Welcome back to the Vetinari Dualegacy! This is Chapter 10. Last time we said goodbye to our Gen 2 heirs and spouses, and Kendra the dog, and finally--and unexpectedly--Eddie's mother Sycamore. This chapter will be a lighthearted romp compared to that. OK, except for the bits with Eddie in. Oh, and the parts with Spider Jerusalem and Cassidy. Oh, and the murdery parts. OK, those are sort of fun.

IT'S A LIGHTHEARTED ROMP, DAMMIT! With a side order of murder and angst. Because who doesn't love murder and angst?

"Dad? Can you come home?""Eddie? It's the middle of the day, and I've got a bunch of customers paying through the nose to sit in the hot tub.""I need you to come home. Something's happened.""What happened? Let me talk to your mother.""I can't. Mom... She..."

"Eddie? What's going on? Let me talk to your mother!""Dad... Just come home now. Please? I need you to be home now.""All right. I'm coming home."

"Eddie? Why'd you... Is that an urn?"

"Sycamore! Cami! SYCAMORE!""Dad, stop! She... Mom...""What happened?""I don't know! I got home and she... she was..."

"Eddie, calm down. Please?""I watched her die, Dad!""It'll be all right. We'll figure this out.""It's not all right! Mom's dead!""We'll be okay. We're Landgraabs; we always persevere.""I don't want to persevere! I want my mom!""I know."

"Dad? You have another floaty tombstone.""Have I? I thought I was out of relatives who were dying.""Well, you already got the one for Uncle Larch."

"...Sycamore...""Your cousin?""And Larch's sidekick. I guess she couldn't handle life without him telling her what to do. Not that it matters; she was never as cunning as he was. Even if Larch wanted her to stand against me, she could never have succeeded in opposing my plans. But now that point is completely moot. The Dualegacy is ripe for the picking, just as soon as you come into your powers. With you at my side, those fools don't stand a chance."

"Um... Yay?""You are trying to figure out what those powers are, aren't you?""Sure. But I'm still a kid, Dad; maybe I won't get them until I grow up. It might help if I knew what I was supposed to be able to do.""Something sinister, I hope. The more Eeevil, the better.""Yeah. Great."

Gin: "Hey, Nerd! Quite the shop you have here."SimNerd: "Yeah, it runs pretty smoothly with me and that crazy Servo. You may call him Tom."Gin: "Tom Servo?"SimNerd: "MST3K WOOT!"Gin: "Aren't you blonde?"SimNerd: "Finn's turnons are blonde hair and makeup. I really, really don't want to get dropped from that wishing well."Gin: "Ah. I don't suppose Spider Jerusalem is a frequent shopper?"SimNerd: "He's never been in, actually. I've seen him at Belle's on some of Finn's dates."Gin: "Good to know."

GintasticNecat writes the wonderfully nerdy Science of a Legacy, and has made a great Spider Jerusalem Fan Girl shirt, which is available for download on her Simpage. She's in the 'hood to do me a favor, which I will explain shortly.

This is the Servo.

He has some issues.

"I said hug me, you wrinkly meatsack!""Back off, creepy robot!"

"I have never attended school, foolish fleshbag! You refused to hug me, and now you must withstand my verbal harassment!""Um... help?"

That is seriously all he does--walk up to strangers and try to hug them, and argue with them if they refuse. I try not to leave him on free will in the shop. He's a little hard on the stars.

This is the favor Gin is doing for me. That little toddler is William.

William is Cassidy's full brother.

It was sort of an accident. Cypress got abducted from someone else's Dance Sphere (because you know he's not allowed to use his own at this point), and when he was barfing, I just assumed that he had caught whatever Spider was sick with, and then the belly popped, and when I stopped swearing, I decided just to get rid of the baby.

So Gin offered to be Billy's mom, with the chance to stalk Spider Jerusalem a pretty sweet bonus, and Billy will not figure into the plot at all, and he will pretty much never, ever be mentioned.

