Episode 3 (part 3)

"Step forwards!" Blooper, closest to the police car door, stepped out and was brought into the station. The rest waited.

Blooper's belongings bag was brought to the station and searched through, as the police woman pulled out items after items.

"Was there any suspicious acts of violation during the hours from this morning to now?" she asked. Blooper seemed unsure.

"Well, we were playing a game where we had to rescue a hostage," Blooper said.

"Hostage? This may be serious."

He laughed. "Wait, I mean, uh, it was a game. He was just held somewhere and we had to find him"

"Any descending words?"

"I don't know what those are."

"Stand against the wall," a policeman ordered, and he thoroughly searched him. After thirty seconds the woman found something in Blooper's bag; the bronze container.


FLASHBACK

The eight contestants were about to leave the table from their failed Food Challenge in the Noki restaurant, and were stopped by McHallyboo. Each was given a small bronze container to hold onto.

"Keep these containers I have given you wherever you go. You must keep these on you at all times. Is that clear? Inside the container is some crucial information on the Mole. But do not, and I repeat, do NOT ever open your case ever, or there will be consequences."


"This is what we are looking for," the police woman told Blooper. "Stop the search." Blooper went up to the counter as his handcuffs were released.

"The reason you have been brought here is because you are suspected of interfering with your container." Blooper seemed dumbstruck.


"Any criminal records?" the lady asked Birdo.

"No, there's none," Birdo told her. "I have nothing on my record."

"Please turn around to face the wall," the ordered. As Birdo did so, her pockets were searched through. The police woman found the bronze container at the bottom of her bag.

"You have been brought here with the suspicion of interfering with your container." Birdo smiled in realization.


"Criminal records?" the lady asked.

"I once, like, drove over the speed limit," Peach told her. Peach was searched thoroughly from head to toe as the lady searched the inside of her bag. He pulled out the bronze container.

"You are here today after being suspected of interfering with your container." Peach's face looked baffled and reassured at the same time.


"Any acts you had done these past hours that may have been in violation with the law?" Toadette was asked.

"No?" she said, confused.

"Yes or no?"

"Well, I'm not sure," Toadette told them. She was ordered to go against the wall as her bag was searched through. The police woman lifted out the bronze container from Toadette's bag.

"You have been brought in today in suspicion of interfering with your container." Toadette laughed with relief.


"Occupation? Allergies?"

"I'm a plumber," Luigi said nervously. "And I'm a innocent."

"Please do not plead at this moment," the police woman said, as Luigi was searched through his clothing. In his back pocket, the police man had found the bronze container.

"You are under investigation today for interfering with your container." Luigi seemed as perplexed as ever.


"Any suspicious acts that you had taken notice in these past hours?" the lady asked Daisy.

"Well, we were playing a game," Daisy told her. "And---"

"Please stand against the wall," she was asked. Daisy rolled her eyes and did so, and as she was searched, the police woman found the bronze container in her bag.

"You are being held today with the suspecting of interfering with your container."

"With that?" Daisy asked in bewilderment, pointing at it. She nodded.

"Wow, what a relief," she said, as she laughed.


"Do you have the container with you?" the police woman asked Lakitu. Lakitu was searched thoroughly and his bag had every item removed from it, yet the bronze container could be nowhere seen.

"Oh shoot," he remembered, "I think I might have left it in the room when we were talking." He searched his pockets one last time.

"You have been brought here," the lady said, "For not having your container with you today." Lakitu looked amused.

"For not having it you will be arrested and charged with that offense," she continued. "Please, go there for your mug shot, fingerprint test, and after that you must immediately be situated in your jail cell.

Lakitu did not get the chance to prove his innocence, as he was brought to his jail cell immediately.


Lakitu wasn't the only one to be guilty. As Lakitu sat down in his jail cell, the other six stayed in one room, not knowing what would come next.

"The whole thing was a set-up!" Luigi realized, as they all laughed.

"Wow, I really thought our show had been messed up," Daisy said. "I had a gut feeling that it had the possibility of being cancelled, or something like that."

"She told me that I had been suspected of interfering with the container," Toadette said.

"Same for all of us," said Birdo. "We'll have to wait and see what happens next." The clock read 5:00 P.M., and the sun was going down.

One by one they were taken out of the room and processed. If they were innocent, a warm relieving dinner would follow them soon after. If however they were found guilty of opening and looking at their clue, they would be arrested and sent to a jail cell for the rest of the night.

