Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Four Legacies. This is the first college chapter – that’s right! Generation 2 has started college!

If you’ll remember, the last chapter ended with Charlie and Alice heading off to college at long last - something that was probably long overdue. Unfortunately upon arriving at Académie Le Tour Charlie received a phone call: her grandmother was dead.

If none of that sounds familiar then I suggest going back and reading the earlier chapters.

“Denise Jacquet Lived a long and full life. She was born here in Bluewater 84 years ago to Nicole and Sebastian Jeffress. When she was fifteen Yves Jacquet and his family moved here and the two fell in love. On her eighteenth birthday they wed and Denise fell regnant shortly after that. Gilbert was born of that union.”

“Although Yves fell ill shortly after their Golden Anniversary, Denise’s life continued on well into her twilight years. She continued to raise Gilbert through who she had three grandchild. Denise spent her final years surrounded by family and friends who loved her dearly.”

“We shall all miss her terribly, and we can only hope that she will watch over her family and friends in the years to come.”

Four members of the Stanton family arrived back at the family home in Quaver Kanyon in the early afternoon. They had paid their respects to the Denise Jacquet, and had hung around as many of Denise’s old friends and friends of her former husband came up and gave the family their condolences.

Gilbert hadn’t been sober since he had found out that his mother was dead, and he had refused to leave the open bar at the wake when it had been time to leave. Ross, Waylon and David had promised to make sure he got home all right when they could finally drag him away from it.

The moment she stepped inside her childhood home, Charlie shed off her outerwear, revealing the dress she’d worn to the funeral. She rubbed her face a little as she looked around – the house seemed so small, even after just one day in the dorms.

Charlie glanced over her shoulders, past her brothers at her mother.

“What is it you wanted to talk about, Mum? I need to head back to college soon if I want to make it to my class tomorrow.”

“Head into the kitchen, Charlie,” Quinn said with a sigh as Gideon stepped inside and removed his coat. “I need to talk to all three of you about this.”

A few minutes later the four Stantons were sat in the kitchen, Quinn sitting at the head of the table, looking along it at her three children.

Her three children... She could scarcely believe that so much time had passed. It really felt like just yesterday to her that she was James’ age, hardly a teen and playing with her friends. Adulthood had seemed so far away at the time, yet here she was now. An elder, with one grown daughter, and two teenager sons, one of whom would follow Charlie off to college before too long.

Quinn coughed loudly, catching their attention.

“Charlie, Gideon, James,” she said, looking each of them in the eye as she said their name. “When you father and I... Were going through that rough patch, I told you I couldn’t marry him because we’re a legacy family/ Do you remember?”

“Of course,” Gideon said brightly – he was certainly more cheerful not than he had been since they’d gotten word of Denise’s death. Perhaps saying goodbye to her had been what he needed. “You never did tell us what a legacy was though.”

“I’m about to get to that.”

“When I was your age, my and my family were pretty poor. We lived in Belladonna, and they don’t believe in Welfare over there,” Quinn said. She grimaced a little at the memory. “Now’s not the time for the whole story, but me, Ross, Kate and David all lived near each other, were about the same age, and we all decided that once we were adult we’d go found legacies here in Quaver Kanyon.”

Quinn spent the next few minutes quickly outlining the basics of a legacy. She would explain more when her heir came back from college, but for now it was important for the three of them to understand what the family was about.

When she had finished going over the basics, she paused for a second and let the three of them take in what she had said. Then she spoke again.

“I meant to talk to the three of you about this after your birthday, James, and before you left for college, Charlie, but there was so little time that I didn’t get around to it,” again, Quinn looked each of them in the eye as she spoke. “I won’t be around forever, and one of you three will need to be my heir. This means you’ll move back here after college, get a job, find a spouse and have children. I don’t want anyone to feel like I made the wrong decision by choosing them or not choosing them, so I want your opinions.”

“I don’t want it,” Gideon said a split second later.

“You don’t?”

Quinn hadn’t been expecting any of her kids to turn it down so quickly – everything she’d even read about legacies as a teenager had basically said that non-heirs tended to be resentful about not getting it. Of course... She hadn’t exactly read a lot on legacies, if she was honest.

