bandicam 2015-03-11 11-35-37-169 copyThe desert crowd was as it always was – relatively quiet except for the occasional egg coming from Fidget. Unfortunately, Daedalus’ time was about to run out. He was surrounded by friends, at least! While I had the chance, I checked on the other groups.

Untitled-1 copyFirst, the Meso group. They’d stuck to their usual locations. Peri, Stain and Eve rarely came down, except when one of the two ladies needed to lay an egg by the candle. Akuma, Aster and Marsyia prefered to stay by the Empathic vendor and spent most of their time breeding.

bandicam 2015-03-11 11-39-00-266 copyDelia and Dark Cat were still the only norns in the Norn Terrarium and they spent their time eat, resting and only met occasionally to breed.

bandicam 2015-03-11 11-39-13-168 copyFinally, in the jungle, the group had split into two pairs. The girls got on with eachother just fine and the two males had become close friends.

bandicam 2015-03-11 11-48-52-403 copyEventually, I got Dadalus’ death notification. He had things very easy in his last hour! He was always surrounded by his friends and always had plenty of food to eat. Actually, because he was always surrounded, it was a little difficult to get his picture.

bandicam 2015-03-11 11-51-30-390 copyMeanwhile, the egg count continued to rise. The egg-holding Ultimate Life Norns never stopped slapping or kissing so I told them to rest when I took this picture. Silence has never been so sweet.

Even though we were now at the point where the norns would start dying, I was still curious about the creatures inside those colorful little eggs. A few had hatched accidentally (which is why I needed to create egg storage norns in the first place) but there were so many now, I just wondered about the variety I would see.

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As usual, I started out my visit into the Shee Ark by making my rounds and encouraging the norns to eat food, eat seed, and eat fruit. Also, as usual, things were very peaceful, though I knew full well that the norns were all on their way out.

bandicam 2015-03-05 11-52-38-440 copyOur oldest now was Andromeda, who was surrounded by some friends. Akuma, Aster and Peri all stuck close by.

By now, the groups were starting to seem more exclusionary. The norns didn’t complain much at all about the creatures nearby since, I guess, they were either lucky when I moved them around or they simply packed up and left behind creatures they didn’t like.

A few still seemed to prefer solitude. Dark Cat spent his time eating chocolate roses on the second level of the norn terrarium, near the norn hut. He also seemed to like playing with the lift and only rarely met with Mese or Delia.

bandicam 2015-03-05 11-57-19-062 copyFidget, who was once the center of attention in the desert was now wandering alone, slapping gadgets. It wasn’t that she disliked any of the norns there, it’s just that she enjoyed a wander, I guess. She still came by to mate every once in a while and had a lot of pregnancies.

And then, of course, there was Lin, who prefered the desert’s underground area. She’d always seemed to prefer being alone, given all the time she spent in the Medical Bay, by herself.

bandicam 2015-03-05 12-05-01-486 copyWhen Andromeda’s time finally came, she was with her usual group of friends. Akuma, Peri and Aster all surrounded her.

Beside that, she also went out on a full belly! Now if only all norns went out quite so comfortably.

Andromeda’s death made Daedalus the next oldest norn and, of course, the next in line to go. I wasn’t especially worried, though. He always had Verax, Fidget, Kerplunk and Logic nearby. Mese even showed up and joined the group.

bandicam 2015-03-05 12-08-06-581 copyI was actually more worried about Marsyia, who didn’t move and only ate when told to. I made the decision to move her into the norn Meso, where she might get more stimulation from the other norns. It seemed like nobody wanted to be in the Norn Terrarium except for her, Delia and Dark Cat. At least Delia and Dark Cat took care of themselves.

I moved her next to Stain, where she finally ate something of her own volition. I guess the Comfort Candle was just too much of a distraction for her.

bandicam 2015-03-05 12-13-24-544 copyThe Jungle group consisted of Lin, who liked to migrate and the three permanent residents, Anai, Flame and Suprius. This room was perhaps the quietest and had the lest going on. The norns all took care of themselves and didn’t fight much at all. They were also the least chatty. Still, every once in a while, a pregnancy would come out of this room, so that was something.

