Chương 288: Book Six, Chapter 50: Smoking Kills

We weren't even in the storyline that we were supposed to be in, I realized as I looked at the red wallpaper. Homibridal Part II? What was that all about? But as I read through her tropes, I knew exactly what was going on. She had taken over our storyline. She even had player tropes. Suddenly, an image flashed in my mind of Ramona, apparently dazed, holding a flower. Daphne had stepped in and thrown out whatever the plot of Ida Rae had been; she had a trope that allowed her to borrow the storm from that story.

And for all I knew, other characters were from there too, but I didn't think so. I almost laughed On-Screen, but I managed to keep a serious face because of all the existential dread I felt and the horror at realizing that true love really was too good to be true. It had all been Daphne. She had taken over the life of this Rachel Hutchins character. She was being blackmailed for it. But why was she trying to marry me in this storyline? Oh right.

Because I was cash-rich, and I had few friends and family to care if I was gone. I was the perfect target. And while I thought all of this in real time, only moments had passed. My thoughts were racing, as if to make up for old times. After I had stared at her, realizing she had killed Ramona, some poor innocent woman, for reasons I couldn't understand, Daphne seemed to realize that the jig was up.

She had a trope that would automatically start feeding her Moxie into Mettle or Grit, and it didn't appear to be voluntary.

"Riley, you don't understand," she said, suddenly unable to contain the madness.

"I was standing there with my father, about to walk down the aisle any minute to marry you, and she started harassing us. She wouldn't leave us alone. She was talking about how we needed to call off the wedding right in front of my dad."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Are you saying that you…?"

"My dad was getting curious. He was asking what she was talking about, and I knew she was about to tell," Daphne continued.

"I had to do something to shut her up. Don't you understand? If my father found out that people were dying around us, it would ruin his daughter's wedding." I could see anger in her eyes, like two little orbs of death. With her Moxie leeching into other stats, she must have given up on being charming or put together. Now she was all in on being frightening. And it was working.

"I asked her to come over here where there were no people, and I did what I had to do to protect my parents, to protect the people I love, to give them the happiest day of their lives. Don't you understand?" That's what she had been going on about. I hated those mind control tropes.

"Rachel…" I said, not sure what to say. I was ready for an interrogation. I was not ready for a confession, especially an unhinged one.

"Tell me you're not saying what I think you're saying."

"She was acting erratic, hysterical. I did what I had to do," Daphne said. Ramona was trying to play her role as a Hysteric, trying to stir the pot and keep the drama at the forefront, just as I had always told her to. And she had been killed for it. Daphne was a crazed bride. What else did I expect? Love rebounds with a vengeance, I was learning.

"We can still have our happily ever after, sweetheart," she said.

"You just have to trust me. Tell me that you trust me." I was speechless, and I wasn't even pretending. I still felt deeply in love, but I felt something else too. I could see a trope that Daphne had called Un-Pheremones, which forced you to feel the emotions of your romantic role in the storyline. That explained why I was feeling the love of my character for his bride. But suddenly I wasn't just feeling love.

Because my character would have gone through a very similar situation to the one I was just in, I was overcome with fear and confusion, and horror.

"Rachel, if we just sat down and talked," I started to say. But what would talking do? She had just admitted to murder, all to prevent Ramona from warning her father that other murders were going on.

"We can't stay here," Daphne said.

"Those other blackmailers, they won't stop. I don't care what they said over the speaker." She stopped speaking as she seemed to have an idea.

"There's only one place that they could have sent that message from. That's what we'll do, Riley. We need to go find them and make sure that they don't hurt any more of our friends." She ran past me. It wasn't like I was going to stop her. And as she ran, we stayed On-Screen, so I had no option but to stay in character, acting like a confused man in love, realizing that his bride might have been more thorn than rose.

"I don't know what she's talking about," I said to Andrew and Kimberly. I quickly handed off Jules to Andrew.