“What? I did a bit of research into what legacies were after to mentioned in, Mum. I’ve had a while to think things over,” Gideon smiled at her innocently, then got a more serious expression on his face. “I’m gay, Mum. I couldn’t marry Bayley if I was heir, and it might be a bit naive to think I will marry my high school boyfriend, he is a family sim and they tend to do that. I’m not going to risk my future with Bayley for the legacy – no offence Mum.”

“That’s fine, Ian,” said Quinn, using a nickname for him she hadn’t used in years. She was relieved that he wasn’t going to compete for the title of heir Looking to the others, she asked, “How about you, Charlie? James?”

Charlie looked away from her mother. Even though she had been away less than a week at this point, this house no longer really felt like home. If anything, it felt a little stifling. She didn’t feel right here any longer, and she couldn’t imagine coming back to live after she graduated. A quick glance at James told her all she needed to know.

“I don’t want it either.”

“And why’s that, Charlie?”

Charlie smiled. Her mother didn’t sound as shocked at someone turning down the legacy now.

“Maybe it’s a bit sentimental, and probably more than a bit morbid and creepy this soon, but after I graduate I want to move into Grandma’s house. Keep it in the family, y’know?”

“And it might not be for another 10 years, but I do want a family some day. That house is good for bringing up kids in from what Dad’s told us, and I wouldn’t have to renovate it much. Plus Bluewater’s public schools are better than the desert’s, and the private school is so much closer to Bluewater than it is to here.”

“You’ve thought about this,” said Gideon when she finished.

“Of course I’ve thought about this!” she looked at him. “I’m a knowledge sim. I think about everything!”

“I guess that’s settled then,” Quinn said, feeling slightly unnerved by the ease of the whole thing. “Unless you have any objects, James?”

“Mum, do you have any idea how much wealth legacy heirs accumulate over their lives?” James asked, his eyes gleaming a little. “Of course I have no objections to this!”

“Well then it’s settled, I guess,” said Quinn. “James is my heir.”

“Great,” Gideon fidgeted a little in his chair. “Can we go now? School should be out by now, and I need to catch Todd before he goes to work so I can get his notes from today.”

It was the early hours of the morning when Ross arrived home. Although he hadn’t been too drunk to get Gilbert home and to the door, he was far from sober. As he entered his home lot, Ross spotted his old telescope and an idea filled his mind.

When he’d been much young he had been abducted. Immediately afterwards he’d rolled countless wants to get abducted again, but somehow life had gotten in the way. Now it was quiet, in the dead of night, and it had been long enough since his last abduction that he had forgotten what had happened.

Ross pulled a flashlight out and put it against the lens. A beam of light shone out of the telescope, up at the sky. Quickly he started searching the night sky for any sign of alien life. They shouldn’t be hard to find – he’d found them straight away last time, and both Todd and Amelia had been abducted by aliens too. It shouldn’t take him long to find them...

“I’m going to regret this in the morning!”

Despite wanting to get abducted, Ross gripped on tight to the telescope as he began to fly upwards. He let out a piercing scream. He did not remember it being this terrifying last time around!

His grip slipped. Ross clenched his fist tighter, his wedding ring starting to cut into his finger. But it was not good. The beam was too strong...

Ross let go, and he flew upwards, past the kids’ bedrooms. The lights were turned on as he passed them and the entire family ran to the windows just in time to see his fly past.

And the next this he knew he was falling, this time inside the ship.

Ross landed heavily on his back on a bed.

Ross winced and closed his eyes tightly as pain flared up all through his body. The bed might be comfortable, but he had been falling at the same speed he’d been sucked onto the ship with – and he was assuming that was where he was – and he’d hit his limps on the metal frame of the bed as he’d landed.

He let his body relax more a moment. The pain in his limbs vanished rapidly, but he kept his eyes closed. He didn’t remember this from his last abduction – maybe it was different because he’d had do much juice?

Ross sat up slowly. For a moment he didn’t open his eyes, he just sat then.

“You did not kill this one, did you?” a voice asked.

“WHAT?!” Ross yelled. His eyes shot open and he sat up, shuffling as far away from the others in the room as possible.

Those others were a pair of sims that were of obvious alien descent. He looked between the two of them, terrified. They both just grinned.

