From One Egg to Another

Arik was the only male Norn in Creatures 1, and I decided that it was time to add a little more genetic diversity to the world. Meet Truett! His Norse name is pronounced [TRU-et] and means dry wood meadow. It seemed fitting for a Purple Mountain Norn! His egg was injected into the world from the Genetics Kit via a virgin birth. This meant that his genome would be taken directly from one parent, which removed the possibility for any mutations. Not a bad choice for a first generation creature. Truett approved!

After Truett learned his vocabulary, I checked on the oldest Norn, Eydis. I laughed a little to find that a bee had, in fact, followed her down to the caves! Predictably, it stung her. Would Eydis ever learn that beekeeping just wasn’t the right hobby for her? Apparently not! As painful as it must have been, she was determined to get those bees to accept her. I hadn’t the heart to tell Eydis that it was probably an impossibility. The bees buzzed away in their own lives, yet she would never give up! Which was both adorable and sad. A simple hint would not do anything to teach Eydis. Yet even a nasty sting didn’t mean much to her!

It was only a matter of minutes before Eydis became a full fledged adult Norn. She was as happy as ever about growing up! When she eventually reaches the pensioner life stage, it will be very difficult to notice: White Haired Pixie Norns age very gracefully, and only show a few wrinkles in old age. For the time being, Eydis was just about ready to become a mother. Arik still had a little growing up to do, but this extra time gave her a little alone time to enjoy the single life. The prospect of the next generation was quite exciting, though! Still, she decided to think about bees until she had other things to consider more important. Oh, Eydis.

Meanwhile, Truett reached childhood a little bit quicker than Eydis, Arik, and Aigne had: It took him about fifteen minutes, while the others waited a little over twenty minutes. Arik would have some competition a little sooner than he might have expected! As was the case with everyone else, Truett took off on his own exploration of the world as soon as he left the crawling stage. I wondered if any future young Norn would decide to stay in the garden. It was a lovely, comfortable spot, but there was something about the dark and foreboding jungle that beckoned youngsters.

Eydis continued her travels throughout Albia, and found herself on the island with a strange being. Keir seemed a little perplexed by the Norn’s presence, although he was glad to have the company. It appeared that he found his way there on his own, and had been leading something of a lonely existence. Food and toys can only go so far in terms of happiness! He was leading a fairly interesting life, all the same, although he had yet to discover the garden and learning computer. Keir had a very limited vocabulary, although meaningful communication was possible. Eydis left soon after, possibly because she could not comprehend what the Grendel was talking about in his foreign language. Truett eventually stopped in to keep him company!

As I had hoped, Eydis and Arik found their way to one another. It took a little bit of coaxing and two tries, but the next generation was soon on its way! Note that Signe was also present: Adulthood was just around the corner for her. The genome for the baby of Eydis and Arik had been created at conception, and I took a moment to scan for any mutations. I was discouraged when I found a potentially degrading mutation in the attention lobe: Information stored here would not be copied over to the perception lobe. There was also a mutation affecting one of the brain chemicals. It would be interesting to find out what this Norn was like.

In a nutshell, the attention lobe mutation meant that the Norn would not be able to use objects he or she was focused on to formulate concepts. The phrase “push food” would make sense because the verb and noun would be understood, but there could be an issue related to actually focusing on the food object and doing anything with it. I still have yet to understand the brain chemical mutation. This put a damper on my anticipation of the first second generation Norn. Still, he or she would be welcomed into Albia! I expected an extra level of care for the upcoming baby Norn, yet I looked forward to meeting the little one very soon. Stay tuned for the next update!

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