"Alright," Mr. Romano rubbed his hands together anxiously, standing in a commanding way before the hotel doors as he gazed over the open lobby. "Time to get to work.

"So this is the hotel, as you can see," he went on, as if the small human standing nearby needed to be told. "You can feel free to look around anywhere you need — maintenance, guest rooms, whatever. I just need every last nook and cranny ghost and goop-free. ...Anyway, I'd better stay here and get this place in order. I'll be here if you need anything." Clearing his throat, he made sure the front doors were closed behind him. "At this rate, I'll never get back home..."

At his elbow, the human glanced up at him briefly for a double take. Oh. Oh. Of course Mr. Romano wasn't actually going to accompany him — that would be far too much to ask.

"Uh... so what is it exactly that you want me to do?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, you know, investigate. Get rid of the ghost problem. Fix our haunted issue?"

The boy raised his eyebrows in amazement and shook his head. "And where exactly are those problems??"

He spread his arms dramatically as if the boy was blind. "Everywhere! I told you, this place is just not right. I can't let the new guests in. Can't you do something? Please, Mario!" the manager almost begged. "You'll see soon enough. I just can't have the guests getting the wrong idea!"

   The boy furrowed his eyebrows. "I can look around," he said. "But I don't know what I'm looking for." To himself, he thought smugly, Shine sprites, of course. This had turned out quite perfectly — now he could have free run of the hotel, and no one could argue with his business either.

   "Oh yes! Thank you!!" Mr. Romano breathed in pathetic relief. "You can ask the staff I have around about what they've seen. Don't miss anything!"

   Managers. Masking a snort, Mario stepped forward now to observe the room more closely, rendering the conversation over.

   At first glance the lobby looked quiet enough. That wasn't to say it wasn't quite a sight: In a truly unprecedented fashion (or so Mr. Romano had liked to believe) they were the only hotel in the southern sea to have a ground floor composed mostly of indoor ponds — a large portion of the floor around the front door was sunken about a foot below, and was kept perpetually full of standing water to give a true tropical vibe. It certainly was exotic — as long as one didn't mind the lack of railings.

Never a problem for me, Mario thought.

Small lit braziers that looked like coconut husks stood on pillars by the water, providing a further wild atmosphere. The white walls and floors were adorned with subtle tiles of a similar feel, and reaching out from each wall wide pathways of wooden planks converged at a large totem pole at the center of the lobby, making the appearance of an indoor jungle boardwalk. Thatched shades over the windows kept the lighting dim and peaceful, as did the grass covers over the reception desk and breakfast counter on either side. Past the dining area with the wooden tables and the bathrooms beyond them, the enormous staircase leading around a corner upward was the only thing that looked relatively normal.

Mama mia, he realized, momentarily excited. If this is the lobby, what are the rooms like??

Coming to stop before the large totem pole in the center, Mario gazed upwards and put his hands on his hips. It was elaborately carved like an ancient tiki torch, reaching upwards through a square-shaped hole in the ceiling until it passed out of sight.

"Nice," he commented, accidentally speaking out loud. "Wonder how high it goes?"

"All the way up to the third floor," came the answer. Turning, Mario found the owner of the voice to be a pianta janitor nearby, coming over from the dining area with large broomstick in tow.

   "It goes through all three stories up to the top. It's not a support though," he explained, gesturing. "It's actually got a statue at the top near the ceiling... see, I don't know if you can see it."

   Nodding politely, Mario gazed back upwards. "Huh."

   "Hey, y'know... if you're looking for something weird, you might want to go up there and check it out," the janitor went on. "You're supposed to be investigating, right?"

   Surprised, Mario looked at him. "Uh, I guess? ...What do you mean by weird?"

   "Well not too long ago, I was upstairs looking at the statue at the top of the totem pole, and I was noticing it had this weird opening," the pianta went on. "It was maybe just my imagination, but I could've sworn something was off about it. Like, it really spooked me... like there was something inside maybe?"

   The human frowned. "Is the pole hollow?" he asked.

   "I dunno. Maybe."

   Glancing again at the decorative centerpiece beside them, Mario assumed a more serious look. "Okay. I guess that's a start."

   "You should probably go talk to the residents too," the janitor went on. "We were all trapped inside when the hotel went under."

   "Yeah, what exactly happened?" Mario asked, crossing his arms. "Could you tell what set it off? Was there any warning?"

   The pianta shook his head. "It's just like all the other incidents we've been getting reports of people falling into goop and stuff — a sudden earthquake, all the sudden the power went out, and the next thing we know the doors and windows are all sealed off by this dark void. Nobody in or out.

   "Fortunately, we were only in here for about an hour, I think. The manager wasn't with us, though, so it was a little chaotic there. We sent everyone back to their rooms. And then the power came back shortly after..."

   "Did you see any shine sprites?" Mario knew that shines could potentially cause strange things to happen — such as in the case of the Ferris wheel malfunction, for instance — but something seemed different about this.

