Ultimate Escape Room Challenge: Antarctic Base (part 1)

The Ultimate Escape Room Challenge 

NEW Escape Room in Town!

Tailored to experienced escape room enthousiasts who are looking for that extra challenge, our escape room ‘Antarctic Base’ offers an unseen level of detail and tests you have seen nowhere else! Can you escape the base in Antarctica’s harsh conditions?

Duration: 2 hours

Only available for 2-player teams

Special temporary promotion: Escape within the time limit and receive a free Magnum bottle of champagne!

For Kirsten and Ayana, upon seeing the ad, the only question was “How soon can we get there?” The two friends loved escape rooms and had finished every room in the wide area. This challenge was exactly what they were looking for. And while the escape room was pricey, with a game length of two hours, it had reason to be so. In addition, they had to enter their clothing measurements while booking, which suggested an unusual attention to detail and a truely immersive experience. And of course, the girls had no doubt that they would also end up with the large champagne bottle to celebrate their escape afterwards!

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Two days later, on Friday evening, they arrived at the new escape room. As required, they were half an hour earlier than their start time in the room. They were welcomed by Lara, a pretty dark-haired girl with glasses. 

“So have you done a lot of escape rooms?” Lara asked conversationally.

“Oh yes, and we always manage to escape!” Ayana proudly said.

“We’re here for that bottle of champagne!” Kirsten grinned.

“I love your confidence! I’m sure our room will offer challenges you haven’t encountered yet! But for creative problem solvers like yourselves we’ll make sure to keep the bottle cold!”

After the small talk, Lara directed the girls to the toilets first, then told them to change. “In the changing room, you’ll find an outfit in your size. Also there will be a diaper. I know it’s a bit weird, but two hours can be quite a long time, especially with the stress of the escape room. It would be a real shame if you had to abort early and miss your bottle of champagne for it.”

“For that bottle I’ll wear anything,” Ayana joked.

“Besides, with your bladder, it’s a reasonable precaution anyway,” Kirsten laughed.

Ten minutes later both girls had changed. In their form-fitting, black woolen catsuits and balaclavas, they looked like a pair of burglars. Assuming burglars wore a large diaper package that clearly contrasted with the tightness of the rest of their clothes, of course. The catsuits had attached gloves and feet, so the only uncovered part of their skin was the opening of the balaclava around their nose and eyes.

The girls giggled as they looked at each other. “Hey, fatass,” Ayana said, slapping Kirsten’s bottom.

“All right,” Lara announced when the merriment had subsided. “Now that you’re dressed, we’re ready to begin. One more thing before we get started. I heard the room will be free the rest of the evening. So in case you don’t escape in two hours, I’ll give you the choice to end the game as is usual, or to continue trying.”

“Well the point is kind of moot isn’t it?” Kirsten laughed confidently.

“But of course we would like to keep trying… in the unlikely event we’re not out yet,” Ayana added.

“Okay, excellent. I just need to ask you to sign these forms then, confirming that we’re not holding you against your will. The law is, sadly but understandably, rather strict in these things,” Lara smiled.

With the forms signed, Lara started to explain the premise of the escape room.

“You are part of a research group on Antarctica. After a night shift you just woke up to find everyone gone, and there are signs of a struggle. It appears all the others in the base were abducted by a terrorist group. The reason is clear: they are here for your scientific test results, which, if they fall into their hands, could wreak havoc on the world. You quickly look for the hidden safe where they are stashed, and find the safe still there, undiscovered. But this means it’s only a matter of time before the terrorists return. You grab the test results, but the station’s defense mechanisms have activated so it won’t be easy to get out. Furthermore, you will need to find the necessary outerwear to survive on Antarctica. Your mission is to escape the base using a snowscooter, after you have found and put on all the necessary pieces of clothing. Then drive over to the next base, where you will be safe from attacks.”

“Wow! Cool!” Ayana exclaimed.

