The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans)
Sims player fourteen generation deep into a legacy. Here's their story! Also, art and builds.
As I said, I get better every day, but I still make mistakes. But my morale and determination are harder to shake than a skeleton’s disembodied hand, and I’m prepared for everything the dead omiscans have to throw at me.
I am stubborn.
And I actually enjoy this a lot more than I probably should.
The narrow corridor, small room and suspicious-looking skeleton already had all my senses on high alert — and I’m starting to know how the omiscans of old rolled.
I hear a noise on my left, a soft ssssht! and my body acts before I think.
The feathery flighting of the dart brushes the tip of my nose. Poison without a doubt, barely avoided.
It takes my heart a second to catch up with what just happened and cool down to a normal rhythm.
Here’s the hall at the end of the dark corridor. I dropped a few lamps to help me navigate in the darkness, and it gives the place a warm, but eerie look. The yellow light bounces from golden statues to cryptic omiscan murals, and then back to the shiny blue of another lapis skeleton.
I’ve often admired the solemnness of the ancient temple and the beauty in the sturdy, ancient architecture, but rarely have I felt dwarfed by a room like I am now. I feel like a speck in History, a curious individual who has no impact on the grandiosity of the past, and cannot begin to grasp any of it anyway.
I stare the blue skeleton down. The way its scales reflect the light is hypnotizing. It looks so — dare I say — life-like. I have to admit part of the reason I examine it so thoroughly is I half-expect it to lift an arm to shake my hand. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all.
I don’t trust you buddy. You’re a work of art, but I don’t trust you.
Once I’m fairly sure I won’t be jumspcared by a stone skeleton armed with a spear, I finally start examining the mechanisms around the little room.
Probably still distracted by the hollow gaze of the blue skleton, I make a mistake — a potentially fatal mistake.
I pulled the wrong lever, and now my life only depends on one thing: the quality of my reflexes.
We finally cross the doors previously protected by the bright blue electric sparks, and soon I realize there’s something different about this part of the temple. I almost miss the opening in the wall, the space so small I couldn’t fully extend both of my arms, as the stones on either side are much too close.
Yet it’s through this hole in the wall, this corridor that gets darker with every step, that I’ll find the hall where the next enigmas await.
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.
Just Azalea looking fierce in the jungle. Look at her. She’s going to take on these skeletons.
And now we’re into the proper forest. This is where everything gets bigger, more beautiful, more impressive, but also more dangerous.
Hannah doesn’t mind, or really pay attention to, the dangers. She’s busy marveling about everything, trying to take it all it, buzzing from one spot to the other like she needs to see it all, to take it all in.
I have to remind her that we’re here for a week. She’s got some time to explore around.
“It’s not that,” she tells me, grinning. “It’s not that I’m afraid I won’t see everything. It’s just that I can’t get enough.”
I’m working on opening another gate, and Hannah found an avocado tree. She loves avocados, and I feel like seeing them outside of a San Myshuno grocery store is enough to make her trip. She carefully picks them all and puts them in a satchel.
Then without a thought for its sturdiness and the hopeless void below, she runs across a bridge of wood and ropes. Her footsteps on the planks are barely audible above the sound of the roaring waterfalls. It’s a beautiful sight, but my mother heart can’t really get over how the bridge sways with the wind and her stride.
I’m really not feeling all that safe in this forest.
Hannah still isn’t worried in the slightest, and it’s with utter bliss that she reaches the other side of the gorge, where she spots another potential excavation site.
Right there, Hannah. There is danger right there, why are you not caring more?
Yet she keeps digging as an unidentified green snake slithers by her.
This kid is either really brave or impossibly reckless.
In search for information, we go inside the bar, where we meet the owner. She’s a very classy woman, and she’s incredibly friendly.
She asks us where we’re from, what we know about the country, and generally makes conversation. Hannah leads most of it for me. She explains her childhood dream was always to explore new places, and that Selvadorada was at the top of the list.
“Ha,” the owner says. “So… you will be looking for the Hidden Temple, I suppose?”
“… Tell us more.”
I did bring us here to let Hannah fulfill her exploration dreams, but I didn’t find any information on a hidden temple; now not only are we both intrigued, we have a goal.
I take the time to change into a more appropriate outfit, then we head to the edge of a jungle. There’s an archway that signals the start of a forgotten path, but it’s blocked by branches and vines. I’m not about to let my sixteen-year-old daughter struggle with a machete, so I send her exploring elsewhere.
“I got this,” I tell her, confident.
This is when twenty years of building muscle through yoga is going to come in handy.
Hannah doesn’t idle about while I get to work on the branches. She founds a suspicious spot and immediately takes out chisel and hammer, and gets digging.
A thorough, rigorous explorer who takes pictures of every discovery stage worth capturing. The sun emerges from behind a cloud just in time for her to take a good shot.
And as the sun touches it, I put the last strike to my machete work, and the first door opens
It’s Love Day, and Hugo has a whole program in mind.
I gave him my surprise later that day, as soon as we woke up, in a pink envelope, but he wouldn’t tell me his. When the clock rang 3, he only told me to get ready with the fanciest attire I could find, and he drove us to the Newcrest Opera House.
The Opera House is a gigantic building surrounded by a hedge maze, and it somehow manages to be more imposing than any Uptown building — it has this majestic feel that only centuries past can give a monument.
He leads me, not to the pit where most of the seats are, but to the box of honor, facing the orchestra, except several feet above the stage.
And then we hear the most beautiful piece of music; it rings through my bones and vibrates against my shivering skin.
I am in awe.
But really, none of all of this mesmerizes me as much, as the simple yet unique — absolutely unique — sight of Hugo in a full dress suit and bowtie. Not only because he did not wear a tie even for our own wedding; but because he looks absolutely stunning.
Posing on the steps. There’s a millennial building behind me, but I really only have eyes for Hugo.
My dapper husband. Never thought I’d use these two words in the same sentence.
When we walk inside, I do have to stop and take in the beauty around us. It’s all so grandiose!
Clearly, Hugo has visited before, or he’s much harder to impress than I am.
Our private box, far from the crowd.
Stolen kisses before the show begins.
And then when the show is over, sweet whispers on the Opera House’s balcony.
The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans) 