Emmy: "Stay with me, Teddy! I'm NOT LETTING YOU DIE!" A little dramatic much? Welcome back to The Quest Log, a video-game-themed joint legacy between me and Haleigh/MeadowThayer. This will be the last chapter of my turn with the second generation of the Quests, and then we'll get to see Haleigh interpret them. This chapter, we need to see Emmy, Flora, and Layton (all named after the Professor Layton series) grow into teens and the reveal of who will be the heir for the third generation. When we left off, Wayne had passed just before Winterfest. Although they were all incredibly sad still, the family (Atari, Rhonin, Jenny, Emmy, Flora, Layton, and our kitty, Paolo) all woke up early to gather around to celebrate, exchanging gifts, singing, and trying to make merry. After a while, their spirits do begin to lift. It's almost like they can feel Wayne still there with them. Afterwards, it's time for a Grand Breakfast courtesy of our rising culinary star, Jenny. Mealtime, everyone! The family enjoys a nice breakfast and sit around chatting for a while, dazed from the excess of good food in their bellies. The merriment comes to an end when Atari signals that her life is also coming to an end, a bit sooner than I was expecting. Aw, she looks so sad. Goodbye, Atari. She's not alone, however, and the whole family mourns her, some of them with a bit more focus than others (looking at you, Layton). Layton, who is good, was feeling upset about being around evil so I had him try to chat up the Grim Reaper, but it didn't amount to anything because Grim wasn't really interested. Anyway, farewell to Atari Quest, the unique and hard-working found of The Quest Log. She took this family from nothing (an extreme start, in fact) to living in this nice mansion with dreams of even nicer life to come, maxing the Tech Guru career, completing several aspirations, and never trying to hide her geek side. She had five children with her husband Wayne - Vereesa, Rhonin, Sylvanas, Alleria, and Zuni - and besides the trio in this household, she has eight additional grandchildren. Although the legacy proper is far from over, Atari's geeky legacy is secure. The rest of Winterfest is pretty much shot since everyone is super depressed now with both of the founding couple having recently passed, and they did already fulfill their holiday tasks, so they separate to deal with the losses in their own ways. For Rhonin, this means working hard on repairs and upgrades that Atari didn't get to. In addition, he's updating the house bit by bit on his way to Mansion Baron in the style Atari decreed: colorful, bold, and playful, just like Atari herself. Emmy and Layton, best friends, decompress together in the craft room. For her part, Emmy's twin, studious Flora, prefers to dive into her extra credit to distract herself. And Jenny? Maybe it's best if we don't investigate too hard how she's coping. Emmy: "I knitted a mailbox." I'll say. Was it necessary to be that large and orange? Emmy: "Absolutely." We put it out front to let them know, In This House, We Craft. She then gets back to her knitting while Layton pops back in to play with Paolo. Interestingly, knitting helps with negative moodlets and emotional control. You know what doesn't though? Laundry. That stuff is depressing even when no one's died. To distract herself further now that the extra credit is done, Flora puts on a puppet show for her younger brother. We're kind of just passing time until all three are teens, and they're all pretty highly accomplished, so I'm just watching them right now. After a full day of moping, it's time for Father Winter to show up. For what I'm sure are very good reasons, he decided to come in the side door, walk to the front, and then enter from that door (the mail person does this sometimes too, so take note if you see strangers walking through, Haleigh - they're just weird like that). Unfortunately for him, I guess his boots were still snowy, because he wiped out several times before he could get into his normal behavior. When he did, the kids got their presents and went to bed, momentarily feeling a bit better from the childhood excitement of presents. In fact, Emmy, who has never slept in her own childhood bed before thanks to the influence of her Book of Life and thus hasn't claimed it, chooses Atari's old bed to sleep in instead, and giggles as she sleeps. I like to think she's dreaming of good times with her grandmother. The next day, while the kids are at school, Jenny and Rhonin decided to build a snow pal based on a whim of Rhonin's. It's . . . okay, I guess? A little basic, but good form. 6/10 The kids come home depressed as all get out, but they need to perk up a little bit . . . . . . because it's finally the twins' birthday! The family gathers around to -- wait! Hold on just a second here. What am I seeing? Is Buff Rhonin, the most