Antoine went to find Chris.

“Has he told his brother anything?” Dina asked Kimberly.

Kimberly shook her head. “He really doesn’t like keeping secrets from Chris, but if there’s a chance this can get us out, he’s willing to. We just better hope this storyline is the right call.”

I certainly hoped it was.

Eventually, Antoine returned with Chris. Chris was carrying the Carousel Atlas.

“I hear you all can’t get enough of the action,” he said. “I figure since you survived so much already, it’s time you got a formal introduction to the Atlas.”

He held the enormous binder out for us to ogle.

“Antoine tells me you didn’t look at any of the storyline spoilers when you stole it before,” he said.

“Nope,” I said. We had been warned about spoilers in general, after all.

Dina shot a glance at me. I hadn’t caught her up on our previous conversation with Chris.

“It all starts with the map,” he said as he set the binder on the table and opened it up to a page that contained a large map of Carousel. This one did not contain much information. It was more like a table of contents for the rest of the book. “You look at the section of Carousel where the storyline you're looking for is. You guys want this area over here to the east so you go to page 84.”

He flipped to that page and it had an enlarged map that only contained the area to the east of Carousel where the parking lot and Benny's corn maze were. We had seen a similar mini-map of the mall area when we took the Atlas earlier.

“Then you find the individual storyline you're after, ‘Permanent Vacancy’ and you look for the numbers below it. The first number is the page where all the spoiler-free information is. The second number is the page with all the information we have in total, including spoilers. That stuff is good for when you're planning a run on a storyline you've already been through. Maybe if you're trying to get perfection or look for loot or, recently, find secret lore.”

He flipped through to the spoiler-free page for the storyline and held the page out for us to see. There was more than I expected.

Title: Permanent Vacancy

Omen: A woman approaches the players from the other side of an iron fence and screams to be helped.

Location: Olde Hill Road, gated drive.

“Now this top section can be one of the most useful sections on the entire page. It tells you which archetype you should ask for scouting information from for this specific storyline. Lucky for us this type of information is not considered a spoiler as long as you obtain it from the player yourself. As you'll soon find out scouting tropes can give you a lot,” he said.

He pointed to a short list that read as follows,

-Bounty Hunter

-Damsel

-Sheriff

“Unfortunately, we don't have any of those archetypes here right now, but that's not the end of the world. If you think about it, just knowing that short list should tell you a lot about what you're about to be up against,” he said with a subdued grin.

That was interesting. Bounty Hunters, Damsels, and Sheriffs had good information on this storyline. I hadn’t even heard of the Sheriff advanced archetype before. The question was, why would these three have the best scouting information for Permanent Vacancy? I had my ideas.

“So, it means that—" Antoine started to say.

“Whoa,” Chris said with a smile. “You're allowed to guess whatever you want, and it won't be a spoiler but if I ever confirm it then it suddenly is.”

He pointed down to the bottom section of the page.

“This information down here is gathered through special scouting tropes and is never considered to be a spoiler even if you did not consult the player who wrote it. Psychics, Adventurers, Antiquarians, and several others have a lot of tropes like this though they aren't always useful. Film Buffs do too now that I think about it,” he said.

I read the entries at the bottom of the page. Chris gave us a rundown of what each one meant.

Psychic’s Charmed Forecast: The Omen Appears at 7:23 PM, Every day.

“This tells you around when the Omen appears. It's pretty self-explanatory. It's not usually this specific, but this one has the actual time.”

Athlete’s I Have Practice Later: It’ll be quick, an hour tops.

“It’s good to know how long a storyline is supposed to take. I’m just glad there was a way for Athletes to contribute because we get so few insight tropes.”

Film Buff’s Suitability Rating: Adults Only, Graphic Content.

“That’s exactly what it looks like. Sometimes there's more useful stuff with this trope. Interpret it how you will.”

Antiquarian’s Preliminary Appraisal: Garbage--wouldn’t even take it if it was free.

“Not a lot of valuable loot. If the Antiquarian got a look at the storyline in the mansion we just ran, the rating would be through the roof.”

Final Girl’s Rise to the Occasion: It won’t be easy, but we can take it! (~PA 23).

“This is one of several tropes that can estimate the level of a storyline. Just remember that this is not the most reliable part because storylines can become more difficult for a variety of reasons, the choices you make, the tropes you bring, Advanced Archetypes, etc. Remember to use buffs if you are a little under-leveled.”

Doctor’s Crime Scene Triage: Two dead, two injured. (First and Second Blood require deaths)

“This one is very useful. A Doctor archetype can come across a completed storyline and determine how many necessary player deaths there are. It is really convenient to know if you need a First Blood sacrifice or not. We don't often get to know that.”

He pushed the book back and turned to us.

“Now don’t go thinking that every storyline has this much information. Everybody’s seen Permanent Vacancy so it gets run more than some others. Part of the puzzle is trying to get as much information from what's available to you as possible. Now I have to tell you the story we all hear when we're first introduced to the Carousel Atlas,” he said.

