Chương 233: Book Five, Chapters 137 & 138

I was overwhelmed, but I continued forward—not because of my mission or even the implications of my findings on our survival. I moved forward out of pure curiosity. Having given up on the stairs as a method of ascending the tower, I found myself in an elevator, simply moving from floor to floor. No one really noticed. I got a couple of odd looks as the elevator doors would open, and I wouldn't get out. I was just peeking to see what was on each floor. It was the most efficient means of travel.

There were lots of cool things to see, but if I investigated each of them fully, there was no way I would get to see everything. Magic aside, this place was a business. People were working, and largely so distracted that they never even looked in my direction. When I was about halfway up the tower, I came across a room labeled "Supplies," and I expected it to have lots of interesting things. I got off the elevator and found my way around. They were just normal office supplies.

There were some different letterheads and stamps that I thought might have been magical, but for the most part, it was just mundane stuff—very similar to what I might have found back home. I laughed as I went around the shelves and saw how ordinary everything was. I might have expected a society built on magic to be more magical, but the truth was that humans cared about convenience above all else.

A lot of the superficial magical elements one might expect to see in a fantasy society would be awfully inconvenient compared to their mundane alternatives. Perhaps high magic or MBW—the Magic Between Worlds—was not really fit for the type of hocus-pocus I was expecting. I only found one thing in the supply room that I actually wanted: a hole puncher. Everyone seemed to have one. Many of them carried them around like pocket watches, with chains attached to them as if they were afraid someone might steal it.

In a world where magic was on tickets that you had to punch, that made some sense. I took one with me in case I ever wanted to use my tickets the proper way. As I was leaving, something happened. A portly fellow—who was dressed rather sharply—spotted me as I was leaving the supply room. He seemed like a nice enough guy.

"Hey, you're Riley Lawrence, right?" he asked with a smile.

"They said that you weren't in the theater." So they had noticed. I wondered how long it had taken them to check.

"Yeah, it's me, Riley Lawrence. Just wandering around the supply room," I said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

"What are you doing here? How did you get out of the theater?" As much as I hated to be predictable, I thought maybe I'd try the same lie that had worked before.

"Oh," I said.

"I'm not really Riley Lawrence. Upstairs has me posing as him for a project they're working on. It's very hush-hush." He stared at me blankly.

"Oh, come off it," the guy said. He didn't even consider my lie for one second. Maybe I was getting greedy.

"I don't know," he said.

"I think I should report this. I'm sorry—I'm really rooting for you all." He started moving toward a phone on a desk nearby.

"Hey, do what you have to do," I said.

"I'm really surprised that you guys are still working right now, considering what's going on. You must be a really committed employee." That got his attention. He was a talker.

"Oh, we're used to Carousel misbehaving every now and again. We've been here for nearly four hundred years. There's nothing we cannot handle. You should have been here back in the early days before the game first started—there were all kinds of problems we had to work through. Carousel is quite stubborn, but even it has limits... The Proprietor is about to have a press conference about you in the control room, you know. About your people."

He smiled warmly, as if he was glad to be talking to me, and then turned back toward the phone.

"I wasn't talking about Carousel," I said quickly. He looked at me, confused.

"What were you talking about? What's happening?"

"The Barker," I said, trying to sound natural.

"Out in the courtyard. Honestly, I'm surprised that anyone's left up here. That's why I thought I could wander around." He was incredulous but clearly interested.

"You did not see the Barker out in the courtyard. Do you even know about the Sweepstakes on your world?" he asked. There was something in his voice. Hope?

"No, I just learned about it today when I met him," I said.

"Where else do you think I got these tickets?" I pulled out the five tickets that Dr. Striga had given me and flashed them at him.

"Tell me, does the magic casserole really taste that good?" He basically froze and stared at me as he considered what I was saying. They must have really been crazy about this Sweepstakes.

"I've never had it," he said.

"I had a lollipop once that tasted like true love. Wish I'd never tasted that damn thing… Where did you say the Barker was?" I just said what came to mind.

"The courtyard. At the very end of the crescent of the building—there's this little nook next to the forest. It was dark. Guy nearly scared me half to death." The truth was, I didn't think this guy believed me. But sometimes, it's not the believability of the lie—it's the desirability. I could see it in his eyes.

