Emerald Valley #7 - Spring's very bad day; Life with Autumn; Other revelations around town.

 I went back to Emerald Valley and had Spring give up on Magic School - for now - but register instead as an alchemist and keep working toward either finding the witch potion or learning how to make it herself. She's at about level 6 or 7 in the alchemy skill, but she still seems rather inept at it. For instance, I sent her to the elixir store to check to see if they had the witch elixir in stock, but they didn't. So instead I had her buy a skill booster elixir, drink it, and work on her alchemy. She tried to make an friendship elixir, and this happened.

This is the second time she managed to toadify herself! She's not unlucky, or clumsy, or a loser, so I don't understand why this keeps happening to her. Anyway, she thought she'd research some more supernatural aspects and went to the vault of antiquity to study why vampires are such snappy dressers. She apparently became so overwhelmed that she passed out as she left the vault.

Why do these things always happen to you, Spring? 

While Spring was in the vault, I hung out and people-watched. Apparently Hugh Kidding, a party dancer was out getting some rays.

He must be either going to or coming from a gig. He's talking to Anitra Simpkins about working out.

As Spring came out of the vault, I noticed a couple young lovers out on a date.

After passing out, and coming to, Spring went home to take care of her bees.

Will tomorrow be a better day for poor Spring?

The next day, Spring tried to un-toadify herself. First she tried a repairum potion that was lying around from a previous tenant.

It didn't seem to have an immediate effect, so she went to ask her husband for a toad-kiss. Somewhere between drinking the potion and receiving a toad-kiss, she transformed back to human.

She and her husband Gustavo went on a date to the arcade, then ended up at the cemetery as that was on her wish list. 

I got a notice that one of her former classmates had drifted to the dark side. I wondered if this meant he was a wizard/witch, and checked the demographics, but no witches were listed. He must be an NPC and not counted in the demographics? The description of the Dark Magic digs have me thinking I need to add a basement to my Magic School. 

Other than some imaginary friends (I assume are the Henderson/Gains family) the only other occult member in the town is Terrence the vampire who is married to Autumn, the firefighter who was lecturing Spring on getting a fire alarm in a previous installment. I decided to drop in on them for a bit. I learned they had three white cats: Izzie, the mother, was once married to Abraham Cattiwaller, and they had two kittens: Nashira and CC. Abraham is now deceased, and Izzie is now married to Sam Cattiwaller. Nashira doesn't seem to have a mate and had just lost a friend based on her moodlets, but I couldn't tell who that friend would be. CC is married to Gumbo Abraham. None of them have a close relationship with their humans, and there weren't any cat items in their castle-like home, so I added some. 

As for Terrence and Autumn, they seem to be getting along and have a good relationship, but they are both so busy - especially Autumn, with her career, trying to keep the firetruck and alarms working, trying to befriend all her co-workers, and going to put out fires and handle emergencies. 

I think she's still prone to rookie mistakes, like standing in the middle of the fire while trying to put it out. She walked away unharmed, though, so maybe she knows something I don't. She's working on getting to know her co-workers, and there are several of them. I think Bridgett is the fire chief. She was giving a talk on the best routes to various buildings in the city, and the others were taking notes.

Autumn is working on building relationships at work.

When the firefighters aren't working, they can often be found next door blowing off steam.

Autumn has the brave trait, which comes in handy when burglars come to steal. I don't know if this is the same chick who stole the washing machines from Spring's apartment building, but she seemed pretty smug when Autumn confronted her in the middle of the night.

Autumn so showed her a thing or two.

Terrence slept through the whole interaction, but the cats know what happened.

I'm trying to find out where the cats' mates live but I haven't had much luck yet. I find the cats tend to travel far from home to a particular area, so I assume that is where their mates are. The cats used to belong to old lady Cattiwaller, but she has passed away, and someone else took the cats, but I don't know who, so they are hard to find. 

Speaking of cats, Terrence has been doing some catting around. He has a love interest with Anitra Simpkins, the band member of Elaine (Siew) Reardon. Terrence was in the education career, but wanted to go into the business career, so I let him. Now I think I know why he wanted the change. He gets off work three hours before Autumn, and Autumn often stays late at the firehouse, which gives him time to go to parties with Anitra. To be fair, Anitra may not be aware that he is a married man, as "confess to cheating" is an option for Terrence - an option he doesn't take. Terrence doesn't seem to care who sees him smooching on Anitra.

Getting off work early also gives Terrence an opportunity to hunt and feed off the human population.

Autumn and Terrence rarely see each other or speak to each other. I've been trying to remedy that, but their schedules just don't mesh well, and both arrive home too tired to do anything by take a bath and go to sleep. 

Marriage is looking good on Elaine, however. I saw her down at the business building and she seemed quite content with her lot in life. 

I might need to drop in on Anitra Simpkins next, to see things from her perspective.