The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG

What did it mean to "not resist" the trope Everyone Is a Suspect?

I knew what Riley meant when he said it. He meant we shouldn’t stay in groups because if you’re with someone, neither of you can be suspects because you can vouch for each other, and then Carousel would have to do something to split you up.

But how were we actually supposed to do that? Was I seriously supposed to wander off on my own, knowing full well there were werewolves in the forest?

At least in Ranger Danger, we were just clueless college kids who wouldn’t have realized something bad was about to happen. But in this story, we were supposed to be seasoned werewolf hunters. How could we ever get so separated that there’d be no witnesses to our innocence?

It turned out to be easier than I had thought.

We trickled out of the mini-library one or two at a time because it would look more natural that way.

As we walked back toward the stone walls of the fort, I saw Hetty Morgan, the silversmith, heading our way. She was carrying a large, heavy bag and clearly struggling with it.

On-Screen

“Miss,” she called out. “Miss Kimberly, could you please help me with this?”

“I just need help getting it to my cabin on the other side of the valley. It’s a ten-minute walk, no more.”

“I’d be glad to help,” Antoine offered, always eager to lend a hand.

“We ladies have it,” Hetty said, waving him off. “Now go back over there with your guns and your army men, young fella.”

Hetty really didn’t like the mercenaries.

And just like that, I was separated from the group. It was nearly dark, the moon already up and hidden behind some clouds—almost full.

Hetty and I walked one way, and the rest of the team stayed back at the fort.

As we walked, Hetty stared straight ahead, focused and quiet. If we hadn’t been On-Screen, I’d have expected her to stay like that.

Maybe I was supposed to fill the silence, so I started to form a question about Clara Withers and the werewolf curse. But before I could say anything, Hetty spoke first.

“You got something weighing on you, girl?” she asked. No, she wasn’t asking—she was telling me.

“A lot of things, actually,” I admitted.

“I heard what Mr. Kirst did to you folks. I feel awful sorry about it. If I’d known that was what he was up to, I would never have helped him,” she said.

Carousel wanted us to react to the betrayal. Getting injected with werewolf saliva should’ve been a traumatic moment, but we all just sort of shrugged it off. Maybe we took it a little too well. Ř�

“You get into this business; you expect to get bitten one day,” I said. “Werewolf hunters don’t live long.”

I took my free hand and brushed my hair out of my eyes, aiming for something dramatic. My hair blew just right in the breeze. I tried to put on a brave face, but at the same time, I had to act worried, preoccupied.

“Sometimes they live forever,” Hetty said, cracking a sly smile I could barely see in the dim light. “They get bit.”

I laughed softly.

“I guess that’s true,” I said. “Maybe if I do end up a werewolf, at least I’ll get answers.”

“I knew you were a woman with questions,” Hetty said. “You ain’t the first woman with questions to come to Witherhold Manor.”

I stopped walking, gripping the bag tightly. Hetty kept going a few steps before she realized I wasn’t moving.

“Did they look like me?” I asked.

Hetty turned back, giving me a curious smile.

“There’s a painting of a young woman in the house,” I said. “She looks a lot like me. And I’m starting to think the reason I’m alive is because somehow all of this involves me. Do you know anything?”

Hetty laughed, the sound soft but knowing.

“I only know the story,” she said. “Come on, we gotta get in before dark.”

Antoine and Riley had been worried about digging too deeply into the lore of this story. Antoine’s Rescue Trope might not reward the search for deeper truths, and the risk of uncovering secret lore that could derail the storyline was too big.

But if Carousel was offering me a lead… I wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Andrew was going to stay in the stacks. I pushed the bookcase closed as I left him there. He said he was going to stay up researching.

“Remember to keep an eye on your statuses,” I said. “Being locked in a room with all these candles can’t be too healthy on your oxygen intake.”

It was also a fire hazard.

“Yes, but as long as I survive until Rebirth, I’ll be fine because this room will become a Sanctuary, and I won’t be able to die here,” he said.

That was technically true. Maybe he just didn’t want to walk all the way to the fort to find a gas lantern. Heck, they might have even had electric.

Flashlight tech was pretty advanced in 1986, right? In this storyline, it almost felt like we were pre-electric.

I was headed down into the tunnels underneath the manor. I had wrangled up a cot and a sleeping bag, and I was going to find the furthest room from the cages filled with werewolves that I could find, close myself in, and spend the night.

