EPISODE 3

Obvious answers were the wrong choices that the second victim had made. Doopliss, a person nobody suspected as being the imposter of the group despite being a successful actor, had been the second to be sent home. The remaining seven are constantly suspecting each other from here to there and from dusk to dawn, picking out someone who seems most likely to be the saboteur. However, there's one of them who's constantly choosing themself 24/7 of the time. That person chooses him or her self because that person knows exactly who they are…the Mole.


Daisy

Surname: Floral

Birthday: May 12

Occupation: Hair Salon Owner

Toadette

Surname: Rytoad

Birthday: June 26

Occupation: Emercency Nurse

Blooper

Surname: Inke

Birthday: November 4

Occupation: Sea Scavanger

Lakitu

Surname: Clouda

Birthday: February 25

Occupation: Air Traffic Controller

Birdo

Surname: Bowtie

Birthday: June 2

Occupation: Gardener/Florist

Luigi

Surname: Mario

Birthday: January 18

Occupation: Plumber

Peach

Surname: Toadstool

Birthday: February 3

Occupation: Tennis Trainer


Five o'clock in the morning and everyone was sound asleep. That is, except for one person.

"Luigi, you have made it," the host called out, seeing the nervous fellow arrive in the open elevator of the Noki hotel. Luigi made his way to the host, sitting down on the couch.

"I guess I did," he said, smiling. To the host's surprise, he didn't look exactly tired.

"Well, as I told you yesterday, you were to arrive here at sharply 5:00 A.M. in order to not lose the team money." Luigi nodded.

"Have a look at this," said McHallyboo, handing him a large envelope. "Say no more to me until you are finished." Luigi slowly opened the yellow envelope to find a small piece of paper inside. It had a set of instructions:

The Late Delivery Challenge

The Chosen: Last to embark in the Clue challenge, who was pulled out in participating.

The Objective: To deliver all signal flares and all pieces of paper to four hotel rooms.

You have: 4 keys, 4 flares, 4 papers

Incentive: Exemption; a free pass to the next episode.

Luigi's eyes widened, but then saw the last line.

Abort: If you intentionally or unintentionally wake another of the six players up, your exemption will not be awarded. 15,000 coins would be added to the team pot instead.

Luigi looked at the host, who looked him back. Without another word Luigi turned around to head back to the elevator


"Oh, boy," Luigi said quietly, as he looked at the instructions again, then at the doors. He desperately wanted to take the exemption and have a 100 percent guarantee to the next round. But on the other hand, this challenge could turn the heavy suspecting off from him.

"Fifteen thousand coins, or free pass," he said in consideration. "Team or self, team or self…ahh, I'm sorry!" He got a key from the envelope and slowly opened Door 785.

The light from the hallway flooded the room. Luigi stopped moving for a moment, considering what he was doing. Did he really feel in need to trade in money for an exemption?

"I'm sorry," Luigi repeated, as he went over and reached into the envelope for a flare. He couldn't help but feel sorry for Birdo, all alone sleeping one of the beds with an empty bed besides her. Putting the flare and one of the pieces of papers on a counter he stumbled into, he turned around to head out…and tripped. He put his hand over his mouth, shocked and in alarm as he went to stand up again from the carpet. He headed out the room and locked the door.

"Holy moley," he whispered to himelf, feeling extra cautious from his fall. He took out the next key and slowly opened Room 786. Peach and Toadette were in the same double-sized bed, sleeping soundly.

Quietly, he simply took a few steps into the dark room and dropped a flare and a piece of paper onto the floor, in fear of tripping again. The room was silent as he exited.

Room 788 had another double-sized bed. Daisy was sleeping soundly, but Lakitu on the other hand was snoring deafeningly. Feeling great pity for his sweetheart companion, he left the flare and the piece of paper on the floor and exited.

One key, one flare and paper, and one last chance. Luigi opened the door to his own room and saw Blooper, on the other bed from him. He could have just simply woken him up to abort the challenge and give in 15,000 coins to the team. But he shook his head and put the flare and the paper on his own bed before heading out of the last room.

"Wait," he said, before heading into the elevator. "Why fire flares?"


"Mission unknown," the host said as Luigi came down from the elevator once again.

"I put a piece of paper and a flare into each of the rooms," he told him. "Erm, but some of them I put on the floor."

"Excellent," the host said. The host gave out his first exemption to an excited Luigi, which was a green card that had the green thumbprint logo on it.