“Go for it,” Antoine said.

“Adeline only came into possession of the Atlas a year, maybe two, before I got here. Before then they had somebody who was in charge of guarding it to make sure that no one saw spoilers they weren't supposed to, as I understand it.” From the look on his face, it wasn't clear that he believed that.

“Anyway, Adeline thought that it would be better if anyone was allowed to look at it. All those years of not letting people see it built up some resentment--whatever. So, she says go wild but whatever you do, don't spoil new stories for yourself. Of course, sometimes we do spoil stories if we're just trying to beat them, and we're not worried about getting experience. Of course, you run the risk of the story changing on us when we do that.

“Well about a year after she starts that policy, maybe a little less than that, some Scholar decides that he's going to risk it. He's brand new to Carousel but he hates the idea of going into a storyline unprepared. His thought was that if the performance was good enough, it would make up for the spoilers. That's not entirely ridiculous in theory but a low-level player who's inexperienced wouldn’t be able to cut it.

“So, the first story he tries it on, the Astralist maybe. That one's been a common newbie storyline for a long time, he does it and he can't really tell whether or not he's suffered because of the spoilers. So he does it again and again. But slowly it's apparent that his team is not leveling up as fast as it should and of course, it's all because he's using spoilers which cuts his loot down to a fraction of what it should have been.

“Eventually the truth comes out and now Adeline has to make a decision. She can't let him keep ruining things for his team and it's too late for him because the damn kid had a trope that let him memorize anything he looked at and he chose to memorize the spoilers for most of the low-level storylines, so he's screwed. They decided to kick him off his original team so that his team could keep leveling up, but now they have to figure out what to do with him. The vets take him out on storylines just so he doesn't get in trouble.” Chris shot a glance at me when he said that, obviously referencing the Jeanette incident.

“A year later and he hasn't leveled up much at all, hasn't gotten his aspect, doesn't have a permanent team. The only solution was to team him up with people running more difficult stories because those were the ones he hadn't read. Sometimes they would alter stories with tropes to make them new to him. It was a huge ordeal and put him way behind. So that’s the horror story. Now you know. Don’t abuse the Atlas.”

It seemed so arbitrary, the difference between what was a spoiler and what wasn't. It was lucky that the consequence of having a storyline spoiled for you was so mild. The Axe-Murderer didn't get up off his couch for just any old rule violation.

“What happened to the Scholar?” Kimberly asked.

“He wasn’t here when I got here, so who knows,” Chris answered. “Might be a missing poster of him near the Diner. He might not even exist. Could be a story Adeline made up, who knows.”

He looked us over. “So who are you bringing with you? Can’t just go out with four players. It’s not safe.”

I had the same concerns. An Athlete, an Eye Candy, an Outsider, and a Film Buff is not a complete team. But anyone we brought would be let in on our secret.

We were missing two players—one of them our Final Girl. Our most important player.

“We hadn’t figured out who to bring,” Antoine said.

Chris breathed deeply. “You might consider inviting Bobby. He’s around your level range and I hear he’s not a bad Wallflower. Bit chatty, but he has some good tropes and I’m sure he’s looking for something to do after his plans with Carl were interrupted.”

I was dreading he would say that. I wasn’t sure if Bobby would want to do a run with me. It did make sense though. Bobby had come to Carousel with us. If there was anyone that our Friends might be okay with being told the secret, it was him.

“It’s a thought at least,” Chris said. “You don’t have to go right now, you know. We still have some time, after an Apocalypse. There’s no rush.”

There was no way I was going to wait. Not with the chance to finally figure out what it was our Friends in High Places wanted.

Chris grabbed the Atlas and took it back with him wherever he was when Antoine found him.

“Dina, how well do you know Bobby?” Antoine asked.

She shrugged. “No better than you. He's talked to me before. He likes to talk.”

Antoine and I looked at each other.

“Maybe it's best if you go invite him on the storyline,” he said.

Dina did not look thrilled, but she obliged.

There was a nervous energy between us. We were either about to finally move forward in the mystery or we might just end up disappointed. Whatever the case, I was ready to know.

"What do you think we're going to find?" Kimberly asked. "And how are we going to find something that none of the others found?"

I thought for a moment.

"We aren't going to do anything on our own," I said. "I know that sounds cynical, but I just get this feeling that someone is moving the pieces into place. I think we might get to find out what they've been planning. I can't help but notice how many invisible hands have worked to put us in this place. If this theory is correct. If we really are supposed to go on this storyline, how many variables had to be accounted for to get us to this point? And why?"

"You always talk like that," Antoine said. "We've sacrificed a lot. We're going to get through this. I don't care who had been messing with us. Eventually, something has to shake loose. We can't keep running in place forever."

That must have been the first time since the Straggler incident that Antoine had been optimistic about our situation, even if it was forced. I hoped he was right.

After all, we were about to find out.