Book Five, Chapter 64: Mental Health Day
“So, these last few days—the Doll House, the Speakeasy, Carousel Family Video with the weird guy dressed like you—all of that was to get you to walk into the flea market and hear two NPCs arguing over a painting?” Isaac asked.
We were on the roof, just relaxing.
Isaac was being his cynical, skeptical self, never missing an opportunity to criticize the way Carousel worked. After we returned with the Omen, he chattered incessantly about the whole mini-quest to find which storyline Logan and Avery were locked behind.
Frankly, I didn’t know if he was doing it because he was actually confused or if he just liked criticizing the powers that be.
“Basically, yeah,” I said. “The clue was about the Bowlers, and we know the Bowlers have cleared every storyline within spitting distance of the bowling alley. We just had to look around. Once we knew where to look, we were in the home stretch.”
“It’s weird, is all,” Isaac said.
“How strange, the guy who is always skeptical is skeptical about this too,” Antoine said.
“I’m just saying, I don’t like playing ball with Carousel. Doesn’t it feel weird that it sets you on some scavenger hunt, and you just did what it wanted? It’s training you, don’t you get it? You don’t really think that guy trying to sell the painting just happened to be there when you were there, no—he was waiting for you,” Isaac said as if he had some gotcha. “Carousel is patting you on the head for doing what it wanted.”
“I mean... yeah?” I said. “All it wanted us to do was go to a specific place and look around. And you’re probably right—that guy selling the painting was probably going to be there anytime we showed up, because he was our reward for pulling the thread on this little mini-quest and figuring out where to look.”