With the lights in the compartment turning on one by one, the game officially begins. The mechanism slowly rises, taking out a slip of paper from the bottom of the lantern above and then descends, coming to the top of the compartment. The mechanism's part resembling a mechanical hand grabs the paper and comes downward. The top of the compartment opens a small gap, just enough for the mechanical hand to enter.
However, seemingly to facilitate their observation of the mechanism's rotation direction to devise their strategy, the ceiling of the compartment is transparent, looking not like glass, but more like some kind of high-transparency resin material. The opening is at the very center of the compartment. Perhaps afraid of sound leakage, the opening is very small. The mechanical hand also stops just above the opening and drops the paper slip down.
Superman comes to the center of the compartment and picks up the paper slip. He turns to Batman and asks, "What should we do?"
"Go out, clockwise." Batman is sitting in the corner of the compartment, recovering his physical strength. He keeps his words as brief as possible. Superman doesn't inquire much either; he turns his head to look around, but doesn't find a pen in the room, so he gestures to Batman.
He pointed at his collarbone, and Superman widened his eyes and said, "What are you doing? Your wound was almost healed..."
"It can't heal, Clark." Batman shakes his head, saying, "Use the tip of the iron to dip a bit of blood for writing."
Superman is clearly displeased, pouting his lips, but he doesn't want Batman to waste energy arguing with him, so he walks over angrily, dips a little of Batman's blood, and casually writes two strokes.
"How do we send the paper slip back?" Superman looks up, puzzled, "We can't just throw it up, I can't throw that precisely."
"Wait a moment," Batman says, "There should be a timing."
Sure enough, in about three minutes or so, the wall at the back of the compartment suddenly opens a small door, and there seems to be a passage behind. This passage is about half a meter square and inclines downward. It's very dark inside, and nothing can be seen.
"Ah, why is it like this?" Harley complains a bit, "I thought the mechanical arm would come inside."
"It's to prevent people like you." Pamela laughs, "If it came in, you'd grab it, break through the ceiling defense, and then launch yourself up killing everyone above, right?"
"Tch." Harley's thoughts are seen through, she pouts her lips. Above, Stark breathes a sigh of relief. Actually, his original design was for the mechanical arm to extend inside, but after seeing the operation by this group, he hastily adjusted the mechanism.
The passage behind the wall was originally used for them to bleed or place offerings, the paper slip wasn't supposed to go there. But now, given the situation, Stark really doesn't dare let any part of the mechanism into the room, even if it's at an unreachable height. Who knows if they'll jump up from the spot, grab the mechanical arm, and not let go.
The troublesome part, however, is that the sacrifices weren't meant to be sent to the top but directly thrown into a waste bin, which is below, without an upward passage, and it's too late to change it now. So they now have to send someone to retrieve the paper slip, following the employee passage they came from, going down to this mechanism's maintenance room, and then collect the paper slip from the waste bin.
"I'll go." the agent says. He stands up, opens the door on the ground, and climbs down the ladder. The employee passage is hidden within the column supporting the lantern, which is at the back of each compartment.
The agent only climbs down a few steps, waits until he's almost down, and then jumps directly. This jump scares the people in the compartment, almost everyone hears the sound.
This is because, to prevent them from communicating, the side walls and ceiling of the compartment are soundproofed, making it impossible to confirm anyone's identity in the room by shouting.
However, the column at the back and the floor beneath weren't soundproofed. Because logically, no one should be there. The design didn't account for climbing up and down during voting. Normally, the six people above should be sitting in their seats properly. This leads to the first loophole of the game — the agent was discovered.
The agent returns with the paper slip from the waste bin. He didn't look at it, just carefully packed the slip in a box and continued his climb up. But just as he's climbing, he hears someone knocking the wall of the middle column.
"Tap tap tap... tap tap... tap tap..."
A simple Morse code, but knocked rapidly, making it somewhat hard to distinguish. The agent still listens with his strong professional ability and discerns it. The word is simple: "Who are you?"
It turns out that the players didn't think the agent was an employee; they thought the agent might be the hidden ghost, deliberately informing them of his existence in this way. And they immediately thought of a way to respond.
Although directly shouting is possible, as the others mentioned earlier, anything said here will be heard. Directly shouting about the ghost would expose them, wouldn't it?
But even if direct communication isn't possible, indirect communication is. Anatoli is the quickest to react, to be fair, it's his KGB background. He starts chatting with Lucifer about past events, the two of them exchanging one sentence after another, completely covering up the sound of knocking on the wall.
The five sitting above are also eagerly listening to the gossip. What could be more interesting than the Soviet and Satan teaming up to resolve a series of murders as a bedtime story?
