The Pursuers: A Seven Heroes Challenge (Feb 6)

[MarianT]

@PeregrineTook, Betty has the charmer toddler trait, so winding people around her tiny finger is what she does best.

@oshizu, Bruce also has to reach the top of the Detective career. But now that he has his felons, I don't have to go to work with him any more. And I think he makes faster progress, given the responsible trait and the Entrepreneurial reward.

[oshizu]

Wow, nice work Bruce, makign so many arrests before sitting at the Chief's desk!

[MarianT]

THE BAT CAVE

From the journal of Dick Grayson Pursuer:

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Today we celebrated Spooky Day in style. Linda, Bruce, and I carved three pumpkins. Linda wanted to put them on the porch but there wasn't room, so we set them up in the living room instead.

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It turned out we got a jack-o'-lantern on the porch anyway. Some kid came all the way out to our house just to go trick-or-treating.

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Back at work the next day, and I had a pleasant surprise -- with my promotion, I got my own canoe! She's a beauty.

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I've been working hard, trying to clean up the islands. The sulfur deposits are particularly tough to get rid of.

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Anyway, my efforts are paying off, with some of the flowers that had been dormant starting to bloom again. I've taken several pictures, trying to capture the brilliance of their colors.

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That doesn't mean I can rest on my laurels, though. Who would want a sample from the waterfall in the middle of a thunderstorm? My boss, that's who. "It's not as if you're not wet already," she said when I complained. I thought about telling her that water was an excellent conductor of electricity, i.e., lightning, but just put on my wetsuit and hoped for the best.

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Bruce is really scared of lightning, though, which is strange because he's not scared of anything else.

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All this time our little princess has been growing up. I could fill the journal with snapshots of Her Royal Cuteness, but that would look weird.

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Linda did the honors for her birthday.

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And they had an early breakfast together the morning of Betty's first day of school.

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We discovered that her favorite color was green. She absolutely refuses to wear anything pink. As soon as she left for school, Bruce pulled me aside. "There's something I want you to see," he said.

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"A bat cave?" I asked.
"These are ordinary bats," said Bruce, "but here in Forgotten Hollow, there are people who can take on the shape of bats."

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He explained further while we went fishing. "I tracked down Betty's mother a while ago. There was a smear of something on the envelope that her note was in. Our forensics analyst said it was guano, could be from Selvadorada, could be from Forgotten Hollow. Anyway, I found Ms. Kane. She was near death, pale as a sheet and thin as a rail. She'd been kept for plasma, food to the creature who lived in that mansion on the hill -- no, don't look over there, just keep fishing. And I found out from her that she'd met my parents. They'd been his cattle when she first arrived as a runaway teenager. Her words brought back some of my early childhood memories -- hiding behind my stuffed bat Alfred while the creature fed upon my mother.

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"Long story short -- as soon as I get my last promotion, I plan to start hunting down those creatures. Not to kill them -- they're already dead. But to render them human again, a fate they would consider worse than death. I've been doing some research, and apparently there are some old books where you can find a cure. Anyway, if I fail in my task to cure all of them, will you take it up?"
"Of course," I said. "But what about Betty?"
"I'll tell her about her mother when she's a little older," said Bruce. "Or you can tell her if -- you know. I didn't think her first day of school was the right time, though."
I agreed with him on that. So we're both going to start working out more, just in case we have to fight a few vampires.

[PeregrineTook]

Bruce Wayne is going to take on a bat, man!  Very clever!
And even though Dick thought it would be weird, I would have been just fine with an update full of shots of "Her Royal Cuteness."
A lovely update  :=)

[oshizu]

What an ingenious segue to "that project"!

[MarianT]

@PeregrineTook, @oshizu, Thank you, both!

[MarianT]

MONSTERS

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Dear Mum and Dad,
How are you? We're all well here, no thanks to the substandard plumbing that exists throughout Sim world. I've done only a couple of upgrades so far in Oasis Springs and Willow Creek, but there is still much to be done.

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While in Willow Creek, I ran into Lucas Munch, all grown up now, but still unemployed. I hope showing him my blueprint for a smog vaccuum might give him some ideas for a future career.

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Speaking of careers, Dick is doing very well as a conservationist.

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He's been surveying the ocean wildlife around our island. He discovered an invasive species, but luckily there was an environmentally neutral solution that he could spray to get rid of it.

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He showed me this picture of the local volcano that he took from the air. We live near enough to see the smoke rising from it, but not near enough for any activity. It's pretty enough to hang on the wall, but there's no way we can print it out from his phone.

