Generation 2 Chaos

I've been somewhat avoiding getting back into Creatures, especially the COBbling side, while I settled into a new job. I'm now feeling settled enough to dip my toes back in once in a while. I figured I'd play Creatures 2 a bit to get back into it, so I finished up teaching the last few second generation Norns. Magni was in the swamp, and Bjorn was by the calendar tree. The Grendel died with heavy metals poisoning, so I took pity on the new one and led it up out of the volcano in between teaching Norns. 

Situation Normal: All Fouled Up

I entered my Creatures 2 world to immediate problems. Sigurd and Bjorn were riding my boat across the ocean, but for whatever reason, Bjorn - and only Bjorn - was stuck inside it, despite all my safety mechanisms. In fact, he was stuck only on the left side of the ocean. He could step out of the boat just fine on the right side, but on the left, only Sigurd could get off the boat. So I carted Bjorn over to the right side, removed my safety rails, and tried to get the Norn into the water so I could pick him up and move him. He grabbed a bee, hopped in, and walked to the middle of the ocean. Er, what? After moving him, I removed and reinjected the swimming Mernorns COB, put my safety rails back up, and hoped that would do the trick while I went through the process of importing and teaching young Norns.

The Tide is Turning

It's been a crazy week at work, and I needed something relatively calm to unwind with. Taking a break from working on my Pathfinder mod, I dipped into Creatures 2 for a while. I figured, with generation 1 winding down, I should get a head start on prepping generation 2 for the world, so I coaxed Magni out of the incubator cave and settled him into his new home in the trees above the swamp. 

With the cave free, I could get to work teaching the next generation, so they'd all be ready for the world when their time came. I decided to start with the Mernorns, but there was one catch: they're all male.

A Minor Update

I haven't been playing Creatures much as of late, between work being absolutely hectic and being eyeball-deep in modding Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. But this morning, being too exhausted from the chaos of my job this week to continue more mentally taxing work, I decided to settle in for a relaxing little round of Creatures 2. 

Nothing particularly wild happened, which is good, because I needed the break. That said, once I get my energy back, I'll be vanishing back into WOTR for a while.

Bjorn wandered in the swamp, Sigurd hung out in the desert, and Magni lazed about in the incubator room. Inga's age was showing, but didn't darken her spirit, and aside from occasionally getting stuck on the airlock door, mostly took care of herself.

I focused on getting Sigurd into a better location, as the desert is not friendly to Norns, and he was quite hungry. I lured him over to the calendar tree, where he made friends with the Grendel. 

I had a brief scare when the Observation Kit reported Magni and Bjorn as sick, but it turned out they'd just eaten some badplants. At some point, Bjorn went up the lift and across the glass walkway, so I activated the teleporter and sent him elsewhere. Ultimately, he ended up joining Sigurd by the calendar tree.

At this point, everyone is well over six hours old, and I suppose Mernorns must age faster than their land dwelling counterparts, because nobody else is going gray yet. They've got quite a bit of time left in them, yet!

Grand Botanical Overhaul I: Cacti

I've recently begun my most ambitious project yet: the Grand Botanical Overhaul for Creatures 2. The plan here is to do something similar to my Creatures 1 Herb Update, to improve consistency in plant behaviors and streamline their use for creatures, while also including some quality of life improvements for the player. This includes:

• Including launchers for the plants that don't have them
• Making sure the main plants (pear, triffid, trumpet, aubergine, tomato, and acorn) have proper life cycles including plants, fruits, seeds, and detritus. This includes fixing any bugs in their life cycle.
• Ensuring that anything inedible is invisible - both plants that are naturally inedible and plants that simply aren't ready to eat yet.
• Implementing behavior similar to my updated C1 Herbs: creatures eat directly off the plant, hand pushes plant to pluck the fruit.
• Reclassifying harmful members of edible classes into badplants.

As I go through this process, I'm thoroughly analyzing the code for each plant, so this will be a series of in-depth looks at the CAOS involved. I will be going into the changes I've made, but won't put anything up for download until the project is finished. I'm beginning with the cacti - technically badplants, but still in need of some fixes.

I'm a One-Woman QA Department

Things have been slow working from home lately and I finally decided I was utterly fed up with... well, pretty much everything that's wrong with Creatures 2. So with the help of Bella the Beta Norn, I set out to fix as much of it as possible, which turned out to actually be quite a lot. 

You're gonna need a bigger better boat.

I began with my archnemesis: the boats. I've previously expressed my gripes with the boats, especially the light ocean one:

"Not only do creatures constantly get stuck in it, not only are the controls located where you can't click on them when the boat is occupied, but the boat itself is completely pointless because it leads to a small, dead end patch of island with no food on it."

I initially "solved" this problem by just deleting the boat, but did not release a COB for it because the hard part would be re-creating the boat. I started work on that, and then I figured, the dark ocean boat isn't so bad but it's still an annoyance, so I should go ahead and fix that too. So at that point, why settle for just deleting the light ocean boat? If I'm replacing the dark ocean boat, I might as well replace the other one too.

The scriptorium makes the event scripts for any official object trivial to obtain, but with COBs like this, the hard part is always in restoring the original object as part of the COB removal script - while event scripts are easy to rip from the game, the injection/creation script is generally a mystery, and that's where a lot of important values are set: initial values for object variables, attr and bhvr values, and various physics traits. With complex objects like the boats, you need to create the parts in the correct order, too.

The Last Children

In my last post I mentioned that the C2 Norns produced seven new hatchlings, so I'd split the genetic analysis off to a separate post. And here it is!

The first two hatchlings were from the Mernorns. This makes four, and all of them are male, so for the next generation, I'll have to introduce a new female. First up was Vragi! He has seven pigment mutations and one pigment bleed mutation but all are invisible.

He has a minor brain lobe mutation that I expect won't affect him at all; his decision lobe rest state is 81 instead of 80. He also has a stimulus mutation that makes falling through the air a little scarier for him, but given that he'll live underwater, that shouldn't be a problem!

His brother, Halfdan, may look similar right now, but I expect that to change! He inherited the male pigment bleed gene on both slots, although one has mutated to kick in at childhood instead of birth. He also has several pigment mutations, of which four actually changed pigment values, albeit only from 128 to 129. This may explain why he looks ever so slightly different from Vragi already. Aside from these, he has only one mutation, changing an output value in a stimulus from 0 to 1 - but that slot has <NONE> for the chemical, so it doesn't matter.

