NOVEL NEXT Book Five, Chapter 5: Harless Automotive
Antoine Stone is the Athlete.
No aspect has been chosen.
Antoine has a Plot Armor score of 26, Mettle of 7, Moxie of 4, Hustle of 5, Savvy of 3, and Grit of 7.
Current Trope Limit: 9
"Gym Rat" buffs Mettle and Hustle by revealing athletic backstory.
"It's Part of the Uniform" gives him higher Mettle when attacking with sports equipment.
Brandishing a weapon is “Like a Security Blanket,” buffing his Grit and soothing his and his allies’ fear.
Swinging it will cause his opponents to falter, if only for a moment, based on Moxie because of “Swing Away.”
"Off the Bench" the player feels more rested for each scene they are not in. Eventually buffs Hustle and Moxie.
“Better Make it Count” greatly buffs the last round of ammunition the player has available in a fight."Everyone Loves a Winner" the user's character will have some previous success that endears them to NPCs. Failure reverses this.
"The Playbook" the user will be able to see when it is their turn to act in an established plan.
"Play it Cool" suppresses mental trauma if the user acts calm and collected.
He did not bring “Time Out!”, “Just Walk It Off”, “Knight in Shining Armor”, “You were having a nightmare…”, “Reload After Cut”, “A Race Against Time”, “Coyote in a Trap”, “Bad Luck Magnet”, “In Bed By Nine”, and “Arm Candy”.
~
Kimberly Madison is the Eye Candy.
No aspect has been chosen.
Kimberly has a Plot Armor score of 26, Mettle of 5, Moxie of 10, Hustle of 5, Savvy of 1, and Grit of 6.
Current Trope Limit: 9
"Convenient Backstory" allows her to believably change her backstory to assist with the current task, buffing the relevant stat.
"Social Awareness" allows her to see the Moxie stat of all enemies and NPCs and intuit relationship dynamics.
"When in Rome" buffs her Grit until Rebirth if her performance matches the tone of the movie.
“Does anyone have a scrunchie?” allows her to shift Moxie's points into another stat by putting her hair up.
“Carousel Academy Awards” buffs her Moxie based on the quality of her performance in the previous storyline.
“Breaking the Veil of Silence,” the user will get warnings from knowledgeable NPCs. Outside of storylines, NPCs will warn of dangers to women and hint at storyline rewards.
"The Penthouse" The character will get the nicest, safest accommodations in a multiday storyline.
"Contract Negotiations" the user will get a buff to an Improvisation after "discussing" an improvisation with Carousel.
She is borrowing Bobby’s “Craft Services Are The Real Heroes” which ensures there is edible food and water on set during the storyline in hopes it will boost their bounty when looting food after the storyline.
~
Dina Cano is the Outsider.
No aspect has been chosen.
Dina has a Plot Armor score of 21, Mettle of 3, Moxie of 3, Hustle of 5, Savvy of 3, and Grit of 7.
Current Trope Limit: 8
"Guarded Personality" resists all insight abilities.
"An Outsider's Perspective" alerts her to new, out-of-place, or unusual information.
"A Haunted Past" A background trope that gives her character some past trauma that haunts her and gives her access to various tropes.
"Encouragement from Beyond" soothes her when stressed, scared, or in pain and may provide useful information in the form of communication from the beyond.
“They Fell Off” allows her to quickly get out of handcuffs and similar restraints.
“Light Fingers” buffs the player’s attempts at stealing items from the set.
"Savvy Safecracker" tells the character how long it will take to pick a lock of some kind. Buffs Hustle in the attempt.
"No Return Address" gives the user insight from anonymous letters and allows them to send similar letters to allies.
"Out-of-Town Cousin" makes the user's character related to important NPCs and gives them perks and insight based on that.
~
Riley Lawrence is the Film Buff.
His aspect is Filmmaker.
