~Birdo had just finished climbing up, joining the likes of Waluigi, Yoshi, Toad and Toadette.
"We'll be back as soon as we can," Waluigi assured.
"Be careful!" Mario hollered from below.
"Wait!" Yoshi pointed to his bare left foot, wiggling his toes. "My shoe."
"Eww," Waluigi jumped away. "Keep those nasty-ass feet away from me."
Luigi rolled his eyes and picked up Yoshi's shoe, holding it above his head for him to grab.
"Thanks," Yoshi chuckled nervously, kneeling down and taking the shoe.
"Okay, good luck," Mario told them.
With that, the group turned away from the hole in the floor, and instead to the new task at hand.
"Alright, so where do we go?" Yoshi asked.
"We're one floor above, so we'll need to find a stairway down," Waluigi explained.
"There was no door to the room though," Toadette reminded him. "Looks like we'll need to find a different method."
"Shit, you're right," Waluigi scratched his forehead. "Any ideas?"
"Let's just go down there," Toad urged. "There has to be a control panel or something to let them escape."
"What about Bowser?" Yoshi whispered. "He's around here somewhere, he said he was gonna 'figure it out.' That might mean looking at security footage or something."
"We don't know how he'll act, he might lock us up again," Waluigi said, hesitant.
"We've gotta take risks, we can't leave them trapped there forever," Birdo argued.
"Alright, alright," Waluigi gave in. "We'll get them first. Where are we anyways?"
The group was standing in the middle of a dark room. There were piles of brown boxes near one end, and a door on the other.
"Maybe some storage room?" Yoshi said. "I don't exactly know the layout to this place."
"Alright, let's go," Waluigi lead the group, heading for the door.
Once there, he slightly opened it, peeking his head through.
"What do you see?" Toad whispered.
"We're clear," Waluigi informed them. "C'mon."
Yoshi was the first to follow him out of the storage room, the others close behind.
Waluigi was carefully leading the group down the hall. With each step, they passed by many different rooms, and paintings of Bowser and his spoils of war, articulated down to the smallest detail.
"I need to meet the artist," Toadette said, impressed.
"If we ever find a way out of here," Birdo snarled.
Near the end of the hallway, they could see a staircase, presumably leading down to the floor below.
A few more minutes of walking passed by, nobody saying a word.
Toad began to suspect something was up.
"Doesn't it feel like we've made more progress?" he said lowly. "I mean, we've been going in a straight line for like five minutes, right?"
"You sure about that?" Toadette asked.
"He's right," Waluigi realized, immediately stopping. The others did the same.
"What are you talking about?" Yoshi said, confused.
"I mean, look," Waluigi pointed to the walls. "We've seen these paintings before. And these same four doors. It's like some continuous loop."
Yoshi squinted his eyes down the hallway. The longer he stared, the further away it seemed.
"We'll need a new plan then," Yoshi accepted it, as if he were in charge.
"This must be Kamek's doing," Birdo presumed. "Only he is capable of these magical illusions."
"So, what do we do?" Toad griped.
Suddenly, they felt a rumble in the floor below their feet, and an ominous shadow could be made out in front of them, at the end of the hall.
"Quick, hide!" Waluigi hissed, diving into a nearby room. Luckily, Yoshi managed to slip into the same room Waluigi dove in.
Even though it was dark, Waluigi could tell it was a bedroom, just by the layout alone. With Yoshi behind him, he inched his way to the door way, ever so slightly peeking his eyeballs down the hall.
Indeed, the shadow had moved all the way up the stairs, until the Koopa King emerged from below.
He scanned the hall that they were hiding in. Waluigi was relieved that the others managed to get out of sight as well.
Seeing nothing, Bowser groaned loudly before turning to his left and continued out of sight.
Once the coast was clear, Waluigi wiped his forehead in a sigh of relief. Getting up from the floor, he flicked on the light.
He turned around, but Yoshi was gone.
"Yoshi?" he called out, keeping his voice low enough to not attract the big man in charge.
The whole bedroom was empty. It wasn't large, a single room with two beds, but the dino clearly was absent from it.
He snuck out into the hallway, looking right, then to the left. Nothing. Did the killer get to Yoshi right under his nose?
