Book Nine, Chapter 34: The Broken Escape

In an instant, I was standing on Camden’s pontoon as he finished repairing it. It had survived the hurricane just as we planned, and soon we were back out in the water.

The next thing I knew, we were sailing downstream, passing an ancient coliseum with a giant bull inside. Then we were sailing past Carousel Motor Speedway.

And then we floated through a flooded field of the dead.

And then through an abandoned water park with its own slashers to worry about.

And then…

And then…

And then the montage continued.

We were on our way back to the castle where our friends were slowly dying of hunger and wear and tear. We were on our way to the apocalypse. On our way to Ringmaster. To Highbrow Hew.

I didn’t know what Carousel wanted out of that interaction with Caleb Rowe. Maybe we were paying for the relative leisure we had lived in while on Saltspar. Heck, Carousel might have been using us to rub dirt in the faces of the Consortium. Together, we had turned their little New England paradise into quite the battlefield.

As the montage rolled through clip after clip, I felt the stress and fear melting off of me. Surely, whatever Carousel had wanted from that fight, we had given it. We had risen to the occasion

We thought.

The problem was, tropes didn’t have to succeed completely or fail completely. They could have mixed results.

And while Map Travel Sequence had managed to get us off the island and much of the way back to Carousel proper, that didn’t mean Caleb Rowe had no more cards to play.

Or should I say tropes.

There was one weakness of Map Travel Sequence, and that was that you lost all agency. If it was up to us, we would have sailed right on through to the circus, but that wasn’t how the trope worked. It was largely just a fast-forward through logistics and travel time, but you didn’t get to decide what scenes would make up the montage.

So when we stopped at a small marina outside of a trailer park being haunted by a literal dust devil, a brown tornado about the size of an Eastern European basketball player, we found ourselves buying snacks and refueling the boat.

We didn’t need either of those, but a boat trip did, so the montage added it.

At first, I didn’t know that anything bad had happened. I expected to jump right to the next scene. I could hear the circus music in the distance; we were that close. I locked eyes with Camden over by the boat, and Anna, whose haunted face I will never forget. Somehow, she knew what was coming before I did.

I held my breath, praying for the montage to continue, but it didn’t. And there was only one reason why that might be.

That clever, murderous little sword had figured out a way to beat our plan.

I walked away from the marina store carrying a bag of some other world’s version of Funyuns and bean dip, a combination that was almost as cursed as the sword Caleb Rowe was carrying as he stood in broad daylight outside the marina.

He was wearing a pair of pants to hide his injuries. Such a strange priority for him to have. In fact, skin covering was a big part of how supernatural slashers like that recovered. If you couldn’t see the damage, it was almost like it wasn’t there.

But that wasn’t the real trick. He had replaced Nowhere to Run with another trope, similarly themed, called You Can Run But…

This one worked a little differently. It simply allowed a killer to use Grit for Hustle.

All the work we had done to Hobble him was undone in a moment, as he simply joined in on our montage and met us before we could make it back to Carousel proper.

We were so close. Ironically, the only thing that could save us was the apocalypse itself.

What was Carousel’s point? We had done spectacularly. I wasn’t being egotistical to say that. Our efforts were the hard-earned fruit of all our experience and suffering. We were clever and brave. What more could Carousel ask for? Didn’t it want us to take on the apocalypse?

Caleb was fifteen feet away from me. I only had one more trick up my sleeve, and it might take my arm along with it. I didn’t care. I reached into my hoodie pocket and pulled out a handmade ashtray. It was a souvenir, a Keepsake. Carousel’s experimental new toy from back when Project Rewind ran its course.

It contained the signature trope from the Permanent Vacancy storyline from our world: Desperation. Breaking the ashtray would allow me to transfer points from Moxie and Savvy into Mettle and Hustle. If Caleb Rowe wanted a fight, I could give him one.

But first, I wanted to scream at him.

I equipped Method to the Madness in hopes the creep might actually talk to me. He was the strong, murderous, and silent type, so I didn’t expect much, but if I could distract him with conversation for a bit with the trope while my friends left, I would do it.

I was willing to die. One day, when my friends found the Omen for Killers Rowe III buried under the circus, they could rescue me. They didn’t need me for the apocalypse. Camden would be just as good at helping them survive. He didn’t need screentime or narrative manipulation nearly as much as me.

“Run,” I screamed. “Get to the boat!”

Ashtray in one hand, silver dagger in another, I was ready for a fight. An actual fight. If I was alone, I could make it last until at least long enough for them to make it back.

Is this what Carousel wanted?

