The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG

I continued to run, not because I thought it would help, but because that’s what you do in a haunted corn maze. It’s human nature.

I expected to see the floating scarecrow appear to behead me, but so far, I had gotten lucky. My mind got stuck on the question of what my low Plot Armor would mean for my survival. Truthfully, I didn't put my odds very high.

A scream echoed throughout the corn.

It wasn't far away; it was a woman's scream. Not Anna or Kimberley's, it certainly wasn't Dina's; she had… er… lost the ability.

No, it belonged to Janette. I could tell she was nearby.

"Hello!" I cried out.

"Hello!" a terrified response rang to me.

I could hear that she was nearby, but I couldn't see her. "Don't cut through the corn," I said. "We'll make our way to each other."

Turns out, she was only a couple of rows away from me, but it still took five minutes of moving back and forth to find paths that allowed me to meet up with her. When I came upon her, she was in a terrible state. Terror had transformed her face, but otherwise, she was uninjured.

"I got lost," she said.

Strangely, I was annoyed that she was screaming. Having not seen what I had just seen, how dare she?

I wanted to tell her that we would be fine and that we would find our way out of the corn maze, but I didn't know if that was true. Now, as I looked at her, it was easy for me to see why the guides had called her a hysteric. That was her literal archetype. In my mind's eye, I saw it:

A poster of Janette screaming at an axe came into my mind. Her face distorted, exaggerated. “Janette Gill is The Hysteric!”

Plot Armor 8.

Surprisingly low but still higher than mine.

We began walking together as I attempted to soothe her with kind words. I don’t know that many kind words. So I just said, “It’s alright” over and over.

She asked me to get on my tip-toes and try to see my way out of the maze. She was pretty short. Must have thought I was a giant. I explained to her that all I could see was corn, and she didn't believe me. She would say, no, beyond that. But there was nothing beyond that. No buildings or landforms. Darkness surrounded the corn maze. There was no cheating Benny the Haunted Scarecrow.

"Let's find your husband," I said. In my mind, I thought, and then you can be his problem.

It turned out that finding Bobby Gill was easier than I expected. It didn't take us 10 minutes to find him.

I saw a movie poster in my head. A lonely man leans up against a support pillar at a house party. An axe murderer stares in from the window. “Bobby Gill is The Wallflower.”

Plot Armor: 10.

If I understood this correctly, this guy’s archetype was literally “Background Character.”

"Janette," he said, "I heard you screaming. Are you OK?"

"Please come here," she said. He was on the other side of a row of corn. She reached out to him.

"Don't cut through the corn maze," I warned harshly. "It'll make the creature come for you."

Bobby didn't listen to me. "This is serious," he said. "She's really upset. They'll have to understand. We didn't know this would be part of it."

The idiot still thought that this was all part of some horror convention. He clearly hadn't seen the flying scarecrow or the headless woman running around.

I don't know what the abilities of a Wallflower were, but clearly, he hadn't seen much of the red wallpaper yet, or if he had, he chalked it up to high blood pressure or something. Who knows?

I protested again. "Just wait. We can find an opening between us," but Janette cried again, and Bobby ignored me. He stepped through the corn, pushing aside two stalks.

I knew what was coming immediately. I distanced myself from the couple and began scanning the skies. Sure enough, Benny the Scarecrow was never far off. He floated over the corn walls with ease and slowly made his way to Bobby.

To his credit, Bobby did figure out that there was something very strange about this scarecrow floating in front of him, but still, he tried to talk it down.

"I had to crossover. My wife was scared. I hope you understand we didn't know the rules when we signed on for this."

Benny said nothing. He let his sickle do the talking. With a quick slash, the front half of Bobby's throat was severed, and the sickle moved back, severing the rest. His head hit the ground while his body was still standing, something that could only happen in a movie. His body just sort of stood there, perhaps waiting for a pumpkin to turn it into a Harvest Creep as had been done to Dina.

As I backed away, I felt something brush up against the back of my head, a corn stalk. The path that I was on hadn't been a dead end before, but now it sure was. No doubt thanks to that hidden trope that Benny apparently had.

I knew what was coming next. Benny turned and looked at me.

Strangely, I was resigned to my fate; that, or I was so scared that the concept of running away wasn't even available to my mind. I watched the scarecrow as it flew closer and closer to me, never in any hurry.