terrifying version of Rhonin, rocking Deadpool's baby hand? I think he might be. Too bad your hand didn't get beefy too, because that looks really weird. Emmy and Flora: "Can we continue?" Ahem, sorry. Please. Simultaneous sparkles and terrible haircuts. Jenny, most of the way to the door: "I've seen enough. Later." So here's Emmy, the older of the twins and the child that most takes after her mother in appearance, though the shapes of those eyes and lips are undoubtedly from the Quest side of the family. She aspires to find her soulmate and live a long life with them, and in addition to being a cat lover (also like Jenny), she is now a geek, further honoring Atari's memory. Emmy sticks to easygoing, lightly geeky orange clothes, and she looks good with a short wavy style. Flora wants to be a Painter Extraordinaire (which Jenny is also working on right now, and can only help with the mansion bills), and to her trait of perfectionist, she adds foodie. Maybe she is more like her mother than I thought, even if she's got Rhonin's red hair. Flora's style is "effortless artsy" in light blues and whites, and she's made a conscious choice to only wear lipstick to define her look. She's kept her blue glasses as part of the ensemble, and she's grown out her hair. Anyway, now that we have revealed that Emmy is a geek, I feel it's also time to say that, according to the pre-rolled personalities, she is the only one that gets that trait. So she is now officially the next heiress. Obviously I've known for a while, since I gave her some preferential skilling treatment. Oops. Our crafty queen will be leading the third generation of The Quest Log, probably from her throne, otherwise known as the rocking chair. All of Rhonin's siblings were invited to an un-goaled birthday party, but hardly any of them showed up, and the ones that did showed up late and scattered. Amusingly, Alleria here has picked up some celebrity somehow, so she wasn't willing to talk to Layton either. Poor guy. Several of the kids had snow-related whims, so they stepped outside to celebrate the twins' birthday with a little winter fun. The snow pal Layton and Emmy, still best friends though now different age groups, built is, uh, a little different from the Hallmark one their parents made. I give it an 8/10 (7 for originality and 1 for monocle). Akira (Alleria's husband) and Espella (Vereesa's older daughter) were hanging around out front despite being invited to the party, and FINALLY someone wants to talk to Layton. Poor kid's been struggling to get people that don't live at this house to acknowledge his existence. The girls get started on their high school homework in the new study area of the office. You'll be seeing more and more decorating from here on out, because my job was to decorate the house before the end of my turn, which is now only as long as the last few days Layton has in his childhood. Whoa, what happened here? Piecing it together later, apparently at some point, someone upgraded this to a composting toilet but since I wasn't aware of that, I also wasn't aware that those need to be emptied lest they burst into flames, apparently. Poor Flora. Caught in a burst of explosive gas. What a way to go. Luckily, that's not her fate today. Rhonin puts her out and then she joins in on the effort to extinguish the toilet, while Sylvanas and Layton are absolutely useless. Layton, hun, no children in the fire bathroom, ok? To his credit, he chaperones Paolo in heading for safety. (Actually Paolo was on an adventure and is mystified why the boy is out here.) I later replaced the toilet so it wouldn't have that upgrade because that is dangerous! Wayne! Too bad he's blocking a very tense Flora from unwinding from the fire. Thankfully, we have a console too so she can challenge him to a game. Eventually, we upgraded to two mats since the ghosts of our geeky founders like to monopolize them. Jenny has been working on her mixology skill now that she can do that or cooking. She came in with quite a few points since she had been a bartender before she married Rhonin, and that's the career path I want her to end up in eventually. Emmy: "Rug." Neat. You're a woman of many words, huh? We put it in the front room because it's actually quite a nice rug. I have no idea what this interaction was because these two had definitely met before: Wayne was always chatting Jenny up while she was writing when he was alive. Still, nice to see him out of the game for a few minutes. Jenny's adult birthday crept up on me but I caught it just in time. Rhonin was there to celebrate, but Emmy is too focused on cooking. Who even knows where the other two children are. Jenny celebrates her birthday with a cuddle from Paolo. She hasn't aged hardly at all it seems. Very nice. Paolo, for his part, has really taken a liking to the Nifty Knitting couch in the craft room. He