Lucid Engine

About the adventure

The world, a century from now, has almost conquered death. In the arctic snowlands—where tall buildings rise from the ice and body-mod laboratories hum against the endless winter—humanity has built everything needed to never age a day. Organs are grown to order, bones remade stronger, faces smoothed by precision gene therapy. For those who can afford it, life no longer has to end. Most couldn’t, of course. Until society found a way. Twenty years ago, researchers discovered how to extract dreams—and experiments on them proved surprisingly useful. Everyone has several, and selling one or two hardly seems to matter. It became normal—almost expected—to trade them for a better body, or a longer life. Corporations pay well, and with that wealth families are saved, illnesses cured, futures extended. It is, and always has been, a hopeful bargain. People sometimes grow restless and vanish, moving to distant towns after one too many body mods. A longer life breeds impatience, no doubt. Everyone thought humanity was heading toward a brighter future. Then, ten days ago, the Sun and stars disappeared. The winter fog thickened, swallowing distance and sound. Five days ago, something began moving in the gray, stalking the white silence. Nobody knows what it is, and nothing answers when the wind moans through the empty streets. Now you are gathered in one of these clinics—a mid-range facility carved into the ice, still warm enough to hold a handful of survivors. No doubt the only one around. Some of you work here. Some came for treatment. Some stumbled inside when there was nowhere else to run. The walls hum with generators, the sterile lights flicker against the snow. Outside, the cold presses in, the fog waits, and you don’t know where to run.