The Messy Tournament - Chapter 2: House of traps

Written by WLG — 2022 — from UMD.net

"Good morning ladies! Are you ready for the first challenge?"
We all woke up early this morning, it was the championship's first day.
"This morning, the challenge will be done with your partner. The aim of the challenge is simple, you have to infiltrate a house to find two keys. These keys will let you access a treasure room.
The aim is to reach the treasure in the minimum time."
"I guess there are some traps... Right?" asked Taylor.
"Of course! You are at the MESSY Mansions championship, not a tourist championship!" said Charles while laughing. "You will do the challenge team after team and will not see the others until every team has finished.
We will start with the Australian team, then the UK and finally the US.
The team who will be the fastest one will win two points, the second one point and the third will not win any point."
Melissa, Jane, follow me, please. All the others stay here, we will call you in about one hour to not give you hints about the time the first team has done.
During an hour, we were able to discuss a bit with Taylor and Maria, even if we were competing against each other, there was a great relationship between each team.
Lila arrived to lead us to our challenge.
"Emma, Rachel, here are some explanations. We will communicate with you thanks to these communicators which you put in your ear. You will not be able to talk with us, just hear us.
Each of you will have her own coach and mission, just follow our instructions.
I see you dressed in the clothes we gave you, great, we will be able to begin soon. Emma, you will try to enter the house by its side, Rachel you will try by the garden. Put the communicator in and you will receive your instructions."
Rachel and I clapped our hands together to motivate each other and we split the team in two, I was following Lila to the side of the house which was next to the Mansion while Rachel was following Peter to the back.
****
"Emma, do you hear me? If so, put a hand up... Great! The game will start in twenty seconds. Your first mission will be to enter the house, you see the open windows? Enter there! Good luck."
There was indeed a window open on the side. It was low enough for me to reach it. I slowly entered through the windows when I saw it was the kitchen window.
When the first half of my body was inside the house, the window slid down and prevented me from going further. I was stuck with my upper half inside and my lower half outside...
"Emma, it seems this house is full of traps and you activated the first one. You will have no choice but to free yourself."
In front of me was a paper and three handles attached to something over me.
"Pull all the handles one by one"
There was no particular sign on the handle, then I started randomly. The handle activated a mechanism and unlocked one of the locks which prevented the window from opening.
This sound was not the only thing which happened. A torrent of freezing milk was dumped over my head soaking me completely. I had no time to complain, so I immediately pulled the second handle. With the sound came a second shower. This time a bucket filled with eggs replaced the milk. The third handle had another
result. A fan started to blow on a big pile of flour which was in front of me. The flour immediately stuck to my face and the upper part of my body which was wet and slimy thanks to my two first showers.
The window was unlocked.
Finally, I was on my feet in the kitchen and already well messed up.
"Emma, it seems that the key you are looking for is in the attic. You should find access through the kid's room upstairs."
I took the direction of the stairs with precaution. I didn't want to activate a messier trap even if I knew that everything was done to mess us up.

I slowly started to put my feet on the first stair... Then the second. Nothing happened. The stairs were safe... At least the two first ones!
The third stair indeed triggered something which activated a hatch over me. Suddenly a cascade of golden syrup drenched me from head to toe. The golden layer contrasts with the dry white coating below. My t-shirt was saturated and was looking like an out-of-shape mop.
Finally, on the first floor, the kid's room was just in front of me. I slowly opened the door, my experience in the Mansion gave me some ideas of what could be done in such a situation. A bucket was indeed installed over the door. I decided to open the door with my feet which were immediately covered with chocolate syrup from the bucket above the door. One shower avoided at least!
When I arrived in the room, I saw a trapdoor to access the attic. I made a step in the direction of the trapdoor but as soon my feet were on the carpet, I felt a button hidden below.
Immediately, the door slammed and the lights turned red.
"It seems you activated a silent alarm... Don't move, it will surely stop."
Around me, about 6 or 8 small pipes appeared, all pointing in my direction... I didn't know what they were supposed to do but I would discover it soon.
Suddenly, small detonations occurred all over me, the pipes were in fact small cannons of powdered paint. Blue, green, red, purple, yellow... I was in the centre of a giant multi-coloured plume of smoke.
Of course, even if I had avoided the chocolate shower, the golden syrup was perfectly sticky enough to glue the powder everywhere on me.

