Year Later Update

If you're like me you'll be wondering what happened to me. Last year I announced my return to blogging/streaming on Twitch and then immediately canceled it with a sudden post update saying nothing was going to happen any time soon.

The blog isn't going to be deleted or disappear, anytime soon, I hope at least.. but there will be no more creatures posts or C3 or DS streams on Twitch. (I've moved to streaming on a new site called Mixer anyway.) That being said, I have a strong interest in playing Creatures 2 and maybe even Creatures 1. I'm going to try to purchase the Albian Years in the near future to play them, who knows I might even stream them on Mixer! In the event I do I will post a link to them on Creatures Caves in bibbles.

Now if you're wondering what suddenly changed in my life to shut down my intent to play and blog C3 keep reading. Right after I had decided to continue with what I was doing on this site my 14 year old cat Taylor, whom was my baby and I loved very much, passed away from a very painful, traumatic bone marrow cancer. She had been suffering with it for years but we never knew it because the cancer hadn't advanced enough to affect her every day life until the last year or two. Right as I decided to make the return post her health took a sudden and dramatic turn for the worst. We fought to save her until the very end when we learned what it was that was making her sick and also that there was no cure. Anything we could have tried to do to prolong her life would have left her in a lot of pain and misery. Her passing was very hard for me and I spent what seemed like a very long time in depression as I grieved.

All that being said, i'm done grieving and i'm very much a happy person today. I'm not depressed or sad anymore and remember all of the memories of her with fondness and happiness!

I wanted everyone to know I didn't just chicken out or suddenly, irresponsibly grow bored with the idea as soon as I posted my return to the Creatures community. I apologize if I got anyone's hopes up (not that I would expect my blog was that popular!) and then disappointed anyone. I've moved on from the sadness of grieving and also playing C3 and Docking Station, but like I said I still have a strong interest in C2 and 1 and want to buy those games and play it and stream it. I don't think i'll update this blog anymore.

I wish you all lots of lemons and shee cheese in life!
Peace! :)

Some News

     You might have noticed nothing has happened here in a while. Unfortunately things in my life have taken a turn beyond my control and without getting into details I regret to inform you that there probably won't be any posts anytime soon.
     That's not to say I won't ever make any more posts, and there won't ever be any more Twitch streams. I still have the "want" to stream more Creatures on Twitch and post about them here. The circumstances have to be just right for that right now, though, and the chances of me having enough time and ability to do so are very slim.
     All I'm trying to say is don't be surprised if this site appears to become abandoned. Also, don't be surprised if after months of nothing there suddenly is a post.

First Stream

     I got my first Creatures stream of this world under my belt. I must say it didn't go too well. Just as I prepared to stream my elderly cat had a #2 accident all over the place, so I had to postpone for 15 or so minutes unfortunately.

     Streaming without voice is more difficult than I thought. You would think it would be easier. As the stream went on I became increasingly aware that since nobody could hear my reactions, and nobody had explanations of what I was doing, everything just seemed kind of bland.

     Banun'zo and Apya had another baby, it was a new baby boy which I'm very happy about. It means I can introduce a youth stage female from Nyrn when the boys are youth age without any problems.
     Unfortunately Apya died from mysterious causes, I suspect starvation of some sort. He became obsessed with the drums by the ocean and wouldn't do anything else as much as I begged him to. It was a very sad passing. Banun'zo stayed by his side for a long time before he disappeared into a cloud. And after that Banun'zo seemed to become very depressed and would do nothing but sleep, even when presented with food.
     I finally convinced her to do other things, but the only other things she'd do is try to approach the jungle, which i'm figuring out is the volcano area. I don't know why she became obsessed with the jungle. Her loneliness continues to be extremely high ever since Apya's passing, poor thing.

Here is the link to the highlight of the whole ordeal:
Twitch Highlight

What We Have So Far

     Pictured above are three norns: Apya, the father.. Tiger Eye, the son.. and Banun'zo, the mother. Banun'zo is the resulting progeny of a competition between five Cff norns. Apya is a CFG norn hatched specifically to be added to the gene pool. They have had a son, Tiger Eye.