“Greetings, I am Xerat,” the sim with the green skin. He nodded to the other sim, the one with the alien eyes. “Feel free to ignore Missy. We have never had a sim die on us, and you certainly won’t be our first.”

Ross’ expression turned to one of confusion. He looked between the two aliens.

“What – aren’t you going to do whatever it is aliens do to sims?”

“Oh, we are not going to probe you,” the female, Missy, said.

“What?!” Ross jumped off of the bed and for a second he struggled to maintain his balance. The juice was still in his system, fuelling his sudden mood swing from fear to confusion, and now from confusion to anger. “I was at that telescope for a whole ten minutes to get abducted! I did it to get probed, and frammit! I want to get probed! Now are you going to probe me, or do I have to make you?”

“Ah, calm down. We could not probe you even if we wanted to,” Missy said. “Only the full-bloods are taught how to use the probes. My brother and me are only quarter-bloods.”

“Oh,” Ross said. His anger left him and he slumped his shoulders. Then he frowned. He looked between Missy and Xerat in confusion. “If you’re not full aliens then why do you live with them? I was under the impression that only full-blooded aliens live among them. And why was I abducted if I’m not going to get probed?”

The two siblings glanced to one another, Missy in amusement and Xerat in annoyance. Xerat sighed.

“Look, Human,” Xerat said a little harshly, taking a step forwards. “The elders have been watching your planet for centuries, millennia even. You know this. But lately something has been happening that has concerned them. Because my sister and I have a greater aptitude for simlish than our peers we were chosen to discuss this with you. So would you kindly stop wasting our time? We do not have long now before we must return you to your planet!”

“Fine, fine. You don’t have to yell!” Ross scowled at Xerat, taking a dislike to the alien. “What’ve your elders found? And why’s it so important that they’re actually telling humans about it?”

“Missy? You are better at explaining than I.”

Missy came back from where she was checking up on some chemicals in various jars. As soon as she was there to take over the conversation, Xerat turned on his heel and began examining the anatomy posters on the wall.

“I apologise for him, he is – what is the word? Stubble?”

“Stubborn,” Ross corrected with a smile.

“Yes, that,” she paused a moment and looked him straight in the eye before she began to speak.

“You might be able to tell that alien technology is more advanced than human,” Missy said, waving her metallic hand around, gesturing to the various pieces of scientific equipment. “Almost two hundred of your years ago a machine was invented that detects power output on your planet. I do not know equivalent word in simlish, but it detect unnatural forces.”

“Like witches and werewolves and vampires?”

“Yes, like those,” Missy nodded firmly. “Unless there is something big happening we do not pay attention to it.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Ross said, nodding. “The aliens developed this to prevent threats from getting too severe, right? So you wouldn’t need to pay attention to the ordinary, everyday occurrences.”

“Correct,” Missy gave him a quick smile before her face went back to it’s neutral mask. “It was created in our role as protectors, and nothing unusual has occurred until recently.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Because it had not detected one thing, plans had been put in place for the machines to be... Turned off permanently. But one years ago there was sudden spike in power. Is there anything that happened?”

“Well...” Ross frowned, thinking back. Quite a lot had happened around that time. “I don’t think it’s all that relevant, but another of my fellow founders– you know what that means, right?” he stopped, wondering if aliens were aware of what a legacy was. Missy just nodded silently. “Well, his wife walked out of him and his kids. Oh, and Quinn broke up with Gil, and a little after that he got made into a townie,” he frowned a little. “We’re not really sure how that happened.”

“But! That is not imposs – possible!” Missy said, correcting herself looking the closest she had since Ross had arrived to bemusement and anger all at once. “Sims cannot become townies! It denies – no, defies the laws of physics! Townies can become playables, but playables cannot become townies!”

“This is very much of the bad!” Missy let out a yelp and buried her head in her hands. She did not move for a while.

“What did you say to my sister?” Xerat asked and he walked away from the anatomy posters on the wall and back over to the pair of them.

“I just told her that Gil became a townie somehow, and she said something about it defying the laws of physics.”

“Oh my!” Xerat jumped a little as Missy let out a whimper. “Missy is correct, this is very much of the not good. We mu-”

Beep.

Xerat turned around and looked at a panel on the wall. He frowned.