"But if you've got to report me," I said, "we could just wait here together. I hope you won't restrain me—I'm not going to fight, I promise." He thought for a moment.

"I'm not going to restrain you," he said.

"Well, you would have to, wouldn't you? I mean, I'm not going to stay here if you aren't." He looked back in the direction of an old-timey telephone and then back at me. He was super conflicted.

"What colors was he wearing?" the man asked, desperate for proof I was lying.

"What colors were on his shirt? The Barker, that is." I wasn't sure if Dr. Strega had told me the answer to that, but I did have an image in my mind—maybe something half-remembered. After all, the Barker did seem so familiar.

"Red and white," I said. That was it. That was all the permission he needed.

"Stay here," he said.

"You shouldn't be wandering around. Things can be dangerous for low worlders." The truth was that guy did seem pretty reasonable. But his entire demeanor changed the moment I suggested that he might be able to play the Sweepstakes. It was like he didn't even care if I was obviously lying to him. He had to check. And so he left me there, boarding the elevator and heading down. I boarded the elevator next to it, heading up. It took me a few more floors before I found the control room.

And I knew I was in the right place before I even saw the sign for it—because of all the reporters who had beaten me up here by using the elevator from the beginning. I slipped into the back, where there were some theater-style seats. That was appropriate because the entire control room looked kind of like a theater. What it actually looked like was NASA Mission Control—like in the movies—except with an old movie theater aesthetic. Red velvet and gold trimming were everywhere.

The place was flooded with reporters, all trying to get a look at a man standing in the center, down a grand row of stairs, past many different banks of desks with their own monitors and gizmos. Behind him, a big screen displayed live footage of what was happening inside the movie in real time. Things were tense. The entire block was burning because the Generation Killers had started fires and rammed things with cars. It was definitely a dark moment in the story.

The man at the bottom of the stairs, however, was dressed to be the center of attention. He actually reminded me a lot of Silas Dyrkon in intensity, but instead of black, this man wore red and gold—similar to the way the room was decorated. He had a head full of auburn-colored hair and a playful, intelligent face. He was a bit taller than average, with a commanding presence. He might have been in his late 40s or early 50s in appearance. Immortality was hell on age guestimation.

Even though I couldn't see his name on the red wallpaper, I knew that he was Vincent St. Vane—the Proprietor. The statue outside did look like him in the face but exaggerated his frame. He had a visible humor about him. Like a Willy Wonka Santa Claus CEO. I sat in the shadows and watched. Not only did I watch the people, but I also watched the movie as it neared its end. But before too much could progress in the story, the press conference started. The many reporters went silent as someone made an announcement.

"Please welcome Vincent St. Vane, the Proprietor of the Game at Carousel." I heard their voice, but I didn't see who said it. It didn't matter. St. Vane was staring up at the throngs of reporters and various employees, but he wasn't basking in their attention. He was putting on a serious—if possibly morose—face.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "you will have to forgive me. I have not prepared a speech. I have invited you here because a topic of conversation that has captivated audiences across the Manifest Consortium has finally come to bear. It would appear that the Party of Promise is on the very edge of defeat." A hush fell over the room. I didn't even know how that was possible when no one else had been talking much, but it was true—the air just seemed to leave the place.

"We have long discussed the possibility of sending home employees of the Company whose roles are more related to supporting storylines here in Carousel so that those who need to make repairs will be able to operate as needed. After all, our exploration into the fabric of Carousel and the excavation of its cosmic secrets is our top priority. This distraction, though entertaining and good for ticket sales, has caused a terrible disruption in our work.

Before Carousel's rebellion, it did seem like we were close to finding another backlot in Carousel's depths, an inhabited one. We believe that there are many lives on the line with that discovery. If we can learn how the inhabitants of these backlots survived Carousel's wrath, we could create lasting peace and prosperity even here. These discussions have long been contentious, but it would seem that the time is appropriate.

As the current storyline draws to a bloody end—whether the Party of Promise succeeds or fails—we need to face the reality of their potential failure and the promise of the wonders to come once we have these disruptions quelled." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. He took a heavy breath before continuing.

"It is with a heavy heart that I remind the viewers that the Game at Carousel has never been beaten. Several Throughlines have been successfully run—nearly two dozen of them—but the Game at Carousel has only ever ended in one way for the players of their ilk. Death.