   The worker frowned thoughtfully. "No, nothing like that. Our electricity is just a little wonky to begin with, truth be told, and this hasn't exactly been helping. See, this hotel is outfitted with the finest auto-lock system available. Security here is top notch! No worries at all!" He snorted as if in disdain for his own advertisement. "We do have trouble getting around, however... And whenever the elevator locks up, we can't even reach the basement floor because there's no staircase anyway. Smart, huh."

"What do you mean auto-lock? Does that include the guest rooms?" Mario wanted to know, thinking immediately back to his teenage handyman days. They could wire the whole building to go into lockdown if something tripped an alarm... or...

"Yeah, the whole bit. Honestly I thought the door issues have been the main reason people were saying this place is haunted, but after the statue incident I'm not so sure. Some people claimed that they saw ghosts, and our manager's a sucker for that kind of stuff."

Mario frowned slightly and glanced up again. "Okay. Well, thanks, I'll see what I can find..."

"Sure thing, bud. Be smart!"

What does he think I'll do, be dumb? Mario wondered as he wandered off, but he didn't reply. Glad that there were employees around to prevent Fludd from giving a sarcastic opinion, he approached what he assumed was the breakfast counter in the back corner by the dining tables. Hm, actually, some food would be nice!! It had been several hours since lunch, and Mario had worked up enough appetite for probably someone twice his size.

"Hey, excuse me," he said, parking an elbow on the counter. "Do you have any fish?"

"Hunh?" The pianta, dressed in a tan uniform that must have also belonged to the hotel staff, turned from his counter where he was seeding pomegranates. "Uh, sorry, we only stock fruit here, sir... durians, cantaloupes, you know. Anything you like?"

"Oh. Well... I'm short on time, so can you give me a..." He paused a moment in sudden indecision, the thought of getting food almost too exciting. He was trying to decide between a pear and a banana that were sitting out in front when suddenly the perfect answer hit him.

"You have any peaches?" he asked.

The pianta expertly scooped one up and tossed it his way with the end of a large spatula, leaving the boy to catch it in one hand.

   He grinned. "Thanks. I'm not sure when I'll get to eat again."

"You just roll in? Does the manager have you looking for our ghost problem?" the man wanted to know.

Mario leaned against the counter and slurped the fruit as politely as possible, nodding in indifference. "Among other things." He'd almost forgotten how much he loved the fuzzy fruit; it was almost as warm and sweet as the girl they reminded him of.

The pianta returned to his task. "Well good luck," he said. "I know this place is a little —

Anything he might have divulged was cut off then by a loud, harsh screech as of a metal door slamming closed. Unsurprisingly, everyone in the lobby looked up in alarm.

"Ah, shoot," the pianta groaned, glancing over towards the bathrooms. "The stairs are in lockdown again. This is just great." He resumed seeding his fruit.

"Wait, what?" Mario asked, walking around the counter to see for himself. Sure enough, where the staircase had previously promised an investigation to the higher floors of the hotel, a solid, sliding metal wall now barred the entire back wall. You've got to be kidding me!

"What happened?!" Mr. Romano yelled anxiously from the reception desk.

"Just another lockdown, sir! The elevator's also down!" an employee called from the opposite end.

"Blast it," the manager muttered loudly. "Mario, hang on, old boy. We'll try to get this thing online so you can get upstairs. ...Did you try switching to our solar reserves?" he turned to his assistant at the desk.

   "Yes, it's been entirely shut down! Nothing's responding!!"

   "You can't tell me the ghosts have tampered with the system," Mr. Romano said sharply.

   "Well isn't it a possibility??"

Sure. Watching the trouble unfold while polishing off his appreciated snack, Mario cast a careful gaze around the room. Ghosts — they could be tricky, terrible things, at their worst; that and more. Maybe they were right about the place being haunted.

   No one could ever deny that Mario believed in ghosts, certainly — and not just believed. He knew — he knew they were real, they were different creatures with their own types of personalities. He knew there were many kinds of ghosts, not all of which were truly bad, and that was the real question to think about — what kind they might be dealing with here. Subconsciously, he laid a hand on Fludd's handle.

   He just wasn't sure, if they happened to be unfriendly, if he was ready for a run-in with them right now.

   Of course, there was also the possibility that they weren't truly ghosts at all. Maybe all of this was somehow related to the shines and the magic paintbrush and...

   In any case, what to do now? There was always more than one way out of a room, he believed — as long as you did things the unorthodox way; and he didn't feel like waiting around for something to get fixed. Suddenly convinced, he stepped forward to the restrooms which sat on either side of the stairway entrance. They were his only real exploration options at this point.

   "Hey Fludd, you get any readings on this floor?"

   "Not particularly, no."

   "Any hauntings?"

   "That is hard to say. I was not equipped with a paranormal sensor."

   "Really?" Surprising. "Well, it's worth a look." With that, Mario turned and headed for the doorway on the right side of the stairwell, glancing around awkwardly for a moment to make sure no one was watching.

   "Mario, I might advise against that," Fludd interrupted. "While I agree that we should look for shines, it is a general concession that people maintain gender rules for public restrooms."