“I am sorry. We must return you now if we wish to make it back to the home world,” Xerat sighed. “We will be informing the elders of what you have told us. They will most likely get in touch with your – legacies, is it?” Ross nodded. “Yes, with your legacies through the supernatural inhabitants that are within the vicinity of your home. But I am afraid we must leave you here.”

Missy let out a whimper. Ross looked between the two of them, frowning a little.

“What’s going on? And where is-”

“-heeeeeeeeeeere,” Ross screamed as he was suddenly falling through the air outside his home.

Ross bounced when he hit the ground – once – twice – and then he came to a stop on his knees. He winced as pain flared through his body for a moment, but just like it had done on the ship and just like it had done when he had first been abducted, it faded quickly.

“Brilliant,” he grumbled as he stood gingerly up, the spaceship still hovering overhead. “I suppose I had best let the others know.”

Charlie let out a sigh. She had arrived back at the dorms late that afternoon, and the moment she’d stepped inside the door Alice had dragged her across the road to the Romara Coffee House. Alice was determined to get engaged by the end of freshman year, and she’d heard that it the current ‘cool hang out’ on campus. They’d only been there five minutes, in fact, and Alice was already flirting with one of the boys in the coffee house.

As great as that all was though, right now Charlie didn’t want to do any of it. She’d prefer to get her term paper written then head to bed.

“Mind if I join you?”

Charlie was startled out of her thoughts as a blond man walked over to the chair next to her.

“What? Oh, sure,” Charlie said, looking up at him with a smile.

“Thanks,” he said, sitting down.

The two of them sat in silence for a few moments. Charlie tried to get back into her thoughts, but she couldn’t quite get into them again.

“I can’t say I’ve seen you around here before,” the blond man said. He paused and looked her over, the corner of his lips twitching up. “I think I’d remember someone as pretty as you coming here.”

“You can’t seriously expect a line like that to work,” Charlie said as she tried not to snicker. He shrugged.

“Maybe,” he replied, smiling shyly. “It’s true though. I come here a lot for coffee, and I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“Oh – well –” Charlie stammered, blushing a little. She didn’t have an answer for that. “I haven’t been here before. I’m a freshman, first semester as well.”

“Ah, payable?” he asked. She nodded. “Dormie.”

The two of them sat in silence for a few moments, looking one another over until he spoke again.

“Look, I don’t normally do this, but would you like to go out sometime? Maybe get some, ah,” he stopped or a moment and smiled sheepishly, “coffee?”

“So I’m going to need your number if we’re going to arrange this,” said Charlie as the two of them stood up.

“Just check to registry – all the students are in there.”

“Then I’ll need name to look up,” she said, it suddenly occurring to Charlie that the two of them hadn’t exchanged names. “I’m Charlie by the way. Charlie Stanton.”

“And I’m Goopy Raha.”

“Goopy? Really? Like-”

“Goopy Gilscarbo, I know,” Goopy rolled his eyes. “My parents were romancers. Thought I’d take after him,” Goopy paused and shrugged. “Ended up family – guess I showed them.”

Charlie and Alice weren’t the only sims out and about later than they should have been that night.

“I can’t believe I let you drive my car, Ivan,” Todd let out a groan as the two of them pulled up outside the Commandgo Emporium.

“Neither can I,” Ivan grinned as he turned the engine off and pulled the key out. “But then I don’t get why you couldn’t wait until tomorrow afternoon to go buy cell phones.”

“Simple,” Todd replied as he stepped out of the car. “Tomorrow afternoon we’ll have no chance of meeting vampires.”

Todd and Ivan headed inside. Each bought themselves a cell phone, and Ivan grabbed a handheld game and an mp3 player as well. Afterwards the two of them sat down and waited. There was a surprising number of teens out that night, far more than they had expected.

Neither of the boys knew how long they sat there for, chatting with the other teens at the Commandgo or watching the TV. It much have been at east an hour. Ivan would have sworn the time flew by, but to Todd time crawled.

Todd left out a sigh as the conversation turned to something that he had no interest in. He closed his eyes. Leaning his head back against the window, Todd listened to Ivan, Henry and a townie teen argue over whether the private or public school would win an upcoming basketball game. He might have been interested if he wasn’t waiting for something.

