The Crimson Carnival: Chapter XIV, Until The Sun Comes Up

  --- Gregory Fischer ---

  The world flashed red, a wave of cold warmth washing over him, before he found himself hitting the ground in a tangle of limbs both human and canine. Paper flying all around him as he hit the grass covered ground far harder than he should’ve.

  Rolling onto his back he found the world spinning around him as he shoved an equally disoriented dog off of him. Long since used to close calls and concussions both he pushed through his discomfort and asked, “Everyone else alive?”

  “Aye.” Mave called with a grimace as she looked at her shoulder. “Though I don’t believe I’ve had a trip through the gate that disorienting before… Also you dislocated my shoulder.”

  He grimaced back at the vampire sitting a few paces away. “Need me to help set it?”

  Maeve shook her head as a crimson vine seemed to wrap around her shoulder. “Nay. I have it handled.” The vines tightened forcing the vampire’s shoulder back into slot. “There we are.”

  Having reset his own shoulder and reattached his arm multiple times, he didn’t comment instead asking, “You see the kids anywhere?”

  “We’re… we’re over here!” Louis called from the otherside of the clearing, just before the sound of someone vomiting filled the air. “Ah, not on me, not on me!”

  He looked at Melanie’s hunched form and nodded as he pulled out a cigarette to settle his own stomach. “Yeah, Warp Sickness is a bitch.”

  Melanie spat something on the ground before looking around. “Where… where’s Ferris?”

  He glanced around the clearing before spotting the Lost Child staring at the sky above. “He’s there and… You okay little buddy?”

  When the kid gave no response, he took a hit of his Smoke before forcing himself to his feet and making his way over.

  He waved a hand in front of the kid’s face before frowning at the way the Lost Child’s eyes seemed to be flickering between black and green.

  “What’s wrong?” Maeve asked as she came over.

  “Something’s up with Ferris… This have anything to do with that Lost Children thing?” He wondered.

  “Possibly…” The Theater Rose admitted. “As I said we never actually let him leave the Carnival, and that’s before the matter of all the other children being active when he did finally escape.”

  He frowned before inhaling deeply and then exhaling, repeating the exercise as he slowly felt the flow of magic and Smoke through his veins. With the flow in his grasp, he put a hand on Ferris’s chest and began pushing his magic through the Lost Child.

  A simple scanning spell, that wasn’t actually a spell so much as the raw manipulation of Anima. Something he hoped would allow him to work around the book’s restrictions as he was coming to understand them. And slowly he was able to piece together a little bit, even if the few medical spells he knew would’ve told him more.

  “Well, I don’t think this is a bad thing…” He told Maeve and everyone else that had walked over during his inspection. “Every time his eyes flash, what would be a Spell System in anyone else, is reinforcing ever so slightly. My best guess? Each flash is him collecting one of the missing Lost Children into whatever hive thing they’ve got going on.”

  “So I was right.” Maeve let out a relieved sigh. “Saving one of them did save them all.”

  “Think so.” He nodded as he stood back up. “No telling how long he’ll be at this though, and I don’t think we can just pause it.”

  “I… I don’t think we have to?” Melanie admitted, looking around. “I think I recognize where we are. This is where Caspian and I…”

  Louis placed a hand on Melanie’s shoulder even as he grimaced, before telling them, “If this is where I think it is we’re about a mile out from the town.”

  “A mile sounds doable.” He nodded, before picking Ferris up once more. “Lead the way.”

  “Yeah, it should be… this way?” Louis told them, sounding a little unsure as they started moving. “It’s, uh, it’s easier to tell in the daylight…”

  Despite that awkward start, the kid was eventually able to lead them to a trail and from that trail to a street that in turn led them to a town significantly smaller than anything he’d seen in the city. (Honestly this is more of a neighborhood than a town. I mean they can’t have more than what? Six thousand people here?)

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  Then again everyone seemed to be spread out over a much larger space than he was used to, the streets and sidewalks almost empty compared to what he’d see back home. (It’s almost nice…)

  And it would be if the relative quiet wasn’t setting off every ‘there is a predator here’ instinct he had. An instinct that only he seemed to be having a problem with given how even Maeve and Mr. Peabody seemed relatively relaxed as they made their way through the streets.