     What I want to do is explore the overall intelligence of the CFG norns (cff also alright but prefer CFG) down the line. So far the norns have been extremely independent, too much so.  They have been taking care of themselves far more than I expected. In fact, I've never been able to step in to help them with anything, as much as I have wanted to. Every time I try, they take care of themselves! This pleases me and it also frustrated me. It makes the game a little boring, but if it continues several dozen generations down the line then I will have my answer.

     I have to decide (and maybe with input and ideas from you guys I can come up with a solution) how I want to proceed with the breeding. Ideally I would like to have only a mother and father and their children in the world at a time to prevent inbreeding and have a tighter control over who breeds with who. However, this prevents me from being able to observe the social interactions and social culture of the creatures. In order to prevent inbreeding I would have had to export each child when they reach youth, which would leave just the parents to interact only with each other and their babies, ever. Bah.

     So I thought to myself why not just do what I have done in the past and have a single queen among a bunch of males. I could focus on the genetic line on the maternal side. While this might give me results in the end they would be a little loose, meaning I wouldn't be able to control the male's passing of genetics and who the fathers are, leaving room for more genetic mistakes. (Meaning some inferior male's genes will get into the pool) In theory the inferior genes would eventually get bred out since I am selectively breeding on the mothers side.. but it would be slow going for.. indefinitely.

     These are the only two ideas I have at the moment and i'm not pleased with the con's of both of them. I wish I could find a happy medium somewhere in between.. but I haven't come up with one yet. I have to brainstorm more. If anyone has ideas feel free to enlighten me!

Why we can't have a family tree

     Well I just spent the last two hours trying to map out, from the beginning, the family tree of all the previous norns in this blog starting with the very first, Peni. It started out really difficult, and evolved into impossible! Some of it is because I lost my little booklet that listed all of the norns and their children, some of it is because I never blogged all of the daughters when they were born (they were simply exported without mention so I don't know who they all were and when exported later as the queen I never knew who their mothers were), and some of it simply because any program that I found to use to create the family tree never allowed for inbreeding (to put it simply). Sometimes the queen would produce children with her own sons, it happens in Creatures let's face it.
     Because of this I found myself trying to find ways around this.. which ended up with really WEIRD family tree branches, or even duplicates of the same norn! This simply wouldn't do, yet I was still continuing, thinking "I can just explain these anomalies with text to those who are looking at the tree.." But then I ran across the next line of queens being imported and no mother was listed, which is fine.. except the program required me to have her linked to the rest of the family somehow. At first I just thought "I'll link her as Peni's daughter.." But then I thought to myself "no, that would be lying! And to be sure there will be more like her that I'll have to lie about! Eventually half the family tree will be a lie!" and one thing I really don't want to do is lie about who is related to who, because that makes the family tree kind of useless. The whole point of a family tree is to see who is related to who!

     When I created the blog Confessions Of A Shee and began writing in it I never planned to have a family tree so I never kept enough records or data about anything. Unfortunately this means that listing everyone in a family tree is impossible if you want to be accurate. It's just a whole big cluster, which is a shame because I was really looking forward to seeing the completed tree myself.

If anyone wants to follow my new norn tribes feel free to create family trees to follow. I will be doing my best to list all the fathers and mothers of each child (unlike last time) which should make it easier to create a family tree. Sorry if my own lack of family tree tracking has disappointed anyone. To be honest it has disappointed myself because the idea was really fun to me.

But we do have the future to look forward to! Chin up!

More Creatures Blogging In The Future Maybe?

     I've been motivated to want to continue this blog about my creatures adventures. I took a long break with Creatures Online to look forward to, but then it stalled and I got frustrated. With the idea that Creatures Online has been put on the back burner and may possibly never come to fruition I have grown a little more interest in creatures again.

     I still have Nyrn and all of the creatures you last read about.. but I want to do it a little differently now that I have Twitch to stream the game on! In this idea I would like to continue with a new genetic experiment, however I have to decide how to form this "documentation".. I don't want to post long posts like this blog is currently made up of, because I want to incorporate my Twitch streams somehow.

     I am going to take some time to brainstorm this as well as how to incorporate the genetics of Orika's relatives (there is a long family line in this blog that I don't want to just forget about!) into this new experiment.

     To be more specific, I am experimenting with, and exploring, the genetics of Cff's and CFG norns. More information will come in the future when I have a better idea of just how I want to do things!

Stay tuned!