Then he froze. Something had changed, Someone had wandered onto the lot – someone supernatural. Maybe it was...

Todd ran out, pushing open the door and looking around. Then he saw her – grey skin, long blonde hair and wearing a dress that would be more at home in a period drama than downtown. He stood there, staring in awe for a moment.

“Hi,” was all he could manage. “You’re a vampire.”

“Well done, pretty boy,” the vampire responded. She looked him over with a calculating look on her face. “And you are... A knowledge sim. Legacy, no doubt.”

“That’s me,” Todd grinned at her. “I’m Todd.”

“Of course, I am Contessa Lilly. And... You have sibling?”

“Yeah – three. My brother’s inside. Why?”

But Contessa Lilly didn’t reply. Instead she just turned and walked inside.

Inside the Contessa stalked straight over to where the teens were. She looked between the three. After a moment of hesitation she stepped up to Ivan. Ivan stared at her, captivated by her appearance. He didn’t know what, but he couldn’t look away and didn’t want to.

“Look into my eyes, boy,” she said, her voice deep.

His eyes went unfocussed, and he felt like he was floating.

“That’s right,” Contessa Lilly said, her voice lowering to a hiss. “Come to me. There’s a good boy.”

The Contessa grabbed him. Ivan went limp in her arms, a blissful look on his face. Contessa Lilly leant in. For a second she stopped, enjoying the moment. She hadn’t turned anyone for years. Then she bit down.

Contessa Lilly pushed Ivan away. He stumbled a little. He felt... Odd. He didn’t... What was...

“How do you feel?” Contessa Lilly asked.

Ivan blinked hard, trying to concentrate. His mind felt foggy. But slowly his mind cleared and he was able to think.

“I feel – ARGH!”

Ivan fell to the floor in incredible pain. It felt like every single cell in his body was changing. He reached out with his hand, trying to grab someone, anyone, who would help it. No one did. Instead his hand changed colour rapidly, turning grey like the women who had just bit him.

“What the?”

“What did you do to my brother?

“What’s going on?”

“The boy is becoming part of the undead,” Contessa Lilly chuckled.

The townies just shrugged and went on with his business. Todd looked over Ivan and the Contessa before shrugging. Pity it wasn’t him.

“What...” Ivan looked at the Contessa over. His mind was clearer now, and he felt good – better than ever really.

“Blehh!”

“Blehh!” Ivan responded automatically, flicking his hands at her. She smirked.

“Good, your training is complete,” she said, and before Ivan could ask what she meant she turned and left without so much as looking back.

Amelia wandered onto the lot just was Contessa Lilly walked passed her. Amelia looked at her, then shrugged and walked inside. She knew that Ivan and Todd were here, and she needed to get a phone anyway, so she’d decided to meet both of them here after she finished work.

“Hey, Amelia?” she heard Ivan said. She turned and -

“Yeah, Iv-”

“BLEHH!”

“IVAN!”

“How was work?” Ivan let out a laugh, pulling Amelia into a hug.

“I hate you sometimes,” Amelia laughed after a moment, hugging him back. “You know Dad’s really not going to like this.”

“What, why?” Ivan said, pulling back a little. “He’s a knowledge sim. He’ll love this.”

“Yeah, and you got vamped before him, me or Todd. Even I’m annoyed you beat me to getting vamped!”

The next couple of days passed by rather quickly for every one in the legacies. Charlie and Alice got to know their dormmates a little better.

Charlie did end up going on a date with Goopy. It was an surreal experience, dating someone called Goopy, but she got over it quickly enough as she got to know him more.

Alice too got to know the guy she’d met at the coffee house. He was named David Sell, and during their first date the two had lost track of time. The sun set and before she realised it, Alice had transformed.

Luckily David wasn’t scared off. He’d been concerned over whether it had hurt, and then had had a lot of questions about being a werewolf. It was then that she had figured out that he was a knowledge sim.

And with Alice as a family sim, it came as no surprise to anyone that by the end of first year she had proposed and was engaged to David.

Back in Quaver Kanyon, a crime wave had hit. On the same night, half the houses in the desert had been hit up by burglars at once. Admittedly this just meant that there were two break-ins, and both of the burglars were arrested pretty sharply.

