Yn's POV
One of the clowns rolls the dice and it lands on 8. I know that it's not me because they are pointing at someone else. I think they're pointing at Nikita, but I can't tell because of the way I am positioned. Suddenly, Mortimer rides in on a motorcycle. He pulls out a gun and starts shooting at the clowns. They all turn around and run away which is good for us.
Mortimer and Calliope are officially my new favorite people because they've saved us so many times. But at the same time though, if they can save us multiple times, why can't they save the town by themselves.
Mortimer stops the Carousel and him and Calliope start to untie everyone. I see Ro pick up the dice from the floor and then we head over to an Arcade. Once inside, we lay out everything we have which is a journal, the jack in the box, a note, a key, and the dice.
Inside of the journal is a map of the room, and something looks a bit off to me, so I head over to the back wall, and behind a cork board, I find a safe. "Check this out" I say and nod to it. "Matt, get the key." Matt walks over with the key and unlocks the safe. Inside are two square holes, and immediately, we all agree that the dice we picked up have to go there.
Once placed, the sign on top of the refrigerator lights up, and Roi opens it. Inside is a little passageway that leads to a lounge. The lounge is so beautiful, and I didn't think that anything in the 70's could look like this. It was absolutely amazing. So we start looking around and we find a map that is hanging on the wall. The map is for the town of Everlock. On the top of the map it said that the cleansing of an artifact will reveal more. So when we cleanse an artifact, more of the map will be shown to us. And to save the town, we need to cleanse all of the artifacts.
Nikita pulls the map off of the wall, and on the back of it is a paragraph that describes what it going on in this town. She lays it down on a table and we all sit on the couches around it. Then she begins to read it.
"We were too late. Even with all of our society's knowledge, we didn't understand the Carnival Master's dark plan. To save Everlock, we froze it in time to give us a chance to stop him, but we were no match for his wrath. Realizing that all was lost, I used the rest of my life magic to encase him in an amber prison. But, the spell has reached it's end. At sunrise, the Carnival Master will be released from his prison and will consume all life in Everlock.
There are 8 corrupted artifacts which the Carnival Master draws power from. If they can be gathered and cleansed of evil, the Carnival Master will be weakened and be slain. However, the artifacts are protected. Whenever touched, their evil guardian appears. The final act to cleanse each artifact will require voting on 2 who must undertake a horrible challenge that only one will survive. By sunrise, if the artifacts have not been cleansed and the Carnival Master slain, everyone in town including you will be destroyed."
I sighed and leaned back against the couch. I knew I shouldn't have come. I knew that there was going to be a consequence, and here it is. I will have to vote my friends into challenges for the second time. I could tell that Joey was looking at me, but I ignored him. I survived once, that means I could do it again right?
So in order to cleanse the jack in the box, we have to replace the spring and the song. There are 2 envelopes which Joey and Nikita take. "I'll read mine first" Joey said. "The jack needs a pleasant song so he is not so angry all the time. The clowns have one you can use, but they've taken it to their disco party where they are guarding it. Proper attire is behind the yellow couch."
Then Nikita began to read her note. "The spring on the jack has been corrupted with evil and must be replaced. The clowns have hidden it in their giant tent. You have to rip the stuffing out to find it." We split up into 2 groups, one which goes to the disco party and the other which goes to the clown tent. I am with the group going to the clown tent. So Matt, Ro, Safiya, Roi, Manny, and I along with Calliope walk inside of the tent and see all kinds of stuffed animals.
We just start ripping them apart. There is stuffing and furry skin on the floor and everyone is running around. When all of the stuffed animals are ripped apart, we have 4 silver coins. That's when I hear a clown laughing and it's getting louder. All of us duck behind something to hide ourselves just as a huge lady clown walks into the room with a baseball bat. "I just want to bash your head in" she shouted. She begins to walk around and look for us, but we're well hidden. "Where are you ya little shits?"
This clown was freaking crazy. I was so scared that I wanted to run away. She was banging on things with her bat and shouting stuff at us. All I could think was, why isn't she at the disco? She had on a cute skirt on that she could've used to attract all of those male clowns.
Finally, she leaves the tent and we're able to exit our hiding spaces. We then spot this box that has 4 slots on top big enough for the coins we found. We all put our coins in and the box opens. Manny grabs the note from inside and reads it. "Find Zero G Man and solve his dilemma."
There are a bunch of balloons and a comic strip inside. The comic strip tells us that Zero G Man is sad because he lost his power to fly. So I'm thinking that we need to blow up the balloons to help him fly. The problem is, we don't have Zero G Man. We start looking around but we can't find anything. Safiya heads back over to the comic and starts to read it again. "Guys" she said. "Maybe we have to call out his name 3 time together."