The agent didn't initially want to respond but thought about the fact that he has to run up and down at least six times, which was all due to those guys above designing the levels poorly. He slows his pace and knocks back with extreme speed.
"Hunter."
When Anatoli knocked, the two groups beside him could hear it, but those farther away couldn't, as the walls had limited sound conduction. But when the agent knocked, he knocked on the metal ladder he was holding, and this sound echoed in the circular tunnel, heard by almost all teams.
The Hunter was the mole. Everyone started thinking, but no one spoke. Now they understood why they originally could have just hung a sign at the compartment door, but those people wore different masks themselves. If not for this, the mole wouldn't have had a clean way to explain his identity.
"Help."
"Yes."
The crowd immediately began to think again. They mainly pondered what this mole could do to help them. They also knew that in a one-to-five situation, the mole absolutely couldn't reveal their identity, or they'd surely be beaten up. So, manipulating mechanisms or directly leaking questions was definitely out. The only option was to tamper with the voting process.
But, how can one person make a difference when voting is subject to majority rule?
Still, after thinking it over, even though the others weren't moles, they might also vote randomly, so every extra vote counts.
Almost every group knocked on the wall to signal the number they wanted: "One."
Then there was silence, not knowing if the others heard. But by listening to the knocking sounds from the walls of the nearby two rooms, they all understood that the others were thinking the same way, and everyone had the same solution idea.
They still wanted to continue knocking on the wall to introduce themselves, but soon another note was dropped down for them to vote. This time, they were voting for the direction of the rotation. Everyone was somewhat speechless. Couldn't they have just dealt with it in one note? Why make it so troublesome?
Stark was also a bit embarrassed and explained in the team channel, "I originally thought that relying on the mechanism to deliver and retrieve notes in multiple steps would make things clearer and increase the tension. Who knew..."
This time the agent went to collect the notes, thinking, great, now he had to make twelve runs.
Again, with a thud, he jumped down. Others wondered what excuse he was using to go up and down here; going to the bathroom that frequently seemed excessive?
However, since he landed right after the notes were retrieved, most people guessed that he was probably going to get the notes. But this was even more glaring. Really, if they built a mechanism, couldn't they make an automatic retrieval device? Just short of a little budget?
But the players were also quite good at persuading themselves. They thought there might originally be a retrieval device, but since the mole wanted to tamper, if he used an automatic retrieval device, he'd have no chance to run outside. So, he must have broken the retrieval device beforehand and then volunteered to fetch the notes, using the opportunity to communicate with them and collude to cheat the rich.
It could only be said that the whole process was wrong, but the answer was right. There actually was an automatic retrieval device; it simply didn't dare to come in. The agent wasn't the mole at all; he was just a disgruntled worker.
They all voted clockwise. Greed said, "Alright, next we should vote. Who besides me is playing the mole?"
Mephisto raised his hand. Greed nodded at him, "Alright, stick to the script. Let's start the voting."
They also found a piece of paper to write down the number of squares to rotate. This step was necessary because if players disputed a puzzle after a level was completed, the administrator would have to provide evidence to prove the level's design was sound. So, the role-play wasn't just for show; they needed solid proof.
After voting, they began counting the votes. One vote for two squares, one vote for three squares, one abstention, and the remaining three votes were for one square.
Greed raised an eyebrow. Then they checked the individual action plans and found that all six groups chose to go out.
This resulted in a very bizarre phenomenon—a switcheroo.
The six groups of animals each leaped one square clockwise. Since no one stayed put, everyone leaped, and all leaped one square to the neighbor, which meant everyone swapped identities and became the animal one level lower, which resulted in Hunter becoming Tiger, Tiger becoming Wolf, Wolf becoming Weasel, Weasel becoming Chicken, Chicken becoming Scorpion, and Scorpion becoming Hunter.
A patterned paper was thrown down, showing the animal that landed in their location this level, along with notes on whether they successfully preyed or were preyed upon. Charles unfolded the note, seeing two crosses under the animal symbols.
This meant they neither fell prey nor succeeded in preying. It also meant their animal wouldn't be returning home for dinner tonight, and someone else would decide their actions.
"Our plan succeeded," Charles said with a sigh of relief, "The ones trying to prey on us didn't catch us, and we didn't catch anyone when we leaped over. It's just uncertain if anyone was caught today."
"Hard to say," Erik said, "After all, the results aren't announced to everyone; it's all guesswork. Maybe someone already got bit."
"Then tomorrow..." Charles hesitated for a moment before saying, "I think they'll still rotate clockwise tomorrow, so we should opt not to go out. What do you think?"