He is freaking cute, though, isn't he? And I know what you're thinking--alien baby with big but normal-colored eyes: URANIUM APOCALYPSO! Ehehehehehe, not with one neat point and eight nice points, he's not.

"Jonny, I'm telling you, the whites of her eyes were black and her irises were bright yellow! I know what I saw!""I never said I didn't believe you. If that's what you say you saw, then that's what you saw. I doubt you'd make up a story like that.""I wish I were! It sounds wicked crazy. But her eyes went spooky and her voice went funny. It happened.""I called Finn. He backed it up--his dad died right before she talked to you.""You think that's what she meant?""Seems pretty clear--the birdies are Kestrel and Cormorant, the fallen tree was Larch.""Jon, do... Do we have a little Cassandra on our hands?"

"Hmmmm... Faulty metaphor, Jeannie. Cassandra's curse was that she told the future but no one believed her. As long as we don't make that mistake with Raven, she won't be a Cassandra. We just have to make sure to take it seriously when she says things with the creepy eyes.""Did this happen because I died?""That would be the logical conclusion. It doesn't make it your fault. Don't think that for a second. You didn't mean to die.""What are we going to do with her?""Most of the time, she's just a normal little girl. So we treat her like a normal little girl. Unless you've got a better idea."

"I'm so glad I have you, Jon. As long as we've got each other, things will be all right.""Absolutely. I just have one question.""Okay.""Why are we having this conversation in the bathroom?""I figured the kids would be less likely to wander in on us.""Ah.""You want to go clean that toilet, don't you?""Sorta."

Mommy and Daddy are inside talking about what I said, I just know it! I think I scared Mommy. What's wrong with me?

whistles

"Think fast, squirt!"

"Wren, that was mean! What'd you do that for?""Oh, come on! You were standing there all mopey and I just couldn't let you do that!""I'm different and I scared Mommy!""You're different--so what? 'Oooh, look at me, I'm Raven, I'm only exactly like everyone else 99% of the time, watch me brood about that last 1%!' Sure, Mom was a little freaked, but that doesn't mean she and Dad think there's something wrong with you, and it definitely doesn't mean they don't love you.""So why'd you hit me with that snowball?"

"Grandma told me to enjoy life and spend it with the people I love. Well, you're my little sister and I love you, and there's no way I'm going to let you feel bad about what happened. You didn't mean to do what you did, and you can't control it, and there's no reason at all to mope about it. So if you need a snowball to the face to snap you out of the guilt, then that's what I'll do, because making their kid sisters happy is what big brothers are for."

"You're the best, Wren.""I know. Wanna build a snowman with me?""Can we make it a mean snowman?""We'll see."

"I still think it should have been a mean snowman.""I know, but the broom's gotta count for something, right?"

Zee: "Get a good look, kid. You're a random Teen Townie who's not cute enough for the Prettacy or squiffy enough for the Uglacy. This is as close as you'll ever get to a lady's censor blur."Random Teen Townie: drool

He seriously spent about six hours just standing there... staring...

Finn gets his Storyteller handicap doohickey. Care to tell the nice people what your novel was about, Delphinium?"WooHoo!"Yeah, he pretty much published his Little Black Book. It doesn't have much of a plot, but I hear it comes packaged in brown paper.And where did he get the material for his bestseller?

This got him up to 20+ WooHoos and 13 simultaneous lovers. Would have been 14, but he got caught once by the little old Garden Club lady. First time he's been caught cheating. Well, he got caught twice, but the second time was by someone I can only assume is one of the male Drama Professors, whom he's never actually met, so he didn't lose a lover on that one. Those bouquets? All from different women. There would have been more, but he didn't get a Motive boost from the last one for whatever reason, and he was whining about being tired.

