Episode 1: Part 4
Three teams of two had to complete a certain task in order to obtain a combination, which would then be used to free one of three swimmers tied to parasol poles on the beach. Once freed, a swimmer could then begin salvaging their floating luggage bags. Each saved bag was worth 1,000 coins, each freed swimmer was worth 5,000 coins, and a money-containing bag among the others would add 10,000 coins to the pot if brought back to shore. However, if a sandbag tied below the luggage bags became too filled with water, it would sink to the floor of the ocean, losing the contents within in forever.
"Something's inside that one," Bobbery said, pointing towards the ocean, at the last floating bag in the row. The other three looked at where he was mentioning with equal bafflement on their faces.
"It's probably an illusion," Goombella told him, trying to loosen the rope around her. "The waves are probably ruffling the bags."
Bobbery: My mind was sure there was some sort of sea animal in that twelfth bag. I was certain the waves weren't making an illusion because I know how waves work.
"Most possibly so," Bobbery agreed, nodding. Luvbi sighed and looked at her walkie-talkie.
"If only there was an existing way to communicate with the others," she complained. "This game would be more simple."
"Hey monkey, I found one!" Wario bellowed, rising up from the water with a lobster in his right hand. Diddy, a few feet away from him and closer to the shore then his partner was, looked confused.
Wario: I looked behind me and Diddy was barely in the water at all! Either he was a wimp, or he wanted to make me do all the work. I did think it was a little fishy. No pun intended, haha!
"That was way too easy!" Diddy said, looking at the lobster-infested water in front of him. "There must be something else to this mission...wait, what on earth is that?" As Diddy looked closer, he saw a design, etched in blank ink on the underside of the crustacean. Diddy made his way over to Wario and grabbed the animal.
"Put the poor fellow down," Diddy told him. "We don't need him." Wario frowned pulled it back.
"Huh? We only need one!" Wario argued.
"No, not just one lobster," Diddy pointed out. "That's what you think it means. We have to look for Lobster #1." He flipped Wario's hand over, exposing the number on the bottom of the sea animal: 16.
"Now do you get it?" Diddy asked him. "The first lobster we have to find is a one lobster."
"Oh, you are kidding me," Wario groaned. "And where do we get the combination anyway?" They both turned around to look at the laughing fisherman, who was in the same position as when they had started their search.
"I think that guy will," Diddy said, amused. "That's after we find the right lobster though."
"Ya think?" Wario said sarcastically. He groaned again and looked at the three tied swimmers in the distance, still helpless. They were located on the same beach as them.
"Come on!" Diddy called him, stepping deeper into the ocean. "We're running out of time." Wario turned around and gave the fisherman behind them an angry stare. The Pianta only laughed.
"And that is how you make durian juice," the waiter concluded, shutting off the blender full of yellow extract. Vivian looked in disgust.
"I can't believe I ordered that yesterday," she said, shuddering. "But why does this juice right now look so...eww?"
"Oh, you know," the waiter told them, "We have add the crème, the condensed milk, the alcohol. But all you two have to do though is make a pint of this raw durian juice and you're done!"
"So we crush the durian with this vice," Yoshi said, repeating the waiter's words and looking over their objects, "Take the stuff from inside, cut it into small pieces, then put them in the blender and blend it with the ice cubes?" The waiter nodded.
"Okay!" Yoshi said excitedly. "Let's start!" The waiter removed the blender container and went to rinse it out. He then came back with it, along with a pint-sized mug.
"Fill this, and then bring this cup back to the kitchen without dropping any," the waiter explained. "There's a green-striped container in the back which is connected to the metal lid of a box. If enough juice fills the container, the box with your combination will open. Any juice that goes elsewhere besides the green-striped container is wasted." With that, he turned and went back into the kitchen. Vivian nodded her head.
"Well, our bags are going to sink if we don't hurry up," Vivian told Yoshi. "Let's do this fast." Yoshi nodded happily and grabbed the first durian, inserting it into the vice. He pressed the button, as the both of them watched the acquired fruit slowly get crushed to a grimy pulp.
"Ten minutes in!" shouted McHallyboo from behind Luvbi. The host, unlike the players, was relaxing and out of fear. He was also standing a fair distance from the main center of the game.