Team Pot

40,000c

"Though I'm not sure how the others would treat you by morning time." Luigi felt like Doopliss; responsible for his actions.

"In fact, they won't be able to treat you by morning time," explained the host mysteriously.

"Huh?" Luigi said in confusion. Before he could ask if he was able to go back to bed, his body trembled as he suddenly became weak. Darkness.


The six players in the Noki hotel went down to breakfast at nine o'clock. All had taken notice of the piece of paper and the signaling flare in their rooms, but not one of them had decided to take it down with them.

"We seem kind of short," the host noticed at the table.

"Luigi is missing," Blooper immediately said. "He left behind a fire stick and a piece of paper on his bed." The others replied the same, having seen the two items in their rooms too.

"Well," he said. "The signaling flares have no use to you guys. But the paper is a clue. Look at it wisely later on."

On the piece of paper, a strange poem was written. Below it, a single gray line.

Even though you look, imagine times of evening chills that revolve memories to the going off. The spleen within has no another, silent to acquire. Yonder to; yonder far.

"Blooper, you are wearing your cap," noticed the host. "And Daisy, you aren't wearing your yellow shirt again. Congratulations with your returned luggage." The others clapped.

"Do you want to know what happened to Luigi?" The player nodded, unsure.

"He's been kidnapped and is being held hostage by people in masks." All the others stared, as McHallyboo laughed.

"Not seriously, you party poopers," he told them. "I have a challenge for you, and it's worth 20,000 coins." The players nodded and listened.

"I need you to split into three teams of two," he ordered. "One will be Tranquil Travel, the second will be Ocean Drift, and the third will be Wild Roam. Twenty seconds."

"I will be a wild roamer," Lakitu said. "I can take the wild side."

"An ocean drifter, obviously," Blooper told them.

"Toadette, do you want to be an ocean or a tranquil?" asked Peach.

"The least scary," Toadette said without hesitation. "I'll be a tranquil traveler."

"Me too," Birdo said quickly. "I can't do anything else."

"Well, I'll be an ocean person," Peach said.

"And wild I will be," Daisy concluded.

"Time is up," the host said. "I see you've chosen your paths to travel. Birdo, faithful and calm and Toadette, sensitive and calm; you two are the Tranquil Travelers. With a leveled-down style of travel you will be using a car, a sport utility vehicle." Both Birdo and Toadette were pleased.

"Blooper, an expert at sea and Peach, the not-so-ocean familiar; you two are the Ocean Dwellers," the host said. "You will be traveling across the wavy waters using a boat, a bow rider." They looked rather happy.

"Daisy, the enthusiastic tomboy and Lakitu, the wild card; you both will be the Wild Roamers," the host said. "In the terms of wild, we provided you to travel the sky with our Robinson helicopter." Both of them seemed excited.

"Now, Luigi really is being held hostage somewhere," told the host. "And you will be traveling by land, by sea, and by air. Your vehicles each have a navigating system which will be pointing to Luigi's location. When you are a one mile radius away from him, the arrow will disappear, and it will be up to you to find him."

"Tranquil Travelers," he said. "When you arrive, you must give your car to my guards to take. In return, they will leave and leave Luigi exposed. Ocean Drifters, you will have the combination needed to expose the lock on Luigi' chains. Wild Roamers, you will have the key to unlock Luigi's feet from the platform, and then you will win 20,000 coins. Now, you have less than two hours to find him. If you do not free him, no money will be won and he will be killed by my guards." Gasps were at the table.

"Haha, he won't me killed by anyone," the host reassured. "He's on a platform that would drop in two hours, and he would be sent falling, like…five hundred feet about." Some of the female players gasped again.

"Jay kay!" said the host, chuckling. "He's attached to a rope, around his neck." Looks of disbelief and fear.

"By all means, this is a game show!" McHallyboo said in an exasperated voice. "Unlike the Skilling Game U.S.T.S.Win. He's attached to a rope. A safety cord. Now, I had already given you a clue to where he is, so don't forget it." He pointed towards the door.

"Toadette and Birdo," he said. "Please go outside to your car." The both of them walked out of the hotel, and a minute passed by.

"Daisy and Lakitu," he said. "Meet the cast member outside and go to your helicopter." They did so, and a minute passed by again.

"Blooper, Peach," he said. "A cast member outside will bring you to your boat." The last two exited the hotel.

Birdo was already waiting in their car, but Toadette had vanished suddenly without warning. She came back a minute later to Birdo's confusion.