You know, I'll be done with Finn's new LTW just in time to go back to College Date Hell. sobs

Didn't take any pictures of the dates because, well, BLARRRGH, but this amused me. OK, half-amused, half-repulsed. Half-amused because they're like pod people, half-repulsed because Finn's doing that "call me!" heart-fart thing on SimNerd, with whom he has two bolts.

"Ow! Cory, you throw too hard!""Heh. Sorry, Kest, ten Body and three nice points. I can't help it.""That's okay, I guess."

"Aw, I really am sorry, Kest. Hug?""Sure thing! ...Cory, are you trying to steal my wallet?""Um... No?"

Double birthday! Finn and Cory are both growing up.

Aawww, Finn, you got a little saggy!"Blah. Why couldn't I have aged like Dad and Grandpa?"The Cheeks O' Doom really lend themselves to sagginess.

Remember how we previously beheld Cory's glory? Well, swallow what you're drinking, sit down, and break out the smelling salts. There's so much more glory to behold now.

Denty! Smooshy!

I cannot take my eyes off that nose.

But, oh, it gets worse...

Oh yes. We have some quality ugly here, folks. I hope he gets abducted. If neither boy gets abducted, he'll be my heir. If he gets abducted, that'll be the icing on the cake. The ugly, ugly cake.

He rolled Pleasure. Because we all know how much I like Pleasure Sims with three playful points. His LTW is Celebrity Chef, just like Kestrel and Great-grandpa Orson.

Synchronized stargazing!

Maybe if I played a little interstellar Barry White...

And this is pretty much the last time we will see the Uglacy this chapter. Finn dates, Kest and Cory stargaze, repeat ad infinitum.

"I want to talk to my brother.""Your brother?""Cassidy. You know, green guy, big black eyes?""He's not here."

Cassidy: "Jake, was that the door?"Spider: "Jerk."Mr. Big: "I guess I was mistaken."Spider: "Mistaken my ass."Cassidy: "Spider? What are you doing here?"

"Cass, everything's all messed up and I don't know what to do. You've gotta help me."

"You sound wrecked, Spider. What's going on?""Del went to college and it's just me and Dad now and Uncle Larch died and he was my friend and you're not around anymore and I can't deal with everything and it's all going wrong and--""Take a breath. Come on in and sit down."

"Okay. Start again, only slower.""Del went to college. She did it because of Dad and his stupid girlfriend, but mostly because she was scared of Dad.""Not unreasonable, given the circumstances. I did the same thing.""But I can't! You think I'm any less scared of Dad?""Of course not; you're not that dumb.""I'm scared of him, and I'm stuck there with him, and I don't have anywhere left to go! I used to go to Uncle Larch's, but he's dead now. He was nice to me, Cass. He treated me like I was one of his kids. He was my friend. Things are never going to be good, but at least he made them bearable.""I'm still around.""You've got your own life. With Jerky Jake.""Back off on that. I love him, and that's all that matters. Spider, what's this really about? You don't need me to be a grief counselor."

"It's Dad, Cass. He found out that Sycamore died and he started pushing me about my Reaper child powers. It was the first time he really said anything about it. He... He wants me to use my powers--whatever they are, whenever I get them--to help him destroy the Dualegacy.""Spider..."

"...What did you think you were for?""I..."

"...I'm not an idiot, Cass. I know Dad killed Jane to get me so that he'd have a child with some sort of supernatural powers. I know he always intended to make me use them to hurt people. But it's one thing to know it and another thing to hear him say it. I don't want to help him. I don't want to hurt people, especially Uncle Larch's family. But I don't want Dad to kill me either. And if I refuse, that's what'll happen. I don't know what to do. Cass, tell me what to do!"

"You want my advice on Dad? RUN. Start now and don't ever stop. EVER.""I can't live like that.""Then you're going to die, Spider! He'll kill you or you'll kill someone else! It's either your blood or someone else's blood on your hands! THOSE are your choices--pick one you like! Victim--or murderer?""Don't say that, Cass! Don't! There HAS to be another choice!""Running is your other choice, whether you like it or not."