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bandicam 2015-02-19 14-07-55-085 copyChang was the next to go, of old age, thankfully. He died alone in the hallway of the Shee Ark, but I think he preferred it this way. He didn’t seem to care for large groups and tended to interact with just a handful of norns.

Soon, everyone became lethargic again and didn’t seem interested in traveling to find toys or food. Instead a handful of them just stuck to their new groups and hardly even looked at the doors that lead out of the terrariums.

I did have good news, though. With my new feeding routine, no one was hungry and there were some first pregnancies happening. Fidget had just become a mother and I hoped Aster and Stain would soon become parents as well. The older norns in particular didn’t seem driven to move, but they still ate when I brought them goodies.

bandicam 2015-02-19 14-24-46-172 copySpike was the next to pass away. Once he did pass away, two eggs hatched. Oops! The Egg Finder crashed. I exported the two babies and set them aside for later. Technically, this put the baby count up to 124 since this issue happened before.

I’ll not reveal the parents now, so you’ll just have to wait to find out later. 🙂

Naturally, I had to find a way to store the other eggs to prevent any more accidents like these. Of course, a few eggs hatched anyway, but I wa able to export those babies and then store the rest of the eggs in Ultimate Life Norns for laying and hatching later.

With all that settled, I decided it was time for a break.

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With so many creatures on hand and all of the crowding together, I decided to take a new measure. I froze them all with Ctrl+7 and moved them into the different living areas, one by one by hand. Once everyone was evenly spread out between the Meso, Norn Terrarium, Jungle Terrarium and Desert, they were free to roam again.

bandicam 2015-02-19 13-32-28-121 copyImmediately, things were quieter, and it was a nice change from everyone talking about how much they liked or disliked X norn or Y norn. My relief was cut short by a death notification, however. Olga had passed away due to old age. She at least had Peri to keep her company in her final moments and I had to add a new baby to the pool soon.

bandicam 2015-02-19 13-34-01-772 copyBut then, something heart wrenching happened. Mikaela died! I removed bacteria from the world, so my best guess is that she died of starvation. One problem with having such a huge population is the tremendous distraction that other norns can provide. A lack of food wasn’t the issue this time – I showered each group with food and added new food with Garden Box to each Terrarium. Poor dear.

bandicam 2015-02-19 13-36-50-884 copyI  changed my tactic. Instead of just adding food, I would also say “eat seed” or “eat food” to encourage them to eat. It seemed to work and there seemed to be a small crowd forming in the desert when I made my rounds to feed everyone. I was also happy to see Fidget eating (her tail is just visible above) since she had such a sad life in the event.

bandicam 2015-02-19 13-39-36-345 copyIt soon came time to add another baby and this time, Aster would join us. When I imported her, I tried telling her to eat seed and she started to eat everything that I put down in front of her. What an appetite!

Lemons, carrots and seeds all disappeared in just a matter of seconds before she went off in search of norns, toys or more food. Who knows what was going through her mind after that feast.

I brought her a toy and the quacking from the toy didn’t stop for a long time.

bandicam 2015-02-19 13-48-40-579 copyNext to pass away was Adelphos. If I remember right, he was the first male to enter this world. Lin and Logic were nearby to keep him company.

He, like most of the other norns, will be survived by many, many eggs. I only had to wait a few moments after Adelphos’ passing before I had to introduce the next and final baby for this run. Who would it be?

bandicam 2015-02-19 13-57-46-486 copyWell, if you were taking notes (and trust me, I wasn’t), you might know that it’s Stain, one of the winners of the event.

I always really liked his appearance and was happy to see he’d finally join us.

With the final baby introduced to the world, I could not only put away Norn Statistics, but I could also focus on what the norns were doing and on feeding them. Not to say that it was hard before but remember that Drake and Mikaela both passed away and not due to old age. As much as it pained me, it was ultimately up to me to make sure that didn’t happen. Still, with 117 eggs and counting, plus the vastly improved health of all the norns in the world, I was still willing to call this consolation run a success. Now to wait for this group to finish its cycle so I could hatch all those eggs!

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