   "Fludd, he gave me free rein of the building," Mario replied pointedly. "I have to investigate. Besides, the hotel is on lockdown, there's probably no one in here —

   His argument was quickly and abruptly killed by the harsh shriek that echoed through the women's bathroom, nearly slicing his eardrums.

   "EEEEK!!! What are you doing in here!?"

   Freezing in his tracks, the young human stared stupidly. A pianta woman in a pink dress had practically run into him on his way in, and now she almost cowered in terror by a wall as if she'd encountered a hideous cockroach. "The men's room is on the other side!!" she babbled, pointing.

For a moment all he could do was stand there in the doorway and stare, wondering how he even got into these situations. BEWARE ANGRY PIANTA WOMEN. "I know ma'am, I was just —

   "You came in KNOWING it was the ladies' room?? Shameful!!" she scolded, the initial fear passing now that she saw the man was shorter than she was.

Somehow, Mario felt more attacked than she probably did. Oh mama, why did it —

"What do you think you're doing??" the woman demanded, seemingly more composed, though the hysterical edge never left her voice. "Get out!!"

Mario tried to catch a word and resolved not to shrink without justifying himself. It wasn't that he'd wanted to be a nuisance — he just didn't mind being one. "Lady calm down, I was only here to look for —

"For nothing!! You peeping toms sicken me — no respect for anyone!! Get out I said, right now!!" She kept raising her voice dangerously, so Mario was starting to fear that someone would hear.

In a brief second he scanned the room with his eyes; just stalls and sinks that he could see. Nothing out of the ordinary. Okay, we can probably get going now.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" he said defensively, putting up his hands and retreating from the room at last before she could start throwing things at him. Pausing to take just a moment's breath outside, he was more than relieved to see no one had noticed his intrusion.

"Okay, so not much in there."

The machine moved on his shoulder. "Mario—

"I don't need to hear it," his owner interrupted, crossing the room for the obvious safe haven of the men's room on the other side. How could he make Fludd understand that sometimes you just had to do things? Well, maybe that one wasn't really necessary, but it had seemed like a good idea, so...

He hadn't expected there to be guests around at all, what with the lockdown and everything, so to his even greater surprise, he also encountered a man walking out of the bathroom as he was going in.

Jerking a thumb behind him, the pianta man leaned toward him. "You need a restroom, go on in. It's not like there's a line," he snorted. "I lost it when I heard this was a four-star resort. I mean, come on! Water damage in the restrooms? That is SO low class!"

   If Mario had been a dog, his ears would have shot up. "Water damage?" he asked. His middle name was water damage. Well, one of my many middle names.

   The man nodded, moseying out. "I was just thinking the same thing," he said in goodbye.

   Mario smiled uncomfortably after him, chuckling under his breath. I really highly doubt it! Then he turned and rushed inside.

   "What is so exciting about water damage?" Fludd immediately wanted to know. "It can lead to mold, which is bad for the lungs. Not to mention, it is a good waste of water!"

   "Fludd, water damage is my expertise," Mario replied, glancing past the sinks and bathroom stalls set into the rustic rock walls. The only thing immediately strange to him was the lack of urinals, but he could let that slide for now.

   "A leak can only mean a bad or badly installed pipe somewhere," he went on, stopping to inspect the stalls more closely. They were all empty — he might as well take a look.

   "So if we can see where this thing is coming from, we might be able to fix it!" he concluded.

   "But how does that find us shine sprites or get us any closer to the ghosts?" his machine wanted to know. "You were not hired as a plumber, remember?"

   Mario made a thoughtful expression. "Yeah, I guess... I just need a real lead here, Fludd! What if we — Oh," he cut himself off, suddenly catching sight of himself in the mirrors. As if momentarily entranced, he stepped forward in inspection, touching the sides of his face briefly. "Too bad I don't have my luggage with me — I should've probably shaved this morning."

   "Mario, are you getting sidetracked? I don't think that's —

   "Hey, it's important!" Mario retorted, before turning back to the stalls. "No, it'll be fine for now. Though y'know... I should probably catch a restroom while I'm here," he realized, pointing.

   "Mario —

   "I'm only gonna be a minute, Fludd... is there somewhere safe to leave you?"

   "Leave me?" Fludd asked, not understanding. "What for?"

   "Well — " Mario paused in slight embarrassment, trying to remind himself that same thing from earlier: he's just a robot — it shouldn't be any different than if you're talking to a wall.

   "No, you're right," he said at last, going into the last corner stall with friend in tow. But somehow, as he took off the belt and set his machine down safely on the floor, he still had a hard time convincing himself that Fludd was just an inanimate object.

   A couple of relatively unexceptional minutes later, Mario was pulling his overall straps down over his shoulders, trying to get them to stay long enough for him to get the buttons fastened, when Fludd lifted his head. "Mario, is that the water damage you spoke of?"

   Glancing up to the corner Fludd indicated, the human squinted briefly. Where the wall met the ceiling, a visible dampness made itself clear along the molding. Up above, the ceiling was made of what appeared to be flimsy white tiles, several of which were badly browned with wear. Seeing them, Mario had a sudden burst of inspiration.