exclusively naps here now. When the kids come home, the twins from their first day of high school, Emmy is in A MOOD. For real, she is very upset over her breakout, I guess. Life is tough for a teen. She gets some advice from her mom, who accidentally reduces her responsibility character value. Drat. I've been trying to get them as high as possible, and if I remember right, by the end of my turn, she was in range for three and pretty high in the other two. Some of those are really hard to raise as a teen if you miss training them as a kid. On a wintery evening, Rhonin comes home with a promotion past the split in the Astronaut career. He'll be working to become a Space Ranger, because could our squeaky clean muscle man ever be anything else? Later that night, Jenny finally gets to follow the split in her career towards a promising life in mixology and gets the appropriate attire for it. Oh good, we got an Atari sighting before the end of the turn! At first, we were going to just exchange the house and family through the Gallery, which resets things like upgrades and loses the ghosts and spares, but after an excellent suggestion from Teresa on Boolprop, I uploaded the save file and Haleigh is trying that out to see if it will work well for us. The benefit is that things will stay the same in the neighborhood and house from computer to computer, so there will be less disruption. Anyway, Atari breaks in her newfound powers as a ghost by haunting the bookcase in the office. Emmy: "Could you not, Grandma? I'm really going through some super, super difficult stuff right now. Life is hard enough already with everything, like this breakout. It's just really tough." Atari: "And my death?" Emmy: "No, I knitted away all my feelings about that. It's just really these pimples. Life is hard, y'know?" Atari: "Uh, I wouldn't know about life anymore actually." Emmy: "OMG, Grandma, try to focus on the one suffering here for a moment!" After griping at her grandmother, Emmy gets started on a beginner garden in their new greenhouse to hone her skills. All the plants are straight out of seed packets so nothing is too exciting, but it'll get her skill level up and maybe some of it can be used for grafting. Because it's the tail end of winter, we won't be able to find any wild plants before I have to hand the family off, so Haleigh is on her own setting up the big money and useful crops, but at least Emmy will have a few skill points. Afterwards, Emmy grills to finish up her last few actions to earn her very last badge for scouts. Predictably, this makes her moody. After the fifth plate of grilled food, she gets her badge and now has the gold scouting award. She gets the Scouting Aptitude skill boost trait. Layton: "Dad, if Paolo brought us an invisible present that exerted no force on the world around it, how would we know?" Rhonin: "Uh, where is this coming from, buddy?" Layton: "Like I was just thinking, if it didn't have any mass or gravity but it was a present, how could we detect it?" Rhonin: "Layton, my boy, that is not my area of science. I just pilot the rocket." Layton: "But you have a screwdriver." Rhonin: "And you have a water glass. You don't see me asking you about hydrothermal vents." Layton: "But I could tell you. I just read--" Rhonin: "Sigh, parenting nerdy children is not an easy road." While the kids are at their scout meeting (or school on weekdays), the parents slack off a lot since Rhonin has a fair number of days off and Jenny works nights. Today's activity is table tennis. When the scout meeting is over, the poor dears in their shorts have to fight through a blizzard to get inside. This makes Emmy - sigh - moody. Hey, Flora isn't even allowed to wear her glasses to scouts and you don't see her brooding. Emmy: "No one understands!" While she's working on her gardening, she gets advice from her dad and from her uncle Zuni. I really am not exaggerating how often Emmy makes frustrated, angry, embarrassed, or sad faces. The girl is all drama all the time, even when talking to plants. Finally it's New Year's Eve. Jenny was at work so she didn't get to celebrate, but the kids and Rhonin decided to celebrate in the playroom, despite the fact that I had just finished decorating the living room downstairs, including with a larger-sized TV. Oh well, their loss. Layton is awoken later that night by the monster. He tries to befriend it, but, much like Grim and Layton's own aunt, it has no desire to talk to him. The twins, meanwhile, awake bright and early (well, in Flora's case - Emmy didn't sleep again) to watch stupid videos on their phones. Yeah, that tracks. With the beginning of spring, our eco footprint is now green and we get to enjoy some lovely bright rays of sunshine. Now if it would just melt this snow we've had all winter long. Flora: "I thought we got new furniture in this room." Rhonin: "We