Nothing Exciting, Part 21

I spoke too soon. Way too soon.

Not a few moments after I started to feel hopeful for the future of this population, I got a notice that Cain had died. Of what, I don't know. When I last checked, everyone's health was over 75%.

Baxter seems a bit troubled by this development, but at least I won't have to guess who's who anymore.

But it gets worse. Another notice alerted me to the death of Dulcinea. This one hit me a lot harder! I had really become attached to her and her feisty attitude. I don't know what killed her either, but with the grendel lurking around her body, I can only imagine she finally tried to pick a fight with someone she really couldn't handle.

I'm really worried about Abby too. She's taken to bonking herself indefinitely into the corner, despite my better efforts to teach her otherwise.

She's really not all that healthy either, considering her number of starvation collapses in early childhood. I'm not entirely sure what 'drives support' does but I fear it's going to impact her ability to care for herself whatever remains of her future.

Still hiding in the underground, Amber and Bambi surround themselves with food and toys, quietly consoling each other. It seems they too are aware of the tragedies and concerns of their world, the uncertainty of their future.

Adam, whom we haven't checked in on in a while, copes with the stress by talking a walk halfway across the world, seeking isolation in an ancient tree.

From there he vents aloud his feelings about this mysterious force called Nature and how it mercilessly controls our lives.

Let's hope better times are ahead.

Nothing Exciting, Part 20

With vicious threats despite her younger age, Dulcinea does her best to intimidate.

When that fails, she insults him, telling him what she really thinks about him.

Baxter uncertainly tries to calm her down with a pat on the head.

That... that was a mistake. Glaring, frozen with red-eyed rage over the condescending act, she isn't sure whether to kill him quickly or draw it out.

Exhausted and apologetic, Baxter promises not to do it ever again. This seems to appease Dulcinea a little.

Meanwhile, to the east, Bambi has fallen asleep leaning against the horn. The ettin follows her, giving her a surprise kiss as she dozes. 

Dulcinea begrudgingly calls off the fight, but orders Baxter to get out.

Baxter does, in fact, get out. He gets out about seven steps to the right, where he immediately kisspops Bambi. The ettin continues to hang around pushing and pulling, doing his best to get in on this interaction.

But when the egg comes, the ettin reconsiders his involvement with this impromptu couple. Bambi wonders about that doozer that seems to be constantly following them, too.

Then surprisingly, when no one is paying attention, the ettin grabs the egg and runs.

While all that nonsense goes on upstairs, Abby and Doreen spend some quality time bonding in the incubator cave, chasing a bat around. 

Who should show up to say hello but the grendel! I forget how dangerous these are in Creatures 2, but I don't remember them really being something to fear. It appears he is attempting to learn the local language here. He's at least got the 'u' down.

Even deeper underground, Amber finds some peace and quiet. While she was alone, I tried to teach her to eat, but found she lacked the vocabulary. A click of a button in Albian Command, and she was fully educated. I'm not sure I plan on using this feature too often, but with so much going on already, shortcuts like this can cut through the tedious bits and let me get back to enjoying the game. Meanwhile, once educated, Amber decides the doozer is no longer of value to her and considers making it a snack.

Bambi soon joins her in the quiet chamber. I tried to get her to eat too, but she passed out before getting anything into her mouth. As I injected her with the liquid food and defibrillant, I realized this is the first time since restarting this world that I've had to do that. Maybe the population is learning after all.

Nothing Exciting, Part 19

After last installment's tragedy, we'll start out on a happier note here.

 

Cain travels across the sea to make a confession of overwhelming desire for Bambi, as Abby pays witness. 

She accepts his proposal (for however long that might last in norn society), and they kiss. Abby wipes the tears of pride from her eyes. 

Well, then I started getting the errors:

One of Albian Command's features is the ability to automatically dismiss error messages for you, which is great for wolfling runs that would otherwise be brought to a dead halt by even the tiniest macro error. But after catching a few messages flicker in front of me, I turned the feature off so that I could see what was going on in more detail. As the frequency of messages increased, I started to worry for the stability of the world.

Not wanting to risk a crash or world corruption, I figured this was as good a time as any to export everyone and start a new world. I had a ton of eggs scattered around that old world, so I hatched them all and exported them too. I figure if we run into some dire population issues I'll consider importing them, but to be honest I think even having eight norns is a little overwhelming to keep up with, especially when they've scattered themselves around so much. I've attempted to 'warp' a few of them out via AC's networking feature, so hopefully they've been having adventures elsewhere!

Meanwhile, we're back to square one of everybody hanging out in the incubator room.

Thankfully, no one wants to stay in that place. They've all had enough of that. Bambi and Dulcinea are the first to head right up into the treehouse for some fresh air. Dulcinea acts like she's never seen a cliff edge in her life before.

Dulcinea expresses how exciting it would be to just take a running leap off the edge! Wouldn't that be fun? Bambi does not agree and bids her not to.

