Exciting announcement! My Mole website is fully operational! You can access the link at the top of my profile. (While there, you can also vote on the first poll on who you think the Mole is for Episode 1) At the moment, the site includes character bios, mission summaries, and a gallery where I'll be posting any potential picture clues. Speaking of which, the first one has been posted!
Without further ado, let's begin Part 4:
Episode 1 (Part 4)
A few hours after breakfast, the players were led to the southeastern sector of Flower Fields. Some of them noticed the transition of flora from the azaleas and daisies at the center of the region to more aquatic flowers such as lilies and cattails. Sure enough, they arrived at a broad lake with crystal blue water.
Parakarry: The environment before us looked absolutely picturesque. In fact, all of Flower Fields feels like a snapshot from a top-rated home-and-garden magazine. But knowing the game we're playing, it was easy to assume that our mission wouldn't be quite as peaceful.
"You know, if the water's this tranquil...why does it sound like I'm hearing a waterfall?" Ms. Mowz wondered as the players passed by banks and up a small ridge. Her question was quickly answered: at the base of the ridge laid a vast, gravel depression. The sound of rushing water was being produced from a large hose manned by the producers, rapidly filling the vat. Without warning the hose was shut off, and Blue turned to face the curious players.
"Wait, what's that floating in the middle?" Koover asked, pointing to the bobbing bag.
Blue grinned. "Oh that? Just 20000 coins." The players looked at him apprehensively. "And it could be yours for the taking should you be successful in your next mission. It's called 'Pull the Plug', and you can either snag 20000 coins or watch that money go...down the drain. Quite literally."
"And let me guess: it won't be as simple as swimming out to collect it," Dimentio reasoned.
"Of course not!" Blue asseverated. "But the explanation should be simple, as you've already delegated the roles you will have for this mission." He turned to Peach and Bandy Andy.
"You two. Being confident that you understand the aim of the game, your role will require exactly that." Reaching into his jacket pocket, the host retrieved two wooden slingshots. He pointed at the large tree behind them, from whose branches hung six colored targets. "Your job will be to knock down all six of these clay targets. Tied to each is an envelope that you may collect after hitting. However, there is a specific order in which you must shoot the targets: you must hit them in the order they appear in the electromagnetic spectrum."
"So, we shoot in rainbow order?" Peach clarified.
"Precisely. For instance, you would start by aiming for red and proceed from there. However, if you hit a target out of order, you may not retrieve the envelope until you have eliminated all targets prior in the order. When you have a bag, you will transport it to Mamar and Sushie at this blackboard. Whatever you do afterwards is up to you." The shooters nodded in understanding as the two mentioned ladies awaited their instructions from the host.
"Mamar and Sushie. Having stated that you felt like you hadn't a clue...well, let's just hope that's not the case." Mamar gulped.
Sushie: Clearly we didn't have a clue. From what it sounds like, Mamar and I got ourselves involved in the most critical and challenging part of the mission!
The host continued. "You see, inside each envelope is a riddle with three answers. Attached to each answer is a grid coordinate." Blue paused his explanation to lead the players a few more yards up the ridge.
"HOLY HUGENESS!" Bandy Andy blurted. He swiftly covered his mouth from his outburst. Before the players, a massive grove of fruit trees extended for a substantial distance. "But for reals, that's...huge."
"If 160000 meticulously planted trees falls under your definition of huge," Blue replied calculatedly.
Ms. Mowz: Johnny Appleseed must have hit the jackpot.
"Allow me to elaborate. The coordinates associated with an answer represent a specific tree in the 16-acre orchard in front of you. The coordinate will consist of two letters, the first referring to a horizontal section, the latter referring to a vertical. For instance, the tree at coordinate (A, T) would be located somewhere at the top right corner of the field. Each section is further divided into numerical rows and columns. Thus, a coordinate would look more like (A1, T10), which would represent the tree located at row 1, column 10 of the grid A-A."
Vinny frowned. "Dat seems awfully complicated, especially for just two people."
Blue slapped his forehead. "My apologies; I suppose I should clarify. Mamar and Sushie will be communicating their answers via walkie-talkie. The six of you who were not assigned a position...Goombella, Nastasia, Ms. Mowz, Koover, Parakarry, and you, Vinny...will be responsible for using the coordinates relayed to you to locate six digits, located in wicket baskets at the base of a correct tree. Thus, should the clue solvers not give a correct answer to a riddle, the coordinates would not lead to a basket. Oh, and since the scavengers are only being given one walkie-talkie, you would have to run back to the station to inform the clue-solvers that their answer was wrong."
Nastasia: This mission sounded like it would be a joyride for the Mole. So many complicated components offering so many opportunities. Sabotaging today would be a walk in the park.
"Hold up, good sir," Pennington interrupted. "I do believe you're forgetting two of us, no?"
The host smiled. "One final element. You and Dimentio, to whom time knows no enemy, should thus have no difficulties functioning as the clock-keepers for this mission. At the start of the mission, the plug at the bottom of the pool will be released, causing the water level to gradually drain out through the bottom. Currently, there is about thirty minutes of water filling the pool. Your job will be to add as much more time as possible to keep the pool throughout the mission, for when if at any point it runs dry, the 20000 coins will be swept away, resulting in instant loss."
Blue directed their focus to a spot on the opposite bank. "See that well over there? You can add time by filling the buckets you see with water from that pump to transport and dump in the pond. Should offer a bit of an endurance workout," he chuckled. Pennington did not seem amused.
Goombella reviewed the facts in her head. "So we have our shooters, our solvers, our timekeepers and our scavengers. But the question remains: how do we snatch the twenty grand?"
Having explained all of the roles, Blue concluded by pointing to a lever located beside the pool. Attached to it was a six-number combination lock. "Mamar and Sushie must enter the numbers retrieved by the scavengers. In order to prevent the money from sinking, you'll have to find what's missing in this game to unlock the lock and pull the lever, thus sealing the hole at the bottom of the lake. Make sense?" Blue received nods of affirmation from the group.
"Well then, if there are no further questions, without further ado, let's begin!" The twelve players began to prepare themselves as they awaited their opportunity to put money in the pot-sans one, that is.
Mission 2: Pull the Plug
"Aim of the Game": Bandy Andy, Peach
"Time Knows No Enemy": Dimentio, Pennington
"Without a Clue": Mamar, Sushie
Scavengers: Goombella, Nastasia, Ms. Mowz, Parakarry, Koover, Vinny
"Your mission begins...NOW!"
On Blue's cue, the plug at the bottom of the depression was released, and the water began gradually diffusing through the hole. Twenty thousand coins bobbed steadily at the surface, as the pool still contained a large amount of water before it would dry up. Refusing to waste precious seconds, Pennington and Dimentio ran to the well in an effort to add time for the remaining players.
