Chapter One Hundred and Three: Dearest Mr. Gray Amber
"Why do they go through the trouble of making all of these nonsense histories for each and every storyline?" Grace asked as she flipped through a leather-bound book from the vast collection of the mansion's library.
"What's that one saying?" I asked, leafing through a tome related to the magic system for the storyline we had just finished.
"Carousel is the capital city of Hesteria, which appears to be a continent right in the spot where North America is supposed to be." She showed me the map she had been looking at and, sure enough. Europe, Africa, Asia, etc. No North or South America. A different continent had taken its place and Carousel was its capital.
"Hmm," Chris said. "Might explain why this storyline takes place outside the city. The Carousel we know has a bit of everything, but it isn't a metropolis."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
Chris started to laugh. "Haven't you heard the ways Carousel gets described in different storylines? Sometimes it's a big city, sometimes a little Podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Carousel is playing a role just like us."
"Why would they need to do that?" Kimberly asked as she lay on a couch reading a copy of Eavesdropper Magazine, the very gossip zine our characters had worked for. "Why not just write the stories to fit?"
"All we can do is ask questions," Chris said. "Until Carousel decides to start giving some answers."
"This part is consistent," Grace said. She held out a page with a map of Carousel. "This map is from '81. The road we arrived on hadn't been built yet."
"The road to the mansion or... Wait. Do you mean the road to the parking lot? When did that show up?" I asked.
Grace nodded. "The parking lot and the entire road down to the corn maze didn't exist until 1989. I've been researching this for our hunt for Secret Lore. Figure the Secrets might be old, so better see what Carousel has looked like over the years."
"Wait," Kimberly said, "Does that mean there were no players before 1989? No parking lot, no players."
Grace let out an exasperated laugh. "Well, you would think so, but the maps are not trustworthy for that sort of thing."
"Why?"
"The Centennial," Chris said.
Grace nodded. "The Centennial Celebration occurs every time a new player arrives. How can it be the hundred-year anniversary of the town every year, sometimes multiple times a year? The history books and maps all change to reflect that. They're just props. So, we don't know if the parking lot really showed up in 1989, but that's what the maps have said since I got here."
That was smart—using old maps to track changes to Carousel over time.
"Wait," I asked. "Do new parts of Carousel keep showing up every year? I feel like I have heard some vets talking about something like that."
Chris nodded his head. "We think so. Records are spotty, and Carousel is hard to keep track of because the storylines all take place on different dates. Like this one, 1992. Still, we all swear we see things change. Buildings appear on roads that were empty before, that sort of thing. "
Before the conversation could go on, Antoine burst into the library holding a platter of food. We had stayed at the mansion for four days at that point. The food from the party was starting to get stale, so now we were having to cook our food from the vast stores in the pantry and walk-in cooler. Grace had been doing that for us, but Chris told Antoine it was his turn to give her a break.
"Steaks and asparagus," Antoine said as he came into the room. "I know how to cook a steak. I made them all medium, give or take a few degrees. I had wrapped the asparagus in bacon, but that burned."
"Thank you," Grace said, accepting her plate.
I agreed.
We ate in silence, all putting off the conversation that we didn't want to have.
We had to leave the Mansion soon.
Chris said we couldn't risk staying for too much longer. I wanted to argue. To me, it seemed unlikely that we could trigger the storyline at the mansion again given the fact that the omen was in a limo back in Carousel.
They said that didn't guarantee anything. Apparently, there were multiple omens for some storylines that could bring you into different perspectives of the same story.
That made sense on some level. The version that we had entered made the storyline out to be a black comedy of sorts. A group of gossip columnists sneaking into a celebrity-filled party and finding out that it was filled with sorcerers who snatched bodies was surely not the only storyline such an elaborate set piece could be used for.
Still, the prospect of leaving was incredibly daunting.
"The room is right up here," I said as we wound up the secret staircase.
The black snow cloud had been so large that we were able to see it storming in the distance even from ground level, but as time went on it started to shrink. In order to get a good look at it, we decided to climb the tower that Mrs. Cloudburst had shown me. We were hoping to find that the storm was over.
"So she just took you up here all on her own?" Antoine asked.
"Well, I guess it was in the script. Or at least her version of it," I answered.
I led them to the room at the top of the tower and opened the door. I walked in and was soon greeted with a view of Carousel in the distance.
"Damn," I said.
The cloud had shrunk quite a bit, but it hadn't finished storming. I couldn't imagine what it would be like for the people caught in it. At that point, the monsters created by the black snow were only a secondary antagonist. The primary worry would be finding food and water. We had been very fortunate to be stuck in a well-stocked mansion.
"What happened while you were up here?" Kimberly asked.
"It was the strangest thing," I said. "She took me to the window and pointed at the black snow cloud and asked if it was going to move this way. She looked really worried. I suppose that means that she didn't have any information on it which is very interesting to me."