"What took you so long?" Birdo asked. Toadette got in without a word.


Within five minutes, all players were in their chosen vehicles. The host had given each team a cell phone to use on their way to finding Luigi.

"Are you ready?" the host said into all three cell phones simultaneously.

"Yes!" they replied.

"Two hours counting down starts now. Your captive peer needs you all." The three engines started, and the vehicles headed off.


The Tranquil Travelers headed off in their car, going through Noki Village for their last time. Birdo was at the wheel.

"This is pretty neat," Toadette said, turning on the GPS system on their car. Unfortunately, all it showed was an arrow, pointing a direction.

"It only displays an arrow," noticed Toadette. Birdo looked at it and saw that it was pointing northeast.

"I wish we had more help than this," Birdo said, as they made a turn onto another street.


Blooper started the boat, and Peach was caught by surprise as the water flew into the air.

"Slow down, slow down!" Peach shouted over the thunderous splashing, as Blooper immediately turned off the engine. He pulled the string and the engine started one again, in a slower rhythm.

"Any clue on where Luigi would be?" Peach said, clueless. Their boat sped off from the dock.

"Not that I know off," Blooper replied. But in fact, the host had told them earlier that each vehicle had a navigating system within them. The bow rider they were riding in had a radar screen.


The helicopter lifted from the ground, as Daisy let out a yell of excitement. Lakitu was the one at the controls with Daisy sat besides him.

"You sure you know how to use this?" Daisy asked him, as she put on a set of earmuffs from the compartment besides her. Lakitu pulled back on the lever between his legs.

"I'm almost an expert," he told her. "I did have the chance to learn how to navigate these since I'm an air traffic controller." The helicopter continued to propel itself into the air, and it flew off. But they didn't notice that their pressure gauge display on the control panels had a number on it; 100m.


Then the vehicles traveled even more. Although Birdo and Toadette were making success in their travel, the others had no means of navigation they were aware about. Blooper felt lost as he drove them further into the sea, and Peach remained clueless. Lakitu drove forwards, as Daisy looked around at the land below them.

"A building is what I think Luigi is on," Blooper told Peach. "The host said that Luigi would be falling somewhere…"

Yup, I agree with you," Peach told him. "But in that case, shouldn't we be headed towards land?" Blooper was left baffled, and so was Peach as she sat at the back of the boat. She was leaving everything up to Blooper.


"Remove that air freshener," Birdo told Toadette. "It smells awful."

"Ha, I was just about to," Toadette said. As she went to pull down the little tree freshener down, she stopped suddenly.

"Something wrong?" Birdo asked.

"Look at it," she said, as she pulled it down. Something was printed on the back of the air freshener that caught her eye.

"6-6-5-3-4-7-8-7," Toadette read. "I remember that number that was some sort of clue in Noki Village." Birdo seemed confused.

"When did you see this?" she asked.

"Somewhere," she said. "It confused me a lot. I don't know what it means though."


Almost thirty minutes had passed by. Lakitu and Daisy would have been lost forever in their helicopter if it weren't for Lakitu's spotting.

"Hey, would you look at that?" he said to Daisy, pointing at the circle-shaped display. It had 80m displayed on it.

"What is that?" she asked. "80 minutes?"

"80 miles," Lakitu corrected. "See?" The display changed to seventy nine.

"It's telling us how far we are from Luigi," Lakitu explained. "We are 79 miles from where he is."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" she said. "Now we're actually navigating somewhere." She suddenly tried to get up from her chair, as Lakitu looked on confusion.

"What are you doing?" he asked her. She lifted up from her seat as much as she could in her seatbelt and tried to feel under her. Something had been bothering her in the chair, and as she felt into a hole in her seat, she found it.

"Look," she exclaimed. "A key! For, for Luigi's lock!"


It wasn't until thirty minutes later until the lost boat riders had discovered the radar screen. Blooper turned it on and was stunned.

"Peach," he said. Peach looked up behind her and saw Blooper, who stopped his boat. They were positioned in the middle of the ocean, with no land visible. She went over to see the screen with him.

"The green dot," she noticed, pointing at the screen. "That's Luigi!"

"We can find him using this radar," Blooper realized. "Now we won't be completely lost."

"The white dot is us?" Peach asked. "If we are, then it looks like we're kind of far away." Blooper immediately turned the engine on as they drive off. Within a minute, they saw that the white dot on the radar screen had moved just the slightest bit towards the green.


"The cell phone!" Birdo exclaimed. Toadette was baffled.