"Cass, I heard yelling. Is everything all right?""I guess so."

"Cass, you're upset. You know I hate to see you upset.""Sorry. It's nothing. We were just having a discussion.""Mmmm. Is there something I can do to cheer you up?""Not in front of my brother.""Come on; I have to try and make you feel better.""Jake, it's fine, really."

"There's fine and then there's fine, Cass. I know which I prefer. Why don't you go upstairs and have a drink and I'll see your friend out. And then maybe we can get to fine.""Okay, sure."

"You're a real piece of work, you know that? Cassidy's too good for you, and I'll make him realize that.""Mmmm. You think so, kid? I can give him things you can't. Lots of things you can't. Face it, he likes this life. He's never going to leave me.""He will. I will get him away from you if it's the last thing I ever do. Cass is my brother and I love him, which is more than you can say, you ass. You are hurting him, whether he realizes it or not, and if there's one thing I learned from my uncle, it's that no one gets away with hurting family.""You remember where the door is, I'm sure.""Yeah. And someday you'll be watching Cassidy walk out of it for the last time. I promise you that.""Dream on. Now leave; I have some very important WooHoo in my immediate future.""I hate you.""Mmmm. Hate--isn't that your father's shtick?""I'm nothing like him! Nothing!""Whatever helps you sleep at night, junior."

This is Jeannie snuggling kitty Ethan. I think I've adopted him in before in my custom 'hood and he stays a black kitty.

Jeannie needed an Aspiration boost before work so she could get a promotion, and I'm done with kids for this generation. You keep rolling that Have A Baby Want, Jeannie, and I'll keep laughing and ignoring it.

Juniper! Hiiiii, Juniper!

She didn't even spook anyone.

Oooh, Stephan's first haunting and Isaac's out again.

I'm really glad I don't have any pregnant Sims here, because that double-haunting/pregnant woman combo worked so well last time.

DAMMIT, ISAAC!!

Isaac is kind of a jerky ghost now. He used to only scare Stephan. Now it seems like anyone is fair game.

"Waaah! Great-grandpa scared me out of bed!"

"Ah well, now I get to make it, lalalalala..."

Jonny?"I lost my job. I am a failure as a Knowledge Sim and a failure as a man."OK, so I picked a bad Chance Card. I'll get you back into Criminal as soon as it comes up again. And you're already Permaplat; the job's just something to keep you occupied."FAILURE."

"Daddy!""Raven, it's the middle of the night. Shouldn't you be in bed?""Great-grandpa scared me awake and then I started cleaning.""I understand how that goes, but you should go back to bed. You have school in the morning.""Are you going to go to bed now too?""No, sweetie, Daddy's going to stand on the lawn and cry some more."

"Hey, Wren, there's a girl over there!""Where?"

"Ehehehehehehehehehe. Silly Wren.""Raven? All I see is the wallpaper.""Keep looking!"

It's Rhea's birthday, and two cakes later it's a rousing game of Count The Stabby Death Noses.

And his personality is identical to Raven's. Why couldn't I get a little Uglacy-style facial and personality diversity?

The next time I opened the lot after this, Rhea was all glitchy. He was black, not Skin-4 black, but black black, and his icon showed up as a baby, and I couldn't give him a toddler makeover, even though everyone had toddler interaction options with him. I couldn't make him either a baby or a toddler with the Sim Modder, so I ended up growing him up to child and back down to toddler again, which seemed to fix the problem, although now he has a couple of Grew Up Badly memories. Which means so does everyone else in the family. Wheee?

