Paper Mario Party (User Interactive)

Chapter Twenty: The Return Of Math

"Time's up." Solde spoke up after a while. 

"We were on a timer?" Flavio replied.

"No, I just got impatient. All right, tell me. What's your plan?" 

Bombette stood up first. "Here's mine! We free the others. We lure Inky back to the mainland. Then we trap him in the fountain and hope your magical rainbow vomit heals him!" 

"Our WHAT?" stuttered Tarino.

"I didn't know we had magical vomit!" Emelda added, waking up from their short coma.

"That sounds kinda painful," Crimm mused.

"Be right back. I'm gonna go try it out." Solde rushed across the room leaning over a pit and retching rapidly.

"You're all complete and utter idiots," Mr L muttered.

"Look, do YOU have a better idea?" Bombette snarled.

"Flavio does!" the Rogueportian said, suddenly standing up. "Firstly, I will make an attempt to befriend him. If he somehow does not have the good taste to adhere to my charms, we will then strike him down in a duel! If my predictions are correct, which they always are, this way we can weaken the grip of the darkness, and speak to the paint can. Paint cans contain paint, so he should be able to take hold once this is possible!" 

The group all stopped what they were doing and turned to him. Silence fell upon the room for a minute or two.

"Stop being smart. You're supposed to be the incompetent one," Mr L spoke up.

"Well? What's YOUR plan?" Solde started. When he didn't respond, she spoke up again. "Then let's go. We'll figure out the details later, but we still have two members of our team who are MIA, and we should go get 'em. All right? I don't care about your response, so let's go."

• • •

Results:

NintendoJedi: +10

TuliDream: +5

BOOMFanficALatta: +0

• • • 

The next puzzle room didn't take long to find. In fact, it was almost laughably easy to get to. In fact again, all they had to do was walk forward. 

This Paint Star hadn't seemed to have dried out or gone unconscious - in fact, he wasn't even in a bubble, instead held to the wall by six chains. He didn't seem too happy about it. "Hello. Now can you please get me out of here?"

"We COULD just leave you here," Solde spoke up.

"And watch the world fall under that... thing's control?"

"Worth it if you won't stop being a damp towel about everything."

"How mature of you. Perfect Guardian material right there." 

"Can we stop talking and start getting to work?" Mr L spoke up.

"About that, yes. There's a little bit of a problem." Bombette added. With her left foot, she pointed towards the areas around. "It seems that in order to get him down, we're going to have to match up the right keys with the right locks on each chain he has."

"And how would we know that?"

"Well, there are... numbers. And equations." She turned to the engineer. "I hope you enjoy math, because... I, uh, haven't gone to college yet."

"I sincerely hope at least one of you has any idea what you're doing. I don't really feel like wanting to be possessed or something today." Tacolb pulled at his chains a little to make them more visible to the group. "My life is sort of in your hands right now. So if you kill me, I'm going to kill you."

18: Knowledge Challenge

AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA.

MATH TIME.

All right, I'm just kidding. But it is STEM time.

Send me your most interesting facts. They have to be a vaguely science-related fact, so no history or language-based ones. Stuff about how snails vomit, the reproduction of starfish, how a chemical was formed, and so on. If it's a fact I already know, it's disqualified.

Disgusting facts work, too. Go ahead, tell me whatever.

Whoever has, in my opinion, the greatest science fact, wins. 

RULES:

- If two people submit the same fact, the one that submitted it earlier wins.

- If ALL your facts are ones I know, I'll tell you and your search will continue.

This challenge ends March 10th.