   "Yeah... Wait a minute!" In excitement, Mario grabbed Fludd from the floor and quickly put him back on, yanking his overalls into place too. Making sure to leave his stall door locked, he carefully stepped up onto the ledge above the toilet, putting him close enough to reach up and touch the ceiling. Without hesitation, he began pushing upwards on one of the tiles, finding it light and easily lifted.

   "Mario, are you sure this is a good idea?" Fludd asked. "This may lead —

   "Shh!" his owner replied. "Yes, it'll be good!" Focusing on the extraction overhead, he had soon managed to entirely move the tile aside and create an opening.

   "Should take us through a little crawl space in between where we'll find a way onto the next floor," he muttered, immensely pleased with his plan. Jumping up to the edge and quickly hoisting himself upwards, he paused to let his legs hang out as he tried to adjust to the gloom. "We'll be there in no time!"

~

   Five minutes and a fair amount of crawling in the dark later, Mario had finally situated himself before a crack of light which he believed to be the exit.

   "See, that's not so bad," he whispered.

   "Mario, when he said he wanted you to check every nook and cranny I don't believe he meant for this," Fludd said.

"He didn't know what he meant," Mario replied in a slightly hushed voice. "It'll be fine! Look, I've got it," he said, trying to grab a stone panel in the wall that he'd found. Finding it hard to pry his fingers around the edges, he soon resorted to a harsher method, shoving his shoulder against it.

"Mario that does not seem advisable —

Another second and it scraped and gave way. Crawling eagerly forward through the square of waiting light, Mario didn't say a thing at all as he quickly scoped out his new surroundings. Scrambling upright, he soon replaced the stone panel he'd dislodged from below a molding in the wall.

"Like it never happened," he whispered, standing up.

It didn't take long at all to figure out where they were: a sink and counter stood beside them on one wall, and opposite that was a single toilet beside a rather luxurious in-ground bathtub. It was a relatively small room, but it wasn't any public restroom for sure.

"Mario-! This is a residential bathroom," Fludd realized, taking in the posh granite surfaces and high ceilings.

"Yeah, I know," the human waved it off. Pausing for only a second to gaze at the tub, he said, "Hey, these things are nice. Do you think this is the source of the water damage?"

But before Fludd could give any thoughts to that, a small sound from the next room jerked them both to attention. Someone was in there—!

Apparently, however, it wasn't a big deal, because Mario was headed right for it. Without a second thought the human turned and walked straight out of the bathroom, finding himself right in the middle of one of the standard Delfino suites — and consequently right into a woman's bedroom.

   The initial confrontation, when they first saw each other, was not as dramatic as the woman would later make it out to be.

She jumped. Then, remaining rooted to her spot a couple of feet from the bed, she stared at her intruder as if he'd been back from the dead. Her mouth was halfway open when he spoke.

Mario raised his hands like a shield. "Before you ask, I'm working in the hotel and I was sent to check on the residents about the ghost problem," he said quickly.

The woman, a yellow pianta in a stark orange dress, let out a large breath but didn't wipe the startled look from her face. Finally, she found her voice and said, "Excuse me... Well why didn't you knock then!? And how'd you get in here, I thought we were still on lockdown??"

   She didn't give him time to try answering. "Just what exactly is this?? Is it customary to waltz into people's rooms, or what? Are you searching for something??"

Mario shook his head. "Somewhat. I'm just trying to get to the top floor lady, the stairs are out of order. Do you have anything weird to report?"

Clearly flustered about the sudden man in her room, she blinked a couple of times and then found some momentum. "You mean aside from you? ...Yes, funny you mention it, actually. I get a really creepy vibe from this... weird painting," she said, pointing an accusatory finger towards the large print on her wall. "I can't explain what, it's just..." Stopping to stare at him more, she asked, "Are you sure you work here? What exactly is going on??"

Mario, too wrapped up in the painting now to pay attention, didn't reply. Walking up to observe the artwork in more detail, he didn't understand what she was saying at first: it just looked like a normal picture of the sea, painted entirely in purple hues as the viewer gazed outward from within a heavily-vegetated shoreline. It was something you might expect to find in any hotel room; it was lovely...

And it was weird. Mario squinted, staring into the scene a moment longer. He was no stranger to artwork and the world of paintings — sometimes, he was a lot closer than he would ever like to admit.

And now, somehow, he realized there was something off about this one.

The focus at first glance seemed to be a single ship, a sailboat out on the violet water beneath a low-hanging crescent moon at twilight. The dark palm trees' silhouettes against the sky appeared natural, so that was why he couldn't put his finger on what was wrong at all...

Until he had stared for a few more seconds.

All this time, the woman who owned the room stood by his shoulder, talking uselessly and flitting back and forth between him and the painting.

"Sir, what are you doing? Hey, if you're done with your, um, inspection, can you please leave now? I told you, there's just something weird about it, but I highly doubt it means that there's—

She cut herself off as the human stepped forward, reaching out a hand to trace an imaginary figure over the image. "What, what is that? What are you doing, can someone please tell me what's going on??" She slightly raised her voice, but to no avail: Mario was beyond hearing.