I would occupy myself by digging into the walls, searching for silver or anything else that might be hidden there.

I had it all pictured out: I was going to use my large silver spoon to budge the stone out of its mortar while whispering to myself, What were you hiding down here? in hopes that Carousel would hear me and decide to give me a gift or a lead.

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I had noticed something odd about the property. There was no graveyard. Nowhere to bury the dead. Witherhold Manor, as it was now called, was a picturesque location for a spooky cemetery, so the fact that there wasn’t one was quite strange.

So where did they put the dead people?

The catacombs underneath the manor were my obvious pick. So, when we all decided where we were going to stay during First Blood, that was my choice.

I had asked about the young woman, Clara Withers. I had researched her, and now I was following a lead—or maybe a hunch—and Carousel didn’t seem to be getting in my way. I felt like if I could just dig in and get a handhold on this historical subplot, I could help Kimberly make a nice proper story for her character. There may have been secret lore involved in this story, but a lot of it was just good old-fashioned lore that we were supposed to uncover for the audience.

As I was carrying my supplies into the manor to bring down to the basement level, I heard a helicopter in the sky.

Egan Kirst was leaving for the night.

That was good news and bad news. The bad news was that he wasn’t going to get killed as a scripted First Blood, which could have been very useful to us. Extending Lila’s Bad Luck Magnet would have been great.

The good news was that we could take him out of the equation for a while.

Now, all I had to do was make my way down into the catacombs, past the caged werewolves, and into the safety of the tunnels beyond, searching for dead bodies.

I brought my camera with me—the one that was in the back of my car. The lighting wasn’t good enough to really use it down in the tunnels, but it was a great prop and allowed me to talk out loud without sounding like a crazy person.

I had a full night ahead of me. If I found nothing, that would be okay. If I found the resting place of a tragic young woman, well, at least Kimberly would be happy.

That place would likely have to have some clues about the origin of the werewolf curse.

I took watch again. Sleeping during the day worked fine for me, especially now that I’d botched my subplot.

I should’ve known better. I had never seen a subplot disappear that fast.

I was supposed to go find my grandmother’s house and hear her stories about werewolves and Witherhold Manor. I waited too long, figuring I had time until Rebirth to make the trip. I was wrong.

Now, I couldn’t even tell Andrew. Couldn’t look him in the eye.

One minute, I had a clear map in my head, pinpointing her house out in the woods. The next, when I chose to head to the abandoned summer camp instead, it vanished. Just gone.

I’d let it go too long. That part of the story was erased. Now, there’s just a blank spot where the answers used to be.

What stories would she have told? How to kill werewolves? The truth about Witherhold Manor? Guess I’ll never know.

Researching wasn’t my strong suit anyway. I got my levels in combat—fighting monsters, not learning about them. Sometimes bare-knuckle, if it came to it.

That’s how this would play out too. I’d take down a wolf, put on a show, make it count. People would say I did well, maybe even saved the day.

It’d make up for the rest.

Riley and Andrew had the library. They didn’t need some old family story. Tonight, the wolves would come out, and I was going to get one.

Whatever it took, there’d be a body on the ground by morning. A monster, gone.

The stone walls had a narrow walkway on top, and my Hustle kept me steady as I patrolled. Up there, with the moonlight cutting through the dark, I could see everything.

I moved along the maze of walls, quiet as a shadow.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Lila. Her character didn’t bunk at the fort—she stayed in town.

Riley had spun a whole scenario for her. She’d leave the fort as the sun dropped, dragging a big, overstuffed bag full of supplies. Sewing needles, provisions, a weapon or two. Whatever seemed plausible, but definitely more than she should carry.

The bag would rip. She’d scramble to fix it, picking up her things while the light faded, the dark closed in, and the moon rose.

How did Riley know that’d work? No clue.

He said it’s the kind of thing that works in movies. Said the audience wouldn’t care if her character got killed doing something dumb, as long as she wasn’t playing a smart character to begin with.

Lila was going to play dumb, staying out in the dark to pick up a few knickknacks. She wasn’t dumb, though. She was usually pretty smart. That's what burns me up about the whole betrayal.

When the werewolf attacked—and it would attack. Thanks to her trope Dying Last Scream—she’d scream, go Off-Screen, and her character would die in the script. But Lila herself? She’d survive.