But just how do we know whether the players had opened their containers or not? The clever method involved photographic paper, which is sensitive to light. Each container had been taken from each six of them and the clue paper would be dipped in a special liquid. If the paper turned black, then it had been exposed to light and the container had been opened. Daisy was first.

"Hello, Daisy," McHallyboo said. Daisy sat down comfortably on the chair across from McHallyboo. In fact, Daisy had situated herself in a separate booth behind a piece of large glass that separated the two of them. The host spoke through tiny holes in the glass.

"Did you open your bronze container?" he asked her.

"I never did," she replied. McHallyboo stared hard at her.

"Well, according to this evidence of white paper you are telling, the truth," he said with a grin. "It had never been exposed to light. You are free to go." Daisy got up from her chair excitedly with a "Yes!", and left the room. Birdo entered the room a few minutes later.

"Birdo," spoke the host. "Did you ever open your bronze container?"

"I didn't ever," Birdo said back.

"This piece of paper does sugget you are telling the truth, because it had not been exposed to the light" the host said. "You're innocent and free to go." With a smile she got up and left. A few minutes passed by, and Peach entered the room. The host looked at her.

"Did you open your bronze container, Peach?" he asked her. She shook her head.

"Is that a no?" he asked.

"Yes, it's a no," replied Peach.

"By looking at your paper we can tell that it was not exposed to light, and you are free to leave." Peach happily got up and left. Toadette was after her and entered the room later on.

"Hello Toadette," the host said. "Have you ever opened your container?" Toadette paused.

"I'm not really sure," she said.

"Oh?"

"I mean," she continued, "There was this one point where the container had been sticking out of my pocket the entire day, and I went to position it. I think the lid did come off for a second or two, but it wasn't exposed to the light or anything."

The host stared, and then looked at the photographic paper.


Later on, Luigi had entered the room.

"Luigi, did you open your bronze container?" McHallyboo asked him. Luigi's face looked a bit nervous as he went to adjust his cap.

"I did once," he told him. "But it fell on the floor, and I had to pick it up. Then I put it back right away in a less than three seconds. It was an accident, I a swear."

"So you did open your container," the host confirmed. He nodded, slowly.

"Well, but not to look at anything," he told him. The host lifted the paper in front of him.


Blooper entered the room after Luigi. The host watched him sit down.

"Blooper, have you ever opened your bronze container?" the host asked him. Blooper seemed silent.

"I…had," he admitted in a quiet tone. The host lifted the paper; fully black with no speck of white.

"I had ordered you to never open the containers," the host told him. "It was a strict rule, and you were not able to follow it. Why did you open your container when it was forbidden to do so?"

"I know, and it's me to blame," Blooper said, his face gloomy. "I decided to do it, not knowing that it would matter."

"But it does matter," the host reminded him. "I specifically said that there would be consequences to follow anyone who had not followed the rules." Blooper just looked down.

"It's good that you're honest," McHallyboo said. "But what you did was an abuse of the rules. You are found guilty. GUARDS! Take him away." Two large people in masks burst into the room without warning and roughly brought Blooper to his jail cell.


"Well Toadette," said the host, looking at her paper. "You are indeed telling the truth as your paper is partially exposed, suggesting that there was only a brief period of sunlight."

Toadette saw that her piece of paper was colored a shade of black, only one-third of the entire length, as Toadette sighed with relief.

"However, that is no defense and that does not exceed the parameters, so you are guilty. Guards, take her away." Toadette seemed upset, and the two masked guards took Toadette to her prison cell.


"Well," the host said to Luigi, as he lifted the photographic paper. "This paper suggests that you are lying." Luigi saw the paper fully and heavily black, as he seemed to melt in guilt.

"The paper suggests that you had exposed the paper to light for a long period of time," added the host, "Unlike an accident. Something in your story does not add up to the truth. You are guilty. GUARDS! Take him away." Luigi hung his head and made his way to his prison cell.

Lakitu, Blooper, Toadette, and Luigi, all those who had been found guilty for their crime, had stayed for an hour in their jail cells. With nothing but themselves, a bench, and a light bulb on their ceilings to keep them company, they sat in gloom. Lakitu walked around in his cell, Blooper grabbed onto the bars, Toadette sat on the bench restlessly, and Luigi lay down on floor, bored. All were left to wait their fates.