Continuing the green parade, Baldur is the spitting image of his mother, Gunhild! He inherited none of Bjorn's looks. He has eight mutations. One of them is a half-life mutation for an unused chemical, and one is an instinct mutation that changes the cell number for one of the unused lobes, so no big deal. There's also a small change in the gain value for the crowdedness receptor, which shouldn't have much effect in practice. And he has a small lobe mutation: a relax susceptibility value changed from 0 to 1, which I'm not even sure has a measurable effect given that the slider in the genetics kit will only jump to multiples of 8. At any rate, the associated susceptibility rule is undefined so it probably wouldn't do anything anyway.

The End is Nigh

The very first thing I did on re-entering C2 was to banish that freaking boat. There's a tool at The Shee's Lost Knowledge that can identify classifier numbers, but rather than install that, I just used the script directly in the C2 CAOS tool. Once I'd identified the boat, I simply ran enum 3 6 1 kill targ next. I will eventually make a COB for this, but the hard part of this will be to make it re-create the boat on COB removal, and I frankly couldn't be bothered with that today.

Though I spent this session just playing with Norns, believe you me, I am definitely putting together a to-do list, because there is a lot wrong with this game. Speaking as a professional game performance tester: Creatures 2 should never have released in the state it was in. Even with all the haphazard patches released after launch, it's still buggy as all get out, and should have remained in development for another year or two. But it didn't, so for now I just have to deal.

One of the biggest issues, and the one that might be beyond my ability to fix on my own, is that the creatures are constantly tired. I haven't yet confirmed my theory that most of the food items are busted and that's the cause of their issues with eating, but the sleep problem is almost certainly a genome issue. This didn't stop them from producing seven hatchlings, though! I'll split the genetic analysis into a separate post.

Creatures 2 is broken but I love it anyway

It's always fun when the first thing that happens is the game crashing. It was a sign of things to come, as the whole session was an exercise in C2's jankiness, but boy I can tell my mental state has improved because it's not bothering me so much anymore! So I've got that goin' for me at least.

I loaded back into the world with the babies still exported, and decided to keep it that way. I think for Creatures 2 I'm going to separate the generations; things are chaotic enough as it is.

Once I got back into the game and got my bearings, I saw Magni taking another swim. I sure am glad for the pufferfish! Meanwhile, Gunhild was stuck in the boat, which is quickly rising to the top of my COBbling hit list. I could sink a lot of effort into making it not be terrible, but really, what's the point? Not only do creatures constantly get stuck in it, not only are the controls located where you can't click on them when the boat is occupied, but the boat itself is completely pointless because it leads to a small, dead end patch of island with no food on it. I will likely just remove the boat from my world. Anyway, I eventually managed to get it to cooperate and drop Gunhild off, and began leading her across the desert.

An influx of Norns

 [Originally written July 8 2021]

Albia was a freakin’ circus today. I started off with most of the Norns sleepy and collapsing into a snoring pile together; Sigurd and Gunhild got into a slap fight behind the water pump where I couldn’t discipline them, but seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Then things got weird, fast. For some reason, the pufferfish decided to eject Olaf, and only Olaf, from the ocean. I have no idea why. Then, once he was on land, I tried to get him back in the water where he belongs, only to have him completely freeze on me. I tried fiddling around with the springy toy (again, it’s a godsend for moving stuck Norns) but to no avail. Olaf actually aged up on land, so it’s a very good thing that he’s an Atlantic Mernorn and not a standard variety, or he would have suffocated. When injections failed to un-stick him, I exported and reimported him, which did the trick, but then I had to juggle him with all the other Norns and try to get him and only him into the ocean, which was an ordeal. It also involved Magni helpfully trying to demonstrate swimming, so that was fun. Then Sven went and collapsed, presumably due to not eating, so I had to get him back on his feet with an injection, but he seemed to stabilize after that.

During all this chaos, the land-dwellers had produced three eggs, and soon a fourth was on the way. With the Mernorn situation under control, I tried desperately to catch up on land by hatching the eggs. I adored Grelod the moment I laid eyes on her; my orange-tipped female Frog Norn sprites go so well with the Golden Desert Norn sprites! But my second thought was the realization that I would not be able to handle four hatchlings with all the adults still in the room. So I exported Grelod and decided it was time to eject the other Norns from the safety of the cave.

This meant pulling them up the lift and tossing them through the random teleporter. This worked out better for some than for others. Sigurd ended up just jumping off the platform, and the poor amphibian was very confused by his arid surroundings.

Freyja ended up in the splicing room, which is not a good long-term location for a Norn, so I guided her out into the treehouses. Eventually I got everybody into at least decent positions, except Magni, who continually re-activated the teleporter to go back to the incubator! He really didn’t want to leave! Eventually I got the cheeky little fellow out, and then it was time to set about hatching the remaining eggs. 

And that, of course, means it’s time for genetic analysis! We’ll start with Grelod. She has a lobe mutation that is thankfully just a random value in a state rule, sandwiched safely among a bunch of <END> flags. The receptor that makes Norns walk differently when sleepy kicks in early for her – normally, being a walk animation, it doesn’t kick in until childhood, as babies are supposed to still be crawling, regardless of mood. Her third mutation is unfortunate but not crippling.

Reaction

Gene 115: drive 4 reducer

3 Coldness Decrease + 3 Coldness = 1 Reward.
Rate: 8 (max to 0 in about 0.4 secs)

3 Coldness Decrease + 3 Coldness = 1 Punishment.
Rate: 8 (max to 0 in about 0.4 secs)

Normally this reaction encourages Norns to do things that warm them up when cold, but in Grelod it will discourage this behavior.

The next egg was the only one not laid by Freyja, but it’s worth noting I didn’t know whose eggs these were, just that I had a pile of them! Each one was a surprise. Thordis is an odd combination of sprites but I think she’s strangely charming with her purple and green coloration. I am pleased to see that, at least so far, my Lop Norn sprites seem to hybridize just fine with other breeds!

Her first mutation is the receptor that ties the sleepiness chemical to the sleepiness drive; normally it’s active from birth, but it doesn’t kick in for Thordis until childhood. Her second mutation is in the emitter for sibling pheromones; the threshhold has changed by 1, which I expect will have no effect. The third mutation changed a 1 to a 0 in the inputs of a reaction; a 0 isn’t a valid value so it gets autocorrected by the kit, and the chemical being counted was <NONE> so this wouldn’t do anything anyway.