List Of Breeds

Astro

Bengal - tiger themed

Bondi - beach themed

Bruin

Bunny

Butterfly

Wildkat

Desert

Centaur

Civet

Draconian

Dream

Emerald

Fairyfloss

Fallow - deer themed

Gargoyle

Golden Desert

Hardman - tough themed

Harlequin - clown themed

Magma

Pearl Mermaids

Reindeer

Siamese

Toxic

Treehugger

Yautja - predator themed

Zebra

Orika Disappears Into Unknown Lands

Arv's time finally came and he layed to rest for the last time. His passing was very peaceful and had a happy feeling to it, considering he lead a full, long life.

I spent some time with Orika up in the desert before taking some time to pass out some elevines. I then returned to Orika to see how well she'd use them, only to find she wanted nothing to do with them at all. My hopes jumped when I saw her heading toward the "lift"(What they're calssified as) to use it! Only to be let down when she began going up and down in the C2 lift. With my patience tried I plopped her down in the middle of a pair of elevines as you can see here. As the hand picked her up and set her down her attention perked at the sight of something she'd not seen before! She a lot of fun playing with the spring toy!

When the spring toy had worn out it's interest she set her wanderlust sights on the future! ...Namely the boulders in front of her leading over the large waterfall. As the waters sprayed mist on her shiny santa norn coat she boldly but carefully trekked accross the boulder's smooth surfaces, and when finally reaching the furthest most point she could go she turned to face me and proudly marched in place as if to say she's the queen of the world! I worried she might slip off the edge and fall to a very painful result.. but luckily she was much more careful that I had anticipated she could be!

Then to my joy she took interest in the pretty red and green lift in front of her! I smiled as I watched her step inside and manipulate the controls to get it moving, because never before had a norn ridden this thing! I imagined the exitement she must have been feeling as the car gently lead her through the air high above the treetops!..And imagined the path it would tack on it's little wire there accross the waterfall to the other side!.. And would give her a new area to explore... except...

Suddenly it did something completely unexpected! I began to wonder if I had slipped into the Twilight Zone when the car suddenly drifted completely off of it's cable and began as if floating through the air! Orika didn't seem phazed by this and I wonder if she ever knew things were going awry. Orika just continued to gaze with wide eyed wonder at the sights drifting past the window, at the wonderful views, as the car carried her into unknown places. I wonder where it would take her!

To my surprise it stopped just above the first broken glass tube and deposited it there. She landed gracefully, without any injury, but then just stared up in confusion at the car. Either it hadn't carried her as far as she wanted, or she just didn't know why it stopped! I was baffled myself. Why would it stop in mid air where she could not reach it again? Surely this is not a safe place for a norn, they're not supposed to be in this area! Orika continued to stare in disbelief and wouldn't move... I fear even if she did decided to go she wouldn't have a very easy time getting down from this point, so I picked her up and put her back in the cable car, then pressed the button so that it would carry her back up to the bridge area, the way it came.. at least that's what I expected it to do.

Boy was I a sucker for thinking a cable car as broken as that, which had malfunctioned already, would suddenly do what it was expected. Instead of going up, it began to take a zigzag pattern back down toward the forest floor.

It dropped her in the lowest level of the treehouse. There she was safe, and it conveniently dropped her right by a toy and some food, so it wasn't completely a bad journey. Orika happily spent some time there to rest from the long journey, and practiced her musical talents on the horn in front of her. I gave her some local fruits to munch on. I had learned my lesson and decided not to risk putting her back in the cable car and pushing the button again! I began to relax, with her back with the tribe, and watched as her last surviving tribe mates played below.

Orika had other ideas though, and stepped into the car and pressed the button while I wasn't looking. When I noticed that she was on the move I saw her slowly zooming accross the screen and proudly announcing her intentions! I quickly dropped what I was doing (O-Orika! No! No!..Wait! Come back!!) and frantically tried to pick her out of the moving vehicle!

Isn't it always the time when you need to do it the most that your hand shakes too much to get a good click on something! Try as I might to save her I just couldn't get the hand clicked on the moving Orika fast enough! The cart carried her down... down.. down into the ground! (Orika!!!). Orika herself didn't think she needed saving. She kept her sights firmly set on the future and where it might take her with a happy grin on her face! Unfortunately for me.. Orika soon disappeared into the ground... under the ground.. who knows where it took her. All I know is I could no longer click on her and whenever I try to click on her picture in the norn display I get nothin. I don't know if I'll ever see her again.. Where is she?  Will the car carry her forever? Will she die of starvation... or can she even die now?? I may never know.

