[Originally written June 19 2021]
So it’s been about half a year since I last did anything with Creatures, as I’ve been occupied with the entire Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, as well as a nasty bout of depression. The antidepressants finally seem to be kicking in, though, and I finally had the mental energy to deal with the chaos of Albia. Initially I just made my rounds through the world, getting my bearings and figuring out just what was going on when I left off six months ago. I noticed I still hadn’t re-injected the underground mushrooms, so I did that, then checked in on each creature.
Eudocia laid an egg up in the computer room near Verania. Julia was pregnant and hanging around on the island with Quintus, Augustus, and Gaius. Tiberius was in the kitchen, and Greg was in the garden playing with Marcellus. I spent some time trying to coax a few creatures with low life forces to eat, and various Norns moved around. Julia laid her egg. At one point I noticed a small group of Norns riding the lift down to the deathcap, so I intervened, pulling the lift back up and leading the herd back to the safety of the garden.
It was then that Julia was marked sick in the observation kit. I immediately jumped over to the island to see what was up. She had come down with a case of Antigen 7, Histamine B, and Unknown Toxin 3. And she was standing right next to Augustus and Marcellus. “Ah boy, here we go,” I said to myself. I didn’t even try to lead her away from them; it would have been an exercise in futility trying to split this little flock, and besides, she was already smearing her germs all over them. Indeed, within moments, they also became sick. I designated the entire island as a quarantine zone and brought over some cheese, and set about trying to ensure their life forces stayed high. This mostly meant focusing on Julia, who was at 55%, because the other two were hale and hearty with their life forces in the 90s.
It only took about 3 minutes to fight off the infection, so it was a fairly minor incident. However, Julia’s life force was still low, and she was proving to be difficult to feed when her friends were around, so I put her on the boat and lured her through the jungle, where she encountered the Grendel. Nothing seemed odd until he spoke: his words were garbled. My first thought was that somebody’s speech had managed to confuse Greg and he would need to be reminded of the correct words. I selected the Grendel.
It wasn’t Greg.
My heart sank. Some time in the half hour following my last sighting of Greg, he had passed away offscreen, unnoticed. Losing him, especially without even noticing, hurt possibly more than losing one of the Norns; after all, Greg had been around since the very start of my Creatures 1 playthrough, through many generations of Norns and several world transfers.
Still, I had no choice but to accept it and move on, without so much as a graveyard entry for him. During all this, Verania laid an egg, which hatched around the same time I noticed the new Grendel. I quickly named and exported the hatchling, and then went to deal with the unexpected newcomer. I named him Secundus, and used the ball to lure him to the computers so I could teach him his words. Secundus proved to be just as quick a learner as his predecessor, and just as obedient.
I brought him down to the kitchen to meet the Norns, a couple of whom had grown into old age, just in time to Julia to lay another egg (right next to Verania for safekeeping). Welcome to the family, Secundus. It never gets any less chaotic.
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