DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

This didn't happen.

Among the special events advertised in the lead-up to OTFCC 2004 was "Who Shot Optimus Prime?", meant to have been a live-action interactive murder mystery with a Transformers theme. Promotional materials (see right) featured Nightbeat.

However, upon arrival at the venue (Monastero's, an Italian restaurant and catering hall) it turned out the event would be "DEATH BY CHOCOLATE," a "normal" live-action murder mystery, with generic human characters and no Transformers-related content at all.

Malin Huffman entered first to greet and prep guests—but he was suddenly distracted by gunshots and fled the room in terror. Immediately, in rushed the well-known Detective Harry Bottoms, who announced that famed chocolate magnate O. Henry Butterfinger had been murdered, that the catering hall was now a crime scene, and that all attendees would be his deputies and help solve the case. Bottoms split attendees into teams, produced evidence, witnesses, and suspects, and gave the teams opportunities to come to their own conclusions and share them with the rest of the audience.

In the end, the murderer was found to be the notorious vixen-like sociopath Darque Chocolate. She vanished at the end of the event and her current whereabouts are unknown, though likely the mountainous "tribal" regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

True to Detective Bottoms' word, the "reward" for solving the mystery was "worth well under $1000" (as he reminded participants throughout the evening) and turned out to be nothing more than a cheaply-printed certificate. Apparently, crime does pay more than detective work.

Despite the night's shocking events, attendees tried to make the best of it and get on with normal life afterwards.

Notes

• Each table/team was asked to create a name for their agency. Among some of the more colorful names chosen were the "I Thought Optimus Was the Victim" Detective Agency, the "James X. Hooks Memorial" Detective Agency, and the always-popular "I Did Your Mom" Detective Agency. Hey, we had to have some fun that evening.
• Participants received posters of Optimus Prime and Megatron autographed by their voice actors.
• According to Glen, the mystery was not Transformers-themed because the hosting entertainment company refused to change their format or script without "substantial remuneration" (ie: Big Bucks).
• At one point, 3H considered the idea of producing a few minutes of original animation with the proper voice-actors, but this too would have cost far, far more than their resources would allow.
• Ratchet would have been revealed to be the culprit after being infected with one of Bombshell's cerebro-shells.