did. It's all made over." Flora: "What about that ugly chair?" Rhonin: "I'll have you know this is a quaint heirloom my mother salvaged from a folk merchant gathering." Flora: "You mean it's junk from the flea market." Rhonin: "I mean, yeah, but we designed the room around its color scheme, so it's staying." Flora is distracted from her judgment by getting a little painting advice from her mom. It's nice that they can work on this aspiration side by side. As for Emmy, she works as little on charisma since it'll help when she's looking for a soulmate. Zuni was still around and Rhonin was low on fun, so he challenged his only brother to a game of juice pong. It was a close match, and ultimately it came down to each guy having one cup left. Rhonin sunk his ball, Zuni had to drink his last cup (with no apparent ill effects from all that juice), and Rhonin immediately came down with the GTW illness that causes a headache, so he took the hangover remedy -- excuse me, medicine -- that you see on the cover image. Hey, Paolo found his way off the couch long enough to use his bed. Well done, little guy. With the breakout apparently cleared, Emmy comes home from school with a good ol' fashioned mood swing. Getting real tired of your BS, Emmy. I'm going to have to do . . . something . . . about all this drama. Jenny: "Hey, Emmy. You seem a little on edge recently. Is there anything causing you to be so dramatic?" Flora: "Yeah, you rolled your eyes at me on the bus and snapped at the bus driver, telling her, I quote, "Life is plum and then you die." What's up with you?" Layton: "I am staying so far out of this. Doo de doo, multiplication, what a joy . . ." Emmy: "I DON'T know what any of you mean. I've never been dramatic in my LIFE. I am the epitome of LEVEL-HEADED and there is no drama ANYWHERE in my life." Yeah, no one believes that, so I had her quit scouts and join drama club. Gotta put all that angst to use somehow. Emmy: "This plebian ensemble is not doing a thing to assuage my suffering." Tell it to the director. When Emmy got home from her meeting, it was time for Layton's birthday. This will officially be the end of my turn once he's made over, and then I'll wrap the chapter up. So let's see the damage. Oh my gosh, I've been saying he's a little Rhonin but he is literally Rhonin but with a different shade of green eyes. He even grew up in the same hair just to prove my point. (He looks short in this pic because I have a teen height mod, but I took pics of the kids without the mod later on to use for their personality cards.) So after a makeover to add back his glasses and differentiate him from his father at least a little, we see that Layton wishes to be a Jungle Explorer, which is pretty appropriate for this sim named for a fictional professor of archaeology. He is good and a cat lover, so he's a good blend of his parents. He's relaxed his style a little, but he's still pretty proper and looking good in a light teal color. And so this is gen. 3! Only Emmy is eligible by our heir law (Exemplar for geek), so she will be the heir and continue the family in the next generation. Looking at the three kids, they are really, really similar in facial features. I think maybe their noses might be the only thing that's different. They've definitely all got the same eye shape, lips, and chin. Flora and Emmy are actually face clones, but Flora's face looks a little rounder than Emmy's because Emmy lost some weight while working on her fitness badge. To conclude my turn, I took pics of the kids with the Moschino Stuff things for posterity and said my goodbyes to Atari, who was also sad (although now we're both happy knowing she will be able to continue to haunt and play their games!). Here's the final state of the house. I was thinking about doing a tour of the fully decorated house, but it'll show up in Haleigh's pictures, plus she's probably the only person who really cares, and she can see it for herself. The house came along pretty nicely, I think, and now Emily's Lighthouse (named for the sea monster in Windenburg) can be a literal and figurative light to the community as the Quest family continues on. Next time we'll see Haleigh guiding our moody gal Emmy as she assumes her role as heir. I, for one, can't wait to see what happens next, and knowing Haleigh, I won't have to wait long (unlike her when it's my turn, lol). Thanks so much for reading along with me on this very spread-out turn, and in the meantime while you're waiting for the next generation, be sure to check in with us at Boolprop. Thanks!
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the quest logThe Quest Log is a video game themed joint legacy between MeadowThayer and Taube. fontsThe following fonts were used on the cover photos and the biography photos. They are all free on DaFont.
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