Your fiance's sister shows you the latest and greatest in handheld devices, a Nintendo 3DSeye, which boasts the ability to simulate a three-dimensional representation of two-dimensional sprites by projecting the image directly onto the retina with a laser. The end result is that all of your favorite Gameboy, Advance, and DS games can be played in 3D without any additional hardware.
The battery starts to run low, so she plugs the charger into the wall. You notice a gold substance has leaked out from the battery compartment onto your hands, but before you can react she connects the other end of the charger to the unit. A massive spark shoots out the back, and the house breaker fails to trip, electrocuting you very thoroughly. You black out.
You have the sensation of weightlessness, gently floating, rising and falling. You open your eyes to see that you are laying in a giant ceramic bowl, and there are cherries skateboarding around you. Wow Wow Wubbzy and Dorer the Explorer are skipping in circles, and there are sunflowers singing unintelligible words in musical sing-song voices.
Future reference: no check for the first verse; everyone starts at stage one.
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I rub my eyes. "I knew I shouldn't have played with something that put images directly on my eyes."
Reach for my glasses, which I imagine I had to take off to play with something that worked in that fashion.
Right. You did.
§
You try to reach for your glasses, and realize your arm doesn't respond. You then get a feeling of detached reality as you also realize you are dreaming. The images slowly fade to black as your consciousness stabilizes.
You smell sea salt very strongly, as well as a pungent murky odor. A warm breeze blows over your body at regular intervals, and you hear the wind rushing as if it were all around you. You still have the floating sensation; lying on your back, a hard surface gently rises and falls, carrying you along with it.
Your entire body is sore. You rub your eyes and feel around for your glasses, which you find folded neatly on your chest. You notice that your shirt is damp.
Much as I do enjoy laying around, a damp shirt alone is enough to get me up, glasses on.
How damp is it? I'll smell it to make sure it isn't sweat from my recent electrocution.
Speaking of which; where's everything I know? Hmm... look around my surroundings.
The shirt is thoroughly moistened, and smells of sea salt. Your pants are also damp, and your shoes squelch.
You are sitting on a hardwood floor, with interlocking boards. The sun is high in the clear, blue sky. Its rays keep your body warm despite your damp clothes and cross-breeze.
Looking around, you realize after a few moments of confusion that you are on the deck of a moderately sized ship. Three masts rise from the deck high into the sky; the sails are currently lowered. There is a lip around the outside of the deck that stands about waist height, with trap doors that you assume to be used for cannons.
Your gear is neatly packed and bundled in a large fishing net, and tethered to the base of a mast.
"So, you're awake," a gritty baritone voice says from an area behind you. "Lucky I happened by when I did, or you'd still be sleepin' with the fishes."
"Lucky.. yes. Thank you." I roll over and stand carefully, turning to face my benefactor. "Where am I? I mean, other than on a boat; where is the boat relative to the rest of the world?"
You stand, a little shakily but the water is calm and does not do much to hinder your efforts.
The voice came from a man dressed in a brown tweed tunic and trousers, with a rope cinching his attire in lieu of a belt. He is large and stocky, broad-shouldered and approximately six feet tall and half as wide. He is checking nets and traps fastened to the stern, hauling them out of the water and throwing them back when they turn up empty.
"The ship is in the ocean," he says simply, emphasizing the gap in your query. After a measured silence he adds, "I haven't seen land in weeks. I don't know if it exists." He motions to your belongings and says, "I packed your things. They landed on one of my nets, so they weren't badly damaged. You landed over there." He motions off to the side of the boat, away from the nets and traps. "You could stand to gain some weight. Wasn't hard to pull you out at all." He offers you a small canister as he says this, indicating you should take it.
Whether you do or not, he asks, "First time?"
I'll take the canister; I figure it to be some food or drink, but I'll smell it first before I sip.
I think about the question, turning it over in my mind while I stall with the canister, then figure that the question was voiced in rhetoric. I still hazard a guess, responding, "Yeah. I've always wanted to be on a boat, though."
The fisherman squints against the sunlight as he examines the clouds, chuckling. "Boat, eh?"
The canister could best be described as a large thermos, the lid unscrews to become a bowl. The substance inside appears to be a sort of fish soup.
"Looks like a storm's brewing," the man mutters under his breath. He turns to you and says, "You seem disoriented, and we don't have much time. I generally like to do things my way, but this world is making that tough.
"My name is Saul. Like you, I came in contact with a golden substance called scriff that was supposed to be the newest innovation in technology, and was electrocuted. This scriff stuff seems to have its own way of doing things, though, because right before we die, the scriff runs off and rematerializes in a new world. Since it's attached to us, it takes us with it.
"I'm not bothered by much, but the feeling of scriffing out..." He shudders visibly, then composes himself, turning to tend his net. A moment passed where he looked like he was going to say something else, but he is now quiet.
Moving this thread to http://gamingoutpost.com/forums for continuation.