Wednesday, November 28, 2012

2.6 - Tomb Raider

When we last left our adventuring heroine, she had figured out a riddle to gain entrance to a tomb that had been carefully sealed and never before explored.

Getting inside was the easy part.

There were many barriers in the way, along twisting turns and dark passageways.


"Good thing I've been working out a bit more ... ugh!"

Traps were everywhere and had to be carefully found and disabled ...


"Why do I feel like I'm begging for my life ... at my job?"

Dangerous underwater tunnels had to be explored for secret openings.


"I gotta learn to hold my breath longer ..."

Hidden ledges in mysteriously clear pools of water revealed  special keyed treasure chests ... more work had to be done to open them.


"Now, where to find a star keystone ..."

And the clues leading to the answer were often riddled with even more terrifying traps!


"Ok ... this does not look good ..."

But Isabel is persistent and always brave. She forges ahead, deeper and deeper. Hours of hard work and careful exploration - hoping to hit the big payoff.

She even spends the night inside. Sleeping in a tomb definitely ranks right up there in the top 10 most exciting things she's done on-the-job so far!


"This memory needs a special sticker in my passport!"

Meanwhile, topside, Nate sleeps in his own sleeping bag, worrying about his sister. He hasn't had a text message from her in hours (her phone got wet) - and he's sure she's too deep in the tomb for transmitting anything via her tablet.


"She's smart, and brave, and tougher than most girls. I know she's ok ... unless a mummy got her ..."

Some of the traps were easy to figure out how to disable ...


"Just ... one ... more ... pull ..."

While others were deceptively hidden and easy to miss ...


"Uuuuurrrgh - that was more than a tickle!!!"

Adding insult to injury - a few of the access panels were booby trapped with things that would terrify a normal sim. But Isabel is brave. These creepy crawlies are no more than another minor inconvenience!


"An arm full of nasty bugs isn't going to keep me away from this activation switch!!"

Along with the keystone she needs - Isabel is rewarded for her persistence with riches and shiny things!


The face of a happy adventurer - reaping her rewards.

The Treasure is HERS!


"Eureka - it fits!"

And even greater treasures await within the deepest chambers of the tomb ...


"This should be the last door ... " (odd, that chain and lock look suspiciously modern, don't they?)

The wondrous treasures which lay beyond are hard to imagine. Rooms full of mystical statues and amazing architecture.


It would be impossible to 'steal' even a small portion of this historical monument honoring ancient civilization...

Isabel has finally reached her goal and successfully survived many pitfalls and traps along the way.


"This moment has made all the pain and suffering worth it ... though I am not quite picture perfect looking!"

Isabel spends many hours going through the rooms of treasure, inventorying the items, deciding what must go and what must stay. You see, she has no intentions of turning this all over to Morcucorp to plunder and destroy. She means to re-seal the tomb and leave everything but the 'gifts' left by the ancients in the chests. The historical integrity of the tomb shall remain forever a secret. It will take all of her genius to make sure she covers her tracks and re-sets all of the traps and to even make them harder to find or disable.


Laughing to herself, Isabel realizes, "I am smarter than any of the previous adventurers and this is going to make us wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. There is enough treasure here to satisfy Morcucorp's greediness and for me to live comfortably without destroying this beautifully kept secret!"


One last hesitant peek inside a few of the sarcophagus crypts reveals some interesting artifacts Isabel needs to reconstruct her own archaeology relics ... and no mummies were disturbed (yet) ...


"Wow... so fascinating ... I must study how these ancient civilizations acquired such advanced knowledge!"


By the way - Isabel learns that "Shower-in-a-can" truly rocks.


"Wooo - refreshing!"

And now, the process of re-tracing her steps back out of the tomb and making it nearly impossible to find these parts of the deepest rooms ever again ...


"I do not want this sacred place destroyed. I will make sure all of these traps and hidden areas work better than even their creators could build!"

It takes another day to put her plans (and traps) in place as well as remove the mass of relics she will be taking away with her. As planned, she contacts Nate via her tablet (who is relieved to hear she made it out alive!) - and the inventory of items is divided up accordingly. The pieces her employers expected (because they did not know about the deepest areas of the tomb) were delivered, and Isabel's first large scale tomb exploration is concluded.


"Uploading complete inventory and photos now ..."

Term1Nate0r: "omg UR ALIVE!!11! ... spent 2 days biting my nails off FRAKING out - did a mummy get U??"

Izzy:  No, Nate, I would not be standing here chatting to you if a mummy had gotten me.

Term1Nate0r: "cooli0 u roxx0r sis - uploading the relic pix 2 dealrs now!! we bling bling PHAT l00tz LOL"

Izzy: "I have absolutely no idea what you just typed. See you soon, I'm in need of a good dinner. Let's celebrate!"


"Shwarma dinner - on the house!" (Nate - "Term1Nate0r"  is busy managing their auction listings)


Actually, Isabel doesn't want to freak Nate out too much ... but there was one small incident  ...


