Isaac got two stat tickets and three tropes, along with a few coins. His low level meant that even an… uninspired performance netted him some gains.

  After obtaining them, he kept calling himself a Cynic even though he had not chosen his aspect yet. I didn’t argue. I liked that he was contemplating his role in the party finally, even if he was a little preachy.

  Dina didn’t get her aspect. I thought she would. Perhaps her untimely death stole it from her.

  The Atlas said that if you have too many members in your party in a storyline, that Outsiders will get Stranger roles and Stranger tropes. We would have to change that. Criminal and Newcomer had some good utility tropes that she needed to stock up on before choosing her aspect.

  She agreed, but her embarrassment over what might have been an infatuation with Gale Zaragoza left her acting even more distant for a time. When we got her to talk about it (after a round at the restaurant’s bar downstairs), she claimed he must have had a trope to make players inclined to work with him.

  Isaac said that his tropes were honey-colored eyes and a chiseled jaw.

  Dina didn’t correct him.

  She got two tropes and a good chunk of change. Even if she had died, she still helped defeat the Die Cast. She even had a big part in it.

  Carousel must have loved Kimberly’s performance. She got three stat tickets, three tropes, and a handful of money in big denominations, totaling 85 dollars in Carousel’s currency. According to Isaac, that was enough money to buy a couch, though he might not have accounted for inflation since 1984.

  Antoine didn’t fare as well as I expected. He had some solid moments in the story, but he was high-level, and an explanation that none of us wanted to talk about was that Carousel took him off the board for longer than it might have wanted because of his condition. Still, he got one stat ticket and two tropes. Only a few coins fell down the slot for him.

  Ramona got one stat ticket and one trope. She got to keep the money her band made at the Centennial, however, so she didn’t walk away empty-handed.

  She was silent and cold, and… she didn't trust us or anything she saw in Carousel. I didn’t know what to do about it. We were the only people she knew anymore. Carousel Proper was different enough from Silas’ Throughline version that she felt lost, more lost than us in some ways. This wasn’t her home anymore.

  Bobby did well, but it was hard for me to judge his performance. He played a background character who helped out a ton… for no established reason.

  He got three tropes and two stat tickets. He was paid pretty well and received a small note about where his dogs were. They were in the big, fenced-in yard back at the farm where he left them.

  He contemplated bringing them to Kimberly’s loft. We… needed a better solution. We were allowed to build, so Isaac suggested the roof. Isaac thought he was making a joke, but Bobby took it seriously. Within a day at our new place, he was searching through the Atlas for a storyline at a hardware store so he could build an enclosure.

  Cassie did well. Her character was in the background a lot, but she helped us as best she could and even stole the show at least once. Her lower level, combined with her commendable showing, resulted in four stat tickets and three tropes, along with her money.

  I think she was happiest about not having to wear the flamboyant outfits her character owned anymore. She was back to dressing like a grunge hippie and connecting to the bar’s jukebox on her cellphone, which must have been magic because there was no way Carousel used the same wifi as Earth.

  Like Isaac, she mostly kept her head up because there was hope that they would be able to rescue their big brother, Andrew.

  It’s nice to have hope.

  I didn’t do too shabby. I only got one stat ticket, but I got three tropes and a handful of coins. Not bad for a character who started with no redeeming qualities and accidentally electrocuted himself.

  I got a room with a view of the street below. It had one of those beds that folded up into the wall. I half expected it to be some kind of Omen. It wasn’t, but it was wise for me to check first.

  At night, I would look out my window at the life below and ask myself where all of the NPCs came from. Did they all have stories of defeat? Had Silas or one of the other Narrators invited them without mentioning the state of the world they were entering?

  Were their smiles real? Were any of ours?

  All other questions aside, what I would ask myself as I went to sleep was what our purpose could be. Silas was a liar but he had a purpose for us, whether it was the one he claimed or otherwise. Maybe the Geists held clues about the origin of Carousel. Only time would tell.

  The Throughline Tracker held so many promises. We had things to do now. Secret Lore was finally something I felt safe thinking about. Project Rewind was behind us and a success. We had not yet entered Carousel's Throughline, which gave me a strange sense of freedom.

  Then there was Silas' old Throughline. At first, I stared at it like a black mark on the red wallpaper. Why did we have to be reminded of our abject failure? But the more I stared at it, the more I started to question things. Why would Carousel even track it? Why had the name of the Throughline been crossed out? The messages "For when you need to go back" and "Carousel Loves to Recycle" stuck in my mind.

  Silas said that Throughlines were like magic, a magic spell unto themselves. What if that was true? What if that was exactly what it sounded like?

  What if everything we had done in the tutorial wasn't a waste? The Geist Throughline was like a meta time machine that could eventually show us past versions of Carousel. "For when you need to go back" carried with it a clear message if I were willing to open my mind a little. It said we would one day need to go back, and now we had a way. One day, we might just need to go back to where it all started.

  And a part of me, a part I was ashamed to show the others, was absolutely thrilled.

  We set out a coin jar, and each of us put in sixty percent of our earnings: twenty percent for rent and forty percent to fix up the place.

  Sometimes we sat back and listened to the screams at night and when we looked at each other, we weren't scared. I always wondered how the Vets back at Camp Dyer could hear the banshee screaming in the woods near the lake and be so relaxed.

  As we settled into this new, safe place, we were more comfortable than we ever felt during the supposed tutorial, and I finally understood how the Vets could take the horror of this place in stride.

  It’s because humans do what we do better than Carousel does what it does.

  And I still don't know what that is.