Book Five, Chapter 133

There were no security guards, no real fences, nothing to protect the building from someone trespassing except, perhaps, the remote locale.

The paved trail leading away from the building disappeared into the inky darkness of the woods.

For a moment, I just people-watched as I planned my next move.

The ironic part of this stealth mission was that I had just the item that should have made it easy. I had the magical masquerade mask I had taken from The Strings Attached. It wouldn't make me undetectable, but it would make people ignore my face.

Unfortunately, magical items from one story did not work in another unless the second story was also magical. Post-Traumatic, for all of its hand wavy physics, was not a magic storyline. The mask wouldn't work. It didn't even seem to have the strange mystical quality it usually did when I looked at it. It was just a mask.

Since there were people wearing my hoodie for some reason, I felt a lot less worried about getting caught. Maybe that was foolish, but at the very least, the sight of me in the distance wouldn’t trigger any alarms—unless, of course, they could see me on the red wallpaper where I couldn’t see them.

This whole endeavor was a risk. I just had to make it worth it.

A whistle blew, loud and clear, across the courtyard, and all the masses of people—the huddles of social groups—started to move back toward the various doors leading into the building.

It occurred to me that, the way these people walked, it didn’t look like they were headed back in after some intermission in for the film they were watching, as I had first suspected. Instead, I got the impression that they were just going back to work.

It didn’t make a difference to me.

I started following along at the back of the pack. I couldn’t just re-enter the backstage area—I would get lost quickly trying to explore it. I needed to enter the main building. Now that I knew this was the entrance to Carousel for players, I had hoped there would be some information booth or something similar that could explain our situation in ways that hadn’t already been done.

As I walked along, I observed a man throw a newspaper into a garbage receptacle.

A newspaper could be very useful.

I casually followed behind and quickly reached down into the receptacle, grabbing the paper.

Before I unfolded it, I noticed a section of the paper titled Carousel By the Numbers, which read as follows:

455 years since First Contact
387 years since Colonization
138 years since the First Game
68 days since Carousel’s Revolt
34 years experienced by current Players
2 Resets
284 Resting Dead
5 Rescued Souls
13 Players Left Alive

I read those numbers twice, trying to digest them. 68 days since Carousel’s revolt? 34 years to the players?

I knew time was inconsistent here but that was an overwhelming disparity. I felt like I was kicked in the chest.

Before I could get a good look at the paper, I heard a voice from behind me call out:

"Young man, do you think you might help an old woman to the entrance?"

I froze.

My first thought: did she just see me pull that newspaper out of the trash can?
My second thought: does she recognize me? Has all of this been for nothing?

It’s strange how priorities can be out of order before you have time to think about them. My instincts were more concerned about looking like a hobo.

I shoved the newspaper into my pocket, where it fell into the subspace along with everything else I carried. This body really was a good duplicate.

I turned and saw an older woman with dark gray hair—almost black—put up into a bun. She wore a tan overcoat and a scarf.

And while I was expecting a feeble woman, that is not what I saw. She stood tall with an air of confidence.

Still, I weighed my options. Running away might not have been the best move. I didn’t know if she recognized me, and if I did run—well, that would create suspicion.

But how could she not recognize me? She was standing so close.

I had to make a judgment call based on nothing but my own people skills and Moxie. Which was to say, I had to make a judgment call based on my Moxie alone.

Would Moxie even work against these people?

"Certainly," I said.

She was a young sixty, I determined—not the age that generally needed assistance. When magic was involved, I needed to be prepared for anything.

She walked closer to me, and I extended my arm for her to grab onto. I noticed that she did have a slight stiffness in her walk, but nothing close to a disability. Otherwise, how would she have gotten to where she was?

The building was so huge, and when she said the entrance, she meant the large entrance at the center of the Crescent, which meant we legitimately had nearly a mile to walk.

"A lovely evening," she said matter-of-factly.

"Yes," I said. "I’m glad to have picked up this sweatshirt."

We started to walk.

"I saw that they were selling those in the gift shop," she said. "Do you know why?"

"People will spend money on anything," I said.

By that point, I was confident that she knew who I was. But I also, strangely, felt at ease. If she was going to sound the alarm, wouldn’t she have already?

Would there even be an alarm for this sort of thing? Was I actually breaking any rules?

I had spent a great deal of my life back in the real world paralyzed by imagined social red tape. Was I being dramatic to expect these people to respond poorly to my presence?

"Yes, they do love memorabilia," she said. " I tell you that is all our culture cares about anymore. We are obsessed with the worlds that could have been. Carousel has never been more popular across the Manifest Consortium. It would seem that this recent crisis has made celebrities out of low-worlders who have no idea what it is they have stumbled into."

She spoke with a reserved manner. A pleasant manner.

"I’ll say," I said.

We walked across the cold grounds. I was ready at any minute to flee.

There was no point in being clever—I had no idea what I was up against.

Were these people sorcerers? They had to be something like that.

