Nothing Exciting, Part 23

It turned out that Doreen just wanted to eat a bat. I feel like that might end bat-ly, but hey, it's her choice.

Sadly, Abby has finally managed to wallbonk herself to death. I feel like I should be sadder than I am, but I spent such a great deal of time trying and failing to help her earlier that I guess I had already resigned myself to this happening. It is a shame though. With the population down to five norns now, I'm wondering if this would be a good time to hatch that egg Bambi laid a while ago. 

But I've still got a lot to keep track of. I remain increasingly paranoid that Doreen is going to just mysteriously drop dead before she has a chance to pass on her genes. But no, she's just hanging out on the bridge, munching on the local fruit. According to the Creatures Wiki, these aren't even actually coconuts, but a lookalike fruit called a Masham Berry. That's a pretty huge berry, if  you ask me.

Doreen hasn't shown much of an affinity for nature, other than stuffing as many ants in her mouth as she can. Adam seems troubled by this, but he has a plan. 

"Come," he invites her, as she digs around in the bushes for more things to eat.

"Come", he reminds her as, she gets distracted again.

He leads her back to his favorite spot and shows her the anthill again. This time she pays attention. Adam tells her the stories of the ants and how they built that anthill, how important the ants are in cleaning up the rotting matter that might otherwise make us sick. This time, Doreen listens. She is enchanted.

...She also seems to have caught a bit of a fever.

Probably from eating something she shouldn't have, or maybe an ant bite? Either way, it seems to be fading out of her system quickly enough.

Sigh, this world has been such a struggle so far, but I have to say I am definitely more immersed than I have been in a while. It's really too soon to tell how much of my intrigue is just that I don't know the game well enough to understand why norns are doing the things they do, and how much is just that these norns are genuinely more quirky and unscripted. Either way, their actions feel, to me, a lot more open to personal interpretation than DS norns. I'm really enjoying it!