Suddenly, out of the corner of Waluigi's eye, he saw a blur coming straight for him.
"Jesus!" Waluigi yelled, holding his chest. "You almost gave me a heart attack."
Yoshi was standing in front of him, out of breath.
"I just checked all the rooms, I can't find them anywhere," he panicked. "It's like they've disappeared."
"What do you mean, they disappeared," Waluigi gulped. "I mean, they've got to be-"
"Take a look for yourself," Yoshi huffed, putting his hands on his knees.
Waluigi stepped though the four doors that were nearby over the next several minutes. No sign of Toad, Toadette, or Birdo.
"Holy shit," Waluigi shook, worried. "There's no sign of them . . . what're we going to do?"
"I don't know about you, but this is getting weird . . . we should try and find a way out of here," Yoshi urged. "Before something happens to us, too."
"We can't leave them," Waluigi vowed. "Once we find them we can find a way outta this place."
Both of them were still in the hall. Waluigi's eyes bounced from door to door.
"Alright," Yoshi gave in.
Waluigi turned to a unique door that had a golden knob.
"Interesting. You didn't check this one, right?"
"I guess not," Yoshi raised an eyebrow. "Blends in with the wallpaper."
"Let's take a look," Waluigi took a deep breath.
Yoshi put his hand on the knob, but it wouldn't budge.
"You've gotta be kidding me," he grunted, wiggling the knob but to no avail. "You wanna try?"
Yoshi reluctantly moved out of the way, letting Waluigi attempt. However, the same result ensued.
"Damn it," he muttered, looking up to the door itself. "What's so special about it."
"Not sure," Yoshi shrugged, then put his belly on the ground, peeking under the door. "It almost looks like tile in there, maybe a master bathroom of some sort."
"We'll need a key if we want anything to do with the inside," Waluigi scratched his head.
"Okay, let's get to the stairs then," Yoshi pointed to the staircase at the end of the hall, which Bowser had came up a few minutes earlier.
"Alright," Waluigi agreed.
So the duo tip-toed down the hall, checking both ways before quietly taking the staircase downward.
"I'm guessing they were just toying us with that hallway-loop thing," Waluigi pointed out. "It's back to normal, but be alert for any other devious magic activities."
Finally making it to the floor below, Yoshi pointed to a sign that read, Prisoner Room with an arrow pointing straight ahead.
"Remember, the only exit was that fake door," Waluigi reminded him.
Upon walking a bit farther, they began to hear some voices and commotion.
"It's definitely here," Yoshi said. "Let's get them out."
Waluigi tugged on a lever that was attached to the wall. This triggered the wall in front of them to cave inward and slide open, like a makeshift door.
"The door was blended in to the wall," Yoshi revealed. "That must've been why we couldn't find it."
Waluigi and Yoshi quickly made their way into the prisoner room.
"What the hell?" Waluigi yelled, confused.
For some reason, there wasn't anybody in the room.
"Where did everyone go?" Yoshi burst out. "We were gone what, like ten minutes?"
"And the voices, too," Waluigi murmured. "I still hear them."
Their eyes quickly darted over to the edge of the room, where there laid an old, dusty tape recorder, with the sound of voices coming from it.
"Are you kidding me?" Yoshi threw up his hands. "Who the hell does this kind of shit."
"It must be Bowser," Waluigi pointed out. "We saw him come up the stairs, remember? We're too late."
"Wait!" Yoshi hissed, pointing to the pile of ceiling tile that Wario had brought down earlier.
"What about it?" Waluigi said, lowly.
"That," he pointed slightly behind the rubble, it looked like a limb of some sort.
"Oh," Waluigi's eyes bolted all the way open.
Yoshi slowly made his way over to the rubble and tossed aside the biggest chunk of debris.
Waluigi put his hand over his mouth and turned away at the sight.
The corpse of Luigi laid in front of them, looking almost like a warning of what was to come. His eyes were open, a frozen gaze to the ceiling. A bit of white foam was seen near his mouth.
"Damn, so the killer was with their group," Waluigi gasped.
"We. . . we need to get out of here," Yoshi murmured. "Or we're all going to die."
That's it for now! Who could've killed Luigi, and where did everyone go?
Comment your thoughts/suspects and stay tuned for the next part