When the detonations stopped, I kept my statue position while the powder smoke disappeared. In front of me, a big mirror was on the wall. I was looking like a modern art painting: a mix between a used palette and graffiti.
This time, I was able to access the attic when a ladder appeared.
I was in the attic, a big box made of clear glass was in front of me, the key was inside. In front of it, a message and scales were prepared for me.
"Put enough colours on the scales to open the box."
The first thing I decided to do was to remove my jeans, t-shirt and shoes which were destroyed by the former traps. Unfortunately, it was not enough for the scales.
"Emma, you may find something else to put on the scale, had you looked behind the sheet in the corner?"
There was indeed something big hidden below a sheet, it was as tall as a shower cabin. When I removed the sheet, I discovered what was below... It was indeed very much like a shower, except above the door was installed a tank of multi-coloured confetti. It was surely what was supposed to be put on the scales.
I had no other choice than to enter the cabin. Inside were two buttons "1-..." with something written but partially removed and "2-confetti".
I tried to press the number two but nothing happened, I understood that I had to press the other button first...
'Click', the button was pressed.
The door closed and a pomp noise began.
Over me, four small pipes appeared, aiming at me, and started to flow their white content on me. I was not trying to taste it because I recognized the texture and odour. This liquid was white glue. What is better as an undercoat for confetti than glue?
I thought the aim would be to bring as much confetti as possible to the scales, so I took the time to smear the glue everywhere. The level of glue increased up to my calves. Then, the pipes disappeared and fans replaced them. The tank full of confetti opened and the fans were spinning them everywhere.
I was soon covered with hundreds of these small pieces of multicolour paper.
When the fan stopped, the level of glue and confetti arrived just below the bottom of the door.
When I exited the cabin, the shelf on the floor started to rise over the mix of glue and confetti which was now a multi-coloured sticky paste. Anyway, my objective was to fill the bowl over the scales.
I arrived in front of the scales and began to squeeze my whole body to move the thick layer of glue and confetti. I had a large quantity of this stuff which was saturating my hair, so I wrung it to get as much as possible.
When my 'cleaning' job was finished, I looked at the scales. There were still some grams missing!

I came back to the cabin to see what I could do but the raised shelf prevented me from getting more. However, two buttons were hidden on each side of the shelf, when I pressed the first one nothing happened, with the second one pressed at the same time, the shelf disappeared below the surface.
Unfortunately, as soon as one of the two buttons was not pressed the shelf resurfaced immediately.
I remembered one of the challenges I had to do at the Mansion, buttons had been hidden in a mud hole and I had to dunk to press both at the same time. This mechanism was a bit similar.
I kneeled in front of the cabin, pressed the buttons and dunked my head as deep as possible to cover a major part of my upper half.
When I resurfaced, I put my head back to let the slop drop from the destroyed locks on my back. Then, because I wanted to be sure to get enough, I dunked myself a second time. To be honest, I wasn't doing the second dunk for the game but for my own pleasure. The Mansion's challenges were so various, that I would have never been able to build such ingenious ways to be messy by myself at home.
Covered a second time in this sticky coating, I approached the bowl to fill it again.
After the two first drops of mess, the box immediately opened.
"Congratulations, don't fill the bowl anymore in case it activates a new trap, just keep the confetti on you and leave the attic."
Keeping my new multi-coloured coating was not really a problem. It had been so long since I had a messy challenge like this that I was enjoying every second of it. When I got the key, the trapdoor was closed behind me.

"You have to go outside to meet Rachel if she succeeded, I've seen a slide at the window. Just use it to leave the house."
There was inside a small slide which was leading to the garden not too far from where we had to use the keys.
The landing of the slide was in a small sandbox. It would surely stick to me but it would not be very annoying.
I entered the slide, it was a bit more abrupt than expected and I accelerated more and more. Arrived at the end of the slide, when I was expecting a soft landing in the sandbox, I had a bad surprise, discovering the slide was
turning in another direction, when I was able to see where the exit was pointing, it was too late, I was about one meter above a pool filled with brownie batter.
Of course, without any possibility to slow down I had no other choice but to take a big breath before a complete submersion.
A few seconds later, a dark brown monster reappeared in the centre of the pool.
I went to the edge of the pool to leave it. Honestly, I had the idea to pretend to lose my balance to have the
chance of another submersion but I was seeing Rachel approaching...
Based on how messy she was, she also had some surprises during her visit to the house!

*****

Peter gave me my communicator and tested it.
"Rachel, are you ready? You will have to enter the house thanks to the garage door. You will have to go through the garden to do so."
I had a look over the fence. The garage door was about 20m away and nothing special was visible in the garden, it would be just a formality to enter.
I jumped over the fence and the surprise began... The garden had been inundated to transform the grass area into a 20cm deep mud pool. Three steps later, both of my shoes had already been lost in the brown and creamy ground.
Anyway, I had to speed up! I was stopped in the middle of the garden... A strange noise was made on my left.
Suddenly a big punch bag appeared from the tree branches and accelerated in my direction.
I didn't have the time to avoid it and it pushed me on my back in the mud. I landed in a big splash which completely covered my back. Being messy in that muddy field was predictable... I slowly picked myself up and, when I was back on my feet, another noise occurred in my back this time. Once again, I didn't have the time to avoid it, instead of my former pratfall, this time, I fell head first in the mud covering the other half of me which was still clean.
As I was already covered front and back with mud, I decided to crawl to the garage door to avoid any other surprises.
I discovered that the door was locked but my communicator gave me a hint.
"It seems that the door is locked, look around if you find a shelf, it should let you access the drain pit."