"Oh, players," he added. "The first bag will sink in approximately five minutes." Bobbery, Goombella, and Wendy looked at each other, unnerved.
"Whose will it be?" Goombella asked aloud.
"Hard to tell," Bobbery said, peering into the distance, "but the fourth bag looks lower than ever."
Boo and Rosalina entered the hotel, in the attempt to find their hidden combination. Having already given one wrong answer, the two of them struggled to decipher what McHallyboo meant by the phrase, "...right outside the door."
"Oh dear," Rosalina said, fear dreading inside her, "The bags must already be sinking." Boo turned to the empy front desk and went over to it. He peered over the counter and looked at the various papers scattered among the desktop.
"Don't look at that!" Rosalina said.
"This whole thing is a game," Boo told her, unwilling to turn away from the papers. "Maybe the identity of the Mole is here." Rosalina looked at him quizzically.
"Perhaps," she said, "but I think I would be more worried about our luggage right now than the identity of the Mole. Wouldn't you?"
"What?" Boo said with disbelief. "Are you kidding me? This is all one mission. My goal is to find the Mole." He reached down to lift the first page on top of the paper pile, reading each one briefly and watching out for any key words. Rosalina shook her head and watched him.
"I saw you talking to Wario," she decided to tell him. Boo paused for a second, then continued with his paper shuffling.
"So?" he said back.
Boo: Rosalina is extremely nosy. She's trying to get everything out of me in this game, and probably knows about my coalition Wario...well, as long as she doesn't use that to her advantage, I'll be cool with that. Or maybe she thought we were just talking. Who knows?
"I just thought I should let you know," she told him. "After all, you are the so-called expert on this game."
"Wow, I can't believe none of you guys had watched Season One," Boo said truthfully. He picked a piece of paper and looked at it: Mission 1 Combination: 8645124096.
"Huh, as if we could remember that before jumping out of a plane," Boo said with a laugh. Rosalina peered over the desk and looked at the hotel papers along with Boo.
"Did you find anything?" Rosalina asked him. "Production notes? Mole identities?"
"Nope," said Boo, still flipping through the papers. "Just info about our rooms. I actually think the producers are smarter than we think they are."
"I guess they are," Rosalina agreed. She smiled and yawned.
"Well, might as well return to our rooms and look from there. We probably passed the combination somewhere on our way out." She paused for a moment, then faced her partner.
"Our room numbers," she said with realization. "Right outside the door." Boo suddenly stopped his illegal paper searching and grinned.
"Almost done!" Yoshi announced, scooping the remaining durian flesh into the blender. The fruit had already piled up so high in the container that he had to crush some of the durian down as he placed the lid on it.
"My hands," Vivian said with repulsion, wiping them on a towel. Yoshi simply licked his hands, much to her horror.
"Think this is enough?" asked Vivian, looking at the yellow goo within the glass.
"Let me check," said Yoshi thoughtfully, stepping around the table and examining it at all angles. Vivian turned around and looked towards the open door of the restaurant, wondering about the live status of their bags.
"They're depending on us," Vivian said quietly, almost to herself. She then turned to the bar counter, looking strangely at the refrigerator that the waiter had been handling with when they first entered through the door. She took a step towards it.
"No!" Yoshi gasped, taking the lid of the beaker. Vivian ran back to the table, alarmed.
"What's wrong?" she asked with a concerned voice.
"The color," Yoshi said, "tells that it's rotten." Vivian eyes widened, repulsed.
"No wonder it smells horrible," Vivian said with disgust.
"Nah, durian is actually supposed to smell like that," Yoshi informed her. He sniffed the juice again.
"But at least we don't have to drink it!" he added optimistically.
"Well, that's good," Vivian said with relief. "Let's blend it now."
"I don't think we have enough yet---"
"We don't have time," Vivian told him. "With all the ice cubes inside there, I'm sure it'll reach a liter." Yoshi nodded and pressed down on the red button, as they both watched the fruit pieces blend in a strong whir.
"Lobster one!" Wario said, nearly gasping for air as he trudged his way through the water to the shore. Diddy turned to him from near the shore and saw the single number that existed under the tail of the sea animal: 1.
"Wow, good job!" Diddy said in surprise, waiting for Wario to make his way to him. The muscled plumber held the lobster in such a way that it was unable to use its pinchers. Diddy smiled in sympathy.