"OOF!" Pennington wheezed as he made contact with the ground. "That...that smarts..."
Dimentio: It was absolutely pathetic. Hilarious, but pathetic. Ten seconds into the mission and it's already been made clear that Pennington was not the optimal choice for this position. Ideally, I would have been paired with someone strong like Vinny or swift like Bandy Andy, but instead 20000 coins hangs in the balance of a geezer's athleticism. Stupendous.
Dimentio groaned as he forcefully helped the Bumpty to his feet. "No more clumsiness. We don't have time for clumsiness." He grabbed a nearby bucket and swiftly filled it with water before sprinting back to the pool to dump it.
"Watch it! You're spilling half of the bucket when you swing it that violently," Pennington cautioned, walking over to he pond with his bucket at a much slower pace. "Take your time and I daresay you'll find yourself transporting more water once you arrive."
"Doesn't the objective 'time knows no enemy' mean anything to you?" Dimentio reminded, promptly refilling the bucket and passing up Pennington in the process. "Supposedly, our peers would have selected us because time's our friend, so let's be proactive and not make it our enemy."
Pennington huffed as he cautiously dumped a bucket into the sinking pool of water. "Even if that's so, just wait until you reach my age. You'll just about have a midlife crisis when you learn that time's certainly no crony."
"Whatever, less chatter, more matter," Dimentio barked poetically. Pennington couldn't help but chuckle at their frenetic situation. He filled another bucket, an action that would gather a lot of repetition throughout the duration of the mission.
Bandy Andy picked up the slingshot and observed it contemplatively. "This thing's a cheapo piece of garbage!" he whined as he picked up a pebble and speedily fired a shot to nowhere in particular. Namely, a shot that landed at the base of his feet.
"Don't rush it. The 'aim of the game' is to hit the targets, isn't it?" Peach advised, testing out her own slingshot. She pulled back on the drawstring, lined up her trajectory with the cyan target and fired.
Bandy Andy interjected. "You're forgetting that we have to shoot them down in spectral order! Don't be wasting rocks shooting for the blue targets when we need to hit the red one first."
Peach shook her head. "But there's something fishy about it though. Rainbows are composed of seven colors: ever heard of the anagram Roy G. Biv? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. So humor me this: why are we only shooting at six?" She lined up her next shot in the same direction as her first, but once again missed the target.
Bandy Andy: Peach was yammering about something to do with a guy named Roy and that it meant there was some hidden element to our part of the challenge just because the indigo was missing? I mean, what on earth is that all about?
"Uuuuuh, because there's only six scavengers and six digits?" Andy attempted to reason. "Look, it doesn't matter if the producers failed kindergarten or not. The first clue the ladies can solve is attached to the red target, so we should be directing our shots there rather than towards the blue." He grabbed a second pebble and slung it towards the clay target. A small portion of the plate broke as the pebble ricocheted to the ground, but not with the clue.
"You would think this would be easy," Peach laughed, missing the red target with her next shot. Bandy Andy shrugged.
"These pitiful slingshots make it a crapshoot though...ha, get it? Because they're crap, and we're shooting with them-"
SMASH!
"I got it!" Peach hollered as she unhesitatingly ran into the firing zone to retrieve the bag. "Mamar! Sushie! Get ready, I have your first clue!"
"Good job!" Mamar cheered as the princess handed off the red bag. She promptly began to untie the knot at the top to retrieve the clue inside.
"I hope the clues aren't too difficult to solve," Sushie noted apprehensively. "Puzzles and riddles have never really been my forte, you know." When she'd loosened the knot, Mamar reached into the bag and withdrew their first clue:
RED
Six flower pots are arranged in a row. The tulips are located ahead of the hydrangeas but behind the violets. The magnolias are two flowers ahead of the azaleas. The azaleas are located somewhere between the sunflowers and the violets. The hydrangeas are two flowers behind the sunflowers. Which flower is second from the right in this order?
A.) Sunflowers: (B10, C13)
B.) Hydrangeas: (H16, O6)
C.) Tulips: (I5, A1)
Sushie's face drained in color. "Suspicions confirmed...oh dear, how do you even start with one of these?"
Mamar grabbed a piece of chalk and proceeded to write the numbers 1-6 on the blackboard, as well as the names of all six flowers. "Tulips, hydrangeas, violets, magnolias, azaleas, sunflowers. We're focusing on the one that's second from the right, or fourth from the left, correct?"
"I'm following you...so the violets are ahead of both the tulips and the hy-wait, we'd need the fifth from the left, not the fourth," Sushie corrected. The Star Spirit looked up at the board in confusion before realizing her mistake.
"Oh, right! My bad," Mamar replied sheepishly. "But as you were saying, violets are ahead of both tulips and hydrangeas. However, we can rule out hydrangeas because they're two ahead of sunflowers, and the flower we're looking for only has one other flower behind it." She proceeded to cross of choice B from the list, but Sushie grabbed her arm in alarm.
"Whoa! You're misreading it! It says that the hydrangeas are two flowers behind sunflowers, so we can't eliminate it just yet."
Sushie: Mamar's approach was to solve the puzzles rapidly because she feared that the scavengers would have difficulty pinpointing the baskets and that Pennington and Dimentio would need all the time they could get to prevent the pool from draining. However, in doing so she would make careless mistakes that she might not have made had she slowed down to interpret the clues properly.
Mamar sighed in frustration as she reread the clue. "Well, the opposite of what I said still holds water. The answer isn't sunflowers."
"Be that as it may, we still need to determine which one it is out of the last two," Sushie reiterated. She glanced over the other two statements they had been provided, then at the markings Mamar had already written on the board: V-T-H, S_H
"Magnolias two ahead of azaleas, which are between sunflowers and violets," Mamar affirmed, writing M_A and S-A-V beside her other scribbles. "Now we just need to combine these in accordance with the outline and we'll have our answer."
Sushie picked up her own piece of chalk. "So...magnolias look like they'd be first...and if that's the case, the sunflowers would have to come after...which would have to be followed by the azaleas...but wait, hydrangeas would have to be next, but they have to be ahead of the violets and tulips."
Mamar frowned. "What if we put them before the mag-no, that wouldn't work, because the azaleas have to be between sunflowers and violets...aha!" Sushie perked up as Mamar promptly erased the S-A-V mark and replaced it with V-A-S. "Azaleas are between sunflowers and violets, but that doesn't mean the sunflowers come first."
Sushie bit her lip in contemplation. "Okay...magnolias first, followed by violets, then azaleas...then sunflowers-"
"Tulips!" Mamar exclaimed. "It all fits, tulips go after the sunflowers and before the hydrangeas. And it puts the tulips behind the violets and ahead of the hydrangeas as according with the first statement. The answer is C." She ran over to the walkie-talkie and punched the red communicative button, prepared to relay the coordinates to the awaiting scavengers.
