Chapter 62: Dragon Valley

  Ryder smiled, they were now officially residents of Dragon Valley.  The move to Dragon Valley had been a godsend and very tiring, but at least they would not have very much to unpack.  Most of their things would be stored in a storage unit until they found a more permanent house.

  When he had first received the job offer from Dragon Valley's Development and Commerce committee, he had grabbed at the chance to move like a drowning man grabs at a life ring.  His family needed a fresh start, and just maybe things could go back to normal.  Or as normal as his family ever got.

  It had sort of started with his Mother finding a genie in a bottle.

 

  The Genie had told her that she could have three wishes.  His mother had wished for love, to which the Genie had laughed hysterically.  Genies could not make people fall in love.  Which did not please his mother at all.

 

  She went into a rant.

 

  Which did not please the Genie at all.

 

  The Genie had cursed his mother instead, which had left his mother despondent for weeks.  Ryder had tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't listen to him.

 
  He had even tried talking to his dad about his mother, but his dad hadn't been ready to listen either.

 
  Then one day while fishing with his dad, and his son, Brae, he had received a text message from Fintan Mithrilen, the head of the Dragon Valley Development and Commerce Committee.

 

  The town, Dragon Valley, Fintan had told Ryder, had been secluded from the rest of the world for centuries, under the rule of a despotic King, none of the townspeople had been allowed to have technology or anything more modern, or even to have contact with other cities or towns.

  There had been a recent uprising though, and the townspeople had been able to force the King out, they had put together a new, more democratic republic government in the King's stead, and they were now seeking help from the outside world.  Help to bring Dragon Valley into the same century as the surrounding cities and towns.

  Which is why they were offering Ryder a job.  The committee members had stumbled across his blog that he updated every day, and they immediately knew he would be perfect for the job.  They had taken a vote, and all twelve committee members had agreed that they needed a Techno Master such as Ryder to teach their town how to use all the new technologies that were now available.  Ryder shook his head as he reminisced.  Techno King.  He was handy enough with technology, but he wouldn't go so so far as to say he was a Techno King.

  He had been so excited about the possibilities though, that he had immediately texted back to Fintan that he would be happy to move to Dragon Valley and help them out, if they had a hospital of some sort for his wife to work at.

 
  Fintan had been ecstatic when he learned that Ryder's wife was a resident doctor, for their Medical facilities needed to be modernized as well.  Ryder figured it couldn't get any more perfect than that, and told Fintan pending his wife's okay, he was on board.

  Cherie had agreed it was a wonderful opportunity, and so the plans had been set in motion, they would leave after Spring and Brae's birthdays, which at the time, had only been a few weeks away.  When Ryder had told his parents that he was moving to Dragon Valley, they had both insisted on coming with.  Ryder had eventually agreed, but had given them both rules they had to obey.  Rule number one, no more nastiness.  To his relief, they had both quickly agreed to his rules.

  His mother had even started to help Noelle out with her school work, and she had helped allay some of Noelle's fears of moving to a new town, and going to a new highschool.

 

  Brae had excitedly talked non stop about the gemstone mines that were rumored to exist in Dragon Valley.

 

  Brae had not even been home on his birthday, but had instead been at a friend's house, trying to convince his friend's parents that they needed to move to Dragon Valley too.  The more the merrier had been Brae's reasoning.

 

  Ryder remembered how excited his son had been when he had come home.  He had managed to talk several families into moving to Dragon Valley.  Brae had told his father, that he might want to be a politician when he grew up, because he was great at changing people's minds.

  Ryder also remembered how unexcited his mother had been when she'd had her birthday. 

 
  Ryder smiled to himself again.  Life really was good.  His wife had announced on the trip to Dragon Valley that they were going to have another baby; the move itself had been painless and uneventful, and the temporary house!  It was a lot fancier than Ryder was expecting.  Between the house, and a new baby on the way, things were definitely looking up.

 

  His daughter was over the moon, she loved fancy, pretty things, and she thought their rental house was the greatest thing ever.

  Noelle already knew that she wanted to move to Paris when she graduated from highschool.  At night, she even drew her own clothing designs in a little sketch book; someday she was going to be a famous fashion designer.

  Brae was determined to find those gem mines, and he figured the best way to start, was to meet some of the townspeople.

   He quickly discovered that Miss Teagan MacAnna, did not appreciate a good trick.

 

  After she stormed off, muttering curses under her breath, Brae met up with Paeris, who challenged him to a smustle dance a thon.

 

 
   Woot!  Woot!  Oh yeah!

 

    Paeris might have thought he was the stronger smustler, but Brae knew better.  He rocked it.


  ~<>~



  The months passed by uneventfully, for which Ryder was grateful.  He had his hands full with teaching tech classes to the residents of Dragon Valley and with the arrival of another son, Colin. 

   

  Unlike her other grandchildren, Spring pitched in to help with Colin's care.  She adored her youngest grandson.

 

  They lost a roommate, Katarina.  She gave birth to a boy, Hektor.   Katarina felt too uncomfortable staying in the same house with Alder, who had virtually ignored her since their one oops, and after having Hektor, she packed up her things and moved in with a new boyfriend.  Whom she promptly married a week later.  Ryder had cautiously talked to his Dad about it, but his Dad had simply shrugged and said he didn't care what Katarina did, as long as he got to see Hektor.

