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"I think this is yours." A man in a neat ivory suit holds out a name tag, smiling comfortingly.
It doesn't seem familiar, and neither does the name on it—Hugh—but they accept it, nod with a smile of their own. "Oh, thanks. Sorry, I guess I must have dropped it? I'm not actually sure—" and all of a sudden, there are too many ways that sentence could end. I'm not actually sure where I am. I'm not actually sure how I got here. Where is here in the first place?
The man settles a hand on their shoulder, and something in Hugh prickles under the touch. Which doesn't make sense, because the man's been nothing but friendly and helpful so far. (Hasn't he? Maybe it's that his expression now strikes Hugh as more satisfied than reassuring.)
"It's alright," the man says, "I'm sure it will all come back to you shortly." The smile widens slightly, and Hugh abruptly feels themselves the punchline of some private joke. But they don't know enough to argue, are only really going off this vague sense of unease in their stomach, and how are they supposed to trust that when they're so unsure of everything else? So, when the man—Conrad, he says—guides them into a nearby arcade building and introduces Hugh Sling to a bored-looking woman named Anna, suggesting that Hugh might be just what she needs in a new assistant, Anna agrees, and they do, too.
After Conrad has left, Hugh asks Anna where they are, anyway. Anna says, "Gareville," and Hugh supposes that must be one more thing that's slipped their mind.
—
"Stacy! Oh, Stacy!"
Bell rolls her eyes. She told her boss to stop calling her that, but he listens to her less than he does the animatronic dragon, and it can't even talk. Whatever. Blame her parents for giving her the stupid name in the first place, and blame Bell for hoping for respect from the overgrown baby in the novelty goblet. As far as he's concerned, she's just a cheap source of labor for cleaning out the stables. Wait—is she even getting paid?
The Houst is in between matches at the moment, so Lord Buttmunch is waiting for her in the main hall, spinning around in his fancy office chair. This part of the castle isn't customer-facing, which means the rules are more relaxed when it comes to keeping up the faux-medieval illusion—unlike how strict they are about literally everything else. (Like, Bell's barely allowed to leave in case it ruins "the experience" for someone. Yeah, right. You should see half the shit that comes out of the stables. As if anyone is looking at a mech unicorn-bear and really believing they're in olden times instead of—well. Wherever the hell they actually are.)
—
Here's the thing: Ace is gonna fucking kill Checkers.
"Now, look—Harvey gave me this list of shit he needs before his next show, but he keeps forgetting that I can't fucking read, and I don't know where he's gone to ask him."
Checkers looks down at the list, then back up at Ace, and shrugs again.
"Motherfucker, I know you know what it says!" Ace takes a deep breath, rubbing at the very impressive furrow in his brow. "Alright, man, I'm sorry. But, c'mon—" Ace leans down to where Checkers is sitting in the ticket booth—which is not an insignificant feat, given both his considerable height and how deeply Checkers is slouching. "There's no customers around, no one who's part of 'the experience' or whatever—"
(Something itches at the back of Ace's mind, same way it always does when he thinks about the Celestial Spear, but he sets that thought aside for now.)
"—no one who's gonna hear if you break character for a second, yeah? So, just between us friends, can't you help me out here?"
Checkers blinks. He lifts a hand, crooks a finger, indicates for Ace to come closer.
Ace crouches down a little more.
Checkers motions again. Closer.
Ace does, getting near enough that Checkers is just about kissing his ear. Then, in a voice too soft for anyone else to hear, Checkers whispers, "Non."
"Goddammit—!"
—
For the most part, Hugh figures Club Vega isn't so bad. Anna is fine, as far as bosses go, though it's not as if they have much experience either way. (Or, maybe they do? They still don't know, and neither does Anna. She keeps talking about how it felt like things were better before, and Hugh think she's right, even if they haven't figured out yet what before was.) People come and go, winning points but mainly losing them, and even though Hugh wants to explain how unevenly the odds are stacked, they stay quiet. They'd tried at first, but Anna had taken them aside to explain how they weren't supposed to interfere with "the experience." That she'd been told the games were supposed to be a little unfair to keep people coming back, and if people wanted to waste their time spinning a big wheel or rolling some dice, what was the harm?
Hugh guessed she was right, but seeing all those looks of disappointment still hasn't gotten easier.
Gareville is pretty big—or at least, Hugh never feels like they really have a grasp on the extent of it. Even after a few weeks, the only person they've really gotten to know is Anna, and a little bit Aeris, who works at the games place next door (they doesn't count the Animatronic, who is maybe not sentient, but is definitely unknowable.) Whenever Hugh suggests visiting someplace else, though—the fancy bar in the middle of town, or the big circus tent, or the literal medieval castle —Anna reminds them that employees are discouraged from roaming too far for fear of disrupting "the experience" for any of the customers. (One night early on, she'd mentioned that the policy was pretty new, and that security in general had gotten much stricter around the time of Hugh's arrival, though she's still not sure why.)
It's a bummer, particularly considering all that Gareville has to offer, but Hugh lets that go, too.
But then there's a morning when Club Vega is pretty quiet, and Anna is slumped facedown on her desk—"Man, I got like, no sleep last night. Kept having all these weird dreams about ghosts, and maybe I was also in space? I don't know, but it messed with my head."—and when Hugh offers to run down to the coffee shop for a pick-me-up, she forgoes all the usual reminders about company policies and just says, "Orc-sized iced latte, and a straw," and goes back to resting her head on her arms.
Hugh's been wanting to visit Joe Beans for ages (along with everywhere else in Gareville) and they're delighted that the place doesn't disappoint, the interior decorated as if modeled after an old-fashioned train car.
(The thought has them hesitating for a moment, but Hugh isn't sure why.)
Up at the counter, there's a tall woman with a beautiful mass of blonde hair, smiling broadly at the customer who's next in line. Just as she finishes taking the order, the phone rings, and she calls over to someone else, "I'll get that. Can you watch the front?"
And then Hugh finds themselves looking at an impossibly familiar woman with gray hair and sharp eyes, and understands in an instant that something has gone terribly wrong.