Knowles Legacy, Chapter Nine

. . . in which house additions are made, Sonia is called to France, Tate shows his true colours, and Death visits - briefly.

This is where I left the Knowles boys since way before World Adventures came out - two brothers, Generation 3, watching TV. Geoff Knowles, founder of this legacy, now sits on the coffee table in an urn. Ayesha, his widow, is still alive, and 96 days old at this point. Kimball is the current active heir and head of the family, married to Sonia, who used to be an Ursine, so she has flaming red hair and a struggle with weight.

Back to the boys:

Tate, the one in the blue PJ's, is the heir. He's good, excitable, and a coward. May not fair well in those tombs I'll be sending him to when he grows up.

Liam, his younger brother, is artistic, but he's also a heavy sleeper and neurotic. He walks around sobbing about faucets that haven't been checked or other un-named fears.

Good grief. What a pair.

They hadn't added to the house in awhile, judging by the almost §30,000 they had in cash. So I gave them a nice garage for their two cars...

And added a lovely tree and some more flowers for a more settled look in the front yard.
Brilliant. I know. I'm so creative.

Well, as sim life goes, a day or two later little Tate was all ready to grow up into teenager-hood. He happened to be alone outside when the big event took place. Meh, he's Gen 3. What's the big deal now, huh?

And, as sim life goes, he needed a makeover. Badly. *shudder*

Makeover be frammed, you'll have to see him later. Right now, lemme show you my first basement!

Yes, this family still had too much money. I mean, the goal is to keep building and spending as much as you can. But once you really start raking it in in this challenge, it gets harder and harder to keep spending!

But World Adventures has come to the rescue. Number One, they can travel and spend money. ;) Number Two, I could add onto this relatively small lot with a basement! Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

I found a great tutorial which said it was harder to add a basement to an already-built house, but actually, with just a bit of thought (which was all I had that day, anyway), I managed just fine. I have created a room to display all the jewels and such. And the display cases that come with WA are also very handy! They have all the Sunset Valley jewels on one display, and I now have a second one to collect jewels from travels.

There are also three other "future expansion" rooms down here and a full, four-piece bathroom.

Here's how I did the stairs. I read that you could just join the first stair from the foundation to the ground right up with the second stair that leads right to the basement, but mine didn't work like that. No bother, I just put a wee landing in for the first stairs, and they work beautifully!

Now Sonia received a call one day. She's a fairly logical-type person, and someone got wind of that and wanted her to go solve a puzzle in France. Not having travelled before, she immediately accepted! She geared up, sent off the bills, and booked a flight!

Then she hopped in her car and drove off to the airport.

Hours and hours later, she arrived at the hotel that had been recommended to her, stiff and sore from sitting in a crampy plane seat all day.

Whoa! I thought we were in France! Oh. Tourist. I get it.

Sonia soon got directions to Gustav's house, the man she was to meet about the puzzle. She rented a scooter and zipped off down the road.

"Wow! This is great! I could get used to this! Fun, sun, no kids, no husband, no garden, no cares!"

She rang the bell at a nice looking French flat and a nice looking French man greeted her.

Warning bells were going off in her head. His eyes were really nice. His hand was really nice. He was really nice.

This was not really good. She'd heared about French men.

So as soon as he ushered her into the entryway, she got right down to business and tried to avoid the really nice way he kept looking at her directly in the eyes while she talked.

"Yes, well, ahem, it seems that a mutual acquaintence of ours needed this puzzle solved..." She pulled out a piece of paper to show him. "And I was sent to talk to you..."

"Mm hm," he said, not even looking at the paper. "Zee answer is eight."

"Eight?"

"Yes. Eight."

"But... but you didn't even look at the puzzle!"

"I don't have to. Zee answer is in your eyes. It's eight."

Sonia stuttered a "thank-you", shook his hand, and left. Quickly.

"Well. That was that, I guess," she muttered on the way back to the hotel.

But she'd just arrived! It couldn't be over so soon, could it? As luck would have it, it wasn't. She saw a notice posted on the bulletin board at the hotel that someone was missing something and was too scared to go back to where they'd lost it. They were willing to pay for help.

A phone call was all it took to have Sonia whizzing down the road on her scooter again toward some kind of French tomb thing.

