The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans)
Sims player fourteen generation deep into a legacy. Here's their story! Also, art and builds.
We found satisfying hints, so it’s with great confidence that Hannah walks up to one of the brass bowls, and pours some of the Selvadoradan golden dirt in it.
Wrong bowl, absolutely wrong bowl.
Ouch. Hannah gets sent to the ground, double-downed in pain. I close the book I was reading in hopes of finding more clues. It’s my turn to have a go at the artifacts, Hannah gets to rest after this.
It’s okay sweetheart, I got this.
NOPE, NOPE I DON’T!
This went terribly.
There’s a fog of toxic air between us and the first room. Just a whiff of it burned my sinuses and throats — there is no walking through it.
That’s not going to stop us, though. There are statues, columns, and other artifacts other the entrance hall, and Hannah and I are sure all it will take is a little problem-solving to find the answer and unlock the path.
I focus on the formation of copper bowls mounted on pillars, and examine them from up close.
Meanwhile, Hannah analyzes an odd-looking column with rotating sections.
We’re hard at work.
We don’t go inside the temple right away. There are still things to explore around the temple.
First of all, I’ve spotted a rather odd tree. It looks like it should give bananas, but instead I collect colorful berries from its branches. It’s unlike any other fruit we’ve ever seen — well I know I’ve never seen a neon green fruit before.
On Hannah’ end of the exploring, it’s all about the digging.
The temple watches over Hannah, as if daring her to find all of its secrets under the dirt layer.
Then when we’re ready, we climb the many steps to the entrance of the temple.
Well, Hannah climbs, I teleport.
The most majestic place of all.
Here we are again. This time, I’m confident we found the right gate, and I’m ready to get cutting. Machete time!
Hannah’s brought her History book with her, and she’s checking what it has to say about this hidden temple, but she, of course, doesn’t find anything.
Really she doesn’t want to venture away from me, not when we’re that close to our goal…
The gate is open.
“We did it, mom!”
“We found the temple.”
But first, excavation. If we’re going to find rare relics anywhere, it’s gonna be here.
We don’t go exploring today. Even Hannah agrees that we need some time off, especially after being half eaten alive by bees, electric fireflies, and the many, many mosquitoes that dwell in the Selvadorada forest. Not to mention the whole curse business.
So instead we hang around the marketplace, talk to the locals, discover new foods and produce. Hannah in particular is enthralled in discussions about Selvadoradan myths and legends. She drinks it all up and then as soon as it’s over, she writes it all down in her little notebook.
Then we head by the river for a match of chess or two. We’re trying to get prepared for whatever enigmas the jungle may throw at us.
Never without the mosquitoes, of course.
Then as night falls, some locals teach me how to dance the simrumba. I think I’m gettting the hang of it!
In the meantime, Hanna makes the most out of the public archeology table to try and uncover a relic she found at a dig site.
She’s really proud of this discovery she made, and she hopes she will find something amazing under the solidified clay.
We swing by the bungalow for a nap, then when we wake up, we head back to the Marketplace. We’re already well into the night — the nights fall fast in Selvadorada — and the Marketplace has metamorphosed.
No longer soaked in the burning sunlight, the place now relies on the billion fairylights hanging around the place. It was colorful and pleasing to see this morning — now it’s pure magic.
Hannah and I head back to the food stall, and we try something new.
This time when we check out the stalls, we don’t necessarily go for the survival gear. Hannah buys three typical Selvadoradan ragdolls for Cleo and Cyril.
Gotta work on my culture. Yerba Mate for the energy, Horchata because I loved the taste. They’re actually okay together.
In spite of the bees, and mosquitoes, and killer fireflies, I still manage to make us a way through another gate. I was sure we had followed the instructions. It should have been the last gate to the temple, but we must have gotten lost at some point, because instead we walked into a clearing circled by high walls. And in the middle, a natural pond that was built around who knows how long ago.