"What about it?" she said, holding it up.

"Try to call that number you found," suggested Birdo. "I think it's a phone number." With nothing to lose Toadette dialed the number on the air freshener into the phone and called. Success.

"He, hello?" asked a voice on the other end.

"Is this Luigi?" Toadette said.

"Yeah, and is this Toadette?"

"It is!" she replied. "Hey Birdo, you guessed right! We have Luigi on the line."

"That's sweet," she said. "Ask him where he is."

"Luigi, where are you?" Toadette said into the phone.

"I'm terrified," he said in a loud voice. "I am at the edge of a cliff." Only holding a cell phone in his hand, he was standing on a platform that stretched out from the edge of a sea cliff. His feet were chained to the platform as he looked down hundreds of feet below to the washing waves. He gulped and turned around to see the two guards sent by McHallyboo, standing right behind him.

"It's a challenge, don't worry," Toadette said. "You're held hostage and we have to rescue you in different ways."

"Huh, it doesn't look like that to me," Luigi told her. "Now, I have a hint for you. Are you in the car, boat, or plane?"

"The last viehicle is a helicopter, not a plane" Toadette corrected him. "But we're in the car." Toadette heard another person talking, most likely to Luigi.

"Umm," said Luigi. "When you turn onto Seashore Street, you will be very near."

"Seashore Street is our last place," Toadette told Birdo. "Okay Luigi, anything else?"

"No," he said. "Goodbye, and please rescue me!" The phone hang up.


"I wonder what we have to do with this cell phone," Daisy wondered. "Will the host call us?"

"Try to dial numbers," Lakitu suggested. The pressure measurer read seventy miles.

"I'd rather not," Daisy said, as they flew even more across the sea. They were going in the right direction, and Daisy took off her earmuffs.

"It' probably a cliff where Luigi is located," Lakitu added. "The host said Luigi was somewhere high."

"I hope the others are doing okay," Daisy said hopefully.


As the car was doing excellent, the boat on the other hand was facing a crisis. Peach touch the screen and it sparked back, as she let out a shriek. Blooper stopped the boat for the third time.

"What the hell?" he asked, looking at the radar screen and Peach. "What happened?"

"It shocked me!" she exclaimed. "I went to touch it, and I got shocked." The screen was smoking and the screen was pitch black. Blooper went over to the screen and pressed the button. Nothing appeared.

"Oh, crap," he said. "Are you serious?"

"The screen isn't working?" asked a surprised Peach.

"What did you do?" he asked her. "You just killed it!!"

"I didn't anything," she replied. The radar screen was dead.

I didn't watch what Peach had done with the radar screen, because I was driving the boat as best as I could. What the hell had she done? The next thing I see is Peach jumping backwards, avoiding a large spark. She denied having done anything to do with it.


An hour had already passed, and the rescuers had an hour left to go before Luigi would meet his "demise". The helicopter had flown more than halfway the distance to where the hostage was being held, as Lakitu and Daisy flew through the skies. Blooper started the boat as they sped across the ocean, as both Blooper and Peach were clueless once again. But one vehicle was just a mere fifteen miles away.

"Seashore Street!" Toadette pointed out. Birdo had driven right past it.

"Turn around!" Toadette exclaimed. "You just missed the street!" Birdo stopped her car.

"Really, did I?" she said in a strange tone. She tried her best to turn around again, yet the street was too narrow to do so. A sign caught their eyes.

"This is a one-way street we're on," Toadette realized. "Now we have to find a way to get back onto the right road." She sighed, as Birdo kept on driving on.

She had driven right past it. Either she was really concentrated on something else, or she had played clumsy.

Lakitu and Daisy were flying their fastest. The mile count that was displayed in their helicopter started to decrease slowly.

I felt so much more different around Lakitu. It was really contrast to yesterday's talk, and we were both working together to find Luigi in this challenge. My suspicion for some reason eased down greatly.

Blooper and Peach didn't say a word to each other. Lost and misplaced, the two of them had ended up further than the distance they had started. Peach did not bother to help Blooper at all and instead fumbled around with the cell phone in her hands.

It wasn't my fault at all that the screen just blew up. Blooper isn't talking to me at all, and now I'll jut wait to see where he's headed. But for now, we're screwed.


We'll see how succesfull the team will be in the next episode part. Will Luigi be rescued?

And, and if you want to see that message clue that Luigi had delivered to each of the rooms, just ask me for it. You will be able to see it, and possibly find out the identity of the Mole.