"I win!" Wario said victoriously.
"I would suggest loosening the grip on the lobster a bit," Diddy laughed, "before you kill it." Wario did so and slowly brought his lobster to the fisherman. The fisher man grabbed the animal from Wario's hand and looked at the number displayed on its bottom.
"Very good job!" the pianta said to Diddy and Wario.
"Aha, we beat the others!" Wario said boastfully.
"Now the next number is 16." Wario's mouth dropped open.
"Another one?!" he yelled with disbelief.
"We just had number sixteen!" Diddy recalled. "Where did youput it?" Wario looked at his partner with irritation.
"Hey, it was you!" he realized, pointing at him. "You told me to drop it!" Diddy faced him.
"Wario, it's equality my fault as it is yours," Diddy pointed out. "And how should I have known that we would need Lobster 16 for the future? This game isn't that easy!" Wario shrugged, defeated.
"So let's keep on looking for lobsters, shall we?" Wario mumbled to himself and trudged back into the water, as Diddy turned to the crate besides the Pianta. The fisherman made a nod towards the crate, almost as if referring to something crucial inside of the wooden case. Diddy couldn't help but follow the strange Pianta's hint and walk up to the crate, the crate in where all the lobsters had initially begun in.
"Wario, I found something!" Diddy shouted out, peering into the inside of the wooden container. It was a net.
"My room number is 101," Rosalina told her partner, walking over to the other side of the hotel hallway. Boo looked up at his own door number.
"102," he read. "These numbers are right in front of our doors, just like McHallyboo had hinted." He looked over at the other door numbers, then at his own, trying to figure out any meaning between the five door numbers.
"It's probably just our rooms," Boo decided.
"So is that the combination?" Rosalina asked. "Ten, eleven, and two?"
"It has to be," Boo told her, taking the walkie-talkie from Rosalina and speaking into it. He looked the device over and spoke Luvbi's name into the speaker.
"Luvbi," Boo called into the device. Nobody replied, much to Boo's confusion.
"Luvbi?" Boo repeated, then looked over the phone. Rosalina pointed to the red button.
"You have to press down on that in order for them to hear you," she explained. Boo held down on the button and spoke into the walkie-talkie once again.
Rosalina: Especially since I had just used it before, Boo shouldn't have stumbled at all with talking into the walkie-talkie, wasting time. That was sort of suspicious.
"Hey Luvbi, are you there? We have the combination---"
"The luggage is sinking!" a voice from the other end called out. Boo's face froze with alarm and faced at Rosalina.
"Hurry, tell the combination!" Rosalina said to him.
"Luvbi, Wendy's combination is ten, eleven, and two!" Boo shouted, trying to catch Luvbi's attention through the walkie-talkie. He paused, hearing no reply from the other end.
"Are you even there?" Boo added.
"By all means, someone is speaking on that walkie-talkie!" Bobbery's voice called out from the other side. They both heard the sound of the walkie-talkie being picked up from the sandy floor as Luvbi grabbed it from the ground.
"Who is it?" Luvbi asked.
"The combination for Wendy's lock is ten, eleven, and two!"
Luvbi hurried over to Wendy's lock for the second time, repeating the digits in her head as she turned the combination lock dial. The three tied swimmers watched helplessly as one of the bags slowly began to sink under the surface of the ocean, disappearing from their sight. A luggage was gone.
"Oh my gosh," Wendy squealed with terror. "If that was my bag, I will be so mad!" Bobbery furrowed his eyebrows.
"The first bag we have to get is the moving one," he decided. Goombella shook her head.
"No, we need to save our belongings before anything," Goombella told him.
"A gone bag is the least of my concerns in this game," Bobbery replied.
"Your bag isn't the only one at danger," Goombella reminded him. "The others players' bags too." Luvbi pulled down on the lock of Wendy's ropes, only to find that it didn't budge. Wendy groaned.
"Wrong again?" the spoiled Koopa child whined. "Our bags are dying! Hurry!"
"Hush," Luvbi said with annoyance, speaking back into the walkie-talkie. "Boo, that was wrong. Any other guesses?"
"Try ten, twenty-one, one." Luvbi turned the lock dial according to Boo's numbers and pulled down for a third time. But unlike the previous times, the lock pulled down fully, releasing the rope bind round Wendy as the free swimmer jumped up with delight.