Away from the events surrounding the pool, the six scavengers stood anxiously by a picnic table near the gate of the orchard. The gate opened at the bottom left corner, near the zone T-A. Unable to the participate in the challenge until they received coordinates, they could only wait-a grueling occupation when time was of the essence.
Vinny couldn't prevent himself from pacing restively. "Shouldn't we have received da first clue by now?" he asked concernedly.
As if on cue, the walkie-talkie beeped, causing Goombella to jump from her seat. "This is Mamar! Does anybody copy?"
Parakarry dived for the device. "Mamar, this is Parakarry! We can read you loud and clear, over!"
"Okay, we have the first set of coordinates for you! You're looking for I5, A1. Repeat, I as in ivy, 5, A as in apple, 1."
"I5, A1. I5, A1. Got it!" He repeated the digits to himself a few times before setting the walkie-talkie back down. "Okay, I'm heading out!"
"Wait," Koover interjected before the Paratroopa had run off too far. "Somebody should go with you. It'll be easier with two pairs of eyes to find the basket among all of those trees."
"Nice to know I'm trusted," Parakarry retorted, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, you'll get over it. He's right, you know," Nastasia inputted. "Not to mention it gives accountability in case the Mole decides to strike somehow."
Ms. Mowz stood up. "I'll go with you. No objections? Marvelous. Let's head out, scout!" She proceeded to reach for the walkie-talkie until she recalled the rule that the device had to stay at the picnic table. Smirking to herself, she grabbed Parakarry's unsuspecting hand and dragged him off into the orchard.
Goombella laughed. "That was like a scene out of some sappy chick flick." Nastasia rolled her eyes as the scavengers watched their companions head off.
Peach: After successfully hitting the first target, I was feeling pretty confident with myself. But that was deceiving, because our luck began to run out after that.
Bandy Andy sighed as another pebble landed at the base of the orange target. "This one's farther away than the red one, which is making it harder to hit."
"You still need to fulfill your quota," Peach teased as she pulled back on her slingshot. Her humor soon returned to chagrin as she once again missed the plate.
"I'm telling you, this is nothing more than a flimsy band hitched to a tree branch," Andy defended. "If we'd been given something a bit more sophisticated, I guarantee I'd have all the targets shot down by now."
"Whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better," Peach responded. "If only it could make it shoot better..."
The fighter set down his slingshot to survey the five targets in front of them. "What if we changed up our strategy a bit? Maybe we shouldn't focus so much on aiming for the one we can't hit and go for whatever we can. Sure, we can't hand over the clues until we get the orange first, but at least we won't be wasting all of our time on the one we can't hit."
Peach frowned, misfiring once again. "Sounds like what I was doing earlier. I mean, there's something suspicious about six targets when there's seven colors in a rainbow." Her partner just shook his head in amusement.
"You're way over-thinking this," he simpered, firing off another shot.
Smash!
The fighter fist-pumped. "Woooo! Got one...er, the yellow one..."
With the water continuing to effuse from the bottom of the pool, Dimentio and Pennington continued to break a sweat as they ventured to give their teammates additional time. After pouring another load into the pool, Pennington dropped his bucket to catch his breath.
"Huff...if I'm being brutally honest...I'm not sure time's on my side," he wheezed. His partner didn't seem pleased by this break in action.
"How much time do you think we have?" Dimentio spat, dumping the water from his bucket and promptly returning to collect more from the well.
"Easy lightning, not all of us are as energetic as a child as you might be," Pennington maintained as he resumed his labor. Upon standing up, Dimentio tossed water towards the pool, partially spraying the detective in the process.
"What in blazes was that for?" Pennington roared, wiping his eyes from the surprise blast.
"Hey, just figured you needed a little pick-me-up is all," Dimentio excused. "And speaking of which, lets pick up the pace. Break time's over, we're on a deadline."
Pennington growled as he rushed backed to the well. "You enjoyed that, didn't you." Dimentio flashed a toothy grin.
Back in the orchard, Ms. Mowz and Parakarry began their search for the first of the numbers necessary to unlock the lever to the pool. "We should head to the top first," Ms. Mowz advised, "because the A-section will be easy to point out since it's the uppermost. After that, we can narrow down where the I-section is."
"We should run, because we're already at the bottom," Parakarry voiced, already speeding his steps. As they advanced up the path, a dangling plum fell from an overhead branch, conveniently landing on the unsuspected Paratroopa. "OW! Seriously, how does that even happen?" Ms. Mowz laughed unashamedly at his misfortune.
Ms. Mowz: He's absolutely adorable. He tries so hard and means to do well, but disaster seems to tailgate him like a hungry lapdog around every corner. It's amusing, but you can't help but empathize with him.
"Gravity can be a real head-knocker, I suppose," an amused Ms. Mowz chuckled. Nothing could conceal the blush that began to form on Parakarry's cheeks.
"Never mind. You're keeping track of the signs we're passing by, right?" Parakarry asked. He pointed as they ran down the path between two sectors of trees. As they passed the corner of one on their right, the players observed two signs: the one facing north was labeled A, and the one facing east read J.
Bree perked up. "I9, A1. The vertical column is easy because it's the one we're following on the far left. And the horizontal I-section should be just up ahead." The two ran further before observing the sign which designated the section of trees they were looking for.
"Okay, now that we're here," Parakarry began, resting for a moment to observe the orchard in front of him, "we just need to find the basket. And it should be at the tree in the ninth row, first column, correct?"
Ms. Mowz smiled. "Should be easy to find, since it'll be one of the outermost." She dashed ahead, scanning the rows of trees on her right. A few seconds later, she disappeared from Parakarry's sight save her heart-shaped tail. When she popped back out, she possessed a red coin with the number 9.
"Didn't even need to count," she teased, tossing the coin in the paratroopa's direction. He fumbled to catch it, watching it fall to the leafy ground instead.
Parakarry: We found the first digit in mere minutes, and I was feeling confidant. There was no chance of that 20000 coins sinking, not in my mind at least. But at the same time, I don't have the Mole's mind.
Smash!
"Well...that was almost pointless," Bandy Andy sighed, watching the purple bag his pebble had contacted fall to the ground.
"Not entirely. We're going to need it at some point," Peach encouraged from his left. She glanced behind her at the two clue solvers, impatiently waiting for their next enigma.
"We need to redirect our focus to the orange target," she noted with a new sense of determination. "What are we doing wrong?"
Bandy Andy squinted at the object that had become his menace. Comparatively, the orange plate was indeed higher and a greater distance away from them than the red one had been, but certainly within firing range from the player's position. "How am I supposed to know? I'm no David, even if this is a Goliath."
"Try shooting another shot," Peach suggested, setting down her slingshot. "I'll try to pay attention to where your shot launches."
