Escape Room Rumble - Ch. 3 (October 2024)

The next room had a giant bank vault door standing before them. At the center of the door was a large combination lock with numbers ranging from 1 to 99. Loid seemed amused by this puzzle and put on his gloves. He went up to the lock and pressed his ear against the door, but then grimaced and tapped it.

            “It’s not a real lock. It’s cardboard. Of course it wouldn’t be as simple as that.”

            Next to the vault door, on either side, were two square openings that one could reach and crawl through. If the openings were a little high for the problem solver, a couple stools stood against the wall waiting to help.

            “Ah. I see. How cute. They’re vent shafts. This is supposed to be a bank heist. Something tells me we have to find clues through the vent shafts. I’ll take the two on the right, and you take the two on the left.”

            Yor huffed as she hopped up and pulled herself through the vent opening. The shaft was quite…snug. She got stuck because her hips were too wide. She tried a couple times to wriggle through but kept failing. She panicked, and squealed.

            “Looooiiiiid?”

            She blushed, thinking how Loid must be able to see under her dress.

            But what was worse was that the pressure around her waist pressed against her stomach, causing it gurgle yet again.

            Ohhhh. Don’t fart now. Don’t fart now. You can hold it in, Yor!

            Before she knew it, Loid pushed her through effortlessly with a single “hmph!”. Yor’s butt barely fit in the shaft, and she was pretty sure she was in danger of breaking the cheap cardboard. The shaft walls had bulged behind her.

            “You okay in there now?” he asked, barely audible behind her cheeks.

            Still blushing, she said, “Y-yes.”

            “Good. If you need help coming out, I’ll pull you through.”

            Yor sighed. Thank God she was able to hold in her fart there. She couldn’t imagine the dreadful consequences of farting in his face. He would probably divorce her then and there if she did! The thought was too embarrassing to bear. She shook her head and focused on trying to beat that record with Loid. He would surely consider her the perfect wife if she could show off her skills.

            With resolve, she crawled through the tight space. She quickly lost that resolve, grumbling at how uncomfortable it was to be cramped in there. Those damn hips of hers! She had thought all those hours doing yoga would have slimmed her down by now. Alas, she did love sweets and alcohol…

 There was an intersection only a few feet ahead, but it was taking her a good five minutes to reach it.

            This escape room is becoming much more than I bargained for. Here I thought it would be a cute and simple date together…

            At the intersection, she looked right and the vent continued onward, possible to where Loid was, but when she looked left she saw a dead end with a grating on the bottom that she could look through. She chose that way to look down and search for clues.

            There was a dummy of a guard in a safety deposit box room and another dummy opening a safety deposit box. Yor scanned the room for anything useful. Obviously, the combination lock had numbers so…the clues had to have numbers?

            She couldn’t see any numbers though. She figured maybe the open deposit box would have a little paper or something with a number on it.

            Yor moaned when her stomach gurgled. But she lit up with hope when she realized that she was alone!

            She relaxed, sighed, and farted without worry.

PPPPPPPPPPPPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

            She still clenched a little bit to quiet down the fart just in case, but nonetheless she was relieved to finally have a moment to herself to fart in privacy.

            Crawling there also helped move the gas in her stomach since she was bent over with her butt up. Certain yoga moves made her fart easily, so this was perfect. She stayed there for another minute or two relieving herself with long rumbling farts. The last few started to sound wet with loud sputters.

            “Whew….”

            But then…

            Yor squealed and clenched her nose.

            OH NO! IT STINKS!

            She gagged at the smell of her own farts. The air hung heavy with a hot reeking stench of rotting eggs. She couldn’t bear it any longer and had to crawl out of there.

            “Yor? Is that you?” Loid’s voice echoed down the vent. He had been heading her way.

            “I think I figured out the combination. Let’s—”

            Loid sniffed. He then made a hideous face. “What…what’s that…horrible smell?”

            Yor stammered incoherently before settling with, “I don’t know! It seems to be everywhere. I have no idea what it is!”

            Loid looked around. “Do they have mold or something? I have never smelled anything more awful in my entire life.”

            “This is made out of cardboard, right? M-maybe…uh…maybe something got wet and they never replaced it. Might be soggy and damp.”

            Yor blushed even harder, gazing down in shame. To think that she produced such an abhorrent stench…

            “Hm. Maybe. Whatever it is, we don’t have time to dwell on it. Let’s go. Did you see something back there?”

            Yor explained what she saw. When Loid jumped out of the shaft first, he said, “One of them must have been a red herring. There are four shafts and combination locks typically have three numbers. I definitely found numbers in the other three. 45-15-03.”

            Yor tried climbing out of the shaft but, once again, her hips got in the way. She was trying to get Loid’s attention but he was too much into playing pretend bank heist. She hung over the edge of the shaft grumbling, trying really, really hard to wriggle out. The cardboard crinkled louder.

            Loid opened the vault door and stood back with pride.

            “Loid!” Yor managed to say, despite the embarrassment.

            Loid turned and without hesitation reached out to help. He tugged but it was proving to be difficult to wrest her free. He pulled on both her hands as hard as he could, leaning back and straining with his eyes closed.

            The cardboard broke. There was a sickening tear and Yor screamed as the wall around her collapsed. She kicked and screamed thinking she was going to get hurt but thankfully nothing hit her.

            The entire setup around her fell apart, with the bank vault door still standing and Yor still stuck in the opening to the vent shaft.

            Now that the wall was broken anyway, Loid helped her by simply pulling the vent opening over her head. They stood to stare at the destruction. The dummies lay in the rubble like they had suffered a bombing.

            After an awkward silence, the clerk spoke over the loudspeaker. “I’ll uh…I’ll still count that since you technically opened the door before that happened.”