Time Isn't Holding Up; Time Is a Doughnut
Time spools out before you, curving almost imperceptibly, racing to meet itself on the other side. If you could stand above it -- far, far, far above it -- you'd see the truth: time is a donut, and we are all but grains of powdered sugar atop it. What is, will be, and what was, is, and what will be, was. Your head starts to spin a little as you remember the future.
You will open your eyes in a tiny apartment in a huge high-rise thousands of stories tall. You will walk over to the window and look out to see the city that is Seaside Megalopolis. It stretches all the way from the Nearby Plains Golf Community to the Desert Beach Estates to the Big Mountain Housing Projects For the Poor or Otherwise Unpleasant. Then you'll remember that you live on the ground floor of your crappy apartment building, and that window was just a Handy Exposition Viewscreen 3000.
You will be Decken Houston, your bald-headed, wise-cracking, grizzled, great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson.
You will then start getting your narrative in present tense, because it's the future, we get it, no need to run that joke into the ground.
A cheerful automated voice informs you that your coffee is brewing, and that should you choose to end your life today, your relatives would get an extra 10% bonus from the World Government. You strap on some shiny, implausible future clothes and head out into the Megalopolis.
| Head Out |
You navigate the rabbit warren of tiny, dingy hallways with countless doors leading to equally tiny and dingy apartments until you walk out into the ground level of the Seaside Megalopolis. There's a constant cloud cover over the city at this level, and the ceaseless rain forms puddles that reflect neon signs in a dozen different improbable languages. Scantily-clad babes on billboards lean down and address you by name. You elbow your way through throngs of people, shiny robots, and slimy tentacled things from Planet X. Just crossing the street is quite the workout.
| You gain 15-50 Beefiness. |
Occurs at Seaside Megalopolis.
References
- The title of the adventure is a reference to the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime".
- Decken Houston, the name of your descendant, is a double reference to Korben Dallas, and Rick Deckard.
- The concept that time: past, present, and future; repeats itself in an endless cycle is called Eternal Return.