The night would be silent if not for the screams of Janette. She was drawing big, deep breaths and letting out screams that would last, I swear, for 10 seconds apiece. Though I cannot explain it, my fear of dying was actually overcome by my annoyance with her screams. I swear I'm not like this, but I could feel the annoyance in the way she screamed was building up inside of me. I almost wanted to tell her to shut up. And then I saw something in my head: her Plot Armor was now seven.

Wait, hadn't her Plot Armor been eight earlier? I looked across the red wallpaper and saw two additional posters. These were the tropes that she must have received from Silas the Showman. One of the tropes depicted a close-up of a woman's neck showing the hair standing on end.

I don’t like it here…

Player Trope

Can be Equipped to the Hysteric

Stat Used: Savvy

The Hysteric has a keen sense of the ominous and strong self-preservation instincts. Using these abilities, they can ferret out omens and help guide their group out of potentially tricky situations.

The other trope painting was of a woman screaming at the top of her lungs as a knife hangs over her head.

Will someone shut them up!?

Player Trope

Can be Equipped to the Hysteric

Stat Used: Moxie

Nothing can frustrate a horrifying situation like someone with an annoying scream. Characters with this trope are often regarded as annoying, and their deaths are usually applauded. But one thing is for sure: when this character starts screaming, it feels like it lasts forever.

When using this trope, a character's scream will make them temporarily invulnerable to direct attack, but it will agitate all those nearby and lower the user’s Plot Armor.

Of course, lots of horror movies have characters who react with annoying screams that never seem to stop. Screaming often ruins the entire scene, much to the ire of the moviegoing audience.

Janette screamed again, her Plot Armor dropped down to 6 as annoyance washed over me. God, could she stop screaming? She isn’t helping anything!

Or was she? She was unknowingly lowering her Plot Armor with every scream.

Benny the Scarecrow appeared completely unfazed by her screams; his slow deliberate movement never ceased. He studied me and completely ignored her.

Janette screamed again; her Plot Armor dropped to 5. Now it was tied with mine.

Benny was right on me. As he grew close, I started to get the smell of him. I must say it wasn't as bad as I expected. He smelled like hay and car grease, but that was probably just the pair of coveralls that had been used to make up his body.

He lifted his sickle over my head. He didn't strike at first. No, I remembered that one of his tropes was called "Judgment." He must have been judging me. Or was this the trope that made him toy with his victims? I had no idea.

Janette screamed again. Plot Armor: 4.

Benny turned around, his back to me, and started to fly away. At first, I didn't understand what had happened. I thought perhaps he had just judged me worthy of living and was going to let me go.

He was much faster getting back to Janette. He held his blade over her as he had done with me.

I really wanted to do something. To rush him. To attack him. To run. To help.

I did none of those things. I just stood there. I’ll never be able to justify that.

Benny must not have liked Janette because he quickly slashed at her. By the time the screaming stopped, her Plot Armor was down to zero.

I saw a little light turn on in my mind. Her status switched from Unscathed to Dead.

I don't know why I did nothing. Benny's Plot Armor was eight times mine, what could I really do?

So that’s one of the things that Plot Armor does. Monsters pursue the player with the lowest Plot Armor. That’s why Benny had been messing with me all night, having me run in circles, contemplating killing me: I had the lowest Plot Armor.

Until I didn’t.

But now he was moving back toward me.

As he floated back over to me, I realized that this pattern was going to keep playing repeatedly. Unlike Janette, my Plot Armor would always be incredibly low, and I would always be one of the first targeted by every monster we came across in this horrifying place.

The guides had stated that death isn't the end, that you can still survive if someone in your party does. What does that mean? That I was condemned to the fate of dying over and over again, trying my best to help my friends survive, but never getting to survive myself?

Benny got close. I closed my eyes. I'm not proud of it, it probably wasn't the bravest thing I could have done, but I couldn't run from him. I was at a dead end and even if I wasn't, he could just change the maze and have me running right back to him. All I could hope was that Anna and the others would make it to the end of the maze and that whatever happened to me here wouldn't last.

With my eyes closed, all I could see was the red wallpaper and Benny’s poster. I noticed his tropes again. His first trope, Judgement. Was that my final chance to live?

If I understood it correctly, that should mean that Benny won't kill me if he judges me good by whatever metric a haunted scarecrow might use for such a decision.

What are a scarecrow’s values? Crows bad? Crops good?

Was I a crow or a crop?

Soon enough, I would be fumbling around with a pumpkin on my shoulders. I just knew it.

I waited for his decision.