The next egg held Grelod’s sister, Halla. They look very much alike, although Halla doesn’t have matching arms and legs like Grelod does. 

What she does have is far more interesting mutations, aside from her two lobe mutations, which are just random values among the <END> values in state rules, as per usual.

Receptor

Gene 624: Oestral cycle (F)

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Reproductive”, Locus: “Become fertile if high”. Chemical: “Oestrogen”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((Signal - 73) * 255).

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Reproductive”, Locus: “Become fertile if high”. Chemical: “Oestrogen”.
Analogue: Output = 0 - ((Signal - 73) * 255).

At first, I was a bit excited about this one. I figured since the signal was inverted, the output would always be 0, and thus essentially she would never be fertile, and therefore never produce arousal potential (and in turn, no sex drive). As an asexual person myself, it would have been cool to find essentially an asexual Norn. However, if the math is not clamped until the end, then a signal of less than 73 would result in subtracting a negative number; essentially Halla would become fertile only when she had low oestrogen. We’ll find out as she grows up!

Her next mutation is one I can’t even make sense of, and I suppose must be an error. The gene actually looks the same in the genetics kit, but the D-DNA analyzer flagged it as a mutation, and when compared to a standard Norn, there’s a chunk of the line missing.

Receptor

Gene 465: 122 Antigen 2

465 Different in File 1 122   0 Emb   B MutDupCut   128  Organ#=6 chem=Antigen2, thresh=16, nom=0, gain=50, features=Digital

465 Different in File 2 122   0 Emb   B MutDupCut   128  Organ#=6 Organ, Injury chem=Antigen2, thresh=16, nom=0, gain=50, features=Digital

My best guess is that the entire Receptor Attachment section just got omitted. No idea if an invalid change like that would actually do anything in-game, or what it would do if it did.

Emitter

Gene 050: Get claustrophobic

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Crowdedness”. Chemical: “Crowded”. Sample every 40 ticks.
Analogue: Output = (Signal - 2) * 8. 

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Light Level”. Chemical: “Crowded”. Sample every 40 ticks.
Analogue: Output = (Signal - 2) * 8. 

This is certainly a strange mutation! Halla will prefer dark places, feeling crowded in bright light. That said, this probably also means that how crowded she feels will be unconnected to the number of Norns around her.

Reaction

Gene 139: Fight to Flight when retreating

1 Collapsase + 1 Anger = 1 Fear.
Rate: 32 (Max to 0 in about 5 secs)

1 Upatrophin + 1 Anger = 1 Fear.
Rate: 32 (Max to 0 in about 5 secs)

Now this one’s interesting! Collapsase is a chemical that is produced when a creature is retreating from a potential threat, and its presence spurs the fight-or-flight response toward flight by converting anger into fear. In other words, if a creature starts running, its anger turns to fear and it will probably continue running. The equivalent in the other direction is turnase, produced when a potential threat approaches, which converts fear to anger – a Norn standing its ground will probably continue doing so.

Upatrophin and downatrophin are simply chemicals emitted in response to the steepness of the terrain, usually used to trigger receptors that cause the gaits for walking up and down hills. In Halla’s case, she essentially doesn’t have a normal flight response, as collapsase won’t trigger her anger to convert into fear (which would encourage more running, producing more collapsase). However, she is unwilling to fight an uphill battle, literally! If her opponent has the high ground, she’ll become afraid; note that this is a reaction converting anger into fear, so if she’s not angry to begin with, upatrophin won’t make her afraid.

Finally, there’s Svala. She has only two mutations. One is a slight change to an initial concentration of a normal chemical, and one is a change to a receptor. 

That said, looking at the normal behavior of the receptor made me question my understanding of receptors as a whole, including going back and re-evaluating Halla’s fertility mutation.

Receptor

Gene 605: Stress reduces healing

Organ: “Current Organ ^(Gonad)”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Repair Rate”. Chemical: “Stress”.
Analogue: Output = 0 - ((Signal - 0) * 12).

Organ: “Current Organ ^(Gonad)”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Repair Rate”. Chemical: “Stress”.
Analogue: Output = 0 - ((Signal - 1) * 12).

The mutation itself seems inconsequential; if you’ve got more than 0 stress, you probably have more than 1 stress. But shouldn’t the normal behavior of this gene always produce an output of 0? No matter what the signal is, it’s always positive and therefore, when subtracted from 0, should always be clamped to 0. 

This leads me to two possibilities: first is that the repair rate accepts negative values and therefore doesn’t clamp. The other is that my formula for receptors with the “output REDUCES with increased stimulation” flag is wrong. I have been operating on the assumption that the formulas here are the correct ones. But for emitters, the genetics kit lists inversion as meaning that the signal is treated as (255 – signal), so it’s entirely possible that’s the case for receptors as well.

I tried engineering a test Norn with receptors and emitters tied to arnica (since I could dose the Norn with that at will via arnica berries) and to unused chemicals (that would otherwise not show up but could be graphed) so I could watch the interaction, but to no avail. I have no answers at this point in time.

Cataclysm

 [Originally written July 2 2021]

I’ve been putting off going back to Creatures 2 for multiple reasons. First, there was the fact that poor Gandalf’s deadly mutation was waiting for me. Second, I had moved furniture and the KVM/NUC setup dedicated to running Creatures 2 needed to be reconnected. And third, it turns out I was suffering from depression.

But I'm on sabbatical and getting treatment, and doing much better now, so I was ready to expend energy on things like re-wiring the computer system. I even figured out how to get the monitor to scale appropriately; I have a 1080p monitor but of course Creatures 2 doesn’t like to work well above about 720p, and I had previously set it up to stretch the 720p desktop to fit the monitor, resulting in odd sizing and blurriness. Now, after some tweaks in the Intel Graphics Control Panel, it just renders at real size with letterboxing, making it much easier for me to gauge the size of Norns and making everything much crisper. 

I braced myself for the inevitable and loaded into the game. And it sure was a good thing the antidepressants were working because I got to witness poor Gandalf collapsing, and Pippin becoming increasingly confused why his brother wasn’t responding as he tickled, spoke to, and even slapped him in his attempt to wake him. Then, he vanished. There was no death notification, but the graveyard noted Gandalf as recently deceased. I registered the death, then shook myself out of my daze and set about teaching Pippin.