One meter away, there was indeed a shelf hidden behind a bush. Below was a greasy tunnel sliding in the direction of the garage. I had no other choice entering this hatch and slowly slid.
Even if the floor was greasy, my speed was not so high, just enough to see I was arriving at the end of the tunnel in the drain pit.
I avoided being completely dunked under the surface of the black ooze slime which was filling the pit, however, the tunnel was immediately closed behind me. I tried to lift the shelf above my head but it was locked.
"Rachel, the shelf will not be unlocked until the pit will be emptied. There is a pump up there, find the button to use it"
There was indeed an old pump over me which was prepared to empty the pit into a barrel next to it. The button was just above my head, I had no other choice but to try to push it.
The pump started with a loud noise. The mechanism seemed to work. However, the pump was very old and the pipe which was supposed to pump the black smile was full of holes. As soon as the slime had pumped, the pipes were spreading the black ooze everywhere as if I decided to have a messy shower. I immediately stopped but my communicator gave me a message from Peter that I had to press the button longer to empty the pit completely...
Once again, I pressed the button and gave myself a black slime shower... A very long shower. I was covered head to toe in the mess as if I had been dunked over and over in the pool but finally, the pit was empty and the shelf was unlocked.

Leaving blobs of messy ooze behind me, I received a new message.
"It seems the only door is also locked but this garage is equipped with an automatic car wash lane. Find a way to leave the room..."
I approached from the automatic door but a sign 'No car detected' blinked.
In the room, there was no car parked, the only thing available was a soapbox racer. Would it be enough?
I inserted the wheels in the tracks and pressed a button on the wall to start the process. Another light blinked 'Enter the car to start'. This 'car' didn't have a roof or windows... I understood that my messy adventure was not finished yet!
I entered the small car and the light stopped blinking, the racer slowly entered the car wash tunnel.
The automatic door was closed behind me and the racer continued to slowly move forward. According to the sign on the wall, it was a three-step program.
I arrived below the first step sign: "cleaning foam". Immediately after the sign, foam cannons appeared on both sides of the track and started to cover the car... And me inside of course!
The foam was thick like a mix of shaving foam, shampoo and water. The thick white foam was spread everywhere, even from above. I was soon looking like a big slimy snowman.
I was going forward in the tunnel, the sign was "cleaning". A thin water jet appeared on each side of the track.
It was not strong enough to completely remove the several layers of mess which were on me but it was good enough to clean my face to see the third and last sign "colour repair". I was a bit petrified when I discovered what was planned for me. The track was going under a giant red paint shower.
"The automatic car wash surely detected your red hair when you entered. The positive point is you will soon have red hair again..."
Well...Thank you, Peter!
My vehicle slowly entered the special waterfall until I finally slowly entered too in this messy shower. The vehicle was so slow in this deluge to cover any millimetre of me. I was having red hair again for sure!
I used this unusual shower to remove most of the mud, gunk and foam from the former traps. I exchanged my former multi-layers of mess costume with a brand new monochromatic uniform.
Finally at the end of the track, now covered head to toes in enamel red paint, I was able to continue my adventure.

"According to our information, the key is in the room just above you. You can either try to enter the house to find the room... Or maybe you will find a shortcut?"
Visiting other rooms? It would have been a pleasure in a normal room but my actual state was already well
messy. I would not try this way. Instead, I saw a chimney in the room with a ladder installed... It was surely the
shortcut!
The car wash and the pump already took a lot of time, I had to make a decision and it would be the ladder. The
chimney was big enough for someone to go in. I started to climb. Each step on the ladder triggered a small
quantity of black powder poured on me. This soot combined with my red paint coating slowly turned me into a
giant ladybug.

When I finally reached the room above, a large quantity of soot was dumped on me turning my painted hair black again. Anyway, the key was visible and easy to catch, so I immediately rushed to it and grabbed it.
"Well done Rachel, you just have to leave this room. Here as well you can try to find your way in the house or there is a chute installed which will let you land on a soft mattress outside."
There was indeed a yellow tube installed outside which was letting me slide next to the place we were supposed to use our keys.
I was sure this exit was safe then I took the decision to use the chute...
The slide itself was not unpleasant but I wasn't expecting to be dunked in a big container filled with wallpaper paste. I was sliding so fast that I wasn't able to avoid the full submersion in this sticky paste this time.
Surely to add a final touch to my humiliation, I heard sounds from above, in the chute...
A full bag of leaves has been thrown there, covering me and sticking everywhere on me. I was properly trashed in the Messy Mansion way!
I heard another sound from a slide installed not far from there. I supposed Emma was having the same kind of surprise with her exit. When I approached, I didn't see anything in the brown pool installed at the end of the
slide... Until a chocolate-covered monster emerged from the centre. I was supposing Emma also had her own trashing.

