CYOA: Escape Room - Chapter 3 (Story) (Patreon)

The magnets, Serena thought to herself. There was no way those weren't a clue, at the very least... Honestly, the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that they'd be the key to all of this, that they'd definitely spell out something that she'd need to solve this room.

"I think we ought to..." she began to say, turning to wave Alecia over, only to see that the cheerleader had, indeed, ignored her, and was dragging the footstool over to the high chair.

Serena glared at the other girl's back, and the puffy rear of her fully-exposed diaper, pouting ever so slightly... Of course, she knew that she didn't have any first-hand experience with this, didn't really know for sure what she was doing, but she cared more about this than Alecia had, at least before they'd all wound up in diapers...

"Fine," she huffed to herself. If Alecia wanted to waste her time, that was fine with her... Serena didn't need her! She hadn't wanted her to come in the first place! She could solve it all on her own, while Alecia messed around with something that was clearly pointless until they got more information. She'd probably have only gotten in the way, anyway!

It was possible that the magnets could have spelled out the combination to the lock on the high chair, too, and they could work together; Serena didn't particularly want to share the glory, but she also didn't love the thought of climbing up the high chair on her own, either, and Alecia was already mostly there, to Serena's surprise. Then again, she was a cheerleader... She certainly got much more exercise than Serena did on a regular basis.

Serena scanned the front of the fridge, looking at what letters she had to work with, but it didn't take long for her hopes in that regard to be dashed. There were a decent number of letters to go off of, but none of them looked like they could spell out anything even close to any numbers, much less a whole combination, unless the solution was a bunch of 0's, since she had plenty of O's to go around, and they could have been an analogue for that numeral... That wasn't much of a puzzle, however.

"What kind of combination is it?" she called, furrowing her brow as she stared up at the magnets. She didn't really think she was on the right track, but there was a chance she was thinking about this the wrong way... "I mean, is it numbers, letters... pictures, I don't know?"

She didn't get a reply, and she rolled her eyes. Fine... If Alecia didn't want to help, then she'd do it by herself after all. It shouldn't be too difficult... Having physical letters there, and in a form where she could re-arrange them at will, should make it a snap to figure it out!

Her one obstacle was the fact that some of the letters were out of her reach. Try as she might, stretching up on the tip-toes of her Mary Janes, blushing as she realized she was surely making her dress ride up and show off even more of her diaper than was already peeking out from her dress, she couldn't make herself tall enough to slide the last few down to join the rest that she'd pulled together towards the bottom of the fridge.

It was only a few... A pair of G's, in green and blue, a red P, and a yellow M. She could keep them in mind, work them into her solution... It would be so much easier if she had them with the others, though. She glanced over, saw the stool sitting at the foot of the high chair. She knew Alecia was using it... But she'd put it back! And she was doing something that might actually help them in the long run!

She toddled over, shouting upwards, "I'm gonna borrow this for a minute!", not waiting for a response. She wasn't sure if she'd have gotten one anyway... She could see Alecia messing around up there, seemingly trying to push the bottle away from Julianne's mouth or something, which, Serena had to admit, wasn't a horrible plan... Even if they needed the combination to get her out of the chair, having somebody with experience with escape rooms sitting up there, yelling out advice, would have been nice.

She grabbed the footstool and gave it a yank, squeaking in surprise as she discovered how heavy it was. She'd assumed Alecia was stronger than her, but was it really this big of a difference?! The other girl had barely seemed to struggle with it! That made Serena want to hide how difficult it was for her, though there wasn't much she could do about it... The stool was fairly big - at least, compared with her shrunken size - and sturdy, so she didn't have to worry about it collapsing on her when she used it or anything... It also made it a challenge to drag it back across the room towards the fridge, however, grunting and groaning as she went, and practically collapsing when she got it to her destination, flopping down onto her padded bottom with a loud crinkle to catch her breath for a second or two.

That had driven home what the transformation they'd gone through had done to her, how tiny and weak and helpless she was now... She really did feel like she belonged in this absurd outfit, and this diaper, if she'd had so much trouble just moving a footstool... But no, she didn't have time to feel sorry for herself! She had to get to work if they were going to get out of here in time!