Paintings could be just for viewing pleasure; or they could be secret caches for holding hidden treasures, or they could be portals to other worlds; or they could even be like a prison, a nightmarish —

"Hey, you know it's great that you're trying to help out and all, I think, but you want to know what I find even creepier than this painting?" the woman was going on to the oblivious young man. "...Imagining how you got in here!"

Mario let out a short breath as he drew a step back, shaking his head at the image before him before he could get ahead of himself. Finally turning half his attention to the woman, he said, "There's a boo in this painting."

She was so surprised that she stopped and blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

The boy lifted his head and traced again over the painting, emphasizing the outline of the trees against the sky. "It's a boo."

The lady followed his eyes to the picture, shaking her head. "I don't understand what —

   She stopped when he suddenly began to back up, eyeing the picture with a strange intensity. For a moment he simply stood; then he launched himself forward.

   He knew what he had to do here.

   With a muffled scream the pianta woman stared as Mario ran straight into her wall, seemingly to faceplant directly into her painting like a crazed person; the next second, her scream was cut off as he reached out, completely submerged first his hand and then the rest of his body into the purple surface.

   And then he was gone.

   The pianta woman sucked in her breath in terror as a faint cackle — she swore it — as of a small creature echoed from within the painting's now rippling canvas. Her skin turned a paler yellow.

   "He's gone," she said aloud, as if she needed to hear it herself. "He's gone!"

   Before her eyes, the previous movement on the painting's surface soon dissipated, leaving nothing more than the image she had begun with; but it left no trace or hint of what had happened to the boy who had only seconds ago been there. Tentatively, she began to reach out a hand, but quickly pulled back.

Spinning in a small circle, she eyed the ceiling suspiciously. "What is this place??"

~

   In a matter of short seconds Mario felt his feet hit a tile floor, hard, and he stumbled for a second as he gathered his footing. Straightening up, he soon grinned to find himself in a bathroom.

   Another bathroom.

Unlike the poor pianta woman's, Mario's experience was much more ordinary and tolerable than one might expect. There was no strange pull of forcefields, no flashing lights or otherworldly phenomena that waited for him when he jumped beyond the painting's surface— only a hole, an opening that gave way immediately like a wall that had no substance. With it all said and done, Mario had earnestly expected something more magical.

   "Well, it looks like they may have been right about the place being haunted after all," the human remarked, adjusting Fludd on his waist.

   "What was that?" Fludd asked, confused. "How did you know?"

   "The silhouette of the trees made the obvious shape of a boo in the picture," Mario said simply, shaking his head. "It even had an eye and a mouth." Tapping his chin for a moment, he was thoughtful. "Boos always do sort of subtle things like that. You've just got to... recognize these things."

Boos were indeed masters of the kind of tricks he was seeing now. That was what made him sure he was following some sort of suspicious trail — though to where, he wasn't sure. They loved to mess around (especially in large buildings), play with things, fool people— and sometimes much worse.

Everyone worth their salt knew what a boo was, of course: they were strange, slightly funny little ghost-creatures with an often dark sense of humor. Their small, rounded bodies that often glowed white when they were visible weren't easy to miss, especially if you were terrified of ghosts; the tiny stubby arms that they typically had were usually made up for as well by large, ample fangs. That wasn't to say all boos were bad, just as all humans weren't bad; though Mario wasn't sure if the ones they were dealing with here might be anything good. He had booish friends — and many more booish enemies.

"So that is it? You think boos are haunting this hotel?" Fludd asked.

"Well... I don't know for sure," Mario began. "But there's definitely something fishy about it. That wasn't... normally normal." Pausing, he shrugged. "But if there's one thing I've learned, it's just to always throw yourself at paintings," he instructed, turning to look at the place from which he had come. He found that it appeared completely ordinary from this side: a simple wall mirror beside someone's bathroom counter.

   "It was an illusion. Or a secret passage of some kind." Sweeping over his reflection briefly, Mario noticed that the mirror did seem to have a slightly darker, bluish hue; something was amiss. The wall with the painting must have been on the other side...

   "Think I should stick my hand back through and scare the lady?"

   Fludd wasn't a fan. "I think we should keep looking for the third floor."

   His owner sighed. "Yeah yeah, come on."

   The bathroom, as the last one had, led into a neighboring guest room with a fancy tile floor and luxurious king-sized bed. It was immediately obvious that they hadn't been lucky enough to find an empty room, but at least the occupants were a bit more understanding this time.

   He found the pair of nokis huddling anxiously by the bed like those who had... seen a ghost? Mario wondered. "Hey, what's going on in here?" he asked, walking in as if he owned the place.

   One of them, the man, looked up in alarm for a second, but it quickly subsided. "Oh, th-thank goodness. Do you work here, mister? We've been hiding for, like, ever!"

   "What happened?" the human asked.

   "A little while ago I was j-just here going through my suitcase, and suddenly a ghost came out of the c-closet! It had big teeth and... crazy lifeless eyes..."

   "Honey! What on earth? Who is this man, for all we know??" the noki beside him, his wife, stared at him incredulously. "What are you doing in here??"

