One Piece: Grand Endeavours

Chapter Ninety-Six: Escape Room

Luffy
"Kuro is no longer resting so we should go on another double date," I say to Usopp, Danni and Kuro whilst we are sat in the library. Kuro glances up from his book.
"Well it would be nice to get out," he agrees. "Resting was so stressful." He strokes Tempest's head who purrs slightly.
"Resting was stressful?" Usopp asks with a chuckle. "That's a typical you thing." He glances at me. "And yeah, I agree with Kuro. It would be nice." Danni nods as well. Yay!
"Any ideas?" I ask. "Since it has been so long Kuro has done anything fun I thought we could do something special."
"Build a Bear?" Usopp suggests. Danni, I and Usopp would probably enjoy that but when I glance at Kuro I can see his unenthusiastic expression. Usopp and Danni have seemed to notice too.

"Okay, not Build a Bear," Danni says. "Any other ideas?"
"What about an escape room?" Kuro suggests, absentmindedly petting Tempest when she rubs her head on his leg. "They're meant to be fun."
"That's worth a try," Usopp says. "Plus with you we have quite a big chance of winning." I chuckle because that is definitely true: he is our resident genius.
"I'm good with that," I agree. "Danni, what do you think?"
"Sounds like it could be fun," she agrees. "A lot of islands don't have it though."
"Well if they don't we can just grab food until we arrive on one with it," I say with a grin because food!

Danni and Usopp head off and once they're gone I go and share the beanbag he is using and rest my head on his chest, looking at the book he is reading.
"Is that one of the ones I brought you?" I ask because it looks brand new and has lots of hard long words.
"Mhm," he confirms, pushing his fringe out of his eyes.
"Can you read it?" I ask, eagerly.
"Maybe one of the other ones would be better?" he replies. "This one has a lot of description and is really dark. I could read you one of the novellas?" I nod, eagerly, and he picks it up from the pile. Storytime!

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We are on an island and they have it! There's an escape room! This is going to be so fun! Although this seems more like an escape house than room...Still fun! It's 75 beli each, which is pricy for an hour, but regardless it seems fun. We have already paid and signed in so we are taken to a room the door locked behind us after they told us this isn't the door we leave through as they needed an easy entrance.

"So where do we start?" I ask.
"Well if we find the idea for an exit they may have a clue on what kind of thing we need to leave to the next room?" Kuro suggests. I nod in agreement and we begin to look around. I eventually come across a vent in the side with one of those 4 digit lock code things.
"How many possibilities are there?" I ask.
"If it there are 0s, 10,000," Kuro replies. That many?! That will take the whole hour to put every number through! "They will probably have clues though." Oh, that helps.

We start looking around: Danni and I go through the newspapers on the table and Kuro and Usopp go through the books on the case.
"All Sci-Fi," Usopp says.
"Same with the magazines," Danni replies. "No obvious four digit numbers yet though."
"There does seem to be a Sci-Fi theme to the room," Kuro agrees. He's right; the books, newspapers, posters and decorations all seem to have something to do with it. A thoughtful look crosses Kuro's face and he heads over to the music poster by the wall.
"Try 1305," he says. "The date on the poster is 13th May."
"But that has nothing to do with Sci-Fi," I point out as Danni puts in the code.
"Exactly," Kuro says. "It stands out from everything else." Oh that makes sense... The lock comes off and she opens the vent which thankfully isn't one that's big and leads directly to the next room.

"This is trippy," Usopp murmurs. It is one of those weird 'upside down rooms'. The floor is designed to look like the ceiling and has lights built into the panels. The ceiling has a carpet and furniture and a locked door. It isn't like I am just going to stretch up because Kuro, Danni and I all agreed to not use our Devil Fruits because that would be cheating. Hence why Kuro didn't just walk through the wall. Even though the prize seems pretty great – a meal at the restaurant next door for everyone in the group- we don't want to get it by cheating. Pretty sure that ruins the point. Completely.

"So a key?" I guess and we all look at Kuro.
"That would be logical," he agrees. "Not definite though and I haven't done one of these before. How long do we have left to complete it?"
"42 minutes," Usopp replies. We'd better hurry up then!

Hmm. Key. Key...Key...Is there anything drastically different in this room? Not that I can tell. Danni considers and looks at the lights, counting the tiles between the lights. She then kneels down and puts her fingers into the seams and lifts a panel.
"I was right," she says: I look at her in confusion. "If you count the panels between the lights there should be one here but isn't."
"That's clever," Usopp compliments her and she blushes slightly. "And here's the key."
"How do we get up there though?" I ask. "We can't just cheat." Danni considers and goes over to where there is a light switch lower down that doesn't match with the upside down theme and switches it. Instead of turning the light off it makes a ladder drop from the chest of drawers.

"Kuro, are you good to climb whilst still having crutches?" I ask in concern.
"Mhm," he confirms, doing it and refusing to get any help as usual and we head through the next door and come to the edge of a swimming pool.
"Well looks like whatever need to do in the water it'll be up to you, Usopp," I say. "Given that you are the only one of us who can swim."
"Great!" he says, sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Let's figure out what we need to do before I go in though."

Usopp considers and suddenly grins .
"I'll pull the plug," he says. "It looks like a good possibility that is the way out given nothing else here seems to be a clear exit." He goes in, splashing us slightly and I assume it was intentionally because he smirks slightly before going to the plug and pulls it, climbing the ladder back to the top as we wait for the water to drain. Still there is no clear exit because even Kuro, who is the most slender, couldn't fit down there. Usopp heads down anyway and goes to the plug. "Looks like there's a four letter word code. Should I try swim? There aren't any signs here."
"I mean it makes sense," Danni agrees. "If it doesn't work try other swimming related words?" He nods and puts it in then gets the trapdoor open so we can head to the next room.

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With the last room complete, there being six in total, we finish with five minutes to spare. The people seem pretty surprised we won, because apparently not many people do. As a result we are each given a token for any meal and drink for the restaurant.

We head in and I sit by Kuro, Danni sits by Usopp, and we all start looking through the menu.
"They have a meat platter!" I cheer, grinning widely. "So I know what I am having."
"No surprise to anyone," Danni says with a giggle. "Kuro, let me guess, ramen?"
"Yup," he says, putting down the menu. We end up taking our orders and, no surprise to us, Kuro ends up getting tea. Danni gets sake but she said that's the only alcoholic drink she is having which is good because, as amusing as drunk Danni is, it does get a bit tiring.

The food eventually arrives and the meat platter isn't that big so when Kuro isn't looking I pinch a bit of the meat from the ramen. Not much, just enough to get a bit of variety.
"I saw that," Kuro says, without looking and Usopp chuckles slightly.
"How?" I ask, eating it before he can pinch it back.
"Luffy, as soon as I saw the size of yours I knew you'd pinch some," he says with a small smile. "You know you could have just asked, right?" I consider that and grin, hopefully.
"Does that mean I can have some more?" I ask, doing my puppy eyes which always seem to get my own way with him. As an answer he pushes the bowl a bit nearer to me so I get some more but obviously leave him the majority. That was a nice date when we haven't got to do anything for a while.