  “We’re really back…” Melanie chuckled as they passed a few shops with just a few people inside. “I know we were only gone for a few hours but…”

  “Tonight felt like months…” Louis agreed, an arm wrapped around his friend.

  “It was a long night.” He admitted, remembering how hard the first ‘long night’ could be as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “But you both pulled through. You should be proud of that.”

  Louis gave him a wry grin, more a half-grimace than anything. “Yeah… I… I kind of just want to go home and wake up to find this was all a nightmare more than anything else.”

  “Your nightmare is over, and you can go home, beyond that… Your fate is up to you now.” Maeve told the teen, clearly trying to be supportive if he understood her point of view from being stuck in the Carnival for… (centuries I think…)

  “That’s… kind of a big thought…” Melanie confessed.

  Fischer nodded as he took a hit of his cigarette. “There’s no crying until the sun comes up’. It’s a saying from my war days, and while it might be night… the sun is coming up. Everything else is… just smoke on the wind.”

  “So what we just… cry it out?” Louis frowned, his face scrunching up in confusion.

  “You go home. You cry until you can’t. You sleep. And then you do what you’ve got to do.” He shrugged, not ashamed to admit he cried the first time he lost someone. (It’s only human.) “What that is is up to you. This whole thing is… it’s a fucked situation you kids shouldn’t have been dragged into.”

  “No one should’ve.” Maeve agreed, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “The Court has spent centuries ruining people’s lives. The fact that you got out both alive and bloodless… is a miracle in of itself.”

  “We weren’t the only ones at the Carnival…” Melanie told them, her eyes on the ground. “There were dozens of people from town… and now they’re all just… gone…”

  Fischer’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the teen, seeing what he knew was but the first step to the fucked up place he’d let his life become. “But you’re not. Neither of you are. You’re here, and you’re the only ones who know what happened.”

  He sighed, before telling them. “People aren’t going to believe you because of the Carnival’s collapse, but you know what happened. You’re the ones who know that Story, and as long as you know what happened. What really happened, then… you’re also the only ones who can settle things for them. The only ones who can try and give them and their loved ones closure.”

  Gregory ran a hand down his face, trying to get to the point he was trying to make. “You’re alive and they’re not. So live enough for all of you. Do the things they can’t, for them.” It wasn’t what he’d done, probably wasn’t what he could do at this point, but (I wish it was…)

  He wasn’t sure if either kid got what he was trying to say, but he hoped they did.

  After a few moments Louis gave Melanie a look before asking, “Do you uh, do you know how long you’ll be in town for? If we need to talk…”

  He couldn’t help but grimace. “I… don’t. The Carnival’s pocket dimension… it took me a lot further from home than I like and…” He glanced at Ferris and Maeve. “I’m hoping my boss can help us with certain issues.”

  “Oh…” Louis frowned.

  “I’ll… try to get in touch if I can. It’s just…” He sighed. “My sun isn’t up just yet.”

  “Right…” Louis sighed himself, as the teen ran a hand through his hair. “Well… If you’re ever in town I guess…”

  “I’ll find you. Both of you.” He nodded, not sure if he could or would be back but hating the idea of leaving these two on their own like this. Not after everything he’d done to keep them alive. (And would you look at that… I actually kept the kids alive this time…)

  He gave the kids a wry grin as they took their leave, huddled close.

  “You’ve done what you can for them. More than what most would.” Maeve assured him.

  “Maybe… still doesn’t feel like enough…” He admitted.

  “It never will…” Maeve agreed.

  After a moment of silence the Theater Rose asked him, “So what of us now? You said you wish to ask your employer for aid.”

  “Yeah…” He puffed at his cigarette wondering how best to explain this. “My employer has access to some… powerful magic.”

  He held his book up. “I’m still getting the hang of it, but this comes with several perks. One of which was the fact that she was able to teleport me straight into the Carnival similar to how your gate got us out.”

  “Does that mean your employer could’ve extracted us at any time?” Maeve frowned, crossing her arms.

