The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG

~Riley~

Just because Carousel decided to redress me didn’t mean I lost access to my luggage tag or to any of the items I’d brought in my hoodie pocket.

It just meant I now had to try to find a way to squeeze my headphones out of the narrow breast pocket of my suit jacket.

I literally had to disassemble them just to get them out. Luckily, I didn’t have to try to get my Walkman out too—that would have been impossible. The pocket was made for glasses or a pen. Cell phones hadn’t been invented yet.

I only needed my headphones because those would allow me to listen in on whatever scene was On-Screen using Quiet On Set. Seeing as this storyline was shaping up to be quite research-heavy in nature, with Andrew, Lila, and me nose-deep in books, I felt the need to multitask and listen in.

And it was weird.

At first, I heard a lot of breathing. I thought it was just someone who needed to hit the gym more often, but then I realized I was listening to a dog—no, a wolf—running for, like, 30 whole seconds. As I realized that’s what I was hearing, I became afraid I was going to hear a scream afterward, but I never did.

Instead, the conversation shifted from place to place, focusing on things that were mostly irrelevant to the plot. I heard laughing and splashing. I heard people talking as they walked the trails.

Whatever Carousel was planning for all the summertime vacationers in the area, it was sure taking its time setting things up.

Meanwhile, I was trying my best to sort through the information I’d found in a nearly 200-year-old journal.

As far as I could figure, the information could be divided into three different types: stuff that I thought was secret lore, which would not go On-Screen; stuff that was normal lore, which would go On-Screen; and finally, detailed paranormal experimentation, which could be either type. I didn’t know.

If werewolves were allergic to normal silver, rolling silver—whatever that was—was like kryptonite to them.

Just reading the entries got me excited. “Amadeus Sing” really got into experiment mode in the summer of 1826.

June 25, 1826

Experiment XVII: Subject D.A. (Volunteer Lycanthrope)

Objective: Test exposure to rolling silver for transformation interruption and potential cure.

10:00 PM - Exposure begins. Subject seated, restrained. Ten ounces of rolling silver placed within ten feet and activated. Initial signs of discomfort: shallow breathing, furrowed brow.

10:05 PM – At three feet. Subject exhibits visible distress. Sweating profusely, reporting "burning" sensation internally. Pulse elevated.

10:10 PM - Early signs of transformation (clawing at restraints, reddening of irises) abruptly cease. Subject begins retching, collapsing against bonds. No observable wolfish traits develop.

10:15 PM - Consciousness fades briefly; upon revival, subject is fully human but unresponsive. Skin pale, ashen. Reports "hollow heat" in chest, unable to rise.

Note: The Woolsey family has agreed to additional funding for my tests. Rolling silver continues to elicit transformative disruption but offers no progress toward reversing affliction. Subject withdrew consent after recovery, citing "unbearable torment." Curious—effect persists even at distance. Mechanism remains unexplained. Rolling silver potency affected by amount and proximity.

When I read this On-Screen, I would have to change Woolsey to Withers if it came up, their in-story name. Carousel always liked to complicate things.

July 18, 1826

Experiment XIX: Transformed Subject E.J. (Lycanthrope, non-volunteer)

Objective: Test exposure to rolling silver on a subject already in wolfish form.

11:00 PM - Transformed subject introduced to containment area. Nominal amount of rolling silver activated. No immediate reaction; subject growls low, pacing.

11:03 PM – Now at three feet. Subject emits guttural growls, escalating to loud howls. Claws at containment bars in agitation. No visible signs of reversion.

11:07 PM - Amount increased. Howling ceases. Subject collapses into a convulsive state, fur bristling unnaturally. Movement restricted to spasms. Transformation remains intact.

11:10 PM - Subject lies motionless apart from labored breathing. Observed continued wolfish traits with no signs of human emergence.

11:20 PM - Experiment terminated. Subject subdued and restrained.

Note: Rolling silver induces severe distress but fails to initiate reversion from the fully transformed state. Consistent agony observed, mirroring earlier trials. Contradicts findings from pre-transformation exposures.

~

July 22, 1826

Experiment XX: Barrier Trial with Rolling Silver Subject D.A. (Lycanthrope, non-volunteer)

Objective: Test efficacy of rolling silver through a dense barrier.