“Any further questions?”

Kirsten shook her head. “Nope. Let’s go!”

Lara opened the door to the room, from which cool air could be felt.

"Well, I hope we find our first piece of clothing soon," Ayana commented as they stood in the "Antarctic base". "It's pretty damn cold here!"

"Let's get going," Kirsten replied, as a large clock had indeed started counting down from two hours.

The practiced girls split up immediately, scouring the room for clues. Ayana immediately turned left, where there was a lab section with bottles full of colored fluids. Meanwhile Kirsten walked around the rest of the room. Straight ahead was a hometrainer. She sat down on it and started peddling; from somewhere ahead, behind a wall, came a whirring sound. When she investigated the wall, she noticed a panel that somehow should be able to slide out, but she couldn't figure out how. After a while she gave up and scanned the rest of the room. Also on the back wall, next to the part with the panels and the hometrainer, was a large door with five red lights next to it. She supposed this was the exit of the room, and they would need to turn the lights green.

On the right-hand wall was a section with large cupboards, each padlocked and requiring either a key or a numerical code to open. Right next to one of the cupboards was a long cylinder with water, and a key on the bottom. Clearly they needed to access this key somehow, but again it was not clear to her how. From the bottom of the cylinder, a hose led into the nearest locked cupboard however, so she suspected they needed to open that cupboard before they could solve the cylinder problem. Right next to the cylinder was a switch labeled "IN" and "OUT". It was currently in the OUT position. Kirsten flicked it back and forth a couple of times, but nothing happened.

While Kirsten had been going over the rest of the room, Ayana was busy adding one colored fluid to another. Kirsten didn't pay too much attention to what she did. The girls knew it was more efficient to split up, rather than trying to solve the same puzzel, and trusted each other. Sure enough, Ayana soon exclaimed: "Got it! 2375!" Kirsten rushed over to the cupboards, knowing already which one required a four-digit number. And indeed the combination worked, and she opened the cupboard, revealing two down jackets, one pink and one black.

"Pink's for me!" Ayana exclaimed as soon as she saw the jackets. Kirsten grinned. Ayana's love for the bright color was legendary. Admittedly, it did go well with her dark skin. Without further comment, she grabbed the black jacket. It was a fairly thick, down-filled jacket with a hood, in a pull over the head style. She quickly did just that. The zip went from her breasts to her nose. She closed it until halfway, leaving the hood down. As she turned to Ayana however, her friend didn't seem to have made much progress with her own jacket.

"What's the matter?" she asked, eager to get on.

"This jacket, it's kind of weird. I think it zips on the back..." Ayana said uncertainly.

"Well put it on then, I'll zip it."

The jacket was indeed quite odd, having attached mittens, and a hood that was actually more like a balaclava, leaving only an opening around the eyes and nose. Still, Ayana put it on and Kirsten closed the zip, which started at the top of the hood and ran along Ayana's back to the bottom of the coat. Despite the jacket's bulk, it turned out to be a tight fit, because it was so thickly filled. Kirsten also closed the buttons that held the flap over the zipper.

"What now?" Ayana asked, her voice sounding oddly muffled behind the thick down layer over her mouth.

"I don't know... there are also some straps here at the bottom of your jacket, maybe we need to do something with those." Indeed there were two short straps dangling at the back of the jacket, one on each side of the zipper. Kirsten immediately saw they could be connected, but what now? She turned Ayana around and saw another, slightly longer strap hanging on the front.

"Hold on, I think I got it," she said, threading the strap from the front through an opening formed by the two connected straps at the back. She saw there were buttons at the end of the front strap, and matching holes at the start of the front buckle. She just needed to thread the front buckled through the back ones, then bring it back to the front and close the buttons. However, the strap seemed too short for that.

