The Ranch

Salty Smack Talk (2)

The losing team is sent to the central market by staff members to seek affordable treatment within their budget. The winning team meets up with their other members on the balcony.

The next round starts," They both gave us a wonderful performance in Rock and Roll. Welcome back teams Funderburker and Sincompany!"

Team Sincompany refers to Phillip and Casanova's team. The team's name is derived from their teacher, Sinclair, and the word company. A play on words using two meanings. Company, as those that follow him and company, a business.

Yes, they were using this chance to promote Sinclair's company. The prizes were very meaningless to them, if not for the promotion idea, Phillip wouldn't force himself to be in the same team as his rival.

Phillip's team did pretty well, escaping before the hour passed. Unfortunately, the other team escaped slightly quicker and snagged the win.

They could have won if there wasn't so much infighting between Phillip and Casanova surrounding who was in charge. Both wanted to take charge, costing the whole team the victory. They made their way back to the balcony to leave with their other members.

Tih watched the droplets fall off the tips of Phillip's black hair as he walked over. Usually slicked back with gel, the new style gives Phillip a softer look from his usual playboy persona.

With his guard dog out training, Phillip saddles himself next to Tih. He grabs a towel from the staff and dries himself off as he converses with the silent boy.

Finally it's Poseidon's turn. They're up against a team called WDGaster. The two teams are lead into their separate but identical rooms and the game kicks off.

Sherlock, Pierre, Kai, Abel, Sherlock, and Lucien lay their eyes on the room for the first time as gears start turning in their minds.

"An escape room." Lucien says aloud.

Establishing the last point," Pompeii themed."

"The flood comes in where exactly?" Pierre recalls the name of the game.

They split up to look for clues while continuing their conjectures.

"Over here." Abel finds the model of the city first. The others come over to see.

Piecing together the clues, and the obvious volcano attached to two buckets, Sherlock concludes," A timed, Pompeii themed, escape room. Some of the pathways have rounded ends in the middle of the borders, so we'll mostly likely be able to move them in some way." He points at the decline. A small stream of water is already flowing down into the bucket, forming the shape of a lightning bolt.

"Split up, there should be puzzles around the room." Kai gives the orders, and the others begin to scrounge around the room. Although it's not seamless, the two teams are slowly getting used to cooperating with each other and listening to each other's instructions or opinions.

Lucien walks over to a map thumbtacked to the wall. Land and water is divided diagonally. Land covers half of the map on the northeast. The body of water, titled on the map as Bay of Naples, fills the southwest.

There's four spherical tacks embedded into the wall next to the map that seem to be made of some sort of metal. There's also a marker tied to the map with string. Uncapping it shows a highlighter with a silver-colored tint.

"Kai." Lucien beckons the walking Wikipedia over.

Kai closes the book he was skimming through and looks at the map,"What'd you find?"

"Four thumbtacks and a highlighter." Lucien leaves the highlighter with Kai and leaves to search somewhere else, knowing that he can't be of any help. He's never been a history or geography person.

Kai twiddles the writing utensil between his fingers while looking at the map. "Bay of Naples...Italia...four tacks, four cities were destroyed, then the highlighter should be for-" Kai pops the caps and draws a diagonal circle on the right side, then fills the oval in. Then Kai takes the metal tacks and pins them within the highlighted area," Herculaneum, Oplontis, Stabiae, and finally Pompeii."

Outside of the soundproof room, Simon D is re-explaining the marker and it's producer, having already done so once before. " This highlighter is imbued with a certain combination of metals with each pen containing a different combination. There's numerous kinds of systems to install, each will be custom made to only open with your pen's metal combination. There's also a variety of writing utensils to choose from..."

After highlighting the area that was destroyed along with the cities, Kai hears a click and the map slides down to reveal a hollow space in the wall. A dial similar to a kitchen timer is implanted on the bottom. At [0], Kai turns it to its highest number [9].

He jogs over to check the waterway and sure enough, one of the flippers in the middle has turned, changing the course of the water below it. However, it's still heading into the wrong bucket.

(Before the tournament)

"You two will be in charge of the team." Sinclair declares.

"Wait, M-Shifu, you want me to partner up with this guy?" Phillip knows that Sinclair knows about their feud.

"Teacher said it himself. You...you're not going to disobey his orders, are you?" Casanova quirks an eyebrow.

And that's how they came to be in the same team.