Romance also bloomed between David and a woman who worked in his shop named Sarah McCarthy. It was a relief for the two of them now that David and Mel were official broken up.

And Ross and Kaylynn managed to completely humiliate their children.

“Do you guys have to make out in the middle of the kitchen? With Mum in her underwear?”

“Yep,” Ross replied.

“It’s absolutely necessary,” Kaylynn added.

Towards the end of the year, Alice arrived back at the dorm with a huge grin on her face. She searched around the dorm for a bit, hardly able to contain her excitement until she finally found Charlie sitting alone outside.

“Hey, what you doing out here by yourself?” Alice asked as she pulled up a chair.

“Not much,” Charlie shrugged. She smiled a little. “How’d your date go? You propose like you planned?”

“What do you think?” Alice smirked and held up her hand. Her ring shone on her finger. “David accepted. And you know, I’ve been doing some thinking.”

“Really? Are you okay?,” Charlie asked with a grin. “It didn’t hurt, did it?”

“Shush you,” Alice grinned back at her old friend. “We’re near the end of the year, so I’ve been thinking about what to do about where we live.”

“I hadn’t given it much thought, really,” Charlie shrugged.

“Well I have!” Alice informed Charlie proudly. “We’ve got three options: stay in dorms with the stinky dormies,” she wrinkled her nose at that choice. It wasn’t something she wanted, nor something that Charlie wanted either judging from the identical expression on her face. “Or we could rent a smallish place, and let everyone else deal with housing themselves. Or...” she trailed off, then looked hopefully at Charlie. “We could start a Greek House for our legacies, make it party central and all that.”

“Let’s go with the Greek House.”

“Hey! Just hear me out! A Greek House could be awes – wait, what?”

“What? I have just as many outgoing points as you do, Alice. ‘Course I’m gonna go with the Greek House – do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to go to a Toga party this year?”

“That’s great!” Alice grinned broadly, gesturing so wildly her hat nearly fell of. “So...”

“So are you going to give me the details from your proposal or what?”

The following day, as Galahad Merton sat on the floor in his parent’s room, he knew it was going to be a big day. Both his big sister and his green brother had told him so – his Mummy and daddy too.

For a moment, little Galahad’s smiled faltered. He hadn’t seen his other brother, the one with hair like his and Mummy’s for a little while. The grown ups had been talking about him, but he didn’t know what they were talking about. It was some big words, and Daddy kept switching between annoyed and happy.

Still. Galahad didn’t let what was wrong with Ivan bother him. He got unsteadily to his feet and walked to the door. There were big people around he could try and get some snuggles out of – and he’d heard Mummy say ‘cake’ earlier. What was wrong with Ivan couldn’t be anywhere as important as cake.

“There you are!” Todd, still in his school uniform, swooped in and picked Galahad up the moment he entered the hallway. “Come on, little man. The guests have all arrived and somebody’s finally out of bed! Let’s go blow out your candles.”

“I heard that Todd!” Ivan called out as he descended the stairs. “Let’s just get the squirt grown up. I’m fed up of enptying his potty!”

“Well you shouldn’t have got yourself turned into a vampire then!”

Todd carried Galahad into the kitchen and stood behind the cake. He waited a moment, stopping Galahad from trying to touch the candles, while a large crowd of legacy sims gathered in a kitchen that was just a little bit too small for all 22 of them.

Galahad and Todd grinned at one another as the crowd started blowing on the noisemakers. It was time for Quaver Kanyon’s youngest to grow up a little.

The candles were blown out, and the next thing Galahad knew he was placed on the ground. For a moment he just sat there, sucking on his hand and staring around at the all too familiar view of people’s legs. Then he stood and jumped into the air.

“I’m big!” Galahad cheered.

“And wearing matching clothes! Well done!”

Galahad grinned and looked down. The clothes did indeed match, but he wasn’t so sure about them. He frowned a little as everyone went to grab cake at once.

“I’m gonna go change!” he yelled, forcing his way through the crowd in the way that only an active child can achieve.

Minutes later Galahad emerged from the bathroom, clothes changed and hair brushed. Everyone looked him over. There was no doubt about it – Galahad was cute, and he’d be breaking a lot of hearts when he got old enough.