"Hold still," Kirsten said, while she started pulling the back and front of Ayana's jacket down as far as she could. Ayana felt the tension in her hood as Kirsten pulled at the bottom. Finally Kirsten tried to connect the straps again, and now she was almost able to close it. She braced against her friend's stomach, yanked as hard as she could and finally managed to close the straps. The result was that the strap dug deep into Ayana's diaper. From the strap between her legs to the thick hood's pressure around her head, she felt like her whole torso was now squeezed tightly in the jacket.

It worked, however. As soon as the straps were closed properly, the first green light next to the back door popped up, and a 3-digit code appeared underneath. This was for the cupboard next to the water cylinder. Kirsten opened it, finding a short hook and a gas mask that was strapped to the wall. The gas mask had two hoses attached to it, one leading into the back wall of the cupboard, the other into the side wall, then reappearing as the hose leading to the bottom of the water cylinder.

Kirsten experimentally placed her head into the mask and breathed out. Some bubbles appeared in the cylinder, and the key briefly floated up slightly, before dropping down again. "Okay, I think I understand. One of us needs to put the gas mask on and breathe in it. The other must be near the cylinder, and we need to coordinate: whenever we put it on IN, the mask will get access to fresh air from the tube to the back, so the wearer needs to breathe in. Then we put in on OUT, and the other person breathes out so the bubbles will let the key move up a bit. If we repeat this fast enough, eventually we will get the key to the top, so we can fish it out with the hook."

"I guess I'll have to do the breathing then," Ayana said, not sounding too happy about it. "I can't do much fishing with these." She held up her thickly mittened hands.

Soon Kirsten was strapping Ayana's head into the gasmask. She had to stand right in front of the cupboard. The rubber gasmask was large and stretchy enough that it could be pulled over her down-hooded head, but it greatly increased the pressure on her head. Several straps at the back needed to be tightened to hold it in place. As Kirsten fastened such a strap at the bottom of the mask, Ayana found that it pressed hard on the part of her hood covering her mouth, and she was unable to talk, or even get any air through her mouth. All she could do was breathe through her nose into the mask, which was not very pleasant. While Kirsten was tightening the straps, she felt like she was running out of air. Indeed, the switch was still in the OUT position, so she was only using the remaining air in the hoses, and quickly running out of oxygen.

Kirsten had finished securing the mask, however, and went over to the water cylinder. "Ready?" she asked, unaware of Ayana's discomfort. Ayana, desperate for fresh air by now, could only nod as best as she could. "In!" Kirsten said, and flipped the switch. Greedily Ayana sucked in the air - and nearly retched! While the air coming from the IN cylinder certainly held fresh oxygen, it also contained hydrogen sulfide - that distinct smell of rotten eggs! Desperately Ayana clawed at the mask to get it off, but with her mittened hands she could do nothing. "Out!" Kirsten said, misinterpreting her signal. Ayana tried to breathe out as best as she could, and Kirsten started dictating a rhythm. Ayana could do nothing but follow along and hope the damn key would be high enough to be fished out soon. Unfortunately for her, it was a slow process, and it took several minutes until finally Kirsten could try to grab the key.

While she did this, the switch remained in the OUT position, and again Ayana was quickly running out of air. Luckily once Kirsten had caught the key, she flipped the switch to IN again, letting her suck in full breathes of the foul air. Kirsten went to the cupboard that required the key and unlocked it. Meanwhile Ayana desperately - but of course still unsuccesfully - tried to free her head from the contraption.

"Here, let me help you," Kirsten finally said, when she noticed her friend's wild struggle. She started undoing the straps of the gas mask.

"Booaaak," Ayana exclaimed, as soon as she got out of the mask.

"What?"

"The smell! It was horrible!"

"That bad really? Let me..." Kirsten sniffed the inside of the mask. "Oh, yuck! You had to breathe that? Sorry, I had no idea!"

"Ah, it was terrible. I'll need a lot of champagne to wash that away! Let's go on, what did we get?"

"Down pants this time!"