“SHIT!"LANGUAGE, SimNerd!"STABBY DEATH NOSE HATE!"Yes, well, that's no call for swearing. That's the sort of language we reserve for those most hated of creatures."Cypress?"No."Those crazy telemarketers who called four times a day for a month?"No."Door-to-door magazine salesidiots?"Exactly."OK. I'll stop swearing. But Stabby Death Nose is still the zebra mussel clinging with mollusk tenacity to the hull of my Prettacy."I think it's sort of growing on me. Wren kinda rocks it."Whatever. Wasn't I a redhead at the beginning of this chapter?"I'm too lazy to take new pictures. Deal with it.

And remember, folks, if you want this charming beacon of sweetness and light in your neighborhood, just let me know and I'll upload her, or any of my other characters."Oooh, look at me, I'm the Supreme Nerd, I'm all sarcastic because I think it's cool!"See? Sweetness and light."Whatever."

Sweet cracker sandwich, can this kid do NOTHING without glitching it? Your father is not a potty, you freak!

Jonny gets his Storyteller dingle-doodle. His novel tended to involve more death and children and less casual WooHoo than Finn's.

Rhea: "Kitty!"Ethan: Oh crap, I'm going to glitch now, aren't I? Make the demon child put me down!

sigh Wren, did you really NEED to set the kitchen on fire? There are other ways of getting attention than doing the Fire Dance with your father.

Hello, smooshy fireman. Where were you when PseudoBruty was going through her pyromaniac phase? I could have made you an Uglacy family friend for ever and ever until we had a female heir.

Ethan grows up, and he's the kitty I remember from my custom 'hood. Hello, little Kaze-no-kami clone!

It's a day of birthdays, and Raven's up next. And, uh, I forgot to get a picture of the cake. Whoopsie! Got one of Wren waving his noisemaker, though.

Hey, Wren? I need you to do me a favor."Sure! What do you need?"Go out into the yard and get a big stick."A big stick? Why?"You're gonna need it to beat the boys off your sister.

PRETTY! Stabby Death Nose is definitely less Stabby on the girls.

Raven rolls Knowledge. Her LTW is to Max 7 Skills, which she's 9 points away from, so she'll be my first Permaplat Teen, and then I can re-roll in college and hopefully get something aside from Knowledge, Pleasure, or Family.

And last but not least, Glitchy McGlitcherson grows up. Again. Normally I try to get them in platinum or gold, but he's already got a couple of Grew Up Badly memories; at least he was in the green this time instead of the red.

Yup, little clone of Wren's looks and Raven's personality. Plus he's a glitch magnet. Guess who's my least favorite Dualegacy child so far?

The 42 on his shirt does make me giggle, though. That's what he defaulted into, so maybe he's trying to make it up to me.

Jonny: "If I toss you in the air, are you going to hork on me?"Ethan: That is an entirely real possibility, big pink food-slave.Rhea: "Wow, Wren, are you magic?"Wren: "Uh, no, my face is flashing blue and black and hanging in midair because of a GLITCH, which is unsurprising considering that you're around."Jeannie: "Wren, your brother can't help it that he's a wicked glitch magnet."

Hey, Jonny, cop a squat. We need to have a chat."I want to go empty the trash compactor."Don't care. Someone else will do it, guaranteed."But I want to do it!"SIT!

"Sitting."OK, buddy, here's the sitch. When you rezzed Jeannie, it reset her lifebar back to the beginning of the Adult life stage."Yeah."So instead of being, like, three days younger than you, she's eleven days younger than you."The significance of which is...?"You get old. You are gray and wrinkly and have the bladder the size of a walnut. A week and a half later, Jeannie joins you in wrinkly gray perma-pee-dom. This displeases me. You two are too cute together to have you be old that much sooner than her and then die that much sooner than her."I agree that such a timeline is rather unpleasant."I have a solution. But you're not gonna like it."Why?"It kinda... sorta... involves... slightly... murder... ish...