Filmmaker: The Filmmaker has a comprehensive understanding of the filmmaking process. They can manipulate the game environment effectively, altering the game's dynamics in subtle but impactful ways. Their abilities are a mixture of meta-Insight and meta-Rule tropes. They have higher Hustle, reflecting their ability to stay out of the way, stay alive, and remain unseen as they manipulate meta-movie elements.
Riley has a Plot Armor score of 28, Mettle of 3, Moxie of 7, Hustle of 7, Savvy of 7, and Grit of 4.
Current Trope Limit: 9
"Trope Master" grants him the ability to perceive enemy tropes, but at the cost of sacrificing half of his Plot Armor.
As an "Oblivious Bystander," Riley remains untargeted by enemies as he convincingly acts oblivious to their presence.
"Escape Artist" buffs his Hustle to help enact plausible escape plans.
"The Insert Shot" makes allies aware of an object the player chooses. The object will be shown to the audience and its use will be buffed in the Finale.
"My Grandmother Had the Gift…" A background trope that gives Riley’s character some ambiguous connection to “The Gift” through his heritage.
“Cutaway Death” sends him Off-Screen before the moment of his character’s implied demise and allows him to exist behind the scenes Written Off if he survives the encounter.
“Raised by Television” buffs the user to do one big meaningful action if they establish their inspiration from film and television to establish it.
“What Doesn’t Kill Them Makes Them Angry” allows the user to antagonize the enemy into attacking and lowers their Savvy.
"The Dailies” allows him to see a selection of raw footage from the day's shoot.
"He Has A Tell" makes it so characters in the film will have a physical tell when they are stressed during interrogations.
He did not bring “Director’s Monitor”, “Flashback Revelation”, “Casting Director”, “Dead Man Walking”, “Cinema Seer”, “Coming To A Theater Near You”, “I Don't Like It Here…”, “Out Like a Light”, “Location Scout”, “The Wrong Reel”, “Method to the Madness”, and “Cut!”.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
~
~
The walk to Eastern Carousel was a silent affair. I didn't think of it as a nervous silence; I thought we were focused, that we were determined. Kimberly, Antoine, Dina, and I had all seen what serious teams looked like when they played the Game at Carousel, and we knew that if we were going to survive, we would have to be one of those teams that could face incredible odds without flinching.
As we started to near the road with all of the missing posters that would trigger the Omen for The Final Straw storyline, Antoine started to speak. "We're going to walk into this bravely," he said. "We're gonna walk in like we're just doing our jobs. We are literally just here to pick up groceries and go home. Whatever happens in there, whatever we have to do, whatever we have to face—to us, it's just groceries. Now play the game, stay in character, and I'll see you at the end."
We all nodded in agreement. I breathed deeply and tried to calm myself. I was the brains of the organization, and after the fiasco with the fake tutorial, I felt I had something to prove.
As we walked closer, I unequipped my scouting trope. It was time.
A few hundred feet further, the missing posters became more ubiquitous. They hung from every fence and mailbox. It almost reminded me of the scene from The Chronicles of Narnia where the children walk through the closet of fur coats until they end up in the forest in another world. But instead of fur coats, we had dreadful pictures of a girl gone missing.
I didn't know whether we would find her alive. I tried not to think about it.
One hundred more feet still, we walked more slowly as we prepared for the Omen to trigger.
And suddenly…
"Almost got it," a voice cried out to my left. I turned and saw Kimberley standing next to a green sedan that would have been old when my grandparents were my age.
"Just a little bit longer. It gets a little finicky in this hot weather," a man said from under the hood. A quick glance at the red wallpaper told me that his name was Nick Ogles. I didn't know if that was his real name or if Carousel was making a joke.
Just by glancing at him, I could tell that this scene took place in the 1960s. He wore muted colors and bell bottoms, and his mustache would have been illegal in 2022. He was a basic NPC.
He was chewing on something—maybe bubble gum, but I could never tell because he never spit it out.
