Man in Black/Old William/Dissonance Theory

In the desert, Lawrence talks to the Man in Black about why he wants to find this maze. The Man says that this entire world is a story, and he’s read every page except the last one. He needs to see how it ends, and what it means.
They come across Armistice bathing in the river, and the Man notices the tattoo of her snake around her body. She is dismissive of him, and the Man wonders why they’ve never met. He wants to know the purpose of her tattoo, and agrees to join to her gang and help them in return for the story.
In camp, the Man in Black is approached by two guests who are with the posse. One approaches and begins to thank him, because his foundation saved his sister’s life. The Man stops him with a threat to kill him, and says “This is my fucking vacation.”
Lawrence tells him that the posse plans to get someone out of Los Diablos Prison, and want to steal a cannon from the Calvary to do it. The Man says he doesn’t have time for that, and offers to go in alone to get the man they want. All he wants is the story of Armistice’s tattoo. He asks her if she’s familiar with Arnold, and says you could say he was the original settler of the area. He says Arnold created a world where you can do anything, except die. No matter how real the world seemed, it was just a game. But then, he says, Arnold died in the park, but had one story left to tell, one with real stakes and violence. The Man in Black says he’s there to honor Arnold’s legacy, and that the tattoos are the next piece of the puzzle.
The Man and Lawrence get arrested, in a stagecoach headed to the prison. As Lawrence glowers, the Man in Black offers the deputy a cigar. Meanwhile, he tells Lawrence that Lawrence blames the Man in Black for taking away his choices, forcing him to come along, but that Lawrence has truly no choice that was ever his own in the park and was always a prisoner. The Man in Black says he’s there to set him free, and smiles.
At the prison, they lock up The Man in Black, and recognize Lawrence as having to been executed. In the jail cell, the Man in Black meets Hector Escaton, the one he’s there to rescue. Hector says they never met, and the Man in Black admits that’s true, that he was never interested in meeting before. The Man asks for Hector’s worldview, and Hector replies that the world will end badly and no one will be saved, and only the brave can understand it. The Man notes that they have more in common than he thought. The Man in Black stages a jailbreak, using explosives hidden in the cigars he brought, to break the jail cell door and kill the deputy who brought them in. They rescue Lawrence from the firing squad and head back to meet Armistice.
Armistice tells the story of a group of men who attacked her village when she was a child, and who gutted her mother. She painted herself in her mother’s blood to make them think she was dead. She has tracked down each of the men, filling in a part of the snake tattoo with their blood. Only one remains: Wyatt.
The Man and Lawrence ride off in search of Wyatt, with Lawrence attempting to talk him out of it. In the desert, they come across Teddy, tied up to a tree and bloodied. The Man decides to free Teddy and bring him along.
Category:Tabview Character Plot