The party continued on for several hours, but all too soon Galahad began to yawn. As all the teens left to go home and finish any homework they’re neglected, Galahad pulled Amelia upstairs and insisted on a story before their parents forced him to go to bed. Amelia was about half way through the picture book when Galahad interrupted her.

“’Melia...” he said slowly, grinning at her as she looked at him over the book.

“Yeah?”

“During the party, I heard James tell Henry that he was the heir to his family’s legacy. What’s that mean?”

“It means...” Amelia said, trailing off and biting her lip. She might be a knowledge sim, but that didn’t mean she liked explaining things, especially to kids. “Well, it means that after we graduate the heir has to move back home with their parents, get married and have kids,” she finally settled on that – it was simple enough that a kid his age should understand.

“Are we going to have an heir?”

“Erm, yes. We don’t know who it’s gonna be though.”

“Oh...” the smile faded from Galahad’s face. “I hope it’s not me. I never want to get married for have kids.”

Meanwhile, downstairs, another very different conversation was taking place.

“So is there any reason why you asked us to stay after the party?” Waylon asked, looking between Kaylynn and Ross.

“Besides to clean up,” Alice added in slyly.

“Alice!”

“What?”

“Now, now, children. Behave yourselves,” Kate smiled down the table at her husband and eldest daughter. After a moment she spoke to Ross. “So what did you want to talk to us all about?”

Ross let out a sigh. He looked out the window for a moment, up at the night sky.

“You all know I was abducted years ago, back not too long after we got these legacies,” he said quietly, though not too quietly that he wasn’t heard over the sounds of Todd and Ivan playing video games in the next room.

“Yeah, you got Todd out of it. What of it?” Waylon shrugged, then comprehension dawned on him. “You didn’t-”

“He did – he got abducted again,” Kaylynn said as evenly as she could.

She had rather conflicted feelings about alien abductions. She was a family sim, and worried so much when Ross had been abducted – Amelia and Todd too since they’re decided to follow in their father’s footsteps.

But at the same time... She had knowledge as her secondary aspiration, and knew only too well that abductions held a thrill for knowledge sims that was unmatched by virtually nothing.

“Well it’s not like a big deal,” Charlotte leaned forwards and called down the table. “Abductions are pretty common nowadays. Nothing unusual about this.”

“This time the aliens spoke to him.”

“It’s true.”

“Huh?”

Ross grimaced a little as everyone began shouting and yelling. He waited it out, and sure enough everything died down after a few minutes.

“You lot ready to listen now?” Ross’s question was met with nods. “Well, they told me... They told me something’s happening in Quaver Kanyon and the surrounding area that shouldn’t. Apparently it all started about a year ago, when Gilbert got made into a townie. They said something about it defying the laws of physics.”

“What?!” Gilbert exclaimed. “That can’t be right – I couldn’t have been able to marry Quinn if it was.”

“It’s true though. I looked into it,” said Ross. “There’s been no other documented cases of this happening – at least as far as I can tell. And they were right – it hadn’t happened before because it’s not possible. Non-playables can become playable, but to go the other way doesn’t work out.”

“What are you saying, Ross? That Gilbert did something to make himself a townie? Or what?”

“Possibly – hey! Hear me out!” Ross said. “Look, it’s possible that Gilbert did something to make himself into a townie-”

“But I don’t-”

“Remember, I know. That’s why I said it’s possible, not probable. Now, the aliens aren’t too knowledgeable about this area, but they’re going to get in touch with us via the supernaturals. We need to be on the look out for them, especially Charlie, Alice and Ivan since they’re already made contact with them.”

“So that’s all we need to do? Look out for the supernaturals?” Quinn asked after a moment.

“Yes,” Ross replied firmly. “That and make sure we’re all kept informed of what’s going on.”

“So what do you think they’re talking about?”

“Dunno,” Ivan shrugged. “Though Dad told me earlier that if any of the supernaturals want to talk to us we need to tell him and the other founders what they said.”

“Why?”

“Dunno.”

“You don’t know much, do you?”

“Well I have you for all that useless knowledge,” Ivan said then grinned over at Todd. “I do know one thing though – I kick your arse every time at SSX3!”

“We’ll see about that!”