I recently posted, just over a week ago I think, about the perils of being 'transported to fantasyland' if you're not going to end up as King/Prince/marry the Princess etc. By the way, in the event of this happening to me, I still intend to offer my services to the local evil overlord! I've been thinking about this a bit more (yep, another boring Thursday afternoon in the office) and I thought that I'd give us all a fighting chance this time round. Here it is...
By whatever means, you've found yourself transported to the magical fantasy world of (Insert Name Here). You're not the long lost twin of the King and you're not fated to save the world etc, you're just here and you have to make the best of it. Here's the thing though, before you made this journey you had time to grab one thing from the real world. Through clever use of this 'thing', you are going to make your fortune and marry into Royalty. What did you grab before you left the 'real world'?
There's a couple of rules though (otherwise this would be too easy!)
1) No guns, bombs etc. It's far too obvious, let's get creative people!
2) You're not allowed to take anything that runs off a power source only available in this world. Batteries etc will eventually run out and you're left with a heap of junk on your hands.
My initial thought was to go with a Rubik's Cube and make my money by inviting people to solve the puzzle, I'm not so sure how far that would get me in the long term though...
What would you take?
What comes to mind first is MacGyver's Swiss Army knife (think about the two part episode where he goes back to King Arthur times and uses it against Merlin).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'd say something along those lines. A multi-tool of some sort. Maybe a Leatherman since it has pliers. Or a lock-blade knife. Something that improves on existing technology.
OOHH! What about a bicycle! Just thought of that one. The chain might be hard to build, but imagine the ability to transport your armies across great distances without needed food and water for horses. And the same technology could be used to move war machines.
I think the Evil Overlord would love you for that.
Hmmm... I would think one of those "how things work" kind of books could come in real handy. You could set yourself as a master of commerce or as a second rate sorcerer, depending on the contents of the book. Oh, or if you are fortunate enough to have a book written about the fantasy land you are being transported to you could either set yourself up as an oracle or use your knowledge of the future to usurp the protagonist’s role (assuming that you are transported into the beginning of the story). BTW how sad is it that if I were transported into a fantasy-land I would want to take a book with me?
ReplyDeleteI, too, would take a book. I would take a book on practical physics.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court? In it, the time-traveler is an engineer of sorts, so he has practical physics in his head. He ends up doing thinks like running telegraph wire all over pre-medieval England. And predicting solar eclipses.
Great topic!
I think I would also take a book ... a book on poisons, so all my enemies (and those of the evil overlord) would soon be gone.
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