"Suit yourself." Andy aimed at the target and released the drawstring. The rock soared upwards, but the trajectory faded a few inches before the target, landing beneath it.
"You need to aim higher. Your stone's losing momentum before it even draws close," the politician observed.
The fighter raised an eyebrow. "And how did you become an expert sharpshooter within the past-"
Smash!
Peach made no comment as she smugly marched to retrieve both the orange and yellow bags, leaving Bandy Andy with the metaphoric task of picking his jaw back up from the ground.
"Well finally!" Sushie teased, retrieving the bags from the princess and rushing back to the blackboard. Mamar hastily reached for the orange bag to untie it. Sushie shook her head. "Relax, we can't rush this!"
"We can't squander either, we're losing time as it is already," she warned, pulling out the slip with the clue and reading it to her partner.
ORANGE
Solve the following equation: 1*2+3*4+5*6+7*8+9*0=?
A.) 0-50: (A15, P5)
B.) 51-100: (M4, M18)
C.) Greater than 100: (S12, D9)
Sushie seemed to be relieved. "This seems much easier than the first one. Just basic grade-school algebra!"
Her partner didn't seem nearly as confident. "That doesn't mean we'll be right, though. And we can't afford to be wrong."
"But don't you see? The answer's obvious!" Realizing that Mamar did not understand what she was implying, Sushie elaborated. "Just look at it! The numbers at the front are meant to appear intimidating, but in the end you just multiply everything by zero. So the answer's A. Simple as that." She began to reach for the walkie-talkie, but Mamar stopped her.
"No, it isn't. Order of operations ring any bells?" Sushie pondered over this before the realization hit her.
Mamar: You want to believe Sushie because of her heartwarming demeanor and motherly persona, but you can't eradicate the possibility that it's meant to be misleading. She almost got away with a wrong answer, and what's scary is that I almost let her.
"Forgive me, it's been a while since my education," Sushie declared with a reminiscent sigh. "It should still be straightforward though. One times two is two, plus three is five, times four is twenty, plus five is-"
"Wrong," Mamar interjected politely. "Multiplication comes first, then addition." She picked up the nearby chalk and began solving the equation on the board. "In that case, we're left 2+12+30+56+0. And now we add them all up to get..."
"One hundred," Sushie deduced. The Cheep Cheep smiled innocently at the Star Spirit. "Now may I relay the coordinates? The (M4, M18) coordinates, that is?" While she began to contact the scavengers over the walkie-talkie, Mamar untied the yellow bag and began observing it's contents:
YELLOW
Which item in this list is not like the others? GATE TAG/GOOD DOG/LACED DECAL/LONELY TYLENOL/MEGA GEM
A.) Good Dog: (E4, L19)
B.) Laced Decal: (B8, Q11)
C.) Mega Gem: (J12, N2)
"What in the world?" Mamar expressed, visibly perplexed by the riddle she had just read. Sushie rejoined her shortly after. By the look on her face, she was equally confused.
"Um...anything unusual stick out to you?" Sushie suggested, unsure of how to approach the enigma.
Mamar transcribed all five terms onto the blackboard. "Lonely Tylenol sticks out like a sore thumb because of it's length and because I fail to see how the adjective could actually describe a painkiller, but it obviously isn't the answer."
"Well, lonely could mean that it's the only one of its kind," Sushie rationalized. "But I don't think it hast to do with adjectives, because all of them make sense. Are any of them lacking a certain letter?"
"Hmm...Laced Decal doesn't have a G? But then again, neither does Lonely Tylenol..." Mamar trailed, struggling to make sense of the clue.
"Maybe it still has to do with the letters, but the number of letters?" Sushie suggested. She proceeded to count the number of letters in each phrase. "Following that logic, Laced Decal raises some interest. The other phrases each consist of an odd number of letters, whereas Laced Decal is composed of an even number: ten."
Mamar furrowed her forehead. "That seems like an awfully vague way to base it, though...but following that train of thought, all the others consist of a noun that's an odd number of letters and an adjective that's an even. Laced Decal is the only one to have an odd number for both."
"Do we want to go with it then?" Sushie asked, raising her fins in defeat. "I'm at a lack for any other explanation."
Mamar headed for the walkie-talkie. "We shouldn't waste more time than necessary. We have no better conclusion, so we might as well go with it. And if it's right, it's better that we give them the coordinates to search for it sooner than delay them further just to gain the same conjecture." With that said, Sushie watched as the red light on the communicator lit up as Mamar prepared to transmit their response for the third digit.
Taking a moment to stretch her limbs, Nastasia stood up from the picnic table. She groaned as her gaze turned to the walkie-talkie. "Kay, they're taking way too long on those puzzles. Seriously, what's the deal?"
Goombella sighed. "You can't just toss the blame around until there's legitimate reason to do so. We're barely into this mission after all; give them the benefit of the doubt."
"Well, if one of them's the Mole, yeah, there's plenty of blame to be given." The secretary smirked to herself, turning away her face. "I figured someone who professes their intelligence as much as you would know that basic fact."
The archaeology graduate "I'm sorry, was that addressed at me, community college?" Fortunately for the group dynamic, the walkie-talkie beeped, capturing the attention of the players.
"You twos, quit it," Vinny said abruptly, handing the walkie-talkie to Koover.
"Hello, this is Sushie! I have the next set of coordinates! M4, M18! Got it?"
"M4, M18?" Koover confirmed.
"That's affirmative! All right, good luck! We have the next puzzle ready, so we should have it for you in just a few." With that, the device clicked off.
Vinny spoke up first. "I'll take dis one. It sounds like it's in da very middle. Who wants ta go with me?"
Koover volunteered. "Let's head out," he said, jogging off with the bodyguard. Goombella waved them off, then turned around to the realization of who remained with her.
Goombella: I would have protested, but that's so not my style. Still...ug.
Without a word, both players sat back down at the picnic table, watching the dust created by Koover and Vinny fade from the trail leading into the orchard. After two or so minutes of awkward tension, the walkie-talkie lit up once more, signalling their attention.
"It's Mamar. The third coordinate is B8, Q11. That's B as in bean, 8, Q as in queen, 11."
"Got it. Thanks Mamar!" Goombella responded.
"Just a note, we're not as confident about this answer, so if you don't find the number right away, don't waste too much time searching for it."
"Why don't you take the time to make sure then?" Nastasia snapped. Upon receiving a glare from Goombella, the secretary rephrased her reply. "Whatever. Duly noted. Over and out." After setting down the walkie-talkie, she began heading into the orchard, not turning to face Goombella. "Let's make this snappy then. You coming with?"
Twelve minutes had elapsed since the plug had been pulled. The water level of the pool had dropped accordingly, which also created a miniature vortex in the center. The timekeepers watched in helpless concern as their money bag floated precariously in the center, subjected to the whirling current around it.
