“So, you’re going out on a storyline already, huh?” Bobby asked after Dina had tracked him down.

Antoine nodded. “Something we’ve got to do.”

“You lost two of your people. I’m sorry to hear that. The Final Girl was nice. She said some kind words to me after Janette… disappeared.”

“Thanks, Anna and Camden will be missed,” Antoine said.

“What do you need exactly?” Bobby asked. “A Wallflower is good for gathering information and some Finale tricks, or at least that’s what I can do right now. Always around to lend a hand.”

Antoine looked over at the rest of us. I shrugged. Frankly, I thought a warm body would be enough. We couldn’t really ask too much. If fate (or the friends in high places) had not tied us together in some way, I wouldn’t even agree to let him come. There was a real chance he could learn our secret and he might not decide to keep it.

“We can use that,” Antoine said.

Bobby nodded his head. He was an awkward guy. Sociable, sure, but not particularly charismatic. I couldn’t really tell how old he was, just that he was older than us.

“I can come,” Bobby said. “Do you need me to die? That’s what I mostly did for Travis and the others.”

“We should have that covered,” Antoine said, though he didn’t seem too keen to allow Kimberly to die. “We just need someone around to help out.”

“I gotcha.”

There wasn’t much more discussion than that. We had a lot of walking to do if we were going to get across town in time to catch the Omen.

On our way across town, I made sure to give a wide berth to the town square. Part of my reasoning was that there were so many omens concentrated in that area and the other part was because I couldn't stand to walk past the walls of missing posters by the Diner. That wound was too fresh.

Something that we had to invest in was a trope that would allow us to drive without getting bothered by omens. I didn't know if such a thing existed but if it did I would snap it up at the first possible occasion. Our distance from town protected us and allowed us to sleep calmly at night knowing that we were safe. It also made the trek into town a real hassle.

As usual, I led the pack pointing out every omen that we were coming across just to make sure that we didn't accidentally trigger one. Even if we were in no danger of coming in contact with an omen, I still pointed it out because I could tell that it made Kimberly feel safer to have them called out.

As we walked along, I would point to things like a shadowy figure in the window of one of the homes of a neighborhood we walked through or the group of hooded figures that crossed the road in front of us and tell them about what the omen was and what we had to do to make sure that we didn't accidentally trigger it. In both cases, it was quite simple. Don't shine a light in the window, don't look at the faces of the hooded figures. Easy stuff.

The further we went, the more I started to notice how few omens we were coming across. The route we had chosen was designed to be mostly clear of omens but even then we could walk 10 minutes without seeing one. We were way too close to the center of town for that to make sense. It looked like we had gotten lucky. Or maybe our Friends were clearing a path for us.

Whatever the case, we marched onward.

At last, we could see the finish line, or at least the final lap. Olde Hill Road stood before us. To the left, was Patcher’s Family Farm. They still had their little agriculture-themed amusement park thing going on. I could hear people talking and laughing. I could see children running around happily. It was just as I remembered it from the day that we had to walk through Benny's corn maze.

Though I would have loved to be able to stop there and buy a funnel cake, our business was further down the road. We walked right on by.

At least, we tried.

“Hey,” a young woman's voice cried out. “Where are you all headed? You know we got a lot of fun things going on over here. All you have to do is buy some tickets.”

We looked over to see a woman in a pair of beat-up denim overalls and a straw cowboy hat strolling toward us. The look on her face didn't match the words that she was saying. She looked worried.

“How about you come back this way? You don't want to wander in that direction once it gets dark. Just come on back I'll get you a free corn dog,” the woman said.

Antoine, our de facto spokesperson with Anna gone, said, “We actually have business down that way. Thanks though.”

The woman was persistent; she walked toward us even further. As she approached us she paid special attention to Kimberly, grabbing her hand.

“Come on, don't go down there. Not this time of day; it's going to get dark soon.”

She started to pull Kimberly back toward the farmhouse.

“We need to go this way,” Dina said.

“What could be so important that you would have to go out there right now?”

“Our cars are out there,” Antoine said, thinking quickly. It was true. Our cars had been there for weeks.

The woman looked truly upset. She looked over her shoulder. “Come back with me and I'll buy you a corn dog and we can talk,” she said in a hushed voice.

Antoine shot a look at me, as if asking what I thought. I nodded.

We agreed to follow her. She took us back to Patcher's Family Farm and was true to her word. She bought us each a corn dog, though I'm pretty sure they were free for her.

On the red wallpaper, her name was Eliza Patcher.

She wasn’t an enemy. She wasn’t an Omen.

As we assumed, she was Breaking the Veil of Silence.

Kimberly’s new trope made it so that NPCs would go out of their way to inform her of any nearby omens for storylines that specifically targeted women. Permanent Vacancy must have been such a storyline.

We knew the possibility existed. In the Carousel Atlas, the three archetypes that had the most scouting information about that storyline were the Bounty Hunter, the Damsel, and the Sheriff. Those three combined gave very strong clues. We knew the likelihood that this story involved kidnapping, not only because we had literally seen a woman escaping from the hotel on our first day in Carousel but also because the Damsel was an advanced archetype that specialized in being kidnapped.