Once I was satisfied, I moved on to checking on the land-bound Norns, and found that they’d gotten into quite a bit of trouble while I was distracted. Edmund had fallen down a well, so I had to extract him with the spring toy and lead him up to the nearby red berry bush, where he settled in. Then I checked in on Tom, who was in the desert… with an unexpected friend. Beth had escaped from the Incubator room, so I immediately set about wrangling her. No sooner had I gotten her back in than Erika made a break for it and took off across the desert, requiring me to herd her back into the incubator room as well! The two of them are tag-team trouble! 

I went to find where Tom had gone since I last saw him, and he was now inside the volcano, so I fished him out and guided him away. Thankfully his limping gait works just fine for going up a hill like the one in the volcano’s cone. As soon as Tom laid eyes on the raft, he became obsessed with it, and I didn’t want him riding it back and forth all day, so I got him to the other side and then sent the raft back before he could get back on. 

The Mernorns produced another son, but I’m not bothering to analyze the genetics, because of what was soon to come. Borland’s sudden appearance turned out to be a bad omen, because not long after, the game crashed. I tried to relaunch, and got an error. I rebooted, tried to relaunch, and got an error. I opened a test world, no error. Tried to open the main world, error. The world file was corrupted. I had no choice but to start over.

I built up a new world, Midgard, and made a backup copy. Hopefully if the world becomes corrupted, I can drop the backup file in and the inhabitants will be fine. Speaking of inhabitants, I needed some, now that the old guard were lost to the void. I started with two Mernorns, Olaf and Inga. I did not train them as thoroughly as I had with previous Mernorns, as I started them off in the water from day one. Olaf turned out to be a bit of a bully, but they eventually learned to get along.

Then, at long last, it was time to introduce true Creatures 2 Norns to the land. I hatched five of them, which may seem like a bit much, but I wanted these breeds represented in the population. Magni, the Lop Ear Norn, would be the first of his breed to see actual, normal gameplay! Freyja and Bjorn brought Golden Desert and Hebe genes to the table, while Gunhild the Emerald and Sigurd the Frog Norn brought vibrant greens to the world.

I thought it would be efficient to teach the entire gaggle of young Norns all at once. This is fine for verbs, but doesn’t work so well for nouns, which I found out the hard way. I ended up having to export them and import each one to be retrained, one at a time. Sigurd somehow associated “root” with something else entirely and no matter how I tried I couldn’t find out what he thought “root” referred to, so I couldn’t clear the word up to be reassigned to the correct category. As such, he now calls carrots “rut” which I figured was close enough. Hopefully the doozer and other creatures will sort him out.

I then brought the creatures down to the adjective computer in pairs; wrangling all five was just too much trouble. Eventually, I had them all trained, and they happily lazed about in the incubator room until growing into childhood. I have put the elevator on their level so they can leave when they like, as I don’t intend to keep them cooped up. The land is theirs to explore, now. Meanwhile, the Mernorns set about claiming the sea, bringing the first second-generation child into this new world.

Sven has several mutations of note. He’s got two brain mutations to start with, both displaying the same change. I’ll show the one in 555; the other is in 570, the Regulator Lobe.

Lobe

Gene 555: Attention Lobe

D1 Growth

Source Lobe: Noun i/ps. Min: 1, Max: 1. Spread: flat. Migrate: never.
Initial config: Fanout: 0, LTW between 255 and 255, Strength between 255 and 255.

Source Lobe: Noun i/ps. Min: 1, Max: 1. Spread: normal. Migrate: never.
Initial config: Fanout: 0, LTW between 255 and 255, Strength between 255 and 255.

I don’t expect them to have any effect; since the min and max dendrites are 1 for this gene and 0 for the other, so in both cases the spread shouldn’t actually matter.

Receptor

Gene 163: Punishment reinforct

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Decision o/ps”, Locus: “Chemical 1”. Chemical: “Punishment”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((Signal - 0) * 255). 

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Decision o/ps”, Locus: “Chemical 1”. Chemical: “Punishment”.
Analogue: Output = 1 + ((Signal - 0) * 255).

This one may or may not be a problem. Basically, Sven always has a very small punishment signal in his brain, which could cause trouble with learning. On the other hand, because it’s such a small signal, it may not have a noticeable effect.

Receptor

Gene 163: Ageing Death

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Somatic”, Locus: “die of old age”. Chemical: “Life”.
Digital: Output = 117 - 255 if Signal > 5.

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Somatic”, Locus: “die of old age”. Chemical: “Life”.
Digital: Output = 117 - 255 if Signal > 4.

This equation produces 0 if the creature has more than 5 units of Life. Presumably, a non-zero value triggers death. The Life chemical decays over time, which triggers aging and eventually death. Barring catastrophe, Sven will live a bit longer than a normal Mernorn because his Life needs to decay more to trigger death.

Reaction

Gene 126: drive 11 reducer

1 Boredom Decrease + 1 Boredom = 1 Reward + 1 <nothing>.
Rate: 8 (Max to 0 in about 0.4 secs)

1 Boredom Decrease + 1 Boredom = 1 Reward + 1 Pain.
Rate: 8 (Max to 0 in about 0.4 secs)

Sadly, it seems reducing boredom will cause Sven a small amount of pain. Hopefully, this trace amount will have no effect on his quality of life, and thankfully it creates Pain directly rather than Pain Increase, which would involve punishment.

Reaction

Gene 382: Glycogen to Glucose by Adrenaline

1 Glycogen + 1 Adrenaline = 3 Glucose + 1 Adrenaline.
Rate: 32 (Max to 0 in about 5 secs)

1 Glycogen + 1 Adrenaline = 3 Glucose + 0 Adrenaline.
Rate: 32 (Max to 0 in about 5 secs)

Not sure what to make of this one. In theory, this would mean that adrenaline-fueled conversion of glycogen to glucose would also consume the adrenaline, making the reaction much shorter. However, it is the type of mutation that gets automatically corrected in the genetics kit, so I’m not sure it actually affects him.

Sven also has a mutation in the half-life of chemical 168, which shouldn’t affect anything. He has a few minor pigment and pigment bleed changes that shouldn’t be visible. The most notable of these changes is that one of his red values is at 137 instead of 128, but even this hasn’t produced a noticeable change. As for the mix-and-match color genes of the Mernorns, he has inherited both of his father’s pigment bleeds, so he’ll be the spitting image of his dad.