This picture of unease encouraged Pennington fill his bucket faster. "You don't suppose our money could be flushed away even with water, do you? It worries me to watch it just dance around that whirlpool."
Dimentio burst into laughter as he poured more water into the vat. "At what rhythm? Actively like a quickstep, or smoothly like a rumba? Enough aimless chatter, we have a task to do, don't we?" Pennington could have sworn to have heard him hiss as he returned without delay to the well.
Pennington: The lad's dangerous. He's like a Rubik's cube: he has so many different sides to him, yet one can never quite solve him. At one moment, he'll be mysteriously poetic, another extensively rude, and yet another time playfully amused. You'd figure one might appreciate some consistency.
"No level of impertinence on your part will make our task any less monotonous," Pennington lectured, collecting more water from the well. "Speaking of which, it feels like there ought to be an easier method to this madness."
"What, filling buckets with water and transporting them for deposit ten yards away with a minimal sense of effectiveness doesn't satisfy you?" Dimentio replied sarcastically. "But however aimless our contributions are, we can't desist."
Pennington frowned. "Have you ever taken an matter seriously?"
"Well, I'm not the one who's slowed down in pouring water, am I?" Pennington gave Dimentio a blank stare equivalent to the jester's face. Accepting that their assignment really was as straightforward as what they had been doing, Pennington reluctantly resumed what felt like a tedious occupation.
Unbeknownst to them, a two-handle pump hose, concealed by a rose bush thirty meters to their right, remained untainted by player fingerprints.
Vinny rested a moment under the shade of a pear tree to gather his breath. "It'll just be a second," he promised an impatient Koover.
"Not to be a nag, but we're so close to where we need to be," Koover urged, pointing to a nearby East-West sign labeled O and a North-South sign labeled M. "It's just a few more sections above us. And once we get there, there's still, what, over a hundred different trees to search through?"
"Four hundred," Vinny clarified, immediately standing upright in realization of the further difficulty of their task. "Dough luckily for us da coordinates specify just one in particular."
"But if the coordinates we were given aren't correct, we could just be wasting our time," Koover warned. He continued running up the path, looking at the trees which loomed overhead. "You know," he said between breaths, "these trees remind me a lot of the ones that grow in my village."
"You live in a fruit orchard?" Vinny asked, huffing in the process.
"Nah, but my neighbor grows the best apricots you've ever tasted in her front yard," Koover reminisced, licking his lips in nostalgia. "You're from Rogueport, right? What's it like there?"
"Oh...chaotic," Vinny stated roughly. The gang-filled streets of his hometown didn't sound nearly as appetizing as what Koover had described.
"Well either way, I look forward to going there soon," Koover said, grinning reassuringly at the bodyguard. Suddenly he paused to read a sign they were running past: J. "Uh oh...I think we may have passed it..."
Vinny: Koover managed to engage me of all people in conversation, which distracted us from noticing da grid of trees we were supposed ta be looking for. Dat was a bit suspicious, not only because it wasted some time, but if he's da Mole, dat's a powerful skill to have up his belt.
The bodyguard didn't say a word, perhaps due to lack of breath, as he and Koover made a u-turn down the path. "Dere," Vinny panted, pointing at the double-M intersection they were looking for. "M4, M18...fourth row...eighteenth column..."
The co-feminine scavenger pair avoided talking to each other as they made their way east through the orchard. Shortly after starting, Nastasia noticed the Q sign for the vertical grove of trees their coordinates indicated. "Yeah, you realize you're walking right past where we need to go, right?" she said to the Rogueport native in front of her.
Without losing cadence, Goombella promptly turned ninety degrees to her left. "I'm sorry, I know how much you like to point things out, so I figured I'd let you, I dunno, point it out," Goombella replied over her shoulder.
"Look, we have a digit to find, so let's just find it, mkay?" Nastasia didn't hesitate to send a cold smile to the back of Goombella's forehead.
The two continued their jog in silence. A minute later, they neared the northern edge of the orchard, stopping when they came across the B sign. Goombella made sure to stop in front of it this time. "Do you recall what the numbers were?" she asked with evident reluctance.
Nastasia smiled at the opportunity to launch a small attack. "Whoa, the valedictorian can't remember? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to point that out." Goombella struggled to hold composure. "B11, Q8."
"Um, no? I'm pretty sure you have the numbers flipped..."
Nastasia raised an eyebrow. "Oh really now? Well, I'll check mine and you can check yours, and we'll see who's the brighter bulb."
"I would resent that, but I know I'm right," the Goomba argued. "But no way am I letting you check yours alone. What's to prevent you from, say, missing it because you dropped your glasses?"
"Yeah, but if you're so smug that your answer's right, then there won't be anything for me to miss," Nastasia retorted. Both females rolled their eyes as they began counting rows and columns.
Two targets continued to taunt the shooters as they fired in unison, both shots missing. "Let's try this again," said a frustrated Peach, handing a pebble to her partner and keeping one for herself. "On my count...ready...aim...FIRE!" Bandy Andy watched helplessly as, once again, neither of their shots made contact.
"What's that, fifty missed?" Andy moaned as he diligently reached for another pebble.
Bandy Andy: I comfort myself by believing that none of the other players could have done any better than myself or the princess, but it really bruises your self-esteem to have that much trouble with, like, a child's activity. I wasn't even thinking that some of our failure might have been the Mole's bidding.
"I wonder if it'd be easier to just throw them ourselves," Peach suggested. On impulse, she drew her arm back and tossed the handful of rocks in her hand. To their surprise, one of them nicked the green disc.
"Whoa, that actually looked closer," Bandy Andy observed. "But will we actually have enough power to break it? And are we even allowed to bypass the slingshots?"
Peach shrugged, digging her hand into the bowl to collect more pebbles. "I'll be up front that I don't possess the answer. However, the more we use these tools, even though they're acting more like tools, it just hinders our progress further."
The Glitzville resident still seemed hesitant to go along with Peach's idea. "I don't recall Blue specifically saying that we had to use the slingshots, but he handed them to us like they were the intentional technique. And I don't want us getting penalized, yo?"
Peach: I can't tell if Bandy Andy was purposely trying to steer us into using the slingshots which, despite successfully hitting some targets, were unpredictable and difficult to control. We wasted a lot of valuable time just trying to operate them properly.
"Well, if the money sinks, it's a little pointless, wouldn't you agree?" Peach reasoned. "Here, you probably have a stronger arm than I do, why don't you try?" She playfully tossed the stash of pebbles in her hand at her unsuspecting teammate.
"Hey, I didn't realize royalty was capable of assault!" Bandy Andy teased. Though skeptical, the fighter filled his hand with pebbles and aimed at the target.
Smash!