We nodded and said Zero G Man 3 times, and a box opens up. There is a helium tank on one side of the tent so Manny and Ro go to blow up the balloons. We're all whispering to each other and then there is this loud whooshing noise. Blowing up the balloons was loud, and we were trying not to signal the crazy clown. One of the balloons popped and Ro screamed. That's when I heard the clown lady laughing again. We all hid again as she walked into the tent. "Hello" she screamed. "Come out and play!"
Matt and I were hiding behind this cage meant for animals. I felt someone shaking and I didn't know if it was me, Matt, or both of us. That's how scary being in this situation was.
After the clown lady left and all of the balloons were blown up, we tied them to Zero G Man and got him to float like an inch off of the ground. That technically wasn't flying. Matt then picked him up and dropped him from a higher height. He flew up for a moment before slowly making his way back down. Another box opened and inside was the spring that we needed and a note which I picked up. But before I could read it, the crazy lady bursts into our tent. Instead of hiding, we just ran back to our lounge.
The other group was already there, so we put the spring back in the box. "I have a note" I say and hold it up. "The artifact requires one more piece to be replaced to be fully restored, a new jack. 2 must be selected by vote to undertake a deadly challenge to recover it. Choose wisely. One of you will not make it out alive. For this unique trial, the 2 selected must choose a partner to fight for them."
There was a little argument geared towards Joey about why he invited us here in the first place, but soon everyone calmed down. "First things first" JC said. "Does anyone volunteer?" We all looked at each other. I remember 2 years ago, Matt volunteered for the exorcism, but then pulled it away. He ended up getting picked and then he killed Sierra. "Bitch" Colleen said. Everyone laughed, and it felt good. That's when we split up to discuss.
I grabbed Nikita who was on the other team and pulled her over to a corner. "Who do you think didn't pull their weight that well on your team" I ask her. Nikita and I have known each other for a while. She's one of the funniest people I know and I can trust her. "Well, I don't think Teala did much for us" she said. "What about your team?" "We kind of all played a role. And we had to hide from a crazy clown. But if I had to pick one person, it would be Roi." I told her what my team had to do to get our piece. "It is now time to vote" Calliope said. We all took a seat on the couch.
"Pick the card with the face of the person you would like to enter into the challenge." So instead of writing the name down, we pick a card. "I will shuffle and draw 2 cards" Calliope said. Everyone walked up and picked a card. I was the last to go. I remember the first time I had to do this, I went first. I took a deep breath and pointed to Teala's card. Calliope grabbed it and added it to the pile in her hand.
Picking someone to vote for was sort of easier to do now since I've had a lot of practice. But these are times of war. If I need to kill someone else so I can survive, then so be it.
She then shuffled the cards and showed us one. JC. People were gasping, and I didn't know if they were really shocked or just trying to hide that it was them. And then the next card was drawn. Teala. I tried to play a poker face so that no one would know that I voted for her. And after my last experience with all of this, I thought I was pretty good at hiding who I picked.
Then I realized that both JC and Teala have to select a partner, with JC going first. He looked around the room to see who he wanted to pick. I hope he didn't pick me. Having someone put their life in my hands was not something that I wanted to happen. "Matt" JC finally spoke. I could tell by the look on Matt's face that he was probably the one to put JC in the challenge, and now he had to fight for his life. "I choose Safiya" Teala spoke.
Both of them chose good players. Matt and Safiya were 2 of the smartest people I know and they are bot hard working. It's a fair game for who survives. The 4 of them along with Calliope and Mortimer then left the lounge leaving the rest of us to sit around. That's what I hated most about these challenges. The rest of us just have to sit here and stress out about who we think is going to survive.
After a few minutes, someone steps into the lounge. It's Mortimer holding the cleansed jack in the box. Following him is Calliope, then Safiya, Matt, and Teala. But JC isn't with them. "What happened" Colleen asked. "JC is dead" Safiya said.
Matt's face told me that he was a little disappointed in himself. I would probably have the same face too. I mean, someone trusted you with their life, and you failed them.
I motioned for Matt to come over and he took the seat next to me. I gave him a side hug as Safiya placed the jack in the box into a cubby. "This is the first of 8 artifacts" she said. "And I also found a note with the jack. It says, not everyone in town is telling the truth." "What if it's one of us" Colleen said. I looked around at everyone. Was that note referring to me? Could it be because I haven't told anyone that I'd been in this position before? I sighed and leaned back against the couch. 1 artifact down, 7 more to go.