11:30 PM - Nominal rolling silver activated ten feet behind a 1-foot-thick brick wall which blockades the beast from contact. Transformed subject introduced unrestrained into adjacent chamber. Initial pacing and sniffing observed.

11:35 PM - At six feet. Subject begins growling, scratching at the ground. Agitation builds despite no direct exposure to rolling silver.

11:36 PM - Subject stumbles mid-pace, convulsing briefly. Breathing becomes erratic, growling ceases.

11:40 PM - Subject collapses entirely, lying motionless but maintaining wolfish form. Labored breathing observed.

11:45 PM - Experiment concluded.

Note: Rolling silver’s effects persist even when entirely obstructed by dense material. Potency is unaffected by physical barriers, suggesting the reaction originates from properties beyond physical exposure. Need air-tight apparatus to confirm. Mechanism remains wholly unexplained. Further study is required.

~

Whatever rolling silver was, it was a big deal. Honestly, I refused to believe that any real-life scientist could do such thorough and exhaustive research on a subject without once actually defining it, but for a movie, that was a fairly typical problem to have.

We knew that rolling silver was a very potent weapon, and now we had to figure out what it was exactly. I had some ideas. Mercury sprang to mind, but I wasn't sure what it meant for mercury to be "activated." I might have to do some experiments of my own.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

More importantly, we had to bring it into the story. We had to establish it, or else it might not be around for us to use later on.

I took off my headphones and hid them behind a stack of books. It was 1986, so they weren’t exactly an egregious anachronism, but they did feel out of place in a candlelit library while reading 100-year-old texts.

I conferred with Andrew about how we were going to establish rolling silver. We asked Lila to wait outside. She was another problem. In order for her to be First Blood, we probably had to establish her as a character.

She said she would work on it.

After a quick conversation—and confirming that nothing important was happening On-Screen by listening to my headphones for a moment—I knew we were in a prime moment to introduce rolling silver to the narrative. All the information related to secret lore would just have to wait.

It turned out we were getting pretty good at this game because as soon as we were prepared, Carousel was there, waiting to start filming.

On-Screen

“Have you read anything about something called rolling silver?” I asked, holding up the journal and pointing it out to Andrew.

He leaned over and squinted at the page. “How in the world are you reading that handwriting?” he asked. “Rolling silver?” He sat back and thought for a moment. “Perhaps that’s an old way of saying mercury?”

“I had thought of that, but I wasn’t sure,” I said. “They did used to call mercury quicksilver, didn’t they?”

“They did.”

“I’m not sure, though,” I said. “This is supposed to be really potent stuff. We're talking about every wolf nearby would be doubled over if you had enough of it...If mercury was as effective against the werewolves as this scientist is claiming rolling silver is, then I can’t imagine someone in the modern age wouldn’t have figured it out already.”

“It would certainly strain credulity,” Andrew said. “Mercury is in every household in thermometers. Though most modern werewolf experts rarely approach the subject from a scientific perspective. How did he discover it?”

“Sheer luck,” I said. “He talks about it as if it were something everyone might have access to.”

I selected a passage from when the scientist first started learning about the effects of rolling silver and decided to read/slash summarize it for the audience.

“All right, here we go—May 24, 1826,” I said. “So, this guy has a docile caged werewolf in his lab—like, super tame, been in captivity forever. He leaves the room for a moment, and then he hears, ‘violent howling echoed through the walls, followed by the sound of frantic movement.’ He comes back, and the wolf’s going nuts, thrashing and howling like crazy.”

“Not so tame then,” Andrew said.

“Well, wait. His lab assistant was still in the room. So, they start systematically working through everything that might have changed in those few moments, hoping to figure out what caused the werewolf to go crazy in pain. You following me? Eventually, they figured out the assistant had been ‘handling rolling silver’, whatever that meant, nearby. He tested it again and said, ‘Simply bringing the rolling silver into the wolf’s proximity triggered agitation and torment.’ Even though it wasn’t near the wolf or touching it, it completely set the thing off.”

“It might be actually mercury,” Andrew said. “That was a common enough substance for a scientist back then.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Then, on August 3, 1826, he writes about how he talked to some colleagues,” I continued. “Apparently, others have had similar findings but haven’t been able to study the issue thoroughly because werewolves were harder to find, and next to none of them volunteered for study, and ‘the common decency of hunters to spare a poor wolf’s life had gone out of fashion.’ Carousel, though, was having an epidemic.”