 With the idea that I may never see Orika again.. I had no other choice but to inject the next queen. Meet Orika's sister and the last daughter of Chiyoe. This is Luna.

After the royal teachings from the learning machine in the norn meso I carried her to the world where she will spend the rest of her life, and hopefully get friendly with the natives. Her first experiences were contently eating the local vegetation, she arrived with a hungry tummy. After filling it with food and fruits she settled down for a rest while looking at her new surroundings. Though.. I can't help but continue to feel worried about Orika..

Current population: 3 plus a lost Orika

Aging Nyrn

I returned to Nyrn for the first time in a long while, spurred on by the memory of my norns. I entered a senior citizen world. Just about every norn save for a couple is ancient or old in age and probably gumming their food by now. It was pleasant to find though, that everybody seemed to be having a pretty good life with very few difficulties. As I visited Aku he turned to me after plucking a mushroom from the ground and held it up to show me as he expressed his feelings. Unfortunately there is no source of starch where he currently is staying and i've never been able to convince him to leave his love of mushrooms to look for one. So there he stays, happily studying and exploring the mushrooms that grow. Thankfully they will keep those norns choosing this area free from dying of starvation. Aku and his friends will just have to suffer for now.

Sweet old Arvs is currently the oldest norn in the tribe right now and not even able to walk very far. He limps back and forth in front of the bee hive, completely content with his current location, with a bright smile on his face all the time so i'm confident to think he's happy. His old man walk keeps him from easily moving around but he doesn't mind, and enjoys the warm sunshine and fresh breezes. As I watched him, contemplating how he'll probably be the first of the old man tribe to leave life, Akka and he snuggled together in the cold winter air for a rest.

To my surprise the first to leave was not Arvs at all, but rather Quirin. "Oh, that's a young age to go at!" I thought to myself as I looked over his page. Aku kept him company in his last minutes so that he wouldn't be alone, and though he only lived for a little over three hours, his life was a full one, all the way to age "old"!

In the desert Orika refuses to return to the tribe. Her passion has always been to strike out on her own where no norn has gone before and explore new lands! She's been successful in doing such up to this point, however, with her age came walking issues (genetic trait i'm sure.). I felt so sad for her and shook my head as I watched her repeatedly and without tiring trying to walk over the mound of sand to get at the peppers in front of her. No matter how hard she moved her legs, though, each step either got her nowhere, or moved her backwards. Twice I had lost my patience and grabbed her hand, pulling her forward so she could gobble up the peppers.. each time I left her to check on the other norns and returned she was stuck back on that hill again though. I don't know what i'll do with her. As long as she's happy! She also happens to be the healthiest norn in the whole tribe.

Two more deaths, one after the other presented itself, and once again neither of them was Arvs. I was both happy and sad to find that, though, because while I'm happy Arvs is living quite a long time! I'm also sad to find these particular norns are dieing so soon.

 Aku will now be picking mushrooms in norn heaven while Anya will be playing with the mushroom seeds there! They'll have all they've ever wanted!

Current norn population: 3 plus Orika.

Goodbye Googly Eye

Far away from the rest of the group and any other norn I left Arvyn to play, little did I know it would eventually lead to his death. I was horrified to find him some time later at the bottom of the ocean. I don't know how he got to the ocean, I didn't expect him to, but I blame myself for not watching him. To the rest of the world he will have just left the group never to be seen again, nobody will know what happened to him. But I do, and it's sad.

Back at the group Arvs is having trouble staying awake. He's conveniently parked by the bee hive where honey is within easy reach, yet I cannot convince him to eat any. I was eagerly urging him to eat the honey pot that now lays beside him in this photo when he fell asleep again. He's got the same problem that comes with many adult norns in my tribe, where they sleep more than they eat, because they don't have the energy to do much else. It's a deadly cycle. I can't help but wonder if it's due to their liver organ giving out causing them to not be able to store energy, and when it dips too low they're thrust into this cycle. There's not much I can do about it.