   "I was sent to investigate the ghost problem," Mario replied like it was obvious. "I'm just passing through... I think." Turning away, he headed towards the opposite end of the room while they looked on, still frozen by the suddenness of it all. The human pointed to a large set of what appeared to be sliding closet doors, made of wood in a weave too thick to see through. "Where do these go?"

"Um... those go to the neighbor's room," the man spoke up uncertainly. "We keep those locked. Now if you could just tell us what exactly you're doing here —

"Honey! Make him leave!" his wife hissed, quite audibly.

The noki cleared his throat to try again. "Hey, listen... would you mind being a bit more... polite?"

"I'm just trying to find a way upstairs," Mario replied, ignoring the request entirely. Meanwhile he had engrossed himself in the sliding doors, and was now all but done unlocking them.

"H-hey! You can't just walk in there, sir—

"It's no problem, I'll have this all under control soon!" As if he hadn't heard them at all, the chipper human bounced forward into the next area, leaving the noki couple stricken speechless.

And what should that next area reveal but another large, spacious bathroom; and there by the counter a dreadfully familiar, almost-twelve pink pianta girl.

Mario saw her first. Oh—!

Fludd beat him to the punch when he stopped in his tracks. "Oh look, it's Nico!" he proclaimed, as if spotting her in a parade.

The pianta girl, who had previously been turned away towards the laundry she was unfolding from a suitcase, jumped in alarm at the sound of his metallic voice. Visibly shaken, for a moment she simply stared, ashen-faced, before quickly recovering the cool attitude from when they'd first met.

"...Mr. Bellboy?? Well what do you know..." She didn't seem to know how to react.

Putting on a half grin that he hoped was good enough, Mario came forward. "Hey, if it isn't the little princess. You made it to the hotel, huh?"

"Yeah... so did you," she remarked, glancing him over briefly and finding him unchanged since their adventure in Pinna Park. "So I guess you do work here, huh?"

Mario suppressed a groan and turned away, inspecting the large jacuzzi tub laid before a set of large frosted window panes. This bathroom was bigger and nicer than the ones he'd seen; must have been a deluxe suite or something. The tall windows let a pleasant peachy light into the bathroom.

"I work for everyone, in a sense," he reminded her. "And I'm still on the trail of that kidnapped princess, remember."

   The girl narrowed her eyes. "Oh yeah, the girl you went on and on about..."

   "I did not!" Mario said, though he feared briefly that he might turn red.

   "So don't tell me. Your latest lead has placed the kidnappers right beside my hotel room," Nico guessed.

   "No," Mario said, "If only it were that easy. These kidnappers are serious, Nico... we're talking about the monarch of a rival kingdom and his kid now. It's royal family business."

   "Gosh, you never mentioned you were royalty!" the girl gushed in mock admiration.

   Mario ignored her. "...I'm not even gonna ask where your parents are."

"Yeah, don't bother, 'cause you don't wanna see them I'm sure," Nico shrugged, plunking herself on the edge of the tub to shake out a frilly shirt. "So just what exactly does bring you here? ...Into my room? Without warning?" When he was just opening his mouth to answer, she added, "It can't have been to come see me already, can it?"

"Well, if I told you I'm looking for ghosts and shine sprites, would that sound better?" the young man asked, leaning against the tub's edge.

Nico paused to consider a moment, tilted her head, then shrugged. "Seems legit. Although you know I don't have anymore of those shine thingies... What's so special about them anyway? What are they supposed to —

"Have you seen any around?" Fludd interrupted.

She glanced up at him. "No, of course not! Those things aren't just roadside knickknacks, man. Aside from the one I gave you," she reminded. "They probably hide in dark, secret places, if there are any around."

"Hmm, that might be true — like the one that was hidden under the hotel," Mario thought aloud. "It wasn't out in plain sight."

   "Perhaps someone hid it there," Fludd jumped in. "Or trapped it there."

Nico didn't lose a beat. "Under the hotel? Oh, so you're the one who pulled us out of the void? Hey, now that's something," the girl remarked.

"It is indeed!" Fludd agreed, missing any hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Mario snorted. "Well look, these shines are important to the wellbeing of the island and the only way I'm gonna reach that princess. Listen, have you seen any ghosts around? Or anything strange at all around here that might be a clue?"

Nico raised her eyebrows. "Well I know you're not exactly into pulling baggage carts, but ghost hunting? That's a bit surprising," she acknowledged.

Mario frowned at her. "What do you mean? Don't you know this place is like haunted?"

"Yeah, I know what they said, believe me. I just didn't think someone like you would really buy into all of that."

Mario turned toward her, suddenly becoming quite serious. "Well I do."

Taken aback by his change in tone, Nico stopped sorting through the pile of clothes she was holding. "Okay... well. So what are you gonna do then?"

Now Mario frowned, looking around as if for a magic solution to appear. "Well as you may know, the stairs are in lockdown, and I'm trying to get to the third floor to investigate something," he explained.

"Oof, good luck with that," Nico commented. "The doors in this place are crazy. They even override the key cards."

   "Yeah, I know," Mario replied.

   "But if you're trying to get upstairs, then that's not really gonna matter anyway," Nico went on.

