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.
The good news is that her daughter, Trisha, doesn’t have this negative gene. I’ve exported her daughter to include in the game when I’m ready for the 3rd generation of Grendels. Bye Trish! See you soon!
After removing anybody with this bad gene from the population (just our two purebred Boneys) it was time to move on. Flawless Color had already laid all four of her eggs and it seemed like a good time to introduce a new Grendel to the population.
I asked for a female Dustdevil Grendel egg and got a Tiger Grendel instead. Little did I know, these two occupy the same slot. I uninstalled the Tiger Grendel agent and kept getting Tiger sprites anyway so I moved on and decided to use one of Grendel Man’s genetic breeds instead.
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 Realm (link to post). This means a few things.
First, cold doesn’t bother her. She can eat critters and seeds but can “also hit norns for nourishment”(readme). She also won’t hit creatures to alleviate her anger, she’ll hit critters instead, though I’d rather she drink potions. She’s got a lot to live up to being the only female who can lay any more eggs. I also can’t compare her genome in GeneCompare. I wish I could figure out what was wrong with this program. :C
I scanned around to check on all of my creatures and everyone seemed to be fine.
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.
The Norns were doing well, too. The norns had all paired off into groups. Sour Drink and Loving Wren had taken to going up to the top right door together and kiss-popping while Five Cheese and Uptight Kettle rode the elevator and Scandalous Laborer and Lowly Adjustment wandered towards the hill.
Even the gnarlers were doing well!
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.
I took my time here to check on the other elders. They were all in their Ancient life stage now and each of them fathered or mothered 4 eggs. Giants and Tuatara spent their time on the top deck of the meso talking about seeds, probably oblivious to the death of Bomb.
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.
I had a moment of silence for the couple and spent time with Thin Desire and Macabre Desire. They both were sleepy so I encouraged them to rest. Next thing I knew, Wide-Eyed Payment was pregnant with two of Tuatara’s children. Normally, I would be excited except that Wide-Eyed Payment might never get to lay her eggs. This whole endeavor has been very heart breaking.
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.
One was Wide-eyed Payment, the daughter of Obese Bomb and Earthly Giants. She gave me the hope I needed for the next generation. I only hoped she didn’t have an aging disorder.
Next was Gifted Waves. I was pretty happy that these two turned out to be purebreed creatures. It’d make it easy to check them for mutations and if they were clear, I would have a more stable population as a result. A quick look at Wide-eyed’s profile says there’s no mutation, though. Lucky me! Clear Glass, on the other hand..