You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too in the Future
A buzzing in your neural implant reminds you that it's time for the garden party. You head back to the Uptown elevator building, show the receptionist your invitation and your middle finger, and take the elevator up to Uptown.
Sunlight sears your eyeballs and instantly reddens your skin. A life spent under the cloud has made you paler than an albino Irish Goth. You take a series of moving walkways (and one terrifying pneumatic tube) to the penthouse where the Garden Party is being held.
You walk onto the verandah of an incredible Eden in the sky. Birds chirp, water burbles softly, and a snake hands an apple to a naked chick. Wait, scratch that last one.
Anyway, it's clear these aren't the upper crust -- they're the caramelized baker's sugar on top of the upper crust. Since you're pretty much the grease stain left on the plate after the pie's been eaten, you probably have a lot you could learn from these guys. On the other hand, given they're the very steam rising from the caramelized sugar on the -- screw it. Given how rich they are, there's probably a lot you could steal from them, if you snuck off into the penthouse.
| Hobnob with the Hoity-Toity |
You mingle among the guests, trying to look haughty enough to fit in. You walk past a few conversations, looking for someone saying something brilliant and stimulating:
"Well, I suppose Reginald and I will go to Rigel 7 again this year. Honestly, it's so boring."
"I tell you, Muffy, if I have to play another game of tennis, I'll scratch my own eyes out!"
"Well, Chip, she's supposed to be a pleasurebot, but she's just so deathly dull, you know?"
"Capitalist pigs, look upon the faces of the children you have abandoned beneath the dirt!"
Woah, wait -- you look over and see that a mob of workers from the Undertown has crashed the party. They start to advance on the rich folks, hammers and sickles in their hands and murder in their eyes. Thinking quickly, you leap onto a table and begin to speak.
"Listen, everyone! Violence won't solve anything!" You point to the workers. "Listen, hurting these guys isn't going to solve anything except losing you the crappy jobs you have. Even a crappy job is better than no job, right? And besides, these guys didn't make the rules. This system's been in place for hundreds of years! You're not poor because they oppress you; they oppress you because you're poor!" You turn to the rich folks. "Listen, I see a way out of this. I've been listening to you guys talk, and you're all bored to tears. Why don't you guys switch places for a while?"
A debutante peels off her gloves and picks up a shovel. "He's right! I want to live like common people! I want to do whatever common people do!"
"That's the spirit!" you say, and while the workers and the upper class start swapping clothes, you head smugly for the exit.
| You gain 0.8-1.2*mainstat, max 200 Roguishness. |
| Robnob from the Hoity-Toity |
You sneak into the penthouse, and begin looking for something suitably lootable. You see a solid gold stringed instrument that looks luteably suitable, but you don't see anything that's small enough to escape with unnoticed.
You duck under a window, sprint down a hallway . . . and run smack into someone else who had the same idea as you. He's wearing a long brown coat, leather gloves, and high-waisted trousers with a gun belt strapped on them.
"Consarn it, you varmint!" he says. "I would heartily recommend that you get outta my gorram way, for I am in no mood to trifle. I've got steal this here ruttin' trilithium to pay off some guh jun duh hwoon dahn cattle rustlers!"
"So wait. . .you're a high-tech 25th century Chinese bandit of the Old West? That's really, really cool."
You help the space cowboy steal his prize, and he teaches you how to use ancient Chinese secrets to stay super-cool under all types of gorram pressure.
You wish him well as you leave, but something tells you he'll die before his time.
 | You acquire an effect: Serenity (duration: 20 Adventures) |
Occurs at Seaside Megalopolis with a Indigo Party Invitation in your inventory, as a result of choosing the "Chat With the Clown" option in Bad Reception Down Here.
References
- The title of this adventure is a nod to the quote "You can never be too rich or too thin," attributed to Wallis Simpson.
- The "Hobnob" choice includes a reference to Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
- The "Hobnob" choice also includes a reference to the song "Common People" by English band Pulp, which contains the lines "I want to live like common people / I want to do whatever common people do".
- The "Robnob" choice is largely a reference to Joss Whedon's Firefly, as is the resulting buff's name.