   "Yeah, I know," Mario replied.

   "Though if you're still crazy, you can always just climb something to the top floor."

   "Yeah, I — wait," Mario stopped. "Climb?"

   Nico glanced around and shrugged. "Yeah, you know. If you said you're trying to get upstairs, you're gonna have to go up somehow, huh?"

   Well duh! Scrambling forward suddenly, Mario whirled around and squinted at the ceiling as if trying to read fine print. The same tiles-!

   "Oh boy," Nico sighed, standing up. Crossing her arms, she said, "I'm not even gonna ASK how you got in here."

   Mario turned to her. "Can you let me get up through your ceiling?"

   She widened her eyes. "Okay, didn't think I'd hear that." Glancing around suddenly, she turned back to him in something like a conspiratorial whisper. "Uggh. My parents will be back soon you know, so whatever you're doing, you better do it quick."

   The human grinned. "Alright, I'll make it. Just cover for me, okay?"

   Nico raised her eyebrows and stared as Mario promptly began to scale her bathroom, climbing up onto the tub first and then using a wall shelf as footholds. Suddenly remembering her task, Nico went to stand and block the door, questioning her life choices.

   "I don't think my parents can even get back in here though if the locks are being themselves right now," she said, watching the young man throw himself towards the ceiling. Cringing only the slightest as he accidentally grabbed and knocked a bar of soap, she added, "And you're lucky, because even I can't think of any way on earth to explain what you're doing right now."

   Mario paused as he perched himself atop the tall stone partition wall between the jacuzzi and bathroom proper, straddling it with his legs while pushing upwards on a ceiling tile. Once he'd procured himself a seeming escape route through the opening, he glanced back down at her and grinned again.

   "Well, princess, I think we can safely say you let me do it." With that he stood up and quickly flipped himself topside.

   Down by the door, Nico just groaned and shook her head in exasperation.

~

   The run of the hotel, once he'd gotten used to it, really wasn't so difficult at all as Mario soon came to the conclusion. The layout was unique but still easy to grasp, and with the lucky exception of Nico, residents' reactions were pretty easy to predict. After resurfacing into another resident bathroom, he came into the room of one last noki lady who had no patience for trespassers or hired investigators.

   "Excuse me ma'am, have you seen any—

   "Wait a minute, where did you come from?! I'm calling for help!" the noki nearly screeched, reaching for the bag by her bed. Without waiting to listen to reason, she scurried over and began digging for what was probably pepper spray.

   Woah, okay. Mario backed up and tried to put her at ease. "Ma'am listen, I work for the manager, he just sent me to check on the residents still inside the building," he said carefully, raising his hands.

   The woman slowly lowered her object and gazed at him suspiciously. "If I call will he tell me that??"

   Over-eager, Mario nodded.

   The noki continued to eye him distrustfully, but she put the weapon down and shuffled over to her bedside phone. "Alright then, what do you want?"

   "I'm just looking for strange things, ma'am," he said quickly. "They think there's, uh, boos in here."

   The noki frowned at him. "Boos? ...Well I haven't seen anything like that, but I will tell you I hear a lot of weird noises through this wall here," she said, gesturing. "I don't know if it's haunted or if there's just people doing an awful lot of moving back there." She crossed her arms as the young man walked up to inspect her wall in interest. "So what are you going to do about it, Mr. Manager's Helper?"

   Mario frowned, running a hand along the wall as if feeling it for studs or something. Finally he came to the only obstruction there was: a large rattan bookcase in one corner. Pausing to inspect it only for a second, he suddenly grabbed the corners and began shoving it with all his weight.

   The woman wasn't hot on the idea. "Whoa, excuse me! What are you doing? Is that really necessary??"

   Mario didn't even stop to look at her. "Trust me... I have a feeling," he grunted, pushing the shelf along with relative success. It was taller than he was, but since there was nothing in it...

   Aha. Just as he'd thought.

   Pushing the shelf aside soon revealed what no hotel owner would ever want to admit to — and what no four star resort should probably have.

"Well there's your ghost," he remarked.

   "...There's a hole in my wall!" the noki screamed.

   Mario stepped forward, scrunching his face into the gloomy room beyond. It was a hole, though not a large one; only a couple of feet diameter at best. Well this is interesting. Without hesitation, he put one foot inside carefully, realizing that this was not another guest room.

   The woman, on realizing he was leaving her, suddenly yelped. "Hey, you can't leave me with a hole here! You have to fix it!" she cried.

   "Don't worry ma'am, it'll be like this never happened," Mario assured her, grabbing the edges of the shelf behind him and tugging it back towards the hole. "We'll have everything back to normal soon!"

He expected she might come help him get it back into place, but instead she just stood there and stared as he struggled with it for a few seconds, trying to cover the opening while sealing himself away behind it. When he figured he'd done an adequate job, he dusted his hands and stepped back.

   He nearly bumped into a stack of large crates behind him. Turning around to scope out the room, he peered through the semi-dark to find that it was filled with lots of wooden crates and barrels, boxes and jugs of all sorts of food products. Weaving through it all, he realized it must have been some storage room.

