Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Black Snow
Bowling was one of the many things that I had never been skilled at.
Until I got to Carousel.
I gave myself all those points in Hustle to try to survive using Oblivious Bystander. I had never taken into account how it might help me aim a ball down a wooden lane.
In fact, most of the players were doing really well at bowling. Obviously, Chris was doing the best because he out-leveled us by quite a bit, but I bowled above 130 for the first time in my life in my very first game in Carousel. That was pretty impressive considering we weren’t allowed to bowl three strikes in a row.
Antoine was beating me because of his higher Hustle and general athleticism. I wasn't sure how stats worked on things like that outside a storyline, but I could feel it helping me.
Every time Grace's alarm went off, we would all stop what we were doing and watch as she went over and locked the front door, and flipped around the open sign.
The first time, a well-groomed man in his early 30s came and attempted to open the door only to leave when he saw that the sign said closed. It wasn't an NPC.
It was an enemy.
He must have had a trope that prevented me from seeing much more than that. I assumed he was the Quiet Man Grace talked about. He was forced to go entertain himself elsewhere.
The other unwanted intruders worked the same way. Lock the doors. Flip the sign. Watch until they walked away.
After a long while, a few rounds of bowling, and a few rounds in the arcade, the phone call Grace warned us about came in. Even though we knew it was coming, it still sent a chill down my spine when I heard it.
We all waited in anticipation to see which player would be chosen by the woman with the raspy voice.
“Is there a Camden here?” The employee at the desk asked as she placed the phone against her shoulder.
“No one here by that name,” Reggie called out.
The employee hung up the phone and everyone cheered and congratulated Camden for being the lucky winner.
We ignored the fact that if he had answered that phone, many of us would likely have died because of it.
We all dispersed into our own little groups. Antoine found an opportunity to get Chris alone by challenging him to ski ball. He was likely preparing to ask questions about Zoe. I could see they were having a difficult conversation.
Chris was talking about something, and Antoine stood there, wide-eyed, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“It looks like Chris just dropped a bombshell on him,” Anna said, as we spied on them while pretending to pick out new bowling balls.
Was that good news or bad? If it was true that someone else was given a quest to beat the game, that would certainly make me feel more confident in our decision to pursue Dina's quest.
We would have to find out when we got a moment to speak with Antoine.
Travis and Vernon Haley mostly spent the whole time alone with their team. It turned out that Travis could be a relatively normal person from time to time. I had half-expected him to harass me because of the comments he had made in the past.
He didn’t. It was a pleasant surprise.
As my friends talked and laughed, I found myself forgetting that I was surrounded by danger. I enjoyed being there. At that moment it felt like we were at a real bowling alley hanging out and having a good time.
Maybe the Bowlers were right about taking a minute just to enjoy yourself.
I felt at ease in a way that I hadn't been able to since I entered the bowling alley. It almost took me too long to figure out why.
The Hysteric trope (I don’t like it here…) that I had been given was incredibly useful, but its cost was that it gave you actual anxiety along with the information you received. The fact that I was no longer feeling the same anxiety I had was strange considering that I was in a building with multiple dangerous Omens.
Or was I?
The realization chilled me like a splash of ice water. I looked over at the lane where the bowling bag Omen had been. The bag was still there but I didn't see the Omen anymore. Nothing appeared on the red wallpaper; it was as if I was just looking at a normal bowling bag crammed with clothes.
It was the same with the present that had been thrown away in the trash can. There was no Omen that jumped out to greet me when I looked over there.
Strange.
I turned around and looked out the front window. The entire time we had been there, the ranting woman could be seen talking to her reflection. When I looked again, she was gone.
There were no Omens in the bowling alley anymore.
“Quiet,” I yelled. “Be quiet for a second.”
The others heard the panic in my voice and stopped their conversations.
The Omens were gone but as I focused, I could still feel something. Something distant and growing. Was this normal anxiety or was there another omen nearby? I couldn't tell.
Then I looked up.
Whatever it was wasn't directly above us, but when I looked out toward the back side of the building and up into the ceiling, I felt an intense burst of fear. Even through the roof, I could tell that there was an Omen outside.
As this realization dawned on me, my anxiety kicked into overdrive, and I walked toward the doors to get a look at what it was.
“The omens are all gone and there is something outside!” I screamed as I walked toward the door. The others cycled through their own scouting tropes to confirm what I had said and then followed me.
When I walked around the building and looked up in the direction of the pulsing fear that felt like it was pressing against my forehead, I saw it.
The storm.
A single jet-black cloud floated in the distance over the top of a large chemical factory that was pouring smoke into the air. I could see lights flashing around the factory. There was some kind of meltdown.
I saw the Omen.
The Black Snow
Difficulty: Apocalypse. The world is ending.
Trigger: Imperceptible. (Savvy too low)
Whatever this was it was too difficult for me to get much useful information from it. My location scout trope didn't get anything from it. Strangely, my Hysteric trope told me it was an Apocalypse but otherwise the omen looked too powerful for me to be able to see much.
I didn't understand why it was showing me the name and difficulty of such a powerful storyline. Normally the strongest ones didn't tell me anything but that they existed.
“We need to go!” I screamed.
“What is it?” Grace asked.
I told them the name of the storyline and its difficulty.
“I've never even seen an Apocalypse level of difficulty,” I said.
The veterans looked at each other.