"Well, what do you know?" Peach laughed, running to deliver the next clue. One bag remained attached to a target, while another lay waiting on the ground.
Mamar bit her lip nervously as she stared at walkie-talkie, unresponsive to communication by the scavengers. "We're not going to make it," she said in insouciant pessimism. "The money bag's probably dangerously near sinking by now..."
"Hey now, Blue said that the pool contained at least thirty minutes of water," Sushie encouraged. "Besides, I'm pretty sure it's only been about twenty minutes. Not to mention, Pennington and Dimentio are over there adding more time." She pointed her fin at the silhouettes moving at the bank opposite the one they were situated at.
"Special delivery!" The clue hunters turned around, happy to receive their fourth riddle. Mamar made no delay as she tore into the green bag:
GREEN
Blue picks irises and daisies for his grandmother. One basket can hold either 8 irises or 10 daisies. At the end of the day, Blue has picked 96 flowers which fit perfectly into all of his baskets. If Blue picked more irises than daisies, how many baskets does Blue have altogether?
A.) 10: (R7, R8)
B.) 11: (T4, G15)
C.) 12: (K20, S13)
"Great, another math problem," Mamar sighed, grabbing a piece of chalk to begin solving the equation presented to them.
"Like I said previously, not my forte," Sushie apprised. "But let's not count our chickens before they hatch. Let's count...flowers!" Her partner chuckled lightly, helping to ease some of their nerves as they dived in to the puzzle.
After staring at the problem for a few more seconds, Mamar's face lit up in epiphany. "This shouldn't be taxing," she explained with a new-found enthusiasm. "Granted, it's a guess-and-check, but the numbers we're working with are very small. And we know that there are more irises than daisies, so we just have to plug in some numbers and we should get our answer!"
Sushie nodded, following along with what the Star Spirit was conveying. "Okay then...let's say that Blue gathered five baskets of daisies for his darling little grandmother. Ha, knew he had a soft side!"
"In that case, there would be fifty daisies," Mamar deduced, turning her words into information on the blackboard. "And ninety-six minus fifty is...forty-six. But a basket can hold eight irises, and forty-six isn't divisible by eight, so that's a false path." She crossed off five from the list and quickly moved on to a different number. "Six baskets of daisies would be sixty daisies. Ninety-six minus sixty is thirty-six..."
"Does eight go into thirty-six?" Sushie asked while attempting to do the division in her head. "Never mind, it isn't. So that's not it."
"Let's go down then," Mamar suggested. "Four baskets of daisies. Four times ten is forty. Ninety-six minus forty is fifty-six-"
"And eight goes into fifty-six!" Sushie exclaimed. "So that would make...seven baskets of irises?"
Mamar cheered as she circled the answer. "Seven plus four makes eleven! So B's the answer!" Feeling more confident this answer than the previous, she rushed to walkie-talkie and pushed down on the receiver. "Scavengers, it's Mamar, are you ready to receive?" She waited a few moments, but nobody picked up on the other end.
"I don't know much about technology, but are you on the right channel?" Sushie asked, looking at the device in Mamar's hands concernedly. The Star Spirit checked, but nothing seemed out of place.
Mamar: I pressed the button multiple times trying to make contact with the scavengers, but nothing was working. Was it malfunctioning? Was it simple error? Was it the Mole?
Far away from the pair, resting idly on a picnic table, a walkie-talkie transmitting Mamar's voice sounded. But her voice landed on deaf ears. Or rather, it didn't land on any ears at all.
Parakarry and Ms. Mowz both let out a sigh of relief as they drew closer to the picnic table. The paratroopa proudly waved the red medallion over his head, but noticed that nobody was watching. "Good, it looks like they've solved more clues while we're gone; I don't see anybody, so they must be out searching."
"Well, Mr. Proudypants, don't postpone your victory speech any further," Ms. Mowz coaxed, pointing to the walkie-talkie. "The quicker they enter that digit, the better!"
Parakarry immediately snatched the device and pressed the transmission button. "Hey hey hey, this is your friendly mail call! We have the first digit and we're ready to relay, over!"
To his alarm, the voice on the opposite end was not as welcoming. "Where have you been? I've been calling for the past minute now!"
The blood quickly rushed from Parakarry's face. "Oh, um, Ms. Mowz and I just got here. But the first clue you gave us is correct! The first number you guys need is a nine. Copy?"
Ms. Mowz put her hands on her hip as she listened to the conversation. "Okay, Sushie is putting that number in now. But we have another set of coordinates for you to find, so pay attention: T4, G15. That's T as in tie, 4, G as in guy, 15. Got it?"
"I think we've got it!" Parakarry responded, turning to Ms. Mowz to confirm that she understood the coordinates as well. "All right, keep up the good work, and don't let our money sink!" The walkie-talkie shut off without a reply.
The badge shop owner recalculated the orchard outline in her head. "I think I can picture where it's located, dearie. If you don't mind, I'll take this one." She began to head off, but Parakarry followed her right out the gate.
"Whoa, where do you think you're going without me?" Parakarry protested, quickly catching up to her gait.
Ms. Mowz: I don't know if he's just a latchkey kind of kid, but especially after we'd developed an understanding for the layout, I logically figured that one of us would remain in case Mamar or Sushie were to transmit another clue. Granted, I trusted myself more, so I wasn't about to negotiate staying behind. And I'm not one to disappoint a fanboy wanting a ride-along.
"Hopefully our fellow scavenger friends found their digits with the same haste that we did and will be returning soon," Bree said. She craned her neck to look at the picnic table, then resumed a jogging pace as she and Parakarry ventured for their second clue.
"One...two...three...four!" Vinny counted, Koover following closely behind. After counting out rows, the two players ran into the grove to pinpoint the specific column they were looking for.
"M4, M18...so it'll be third from the end, right?" Koover justified. "That should save us from having to count all eighteen."
Neither Vinny nor Koover wasted any time arriving at the tree they had designated to be theirs. However, to their dismay, the item crucial to their mission was nowhere to be seen. "Well crud," Vinny stated with a shake of the head. "Guess da coordinates we were given were wrong. Better head back, then."
"Hold up, we might just have the wrong tree," Koover pondered, preventing Vinny from running back just yet.
"But we know we're in da fourth row, and the column is third from da end, and dis is a twenty by twenty section, so where's da error den?" Vinny wondered, dumbfounded as to where they could have made a mistake. His partner wasn't convinced, however, as he began to scan down each row of trees.
Suddenly, the realization hit him. "Vinny...the top row would be the first, as would the column on the left, correct?" The bodyguard nodded in cautious concurrence. "And that'd be, from our perspective, facing north, correct?"
"Correct...oh," Vinny trailed, registering their mistake.