"And as hard as the Party has endeavored, it does appear as if they are running out of narrative momentum. Having never chosen a proper Throughline, and now in their current storyline—titled Post-Traumatic —it seems likely that their defeat is imminent and any victory they achieve will be narrow if it is even possible." He cleared his throat as the reporters wrote down notes. I knew exactly what he was doing.

He was trying to use the difficulties in the finale of Post-Traumatic to implant the idea that we were inevitably going to lose and that the public at large should brace for that. More than that, he was trying to prepare them for the idea that they might start withdrawing workers so that repairs could be made. Images of blood and destruction flashed over the screen as he spoke.

He was using our suffering in this story to create a soft landing so that maybe our deaths might not be so negative for the Company's prospects—so that even though whatever went wrong was their fault, maybe the public at large would start to accept our fate. After all, we were just characters on TV to them. And like all the other characters that they had loved in the Game at Carousel before, we were going to die. They just needed to accept it.

He was trying to use the apparently pessimistic ending of Post-Traumatic to help his cause.

"Given that the failure of the Party of Promise is all but inevitable, I have issued orders to begin a tear-down of the current game so that investigations can begin—" Images flashed over the screen of my friends. Of the fights. Camden, Anna, Kimberly—huddled together, wounded and afraid—while this man talked about withdrawing, about abandoning us. The two workers I had seen in the Tension Room had discussed this very thing. It wasn't a question of if the Manifest Consortium was going to abandon us—it was when.

And yet, another thought occurred to me. Why did this man think that we were going to lose this storyline? Yes, we had experienced some setbacks. Yes, the odds were overwhelming. Yes, there were few players left alive, it would seem, in the narrative. But had he not seen our plan? Did he not know what was about to happen? Was he going to deceive them, or did he really believe our defeat was inevitable? Did he know something I didn't? It didn't matter. I had lost focus on whatever speech he was giving.

Reporters were now asking him questions.

"Mr. St. Vane," one reporter asked, "can you comment on reports that Riley Lawrence has been reported missing from Deathwatch Theater?" He waved it off.

"As I said," St. Vane continued, "many different systems are going to be torn down and investigated. Everything that is happening is perfectly normal." He was lying. And if he was willing to lie about me and why I was missing from the theater, would he be willing to lie about what happened to my friends and me? Would he leave us to a terrible fate and then tell everyone that it was unavoidable—sending his workers home and letting us die the old-fashioned way? I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to scream.

So much rage had built up in me without me knowing it from the moment I arrived at Carousel. It had taken the form of apathy. There was no point in being angry at an evil god or whatever Carousel was. But this was a man. I could be angry at a man. I stood up and screamed, "That's not true!" before I even thought about what I should be saying. I was surprised to find that my voice echoed. St. Vane stopped talking and stared back up at the seat where I was sitting.

The reporters, too, seemed shocked that someone would argue with the Proprietor and turned their attention toward me. There was no backing down now. No escaping. He was trying to tell what might have been a large section of the Audience that our defeat was inevitable and that he had every excuse to give up. I took off my sunglasses and pulled down my hood, but I barely even needed to do that. Everyone recognized me suddenly. How strange was that?

I could sneak around all day, and no one looked me in the face well enough to know who I was, but the moment I spoke up, they couldn't miss me.

"Do not abandon us," was all I could think to say. St. Vane squinted up at me. He smiled when he realized who I was.

"Mr. Lawrence. I had heard rumors, but I couldn't believe they were true," he said. I didn't know if he was being honest or just covering for himself. Now that I was up, I was moving toward the field of reporters, down toward the stairs that led to St. Vane. I stopped halfway down.

"I'm surprised to see you," he said.

"I can honestly say that the days of players walking these halls feel too long ago—though they never made it further than the lobby." People in the room laughed. That just made me angrier.

"I came here to find a way forward," I said.

"Ah," St. Vane said.

"Many players before you have tried. In fact, I don't think any of the players from your world have ever made it this far—though one did make it close before he was swallowed by a lake monster." More laughter. What was it with these people?

"Tell us," St. Vane continued, "is it true that you've found a way to break through your illusion? Some speculate it was Carousel that let you loose." It would seem they used the word illusion to mean spell, which was confusing—unless my current body really was an illusion. But I didn't want to think about that too long.

"Yes," I said.

"How could I not be curious about the people I see in the theater?"