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Bruce is one promotion away from the top of his career, and Betty has started school. Bruce hasn't told her yet that he found out about her mother.

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He's had several opportunities, but he says that he couldn't tell her just before she left for her first day.

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Nor could he say anything when she came home from her first day at school. "I couldn't get a word in edgewise," he confessed to me. "She was so excited about the other kids and her teacher, and learning new things."

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Bruce took her fishing the next day when he got home from work. He's always said that it's easier to talk about serious things when fishing, but apparently the serious thing they talked about was whether Betty should join Scouts.

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"You have to tell her," both Dick and I have urged him, but he can't bring himself to interrupt when she's playing the violin (although he was tempted).

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Or when she's experimenting with the chemistry set.

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Or when she's playing with the purple protector doll. "How come we're named Pursuer rather than Protector?" she asked me. "Because my mother took my father's last name when she married him," I explained. Betty didn't think much of that answer. "I think we should be Protectors rather than Pursuers," she said.

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Finally, Betty took matters into her own hands. "Word on the street is that you know who my mother is," she told Bruce one afternoon.
"On the street?" he said.
"One of the kids at school said that his aunt who's a mermaid heard you and Dick talking about it. So who is she and when can I meet her?"
"I'm sorry," Bruce said. "I 'm really sorry. Her name was Kate Kane, and she died while you were still a baby -- right after she left you at the police station, in fact."
"Then you've known since I was a baby?" Betty was indignant.
"No, I found out only a little while ago. I found her grave and talked to her ghost. But she passed to the netherworld as soon as she finished her story."
"I'd still like to see her grave," said Betty.
"I'll take you there when you're older," said Bruce. "It's not a good place for children."
"I think there's stuff you're not telling me," said Betty. "I think my mother is the reason you've started reading about vampires."
"You're right," said Bruce. "There's stuff I'm not telling you, and I'm reading about vampires because I want to avenge her death -- and the death of my parents."
"Were they both killed by vampires?"
"You could say that," said Bruce.

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That night Betty had her first encounter with the monster under the bed. "I tried making friends with it," she complained, "but it just kept growling at me." Dick and I were in favor of putting up a nightlight to keep the monster away, but Bruce demurred. "Learning how to deal with fear is a part of childhood," he said. "It's better she learns some skills now than when she's confronted with something that could really hurt her."

Like a vampire, I guess.

Bruce, Dick, and Betty join me in sending their love, Linda

[oshizu]

Wooo, Bruce is close to finishing the Detective project while carefully laying the groundwork for his next one.
I see Linda wearing her hardhat in one photo.  Did she join the civil designer career while living in Evergreen Harbor?

[MarianT]

Wooo, Bruce is close to finishing the Detective project while carefully laying the groundwork for his next one.
I see Linda wearing her hardhat in one photo.  Did she join the civil designer career while living in Evergreen Harbor?

Yes, she reached the top and became a Master Inventor. I've had her quit so that she can go and repair things while Betty is at school.

And congratulations! I think you're Oshin on the official forum? Anyway, your Adams family showed up on the introduction screen for the game this morning.

[oshizu]

Wooo, Bruce is close to finishing the Detective project while carefully laying the groundwork for his next one.
I see Linda wearing her hardhat in one photo.  Did she join the civil designer career while living in Evergreen Harbor?

Yes, she reached the top and became a Master Inventor. I've had her quit so that she can go and repair things while Betty is at school.

And congratulations! I think you're Oshin on the official forum? Anyway, your Adams family showed up on the introduction screen for the game this morning.

Haha, no, I'm not Oshin although I recently watched one of Oshin's Youtube videos, a Paranormal Stuff Pack CAS Review.
I haven't visited the official forum since the Murkland Challenge several years ago, but I'm oshizu on that forum, just like here.

[PeregrineTook]

Oh my gosh, Betty is hard core!  If I ever have to walk down a dark, dangerous alley and can only have one of your heroes with me, I'm picking the little girl!
Loved the way that Bruce kept giving excuses for mot telling her, though.  It became a lovely comedic repetition of "Well, not when she's..." "I couldn't possibly while she's..." "It would be rude to tell her when she's..."  Nicely done  :=)

[ratchie]

I don't know if I have told you this before but I love how you write you give your characters so much depth that I often forget they are Sims.

Rachel

[MarianT]

@ratchie, oh, thank you so much! I try to keep the story close to the Sims, but it is nice when you can go in greater depth.

@PeregrineTook, Thanks! It's strange -- when I started this, I didn't realize I would get into the back stories of all my adoptees, but now they're a big part of the project.