On the other hand Orika remains the happiest norn in the world! Her days continue to be spent eating the abundance of foods, playing with the near by toys (sometimes with me), exploring and sleeping! What more could a norn want. She doesn't seem concerned about lonliness one bit. The only difference between her and the other norns is that she knows the whole english language and listens to me when I suggest things to her. She's a good little norn.

Orika awoke and decided to see what was on the other side of the bridge. She expertly balanced on the thin bridge boards while the cool winds whipped past her from such a height, and to her surprise she found some of the old nuts I had placed there quite a while ago! She indulged in eating some of them when I asked her to, but her real interest was in observing them! They don't grow anywhere in Nyrn after all, where would they have come from? They're rare delicacies.

Aku has taken hold up by the ettin egg layer, beside the volcano. His passion has been the mushrooms that grow there for his health. Aku can't help but be baffled by the little things for some reason and seems very confused all the time. He often picks a mushroom to dance with before popping it into his mouth, perhaps as some sort of fun ritual.

I caught Orika peeking at me from behind the purple berry bush. I believe in the original C2 the berries this bush provides were poisonous, but careful checking revealed Orika was fine with eating these particular ones, thank god (Because she was popping them in her mouth one after the other like popcorn!). I could only imagine how delicious they must taste right off the bush!

Current norn population: 7

The Toll Of Old Age

Anya surprised me with another change of colors, darkening into a deep purple as his age advanced. It reminded me that most of the norns are already old by now and many are on their way out. It won't be long before Nyrn may be nearly empty once again. I watched them, considering this, while watching some bad advice being given out. I find it cute that their suggestions for things often are very specific. Anya is suggesting to aleviate being sleepy with sleeping next to something called "dat". Unfortunately the male population never become completely fluent in english. Whatever "dat" is he seems to think it helps you become less sleepy if you sleep next to it.

Arvyn found his way up into the top of the volcano, which brought me some relief. I was worried he would spend the rest of his life by that toy and die there. The coconuts on the other side of the volcano wall grabbed his attention and he began the tough trek up the slope. The odd thing is that there seems to be an invisible wall of some kind between the coconut tree and the volcano wall that prevents him from actually making it there. If I try to lead him by hand it pushes us both away. The only way that he is able to pass is if I pick him up and plop him at the tree.

I checked my norns over with the medical window and found Aku suffering from a lack of muscles. His muscles have completely died, degenerated, whatever you want to call it. Muscles are supposed to regulate gate, make you be able to walk, but Aku seems to be getting around just fine, perhaps because he has a tail fin instead of legs. He enjoys the water of the swamp and it's no wonder since he's a mer norn.

Anya suffers from a lack of liver A, the organ that regulates food/nutrition storage (or bodyfat if you will). Anya is unable to store any energy for the times when there is no food, luckily this shouldn't affect him at all because he lives in a place abundant with food (as you can see!). He shows how happy and content he is in this world with a bright smile over the fruits that surround him!

Akka also suffers from a lack of liver A organ. Like Anya, he doesn't seem to mind, and even takes an interest in the nut dispenser that I plopped down for them to play with. Akka's curious gaze doesn't last long though and soon he goes off to find something else to play with. I was a bit disappointed none of the norns wanted to play with it at all and populate the ground with more nuts. The plants that are growing there are ones I had to plant myself. (Boy I can't wait for more garden box agents!)

The world is pretty quiet at the moment, peaceful, and hopefully it will stay that way. Till next time.

Dead By A Nose

 Yes I decided to play again today! I got the urge after watching Jessica's latest video - and as soon as I entered the world I was greeted by Anya's glycotoxin infection. Why do you have glycotoxin Anya? Try as I might I could not see the cause. I watched for the longest time to see if she was showing interest in anything she shouldn't have been, but she only remained crouching there with a pitiful look on her face staring at me. Akka was there for support and comfort and didn't leave Anya's side.

I was surprised to be slapped in the face by a death icon (that's what it felt like at least) and quickly clicked to transport over to the poor norn. I found Adalhard on the ground in a peaceful death pose, gone after a long and full life, and began the solemn routine of taking notes about his death - when suddenly I noticed the elevator began going up... and taking Adalhard with it! By his nose!!! I could not decide whether to suddenly burst out in laughter or feel horrified for his poor body! Disturbing the dead is wrong. After a couple up's and down's I couldn't figure out why the elevator was doing that, but then realized it was because a poor ignorant norn was riding it and had no idea Adalhard's nose was caught in the door. I can't help but facepalm still... at the memory and at the image in my head of (what if this were real life?) A poor little creature dead with his nose stuck in the door, flopping up and down as the elevator moved, it's just game physics don't allow realistic physics. XD

Anyways, rest in peace Adalhard.