"I need to go find out what is happening," I said. Now I had to play the idiot. I turned and ran after Daphne. If she went Off-Screen, that could spell disaster for us. Now that we were in the Finale, there was little that could protect us from her. If she went Off-Screen, she would be able to use her Plan Enaction trope to set up all manner of traps. But it was hopeless. As I scanned through her other tropes, I saw that she could find trapdoors. If I started a Chase Scene, she could escape in any number of ways.

I didn't have time to even work my way down the list. I just ran, following after her as best I could. Kimberly was right behind me, and so were Andrew and Jules, but we lost them pretty quickly. Daphne had a very good understanding of the layout of the building. She navigated the maze of the casino far better than any of us had previously, and it wasn't just because the lights were suddenly on. It was because she had been here before. Many times, most likely. It wasn't long until we found where she was going.

There was a corridor leading away from the guest area toward the sound of a generator. There were all kinds of electrical conduits and other pipes leading in this direction. This was a pretty good guess of where the remaining blackmailers might be if they were able to repair the generator and communicate over the intercom within a few moments of each other. As I followed Daphne, I started to smell something over the damp rot that came with the floodwaters. I smelled cigarettes. I continued further.

Daphne rounded a corner, and I was right behind her.

"Rachel, where are you going?" I cried out, but she didn't pay any attention to me. She was on a mission. And as I ran, I had time to examine her tropes and understand that her targeting appeared to be based on who was likely to reveal her secret or something similar. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. If these blackmailers knew her true identity, that meant quite possibly that she couldn't attack most of the players until they were dealt with.

She had been able to attack Ramona because, if I was to take her word for it, Ramona was about to reveal something to her father that would ruin her secret plan for him. I had to wonder what Logan had done to deserve his disappearing act. Though it was possible the blackmailers had done him in, just as they had Antoine. Assuming they were the ones to kill Antoine. With the way she had handled Ed, it was entirely possible that she could have killed anyone, especially someone who trusted her.

We would have to sort that out after the fact. I would ask Antoine who killed him later. But first, I had to get to the end of this storyline and revive him. Finally, we arrived at our destination, with Carousel getting what was probably a pretty repetitive chase through knee-high water on film. And when we arrived at the room that contained both the generator and a system of electronics which had been hacked open, we found the final two blackmailers. Sure enough, it was Emmett and Desiree Hutchins.

The trope that would have hidden them from me was no longer working. Their secret was out, the same as Daphne's. Blackmailer Codename: Silver Fox Plot Armor: 37 Tropes Hidden In Plain Sight The villain will appear as an ordinary NPC until they don their disguise.

(The trope uses the word don because most villains don their disguise when they are acting as a villain and doff it when acting as NPCs) Non-Combatant This villain cannot be attacked On-Screen until it attacks the player or is otherwise identified as hostile. Interests Align This entity does not need the players to lose in order to achieve its goals.

Thoroughly Dispersed This creature's group can instantly occupy the entirety of a set area, making it appear omnipresent and unpredictable to characters. Mastermind This enemy can buff allies who enact his plans to perform their assigned tasks. Ears Everywhere This villain is aware of any information discovered or known by their allies. Aged Master This villain can divide their Savvy between Mettle and Hustle in a Fight Scene. No Neighborhood Watch The villain will not be seen by NPC witnesses when off-screen.

Two Way Street If a player with buffed Moxie attempts to interrogate or manipulate this villain, the villain will get an equal buff to Moxie. We Go Way Back Players may have a pre-established relationship with this villain that the players must discover before the past catches up with them. Blackmailer Codename: Miss Kitty Plot Armor: 32 Tropes Hidden In Plain Sight The villain will appear as an ordinary NPC until they don their disguise.

Non-Combatant This villain cannot be attacked On-Screen until it attacks the player or is otherwise identified as hostile. Interests Align This entity does not need the players to lose in order to achieve its goals. Thoroughly Dispersed This creature's group can instantly occupy the entirety of a set area, making it appear omnipresent and unpredictable to characters.