All aboard the mutation express

 [Originally written November 21 2020]

It’s been a while! I’m glad I keep this record now, so I can remind myself of what was going on. When we left off, the Ettin was stuck in the ground, so I exported and reimported him. Boy, the game is fast at detecting a missing Ettin, because it immediately produced another in the time it took me to reimport Smeagol, who happily settled into his new home in the incubator room and began quenching his thirst from the fountain. So now we have two Ettins. Hopefully Gollum won’t fall into the floor!

We also left off with Edmund hanging out by the seaside, occasionally going for a dive. This was something he was eager to do upon my return, so I grabbed him and carried him over to the Calendar Tree. He was not happy about this positioning and immediately called an elevator. He liked the little cave with the red berries much better, though.

I made my rounds in the typical fashion. The Mernorns and Erika needed some coaxing to eat, but at least they were happy. It’s hard to tell with Banana Norns, but I think Erika still doesn’t have her old age sprites; it seems that all Creatures 1 imports get a full shot of Life rather than scaling to their age. 

As such, old Beth is still going just as strong. She also seems to do a better job of caring for herself, as her hunger bar was just fine when I checked in on her. Like all Norns, she’s reluctant to sleep, but she did eventually get some rest.

Tom seems to have settled into place behind the purple berry bush. It’s a comfortable place with a ready supply of food that doesn’t require him to move, and he can hide from me and grin cheekily through the leaves at me. Despite having said food supply, he wasn’t eating, and I think he was disappointed to find I could see him through the bush and engage him in a rousing round of “eat fruit.” 

Meanwhile, in the ocean, Arwen finally grew her tail and gained her rich adult pigmentation. She also seemed to develop a gait problem, which worried me considerably. Instead of moving about normally, she’d get stuck in a sort of bouncing animation. I was concerned that this might be a problem with the Atlantic Mernorns and how their swimming worked, but after I removed and re-injected the swimming COB, Arwen was happily and gracefully moving about, and was soon joined by Boromir! 

Look how magnificent they are with their gorgeous coloration! Not long after, they produced a second egg, which I hatched along with the other one. First of all, I want to talk about coloration. I examined the pigment genes in both Arwen and Boromir; they both have neutral pigments and only two pigment bleed genes. All pigment-related genes are switched on at birth, so the color changes seen over the course of their lives are inherent in the mernorn sprites. Interestingly, their bleed genes differ from each other, so their children may not have the same coloration. Arwen’s first gene is female-linked with rotation 255 and swap 128, and the second is male-linked with rotation 85 and swap 200. Boromir’s first gene is male-linked with rotation 0 and swap 128, and the second is female-linked with both rotation and swap at 128.

The two boys rolled out of the seashell incubator happened to inherit the female-linked genes on both slots, so they have neutral coloration. That didn’t stop the first child, Pippin, from having a unique look, as he sported unusual arms, a mutation type I was not expecting to see so early! The second, Gandalf, looked normal, but quickly turned out to have a more sinister mutation, as he collapsed with stars around his head. I quickly gave him a metabolism transplant and defibrillant, which got him up and moving again, only for him to collapse a second time. I repeated the injection, and quit the game to dive into the genomes.

Pippin’s mutation report came back with 11 mutated genes. One of these, obviously, is his Grendel arms! I welcome this bit of variety to the otherwise very uniform Mernorn genepool. Another listed gene didn’t have any differences I could find either in the D-DNA Analyzer report or the Genetics Kit. Seven more were changes to pigment and bleed genes that didn’t actually have visual effects (life stage changes, mutability value changes, and in one amusing case the color itself mutated from Blue to 3, which the Genetics Kit autocorrected to Red, not that it matters because the value is still neutral). The remaining two mutations are as follows:

Receptor

Gene 006: 065 Prostaglandin

Organ: “Current Organ^{(001 CNS: DRIVE LOBE SUPPORT)}”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Repair Rate”. Chemical: “Prostaglandin”.
Analogue: Output = 2 - ((Signal - 0) * 255). 

Organ: “Current Organ^{(001 CNS: DRIVE LOBE SUPPORT)}”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Repair Rate”. Chemical: “EDTA”.
Analogue: Output = 2 - ((Signal - 0) * 255). 

Creatures produce prostaglandin when injured, which induces healing via receptor on a per-organ basis. In Pippin, this doesn’t work in the Drive Lobe Support organ, as the receptor is switched to use EDTA instead. The good news is that the medicinal Gelsemium herb that can be given to help speed healing with a boost of extra prostaglandin also contains EDTA, so will still have the same effect on Pippin. I just need to remember that he needs a booster when injured.

Receptor

Gene 145: 109 Antigen 3

Organ: “Current Organ^{(017 CNS: CONCEPT LOBE SUPPORT)}”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Injury”. Chemical: “Antigen 3”.
Digital: Output = 0 + 50 if Signal > 16.

Organ: “Current Organ^{(017 CNS: CONCEPT LOBE SUPPORT)}”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Injury”. Chemical: “Antigen 3”.
Analogue: Output = 0 - ((Signal - 16) * 50). 

So this one’s a double mutation – it switched from digital to analogue and also became inverted. If I understand correctly, this gene is responsible for causing Antigen 3 to damage the Concept Lobe Support organ. I’m not sure exactly how the magnitude of the output translates to the change of life force in the organ, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say it “deals X damage to the Concept Lobe.” 

In a normal Norn, it does 0 damage until the level of Antigen 3 rises above 16, at which point it regularly deals 50 damage. I’m actually quite glad that it inverted when it switched to analogue here. If it had not, then it would still deal no damage when Antigen 3 is less than 16, and would still deal 50 damage when Antigen 3 reached 17, but it would scale up the damage with the level of Antigen 3 in the system, quickly reaching the maximum output of 255 when Antigen 3 reached a mere 22. However, because it’s inverted, and the game clamps these values between 0 and 255, the output will always be 0, rendering Pippin immune to the Concept Lobe damaging effect of Antigen 3!

Gandalf’s report came back with 12 mutations. Four of these were inconsequential pigment gene changes. Two of them were lobe mutations, which always look intimidating, but both turned out to simply be 0s inserted after a string of <END>s in a state variable rule. He has a stimulus mutation that swaps tiredness for sleepiness, to more or less the same effect. A receptor that caused water to speed up the skin organ’s clock rate switched from being on at birth to kicking in during childhood, but that shouldn’t be too bad. But from here on out, things just got worse.