******

"Excuse me, brownie monster, I'm looking for my partner. Have you seen her?" asked Rachel.
"Are you really trying to make jokes on me? At least, I'm not looking like an old tree!"
"It seems we have encountered some messy traps..."
"Yes but this was fun! Have you found your key?"
"Yes, it seems we have to use it on this door there."
A door was behind us with two locks. Precautionary, we opened it and entered the dark room. Our two communicators gave us the same message.
"Congratulations, to finish this adventure, one will have to answer the enigmas behind the left door, and the other will wait for the treasure in the second room on right."
"Ho... Enigmas, I love them! Please, Emma, I want to do it!"
"OK, I will go behind the right door then!"

*****

While Emma entered the room on the right, I slowly opened the other door.
In that room, there was only an old computer with a green and black screen and a big mirror just behind.
On the computer, a message was blinking:" Start the enigmas: Y/N". I pressed yes and the program initiated.
The first enigma appeared :
"A toque could also be named chef's ..."
The answer was not complicated, it was a hat! I typed the answer on the keyboard and a new message appeared on the screen.
"Correct, wait during initialisation of the second enigma..."
About 20 seconds later, the second enigma appeared:
"Hamburger and hot dog are famous types of..."
Another easy one! It was "sandwiches"! Immediately, another question appeared :
"How many players are in your team?"
I typed "two" and waited. A message was prompted again "Correct, await during initialisation of the last enigma..."
I wasn't really sure of the aim of this game. The questions were very easy...

"Last questions: a cube has six..."
"Faces", of course!
"How many players are there in total for this championship?"
"Six"... Well, I was very disappointed. The questions were not very funny and I didn't understand the aim of this game...
"Congratulations, you are correct, move forward to the door and wait for your reward".
I came closer to the exit and waited about one minute to finally discover the reward...
However, when the door opened, a pie was planted in my face...

***

Rachel wanted to do the enigmas, so I decided to go to the other room.
When I entered the room, a sign was pointing to a chair "Sit here".
I didn't have any other options then I just sat and waited...
As soon I sat, ties were activated on my ankles and wrist preventing me from moving and the light turned on.
In front of me was a window where I was able to see Rachel in front of a computer, next to this window was a copy of the screen she had in front of her.
"Welcome to the pie-o-matic system. Waiting for instructions. Do you want to read the rules? Y/N"
I saw Rachel's hesitation and, when she typed on the keyboard, the key was also shown on my screen and she pressed "Yes".
"Select a pie type to apply. Write it plural for multiple pies.
What pie do you want to use on your partner?"
She approached from the keyboard with a smile: "hat"
"Pie hat selected"
Immediately, a robot arm took a pie from a shelf and smashed the pie on the top of my head. The white cream contrasted with the brownie batter.
"Two types left:" was written on the screen.
Rachel moved to the computer: "sandwiches".
"Pie sandwich selected. How many?"... "Two".
This damned redhead was having fun of me!
Two arms appeared and took two creamy pies. They approached and with perfect synchronization engulfed each half of my head rotating the crust to fully cover me. When the first sandwich was given, arms immediately reloaded with new pies and applied the same method once again. I tried to blink heavily to see what was coming next.
"Final throw" was written on the screen.
Rachel moved her hands on the keyboard. "Faces... Six"... Seriously?
SPLAT
I didn't have the time to react when the first pie exploded in my face then another and another... The barrage stopped when the sixth pie was added to my creamy head.
My ties were automatically removed. I wiped the cream from my eyes. The screen indicated a new message.
"Give your partner her reward to end the game"
Below, a first pie topped with chocolate and caramel syrup stripes appeared. I will finally give Rachel her own medicine.
I took the big and heavy pie in my hand, ready to engulf my redhead friend's face.
She was surprised, she surely didn't expect such a reward!

"Emma? Why did you pie me... And why are you covered in pie?"
"Because you programmed the machine!"
"What?"
...
"I think she can't understand what you are talking about Emma!" Lilla appeared from a hidden door.
"It was the last trap of the challenge! I will let you explain what happened to each other later this morning.
Congratulations anyway, you have finished the first challenge. We will give the result later today. Have a good shower and some rest. The second challenge will be in the afternoon!"