“It can't be an Apocalypse,” Travis said. “The next one isn't due until December.”
Due?
“I'm telling you that it says Apocalypse on the red wallpaper,” I said.
“We need to run,” Jesse said. His trope for figuring out how to avoid danger was crude but effective.
“Just a second,” Grace said. She pulled out a trope from her pocket. It was called Brain Trust. A quick look at the red wallpaper told me that it allowed a player to copy an ally’s insight tropes temporarily. It worked best Off-Screen.
Panic overtook Grace's face. I assumed that was the result of my Hysteric trope assaulting her with fear.
“Any player or NPC who touches the black snow must survive the Apocalypse,” she read. Her Savvy was much higher than mine, so naturally, she was able to use my trope more effectively.
I went and talked to my friends about what I saw. Kimberly was terrified. Antoine was trying to look brave. Camden looked emotionally drained like he had back when he had died.
“I’ll be,” an NPC said from behind us. His voice cracked. He was speaking loudly. “What do you reckon we should do?”
The intrusion of the NPC on our conversation was a little odd as they usually kept to themselves but as I glanced back to see who had spoken, I noticed that he was wearing a uniform. A bus driver's uniform. He was just an ordinary NPC.
He had parked a bus right there in the street and gotten out to look at the cloud right where we were.
The bus was empty and still running. Was this more help from our Friends upstairs?
I backed toward the bus and waved to my friends and the other players.
Travis was far ahead of me and had already loaded onto the bus with his team by the time I got to it.
The rest of us quickly piled into the bus and pulled away.
The NPC bus driver turned and watched but didn't react with anger. He didn’t try to get back on the bus. We made eye contact. What I saw on his face was resignation and fear. He stared at us as we left.
As we drove away black dots could be seen in the sky in the distance as the storm cloud grew. It was snowing.
Travis was driving. Everyone in the back was discussing the issue in a panicked tone.
"Why would Carousel do this?" was a common refrain. This sudden Apocalypse didn't even have the illusion of fairness.
The storm was between us and Dyer’s Lodge. We were trying to figure out if we could get around it in time to get back or if it would cut us off as it grew.
And grew.
And grew.
It quadrupled in size in 10 minutes and continued growing at an astronomical rate.
“How is there an Apocalypse right now?” Travis yelled from the driver’s seat.
The veterans were scared and confused.
All of us were.
When people talked about Apocalypses, I thought they were just being descriptive of a storyline. I didn't understand they were a separate event.
I couldn't keep track of the entire frantic conversation as it went along but I did learn a lot really quickly as the veterans discussed the plan of what to do.
I learned a few important things.
First, I learned that Apocalypses happened every six to 18 months. I also learned that players do not ever participate in Apocalypses. Instead, they find their way out of town and stay there until it ends. That was one of the many benefits of Dyers Lodge. It was out of town—a safe zone for events like this.
There were all sorts of Apocalypses from zombie Apocalypses to the rise of the machines all the way to alien invasions.
There were numerous signs of upcoming Apocalypses. Usually, this made them very easy to avoid, especially since the omens were supposed to last for weeks before the Apocalypse actually happened.
The omen for this Apocalypse had appeared and the snow started to fall almost simultaneously.
As we went along, I stared out the window and watched as the town reacted to the impending danger.
“Most of the omens are disappearing,” I said. I had to repeat myself because the veterans were so engaged in their planning and conversation. “Most of the omens are disappearing!”
Looking out the window I could see they were being extinguished like candles’ flames in a hurricane.
I knew that when a storyline was triggered other omens set in the same location disappeared for a while. The same must happen when an Apocalypse started to spread across town.
“But not all of them,” I said.
The veterans picked up what I was trying to say.
If we found the right storyline and triggered it, we might just be able to escape the Apocalypse in a completely different way.
“Travis!” Grace yelled. “Change of plans. We're not going to be able to outrun this thing and get around it. We need to go east.”
We needed a storyline that could get us away from the Black Snow.
Travis turned down the next side road and sent us east.
As we drove away, I saw the storm in the distance. From where we were on the road, I could see a long way down the street all the way to where the storm was in the center of the city.
The haze of black snow cast a shadow that felt like it covered all of Carousel.
In the distance, I could see NPCs walking out of their houses curious about the storm.
As I stared at the people in the distance something caught my eye. There was an enemy out amongst the people in the distance. It was too far away for me to distinguish what I was looking at with my eyes alone, but as soon as it was in my line of sight, I could see it on the red wallpaper.
It was too far away for me to see any of its tropes because that ability was proximity-based, but other information was still available.
It was called a Lamentation on the red wallpaper. Plot Armor 76.
The image of the creature on its poster terrified me to the core of my being.
It was a woman. Her limbs were twisted around backward so that she could walk on all fours while her back was to the ground. Her jaw was open, her broken teeth exposed. Tears streamed from her eyes. She was afraid.
Her broken form was not the scariest part.
Jaws emerged from her stomach. They were a dog's jaws; I could tell because its face was there too. Its eyes sockets were covered in flesh. Its jaws snarled and drooled. Its tail came out of her thigh and one of its paws was sticking out of her armpit. A dog leash trailed behind her.
The Lamentation was a mutant amalgam.
I recognized the woman. I recognized the dog.
The first time I had seen them they had been an Omen. The dog snapped and growled at my friends and me as we passed it on the street.
Whatever we did.
We could not let the Black Snow touch us.
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