"I just gotta give her a little love," he said. "I'm telling you, the station should be paying to fix my car if I'm the one that has to transport us all the way out here to the middle of nowhere, Eastern Carousel."
"I hear you," was all I said.
Antoine and Dina were gone. Kimberly was standing on the other side of the car. Like Nick, she was dressed for the decade. She wore fall colors: a dark orange blazer and a maroon pencil skirt. The outfit was complete with a gold scarf, warm-toned beige tights, and a delicate assortment of gold jewelry.
We made eye contact and quickly walked toward each other.
"Did you raid your grandmother's closet?" I asked with a grin.
"I know, isn't it so cute?" she responded, fanning out her pencil skirt and admiring her many rings.
At that moment, it occurred to me that I was probably dressed up too. I moved my hands over my clothes and found that I was wearing a very 1960s business suit with a colorful tie and a yellow undershirt. I was sweating like the Wicked Witch of the West.
How did they survive in these fabrics?
We were Off-Screen, so we had time to talk. We knew that Kimberly was playing a reporter in this storyline, so we had to figure out what exactly we were up to. I quickly started to rummage through the front seats and the glove box of the little green car. I found a town map of Eastern Carousel along with a notebook.
Kimberly had gone and grabbed one of the missing posters for the little girl from a nearby fence. The posters were not as comically overpopulated as they had been, but they were still placed desperately at every post and fence by someone searching for the girl.
"Look at this; there's more on it than before," she said as she spread it out on the trunk of the sedan for me to read.
MISSING
Name: Tamara Cano
Date of Birth: April 15, 1954 (12 Years Old)
Last Seen: October 5, 1966
Timeline:
2:30 PM:
Tamara left Eastern Carousel Middle School, 217 Thurgood Avenue, Eastern Carousel.4:10 PM: She was spotted near Harless Automotive on Best Street.
Description:
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: Dark brown
Height: 4'9"
Weight: 75 lbs
Clothing: Last seen wearing a yellow dress with white polka dots, white knee-high socks, black Mary Jane shoes, and red ponytail holders with small plastic flowers.
Family Contact:
Mother: Dina Cano
Home Street: Oakwood Drive
Phone: (555) 667-5840
If you have any information, please contact:
Eastern Carousel Sheriff’s Department
Sheriff: Jonathan Miller
Phone: (555) 667-9210
Address: 300 Jefferson Street, Eastern Carousel
ANY INFORMATION CAN HELP. PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY IF SEEN.
"Let's get to work," I said. My suit jacket had become my metaphorical bag of holding in place of my hoodie, and I fished out a pen that I had left there.
"All right, let's see. The little girl leaves school on Thurgood Ave., and she is next seen on Best Street.," I said as I fanned out the map onto the trunk next to the poster.
I examined the map of Eastern Carousel. This map made it look like Eastern Carousel wasn't just a part of Carousel but was rather its own small municipality with a few stores, a few neighborhoods, a quarry, a junkyard, and all the other things that you might find in a small rural town where this story took place.
"Her home was on Oakwood Drive," Kimberly said.
I circled it and traced the most logical path between her school and her home.
"Well, if she was going home, there's no reason she should ever come near Best Street," I said.
"Riley," Kimberly said, pointing to a nearby stop sign. Above it was a little green sign that said Best Street. We were, in fact, on the street where she was last seen.
"I'm hurrying," Nick said as if we had just told him to start the car so we could leave. "I'm doing the best I can. I was hired to work cameras, not fix cars."
"All right," I said. "If we're on Best Street and she was last seen at Harless Automotive on Best Street, I would bet that we're here to interview whoever saw her, wouldn't you say?"
"That sounds right to me," Kimberly agreed. "I guess that means we need to figure out what questions to ask."
We sat and took notes and came up with a few solid questions, most of which were more designed to elicit information than they were to present information on film as journalists might normally do. We continued to talk and prepare for the interview.
I just wished we knew who had actually seen her. Our questions thus far were mostly things like, “Can you tell us what you told the police?” which would probably be helpful, but still felt like too little.