Running felt pointless, so I would try to use my words instead.

"I imagine the worst part is just not knowing what is going on," I said. Even if she knew who I was, I wasn’t going to admit it first.

"You imagine?" she asked with a smile I could see out of the corner of my eye. "Yes, I imagine the same," she said. "Normally, players arrive in Carousel through those gates behind us. For them, it’s easy. They arrive and are immediately met with explanations and guidance."

"What kind of guidance are they given?" I asked.

"They’re told that they’re in a game, first of all, and often they are given a choice of narrator to follow. You see, that is the true gift. Narrators have their own aspirations and ambitions, so when they recruit players, they can help them as they see fit. The company cannot help players—not especially. That help would be seen as unfair. It is quite a conundrum."

She was talking about Carousel’s weird rules.

"Why would the company’s help be different than the Narrators’?" I asked.

The woman didn’t speak for a moment, but then she asked, "Why do you think that might be?"

"Because the narrator is getting help from the players, so helping them in return isn’t unfair—not by Carousel’s standards," I said. "But that’s just my guess. Does the company not benefit from the players’ help?"

"It certainly benefits from the players," the woman said. "But I wouldn’t call it fair. Look at this," she said, pointing to a large statue in the center of the courtyard.

The statue was enormous and featured a man in Victorian clothing—at least as best I could tell—standing amongst a sea of monsters.

We walked closer until we could see the plaque commemorating it.

The plaque simply said: The Proprietor tames the evils of Carousel.

I stared up at the statue and saw the various monsters depicted. The man—the Proprietor, apparently—held out his hand as if telling them to stop, as if he were directing traffic, and all of the monsters backed away in anguish and fear.

I recognized some of those monsters. One of them was Benny, the haunted scarecrow.

"The Proprietor. The man in violet lights. Have you met him?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," she said as she stared up at the statue. "Yes, this captures his likeness, if nothing else. Come along, dear, it is quite cold."

We walked around the side of the statue toward the doors.

As we got closer, I started to notice large posters had been placed around the walls near the entrance.

She noticed I was looking at them.

"You’ll recognize Silas Dyrkon," she said.

Actually, I hadn’t. But moments after she mentioned his name, I found the poster. He was unmistakable with his dark demeanor and strong features.

The poster wasn’t a movie poster—it actually reminded me of freak show posters, strangely enough. It showed an image of the subject along with their name and a blurb at the bottom describing them. There were about a dozen of them posted on the wall.

Silas Dyrkon
The Original Carouselean

When the Manifest Consortium first called to the dark void known as Carousel, Silas Dyrkon was the voice that answered. A skilled MBWer and the original Narrator with the Company, Mr. Dyrkon wanders the Town of Carousel, searching for clues about his ancient past.

His Throughlines focus on long-forgotten history, revenge, and cosmic horror.

I didn’t realize that Narrator was a paid position.

"He tried to recruit the players," I said. "Well, 'recruit' isn’t the right word."

The woman smiled. "Yes. Silas has a weakness, you see. He believes that he is alone in the many worlds. He could never conceive of a true ally—someone he could trust and who would trust him."

"So was he trying to trick the players, or was he telling the truth?" I asked.

"Of course he was telling the truth," she said. "Why should that mean he wasn’t trying to trick you?"

At the end of the tutorial, Silas had said that by tricking us into servitude, he was somehow giving us a layer of protection through sympathy. And as much as I wanted to believe his logic, how could I have?

"Tell me, Mr. Lawrence," she said. "Did you want to believe him? Did you want guidance and structure? And if you did, why did you not accept?"

"We’re abandoning our little charade, then, I guess," I said.

I thought for a moment and then said, "I suppose Silas isn’t the only man who has trouble believing he has allies in the many worlds."

She laughed.

"I was worried you were going to accept," she said. "You have so many better choices. Silas, for all of his genius, for all of his drive… he has led many a player to ruin in his pursuit."

I turned to look at her. Then I scanned the posters on the wall. I read a few of them as we walked.

Osric Rime
The Collector

Osric Rime is obsessed with completion. All he can think to do with his eternity is to fill it with loot. He scours Carousel for rare and forgotten artifacts—be they objects, memories, or even people. If something is missing from the grand puzzle of existence, he will stop at nothing to claim it.

The question is: what happens when he finally has everything?

His Throughline deals with obsession, hoarding of the arcane, and the dangers of collecting knowledge best left untouched.

~

Nathaniel Cross
The Devoted

Nathaniel Cross was there when his world died. Like most of Carousel’s Narrators, Cross was gifted complete immortality by the Sweepstakes, a gift he could not share with his beloved Gertrude. Her existence was swallowed into nothingness. But whispers in the dark say Carousel is where the lost can be found, and Nathaniel has made it his mission to prove them right.

He will traverse every nightmare, pay any cost, and tear through reality itself if it means holding her once more.

His Throughline explores grief, undying love, and the horror of searching for something that may not want to be found.