"Come again?"OK, maybe 'murder' is a bad choice of words. Don't think of it as murder. Think of it as 'temporarily de-life-ing' a Townie."How is that different from murder?"They don't stay dead?"Maybe you'd better explain in a bit more detail."We wait for a Townie walkby. When we get one who's not a playable, I drop Rossweisse onto the front lawn. You greet the Townie, call them over, and they should take the cowcake."Sounds like murder to me."No, no, this is the genius part. See, it costs me a point for every non-family member who dies on the lot, but I gain a point if I rez them for $10K. So you feed the Townie to Rossweisse, drink the Moo Juice, wait for her to pop out some more cowcake, and rez the Townie for the full amount. Townie takes the cowcake again, you rez them for $10K again, and drink another dose of Moo Juice. Townie moves out--completely alive, so it's not REALLY like murder, plus you get ten days' worth of life. And I don't lose any points."That's your big plan?"Yup."OK."

Hey, Jon, what are you listening to?"Uh, 'Getting Away With Murder.' "

This was actually the third Townie who walked by (the first two were playable), and Finn's going to be mad because I think she's one of his lovers. And I had to use moveobjects on to delete Spider, who followed Wren home from school, because the little dink went for the cake. I know things are rough with Cypress, kid, but suicide is not the answer.

"Gosh, homicide is tasty! And revitalizing!"*eager tailwag*

Jon gets Permaplat again! What do you want to do now?"Reach the top of Education?"Been there, done that. With you!"Can I do it again?"No. Go Energize and rez the Townie.

"Hi, Death? Yeah, it's me again. Do you have a frequent user discount? No? I need you to rez the Townie. Talk to you soon!"

"I wonder if I'll die if I do this again..."

The smoke is from her tombstone disappearing.

"Hi, Death? Me again. Yeah, I know the 'try not to let her die again' popup still hasn't had time to go away. But I need her back again. Last time, I promise."

"Hooray! I'm almost Jeannie's age again! And apparently I'm okay with temporarily de-life-ing a Townie! Too bad I couldn't have seen her ghost."

Yeah, that's great. Some people aren't so thrilled by death.

"Sycamore, what happened? Why did you die? Why did you leave us alone?"

"Dad? Are you okay?""Fine. I'm fine.""Only Mal was crying to get out of the crib. It woke me up. Didn't you hear the wailing?""I guess not. Sorry; I didn't mean for you to get up in the middle of the night.""It's okay to miss her, Dad.""I know. I just didn't want you to see me upset.""You're only human. You don't have to put up a front for me. I'd rather see you miss Mom than watch you act like you don't. And I bet Mal would too."

"Hi, Death? Can I have my sister back? Awesome!"

"Hey, Cami!""Hey, Bana! I seem to have the requisite number of digits, and I don't feel all slouchy, so you did it right!""Well, duh. I wouldn't reverse-rez or zombify my own sister--that's SO not awesome!"

"No one else knows about this, right?""Drake's at work. It's just you and me. Are you sure you don't want to tell Malcolm or Eddie? I mean, they think you're dead! I know the whole point was to make Cypress think you're dead, but it doesn't seem awesome to make your family think so too.""The more people who know I'm back, the more likely that knowledge will be to get back to Cy, which compromises my ability to protect June's Legacy. Even if it's only Malcolm and Eddie and Mal, that's three more people to say the wrong thing to the wrong person. This HAS to stay between you and me, Bana. Promise me you won't say anything to anyone. Even Malcolm and the kids. Even if they ask.""I promise. I don't like it, but I promise. For June and Jonny."

"Right. I'm going to head out before Drake comes home. I'll hole up somewhere close, where I can keep an eye on Cypress without being seen. If he realizes I'm alive, the jig is up.""Not awesome?""Thanks, Bana. Dad and June and Jon and all the future Prettacy heirs appreciate this. And don't call me; I'll call you."

Next time: the teen years! The Dualegacy teens and Spider Jerusalem head off to college! Rhea will probably find something else to glitch up! With luck, Cory will get abducted!

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Bonus shot!