“That would explain why we haven’t heard anything about it,” Andrew said. “Werewolves are rare—far more rare than they were hundreds of years ago, it would seem—or at least far more elusive.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “A couple of decades after this guy was working, the study of werewolves as a scientific pursuit pretty much stopped happening. They became myths. All we really have to go on these days was lore and old wives’ tales. It’s crazy to think they were actually closer to a solution then than we are now.”

“Sounds like we are close,” Andrew said. “We just have to figure out what they mean when they say rolling silver.”

“That is the million-dollar question,” I said.

Off-Screen

“Very good,” Andrew said, clearing his throat.

“All right,” I said. “The next time we’re On-Screen with this, I need to establish how effective it is because it is knocking these werewolves on their butts and preventing them from transforming if they aren’t already.”

“So now we look for the word rolling silver with a definition?” Andrew asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And there’s something else here I didn’t read because Carousel sent us Off-Screen.”

I found the last part of the journal entry and read it aloud:

“Still, questions linger: Why is Carousel afflicted so severely? Why do these modern werewolves act so differently from those I encountered in my youth? And how is this connected to the sudden potency of rolling silver? What are the Woolseys hiding? What happened to young Clara Woolsey? The answers remain elusive, but I am determined to find them before this plague consumes the town.”

“Rolling silver was a new solution,” Andrew said. “And the werewolves are different than they used to be. Strange.”

“That’s what it sounds like. He makes a lot of comments about it—nothing fully descriptive—but little things that make me think something changed about werewolves about 200 years ago. He talks about them like they were a disease like they’re people with an illness that gets worse as the full moon approaches.”

“That is interesting,” Andrew said. “I can’t find any accurate depictions of werewolves from before the year 1813. It’s as if an entire field of paranormal investigation appeared overnight for the purpose of this storyline.”

“That’s not too unusual,” I said. “Carousel could probably manufacture books on lore, but trying to separate the stuff for the storyline from stuff that might be real is tough.”

On-Screen

We were both taken by surprise to be On-Screen again and tried to look busy as best we could. I almost got a little greedy and tried to throw in a quick conversation about how potent rolling silver was supposed to be to make sure the audience would hear those words, and Carousel would be forced to go along with them. But then I realized what the scene was about.

Lila was bringing us tea.

“Mr. Kirst said that you would be thirsty by now,” she said, walking into the room and delivering the tea.

“Thank you, Lila,” Andrew said. “You’ve been very accommodating.”

She smiled, did a strange little curtsy, and turned to leave, and we went Off-Screen.

Lila had used a bit of simple improvisation to inject herself into the story, and now she was a named character. That was better than just a cameo, which was what I’d been expecting. I supposed that even with Bad Luck Magnet, Carousel wasn't going to deny her name in the credits. After all, what fun is a character with bad luck if they are not On-Screen?

It was funny—when we were discussing our plans for the storyline, we had actually thought of the idea of intentionally infecting Lila with the werewolf curse in hopes that she would transform and, therefore, not be attacked by the other monsters.

There was a brief hope that this might extend our use of Bad Luck Magnet, but we came to the conclusion that transforming into a wolf would break that trope’s effect.

The irony that everyone but her was potentially infected now was not lost on me.

I grabbed my headphones from behind the stack of books and began listening in.

Somewhere On-Screen, Kimberly, Antoine, and Michael were discussing a group of cabins at the summer camp they had just hiked to. They were doing their best to lay out some exposition—what had happened there and their strategy for exploring.

Something about being able to hear what was going On-Screen was very satisfying for me and, dare I say, stress-relieving. Using the Dailies to get some of the On-Screen footage at the end of the day was useful, but hearing it actively as it was happening—even if it was only audio—made me feel more in control.

I sat there with a dumb smile on my face, listening. Then I nearly dropped my cup of tea as I heard Kimberly whisper a phrase I didn’t expect to hear On-Screen for years to come.

“That over there,” she said, “that’s Dyer’s Lodge. That’s where the counselors slept.”

A summer camp, huh? Not just any summer camp, though. It needed a summer camp that was usually west of Carousel. Suddenly, I thought I understood why Carousel put this version of the storyline on a sound stage.

It needed to do some rearranging.

Talk about a cameo.