"Oh my gosh, thank you!" she said, doing a short victory dance to celebrate her freedom.
"If I had to be tied for one more extra second I think I might have exploded! Gosh, those ropes are strong! I don't like ropes! Well, at least Boo and Rosalina were helpful, right? They're so good at math, even better than me! Now what?"
"Swim!" the other three said in unison. Wendy's face suddenly dropped.
"Oh, all right!" she replied reluctantly. "But I'm getting my bag and that's it! Humph!" She turned around and carefully stepped into the water. Luvbi shook her head and sighed.
"I do hope she salvages more than one thousand coins," Luvbi said.
"I'll make her do more," Bobbery said reassuringly. "Now all we need are the combinations to our locks." Bobbery and Goombella watched Wendy doggy-paddle to their bags.
"I see juice!" Yoshi called out, stopping the blender. He lifted the cover and took a sniff.
"Needs cream," he said, shrugging. "But anyways, good!" Vivian grabbed the blender container and took it off the stand. In doing so though, the momentum of the thick liquid caused a portion of the liquid to spill out, splattering onto the table below. Vivian shrieked and put the container down.
"Oh no!" she said, covering her mouth. "Can we put it back in?" Yoshi looked around for a napkin, panicked, but then stopped.
"Any juice that goes elsewhere besides the green-striped container is wasted," he repeated, remembering the waiter's words. He looked at the splattered durian juice on the table.
"Yikes," he said, frowning. Vivian looked sorry.
"But I did put a lot in there," Yoshi said, smiling. "Quick, let's move this to the kitchen! But carefully." Both Yoshi and Vivian grabbed the pitcher with two hands each and made their way to the back room of the cafe, to where the waiter had left through.
Immediately to their left after entering the kitchen, the two of them spotted a sink. Next to it on the counter was a green-striped pitcher, which appeared to be strapped down onto a metal plate. Besides the container was a metal box, which Yoshi desperately began trying to open.
"No, we have to fill this with a liter," Vivian said, pointing to the green-striped container. She slowly lifted up the beaker of durian juice and carefully poured its contents into the strapped container, as the metal plate it was situated on began to sink into the table. On the final pour that finished the remainder of their durian juice, a clicking sound was heard. as the lock on the metal box became disabled. Yoshi lifted the cover of the box and looked inside.
"Here, here!" he said excitedly, looking at the piece of paper that was locked within it. "Seven, nineteen, and two!" Vivian ran back to their table to speak into the walkie-talkie.
"Hello?" she spoke, pressing down on the red button.
"It's one, sixteen, and twenty-four!" called a gruff voice from the other side. Vivian paused for a second.
"Hello?" she said again. "I thought this was Luvbi."
"Wario, I used your combination. Goombella is free!"
The two lobster-hunters dropped both sides of their net into the water, freeing all the examined lobster back into the ocean. Wario let out a yell of success and sat on the shore. Diddy looked over to the other side of the beach, where the main game was taking place. Looking closely at the ocean in the distance, he saw that instead of the existence of twelve floating bags waiting to be salvaged, only eleven remained.
"Oh snap," Diddy said out loud. "I hope that wasn't mine."
"Or mine!" Wario called out. "Say, why don't we go to them now since we're both done with our job?" Diddy nodded with agreement, as the two of them traveled to the center of the beach at different paces. As Wario trudged behind, Diddy reached the swimmers first.
"Greetings, Diddy," McHallyboo called out. Goombella was preparing to get into the water.
"I hope you guys don't think I'm greedy or anything," she said guiltily, "but I'm saving my bag first."
"I would do the same!" Diddy said with a laugh. "So ahead Goombella." They all noticed Wendy in the distance, attempting to untie her bag unsuccessfully.
"I knew it," Luvbi said. "Her intelligence failed to bring along the knife."
"Luvbi, wasn't someone else talking on the other end besides Wario?" Goombella asked her, grabbing the sharp object from the sand. Luvbi's eyes widened in realization as she went back to pick up her walkie-talkie.
"Hello?" she spoke.