From somewhere in the car, there was a staticky sound, and then a voice, like that over an old radio, started to say, "The search near the brewery didn't turn up anything. Over."
The voice sounded familiar, but the static made it hard to be sure.
"Thank you, Officer Stone," the person on the other end of the radio said. "We'll keep that in our notes. Where are you headed next? Over."
"Next is the quarry, and then I'm off. Over," the officer said. It was Antoine. As we had predicted, he was cast as a police officer.
"Godspeed. Over," the dispatcher said.
On-Screen
Suddenly, we were On-Screen; I started with my prepared lines.
"I'm telling you, Kimberly, I have a feeling about this one,” I said enthusiastically. “After this, there's going to be no more specials on hit and runs or fender benders or mysterious cabals passing bad checks. With this one, we're actually going to help people. We find this girl, and I'm telling you, good things will follow. We'll be taken seriously as investigative journalists and we'll make the world a better place. It’ll be just like in the movies.
"Riley," Kimberly responded, "this isn't a movie. We're not here to be action heroes. We're here to help spread awareness about a missing girl. The truth is all that matters, not glory."
I shrugged.
"A little glory," I said.
"Fine, a little glory,” she said with a smile, “but mostly we're here to spread awareness and to get the truth out.”
With that, the engine of the green sedan roared to life.
"Told you all I needed to do was tweak some things," Nick said as he closed the hood.
Off-Screen
He had just started the car from under the hood. I didn't know enough about cars to tell if that was actually a thing or if it was just something you saw in movies.
We climbed into the green sedan, and in a sequence so comical I almost laughed out loud, Nick drove the car approximately 500 feet over a hill, and we found ourselves next to a vast stretch of farmland. At the place where that farmland met the road was a building with a sign that said Harless Automotive. Next to it was a well-kept farmhouse. The viewers at home (or wherever they were) would never know that our destination was within walking distance.
As we approached, I tried to get a sense of the place. It was a humble and well-kept lot. I was used to seeing places like this run down and covered in rust, but not this one. This was 1966, and everything here was new and pristine.
In fact, the only thing that was dirty was the coveralls worn by the balding man who stood outside the shop running a rag over the windshield of a wicked-looking car that could have been a cousin to the haunted car, Christine, of Stephen King fame.
As Nick pulled his green car into the mechanic shop's lot, the mechanic turned his attention toward us with a sour look, as if the sound of the car's engine was causing his ears to bleed.
Nick shut off the engine and we got out. Kimberly was the first to go shake the man's hand.
"Hello, sir. My name is Kimberly Madison. I'm a reporter with Carousel News 9, and I'm looking for the witness who saw Tamara Cano last."
The man stopped side-eyeing Nick's car long enough to express sympathy, saying, "Yes, ma'am, that's me. It was me and my son who saw her."
Nick strolled up behind us with a huge case that I soon learned contained a portable camera that looked just as much like one of Dr. Evil's space lasers as it did a piece of recording equipment. The camera even had finishing not so different from the cars in the lot. It was candy green with ivory trimmings, and it must have weighed sixty pounds if not more.
"Whoever's car that is, is really asking for trouble," the man in the grease-stained coveralls said. "That car sounds like the oil hadn't been changed in at least a year, and if I'm not wrong, the transmission is having trouble. And there was something else... something else," the man said as he tried to focus on his memory of the sound of the engine. "Oh, I'll have to take a look at it," he eventually said. “It’s all going to tarnation.”
He turned back to Kimberly. "You all are looking for that little girl?" he asked.
Kimberly smiled and nodded and went on to explain that they were trying to get the word out, much of what she had said to me, but I could see that she was at least a little spooked.
So was I.
The man's name on the red wallpaper was Benjamin Harless. The name tag sewn into his coveralls read "Benny." Those were the same exact coveralls that we had seen flying through a cornfield, stuffed full of straw and being worn by a haunted scarecrow.