That’s when I’d move. I’d find the wolf, track it, and kill it.

That was my role. Just doing the job.

I kept my eyes on Lila, watching her shuffle On-Screen and Off-Screen. She hurried when visible and slowed down when not. She was following the plan.

And Riley was right.

Carousel loved it.

The wind shifted, and I knew the monster was coming. I pretended not to notice, but my body was ready. I just had to wait for Lila’s scream—then I’d move.

After Lila’s betrayal, I didn’t think I’d ever forgive her. Maybe I still won’t. But watching her now, setting herself up like bait to help bring back Logan and Avery—even though she was terrified—it meant something.

Even though she wouldn’t really die, sitting there defenseless, knowing she’d be attacked, that was the bravest thing anyone could do.

Everyone said that Lila ended up as a Wallflower instead of a Hysteric because she was so afraid of being On-Screen that she could never be a proper Hysteric.

I didn’t think that was true.

I thought Lila couldn’t be a Hysteric because, even though she doesn’t like being watched by the audience, she wasn’t afraid of dying.

I’d seen her once in the Astralist’s lair, tied to a chair, about to lose her soul. On-Screen, she screamed and begged. Off-Screen, though? She looked the ghost straight in the eye and said, “You going to pull the lever or not?”

That ghost grinned, and so did I.

Lila wasn’t scared of death. She feared the things she couldn’t control—forces that bent life and death for their own amusement.

Maybe that was the better thing to fear.

The plot cycle ticked forward. The party phase was gone. Somewhere, a small death approached.

This truck is not in the forest, so I must not be in the forest.

This manor is not in the forest, so I must not be in the forest.

This fort is not in the forest, so I must not be in the forest.

These soldiers are not in the forest, so I must not be in the forest.

Kimberly is not in the forest, so I must not be in the forest.

Lila is not in the forest, so I must not be in the forest.

Lila... Dead.

“What happened here?” I asked.

Lila lay on the ground, many gathered around her. Michael held her unmoving body.

That didn’t make sense. There wasn’t supposed to be a body. She was supposed to get the Dead status and then be able to walk around Off-Screen. That was what made her trope so powerful.

There was no blood.

There were no claw marks.

Last night, there had not been a scream. I was on patrol.

Where was my gun?

I patted myself up and down. My clothes were fine. My gun was missing. The big one I carried. I still had one in my boot and another strapped to my belt, but my big rifle was gone.

I had gone into the woods on patrol. I should not have done that. But it was my turn. Everyone was counting on me.

I must have zoned out and let the monster in. Now Lila lay there, dead.

“Move out of the way,” Andrew said as he rushed forward to check on Lila.

“Is she a wolf?” the captain asked. “It looks like her wounds have all healed.”

Andrew examined her body, looking her over up and down. He looked up at me, then over at the captain, and then at Kimberly.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Andrew said. “She wasn’t bitten or scratched, that I can tell, and she certainly hasn’t healed. Her clothes are intact.”

He stuck his fingers near her neck. Was he checking her pulse? No.

“Contusions around the neck. It looks like she was strangled,” he said.

Strangled. Why would a werewolf strangle someone and not leave another scratch?

We all reacted with confusion On-Screen for a while, and then we went Off-Screen.

Michael was there. He said he saw the whole thing. He said the werewolf didn’t even try to bite her; it just crushed her throat, and he chased it off. Couldn’t get a hit on it.

Riley showed up just after that. He had dirt under his fingernails. Dirt all over his skin and clothes. What had he been doing all night?

We caught him up to speed.

“I was listening for a scream, but I never heard one,” he said. “What happened?”

He had been using his Quiet On Set trope to try to listen to First Blood.

After we had explained everything, he got this look on his face like he had just figured something out.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Why would a werewolf strangle someone?” he asked.

We didn’t have an answer, so we waited for him to answer his own question.

“Because it knew that it couldn’t let her scream,” he said.

At first, I didn’t understand what he was getting at, and then I realized. There were suspects—people—who knew they couldn’t let her scream.

Because if she screamed, they would go Off-Screen and wouldn’t be able to attack her anymore. It’s what her trope did. The Dead status was powerful on a living player.

So whoever killed her, whatever killed her, knew about her trope.

And who knew about her trope?

All of us. Her teammates.

We really were all suspects. Huh.