She clambered up onto the stool, grabbing the last few letters, feeling very satisfied as she stepped back, smiling, to look at all of them at once. They were... A mess. Serena frowned, having hoped that some sort of instinct would take over when she got this far, or that the answer would jump out at her when all the letters were together, and yet, if anything, she was more confused than ever.

"There has to be something," she reminded herself. There were just so many O's, though... What word could need that many O's?! They were in a couple different colors, too... Did that mean anything? Blue and yellow... She slid all of them next to each other, alternating each color, but that still left everything else sitting beneath it, jumbled together, refusing to coalesce into anything meaningful.

Or so it seemed... But, if everything was that simple, it wouldn't be much of a challenge to escape, would it? And the more Serena stared at the letters, the more certain she was that this puzzle was important, and that, if she gave it another chance, she could solve it.

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It wasn't much of a choice for Alecia, either; there was no way she was going to let her friend be stuck in the high chair like that, no matter what that little know-it-all Serena said!

She waddled over to the footstool, not used to the bulk of the diaper between her legs, the feel of the plastic on her thighs... Her cheerleading uniform was, to be fair, pretty skimpy, yet she felt far more exposed in this outfit than she ever had in that. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the diaper was, technically, meant to be underwear, not pants, and, as short as her cheerleading skirt was, she was never really flashing her panties, much less walking around with them fully exposed, thanks to her bloomers... 

Or maybe she was still reeling from the sight of those diapers, the same ones she'd seen her baby sister, Rebecca, wear - that she'd changed her into and out of herself - not so long ago. There was no doubt in her mind that these were identical, that they couldn't be just well-made replicas, that the woman turning giant wasn't some trick of the light or whatever... She and the others had truly been shrunken down to the size of toddlers, the size of her Rebecca... Or, rather, even smaller, since she'd outgrown these diapers already.

The stool was heavy, but not unmanageable, though she couldn't quite manage to answer Serena's question while she was in the middle of moving it, and the girl was too impatient to wait. It was just the right size, too, exactly as Alecia had thought it would be, letting her climb on top of it, and, from it, onto the footrest of the high chair.

"Hold on, Juli," she said, more to herself than her friend. "I'm on my way..."

She'd never been the best at rock-climbing walls, but she had done them a few times, and this was far simpler... From the footrest, she just had to pull herself up onto a support bar a bit higher up, and from there she could reach the tray. It still took some strength to drag herself up there, and concentration to be sure she didn't slip, prompting her to ignore whatever it was Serena was yelling at her... But it was definitely doable. For her, anyway... She suspected Serena would have a far harder time with it, though perhaps she was being unfair. 

She got to her feet, the size of the tray making her feel much smaller than she knew she was. The high chair must have been bigger than a normal one, she thought, because even as little as she knew she had to be, it seemed like she had far more space up there than she would have expected, despite all the bottles and jars up there with her.

Speaking of them, she could see Julianne squirming in her seat, a bottle of juice pushed firmly into her mouth as she whimpered and struggled. "I've got you, Juli!" Serena declared, plowing across the tray, knocking over baby food and drinks as she went, not caring about the mess she made as she headed for her friend...

And then, out of nowhere, one of the bottles flew upwards, slamming into her face. Alecia gasped, feeling her mouth filling with warm milk as she tried in vain to shove it away, the nipple having lodged itself firmly between her lips. Beyond it, she could see the other things she'd jostled jiggling, turning themselves upwards, plastic spoons dipping into jars, starting to float towards her...

Had she made a mistake?! Was she going to be trapped up here, getting force-fed right next to Julianne, stuffed with mashed peas and carrots and prunes until...?! No! There was no way this place would go that far! Except... Already, from the bit of milk that she'd swallowed, she could feel a fullness forming in her bladder... And, like it or not, there had to be a reason they'd all been put into these diapers...

"I'm gonna borrow this for a minute!" Alecia heard Serena, and attempted to yell down at her to help - although, to be fair, she wasn't sure what Serena would be able to do - but all that did was make a few bubbles in her milk as it continued to drain.

