At first, the other players treated us gently. They all knew how hard it was to be jerked out of your life and forced into this horrifying reality. We were welcome to take a rest at the lodge to prepare for what was to come. But after two days we started getting nudged out the door.

Low-level players were a great liability, we were told.

That's how Anna, Camden, Antoine, Kimberly, and I ended up being guided to the north side of town. Janette could not be convinced to leave her room and she rarely let Bobby leave. I don't know where Dina went off to, but she didn't seem interested in sticking with us.

We were told that they were taking us to the castle. It was supposed to be an easy storyline. Recommended Plot Armor of 12.

At first, I thought "castle" was some sort of exaggeration.

Before long, we started seeing signs for something called the “Halle Museum.”

“That's the castle,” Todd, our guide, said, pointing at the sign. “Just follow these along the road. There's nothing left to worry about along this stretch if you turn off when you get to the castle. It'll be hard to miss.”

"And you're not going to tell us what's in there?" Antoine asked. We had only received very selective details.

"Nope. If we tell you what happens, it either won't happen or it will happen but you won't get any rewards in the end. Gotta go in blind most of the time." He said this with unveiled amusement.

I felt like we were getting hazed.

He had to hurry off because if he took us too far toward the castle he would be included in our party and his high level would reduce the amount of experience we got from completing the storyline. That was what had happened with The Final Straw.

The signs led us right to it. As we walked, the skies grew gray. I noticed that a perpetual storm cloud hovered above the mountain that we were walking toward. Just as the east side of town was perpetually in fall and the west side of town was always summer, it looked like this mountain was always rainy.

At the base of the mountain was a road blocked off by a red gate. Behind it was a large sign that read “The Museum at Halle Castle.”

As we approached, a stout woman in her 50s was attempting to lift boxes from the back of her little green station wagon. She was parked as close to the gate as she could get without bumping it.

When we got close, she turned to us and said, “Oh, there you are. You're late. Hurry up and help me with this; we have so much to get done before tomorrow. I'm sorry I had to spring this on you last minute but the team I had hired to clean the museum in preparation of reopening has dropped off the face of the earth. They just walked off the job. Didn’t even tell me. Won't answer my calls. You can't get good help these days.”

On the red wallpaper in my mind, the little needle jumped to Omen.

My money said that the team she hired didn't walk off the job at all.

The five of us looked at each other. It was now or never. We would never be ready, but that didn’t matter. We nodded to each other.

Antoine said, “Let me get that for you.” He stepped forward and picked up the box the woman had been struggling with.

In my mind, I saw that her name was Judy. She was an NPC with a Plot Armor of 3. That didn’t bode well for her at all.

Who was I to say that? As we walked up the mountain, the needle on the Plot Cycle clicked over to Choice and, at some point, my Plot Armor dropped in half to 5 again. I was barely better off than she was.

“Are you sure you can handle that?” Judy asked Antoine.

Antoine responded, “Yeah, I work out. I play basketball at school.”

Judy nodded.

Camden, Anna, and I laughed in the background. That was so awkward. Antoine looked back at us with a smile.

His Plot Armor rose by two points.

Antoine’s archetype was the Athlete. Along with that he got two tropes.

One of his tropes gave him a bonus when using a sports implement as a weapon. Chris told Antoine that he can buy a baseball bat or golf club for this trope. So far, it was useless because he had neither.

His other trope though, was pretty funny.

Gym Rat

Player Trope

Can be equipped to The Athlete

Stat Used: Moxie

In horror movies, character archetypes must be quickly established so that the audience knows what to expect. The easiest way to let the audience know you're an Athlete is to slip it into dialogue. When equipped, the Athlete gets a bonus to Mettle and Hustle when they mention that they work out or play sports. Must be used before First Blood. Repeated use will have no effect.

After all, even the nerds have muscles in the movies.