I was starting to get a little bored and was worried that my creatures were 1) too unthreatened and 2) that the game would be more interesting with hardship of some kind.
No, I didn’t set out to kill my creatures. I added bacteria.
Bacteria that I’d hoped wouldn’t attack so quickly. I was worried about Claire because of the Fever Toxin. It very quickly took hold in her body and in an instant, she was gone. She picked up Histamine B at the very end but I managed to put her in a safe corner of the terrarium before any other grendels could get sick. Viggo, I wasn’t especially worried about because Grendels have a natural immunity to certain Antigens and I think Antigen 5 is one of them. Not shown here is the Carbon Monoxide that was building up in his system as well. I removed his bacteria with a quick spray and those dangerous numbers started to lower again.
After all the excitement (and the unfortunate death of Claire) Viggo started to make a slow but full recovery from the Antigen. Macabre Desire, however, ended up dying not of disease, but of old age.
He was always hilarious to watch. He never did get the hang of drinking potions when he got angry but would always dance and yell about it instead. He’ll have his children to carry on his memory. Naturally, Thin Desire was next.
I was starting to feel a little depressed about this world by now. I deleted all the bacteria again and installed Macrobacteria instead, as was recommended to me by Grendel Man and ylukyun. Then I hatched another Amarok Grendel. Meet Bethany. She’ll be our new female.
I rushed to check on the norns since Scandalous Laborer seemed to be in pain. I checked on her to find Loving Wren slapping her in the top right corner of the world. The two of them and Lowly Adjustment all seemed to have gotten quite old.
Sour Drink, Five Cheese and Uptight Kettle all seemed to be clinging to youth pretty well, though. Five Cheese was probably the most relaxed of them all with those powerful Bondi genes to keep her chill.
I just let the game run for a while and did more maintenance on the ecosystems. I popped over to the Grendel Terrarium and found that Impartial Relation was now getting old. Then I got a death notice. Who died?
Sadly, I found Viggo dead in the grass.
I’m not sure what did him in. Was it his genes? Was it the result of fighting Antigen 5? A quick look at the Wiki tells me that Antigen 5 could have attacked any of his important systems. He’s a grendel and should be immune to it, though.
Was it a fatal, debiltating gene? I had no way of checking with broken software so I let the issue, and poor Viggo, rest. I may look into this more in the future.
Then Five Cheese got sick with Glycotoxin. It left her system as quickly as it had entered but now she was dealing with pain and looked very unhappy. Before long, though, she was back to normal again. She had macrobacteria floating around her, but she was happy again and there were no notices in the medical monitor. She recovered fully before long, but not without repeatedly telling me “me love mom”. My heart just broke a little again.
Unfortunately, I have to remove Wide-Eyed Payment and her brother Tuatara into the Norn Meso to keep them separated. After I’d finished yesterday’s entry, I spent the night working with Wide-Eyed Payment, doing various maths and experiments to see if she could naturally lay eggs on her own. Turns out no, she can’t.
Meet Claire (you’ve probably noticed that I’ve abandoned the Protective Tub agent already. It was hilarious while it lasted!). She’s an Amarok Grendel. You can find their agent at 
The Grendels were all wandering around, talking to each other and napping. Claire was exploring the upper levels, scooping up seeds and yelling about how angry she was. I instructed her (nagged, really) to drink some potions and she took to watching the awkwood seeds fall from their vine. It’d be a little while before she reached adulthood. At only 9 minutes old, she was still a child.
That is, until I got my second death notification. Obese Bomb was my second first generation Grendel to die and it stung quite a bit to see her go. I have to admit, she and Thin Desire were two of my favorite creatures and I knew that Des might be the next to go. Rest in peace, Bomb. I’ll miss you.
Meanwhile, Des picked another spot to stand in and hadn’t moved. Just as I handed her a toy to play with, Earthly Giants died. Unlike Obese Bomb, who had a complaining Des to keep her company, Earthly Giants got to spend his last moments with his son Tuatara.
Moving on to our next egg, we have Viggo, another male. Looks like the boys really have to get those girls if they want to carry on their genes! He looks a lot like Impartial Relation, doesn’t he? Well, they aren’t related. 😛
I loaded the game and the grendels set of hitting each other. What made me sure that I’d be so busy was a pregnancy notification right off the bat!
Flawless Color was the lucky lady this time but since both boys were nearby, it could’ve been Elite Cap OR Clear Glass this time. I moved both ladies up to the second level of the terrarium hoping they’d lay their eggs. Almost immediately, Color laid both of her eggs and carried one of them off in her hands. It almost seemed like she was trying to keep me away!
I was starting to get a little worried about Five Cheese, though. She wasn’t ill and in fact spent a lot of time taking naps on her little spot next to the beans. She hadn’t moved in a little while, though so I took her hand and moved her away. She ate an apple and went right back to napping.
(resized)
I left my younger grendels to check on the elders and found that Des hadn’t moved since she’d reached Old age. She looked so old and tired there but rather than disturb her, I decided to let her rest and do whatever she liked for the rest of her time.