Ramaswami/McDermott Random Legacy ch. 27: Risk

"You know you don't have to work in an office," Rain says after Chess relates another humiliating prank played on him by his coworkers, "You are such a good artist, maybe you would be happier staying home and painting."

"It would be easier, no doubt about that. But I can't run away from this. This is something I need to do," Chess answers. Rain doesn't quite understand his need to force himself into a role that doesn't suit him, but she knows she can't convince him to quit. And despite the adversities of the workplace, he has been rising very quickly in his career, and every promotion has added to his self-confidence.

"I love you no matter what you do, you know that," Rain says her final words on the subject.

"You've been getting more muscular," Rain comments.

"I've been working out. You like?"

"Well," Rain hesitates, "I've never been into the muscular look."

"You said you'd love me no matter what," Chess teases her.

"Well, of course I will..." Rain answers, not sure how to tell him to stop working out so much.

Chess leans over and kisses her, "I'll focus on cardio workouts from now on," he promises her. Rain smiles in relief. Chess moves on to another subject, "How do you feel about having a baby?"

"I think that's a great idea," Rain answers, "Let's get started."

Meilin and Tao parted on bad terms, and Tao has decided it's time to mend that fence and visits his daughter and her husband, Deon. Having a child of her own has matured Meilin some, and she understands her father better now, and greets him with warmth. Deon is a likable enough young man, Tao thinks, and as the heir to the Wolff manor, he's quite wealthy. But he won't talk about what he does for living, only saying it's 'legitimate business' in a way that sounds highly suspicious. But Meilin seems happy enough, and Tao decides not to interfere.

Tao spends some time with his grandson, Jamie.

Rain's pregnancy has not deterred her from her work, despite the pleas of her father and husband to stay home and relax.

She's discovered a way to bend Time to her will, she can hardly sit at home while such ideas are waiting to be born. On the day before she goes into labor, Rain completes her time machine.

Rain and Chess have a son, named Risk.

For all the junk Rain repurposes, more junk shows up to replace it. While she loves what she's doing, all the time spent in the junkyard has made her long for a truly green and wild space for her son to play in as he grows up. Suunset Valley has a nice, formal park, but Rain wants something more natural, and so she purchases the land across the street from their house and transform it into a wilderness park.

Though Risk is still too young to appreciate the excellent fishing in the pond, or to play on the playground, his parents bring him to the park often, teaching him to walk and talk in the natural atmosphere.

Always a great lover of the outdoors, Tao frequents the new park as well, and often meets Adria there. They both know they don't have much time left, their friends and age-mates have been passing on, one by one, so they try to spend what time is left to them wisely, enjoying each other's company, or the company of their families.

Challenge Notes: So, not much drama this generation, I've been focused on Rain's inventing and sculpting skill building, which isn't much of a story. And I've learned that I can't put any of the sculptures Rain makes in her junkyard in family inventory to move them to the park, or anywhere else. Since I have the living green restriction, I can't buy a sculpting station for the home lot, either. So, the junkyard has a ton of sculptures littering the place, I haven't had the heart to detonate any of them. Rain has reached level 10 inventing skill, and I've ignored the call to start the Simbot building quest, as I don't like simbots much. I'm torn between trying to achieve Rain's LTW to max inventing, sculpting and painting, or trying to max her career as an inventor. I don't think I can do both, the inventor career requires making a lot of sales of inventions, so to do that while trying to skill both sculpting and painting will be difficult, if not impossible. She's currently at 7 in sculpture and like 4 in painting, and at level 6 of the career.

Tao has achieved his LTW, Renaissance Sim, maxing gardening, fishing and charisma. He's at level 9 of the gardening career, and needs to sell around 25k more worth of produce to reach level 10. He's over 90 days old, however, and could go any day now, so he may not get level 10. That's not required of course, he achieved his challenge goals ages ago. Regan Goth has passed on, which makes me sad. His son Xander looks just like him, and unlike his father has no commitment issues. He's happily married and has a baby on the way.

With the purchase of the park, Rain achieved a main objective of her generation goal, living green. So she just needs to continue her eco-friendly lifestyle, and not call on any NPCs for her No Strangers restriction and her generation goals will be fulfilled.

Generation 7 rolled couple with one child (again, despite the fact that I used lytefoot's new expanded family structure rules.) with Architect career as primary income, and no income for secondary. The generation goal will be Fulfilled and the Misc. Fun is Random. Risk's first two randomly rolled traits are Friendly and Light Sleeper. It will be interesting to see what traits he rolls up in the future, and what sorts of LTW will be available to him, since he will required to fulfill it. And hopefully he can find a spouse who will be able to fulfill a LTW outside of a career.