"Since we accidentally passed the double-M section, we were looking at it facing south," Koover explained, already leading the way back to the bottom of their grove. "And since we didn't readjust ourselves to be looking at it from the right angle, what we considered to be M4, M18 would actually have been M17, M3."
Koover: I'll admit, it was by attention deficit that caused us to go past our section of trees. Vinny, however, was adamant about leading us to the tree, maybe because he didn't trust me to do so. As such, not only did we end up at the wrong tree, but Vinny tried to lead us away after that. If we had gone back to the picnic table there's no question we would have lost tons of time, because Mamar and Sushie would have assumed that our set of coordinates was wrong, only for us to go hunting for two pairs that legitimately were wrong.
The players corrected their error and positioned themselves back at the bottom of their grove. "Let's try dis again," Vinny mumbled as he led the way down what they felt convinced was the fourth row. Fortunately, seated in a basket at the base of the eighteenth tree, an orange medallion with the number 14 awaiting them.
"All right!" Koover cheered, grabbing the coin. "Now let's hustle out of here. We have a lot of time to make up."
Elsewhere in the orchard, two females reluctantly accompanied each other as they searched for their basket, each convinced that the coordinates in their heads were the correct ones. Goombella decided to humor Nastasia by going with her choice first. "Even if you are wrong," Goombella mumbled, watching as Nastasia led them to the tree which, in her mind, would hold their yellow coin.
"Yeah, at some point in your life, you're gonna need to learn to accept that you might actually be wrong, sister," Nastasia scoffed. "I understand that might be a hard feat for you, but it's true."
"And I certainly hope you aren't the professor on that class of humility," Goombella jeered. "So, you say it's B11, Q8?"
"I don't say, I know," Nastasia stated confidently. After counting out eleven rows, the secretary strutted all the way to the eighth tree. Her sanguine face quickly changed when it became apparent that there was no basket to be seen.
"Looks like we'll be classmates," the voice over her shoulder derided.
Goombella: As I figured, Nastasia was mistaken, but we just had to verify that for ourselves. Suspicious? Maybe. Ridiculous? Definitely.
Nastasia regained her stern focus. "Fine. Whatever. Let's just hurry up, yours should still be close to here."
Goombella beamed. "I'll lead. 'B as in bean, 8, Q as in queen, 11.'" Fortunately, these coordinates were only three trees south and three east from where they currently stood. The archaeology graduate's confidence ran dry when she realized that, as with before, no medallion awaited them.
Nastasia: If my coordinates were wrong, I took slight comfort in knowing that she too was wrong. Which sadly meant that all that time searching the orchard with her had been a complete waste. So actually, the real suspicion lies on the two players whose faulty information led us on that wild goose chase: Sushie and Mamar.
"See you in class. Looks like we've been schooled," Nastasia mumbled under her breath. Goombella rolled her eyes in frustration as they both ran back to seek error-free coordinates. Time was of the essence.
The timekeepers were growing concerned. Their position offered them a frightening view of the slowly depleting water level, which had visibly decreased since they'd started the mission. Twenty minutes had passed, meaning that aside from the water which Pennington and Dimentio had added to the pool, only a third of the water present at the start remained.
Pennington passed one of the buckets to Dimentio. Neither of them exchanged words: their attention was centered specifically on augmenting as much time to their ticking clock as possible.
This monotonous routine continued until Pennington abrasively dropped his bucket. "Look, this may come across as uncouth," he began, "but watching this excessive amount of water flow...well...it makes me have to...well..."
Dimentio smacked his forehead with a bucket. "You had better be kidding. You're quite the jokester. You can't seriously have to go during the mission?!"
"It will only be a moment!" Pennington pleaded, running off to conceal himself behind a rose bush thirty yards away. When he drew closer, his eyes weren't drawn to the rose bush, but to the immaculate device situated behind it.
Pennington: Just as I had suspected, there was a much more effective process intended for the clock workers to utilize. The bucket system was hardly effectual at all, but I firmly recollect Dimentio trying to persuade me to not bother searching for an alternate way. It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are the most important, and that discreet sabotage caused us to lose a considerable amount of time.
"Dimentio!" Pennington called out, forgetting about his bodily needs as he ran back to his partner. "There's a pump over there with a hose leading to the pool. I think we should give it a trial run, no?"
"You really are full of it," Dimentio accused, thrusting the bucket dropped earlier back into his arms. "We have buckets and a well. That's all. Accept it."
"Just! Look!" He directed Dimentio's gaze to the rose bush, pointing specifically at the contraption that was behind it. Dimentio's critical face relaxed upon discovering that Pennington was telling the truth. "Well? Are we going to attempt it or what?"
Parakarry, following his earlier encounter with disaster, eyed the tree branches above him warily. Ms. Mowz took notice of this, which sent her into another fit of laughter. "I see fruits make you paranoid!" she snickered.
"Oh definitely. I bet if I watched Wizard of Oz, I'd display symptoms of post-traumatic stress," he replied lightheartedly, able to laugh at his situation.
"Well, hopefully we can outrun the apple-throwers and find our next digit quickly," Bree reassured. She took the moment to grab one from a low-hanging limb and pretended to throw it in his direction before biting into the fruit. "Mmm hmm hmm, juicy!"
"You are one mysterious woman, you know that?" Parakarry mused, shaking his head as he ran onward. Then he paused. "Um...where do we need to go again?"
"Have you forgotten? It's..." Ms. Mowz's voice trailed as she tried to remember.
Parakarry's eyes widened. "You forgot?"
"Dearie, I don't see you jumping to fill me in on the answer either," she protested, shutting her eyes in concentration.
Parakarry: Bree's a sly player. I suspect that she might be the Mole, which is why I wanted to see how she'd act by letting her take the lead. And what do you know? Sabotage.
"Um...I remember G15 ad T4...but I don't remember which one was latitudinal and which one was...longitudinal," Parakarry recalled. He sighed, realizing that those left two potential locations for their medallion.
"Fifty-fifty possibility, I suppose," Ms. Mowz resolved. Feeling guilty for forgetting, she allowed Parakarry to make the executive decision on which sector they would search first.
Only one target remained intact. Big, bad, and blue. At this point, Peach and Bandy Andy had forgone their slingshots and were now just throwing pebbles desperately. The needed only one to make contact to give Mamar and Sushie the final two riddles.
Peach watched one of the pebbles she'd hurled scrape the target without shattering it. "Great, another near hit. Maybe I should try using the slingshot again?"
"Your decision," Bandy Andy announced. "Ug, I just want to be done with this mission already.
Smash!
Both players were still for a moment in disbelief as they watched Bandy Andy's successful shot. Peach smiled. "Guess that decision was made easy!" She ran to retrieve both the blue and purple bags, happy to have completed their assignment. After delivering both bags to the clue solvers, Peach returned to a Bandit, sprawled out over the grass in exhaustion.
