Disappearing Antigens and Unknown Cures

I was about to create a video documenting a rather strange illness affecting Pipit and Whydah. However, before I even had time to set up a video, Pipit was resting happily in an almost fully recovered state. He flew the quarantine coop before I could stop him, although the illness went no further than him! It took some time to get him back to eating normally again, yet he survived. Poor Pipit. So far he had only fathered one egg, and was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. With him fully recovered, I supposed I could move onto Whydah and document her strange condition.

However, Whydah had escaped from the quarantine zone and came in contact with Manakin! I was ready to hunker down and prepare for another victim. Only Manakin wasn’t getting ill… And Whydah wasn’t coughing or sneezing like she had just minutes before. An icon popped up in the C1 Observation Kit, and I feared the worst. Was someone close to death, or even dead? On the contrary: Whydah was pregnant. I also noticed that she went from sick to healthy. I was utterly confused. Take a quick look at Whydah’s genetics, particularly her chemical reaction mutation. In a nutshell, she is unable to convert glycogen into glucose.

The reason why I thought this was going to be a disaster is because a Norn’s genetics state that antigens are fought off with antibodies. Yet to produce antibodies, a Norn must use a good bit of glucose. This is the reason why sick Creatures have their life forces drop: Their bodies are converting glycogen (long-term energy) into glucose (short-term energy) to handle an emergency situation. If antibodies build up quickly, glycogen does not decrease too much. The really dangerous illnesses utilize multiple antigens, or have corresponding antibodies that take a long time and a lot of glucose to produce. With no glucose in her system, Whydah would never be able to produce antibodies. Essentially, she should have been infected forever unless she could get a giant infusion of glucose.

Admittedly, this graph was taken somewhat late. Yet it shows antigen 2 falling. But… Where is antibody 2? Whydah still had none of it in her system, yet she fought off the illness anyway? I was baffled. It wasn’t like she ate a weed and had a small amount of toxins in her system. This was clearly an illness, with the telltale peaks of antigen production. Did Creatures 1 just throw some sort of tantrum and cure her of its own accord? I took no action, except to quarantine Pipit and Whydah away from the others. So there went the premise for that video! I was looking forward to documenting the way I monitor illnesses and help my Norns and Grendels recover. If anyone has ideas or thoughts on why Whydah was amazingly cured without any antibodies, please feel free to share! Perhaps it was a glitch?

I went with the explanation that Albia was just fed up with illnesses, and scared it away. Pipit was in much better health, and he snuggled up to Niltava with plenty of whispered secrets. Most likely it was a one-sided conversation about lemons and illnesses. Niltava seemed pretty bored, yet she was polite enough to listen… Or pretend to! She was still recovering from a recent pregnancy, but Pipit might have finally found himself in the right place for once. That idea was thrown out the window shortly thereafter. I was convinced that Pipit was cursed in every way. Poor Pipit! Suffice to say that there will be a Creatures 1 video coming soon! It might not have a happy ending, though… I left Pipit teetering on the edge of life and death. It was up to him to survive. Would he be able to?

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