Endless Hunger This villain is driven by greed, lust, gluttony, or envy. When something they want is on the line, their Mettle is buffed considerably. It reverts when their motivation changes. The Lover This villain's presence buffs their lover's Grit. Play the Fox This villain can fake insanity to guard against Insight tropes being used on them. No Neighborhood Watch The villain will not be seen by NPC witnesses when off-screen.

Two Way Street If a player with buffed Moxie attempts to interrogate or manipulate this villain, the villain will get an equal buff to Moxie. We Go Way Back Players may have a pre-established relationship with this villain that the players must discover before the past catches up with them. Kimberly arrived right after me. Emmett and Desiree were huddled on top of a desk, looking worse for wear, smoking cigarettes. They didn't get up when Daphne arrived.

"So you didn't go for peace," Emmett said. There was something strange about him, something off. He was sweating considerably, and though he had a gun sitting next to him, he didn't go for it.

"I'll never be safe with you alive," Daphne said.

"I promise you would be," Emmett said, but his heart wasn't in it. He wasn't trying to convince her. He was sick. Moments later, Andrew and Jules arrived. They too were sweating, and while Jules had already looked ill, Andrew did too, suddenly.

"The blackmail letter smelled of cigarette smoke," Daphne said, having lost the madness I had seen in her moments before.

"Whoever licked the envelope was a smoker." She reached into her handbag and pulled out the vial of poison I had seen her use on Ed. But unlike with him, she wasn't just using the poison. She was using the trope attached to it, and suddenly, I saw her plan come to fruition.

"You know smoking will kill you," she said.

"I suspected that with all of tonight's stressors, a nicotine addict might run through more than one pack of smokes. So I left some around in case you needed them. With… a slightly faster acting additive than the average cigarette." She shook the bottle of poison. She had poisoned cigarettes for her blackmailers to find. What kind of plan was that? She destroyed all of the cigarettes at the tobacco store within the casino, and left out a few poisoned packs. Was this some sort of comedy?

A black comedy might allow something like that to work. A black comedy. Of course, that would make sense. That explained Daphne's odd behavior. She was performing for the audience.

"The antidote," Emmett said.

"Do you have the antidote?"

"Yes," Daphne said. But she didn't move to grab it.

"I have money," he said.

"I'll give it to you, whatever you want."

"I'm sure you would," she answered.

"But why should you get to survive your poisoning when my parents didn't?" She put on the waterworks for that. Even with her Moxie being drained into her combat stats, she was still a good actress. She had probably had a lot of practice.

"We didn't kill your parents, little dove," Desiree spoke up for the first time, barely suppressing the urge to vomit or pass out, I couldn't tell which.

"Please, you have to believe us. We are lovely, lovely... lovely... We know who might have done it, though."

"You do?" Daphne asked.

"Was it a woman in her late thirties, about this high?" She held out her hand.

"Dark complexion, braided hair?" Emmett and Desiree looked at her with alarm.

"It wasn't her," Daphne said.

"I checked."

"No," Emmett said.

"It had to be. We don't do that. We're just blackmailers. Thieves." Before their conversation could continue, I heard a splash behind me, and I turned to see that Andrew had dropped to the ground along with Jules. His Infected status was lit, and so were his Dead and Incapacitated, each blinking at different speeds. But he hadn't smoked a cigarette. How could he have been poisoned? Obviously, it had been the trope attached to the poison.

Even if he hadn't smoked a cigarette, the audience would believe he had from the amount of buildup we had given that character quirk: his desire to smoke again, his pocketing the last unsoaked pack of smokes that Daphne had apparently planted. He may not have smoked even one cigarette, but it was implied that he had, and that was all it took. Jules was looking worse, too. She had actually smoked one of the cigarettes, and I began to suspect that the reason she had done it was to try to protect Andrew.

She was whispering something I couldn't hear, but from the way her lips moved, I thought she was saying she was sorry. Both of them struggled to stay above water. I rushed to help them.

"Rachel," I called out, "do you have the antidote?" She turned to me and said, "Yes. Why do you ask?"