I lifted the ashtray above my head to slam into the ground, but before I did, Caleb Rowe did the unthinkable.

He spoke.

“Not you,” he grunted. Method to the Madness actually worked.

“Not me?” I screamed. “What do you mean, not me?” Had Carousel not just spent the entire night testing my wits and will? Had we not done impossible things against this unkillable monster? Was it not my plan? Had I not done well enough?

Caleb Rowe didn’t say anything. He was done speaking. But he did answer my question, in a way.

He looked over to his left at the young woman running by. It was Anna. Where was she going? I had just told them to run back to the boat, and everyone but her had listened. But I knew where she was going when I saw what was in her hand.

She had a crumpled white piece of paper with some photocopied black ink on one side. An image. I didn’t see it well, but I knew who it depicted. It was Andrew.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

See, the thing about rescues was that in order to activate the trope and run a storyline capable of bringing back the dead, you needed to know where the Omen was. You needed to use it. We were never going to be able to rescue Andrew until we figured out where the Omen for Killers Rowe III was, and that couldn’t happen until after the apocalypse.

But there was an exception to that rule.

Anna was the exception.

Carousel was never going to let any of my plans work, because this test wasn’t for me.

-

Anna

When they had started planning to take on Caleb Rowe outside of a storyline, Riley had looked them all in the eye and declared:

“No one dies. No one sacrifices themselves. We are going to win this one completely. Do you understand me? We don’t need heroes here,” he had said. “We just need teamwork.”

Anna Reed knew that Riley was lying. Everyone knew.

When it came down to it, Riley was always going to sacrifice himself if he had to. He had done it many times before. It was in his nature. If his grand plan needed someone to lay down on the wire, it was going to be him.

Would Anna let him? If it came down to it, would she allow him to sacrifice himself for her?

What else could she do? Her tropes were mostly useless for this fight. Many actually required her teammates to sacrifice themselves for her, to try to save her. If she was going to be any help, they would have to die. Other tropes were locked to the Plot Cycle. But that wouldn’t work against Caleb Rowe outside of a storyline.

She looked around the group as the montage ended. Antoine was ready for a fight, and Kimberly was pulling her hair back into a ponytail, a look of ferocity on her face. She didn’t have that look when Anna had gone away in Post-Traumatic, but when she finally recovered, Kimberly was a fighter, and had been for some time.

There was no way to get Caleb Rowe to leave them alone. He was an immortal killer. His ability to survive and massacre those he targeted was beyond magical. It was written in the stars. It was meta. It was fate. It was so strongly stamped onto the script that the man had survived enough damage to kill thousands of people that night. Literally thousands.

They had almost made it back to the apocalypse.

And her friends would. Even if it meant Anna could not.

She jumped onto the pontoon and found Antoine’s duffel bag. That was where they kept all of the missing posters, including the one for Andrew. He had been killed by Caleb Rowe, the first victim of the supernatural monster, and if there was anything Anna could do, she would be the last.

The missing poster was all she needed. Her trope, Have You Seen Them? allowed her to initiate a rescue with nothing but the poster, as long as she found some NPCs to question about the downed player. No Omens needed. The trade-off was that she had to do it alone. It would be a solo run. Riley hadn’t even considered it as an option.

One thing the trailer park had was NPCs, spread around, cowering from a living whirlwind that was taking its time picking apart the mobile homes in the area.

The last thing she saw of her friends was Riley running toward the boat and looking back at her. He had unequipped Trope Master. He wasn’t trying to save her.

Did that mean he believed in her? Did he think that she could do this, that she could take on an impossible challenge? Or had he been lying? Was he willing to sacrifice someone?

He turned back toward her. Caleb Rowe had disappeared. He was a sneaky killer.

Riley threw something at her through the air. It was long and silvery. She knew exactly what it was. She stopped short, allowing the dagger to land right in front of her. It stabbed into the ground with a satisfying thud. Its trope was called Selective Sharpness. It would prevent her from cutting herself and give her a sort of sixth sense about any sharp object nearby.

Caleb Rowe was still concerned with fighting her friends on the boat. She was not the next target. Isaac would be. She had to hope that they could hold off the killer until she had accomplished her task.

She took the missing poster up to a woman standing in her yard, watching the dust devil.

“Have you seen my friend Andrew?” she asked. “He went missing around here not so long ago. I was wondering if you might have seen something.”

Anna had A Kind Face equipped, and just enough Moxie to power it, so that the woman would pull her attention away from the sand demon and look at her.

“Honey, a lot of people go missing around here. Especially the people who ask about the missing people, and people who talk too much about it.”

The woman turned to leave, walking back inside her trailer.

