EscapeQuest.at: Around the World in 80 Days

Phileas Fogg was a mystery. Nobody knew what he was doing and the only thing for certain was that he was a rich and lonely gentleman. Fogg was a member of the Reform Club in London. He had a very busy schedule and hadn’t left London for many years, but knew a lot about the most remote places on Earth.

On the second of October 1872, Fogg hired a new French valet, Passepartout, who had had a wild youth and in those latter days dreamed to lead a quiet, head-down kind of life. Having heard about Fogg's pedantry, Passepartout thought Fogg would be the perfect master for him.

Later that night, members of the Reform Club were discussing the Bank of England robbery. Police suspected an imposing gentleman seen at the bank. Policemen were sent to all the major ports, but the perpetrator disappeared. Fogg remarked that the thief was probably already far away, because the world had become so small that it was possible to circumnavigate it in eighty days. Club members replied that it was impossible to get around the world within that time interval, because of various unforeseen difficulties.

Then Fogg made a wager with the members of the Reform Club, that he would make an around the world trip in eighty days and put half of his fortune at stake. A memorandum of the wager said, that Fogg would lose his money if he wasn’t back in that very room of the Reform Club on the 21st of December, at a quarter before nine p.m.