But... she does it anyway. Bambi stares on sadly while Dulcinea, in a crumpled lump, questions her own actions. And who should be waiting below but the ettin, who is... totally confused by whatever just took place here.

The three of them make it across the (freshly installed) bridge and Bambi and Dulcinea just start wailing on each other in what became the most intense and long-lived slapfight I've seen this run.

It is relentless. The two continue to taunt each other in between smacks. They seem fairly evenly matched, each getting a fair number of hits in and wasting no time closing the gaps they create flinging each other around to only to raise their fists again.

Suddenly, Baxter strolls in, much to the shock of Bambi. But Dulcinea does not tolerate the interruption.

As the young goldie pounces with rage, Bambi sulks off, having had quite enough of this nonsense.

Nothing Exciting, Part 18

After her swim into the sea to escape the newborns, Ann is thrown up onto the other side of the ocean. She starts to wonder if she's made the right choice, leaving those two all alone over there. 

Meanwhile, in the other body of water, Abby, Baxter, and Bambi try to figure out how boats work. These boats always kind of frustrated me as I felt like creatures would get stuck in them an awful lot. I think I'll replace them with bridges eventually.

It seems Amber may have heard that there are newborns somewhere and goes to seek them out. She rolls her eyes at Cain's absurd remarks and wonders if she should have taken the long way around the world.

She doesn't have to go too far before coming across Doreen and stops to examine her closely. Exhausted, yes, but aren't we all?  

Finally, Amber stops by to visit Ann, who has made her way back to the other side of the ocean. She gives her a brief lecture on either expressing her limitless power as a nature goddess, or the importance of birth control. Maybe both? You can never tell with these norns. Always so vague.

Meanwhile, back at the boats, Bambi is starting to get the hang of things as she goes back and forth across the sea.

She finally stops to rest and finds Abby, napping in her favorite spot again. It really is a nice place for a nap. I guess with C2 norns being fairly inclined to travel horizontally, the confusion of boats might serve the purpose of creating those little pockets of isolation, giving those who need alone time a higher chance of getting it.

With Ann suddenly mysteriously absent, Amber takes on the task of teaching the newborns how to use the raft. Doreen is super angry about this, hiding being her tail.

But it turns out Ann's absence was actually rather tragic. An attempt at a routine swim seems to have failed as she managed to fall or glitch into a part of the ocean where the puffer fish couldn't reach her. I didn't even notice this was happening until I saw the death notice and she was already floating upwards.

'Coo dat?" Doreen expresses confusion at the sight of her mom rising out from the sea. Sadly, it seems Amber's lesson to the little ones is going to have to be about more than just boats.

Nothing Exciting, Part 17

Well, here we go again!

Albian Command brings something that, in my opinion, was very much needed-- an autonamer. I decided initially that I wasn't going to bother naming the creatures in this world because spending time coming up with names was not a level of effort I was willing to put in! But now that I can have autonamed creatures, I can better track who is who without having to put in the mental effort.

Time to re-introduce everyone, now that we finally have names! Here's Cain and Ann from where we left off, having just produced the latest egg (and seem to be regretting it between kisses and complaints of hunger).

Abby, the first gen Pixie who is taking a very, very long nap. I was a little concerned for a while that something might be wrong, but maybe this is just how C2 norns sleep and I'm just not used to it?? Come to think of it though, I haven't seen these norns sleep much at all, but apparently that's a pretty difficult task for the stock genomes, even the updated ones.

The surviving Hebe norn was autonamed Adam. Despite being surrounded by toys, he is frustratingly sad.

The Emerald norn, Amber, is pacing back and forth along the volcano's rim, occasionally stopping to flirt with the lift.

The lovingly nicknamed "Goldpixie" was autonamed Bambi. She's stomping around in the desert sands complaining loudly of hunger and completely ignoring whatever food I put in front of her. Sigh.

And now, the prolific look-alike Goldies! Here's Baxter, who has decided to chill in the incubator room for a while and look after the many (many, many) eggs scattered about.

And look who just hatched! It's the newborn Dulcinea, who seems to be on quite an adventure already, trekking to the other end of the bridge and trading tickles with her dad. I mean, Cain. I feel like the more I distance myself from any family-related references, the better-- considering it's overwhelmingly likely they'll end up inbreeding at some point.

Dulcinea wastes no time getting up to all sorts of childlike mischief, poking ants, splatting herself in the face with tomatoes, and hiding among the triffids. It's nice to see a baby norn wandering the world rather than being holed up in the incubator room. I admittedly did not even bother trying to teach this one any words-- it seemed best to let her enjoy her youth. I can always try to teach her later.

Ann looks as exhausted as I feel right now. No, this isn't Dulcinea again-- it's the new newborn Doreen! I was a little surprised to see another birth notice on my status bar, but it looks like Dulcinea has a practically twin sister! I don't even remember seeing an egg laid but yet here she is!

The two babies frolic happily bibbling through the flowers!

..And harassing their mom.

...Until she, out of frustration, runs into the sea. Geez kids, give Ann a break!

I hope you're proud of yourself, Dulcinea.