we were a hag's breath away from defeat.

They must have, because even the paparazzi refused to call out my na. It was like a funeral out there. They still took pictures, though I couldn't see most of the caras except for the flash.

The silence was more annoying than the constant hounding that had happened last ti.

Eventually, one brave soul, a woman, so kind of journalist who dressed like she was from the nineteen twenties, called out, "Riley Lawrence, are you aware of the current state of your fellow players?"

I wanted to ignore her, but the question was so weird. I was literally watching the movie with my fellow players in it. How could I not know? Unless she wasn’t talking about the current storyline.

"Which ones?" I asked.

"Ramona rcer, Bobby Gill, Isaac Hughes, and Kelsey Van Note," the woman said quickly.

I looked around at all the people around . My initial plan was to ignore everyone. I would stick to the center part of the red carpet and not answer any questions, but now it was who had the questions.

"Lost on the river last I knew. Playing a storyline," I said hesitantly. "Why? Do you know sothing? Have they triggered an On?"

The woman began to answer, but she was interrupted.

The voice was soone I recognized. It ca from down at the end of the red carpet, where all the narrators and high-level executives stood. I was going to travel down that way and talk to Lucky, if only to see if he had sothing to say, but when I looked for him, he was sheepishly standing in the back, looking at like I was walking to my death. As best I could tell, he was trying to avoid eye contact.

It wasn't him who talked to .

It was Vincent St. Vane, the Proprietor of Carousel, as he called himself. Carousel probably didn’t care for that na. He was the man upstairs who glowed in violet lights. He was taller than the rest, wearing a suit of red and gold, his signature colors, and smiling, playing his character just like any captive of Carousel, except he played of his own volition. I hadn't seen or heard from him since I had tricked my way backstage across the mountains so long ago.

"Co here, my friend. I'm afraid that we have so bad news," he said before the reporter could tell anything.

And so I did, my face red and numb. This was out of the ordinary. These people usually went out of their way not interact with players, but circumstances were unprecedented, and I knew as I walked to him that I was only going to get bad news.

Sohow, it was going to be worse than the fact that we were about to lose a storyline.

"What is it?" I asked when I walked to the end of the roped-off area that I was permitted to walk around in.

"Co here, my boy," he said, unhooking one of the velvet ropes and letting out of my little play area.

I walked through.

When I did, he put his arm around and began speaking softly in my ear. The worst part was that he actually sounded human, like he cared.

And what he told made no sense.

"Unfortunately, the four players who fell in the river have now been captured. They will need saving," he said.

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I looked over at him, certain that he was playing at sothing.

"What do you an by captured?" I asked. "They triggered an On?"

"Unfortunately not," he said. "It is rare, but on occasion players can be captured in a storyline without triggering it, only able to be saved by players who do."

"I don't understand," I said. "What exactly happened?"

The last I had seen, they were playing through a storyline. Anna had reported they were in fairly good spirits with her trope. What could have changed that in the anti?

I was vaguely aware that sothing like what he described could happen. After all, the bad guys were cordoned off to monster lairs when they weren't in storylines, but not all monsters killed. So kidnapped.

I had heard a campfire story about a player who was held captive by a cult, winding up brainwashed and acting as an enemy, so much so that he had to be abandoned and never rescued so ti later.

I knew that the ga had its twists and turns, but I didn't know the details.

"How?" I asked.

"It would seem that one of the antagonists to a storyline your group has run decided to capture so bait to lure you back into the fray,," he said. "An unfortunate situation, but being outside of Carousel proper leads to many unfortunate situations. It was a… bold choice for you to take to the river."

I racked my brain, trying to figure out which enemy could do sothing like this. My mind went to the lady demon from By the Slice, our antagonistic relationship, and her challenge to to co back at a higher level where she would have more freedom and power.

"Who was it? What storyline?" I asked.

"It was Antoine Stone and the Sunken Cradle," he said.

Great. I hadn't even run that one. All I knew was that the players who ran it didn’t like to talk about it.