"What is that horrible smell??"
~~~


That night, Isabel met with her previous employer after their dinner. Layla claimed she had been 'removed' from lead archaeology acquisitions by her sister Nabiya, and oddly enough, was interested in working out 'deals' with Isabel on the side. Ever wary of Dr. Midden's warning advice long ago, Isabel politely declined Layla's offers, suspicious that she was actually working under cover and testing Isabel's loyalty to Morcucorp.


"Are you certain you've no more relics you'd like to make a tidy profit from on the side Ms. Twist?"

Isabel was busy taking advice from Nate, who was just inside the cafe listening to the whole thing and feeding her text messages about Layla's suspicious offers. Plus, what was up with wearing her bathing suit to a business meeting?


"Thank you for supporting the Archaeology project Ms. Lufti, we're returning to St. Claire and I look forward to continuing work with the project lead Nabiya in the future."

This seemed to wrap things up neatly and hopefully proved Isabel was a straight up honest scientist not interested in 'shady deals' to cover their tracks out of Egypt with their shipment of relics.

Nate and Isabel returned to St. Claire exhausted but happy. In the taxi ride home from the airport, they discussed their 'winnings' and how they had pulled off a real heist.


"That was so awesome Izzy - we ROCK ... "

They were soon to be very very wealthy once Isabel met with a local middle-man dealer in relics Nathan had located in his many conversations online.

Tomorrow, Isabel had her first business 'deal' meeting.

It was good to be 'home' - though neither of them really felt settled in this empty old townhouse yet. It was time to renovate it and make it homey and comfortable inside.



"Home"


Things were definitely going to be interesting!



Read onward, HERE for Chapter 2.7 - "Risky Business" 


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Note:

I had no idea relic hunting was so lucrative! Once I had Isabel cataloging and analying her finds, it was obvious they would return from a 6 day (she has the lifetime reward to extend her visas) trip with enough simoleons to set them up for quite a long time and to decorate their 3 bedroom townhouse nicely!

I have built a new venue in St. Claire that wasn't there before and includes a relic merchant. He will make his appearance next chapter as will new characters in the Twist adventures back home as they settle in a bit more. Romance adventures do not go nearly as well as tomb raiding adventures!


14 comments:

  1. Aww! This chapter was so awesome! Nate is so adorable. And I loved the pic with the mummy XD

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    1. haha it was a great shot I was very lucky to catch. I had her run off immediately after that and not interact with the mummy - I wasn't about to take any chances with a curse at that point!

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  2. Uh oh! I certainly hope that the middle man is not employed by MorcuCorp. They certainly have their hands in everything so finding someone not under their influence is going to be hard work.

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    1. Yes, they really must be very cautious at this stage. Considering they already have suspicions of foul play on Morcucorp's side, there's a lot at risk in this plan.

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  3. Fun chapter!
    Messing with Morcucorp is dangerous, but I'm sure Izzy and Nate can outsmart them! Right?

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    1. I'm pretty sure they'll outsmart morcucorp. If not, I'll have her call up Farrell, he's a member of Simsa group, right? ;)

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    2. LOL, we'll have to start some super secret organization devoted to foiling Morcucorp's evil schemes. We can call it the Super Friends...oh, wait...

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  4. This was such an exciting chapter! I'm very concerned about their side dealings. I hope they don't get into too much trouble. Gotta say...it really makes me hope I roll an adventurer at some point. I've had WA since it came out, but never really spent much time in the worlds.

    Also...Nate's internet tag is hysterical. I loved his l33t speak!

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    1. haha glad you liked it - he's a computer whiz so I thought I'd play up his somewhat immature but smart computer geekness.

      World Adventures is a love/hate thing for me. On one hand I don't care for the way they designed them as side worlds without real town-like story progression (no rabbithole jobs, etc) and the 'questing' system for adventures chafes me. But on the other hand, the tombs themselves were actually very well designed and fun to play. I have not played through most of them since that expansion first came out long ago so doing it for this story was a lot of fun and made it much more interesting... thinking how I could make up my own storyline for it.

      I definitely recommend it if you get the roll! twallans mods help stabilize traveling a lot more too.

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  5. Fun chapter Envie! I love all the pics of her adventuring in her burnt outfit, hair sticking straight up! :D The one with the bugs crawling up her arm is my fav, love her expression!

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    1. Thanks, I was really happy with how many great expressions and action pics I got for the tomb adventure. It took awhile to decide which ones to use and which ones to keep there were so many great shots and nothing staged! WA definitely can be fun storytelling if it doesn't bug out!

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  6. Yay, I'm all caught up with this, finally! I love your legacy, and I especially love this generation. Nate is hilarious and adorable, and definitely my favourite overall - can't wait to see him age up.

    Reading this has definitely made me want to play WA more. I hope I roll an adventurer career at some point although I bet I won't be that lucky! :D

    Can't wait to read more. <3

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    1. Aww thanks for reading my whole legacy Elly that means a lot to me. I know how hard it is to keep up on everyone's stories, I am woefully behind on many of them out there as well but hoping to have some more evening time to read soon.

      Nate has surprisingly turned out more fun than I originally imagined him. He's not the 'heir' and is Isabel's brother, but I am including him in her entire generation as the 'help' for her single-with-help roll so we'll see him through most of his life! (and its definitely a fun one as he ages up next)

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  7. The tomb raiding was awesome! Isabel is the next Indiana Jones for sure.

    I loved Nate's text messages. Those were a scream.

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