Receptor

Gene 146: 142 Prostaglandin

Organ: “Current Organ^{(017 CNS: CONCEPT LOBE SUPPORT)}”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Repair Rate”. Chemical: “Prostaglandin”.
Analogue: Output = 2 + ((Signal - 2) * 255).

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Perceptible i/ps”, Locus: “Leakage”. Chemical: “Prostaglandin”.
Analogue: Output = 2 + ((Signal - 2) * 255).

Uhhhhh… I don’t know what this means but I don’t think it’s anything good. First off, this means the prostaglandin healing effect for the Concept Lobe is just straight-up gone. Secondly, it seems to be having some kind of effect on the perception lobe’s “leakage,” though I haven’t a clue what this actually means in practice.

Emitter

Gene 220: 028 Hunger Lobe 9 Cell 2

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Lobe 9^(regulator)”, Locus: “Cell(2) Output”. Chemical: “Hunger”. Sample every 20 ticks.
Digital: Output = 2 if (255-Signal) > 127.

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Lobe 9^(regulator)”, Locus: “Cell(2) Output”. Chemical: “Need for Pleasure”. Sample every 20 ticks.
Digital: Output = 2 if (255-Signal) > 127.

The nasty mutations continue. Lobe 9 is the not exactly part of the normal brain lobe system; it’s a regulator that contains the receptor emitter pairs that control the hunger mechanism, much like the Life Kit Norns from Creatures 1. This mutation means that the mechanism that is supposed to raise Hunger instead raises Need for Pleasure.

Emitter

Gene 217: 029 Thirst Lobe 9 Cell 1

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Lobe 9^(regulator)”, Locus: “Cell(1) Output”. Chemical: “Thirst”. Sample every 8 ticks.
Digital: Output = 25 if (255-Signal) > 127.

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Lobe 8^(concept)”, Locus: “Cell(1) Output”. Chemical: “Thirst”. Sample every 8 ticks.
Digital: Output = 25 if (255-Signal) > 127.

Similarly to hunger, Lobe 9 regulates thirst. This, too, is screwed up in poor Gandalf. Once again, this mutation breaks the emitter-receptor mechanism for thirst, instead basing thirst on a cell in his concept lobe.

Emitter

Gene 244: 70 PGK lobe 9 cell 13

Organ: “Brain”, Tissue: “Lobe 9^(regulator)”, Locus: “Cell(13) Output”. Chemical: “Glycolase”. Sample every 2 ticks.
Analogue: Output = (Signal - 0) * 232. 

I think we’ve just found the biggest problem. This gene is responsible for producing glycolase; in Gandalf it doesn’t kick in until childhood. Glycolase is part of the process of converting glucose to ATP, which is effectively the vital life essence of a creature. Let me lay out the relevant reactions to illustrate why an inability to produce glycolase is a death sentence. Italicized inputs come from other reactions that I left out of the table. I also omitted the reaction where cyanide consumes energy, because that’s not part of the “normal” chemical cycle.

Gene	Input	Output
308	1 Hexokinase + 1 ATP	1 ADP + 1 Activase
321	1 Energy + 6 ADP	6 ATP + 1 Hotness
322	1 Glucose + 1 Glycolase	2 Pyruvic Acid + 2 Energy
323	1 Pyruvic Acid	1 Lactic Acid
324	1 Pyruvic Acid + 3 Oxygen	2 Energy + 3 Dissolved CO2
378	1 Oxygen + 1 Lactic Acid	1 Pyruvic Acid + 1 Oxygen

To produce energy, you need either oxygen and pyruvic acid, or glucose and glycolase. To get pyruvic acid, you need glucose and glycolase (the lactic acid loop effectively doesn’t produce pyruvic acid, it just changes its form back and forth). No glycolase means no pyruvic acid and no energy. No energy means no ATP. No ATP means death. Technically, I could keep this Norn on life support by injecting him with ATP until the emitter finally turns on in childhood, but given all his terrible mutations, it seems both wiser and more merciful to let him pass on – and not pass on his genes.

Lop Ear Norns

[Originally written September 19 2020]

I found a thread on Reddit that gave me an idea. Or rather, it showed me an idea that Wafuru of Mernorn and Kai Norn fame came up with and never actually made into a breed.

A bit of photoshopping later and I had some concept art. I’ve done COBbling, I’ve done genetic engineering, and I’ve done sprite overhauls… I think it’s about time I make my own breed from scratch. As much as I’d like to work in Creatures 3, the one glaring omission in my otherwise quite broad artistic skills is 3D modeling, so until I jump into Blender, new breeds with fancy sprites are a no-go there. Creatures 1 and 2 on the other hand, have more “painterly” art styles, which I can work with. 

I made sure not to just copy Wafuru's art directly, but rather just use it as inspiration. No plagiarism intended, only standing on the shoulders of a Creatures 2 giant! For one thing, my Lop Ear Norns have wildly different tails and no spots. The color schemes are also a bit different, though similar, and the hairstyles are different (though the presence of hair at all is definitely inspired by the original artwork). Also, the males have horns. I feel they’re different enough to not qualify as stealing Wafuru’s work, though if I ever complete them and actually consider putting them up for other people to enjoy I’ll attempt to make contact just to be sure.

Of course, this may end up being far too ambitious a project for me – I remember how much work just revamping the Frog Norns was, and this will involve a lot more hand-drawing and intensive editing.

---

[Originally written November 21 2020]

I have finally finished making my first from-scratch breed, and have received permission from Wafuru to distribute the Lop Ear Norns! They are both a visual and genetic breed, having some edits to their genome as well as fancy new sprites. I’ve set all of their Pigment and Pigment Bleed genes to neutral values, so the colors you see in this image are the colors you get. Additionally, they have the following changes to their genome, which in theory should make them a touch less aggressive and a bit more skittish than the average Norn.

Receptor

Gene 331: 041 sleep when v. sleepy

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 5^{(pass out)}”. Chemical: “Sleepiness”.
Digital: Output = 0 + 255 if Signal > 230.

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 5^{(pass out)}”. Chemical: “Sleepiness”.
Digital: Output = 0 + 255 if Signal > 200.

Lops are slightly quicker to pass out from exhaustion.