One down. Anna didn’t know how many people she had to talk to in order to trigger the rescue. She ran with one hand holding her ball cap on as the wind whipped around.

A sheriff’s deputy was hidden down behind his police vehicle with his gun drawn. At some point, he must have figured out that shooting the tornado wasn’t going to work.

“Officer,” Anna said, “have you seen my friend Andrew? He went missing around this area not so long ago.”

Suddenly the officer, who was absolutely terrified of the dust devil, didn’t seem to remember it existed. He stood up, dusted himself off, looking like he felt quite silly.

“People come out here looking for all kinds of things,” he said, all serious. “Maybe they want to be one with nature. Maybe they want to get away from their girlfriends. It’s not my job to babysit ‘em.”

“Just look at his face,” Anna said, holding up the poster. “Does he look familiar at all?”

The officer took off his sunglasses. He had been crying quite a bit, either out of fear or because of the dust in the air, resulting in streaks of mud down his cheeks, though he didn’t seem to know they were there, because his attitude was pretty superior.

He looked at the page and almost instinctually said, “I’ve never seen him before,” but before he could get the words out of his mouth, he took a second look.

“He’s a doctor,” the man said. “We got a clinic down the road. It’s not staffed all year long, but sometimes they bring doctors out to help some of the locals. Not everyone around here can afford to go into the big city hospital.”

“Can you point me in that direction?” she asked.

“Sure. You know what, it’s right up here. I can give you a ride if you want.”

Anna looked at him suspiciously. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him specifically. It’s that she didn’t trust anyone offering rides. She didn’t need to be a horror buff to know that.

“That’s okay. You said it’s right down this road. I can walk. I wanna talk to some other people anyway.”

She took off before he could insist again.

The officer looked back at the trailer park, saw the nine-foot-tall wind creature, and quickly cowered back behind his car, drawing his gun.

Anna ran forward down the path of the twister. People were out examining the damage. They must not have seen what had caused it, because if they had, they would still be in their storm shelters.

“Sir! Ma’am!” she screamed as she saw a man and woman hauling a pine tree out of the road using a winch.

“Folks,” she said, “I was wondering if you’ve seen my friend. His name is Doctor Andrew Hughes.”

At first, the two of them looked annoyed and confused, but in an instant their scripts changed.

A young child popped out from behind the tree and asked his mother, “Is she talking about Doctor Andrew?”

“Yes. Doctor Andrew Hughes,” Anna said. “Have you seen him?”

The woman and man looked at each other, and then looked at her.

“We’ve seen him,” the woman said.

And that was all it took.

On the red wallpaper, the Plot Cycle appeared, and the sound of a freight train in the distance coming off of the dust devil went away, as did all of the damage it had caused. Anna closed her eyes and opened them again in a quaint country diner, at the beginning of the Party Phase.

“I said, are you going to eat anything?” Danny asked. He was sitting across from her. “You know, Anna,” he continued, “sometimes I think your mind is a million miles away.”

They were On-Screen. Danny had his camera on the table, recording the conversation. Had Riley sent his companion NPC to help her?

The man seemed to understand the question on her heart. He reached out, grabbed her hand, and said, “Look, everyone is going to be alright; we’re going to find Andrew. Everyone will be safe, okay?”

“Everyone?” she asked.

He nodded with a smile.

“But you’re gonna have to eat that if I’m paying for it, all right? No just picking through it.”

Somewhere, Caleb Rowe was in the storyline waiting for her, and he would probably kill her, but he wouldn’t be able to hurt her friends anymore. Carousel had set this up for her. Bringing the slasher into this storyline was the only way to get him away from the others. Live or die, she made her choice to save the people she loved.

~

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Have You Seen Them?

Type: Rescue/Insight

Archetype: Final Girl

Aspect: Girl Next Door

Stat Used: Moxie

Carousel never runs out of missing posters. They go up faster than they come down, taped over each other on telephone poles and gas station windows, faces becoming nothing more than wallpaper. Most people stop seeing them. She does not.

While this trope is equipped, if the user is holding a missing poster and makes an impassioned plea for help to an NPC, the NPC will share rumors about the missing player’s death. Following their leads will eventually trigger the storyline even without the Omen. The storyline will be a Rescue.

The plot will be changed to a search for the missing players, whose fate will be modified from their original to help create a narratively compelling reveal. The storyline will become a solo run. No player allies may be added.

Takeover: This trope will cancel out any story alterations except those inherent to the Archetype or Advanced Archetype associated with this ticket.

Find the Truth is the only Win Condition. No others may be added to the Rescue.

Digging for answers may mean digging your own grave.