Let's try this again

[Originally written July 2 2020]

Not all was lost with the deaths of the Norns. They had left behind their twin eggs, which hatched identical boys I called Mercutio and Tybalt. The screencap was perfect – it reminds me of that one picture with the wolves. Tails aside, they were almost entirely Chichi, so I hatched another Bengal, a female called Hermia.

Once they’d been moved into the Woodland, I carted all the Grendels off – including Cleo, who had apparently grown into her aggression as an adult, as was consistent with her breed’s lore – to be more thoroughly trained. Hit toy yes, hit norn no. The tragedy that had ensued really was my fault for rushing them through training, and I really should have isolated Antony sooner to stem the tide of Grendels.

I put them all in the containment chamber and removed them one by one for sessions with the norn dummy until I was satisfied that they were more likely to pick the toy or the gadget to smack than a norn. Bizarrely, I discovered while doing this that I could no longer punish or reward Cleo. I tried relaunching the game and even exporting and re-importing her. I could not interact with her. The bug fixed itself a few moments later. Absolutely baffling.

Unfortunately, Ophelia never got her turn for training. Her premature aging led to her death at the age of only 43 minutes. However, I realized soon after her death that I had an extra Grendel egg in my inventory – her egg, the only one she’d ever had, and so far, the only Grendel egg not laid by Cleo. Ophelia lives on in her son, Romeo.

By the time I moved the Grendel squad back into the Woodland, the Norns had grown up a little bit. Hermia seems content to stay in the bramboo garden, sometimes accompanied by Mercutio when he isn’t playing with the lifts. Tybalt is a little more adventurous, and tends to wander farther.

The health meter had somehow gotten turned on and started beeping like crazy when Tybalt walked past it, but the hoverdoc said there was nothing wrong with him. So I took him to the medbay to check his oxygen levels. They seemed a bit low, so I gave him a booster shot. The health meter still went off. I concluded it was broken and turned it off.

I also noticed I had a bit of a bee problem. Thanks to the flowering chili pepper plant, the bees were getting out of hand. So I went to the Meso to check on Antony and feed some stingers to the trapper plants and hopefully import a few seeds into the Woodland. Sadly, my attempts to transplant these insect-eaters failed, and the bee problem persisted.

Antony seemed to be doing rather well on his own, and no catastrophes occurred while I was in the Meso. In fact, I got another double pregnancy notification – Hermia was having twins! Apparently it runs in the boys’ family. I tucked the eggs into my inventory and did a round to check on the Grendels, who had finally started to wander a bit. During this time the Norns grew to their full size, too! 

Romeo had discovered the teleporter in the Woodland that led back to the Capillata Workshop, and from there had teleported himself into the Meso. I removed him and decided it would be wise to move the Meso teleporter pad into the Desert instead; if Romeo could get in, Antony could get out.

Hamlet had wandered off to the Jungle, while Prospero found his way to the Learning Room, which I had repurposed into a Grendel nesting area by way of a scent emitter, which he took to whacking around and sleeping near. Romeo continued his teleporter adventure and ended up napping in the Desert. Iago complained constantly of boredom but refused to hit or push toys or gadgets. At least he’d rather gripe than punch other creatures, though. And Cleo spent most of her time curled up on the bramboo terrace, having apparently gotten over her aggression.

One of the Grendels fell ill in his wanderings but was kind enough to announce it to me on re-entering the Woodland, so a few sprays of antibacterial fog, a couple lemons and peaking pies later, he was good as new. 

With everything under control, I hatched the two Norn eggs. These two were not identical, but they were both boys. One was an even mix, Othello. The other, Puck, was mostly Bengal. Puck lived up to his name and began causing trouble immediately, smacking his brother around the moment he emerged from the shell. I put a stop to that rather quickly, and after a round in the learning machine, I moved the new boys into the Woodland. The population is skewed pretty heavily male, so I think I’m going to hatch a new female and introduce a new breed to the gene pool. The only question is, which one?