This story turned out a lot longer than I had planned so I'll publish it in parts. More to come! This first part is setting the scene, much more mess in the next parts.

First time publishing on UMD so I'd love your comments on how to improve/what you'd like to see in the future.





The four girls giggled as they waited for someone to respond to the intercom and let them into the Custard Factory.

"... so this place used to be an actual factory that made custard then?" continued Katrina, who was looking forward to playing the escape room but was a little apprehensive about the fact that the website had advised them to bring a change of clothes. She said it with her usual broad smile and none of the others could tell she was nervous.

The four of them were in high spirits, having just spent the last couple of hours at dinner celebrating Anna's birthday. They'd got through four bottles of prosecco between them, though Lucy had had more than her share and was very bubbly.

Before anyone could answer Katrina's question, the door was opened by a chubby brunette girl in her early twenties wearing a bright yellow t-shirt who greeted them cheerfully.

"Hello! Welcome to the Custard Factory! My name is Christa and I'll be your gamesmaster for the evening. And yes, this did used to be a factory that made actual custard and other desserts; we've taken that as the theme for our escape rooms."

As Christa took the gang through to the reception the girls marveled at the place. The entrance area still had the industrial look of a small old fashioned warehouse, with bare brick walls and cartons of custard wrapped up into pallets that looked like they were about to be loaded onto a lorry for delivery to a supermarket. On closer inspection however, they were shaped as very rectangular armchairs were ready for visitors to sit on. Against the walls of the reception area were items of machinery, Lucy's eye was caught by a metal cabinet with buttons and handles with a conveyor belt leading out of it. It didn't look like the machine worked anymore.

Katrina's trepidation increased as a gurgling noise brought her eyes upward to translucent pipework suspended from the ceiling. A gloopy yellow liquid flowed through the pipes and Katrina watched it as it filled the pipe around the entire room until the pipe went through a gap in the wall and out of sight. She gulped.

Christa reached the desk and started to explain the game.

"There has been a custard factory on this site since shortly after custard was invented in 1919. Making custard used to be a very messy business with the ingredients mixed by hand at first and the factory workers would frequently get splashed. Of course modern machinery makes it a lot less messy, and now that the Custard Factory is an escape room there are no longer people making custard here. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll stay clean though!"

She grinned with a look that dared the girls to ask if she we joking, but didn't stop to let them ask.

"If you've played an escape room game before then you should know what you're doing. There's a series of rooms with puzzles to solve to unlock the door to the next area. You've got an hour to solve the puzzles and escape. If you get stuck you can ask for clues; I'll be watching on the monitors and listening from out here.

Now, this is the Custard Factory of course so there is a twist! I see you've booked onto the Custard Factory Classic challenge and we aim to give you a "traditional" experience. There is a chance you might get messy when solving the puzzles. Don't worry, we've got showers and changing rooms for you to use before you go home. You can leave your bags in the lockers. Have you all got a change of clothes?"

"What?!?" blurted Lucy, "I didn't realise we needed a change of clothes." The other girls tittered. This was classic Lucy. She lived for the moment, always wanting to try new experiences and didn't have a close eye for planning. Christa joined the girls in giggling, and momentarily imagined what Lucy's gothic look, pale skin, black hair and black floor-length sundress which emphasised her busty cleavage would look like covered in custard. She was usually very professional in keeping her personal interest in sploshing separate from her work, but sometimes her mind wandered.

"Not to worry" Christa chipped in, "we have a range of Custard Factory merchandise available to purchase if you'd like buy a t-shirt." Lucy stuck her tongue out at Christa cheekily. Christa smiled back, continued and asked the girls to nominate a team captain.

"I reckon it should be the birthday girl" Elena volunteered and the gang quickly settled on Anna. Anna was dressed to impress, with a slinky little black cocktail dress that was provocatively short. It was backless, a halterneck cut in a plunging neckline of a narrow strip of fabric that struggled to hold her ample bosom in place. She prided herself on being a bit of a barbie and her platinum blonde hair was dyed to match her icon.

"Good choice" Christa concluded, but was secretly disappointed that it wasn't Lucy. She knew what was in store for the captain and something about her brief interaction with Lucy suggested that she'd enjoy it. "Right, I'll take Anna to get set up in the captain's area and then we can all get started." Anna's black heels clacked against the floor as she was led up the corridor and took her into one of the rooms. She wiggled her arse as she walked and waved back to her friends blowing a kiss.

Lucy, Elena and Katrina looked around at the posters, advertising other Custard Factory promotions. Lucy thought that the 'Gemstone Labyrinth' looked like fun. There were some photos of previous teams playing the Classic game. Some of them looked like they'd been splashed with custard, but none of them looked super messy. Katrina was keen to discuss their tactics for the game. A few minutes later Christa came back to the reception without Anna and took the remaining girls to a different room to begin.

As she went to leave, she left the girls with the following message as she closed the door behind her: "you have 60 minutes to solve the puzzles, find the clues and rescue your captain otherwise she'll be getting very messy! Each room will give you one part of a code to solve the final challenge and release Anna. Good luck!"



Part 2 here: https://umd.net/stories/i/the-custard-factory-i-the-escape-room-pa-3/