"Well, I'll be honest with you, Mr. Lawrence—you weren't supposed to see them. I'll have to have a conversation with some of my staff. How exactly did you break the illusion?" More jokey, humorous tone. I thought about keeping it to myself, but it seemed inevitable that they would figure it out. I might as well try to come across as clever.

"Willpower is Magic," I said. He considered my words.

"I've always found that to be the case," he said with a smile.

"That's how I've come this far. Would that be why you put stat points into your Grit? We were wondering about that. We thought it was because you feared torture." Nope. That was a good cover, though.

"I'm only afraid of the unknown," I said.

"Everything else, I can deal with."

"So, were you surprised when you got here and found us?" he asked, in a tone that was far too friendly.

"We knew you were here," I said, "but we didn't know why. We thought you were servants of Carousel—some type of NPC." Now, apparently, I was the one telling jokes because the entire room roared to life in laughter. They thought I was adorable. The Proprietor laughed more than the others.

"I'm afraid you were mistaken," he said.

"No, we are not characters at all. We are not a part of this story." He was speaking in a puckish manner, but I was angry. I reached into my pocket and withdrew the camera from the storyline. Since I had put it inside my hoodie with my luggage tag, it—like everything else I owned—had come here with me.

"Do you want to be?" I said, lifting up the camera and opening the screen. For the first time, the humor left his face. And I think, just for a second, I saw the real man.

"Yes, you did take the camera with you. Such a powerful tool to deprive your allies of," he said.

"Perhaps that is why they are in such dire straits." I looked up at the screen. Things were not looking good. Did he really not know what happened next?

"I made arrangements," I said.

"I came here to find out a way forward, like I said. Tell me what I need to know, and I will leave." I wanted to give him the opportunity to be the benevolent leader that he so wanted everyone to believe he was.

"Absolutely. What is it you want to know? What can we tell you that would ensure your survival? What piece of trivia is there that can help the three remaining survivors in this storyline—who haven't been written off or killed—get to the end?" He really thought our goose was cooked here. That's why he had called the press conference.

"Our Throughlines—are they all traps, or was that just Silas Dyrkon?" I asked. St. Vane seemed to think for a moment, choosing his words carefully.

"Oh no, Throughlines are exactly what they seem. Always. If you think on their nature, you'll know why. It took considerable effort on my old friend's part to try to keep you in the dark," he said.

"So Carousel's Throughline—is that really a way out?" I asked.

"It must be," he said.

"Everyone knows that Carousel wants nothing other than for the players to have a happy ending." There was laughter again, but this time, it was stifled. Maybe people could read that I wasn't entertained. Maybe they were afraid that I would click on the camera, press record, and suddenly they really would be characters in a story. I wasn't sure. And I wasn't going to bet anything on it.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"If you understand the rules of Carousel, you'll know that our ability to help you is limited."

"Because if you help us, it will be a deus ex machina, and Carousel will punish us for it," I said.

"Maybe even punish you." Only a few people laughed. The rest must have been thinking about it. Yet they chose to be here, so they must not have considered it a real possibility.

"You're suggesting that Carousel might be able to harm us?" he said. He looked around the room and laughed in that way that you would laugh at a child who made some silly guess about the world—something everyone knew to be false. I was an adorable child, just like before.

"A point of fact—Carousel does not consume people. It consumes worlds. My people come from many worlds—High Worlds. We are masters of MBW. We are immortal, most of us. We are partakers of the Sweepstakes.

"I understand that it may be confusing for someone like you. You see this unimaginable power and think it untamable. Your Low World has given you no preparation for your voyage into the Many.

"As I was saying in my speech, the only thing stopping us from wresting control back from the great beast is our compassion for you and your people. We cannot stop Carousel's bloodlust, but we refuse to contribute to it. We are mere observers.

"We have given players the tools that they need to win. Do not mistake our kindness for weakness. Do not mistake our casual demeanor in this hellish place for carelessness. We know what we are doing, for we have great experience across the Many Worlds.

"Carousel is not a mad world. It has rules that simply do not apply to us, as much as it might like otherwise. Had it the ability, it would have swallowed us whole years ago. Fortunately, we are not a part of its food chain.

"You, Mr. Lawrence, have planned out this little adventure into the heart of our operations in Carousel. That is impressive. But I assure you—your place is in Carousel proper.