 At the volcano Aldobrando was still just as I remember him, keeping the deathcap seeds under study and trying to figure out a way to eat them, as he has been doing his whole life. Aldobrando stood over them with a worried expression and both paws on his cheeks as he thought to himself how daunting a challenge it was to figure out how to make these things edible! Oh how the norn tribe would benifit if he could! Quirin had just about given up on them long ago, and on Aldobrando, and thought he is a bit crazy for still trying. He decided to look for greener pastures and actual food, while Aldobrando hardly noticed his leaving.

In front of the ettin egg layer Quirin found a patch of mushrooms he had found a few times in the past and had a long dinner. He often went long periods without eating anything as his research on the deathcap mushrooms (with Aldobrando as his partner) had always taken priority.. but now that he has given up pretty much on that, it's time for a well deserved meal!

 I had just left Aldobrando standing over the seeds when I was surprised by his death. I was dearly sad to see him go, he was one of my favorite norns. He has lived a very long life for a norn however and was very old when he passed. I spent a few moments staring at his lifeless body, still looking cute among the seeds he spent his life around. It's such a shame that he couldn't pass on his genetics to a son or daughter. Hopefully now he will be able to meet his son though.

I decided to end my romp down memory lane with goofy little Arvyn here. I was surprised to find him at the top of the volcano playing with this little punchy toy here. I don't know what it's called. I couldn't help but giggle at how goofy he looked with his googly eyeballs bobbing around above his body while the sound of the toy getting hit by him rang out. He provided me with a much needed chuckle before I left the game for the night.

Current norn population: 8

What?

Ok so.. I just got angry. I have been waiting for C4 to come out when it was promised and when the time neared I became super excited and stopped playing Creatures in anticipation! I never intended to stop playing Creatures forever. Then it never came.

One of my pet peeves about game releases is when they're put off. I understand that things go wrong, things take longer than intended, but when a promise of a game release is made and not kept it Pizzes(Not a real curse word) me off. I believe promises should be kept.

Do I want a buggy game released? I can put up with that! I am willing to help the developers work through their bugs and in fact love to play tester. Updates can be made, the game can be improved while it's played. I've close beta tested many games in the past and enjoyed the poop out of it. (Maybe i'm one of the minority?) My belief is that people should keep their promises. Skyrim pushed back release for a long time and I was so angry about that when it happened that I nearly didn't buy the game when it finally was released.

Anyways i'm so very annoyed at that (I've finally just today calmed down enough about it to post a "what's going on?" post in my blog) that I may not be playing Creatures 3 for a VERY long time, though i've not given up on it entirely. Sorry folks. :T

Orika Accross The Ocean

Orika and I were just chillin' beneath her tree house when she suddenly showed an interest in using the little boat off the deck! She has shown interest in these water fairing vessels once or twice before in her lifetime but no more then that so this was a super rare occurrence and one I never expected to see again! All previous attempts norns have showed at crossing the oceans revealed that the boats don't quite work the way they're supposed to and they always end up in the ocean... so I was very apprehensive about her interest in using it. However, I was curious to see if.. just this one time.. she could manage to figure out how to use the boat correctly. I was disappointed as I watched in her attempt to get into the boat that she quickly fell to the deep depths of the ocean bottom below. I quickly pulled her out, only to have her repeat this process making me cringe as she landed.

About the third time she attempted to use the boat I went to try and save her again only to find she successfully and immediately used the little spring at the bottom before I could lay a finger on her and rescued herself! I was very impressed! A few norns have visited the bottom of the ocean by mistake and not one could ever find a way out without my help, yet Orika seemed to know exactly what to do! She may have rescued herself the first few times as well had I not gotten in her way!

I felt really bad for her and helped her across the ocean with a lift of my hand. She seemed overjoyed to be on the other side as soon as I set her down gently on the wooden boards! She immediately headed for the fruit to fill her tummy! I find her child-like excitement at being on the other side and seeing the fruit very endearing.