This couldn't happen... Becca didn't need her diapers anymore; Alecia wasn't about to let herself be reduced to them! She shook her head, grabbing at the bottle with her other hand, not caring how much it made her look like her sister in her younger days, when she was too uncoordinated to hold her drink with a single hand. She shoved it away once, twice, and then, finally, it burst free, sending a spray of milk into the air as it clattered to the tray.

Alecia glanced behind her only briefly, to be certain there was somewhere for her Veclro sneakers to land as she backed away, then looked up, ready to bat aside one spoon, then another, as she made her way closer to Julianne, wiping her chin with a blush, feeling a few dribbles of milk there. After everything, she didn't see anything there, no way to get Julianne loose, except for the lock. Like everything else, it was huge, the numbers on it bright and cheerful looking somehow, almost in a mocking way, as if it were just keeping her away from some cookies until snacktime, rather than holding her friend captive.

She yanked on the lock, but it was too sturdy for her to hope to break, and the few experimental turns she was able to give the dials did nothing, obviously... She would have had to be extraordinarily lucky to simply guess the combination, especially when she was trying to dodge the spoons at the same time.

Had Serena been right? Had this been a waste of time? Alecia fidgeted, that hour they'd been given to get out of here suddenly feeling much shorter than it had before. "I-I'm sorry," she told Julianne, shaking her head. "I-I don't know what else to do... I'll be back, okay?"

Julianne managed a small, reassuring smile between bites, which was all Alecia needed to confirm she was making the right choice by dashing back through the minefield of babyfood and bottles, swatting them aside as she made her way to the far edge of the tray, peering down...

She paused for a moment, looking down, the whole feeding room laid out beneath her, yet what really captured her attention was the colorful shapes on the floor. She didn't know why, exactly, but those struck her as important. She took a deep breath, concentrating on them, doing her best to memorize where each of them was before scrambling back down the outside of the high chair. The footstool was gone, though getting down without it wasn't nearly as big of a deal as getting up.

She hopped up from her tumble, peering behind her to be sure she hadn't been followed, then brushed herself off. She didn't feel like she'd done much at all, since she hadn't accomplished her real goal of getting Julianne free, yet she was definitely intrigued by the shapes... There had to be some meaning to them... But what? She could try looking at them more closely, except she had a feeling that, in and of itself, wouldn't be enough... She turned towards Serena to see if she had any ideas, only to find the girl still engrossed, moving the magnets back and forth uncertainly.

She could go help her, she supposed... If they put their heads together with that, they could then move on to working on what the shapes did. Or she could go investigate something else on her own, prove to Serena that she didn't need her... The magnets on the fridge were different colors, too, like the shapes, so there could have been a connection there... Now that she'd seen them all from above, however, Alecia knew that none of the shapes shared colors with any of the magnets.

Alecia looked around the room, tapping her foot, reminding herself that she didn't have time to waste being indecisive... She needed to decide what she was going to do next now!

So, what will it be? Will Alecia...

Help Serena with the magnets?

Check under the sink?

Check the sink itself?

Push past Serena to try to open the fridge?

Look at the picture books?

Look at the pots and pans?

Examine the baby gate?

Give the shapes on the floor a closer look?

Or ask for a hint?

I thought it might be kind of interesting to see a peek behind the curtain here. I probably won't do this every time, but at least for this time, I figured I'd try it. Alecia rolled very well this time, passing her strength checks to move stool, to get on top of chair, and to resist the trap there, and then aced her knowledge check to remember the shapes and colors. She did fail check to free Julianne, but that would have been very difficult.

Serena, on the other hand, had some bad luck. She barely passed the strength check to move stool, then failed a wisdom check to solve puzzle. Wisdom is her highest stat, so she should have been able to handle it easily, but that's the fun of using dice... Sometimes they don't cooperate. She did have one other roll, which went either very well, or very poorly, but for the sake of spoilers, I won't say exactly what it is, just that it's the reason there is no choice for her as to what she'll be doing next chapter.