"Are they safe?" I asked. "Are they hurt?"

"Their situation is quite perilous. Unfortunately, the only way for them to be saved is for you to run the storyline," he said.

I must have asked half a dozen questions after that about rescue tropes and whether or not we needed them, about the level of the story, and all he could tell was that he wasn't optimistic about our chances. I asked, and he answered, over and over again. I could hardly even hear or process what he was saying. All I heard was a ringing sound.

He seed so kind and caring the whole ti. Of course, the dia were watching. He would want to seem caring.

But underneath it all, I knew that this was a win-win for him. If we managed to survive our storyline and defeat the next, it would be so good programming; he'd sell a lot of tickets, but if we lost, he'd also win. Wasn't one of their goals the last ti I was there to shut everything down so that they could reset?

The truth was, I had a hard ti reading him.

At the end, he said, "I really do hope you pull this one out. I believe it could be your best work if you manage it, but you should know there is a ti limit. Your comrades are alive, but they won't be forever. Whatever narrative montum they carry with them will fade if they die. It's all quite technical. You need to get to them."

I backed away toward the red carpet, but I didn't leave. I just stood and looked at the proprietor.

I looked over at the narrators. Their nas were hard to rember, but I rembered their missions. To cure a multiversal hive mind of so kind, to bring back their lost love, to uncover lost scientific knowledge, to bring about so sort of religious apocalypse, or to stop it. I couldn't rember exactly. They all had their thes and their gimmicks.

But here, they all looked so sad, like they felt sorry for , for us. They must have planned that.

The one that looked saddest and sorriest of all was Lucky, and he didn't even have the nerve to talk to . He had already walked away and was staring from afar, like he was afraid I would ask him a question.

I rembered the first ti I had t most of these people. Such brave immortals. They were not afraid of Carousel at all allegedely, but they were terrified that I might bring them into the story by filming them.

The great irony was that even though these people had conquered death, it was them that was most afraid of it.

I wasn't afraid to die. I had just done it, egged it on, begged for it. I was afraid, however, to have my death be aningless.

As I stared at Vincent St. Vane, he gave the most courteous bow, as if he knew I wasn't long for this world or any other.

I had an idea of how we might survive our storyline so we could go conquer another. But it would all co down to whether or not Anna would understand what I was trying to tell her.

I turned tail and ignored the reporters, who had finally built up the courage to ask questions.

I took a look back at the building, the high ceilings, the beautiful architecture, and I rembered once again that the fight wasn't about one storyline. It was about all of them, and if they wanted a show, they were going to get one.

I walked back into the theater and took my seat.

A few monts later, the movie started back up again, right at the beginning of the fight between the hag and Antoine.

I jumped right into action. I knew exactly what I needed to use the Insert Shot on. I focused on the very first mont I got even a glimpse of it on the screen.

As soon as I saw footage of the cage that Anna was trapped in, and the suit that my remains were currently wrapped in, I saw the edge of black plastic that I recognized as the shoulder-mounted cara I had been forced to wear by the plot.

I used the Insert Shot on it.

In an instant, Anna reached over, grabbed it, and started breaking it out of its container. She began fiddling with it. Technology was so easy to use in Carousel; the only real restraint was the plot and narrative montum.

It all ca down to how the Insert Shot actually worked. While it had the ability to increase the narrative weight of any object that I used it on, that wasn't because of the trope itself. All that would happen is that the object would suddenly start getting a lot of screen ti, and the more the audience saw it, the more powerful it would be, as they wondered how it would play into the storyline.

That's why the Insert Shot lost virtually all of its power the longer into the movie I waited to use it.

But the cara on my shoulder was already in a lot of shots for the movie, most of the shots with in them, in fact. I was the only character who had one, and the presence of the cara had been ntioned several tis, including by the Arbiter. It had plenty of narrative weight to it. The Arbiter had said it was in so kind of safety mode to prevent damage, but that was probably ant to explain why it didn't get footage of in the hovel with the witch. It was prid to co into play.

If only Anna could figure out how to use it.