Time Quest Vol. 1
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You are currently reading a thread in /qst/ - Quests
You are currently reading a thread in /qst/ - Quests
>Hello, I'm new to this board. I can't draw, but I like to think I am a decent writer. In any case, prepare for a freewheeling time travel adventure. The plot and lore will unfold with your help and creative input. There will be light RPG elements such as inventory, although nothing too technical, as the main focus will be on narrative. Think of this as an enjoyable choose-your-own-adventure with an endless footnote of potential paths to follow. The initial exposition will be fairly long, but I assure you it will also be a good read. Fear not, there will be choices soon!
As each day shuffled along, tidied into weeks and packed into the months of the season, the arrow of time would don its perennial messenger's cap and deliver the world anew. To every mote of dust rolling in the vast oceans of the earth and to everything suspended in the endless black above, time pulled restlessly and imbued its forward motion without end. Perched outside the fabric of the universe, one could see time's disdain for constancy and pattern, but those woven within it could only see that which was in front of them.
Tim was no exception; today he could see nothing but rain. This was the case on most days since he had been relocated. He had begun to feel that gray skies and damp clothes were inevitable. If graced with a seat on the municipal board of tourism, he would have pitched his personal town motto: Bridgeton: The Other Place Where The Sun Don't Shine. Not that the city was a complete hole, but it was certainly off the beaten path and not somewhere you'd visit without serious thought and preparation. There weren't any nice restaurants or hangouts, no attractions, no "scenes" to speak of. Bridgeton was a mecca of dark-suited professionals, shipping men, and federal employees, all kneeling to venerate the arrival of next month's paycheck.
Downtown was the only lively part of the city with its rolling guild of colorful drifters and street performers, many fresh faces passing through on their way down the railroads which lined the eastern seaboard. They seemed to be the only people who'd chat with Tim about something beside the weather; locals were never in the mood to talk. Sometimes Tim dreamt of stowing away on a boxcar with these folk and being taken to sunnier shores, but the dreams always ended with a reprimanding punch to the gut, a dispatching of the hobos who likely knew too much, and an express flight back to Bridgeton courtesy of the FBA's endless pipeline of taxpayer money. He had no clear picture of what his place was in the greater schemes of the Bureau, but he suspected that abandoning the post would be detrimental to his health. His work was likely a minor write-off that some high-ranking official would use to fluff up the annual expenditures and bankroll a new experimental plane, and God help him if he interfered. The FBA was secretive, swift in delivering a comeuppance, and they just loved their fancy planes.
The FBA was monolithic now, but it came from humble beginnings. The Federal Bureau of Advancement, employer of Tim Sharp and nearly fifty thousand others, was incorporated as an arm of the U.S. government on October 5th, 1934. It was commissioned to research new agricultural methods, helping to relieve the hardship laden upon the people of the central states by towering windstorms of dust and debris. The Bureau was an immediate success. By curating the nation's finest strategists, scientists, and engineers, the organization managed to undo decades of poor farming practice and convert the Plains region into an oasis. This was not without its drawbacks, and as the climate shifted, the FBA took up the work of preventing any negative impact on the nation's weather. As their budget grew, so did the Bureau's workforce, and new divisions were created. World War II was the greatest windfall yet, and the Bureau was drafted to help in the fight abroad. They began working on increasingly fantastical projects, attempting to gain control of the weather, the minds of men, and even the fabric of spacetime itself.
Tim was more of an odds-and-ends kind of guy, which is why he worked alone under a fake storefront in the worst neighborhood in Bridgeton. He'd heard there were other FBA outposts in the city, but his only contact was the quarterly memo and a five-figure check for his research. After twenty minutes trudging from the post office to his shop, he arrived with letters in hand. Shedding his rain coat, he walked past myriad shelves filled with secondhand trinkets and musty books. He could see Chuck, the shopkeep, with his feet up on the back counter and his nose in the latest issue of Annals of Aviation. Tim called out, "Hey Chuck, how's the weather treating you?"
He looked up bluntly from his magazine. "You're a real damn comedian."
Tim hoisted up the wooden divider separating the back room from the store area, only to have it slammed back down. "You know the drill, I'm gonna need to see your badge and the weekly password."
"Christ, you and your procedures, it's like you're a robot. Are you face blind or something? I've been here for two months now." Tim was talking belligerently, but he'd already pulled out his wallet to get his ID. He knew Chuck wouldn't budge, but sometimes he liked to remind the man of his unerring ways.
"You know as well as I do that they have this place bugged, and the second I let you downstairs without a badge we're both getting shanghaied to HQ with a couple of batons up our asses. Here's a notepad."
With his shaky pigeon scrawl, Tim scratched turnstile into the notepad. Chuck gave it a quick glance, along with a twice look-over of Tim's badge, and he lifted the barrier for Tim's passage. "Try not to blow anything up today, smartass," quipped Chuck as Tim made his way over to the lab stairwell, memo in hand.
That's it for the intro. Time travel incoming. Post any suggestions for what's to come.
>Something of interest in the Bureau memo?
>A nearly-complete experiment in the basement? (apart from the time machine, naturally)
>A new character, like an FBA inspector or a lab assistant?
>Ideas for where the first successful journey through time will land Tim?
Tim currently has a shitty fountain pen, a wallet, and a packet of crackers on his person.
>>337566
>Ideas for where the first successful journey through time will land Tim?
1810.
1937
Also come the fuck on OP, we are here for YOUR creativity.
>>337916
Well, I did just post about 6000 words, so you can rest assured that I have enough creativity to carry the story myself. I have ideas on what I want to do for the next few thousand words, but I'm looking for input now so I can do a bit of research! I'd like this to be an alt-history in which characters commingle with real people and events. I mean, I could write it all myself with no input, but then why post it here? It would just be a short story
>New pages will be posted in the next 24 hours
>>338426
>New pages will be posted in the next 24 hours
Damn liar