 
  They gained a new roommate, Hades Black.

 

  Once a month Cherie would set up a free medical clinic for the poorer residents of Dragon Valley.

 

  Some of the residents weren't too sure on her methods, but she assured them it was cutting edge science, she had been trained by the best doctor's in the world.

  On the days that she finished her Free Clinic early, it gave her chance to catch up with her friend, Angel.  She had met Angel at a family party, she was a younger sister to Paeris, who was married to Ryder's cousin Alyssa.  They had hit it off and became instant friends.

 

  Colin had his birthday.

 

  The family did their best to find some time to help Colin learn his basic skills.

 

  Even super busy Mom, who tried to add cleaning lessons in as well.

 

  More often than not, Colin was left to amuse himself.

 

  Ryder couldn't quite believe just how grown up his daughter was getting.  He didn't like her wearing a bikini...

 

...especially with the new roommate around; he seemed to be a little on the crazy side.

   Brae found a couple of new friends, Sophie and Morrigan.

 

  He had his first kiss with Sophie.

 

  While Noelle learned how to slow dance.

 

    Life was chaotic, but normal and pretty trouble free.  Ryder's parents weren't fighting, his wife had nearly accomplished her goal of becoming a full fledged doctor, his classes and blog were doing well, his kids were straight A students who didn't get into trouble, it seemed like everything was perfect.  So why, Ryder wondered, did he have this overwhelming feeling of foreboding?


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  Notes:  This took too long to write, and it's another chapter I am not entirely happy with, but it accomplished my goal, by moving my story closer to where I am in game.

  Ryder is still working on that last goal---getting a level 5 blog.  It is taking forever, but it doesn't help that I keep forgetting to have him blog something everyday, lol :P  So far, he hasn't had any *extra* moodlets that he's been dying to blog about, not even one.  *sigh*  We'll get there eventually.

  And yes---I moved my family....again.  I can't seem to help it, the world starts to get so glitchy it drives me crazy---and of course, I love Dragon Valley. <3  Best EA world ever, imo.  I briefly considered moving them to IP, but the lag there is so horrendous, and Dragon Valley plays so well, they just might actually stay in this town for a little while, lol  Unless they run out of room...

  I kept Katarina as a roommate until she had the baby---then kicked her and the baby out.  10 sim minutes later, I kid you not, she was engaged and expecting another baby, lol  She really wanted a family, this time she found a guy that was available though! =)  I added another roommate, because with the new patch---Katarina had started acting a bit differently---she was more active---like EA had fixed the roommates.  So I wanted to test that---and I added Hades---I have some weird names for a while because I forgot to pull out my Mythological default name list, oops! 

  Anyway---he does have more motivation than Kat did, he's pretty active!  I still keep forgetting to see if he uses money from the family funds when cooking---but honestly, it is hard to tell.  This family has so much money, it is ridiculous, I wouldn't even miss 5 bucks if he did use it.  I have discovered a pretty good way for them to use a lot of their money---they now own a lot of vacation houses and houseboats, which I can decorate to my heart's content, and it does put a dent in their family funds.  A small one maybe, but still a dent. =)

  I had never tried to free a Genie before, I thought it might be fun to try----so I had Spring do that.  I was actually disappointed by how easy it was, I thought it would be a bit more difficult.  She was freed on the day I bought Dragon Valley---so she wasn't part of the household very long.  Just long enough for me to drag her to Dragon Valley with the family---and then I kicked her out too.  Using Traveler, I brought a few of my favorite families with---one was the Nightblossom family.  They have grown in numbers, lol

 

  Turana I have shown before--she's in front (daughter of Evie and Talfryn).  The other 3 are: Taeryn, the teen with red hair (Alyssa and Paeris' oldest son); Rosina, girl with blue hair, white skin (daughter of Paeris and Alyssa); and Arianrhod, girl with blue hair, blue skin (youngest daughter of Evie and Talfryn).  Arian is currently dating Iacchus Milthrien, if they have kids it should make for some interesting genetics, lol

  This is part of the Milthrien family, for those who don't have DV, this is what they look like.  Fintan (Dad) , Aine (Mom) and Riordan(brother), I don't have one of Iacchus, but he looks similar to them.

 

  Anson (second son of Evie and Talfryn) ended up having a kid with Monty's alien daughter---now she is an interesting looking sim! :P  That didn't last long, he is currently engaged to Cori---Alder's daughter---and they have twins.  You guys caught all of that, right?  lol :P Reagan (Alder's daughter) married Mortimer Goth and they are having a whole bunch of cute pink and purple haired Goths. <3 

  I will go ahead and reveal my next heir early this time around.  It's Colin, because he is SO adorable, lol  <3 He is also a pretty good genetic mix of his parents, the other two are basically clones of Cherie. In game Noelle is already gone, Brae is a day away from YA and Colin is a teen, so yeah, I really needed to catch up! :P

  Next chapter will hopefully be more story like, and less update like.  Okay, I am shutting up now, really!  :P  Thanks for reading! =)