You start having dreams about the sea, and sailing. Then one Saturday morning you wake up and find your body has been transformed into your ideal physical self, with comic book peak human stats. If you’re over thirty-five, you’ve been deaged to thirty-five.
Following a compulsion you drive to the sea, or book a plane or train there.
On the way there, you realize a dozen skill-sets have been downloaded into your brain and nervous system. Those wacky cosmic plot gods! Why, they just can’t sit still.
You have the combined skills, talents, and experience (but not super-powers) of:
- Prince Caine of Amber (Zelazny)
- Capt. Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Carribean)
- Capt. Jack Aubrey (Master and Commander)
- Capt. Ahab (Moby Dick)
- Admiral Nelson (our world historical)
- Prince Caspian (Narnia)
- Aquaman (DC, Pre-Crisis version)
- Prince Namor (MU, 616-version)
- Karl Stromberg (Spy/Loved Me, movie version)
- Capt. Bligh (our world historical)
- Capt. Nemo (20,000 Leagues)
- Thor Heyerdahl (our world historical)
When you get to the sea, there’s a great sailing ship waiting for you. As you walk towards it, your attire changes to that of a sea captain.
The ship is the Poseidon, and you are it’s captain.
There’s a sonic boom, and the Silver Surfer lands on your deck.
“You’ve been chosen by the cosmic powers,” he says, “to sail the seas from world to world, universe to universe, on various duties of related to the preservation of life, cosmic balance, and existence itself. Sometimes you’ll ferry heroes about. Other times you’ll come rescue them. You may be needed to deliver important artifacts. Basically, keeping the multiverse going takes a great deal of preventive maintainance at the very least and supreme efforts more often than I’d like. You’re part of the team now.
“Unless you decline, in which case, your body returns to what it used to be. You get to keep the skills. Removing them would be more effort than just leaving them in at this point.
“As long as you’re captain of the Poseidon, you don’t age, and you regenerate with an eight hour sleep. So there’s that. And you’ll get an occasional shore leave.
“So what do I tell the Cosmic Hierarchy? Accept or reject?”