Stimulus

Gene 531: 005 Creature slaps me

Stimulus: “Creature slaps me”, Signficance: “128”. Reaction: “I’ve been slapped”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+64 Pain, +32 Fear, +16 Anger.

Stimulus: “Creature slaps me”, Signficance: “128”. Reaction: “I’ve been slapped”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+64 Pain, +45 Fear, +0 <nothing>.

Stimulus

Gene 580: 029 I've been hit

Stimulus: “I’ve been hit”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has hit me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+80 Pain, +48 Fear, +16 Anger.

Stimulus: “I’ve been hit”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has hit me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+80 Pain, +60 Fear, +0 <nothing>.

Lops don’t get mad when hit, they just become frightened.

Stimulus

Gene 576: The Hand SHOVED me (Emb)

Stimulus: “I’ve been pushed”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has pushed me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+32 Pain Increase, +32 Fear Increase, +47 Need for Pleasure Increase, +0 Anger Increase.

Stimulus: “I’ve been pushed”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has pushed me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+25 Pain Increase, +35 Fear Increase, +47 Need for Pleasure Increase, +0 <nothing>.

TYPE

Gene XYZ: The Hand SHOVED me (Ado)

Stimulus: “I’ve been pushed”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has pushed me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+16 Pain Increase, +16 Fear Increase, +64 Need for Pleasure Increase, +64 Anger Increase.

Stimulus: “I’ve been pushed”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has pushed me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+10 Pain Increase, +20 Fear Increase, +64 Need for Pleasure Increase, +20 Anger Increase.

TYPE

Gene XYZ: The Hand SHOVED me (Adu)

Stimulus: “I’ve been pushed”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has pushed me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+0 Pain Increase, +0 Fear Increase, +48 Need for Pleasure Increase, +32 Anger Increase.

Stimulus: “I’ve been pushed”, Signficance: “127”. Reaction: “IT has pushed me”, Intensity: “255”. Detected while asleep.
+0 <nothing>, +0 <nothing>, +48 Need for Pleasure Increase, +10 Anger Increase.

First of all, those gene names sound so indignant, I love them. You SHOVE Miette? You push her body like the shopping cart? Oh! Jail for Hand for one thousand years! In all seriousness, I felt bad when I discovered this gene, as I’d never realized that trying to scootch my creatures hurt them (or simply upset them in adulthood). Lops are more willing to go with the Hand’s guidance, resulting in less pain, and their timid nature makes them less angry, but also makes them slightly more afraid until they get used to it in adulthood.

Instinct

Gene 388: 030 Flee approaching when Frightened

When… “Drive i/ps” “FEAR” and “General Sensory i/ps” “IT is approaching” …and you “Retreat frm it”: +127 Reward.

When… “Drive i/ps” “FEAR” and “General Sensory i/ps” “IT is approaching” …and you “Retreat frm it”: +155 Reward.

Instinct

Gene 390: 036 hit approaching when angry

When… “Drive i/ps” “ANGER” and “General Sensory i/ps” “IT is approaching” …and you “Hit it”: +127 Reward.

When… “Drive i/ps” “ANGER” and “General Sensory i/ps” “IT is approaching” …and you “Hit it”: +70 Reward.

Lops are more likely to flee than fight back.

Instinct

Gene 787: 045 avoid detritus

When… “Stim source i/ps” “<ID 11>^(detritus)” …and you “Eat it”: +66 Punishment.

This one is just a general life improvement; I noticed Norns had an instinct to not eat weeds, but couldn’t find one for detritus, so I made a version to avoid detritus.

Download the Lop Ear Norns

I don't think this game has ever seen a QA department

 [Originally written October 11 2020]

Before diving back into Creatures 2, I needed to fix that little issue with the Neptune’s Undertow portals. Thankfully, the original author of the COB did a wonderful job making the code robust and easy to change, so I was able to remove the volcano portal without much trouble. Since I already had a test world open, I figured I should go ahead with making my own C2 COBs to make sure the Mernorns have something to eat besides fish. Now, granted, I haven’t yet gotten into 3D modeling, so I just lifted the sprites from Creatures 3. Since it was my first foray into C2 COBbling, I decided to keep it simple and make an edible, stationary sponge that is classified as a fruit – basically, aquatic versions of the mushrooms in the incubator room. 

It went poorly at first… but eventually I got it working. Sort of. I was having some difficulty with getting its eaten state to be properly hidden so creatures wouldn’t keep trying to eat it, so I actually took the lazy route and made it so that it never becomes inedible. It’ll still become invisible if a creature looks away from it, in theory, but I didn’t want to put so much effort into making it behave perfectly as long as it didn’t confuse the Mernorns. C2 is already an inelegant and hacky game to begin with, so it fits right in. Speaking of which, I also made a quick cob to render the bowl anemones invisible to creatures, since they’re classed as critters and I don’t want them confusing anybody about the edibility of fish.

Download Opal Sponge Download Anemone Hider

With that done, I went back to my gameplay world and injected the new COBs, and released the Mernorns from their containment chamber. I was immediately called away by a low ATP notification – it was Damien, failing to eat. After reviving him, I got him to eat some fruits in the swamp garden, which certainly lightened his mood.

I continued my rounds from there, and found that Edmund also needed to eat. He decided to be cheeky and hide from me – sorry, Ed, I can still see you! He really didn’t want to eat his veggies though, and ended up carrying a triffid fruit with him into the desert, steadfastly refusing to actually do anything with it. 

Eventually I gave up and moved on to Tom, who gave me a similarly hard time with the coconuts.

Beth was a lovely breath of fresh air, as she happily complied with my commands to eat fruit. She really loves her tomatos, and completely devoured the mushroom patch.

Boromir was so enthusiastic about his new underwater home that he didn’t want to sleep, resulting in a very tired Norn. I know the feeling, buddy – sleep is so inconvenient! At least he gave my new sponges a thorough test run. 

Erika had found her calling as a gardener, tending to the compost heaps. I kept an eye on her but I didn’t catch her eating the rotten carrots, just moving them around. That’s probably a good thing, as it ensures that the nutrients get spread around into the soil properly. Good job, Erika.