~

Professor Elias Voss
The Ruin Seeker

Before the Manifest Consortium, before even the Sweepstakes, there was another multiversal civilization—one so vast and powerful that its collapse has fueled speculation for millennia. Professor Elias Voss has spent his life piecing together the remnants of this forgotten empire, a civilization erased from history.

If he can understand why it fell, perhaps he can prevent the Manifest Consortium—and the many worlds themselves—from sharing its fate.

But Carousel is not kind to historians. Some knowledge is buried for a reason, and if the ruins of the past still whisper, it’s only because something within them still listens.

His Throughline revolves around ancient mysteries, forbidden knowledge, and the creeping horror of uncovering a truth no one was meant to know.

~

Lucien Graves
The Gambler

Carousel is full of desperate souls trying to escape, but Lucien Graves isn’t one of them. He’s here to win. Money, power, pleasure—whatever Carousel offers, Lucien is first in line to take it. With his devil-may-care charm and uncanny luck, he treats the Game like a high-stakes casino, playing every angle for maximum profit.

He has no grand mission, no hidden pain—just an insatiable hunger for more. But in Carousel, every deal comes with strings, and sooner or later, even the luckiest man learns the house always wins.

His Throughlines revolve around greed, high-stakes gambles, and the terrifying moment when you realize you've played the game for too long.

~

Dr. Aldric Rose
The Exorcist of Worlds

Dr. Aldric Rose was a healer once, a man of medicine who believed in science and reason—until the day his world fell to pure evil. A vast, collective entity slithered through the cracks of reality, taking minds, wearing faces, whispering in thoughts that were no longer their own. His people called it the Manyfold Hunger. By the time he knew what dangers he faces, it was too late. His world was consumed.

But Aldric escaped, and he will not let it happen again. The Sweepstakes didn’t offer him the cure, but it did give him an eternity to find it, and Carousel... Carousel is different. If there is a remedy for what took his world, it is here, buried beneath the horror and the chaos.

His players just have to survive long enough to find it.

His Throughline focus on body horror, mind control, and the desperate search for a cure to an infection that wants to spread.

~

Reverend Lys Morcant

The Harbinger

Reverend Lys Morcant does not preach salvation—she delivers warnings. Once a priestess of a forgotten faith, she has seen signs others ignore, heard whispers in the silence, and traced the patterns that coil through Carousel like veins beneath the skin. Her Sweepstakes-won immortality has only stood to affirm her belief, even as all of her fellow believers perished.

She believes the town is not just a game, not just a nightmare—it is a prophecy unraveling, a slow descent toward something far worse than what anyone here has yet imagined. The town shifts, adapts, changes, but she sees the threads that bind it all together. Something is coming, something that will rewrite the very fabric of existence.

And yet, no one listens.

Her Throughline explores apocalyptic horror, cults and prophecy, and the terror of knowing too much, where faith and madness blur and those who see the future can never turn away.

~

Luthias Raine
The Retired Architect

Luthias Raine built worlds. As the former Director of MBW Development for the Manifest Consortium, he shaped reality itself, bending MBW to corporate will. Then, he retired—rich, respected, and unsatisfied.

One anomaly still haunts him: Carousel. No matter how many models he ran, no matter how many rules he imposed, it refused to be mastered. Now, in the twilight of the thousand-year life the Sweepstakes gave his family line, Raine has one final ambition—to crack Carousel before time takes him first.

But some things were never meant to be controlled. And Carousel does not forget those who try.

His Throughline blends existential horror, corporate dystopia, and reality-bending mystery, following a man whose obsession with control leads him into a battle against an unknowable force that refuses to be mastered.

Finally, I found one that looked familiar.

Dr. Masha Striga

The Scientist

Dr. Masha Striga's world was one of the first to encounter the Sweepstakes, and her lineage stretches back further than any other High World Narrator. A relentless scholar of the unknown, she believes that Carousel holds the answers to the universe’s greatest mysteries—if she can survive long enough to extract them.

Where others see terror, she sees data. Where they recoil, she dissects. Every anomaly, every impossible occurrence is another variable in her grand equation, another piece of a puzzle she must solve. But knowledge is not without cost, and Carousel does not appreciate being studied like a specimen in a lab.

Her Throughlines explore scientific horror, dimensional instability, and the consequences of pushing discovery too far, where understanding the truth may be far more dangerous than remaining ignorant.

It was her.

"You're a Narrator," I said.

"I was once," she said, "and I would like to be again."

"Your last name is not really Striga, right? That seems a little on the nose," I said.

She smiled with her eyes. "It's a stage name. We all like to play pretend."

That was interesting, although I wasn't sure how Striga had anything to do with the type of stories inside of her throughline.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"I appeal to your mind," she said, staring me in the eye. "Maybe I can make you see logic."

"You give me your pitch," I said. "But I want answers."

We stopped to sit at an ornate bench. She smiled. She must have been quite the looker in her younger days. Whenever that was. She still was.

"I have answers," she said.