As she made her way down the stairs to an underground cavern, she realized she was surely not in Corrigan Bay anymore!

Then she spied an ingot of silver!

"Wooooo! Kimball will be so proud of me for collecting stuff in France!" she exclaimed.

"This room has to go somewhere other than here," she muttered after gathering up the silver and examining her surroundings more closely. There didn't seem to be a way out - except there was something behind that pile of rubbish...

She cleared the debris and found a hidden latch on the wall that opened a secret door!

"Yay! More stuff to collect!" she laughed as she cleared away more piles of rocks in the next room.

Still no sign of the item that had gone missing. Sonia kept working her way through the tomb - which didn't really look like a tomb, just some old underground storage facility or something.

"Ugh, more rock piles," she groaned. Her fingers weren't really used to all this pick-axe work.

Heh, heh, heh. Good thing no one was down her looking at her scratch her backside, huh?

Clearing away those three rock piles had winded Sonia. She dug out a now-dirty piece of paper from her pocket and made some notes while she caught her breath.

Then she threw a switch and entered something that was starting to look more tomb-like.

"Erg! If I'd have known (grunt) that this was going to be so hard, (huff) I would have passed and (pant) gone to the beach instead!"

Seeing a hole in the wall in the next room, Sonia sucked in her breath and stuck her hand into it.

"Yiiiieeee, I hope there's nothing in here! Oooooh, it's cold in there! Eeek!"

She shrieked as her hand hit something, but then she realized it wasn't a bug. It was another switch.

The switch opened a door which lead her into a room with a garden maze! Would this ever end?

However, she made her way through the garden maze, solved a puzzle or two, and managed to collect some more stuff for Kimball!

Finally, she entered the last room and found the item that had gone missing! As well as some more collectible things. She would be taking a heavy suitcase home from France!

She decided not to go back to the hotel that night and pitched her tent at a local campground. Roasting food around the fire, she ran back over her day in her head. It was good. Very good. But she missed the kids after all. And Kimball. She was so excited to share her discoveries with him!

It was time to go home.

And go home she did. Kimball was thrilled to see her again!

Gramma Ayesha was, too. She loved her grandkids, but sitting on the floor tutoring Liam was getting a little harder these days!

Sonia and Tate had a good visit that evening. She told him of the food she tasted in France. Tate, as you can now see, is a nerd. Corduroy pants, dress shirt, glasses, hair. The whole bit. As a teen, he rolled the "flirty" trait on top of his goodness, excitability, and cowardice. Not sure how he'll get the guts up to flirt, but hey. Whatever.

Oh CRAP!

Not the sparkles! But she was making dinner for everyone!

Oh well. I supposed someone else could make dinner. I figured it was her time to go. She'd lived a good life, missed her Geoff, and wasn't out collecting anymore.

Everyone (including a guest) gathered in the kitchen to see Gramma off. Grim appeared right on cue, the urn was ready, we were all set to go, each of us making peace with this new era without Generation 1 around.

And then THIS!

Where the framming heck did she get a death flower, huh? Who was the idiot who gave that to her, eh?

What? Oh. Me? Oh. *ahem* Well. *blush* I did? Really? I see. *cough cough* So much for losing Generation 1.

"Mom, where the hell did you get that flower! I thought that was safely in my backpack! Have you been rummaging through my stuff again!?!?"

Oh, suck it up, buttercup. Sheesh, you'd think Kimball was a whining teenager again.

*gasp* "Ooooooo. Pwetty fwower!"

Honestly, you should see how Grim goes ga-ga over these things. It's shameful, it really is. He comes on all tough and gruff and stuff like that, but he's just a pussy-cat on the inside.

"Holey Cow, you can go through counters now! OHMYGOSH!!!"

Yup. Kimball again. If Grim could roll his eyes, he would have.

However, Ayesha was back, and pretty much in one piece, except for the bit that was in the counter. And here's the crazy thing.

She was now only 74 days old! *faints* Well, that was a little longer than I'd been counting on having her around!

Death trucked off with his "pwetty fwower", but the fear factor took hold of Tate and wouldn't let go.

*cue shudders, gasps, fearful squeaks, and groaning*

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he's out.

What in the world would he do if he knew Grampa Geoff haunted his room every night, I wonder??? *giggle*