The Bounty hunter specialized in tracking down people, usually criminals.

The Sheriff was similar.

We had suspected that Kimberley’s trope might activate on our way to the storyline. I never expected it to be that elaborate, however. In my head, I pictured a neighbor shouting, “Better not go that way,” while trimming their hedges. Eliza, however, looked very concerned and was actively trying to convince us, and specifically Kimberly, out of walking in that direction.

We decided to listen to what she had to tell us. We had a little bit of time before we had to go trigger the Omen. It wasn't quite sunset yet.

“There are men down that way,” Eliza said. “Strange men that have a funny manner about them. I don't think it's safe to go that direction for a young woman.”

“Oh,” Kimberly said. “What about them is strange?”

Eliza looked embarrassed. “They drove by. They were in a pickup truck. Two men were in the back. They said things that were vulgar to me. I know some of the other ladies around here have said the same thing. And I swear at night sometimes, I hear screaming coming from down the road. I find myself checking the locks two or three times every night. Daddy says it isn't any of our business. He says that they're there to renovate the hotel, the bed and breakfast. I don't trust them. He says they'll be gone soon best not to get involved. But I can't watch you go down that way without saying something.”

She was on the verge of tears.

“Well, we're going to be careful and I've got some guys with me so they probably won't bother me,” Kimberly said.

“You don't understand,” Eliza said. “I don’t think they would ca—”

“Eliza?” A man's voice called from outside. She had taken us inside the farmhouse and was talking to us as we sat in her living room.

I could hear the screen door at the entrance swing open.

“Eliza we need your help outside with the carriage. Bucky is being very finicky aga—” The man stopped talking as he walked into the living room and saw us all there.

“Eliza what is going on?” he asked. His name was Joshua Patcher.

“Daddy,” she said cautiously. “These are some travelers I saw walking out east. I told them maybe they ought not.”

“What have you been running your mouth about, girl?” he yelled.

“We can't just let them go out there!” she said, trying to work up her courage.

“You should not be going around spreading rumors,” Joshua said. “That's how you make a problem where there ain't one. If those men hear that you're saying this kind of stuff about them…" he shook his head, "That's the type of talk that you don't share with strangers.”

“I was just thinking that maybe they could stay here for the night, and maybe you could drive them out to get their car in the morning,” she said, still trying to convince him.

“You are going to bring trouble down on us. If these folks wanna go walking down a dark road in the middle of nowhere that's their right. They just need to know that if the worst comes, nobody's gonna go rescue them.”

He walked over to a closet and fetched something from within it.

It was a shotgun.

“Now if you folks would like to stay and participate in the activities, by all means, go buy some tickets, but otherwise you'd best be on your way. Now I don't want anyone finding out that you heard what you heard, you understand. We aren't looking for trouble here.”

He wasn't exactly aiming the shotgun at us but it was clear what the threat was.

We all stood up to leave, but then Bobby asked, “Did they have any guns?”

“Excuse me?” the man asked.

Bobby thought for a moment. “Have you heard any gunshots coming from down that way?”

Joshua Patcher thought for a moment, “Sometimes, yeah. They must be shooting at rats or targets cause they go through hundreds of bullets a day out there. Been a week or so since I heard them though. Boys like that gotta spend all their money on booze and bullets and they got plenty of both.”

More bad guys with guns.

In a movie, a main character can get shot half a dozen times before they die. I wondered how many times a Film Buff could get shot. I was betting it was only once.

“Thanks,” Bobby said. “How many guys?”

“Four or five can't be sure. They don't exactly introduce themselves. One time they came down to the farm and started messing with the guests who were enjoying the amusements. Then their leader came and pulled them away. He was a fiery one. Guess he didn't want to draw attention. I'd say that they were hiding from the law, but I'm not here to accuse them of anything.”

“Thanks again,” Bobby said.

We turned and left the house.

It was interesting seeing how Bobby was able to ply that information from them. I took a look at his tropes on the red wallpaper. I saw the ability that let him do it.

Background Noise

Type: Insight

Archetype: Wallflower

Aspect: Extra

Stat Used: Moxie

In the movies, background characters spend their time having muffled conversations at the edge of frame that will never be heard by the viewers of the film. They could be talking about anything.

With this trope equipped, the player will have a heightened chance of getting background information about a storyline from NPCs as long as the conversation takes place off-screen. The information will only be related to things that NPC would plausibly know and be willing to say. The information cannot be repeated On-Screen without finding a canon source for how the players learned it. Doing so may mutate the story to make the information false. While the information may be reliable, the NPC's explanation for how the information was obtained may still be fictitious. Beware.

Background characters have to be talking about something. Why not something useful?

Kimberly’s trope had made the Patchers a part of the story—even if they were only a temporary part to warn her of danger to come—allowing Bobby to come in and ask additional background questions with his trope. Normally, his ability likely wouldn’t work on random NPCs who lived down the street from the setting of the storyline. Those tropes combined made a great scouting combo.

Of course, everything we learned was bad news.

As we walked away from the farm, Eliza raced behind us and said, “Good luck.”

With every step down the dark road toward the Olde Hill Bed and Breakfast, I tried to hold my head high and act confidently.

But the truth was, I had never felt more uncertain.