“I do know,” Hannah said, pulling the guide she borrowed from our friend at the inn. “These are the royal baths! It means we’re not too far away from the hidden temple, but we definitely took a wrong turn.”
“So you mean we can actually bathe in it?”
We were tired and our muscles had started to hurt from the hike and the strain. The waters, though green and full of algae, were still fresh and impossibly inviting.
We jumped right in.
Hannah and I got a chance to relax and talk. She told me her plans for the whole week, everything she wanted to do, how excited she was about everything she had seen, and I listened. I couldn’t have been happier.
We swam some laps together as the sun set.
The sky turned pink with a Selvadoradan twilight, and the royal baths were flooded in a purple, soft hue. It felt like the last gate we had crossed had brought us to an entirely new world after all.
The beauty of the scenery and the magic of the Royal Baths made Hannah beam with joy, and the dark cloud above her head dissolved, replaced by a golden aura.
Her happiness broke the curse.
And not only that; her curse turned into a blessing, a constant beam of sunshine that followed her around.
This trip would be perfect after all.
But as the sun disappears behind the canopy, I start to realize we haven’t eaten anything since the platanos fritos of breakfast; or in my case, since the plane.
It’s time to get out of the pond.
Especially since we don’t know what dangers dwell in the jungle at night.
With this new curse following her around, Hannah has a hard time finding joy in her exploration. She’s gloomy and frustrated, but she’s not about to let a pesky curse stop her from fulfilling her Selvadoradan goals.
The night is falling — and it seems this is the hour that the dangers of the jungle awake. A swarm of bees take an interest in me, but by standing very still, I manage to persuade them that I am no danger to them, and they leave me alone.
Once they’re gone, I shout to Hannah to beware — but she’s already looking around. She heard something.
And sure enough, she’s suddenly surrounded by the endemic electric fireflies.
And one of them stings her, sending a shock through her whole body.
She’s stunned, but thankfully, we purchased a Faraday soda from the vendor’s stall at the marketplace. It will ease the symptoms of electrocution. I throw it to her and she takes a thankful sip.
Not now, mosquitoes. We’re both about done with insects by now.
Twenty years of yoga don’t leave you without a solid practice in meditation. And when you reach a certain level of internal peace…
… You can start to bend the rules of the outside world as well.
In the jungle being able to teleport from one place to another proves really useful.
Particularly to explore the more faraway, unique places.
At the edge of a man-made, collapsed cliff, looking over the canopy and the lazy green streams that flow through the jungle, I feel minuscule, yet powerful.
It’s a sight that — quite literally — can’t be topped.
From this dangerous, vertiginous point above the jungle, we can see the bungalow we’re staying at.
It looks tiny from here, a dash of color in a sea of green.
The deeper we go, the more overbearing the vegetation becomes. And the more incredible the vestiges we run into become.
There’s the carcass of an airplane, crashed and forsaken right in front of the grandiose entrance to what must have been a temple once. The two tall, llama-headed colons tower over the clearing, ready to judge the mortals that dare venture between them.
This scene tells a thousand stories, and though none of them are reassuring, they leave us in respectful awe.
The stairs are broken, uneven, and lead nowhere that we can see; what’s more the inn owner didn’t talk about this when she gave us indications to find the temple. We’re both relieved we won’t have to risk upsetting the llama gods.
In this clearing, we find a stone chest. It’s closed by a heavy slate. Ceremoniously, Hannah approaches, then with a glance at me she braces and pushes against the stone.
The lid slides, slowly, inch by inch, and a bright golden light starts pouring out.
Hannah found a treasure!
It’s a golden frog, a relic of the old civilizations. It’s the first she’s ever found, and she’s filled with pride, and joy, and —
But then I see her freeze. She grabs her throat and gasps. Out of thin air, a sinister dark cloud materializes around her, and gathers above her head.
“Mom? Mom I don’t feel so good… I feel… sad…”
We should have known; after all the inn owner did warn us.
Hannah’s been cursed. The Curse of the Sadness Cloud is upon her, to be broken only by joy beyond bounds.
The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans) 