It was seven o'clock at night. A distance away from the police station was a restaurant called Wood Ear, and that was where the three remaining players and the host were located

"This restaurant has existed for over eighty years," the host told them. "I really wonder why this place is named Wood Ear, though I'm sure it's a very appropriate name. And it's the food that really matters for the restaurant, making this place exist so long." The food came, and they all started to eat contently joyfully.

Birdo: Hmm, well, it turns out that all three guys had been found guilty by the police. I can't say I'm surprised in any way.

Peach: When Toadette didn't appear, I only suspected that she had broken the rule. I was surprised because she wasn't the type of person to do so.

Daisy: As we ate, I couldn't get the images of the others out of my mind, especially Luigi. Were they going to have their own separate challenge for breaking the rules? Were they okay?

"For being so honest and innocent during this challenge," the host told them, "We have embedded a clue into each of your napkins." Indeed it was true, and the three of them looked at their cloth napkins and saw that printed on each of them were jumbles of letters. They looked at it in confusion.

"Just don't mistakenly wipe your mouth with it and scrub out a crucial letter," cautioned the host. They all laughed.

"So, would you like to know the results that had come up?" he asked them. They nodded.

"Lakitu was not even questioned by me with the fact that he did not have the container with him at the time," explained the host. "Whether he did indeed open it or not, he was still guilty and sent to his prison cell." The three of them seemed a bit surprised at the mentioning of a cell.

"Blooper flat out admitted to opening the container, even though it was against the rules," the host continued, "And he was found guilty and sent to his cell. Toadette had claimed to have opened hers accidentally for a brief moment, and she was indeed telling the truth. However, it still counted as being guilty and she was sent to her cell. Luigi claimed to have opened his by accident as well. But seeing that his paper was fully black, he was guilty and sent to his prison cell after I determined him to be an awful liar." The girls laughed at his last statement.

"So, here was the goal," he said. "In order to win the prize money of twenty thousand coins, there had to be a condition among the innocent players." They waited anxiously for his next sentence.

"Sex." Baffled stares.

"All had to be the same sex," McHallyboo said more clearly. "And, there had to be at least two people remaining. You have completed this challenge successfully." The three of them cheered and high-fived each other at their first victory of the episode.

Team Pot

60,000c

"Now, this is to each of the innocent ones," he added. As they looked in astonishment, the host handed each of them a single check: 10,000 c. only

"Yes, you may keep them," he said. The three girls exchanged excited glances.

"But then again, you can give them in," told the host. "For every check that is handed back to me, a prisoner will be let free." They looked back at him, their minds pondering the idea again and again.


Blooper: I cheated and looked at the paper. Why was I honest? Because I had to be. Now I must suffer and stay in this cell.

Toadette: I never even looked at the piece of paper and the host did notice that it was accidental. Yet I'm still in jail. All I can hope is that the consequences won't be bad.

Lakitu: I never opened the container and I could double promise that. I really shouldn't have left it with my other belongings in the hotel room.

Luigi: I was caught telling a lie. The host would probably never trust me again. Ayayaya! Hopefully Daisy isn't too worried about me.

It had been two hours, and it was eight o'clock. The police woman suddenly entered the hallway where the four players were detained in their prisons.

"I will give you all a maximum time of fifteen minutes to solve a question," she told them. "If you succeed, you will be set free. You have only one chance at your guess." Another policeman entered, slipping a piece of paper between the bars of each prison cell. They frantically looked at them immediately.

Lakitu's riddle: If you were to count the letters in the bag of a mail man at midnight, how many would there be?

Blooper's Riddle: This is the word that 99.5 percent of literate organisms in the world, in the English department, pronounce incorrectly. What is the word?

Toadette's Riddle: What appears three times in your average lifespan, two times in your last year of living, and just once in your ending day?

Luigi's Riddle: Remove six letters from the following in order to make the remaining letters form the word for a food: S I P A X L E S T T T E R A S. What is the food?

The two previous hours of monotony was followed by minutes of intense thinking. Lakitu, Blooper, Toadette, and Luigi contemplated their questions carefully, and neither one of them favored the fate of suffering the prison cell overnight. What they weren't aware of was that they all had a second chance that lay in the hands of the three others.


Just to make it clear, the entire police incident was made up. There was no stolen vehicle, and everything was just as the producers had planned. So, will the innocent ones keep their guaranteed money checks for their own sake, or can they be persuaded to help the others from suffering a night of heat and exhaustion?

And the clue on the napkins they received is available at the bottom of my profile. Good luck with it!