"If you ever find a way to reach our grand tower in earnest, you and yours are welcome here. We will provide a generous respite on your path to freedom if you make it that far.

"But I must implore you—if your homeworlders manage to survive this storyline, do not devise to sneak here again. Many a player from your world has fallen from that folly." He walked slowly up the stairs toward me.

"What have you risked to make this visit possible?" he asked.

"You chose tropes that would allow you to break our illusions. You made decisions in this story that will very likely doom your allies and yourself so that you could die and come here. Look now at the screen. They have two hours left to survive, and their defenses have been destroyed. Their sanctuary is burning.

"Your Athlete, Soldier, and Comedian are dead. How can those that remain hope to Survive the Night now? We are watching your doom. Did you leave your team to fail because you chose to prioritize coming here? Well, I hope it was worth it. You very likely doomed your team." On the screen, much of what he said was true. Half of the Museum was smoldering. Antoine lay murdered, having been dragged out of the building.

They might have been targeting Camden somewhere inside, but that didn't mean they would ignore a player that got in their way. There was no telling where Logan was. Kimberly, Camden, and Anna were holed up in the jailhouse basement with nothing between them and the killers but iron bars and some sleeping, invisible, uncaring ghosts.

"Not exactly," I said.

"Not exactly what?" St. Vane asked.

"You didn't realize that your indulgence might lead to their deaths? Under-leveled and under-planned without their de facto leader. What hope did they have?" Knowing what I did, I thought it strange for him to ask that.

"Do you not know?" I asked, genuinely curious. He looked at me, unsure of what I was referring to. The whole room watched me. Had they not seen the whole movie? Had they not been shown what our plan was, what we had worked so hard to achieve? Perhaps it had gotten lost in all of the random footage. Maybe Carousel was hiding it from them.

"Our Earth may not know what the magic between worlds is," I said.

"We don't know about the Sweepstakes. We don't even have low magic, as far as I can tell. Lowly as we are, we do have something you missed. We have imagination. We have movies, and we know the rules—the ones that matter here. The ones Carousel cares about." He smiled.

"We have collected films from around the Many Worlds, child," he said.

"It was our mastery of the tropes and turns of film that spurred our interest in this place."

"Then you know the rule about found footage films," I said, looking back to the screen. I was met with looks of confusion. Maybe I had timed things poorly. One of the techs working on the control panel turned a knob, and suddenly the footage sped up, skipping—until it stopped, seemingly on its own. It stopped because new footage flashed onto the screen. 🔴 REC OCT 18, 2018 00: 07: 15 [▮▮▯▯▯ 40%] The footage showed the fires raging around the historical downtown area of Carousel, where the jailhouse was located.

There were dozens of Generation Killers about. Maybe as many as a hundred. Maybe more, spread out, enjoying themselves. Some waited in the street for something to do. Others gravitated toward a side alley where Michael had been fighting them. He had fallen. Generation Killer really was a threat. There were just so many of them. So many bystanders had been killed—whether civilian or police—that the Generation Killers had created a new mass casualty event. That was the very event I had arrived at with the camera.

■ STOP"Stop the feed," St. Vane said. He turned to me, his voice cutting through the sudden hush in the room.

"That can't be your footage. How are you alive in the Finale? You died in Second Blood." He really didn't know.

"Maybe you should watch the rest," I said. Everyone continued to stare at the screen as they pieced it together. They hadn't seen everything. Maybe it was because some parts hadn't happened yet.

"This is a time travel movie," I said.

"You see, I'm a bit of a control freak. Second Blood is great and all, but I thought I'd go to the Finale first. I mean, that was the plan from the beginning. My plan. Go to the Finale first, at a time we all agreed upon. Learn what I needed, then head back to Second Blood. Took some convincing to get Carousel to go along with it. I'm surprised you didn't know." St. Vane didn't look angry or frustrated. He looked amused. Genuinely.

"I told you," I said.

"The rule of found footage films. The cameraman always survives to the end." He laughed. A reporter, a woman dressed like a Victorian socialite, called out to me, "But what can you do to survive? Just one player against all of those killers."

"I guess you'll have to watch to find out," I said. Without even being ordered, one of the techs hit a switch. Suddenly, we weren't watching the various cuts of footage from the storyline. We were watching an edited cut. A cut by Carousel. The lights went dark. And The End was almost upon us.