Antoine and Kimberly looked at each other.
"And what happened after that?" Kimberly asked.
"She started getting us ready for the next scene," I said. "Ruffled her hair, kissed my collar. Had to make it look like we had hooked up. You know I think the society members were swingers or something. I'm glad they didn't play up that angle too much. I was worried Mr. Cloudburst might show up."
"Oh," Antoine said. "Chris said NPCs usually won't try to get frisky, but enemies might if that's their MO. I figured she was technically an enemy..."
"You thought we hooked up?" I asked. I could imagine the way we looked would lead them to believe that. "Let's avoid those storylines with those kinds of enemies, huh?"
Kimberly noticed something across the room. She walked over and grabbed something from on top of one of the pillows.
"I think this is for you," she said. Handing me a letter addressed to Mr. Gray Amber. Yep, that was me alright.
The letter had nothing but the name and a red stain as if its sender had applied lipstick before kissing the envelope.
I stared at it for a moment.
"Are you going to open it?" Antoine asked.
"Give me a second, I needed to think about it. Make sure it's not an Omen or something."
I tore the letter open to find a letter written in fancy cursive.
Dearest Mr. Gray Amber,
I am leaving to go across the sea with Cristobal. You have every right to despise me, but I hope you will understand what is in my heart.
~-~
I was trapped in a prison before he came along. My body was frail and sickly. I had no idea that when I signed up for the society, I would eventually be trading one prison for another. That's what Cristobal's love is: captivation—I am truly his.
I regret the things I have done to people, but how can I change when I can never leave this cycle? When I look into his eyes during the moments I have with him, however fleeting, I cannot feel doubt, or shame, or guilt—only love. The secret we all know is that only change can save us, but it is difficult; I've tried to save myself in every way I knew how. We all have in the Society; we've screamed out to the gods, to Cristobal. Please, please, save us. And he has done his best; he is the most powerful man in the world and very generous.
When I meet someone like you, I remember the pain, the torment, given and taken, and I remember my desire to leave this all behind. Cristobal says that the pain is fleeting, that our lives together are forever, and I have to believe him. I no longer know if I deserve punishment for my sins, but the innocent and the deserving suffer together in this life, don't they?
I chose the name Cloudburst because I always felt like a storm of regret was chasing me, threatening to destroy my happiness. The storm came before I expected it, but it was all part of the greater plan, I think. And like the storm, the feelings between us will pass. What is next may be worse, but it's all part of that same plan.
I hope that you find a way to forget about me. You must succeed, all the good people like you, must succeed in your fight against people like me. I am not a good person, though I wish I was, and you deserve better than this little detour with me. It's time we get back on our true paths; I hope you're ready.
Yours in Passion,
Ms. Cloudburst
Antoine and Kimberly read the letter over my shoulders.
"You hooked up with a hundred-year-old lady, didn't you?" Antoine asked.
"No," I said.
"Is it normal for NPCs or... enemies, I guess, to leave love letters?" Kimberly asked.
"I don't know," I said, "This is my first."
"It isn't a love letter, it's a Dear John letter. She's leaving you to stay with the cult leader," Antoine said.
"Oh, I'm sorry Riley," Kimberly said with a smile. "I thought you were a cute couple."
"It wasn't going to work out anyway," I said. I looked closer at the letter. "Should we show this to Grace and Chris?"
"We should show them everything," Antoine said. "And we've been talking. I think we should tell them about Dina's whole thing."
I was afraid he would say that. After the destruction of the black snow, our excuse for not telling the veterans about Dina's quest to save her son and the supposed communication from Carousel had become thinner and thinner.
"Look," I said, "We need to ask your brother about that Zoe chick. We've been putting it off too long because of the storm. If it is true that someone else in the past also had a quest like Dina's, that would legitimize it and we need to know that before we go blabbing about everything."
Antoine shrugged his shoulders.
"If he really did have a friend who walked into an over-leveled storyline because she failed a quest, he's probably not going to be happy to find out that we've been secretly trying to figure out our quest behind his back," Antoine said, "It may turn out that this whole thing was actually just Carousel messing with us. What are we going to do if it turns out that this was all a lie?"
I thought for a moment.
"If this is real, it might mean there is a way to win, to save Anna and Camden, even. I'm following the trail until we get to the end, whatever that might be."
I shouldn't have said their names. We had somehow gone a few minutes without agonizing over our imperiled friends.
"We should go have that talk," Antoine said.
He led us out of the room. I tucked the letter into my hoodie pocket. Cloudburst's script must have allowed her to leave any player who did that little side story with her a message. So strange. What was the point? Was it a quest item? Could I pawn it for some extra tickets?
Kimberly's recent trope revealed that there were mechanics no one knew about. It had me second-guessing everything.
I walked down the stairs quietly, pondering whether we should really tell Chris everything.
What could it really hurt?
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