#year two

Intro.mp4

[video of abandoned building, and him]

Hello.

Welcome, those who attended in years past, and to those who have been invited now…

To The August Challenge.

I am The One You Cannot Remember.

I am The One You Thought Of Forever.

He needs no introduction.

The entire month of August will be a gauntlet of challenges and prompts. This is for both your and his entertainment.

This first week is the shortest, and therefore only has one prompt and one challenge.

First, the prompt.

"A wasted day is one without "

The challenge is completing the saying.

What is a wasted day?

How can one waste a day in his presence?

Summer started with an important trip to SimCity for Finley, where she was to vote on a bill about wildlife preservation. The other congress members were very impressed with her input and she could procure further funds for the developement of Pinnacle Peaks.

To celebrate the good news, Finley had a small get-together at her house with old friends as well as new aquaintances. The newest of her aquaintances was Frederick Russo, whom she had met wandering around the mountain lake late at night. She didn't yet know that Freddy was not an aspiring cook looking to open his own restaurant in Pinnacle Peaks like he claimed, but a SCIA Agent that happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and was really, really bad at coming up with cover stories.

After getting over the initial shock of being pregnant (as a male, from aliens), Fergus actually began to be excited about growing a little being.

It was not long before little Astra Watts was born. Even though there was no question about her being half-alien, she looked remarkably..normal?!

But Astra Watts was not the first baby born in Pinnacle Peaks this summer. In fact she wasn’t even the second, because one house down Flora Carter had given birth to twins: Poppy and Ash Carter.

And before summer ended, three became four with little Rosalind Newton.

With so many little ones Kiki was faced with a sudden increase in the demand of baby clothes as well as her goofy looking Kiki's Kuddly Teddy Bears.

Quinn and Caleb had decided that they would use the remaining warm days of summer to finally get married in their own backyard.

And the next baby of Pinnacle Peaks was soon on its way.

Summer also saw the realization of the next two big projects for the community: The construction of a wastewater treatment plant as well as that of a small police station.

Everything appeared to be going well for the small settlement and its mayor. Until one Monday morning, where both Frederick's and Jasper's well kept secrets came to light.

Finley needed a few days to process the fact that instead of being a gifted cook, her new friend had been working for Agent Silva all along! But when the three of them met to discuss future procedures in cases of contact with non-simlish species, her anger had already faded and made space for a very different feeling.

After their first kiss together, Finley and Frederick’s relationship progressed quickly. Finley knew that she was getting older and felt like she had no time to loose and Frederick had never been a sim to approach things with caution.

Before summer ended Freddy had already moved in. What he didn’t tell Finley was that while the SCIA said they would consider building an office in Pinnacle Peaks in the future, his request for working remotely had been denied.

Babies grew into toddlers...

And even more nooboos were on the way again - terrestrial and extraterrestrial alike!

In spring a very green and leafy visitor appeared at the farm. The plantsim named Cedrus had been observing the new inhabitants of the valley for quite some time and decided that Rae was the best sim to talk to. The farm quickly became a safe place where Cedrus and his brothers and sisters spent a lot of their time.

And just like the many flowers, trees and crops that Rae planted blossomed, romance began to blossom between herself and the handsome plantsim too.

Ultimately Rae and Cedrus decided that it was time for the mayor to oficially meet the plantsims and they were introduced to the rest of the community.

Finley decided they would wait to inform the SCIA of their newly discovered neighbours, mainly because Cedrus was worried about previous incidents of plantsim experiments in simhistory.

But the arrival of the plantsims did not escape the prying eyes of the SCIA....

In the meantime, Fergus had developed the first AI robot in simhistory: Servo 1.0, or "Una" as Quinn liked to call her. The SCIA was of course very intrigued by this and tried to convince Fergus to sell them the plans, but to no avail.

Fergus was an idealist and wanted to make sure that his inventions were only ever used for good. But he also began to realize that for his inventions to serve the community he had to take a chance and sell some of them to other people or organizations.

His SentryBots for example were already helping Detective Harper in her quest to keep the neighborhood safe and catch the burglar that was still on the loose. But servos were still off limits: “I already sell my other bots, just not the servos.”, he explained to Finley.

All this made Fergus think and he decided it was time to use his skills to make more positive impacts on the community and he finally accepted a paid position as a researcher for the further developement of Pinnacle Peaks' infrastructure.

Pinnacle Peaks also welcomed a new resident: Kiki Fahy, a fashion graduate, specialising in sustainable clothing made out of recycled plastic!

But Kiki's tailor shop, "Pins and Needles", was not the first shop to open this spring: A few weeks prior, Jasper Price, had come into a fortune after an interesting find in the farm's backyard.

A generous finder's fee and the offer of a loan from Bree made the construction of Pinaccle Peaks’ first (not home owned) business possbible and the opening of "Jasper's General Store" was a success!

A third business licence had to be approved by mayor Finley this spring: Carter Ibbs had published his first book and with its revenue he decided to open up a bookstore which doubles as a small library for the community.

His fiancée, the local archaeologist and historian, Flora Carter, was as busy as ever! In addition to spending almost every waking hour at the excavation site, she also had to plan a wedding!

Her head was buzzing with research notes, wedding dress colors and flower arrangements. It was no surprise that she didn't notice much of anything that was going on around her this spring...

But the darkhaired stranger in the leather jacket was not the only thing that went largely unnoticed by the residents this spring...

After Quinn and Caleb's engagement last winter, Caleb had started drawing the plans for a house for the two of them. The construction finished sooner than expected and the two quickly moved into their forever home, leaving both Finley and Fergus feeling a little lonely without their former roommates around.

While it wasn't unusual for Fergus Watts to disappear into his lab for days at a time, Quinn got worried when she didn't hear from her friend for almost a week. Just when she called and Una picked up, their phonecall was interrupted by a strange signal and not much later Fergus himself turned up at her doorstep with an unbelievable story to tell.

Fergus had returned from his interstellar adventures just in time for Flora & Carter's wedding. (Fun fact: Since they decided to take Flora's last name, Carter is now named Carter Carter 😂)

The wedding was soon followed by more happy news.

But as it would turn out, they weren't the only ones receiving such news. (Bree/Fergus)