   Which was why he was not terribly surprised when he all but bumped into a uniformed employee a second later.

"Whoa! You, uh... are you lost or something?" the pianta man asked, a bit startled to come upon a random guy in the shadows. "You know this is technically a restricted... place, right?"

Mario stared but quickly recovered his tact. "I know, I was just... running an errand for Mr. Romano," he said. This is the third floor — I don't need to be sneaking through rooms anymore anyway right now, he realized. He just needed to go out to the lobby where that pole was.

Luckily the employee didn't seem too bright. "Oh, really? Well, you haven't seen any pineapple anywhere around here, have you? I was just going through our stock before the guests come in and — hey, wait... do you even work here?"

"Well technically no... but your manager sent me on a mission," the little human replied, looking preoccupied. "It's because of the lockdown, you know." Moving past him, Mario began heading for the door he spotted in the corner that was propped open, letting a streak of light in.

"Uh... okay!" the pianta called, scratching his head as the human slipped out. Wonder how he got in here...

"Boy, maybe this place really is haunted."

~

The hard-earned freedom of the open 3rd floor hallway was not, at first glance, what Mario had expected.

The storage room let him out onto a large level, an enormous square balcony that wrapped around the rustic railings which fenced off the center. All around, the walls were lined with bamboo-framed doors — guest rooms, he assumed — each with a colorful mosaic sign of some exotic tropical animal hung over it. The ceiling was high, immensely high for any hotel Mario had ever seen; but the shaded wall lamps that illuminated the vast, blank wall space somehow captured a luxurious and simple aesthetic.

There also on the opposite side across from him was the indoor pool, somewhat visible behind a wall of thick decorative glass. Also on that end was a larger landing, just beside a large metal door that had been tucked behind a wall where the staircase and elevator must have been.

And with the exception of the one who had just walked out, it was silent as a grave.

Weird. Stepping further out, Mario lifted his head and came over to the rail. Looking down soon showed him a familiar sight; there below the square-shaped hole were the symmetrical pools of the lobby floor, and the large plants that made up its centerpiece. A little closer below him he could make out the balconies of the second floor: there wasn't much he could see there.

But the thing that interested him the most was the large totem pole which had been the whole reason for climbing up there in the first place. Rising from the ground floor straight through to the top as the employee had said, it came to a stop right before him, ending at just about his eye level a few feet from the railing. There, perched atop it as if a monument for the entire hotel, was a fair-sized golden statue of — something.

Walking slowly along the railing and around one corner, Mario eyed the piece curiously. That was peculiar — even after looking at it quite close, he couldn't tell exactly what it was. It was a creature of some sort, for sure; whether it was a weird fish, or a monster, or something altogether made up was anyone's guess. It had a large, distinct mouth that gaped open like a cavern, and that was what caught his attention the most.

"Well, there it is," he murmured aloud.

"Indeed," Fludd agreed, rotating his head forward. "Just what are we looking at?"

"The pianta man said there was something weird about it, but I think anyone could tell you that," Mario replied. "It's... I don't get it."

"Do you suppose it does something?" Fludd asked.

"Oh... well, it does look like it might have a hollow mouth. If only I could get a look inside..."

Just when it looked like Mario was about to attempt climbing up onto the railing, Fludd said, "Try spraying water in it!"

The human stopped in his tracks. "Oh, yeah! Good idea!" Without a second invitation, Mario grabbed his handles and aimed a stream sailing right over his head, jumping the gap and sending water straight into the jaws of the golden beast. After a second, he stopped and waited, holding his breath.

For a few moments nothing happened. The water had disappeared, leaving no trace of his venture, but they heard no sign of it inside the statue head either. What had happened to it?

Mario took a couple of steps back.

Perhaps he had been mistaken. Or at any rate the pianta janitor could have; Mario was only on this floor because of the suggestions of others. People could easily be —

SCREEEEEEECCHH!!

All of his thoughts crashed out the window when all in one moment, a sound like a tornado, or at the very least a driving wind combined with high-pitched laughter, erupted from out of nowhere. Mere feet before him, the controversial golden statue suddenly emitted a sound as of screeching bats, spewing it forth from somewhere within; then, before he could even make a move, it exploded.

Like a geyser shooting off steam, the statue suddenly spat forth a horde of pinkish white creatures, sending them hurling upward like weightless balloons in all directions. In the first moment Mario was too startled to make a sound, but in that split second he recognized their form: boos.

Flowing forth from the hole like a soul from a body, they appeared as terrifying and ghostly as anything: perhaps a bit transparent, but it was hard to make out anything else for the quickness of it all.

There was probably somewhere between one and two dozen in all; he didn't care to count. Remaining rooted on the balcony, he watched as they poured out one after another. Cackling like sick little pranksters, they floated briefly through the air before hitting every wall and surface, dissipating on impact.

Within another five seconds they were gone.

Blinking in shock, Mario stared at the ceiling where the last ones had seemingly dissolved without a trace. Well that... was something. Then, not missing a beat, he ran forward again and grabbed the railing, as if to search for any boos that might be left.

"We might have a small problem," he stated.