Planning for a Second Generation of Norns

Peace in Albia never reigns for long: Dagny picked up a bit of antigen 6 while playing in the garden. Those sneaky illnesses love to waft in on a summer breeze, tickle a Norn’s nose, and then cause a whole lot of trouble. I waited quite some time for the corresponding antibody to combat the illness. It was difficult to keep her isolated from the group for so long! Luckily, the illness was only accompanied by a small dose of sleep toxin, and it was not contagious. Still, I wanted to have some type of quarantine in place to avoid any widespread illnesses. I still think about a terrible tragedy whenever a Norn or Grendel becomes ill. Hopefully that situation will never happen again. Luckily, Dagny quickly recovered!

Eydis focused all of her efforts on laying her third egg. She actually made several attempts, but was distracted and interrupted during her egg laying ritual. Bera and Dagny only wanted to satisfy their curiosity! Eydis was the only certified egg laying professional in Albia. It was only moments after Dagny recovered that she became an adult. I expected her to take her time easing into adulthood, but she virtually stalked Truett and kiss popped with him as often as she could! Perhaps she assumed that practice makes perfect: It certainly appeared that way with Eydis and Arik! Their kiss popping was often perfectly timed.

My little quarantine was not so successful: Bera contracted the exact same illness as Dagny, and she took a little longer to fully recover. Eydis picked up a nasty sickness associated with antigen 4 and a good bit of sneezing. She could barely bring a carrot to her mouth without falling into a fit of sneezes! After fighting off the illness, she decided to celebrate in style by testing out the Deathcap Mushroom. Great choice, Eydis! Apparently the illness zapped her brain of all rational thought processes. As a healthy adult Norn with plenty of food nearby, her life force only dropped to about 45%. Where was Keir this time? Clearly nowhere to be found!

With a healthy number of second generation eggs on the way, I decided to enter into the second phase of the first generation Norns. My current plan is to separate each generation as much as possible, to avoid breeding between parents and children. This keeps the gene pool relatively diverse, but it was still time to bring in another Norn. Meet Folkvar! His Norse name is pronounced [FOLK-vahr] and means guard of the people. Aside from a few minor pigment mutations, which often affect many Creatures 1 Norns, Folkvar possessed one mutation regarding his “I bump into wall” stimulus. This usually creates 25 Pain Increase and nothing else. His mutation also created this same pain, but rather than 0*NONE he had 0*NFP, or Need for Pleasure. Since the coefficient is zero, this will not change anything: It only might have made him experience pain and boredom when bumping into a wall. Not a serious mutation!

Apparently Dagny was determined to get pregnant after witnessing the previous egg laying. She was relentless with poor Truett, who seemed to want nothing more than to hide from her. When I discovered that Dagny was pregnant via the observation kit, Truett was literally nowhere to be found! He took off running, and finally could enjoy a little time to himself. The mutations that will affect this unborn Norn are rather interesting. No surprise: One mutation involves a brain lobe and dendrites. There are a couple of others, but one strange mutation appears to make any slaps by the hand painless until adulthood. More will be revealed closer to the actual birth!

I was surprised by another pregnancy elsewhere in Albia. Arik strayed from his monogamous relationship with Eydis: Bera was too much to resist! She seemed quite startled by Arik, and perhaps she mistook him for Truett. Norns are never expected to form lifelong bonds, though, since they simply follow their instincts to mate. This unborn Norn has a combination of traits from both parents, but no additional mutations to speak of! When potentially debilitating brain lobe mutations are common, an unmutated genome is an event to celebrate. Congratulations!