Orika filled her tummy with the delicious fruit that didn't grow anywhere near her tree house, and once that was done she spotted the most interesting looking lift near by! I left her to play around since there was nothing dangerous.

Back with the rest of the norn tribe I spent some time with each norn individually, giving them a routine checkup. I was sad to see that Arvs seems to be making a slow decline in health, which is not unusual at an old age. I saw that for some reason, Arvs had very little to no energy, not even enough to grab a bite to eat from the honey pots right next to him. He slept for a long time, woke up to smile at me, grew sleepy again and then fell back asleep. The idea that he was getting nothing to eat worried me all to heck and I immediately shoved a honey pot into his tiny hands and convinced him to drink it up! Of course I also checked for sleeping sicknesses or bacterias, or toxins in his system that could be causing this but came up short. While he did get that honey pot in him it won't keep him drinking more but there's not much I can do. It's just a matter of time before it's his time to go. I just hope he's having a good time while he's here.

Before I left I flicked back to Orika to see how she was doing one last time. She was oh so happily playing with the speech robot toy, which I was very glad to see! I'm always happy when a norn takes it's own education into consideration... even if Orika already knows everything!

A Sad Hatching

 It wasn't long after the hatching of Orika's first child that she and Quirin tried to sneak another quick romance together when I wasn't looking. I was just lucky enough to scroll past them in the middle of a kisspop!

 I eagerly watched Orika throughout her pregnancy with somewhat of a protective nature myself. Quirin never strayed from her side the whole time and he is proving to turn out to be a little Romeo. Orika soon enough proudly layed the cream colored egg beside a bottomless source of food for norns ensuring the child would have plenty of nourishment upon hatching, the bee hive!

 From that egg hatched a little girl named Badala, proudly sporting her fathers harlequin head and large, goofy ears! She has her own charm to be sure, even if she is a little awkward looking. She hatched with a bright smile on her face and an eye on the golden jars of honey! Her mother's idea sure paid off.

Once she was sure Badala was safely out of her shell and filling her tummy with nutritious honey she moved on and took a short trip accross the swamp bridge. On the other side, in the small mushroom farm she found some norns she had not yet met and became quite smitten with one particular one, who also took a liking to her. I was very pleased to see them get along so readily upon meeing, and it wasn't long before Orika decided to grace the world with another pregnancy. Aldobrando was only too happy to oblige!

Orika spent all of her pregnancy by Aldobrando and made sure to lay the egg right where it was conceived. The warmth of the nearby volcano to incubate the egg was a good bonus, but she wanted to make sure Aldobrando also had a chance to witness his egg too.

Aldobrando and Orika walked off into the heat of the volcano together after convincing me to open the door. Normally I would not let norns in there, but they seemed to stick by each other and take care of each other so well I thought it might be alright to let them explore where no norn has ever been before. Behind them, the egg eventually hatched out one of the cutest little boy norn's i've ever seen! Sadly... he only had a few seconds to live before passing away with the same happy smile he hatched with. I was unable to determine the cause of his passing and was so sad to see such a cute little thing go.

Orika and Aldobrando soon joined me in gazing at the lifeless little body of their newest son, may he rest in peace. Though Orika and Aldobrando sported smiles, there was a solemness to them. They stayed around Ashibaal looking at their new son for some time and wouldn't leave his side. Perhaps they knew about a norn afterlife they were wishing him well in.

Life goes on.. and after Ashibaal disappeared in a puff of sparkly smoke Orika and Aldobrando decided to explore the volcano independently. Aldobrando became intrigued by a group of deathcap mushroom seeds! Never before has there been this many all together! The volcano is a breeding ground for them! They just call for inspection!

Meanwhile, Orika took delight in finding the metal lift in the volcano and pushing the button to see where it went! Orika's heart bloomed with the wanderlust that her sister exhibited! She did an expert job of patiently waiting for the lift to stop moving before trying to walk out of it rather than repeatedly bumping into the wall like most norns, I was so proud of her!

I followed Orika accross the inside of the volcano and helped her over the sand dunes to the right side of the island. I watched her joyfully pick coconuts from the tree and helped knock down ones she couldn't quite reach. She didn't even seem concerned when a few storm clouds passed overhead. Tropical weather can be so unpredictable! But still, the cool tropical breezes, soft, warm sands and all the coconuts she could eat gave her the brightest smile yet! The disaster of earlier seemed ages away now.