"Seven, nineteen, two!" the voice of Yoshi called out from the other end. Luvbi immediately went over to Bobbery's combination lock, as Goombella paused and turned around. Spinning the dials to the corresponding numbers, the lock was pulled down, releasing the ropes of the strongest swimmer. The third and final swimmer was now freed.
"All swimmers freed!" Luvbi spoke into the walkie-talkie. Bobbery immediately darted off to the ocean, passing a startled Goombella.
"Which bag are you going for first?" Goombella called out, chasing after him into the water.
"The twelfth one, of course!" Bobbery called back. Goombella hurried further into the water, with the bag-saving tool clutched in her mouth as she made her way to the sinking bags. At that moment, Boo and Rosalina had arrived at the beach, panting yet concerned for the success of the swimmers.
"Where's Wario?" Boo asked Diddy, raising his eyebrow. The monkey pointed his thumb at behind him, at the obese man who was slowly making his way to where they were. Rosalina looked out to the ocean at the three swimmers. Both Bobbery and Goombella had already reached the row of bags.
"I'm assuming that they were just freed," Rosalina speculated. "There aren't any bags here on this shore yet."
"Well, god sped with you guys, you were slow," Luvbi pointed out. Rosalina shook her head with dissent.
"Yeah, if our combination wasn't so darn hidden," Boo stated, "then maybe we would have been here faster. We never have any idea what we're looking for. This isn't easy stuff. This game is hard." The others repeated Boo's last sentence over in their ahead, realizing its definite level of truth.
"Help, my bag!" Wendy shrieked in a half-sputter, grabbing onto her bag as if it were a life buoy.
"That's not a kisby ring!" Bobbery told her, swimming his way over to her. With the knife in his hand, Bobbery felt the rope under Wendy's bag and cut it loose from the sandbag below. The sandbag sunk to the ocean floor.
"Bring this back!" he told her. Wendy nodded, and using her bag like a bogey board, she proceeded to make her way back to shore. Goombella was frantically swimming down the row of bags, looking for the one with her name displayed on it.
"Where's my bag?" she shouted. "I looked at all of them! The only thing possible is if it..." She suddenly stopped in realization.
"Will you then help me with cutting this one free?" Bobbery suggested, pointing at the last bag in the row. Goombella had no choice but to do so, as the two of them swam over to the final bag of the row. Goombella grabbed it, only to pull back when she felt a creature within the duffel bag move.
"Oh my gosh, it's alive," Goombella said in a shocked voice. Bobbery went to cut the rope underneath it, only to realize that the bag wasn't tied to a sandbag at all, but floating freely.
"I bring this one, you bring another!" he ordered. Goombella turned around to see one of the bags, sinking beneath the surface. She gasped and made her way over to it with the knife, as Bobbery began to swim towards the shore, the peculiar bag in his possession.
"Wendy!" Rosalina cried, as the unfit swimmer literally washed back onto the shore. Wendy stood up, unharmed, and held up her soaked bag.
"Yay!" she squealed, tired and exhilarated at the same time. "I saved my bag! I saved it!" Bobbery reached the shore as soon as Wendy had, the unidentified bag clutched in his possession. He let it go in front of Diddy as if fell to the sand, and at the same time, the thing inside it moved. Diddy jumped with surprise into Wario.
"Hey, get off me!" Wario said in a disgruntled voice, pushing Diddy towards the moving bag. Diddy looked at it, almost terrified.
"Holy banana, is that bag alive?" Diddy asked, startled. Bobbery went to unzip it with determination, as the rest of the present players looked down at the mysterious bag with puzzlement, none of them having the slightest or rational idea of what lay inside. As the object moved once more, a muffled voice was heard from under the thick fabric. Bobbery grabbed the zipper and pulled it down, exposing the creature to the tropical air. Every player at that moment stepped back, mystified, astounded, and bewildered.
"About time!" sputtered a helpless veteran, getting up and pulling himself out of the bag. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the stunned players around him.
"What! You were in that bag that whole time?!" Wendy asked, astonished.
"That wasn't the first time I was stuffed into a bag in an uncomfortable position," the squid told her.
"Blooper," Boo said out loud. They players turned to Boo, then back at the irritated guest. Blooper turned around in realization, reaching back into the bag he had just exited from and grabbing his now-soaked hat. He put it over his head just as Yoshi and Vivian arrived at the beach.