When I checked in on Arwen, I found her clipping into the ground. I tried to pull her out but due to a misclick ended up dropping her through the floor into the Shee labs. She seemed excited about the adventure, but I was worried about getting her back off dry land before she grew her tail – even though her genome means that in adulthood she won’t suffocate out of water, I’d prefer to keep adult Mernorns fully aquatic. Thankfully it was a relatively easy fix – a trip up the elevator and over to the goldfish pond, where I shoved her off the dock and into the water, which contains one of the undertow portals.

That’s when I got a notification about a Norn having heavy metals poisoning. Tom was in the volcano! I decided the easiest way to extract him would be to get him out the door into the swamp, and thankfully he was in one of those states where another gait overrides his usual limp… but on the way out things went from bad to worse, as he clipped into the ground under the volcano, not that he seemed bothered by it. He was also soon joined by the Ettin, who was still stuck down there as of the end of this session; I suppose I should probably pull him out too. 

Unable to find a way to get Tom out, and now also receiving notifications about a creature with low ATP, I simply exported Tom for the moment and went to handle the issue – unsurprisingly it was Damien again. Ever-faithful Pitz stood guard by the fallen Norn as I prepared an injection. Then the kits closed. I blinked. There had been no whimper. There was no death notification. Damien had simply vanished into thin air.

I clicked through my list to make sure everyone else was still there. Dazed, but with no much else I could do, I exported Erika and Beth temporarily and imported Tom, fed him some berries rich in EDTA, and began the long, limpy journey through the desert and across the bridge. Then I reimported the girls and went to check in on the Mernorns, and found this unusual sight waiting for me by the seaside. Edmund was doing something I can only describe as pinwheeling. He was using his walk animation, but his left foot seemed to be stuck in place above the dock, leading to him sort of rotating around it. I am coming to be very, very thankful for the springy toy, which is quickly becoming my all-purpose Norn Dislodging Device.

At some point the Grendel passed away, so I extracted young Saruman from the volcano and set him on his way. Then, with the chaos finally under control, I checked in on the Mernorns, who had a grand announcement for me! The second egg in this world was on its way! I have tucked it away in the airlock for the time being, as I’d rather hatch it after the existing Mernorns have developed their tails.

An unexpected problem

 [Originally written September 29 2020]

I began my session by teaching Boromir the rest of his verbs and a few nouns. Then it was time to take him down to the tunnel to learn adjectives, with Arwen along for the ride. I got her down the lift first. Erika, however, had other ideas, and intercepted it at the second stop! I was able to send Boromir back down, but Erika needed to be coaxed over to the teleporter so I could send her home. By that point, Arwen had wandered over to the other teleporter – you know, the one I couldn’t get Norns to go to when I actually wanted them to?

After I got them both to the computer and trained them to my satisfaction, I brought them back up to the incubator room. Before they could get off, though, Erika decided to cause yet more trouble! She and Arwen giggled over the prank while Boromir just wanted to get away from it all.

Once I had them contained, I made my rounds. Tom seems to be getting around better in adulthood – he still has that limping gait, but it appears to be more effective at moving him around now, at least.

Damien was off on an adventure, but he was a bit bored. As happy as he was with the ball I brought him, he didn’t think it was enough, and found his way down to the Shee labs and the hidden music room!

I did a double take when I found Edmund in the volcano, teetering back and forth on the tip of the ledge, but quickly swooped in to lead him back home. No harm done!

Everyone else seemed to be doing alright, so I returned to the incubator room to break up a slap fight – mostly it was Beth hitting the others. Some things never change! 

I was quite surprised to see Boromir, who sported a drastically new look to mark his graduation from infancy. This also heralded the beginning of a rite of passage for him and Arwen, so I exported Erika and Beth temporarily to make my life easier, and sent over the submarine! Boromir seemed thrilled to be traveling and enjoyed his first glimpse of the underwater world, but Arwen looked rather bored. Get used to it, girl… this is your new home!

See, Boromir and Arwen are Mernorns! Back when I discovered the series through Creatures Playstation, I did some googling to look things up, and that’s how I discovered the main PC series. One of the things I encountered was Wafuru’s site, and I remember wishing I could have Mernorns in my game. By the time I got Creatures 2, though, for whatever reason, I didn’t download them. I’ve always kind of wanted to have Mernorns but never got around to it until now!

More specifically, these two are AquaShee’s Atlantic Mernorns, with a couple tweaks (I switched their sprites back to standard Mernorns, as the Atlantic Mernorn genome actually uses a mix of Emerald and Mernorn sprites); I left the coloration genes alone though, so I have no idea whether they’ll look like normal red and blue Mernorns or something else entirely! This genome means that they can actually swim with the right COB injected, but it also means they’re technically amphibious from birth, so they don’t have to make the migration from land to sea during a specific window of time when they can breathe both air and water. I decided to let them live on land at first anyway, and teach them their vocabulary there. Hopefully, their offspring can live their entire lives underwater, and learn most of their words from their parents (or from the laptop).

When the young Mernorns arrived in the volcano, however, I got quite a shock! Damien was down there! I briefly left the youngsters alone to shepherd him out into the swamp, during which time Boromir decided to dive off the cliff into the volcano himself! Meanwhile, I was getting notifications that a Norn had low ATP somewhere; Edmund had fallen into the water. I darted over there, dragged him out, gave him his injections, and immediately left him as soon as he was back on his feet.

I continued trying to get Damien out of the volcano, and slammed the door behind him. By this point, Arwen had also taken up cliff-diving, so I had to get both Mernorns back onto the elevator and pull them back up to the airlock level. I started leading them into said airlock, and Arwen was happy to follow, but Boromir preferred to leap off the cliff again. With a sigh, I locked Arwen in the chamber and went to retrieve the other Mernorn a second time. Eventually, I managed to wrangle them both into the airlock, where I checked them for heavy metals. They had only a trace amount in their systems so I figured they’d be fine. 

I gave Boromir a berry with some EDTA in it just to be sure, since he had the higher dose of heavy metals, then reimported the girls at the incubator, but then got a notification that someone had low ATP. Damien had collapsed just outside the door to the volcano, and had to be revived. I checked on his health as well, but while his organs were all in bad shape, none were dead, so I gave him an injection and sent him on his way. What an adventure he’s been on! But how did he get there? He must have fallen into one of the ponds and used the Neptune’s Undertow portals, because one of them is inside the freaking volcano! That makes sense if you’re using the flooded volcano cob, but I’m not! I can’t very well release the Mernorns into the seas with portals that lead to the volcano about, so it looks like I’m diving into C2 COBbling sooner than expected!