  “She could’ve gotten me and Peabody out, but I’m not sure about you or the kids since it's tied to our books.” He shrugged, not bothering to explain how he didn’t even know how to trigger Briar’s extraction. “As is, I’m not sure how to get the four of us into the Library for her to help us.”

  Mr. Peabody let out a bark, drawing their attention to him as the dog walked in a circle before starting off in a direction. Only briefly pausing to see if they were following.

  “I guess he knows where to go?” Fischer blinked.

  Maeve considered the dog for a moment. “I suppose after his attempt at rescuing you he has proven he’s not a normal dog.”

  With no other options or objections both of them set out to follow Mr. Peabody, the dog seeming to know exactly where to go despite never having been here before. Then again, given their final destination Fischer felt like, “I really should’ve been able to guess this one.”

  The Theater Rose gave him a curious look.

  “The group I work for is called ‘The Black Briar Library’ and well…” He trailed off with a gesture to the town library.

  “Ah.” Maeve nodded, still not getting it.

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  A/N: For smoothness sake of the next chapter, I’m clipping it here and doing the ‘Level Up’ choices.

  Now then our currency in the Black Briar Library is ‘Stories’ that said some ‘Stories’ have more Conceptual Weight than others. So with that in mind, our first order of business is how many Stories did we actually gather?

  (Common/Rumor, Uncommon/Folktale, Rare/Fairy Tale, Epic, Legend, Unique/Mythic)

  -The Crimson Carnival (Legend-Collection Incomplete)

  -Escape The Crimson Carnival (Epic)

  -Corruption Of The Crimson Carnival (Folktale)

  -Origin Of The Lost Children (Folktale)

  -Duel In The Theater (Folktale)

  -Duel On The Ferris Wheel (Fairy Tale)

  -(x5) Rumors Of The Crimson Court (Rumor)

  --The Court, The Mad Mage, The Ringmaster, The Dracule, Carnival Dredges

  Total Stories: 19*

  (*Slight bump due to Reader Rewards.)

  ---

  Level Up Notes:

  -You can only upgrade characters you take out with you or the Library itself.

  -New Upgrade Options unlock as we finish Books, or unlock departments.

  -Unused Characters may randomly gain a Card or other Bonuses depending on what they’re doing.

  -Library Facilities apply their effects at the Start of a new Book. (No Gaming Upgrades.)

  -New Volume Price is based on Total Volumes for that Character. (Each starts with 2.)

  -Every Pack contains a Loot Table of roughly 15 Pack Cards + 5 General Cards.

  -Story Packs are only available to Characters who were a part of that Story.

  -Library Packs are available to all Characters.

  -Doubles of a Specific Card unlocks an Upgrade Choice for that Card.

  -You will not gain doubles in the same Pack.

  -You Cannot Sell Cards.

  -Lastly if you do not spend a Story… Briar will probably blow it on more books/book space.

  First Fischer’s Personal Upgrades

  []-Unlock A New Volume. (Costs 3 Stories)

  []-Upgrade an existing Volume. (Costs (X*2))

  -[]-Pick: Black Briar Librarian (I), The Ashes Of War (I)

  []-Unlock New Card Pack. (Random 3 Cards) (3 Stories)

  -[]-Pick A Pack: Personal, Black Briar Library, The Crimson Carnival

  []-Unlock A Specific Card (Costs 3 Stories)

  -[]-Pick A Card.

  Now Library Upgrades

  []-Children’s Playspace (Costs 5 Stories)

  []-Zoological Conservatorium (Costs 5 Stories)

  []-Botanical Garden (Costs 5 Stories)

  []-Establish Library Department (Costs 5 Stories)

  -[]-Pick One: Adventure, Fantasy, Science, Horror, Mystery, Drama, Tragedy.

  (Note: Further upgrades require a Department unlocked.)

  Next Big Question, at the current Library Rank you have (2/4) Librarian Slots.

  []-Make Maeve A Librarian (5 Stories, 1 Slot.)

  []-Make Maeve A Guest (No Cost, No Slots, She May Leave In Time)