"Who...are you?!" Yoshi asked in a startled tone, pointing at Blooper.
"I'm here to help you guys," he said. He looked at each player carefully, all of them still bewildered. Then his eyes locked onto Luvbi.
"Hey, you," Blooper said, pointing his tentacle at Luvbi. "I need to talk to you." Baffled, Luvbi followed Blooper, as the two of them walked over to the other side of the beach, back towards the direction where Diddy and Wario had been doing their lobster fishing. All players simply watched as Blooper and Luvbi walked a considerable distance away from them, and after they had done so, began to converse nonchalently.
"Wait, who was he and where did he come from?" Vivian asked, completely dumbfounded.
"Blooper Inke," Boo told them. "He was last season's runner-up. The Mole got him at the last second." Goombella had reached the shore, panting heavily with two bags in her possession.
"By golly, I completely forgot," Bobbery said, realizing that Blooper had just wasted a portion of their valuable time. He darted towards the water immediately as Rosalina ran to help Goombella.
"Wait," Rosalina noticed, looking at the two bags, "McHallyboo only said to bring one at a time."
"He did?" Goombella said, catching her breath. She shrugged.
"I'd rather save our bags than anything," Goombella told her.
"Whose bags did you save?" asked an eager Yoshi. The others turned to look at the two bags Goombella had brought to shore with her: Vivian's and Bobbery's. Everyone else but Vivian and Wario held in their disappointed feelings.
"You should have gotten my bag!" Wario complained, looking at Goombella heatedly. Goombella rolled her eyes as she turned around to retrieve the rest of the luggage.
"Ahh, oh well," said Boo, then hopefully he told the others, "The bags are still floating though." The players nodded, then continued to anxiously watch the growing success of Bobbery and Goombella.
"Wait, you're a swimmer," Yoshi noticed, looking at Wendy. Wendy turned her head, unconcerned.
"I had trouble getting my own bag," she told him and the others, "And now that I'm safe, I have no intention of drowning myself again."
"Wow, that's cold," Diddy couldn't help saying to her. "Our bags are sinking, and you just give up. Way for a good start." Wendy turned to him fiercely.
"Why don't you talk to the girl who put me in this place?" she said irately, pointing her head at Luvbi. She and Blooper were located a distance away from the others, conversing about something that the players knew was related to the mission they were presently playing.
"Maybe Bobbery shouldn't have gotten that bag," Rosalina said regretfully. The others couldn't help but think the same.
"It's a special offer," Blooper told Luvbi, twisting the water out of his cap intensely. Luvbi turned around to make that the players were out of earshot of their talking.
"Why did you decide me?" Luvbi asked him.
"They showed me a photograph of you and put me into one of the duffel bags," Blooper recalled, "then told me to offer the person in that picture an exemption." Luvbi's eyes widened.
"That is, if you accept to do what's required," he told her. "You, as the number receiver and the person who picked Journal #3, can receive an exemption and move on to the next round of this game. However, it'll come at the price of 1,000 coins." Luvbi hesitated, then looked at Blooper.
"Does an exemption secure me a spot for Episode two?" Luvbi asked. Blooper nodded with confirmation. Luvbi looked behind her at the players, then back at Blooper.
"Then I'll accept it of course," Luvbi decided. "One thousand coins is as much as a bag not salvaged. It'll be noneffective to the pot."
"Exactly," said Blooper, pulling a pocket knife from out of his hat. Luvbi backed a step away from him.
"All you have to do is cut a hole into one of the remaining sandbags ," Blooper instructed her. "That would cause it to immediately fill with water." Luvbi looked at the knife, her face becoming as indecisive as ever.
"What are you going to do?" Blooper asked, in a voice that represented the same exact tone of McHallyboo's during a certain moment in his previous adventure. It was when the host was offering Blooper the game's most valuable, treasured object in the final mission of his game: the Mole's dossier.
Temptation ruins everything, hehe.
This is the chapter before the first execution! So what I would ask is to list your top three Mole suspects so far, before the first victim is announced.
Who do you think the Mole can be? Does anyone stand out to you as fishy? Which of the players could possibly be the saboteur? Oh, and before every execution, there'll be a given clue to help you know more about who the Mole is. Call these Final Destination clues=
MP1BULB
Who will be leaving? The first episode comes to an end, next!