"So...now what do we do?" she asked, collapsing on the comfortable flowerbed beneath her. Bandy Andy shrugged his shoulders, staring up at the cumulus afternoon cloud formations forming above them.
"There are worse places to be than where we're at right now," he philosophized. Rolling back over onto his stomach, he watched the nearby scene of the the lily pool. "At least we have the peaceful sound of rushing water."
Peach turned over in panic. "If the water's rushing...let's hope everyone else is as well."
Shortly after accepting the bags from Peach, the walkie-talkie buzzed. "Sushie, Mamar! It's Koover! You there?"
Sushie grabbed the device. "Koover! Good to hear from you! Do you have anything for us?"
"Indeed I do! We found the orange number: fourteen!" Mamar, overhearing the conversation, seemed perplexed by their result.
"Is it even possible for them to have a two-digit number?" she wondered. Sushie shrugged her shoulders, handing the device to Mamar as she wen to check the combination lock.
"Hey Koover, are you positive the number is fourteen?"
"Well, considering the orange medallion in Vinny's hand has it in bold black ink, I'd say that's affirmative."
"Mamar!" Sushie called out. The Star Spirit ran over to check on the Cheep Cheep's input on the lock. The handle was protected by a number keypad with six individual slots. Both the nine that Sushie had entered earlier as well as the fourteen from Koover and Vinny had been accepted.
Sushie: It was weird for Mamar to question the legitimacy of the number. If we had solved our puzzle incorrectly, they wouldn't even have had a number to give us! And it's not like one of them could have been lying: there were two people on the receiving end, and it's not like both of them are the Mole.
"All right, the number worked," Mamar relayed warily. "Oh, but both of you wait! We should have a set of coordinates for you in just a moment!"
BLUE
Three men have been accused of murder, but only one of them committed the crime. Each of them gives a statement to the detective:
*A says "I didn't do it."
*B says "C did it."
*C says "A did it."
Two of them are lying, and only one is telling the truth. Which of them is most likely to be innocent?
A.) Suspect A: (L3, F4)
B.) Suspect B: (N16, B20)
C.) Suspect C: (C3, Q2)
"We should solve this quickly," Mamar explained. "Koover and Vinny are over there waiting to receive."
"Well, let's make sure we get it right, at least," Sushie chuckled. She took another look at the enigma. "So basically, we need to decide who, based on the statements, is least likely to be the murderer. So basically, whoever is telling the truth."
"I wouldn't make that claim so readily," Mamar cautioned. "We aren't looking for the honest suspect, but the innocent one. So...let's say A is telling the truth. That would mean both B's and C's statements are phony, right?"
Sushie nodded. "If that's the case, then C couldn't have done it, because B's false testimony says he did it. So the answer is Suspect C?"
"But if that's the case, Suspect A would also be innocent. Because Suspect C would be lying, making A innocent." Mamar wrote the information on the blackboard, then frowned. "But how's that possible? There's only one murderer!"
Sushie grabbed the chalk and crossed off answer B. "But we can make one conjecture: if neither A nor C did it, then Suspect B's got blood on his hands." With one option eliminated, they had narrowed their choices down to two.
"Okay, now let's say B is telling the truth," Mamar suggested. "Then that would make C the murderer. But then again, if we believe Suspect C is telling the truth, that would make A the murderer."
The grandcheep banged her head against the blackboard in visible frustration. "So who's innocent then? Suspect C or Suspect A? Maybe even Suspect B? Did we do something wrong here?"
Mamar looked at the walkie-talkie, picturing an anxious pair of scavengers waiting to receive on the other end. "At this point, we can't keep them waiting. We just need to go with our gut, because this is getting us nowhere."
Sushie raised her fins in defeat. "In that case, B is for bad guy, C is for criminal, so how about Suspect A?" Neither of the two had a better lead, so Mamar gave her the go-for. "You still there Koover?"
A pause. "Yes ma'm. You have something for us?"
She let out a sigh of relief. "Thank heavens, I was worried nobody would pick up. Okay, here's your next set of coordinates: L3, F4. Repeat, L3, F4. Roger that?"
"Roger that!" A gentle thud could be heard as the scavengers on the receiving end set down their walkie-talkie. The clue-solvers pictured the scene of them running into the orchard before their minds flashed to a different image that was playing out before them: the image of twenty-thousand coins at risk of sinking in the pool they stood beside.
"We'd better dive in to that last puzzle," Mamar warned, grabbing the purple bag and untying it rapidly. When she withdrew the card, however, her eyes widened. Sushie, concerned, peered over her shoulder to view the card, but it wasn't a puzzle that met her eyes. Rather, it was a statement even more puzzling than the five they had previously solved:
PURPLE
EXEMPTION
And thus concludes the penultimate portion of Episode 1! Yeesh. Episode 1, an it's already been two and a half years. At least this update came much quicker than the last, right? But without delay, allow me to respond to your much-appreciated reviews!
GROSSGIRL18:Well, I am still kicking, and hopefully this update prevents you from doing so! Thank you so much for your wonderful review! I'm glad to have achieved an update over twelve times faster than what you'd expected. Yeah, I really ought to stop putting out such long chapters since it delays my update speed, but if I made a chapter for every time there was a horizontal line this chapter, there'd have been, like, twenty-four. :P I look forward to hearing more about your suspicions, especially after the start of mission 2.
EVAN MONTGOMERY: Hey, maybe we have a convert. :P At the beginning of the story, I tried to provide an informative explanation of how the show The Mole works. If you're interested in more, you can find several episodes from multiple seasons in several countries all on Youtube. I also recommend reading the Mole stories of krisetchers and Princess Toady. Thank you for your suspicions! Hopefully the pattern is broken...for now, at least.
PRINCESS TOADY:Thank you for your suspect list! It's nice to get a glimpse into your mind, especially from a Mole's perspective. :P And speaking of favorites, you probably listed my four favorites outside of this Mole story. Goombella and Parakarry are obviously more popular than Mamar or Bandy Andy are, but I'm happy I included them all the same. Like you, I enjoy having a balance between some better-knowns while also including several characters often forgotten in the series. It helps that all the characters are from the amazing universe that is Paper Mario, because they really don't appear anywhere outside of those games.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS! As advertised at the beginning of this chapter, my Mole website has been published! Additionally, I have updated it since the last chapter to include a description of this mission as well as the first picture clue of the game. Hope it helps you in your sleuthing.
AND LASTLY! Please vote on the poll at the top of my profile! I'm curious to see who you as readers believe the Mole is! The results will be published as soon as the next chapter is published.
Thank you for the reviews! I'd love to hear what you think, users and anonymous alike. Hearing from you guys is an excellent motivator to help me write faster, and I truly appreciate it.
What will be the conclusion of the Pull the Plug mission? Stay tuned for the exciting end of Episode 1! :)