It was so easy. It was even fun.

Forest’s first prey offered no resistance at all. All Forest had to do was strike up a conversation and gaze into his eyes. Soon, he was reaching out, as if unconsciously, to stroke his fingers.

Ace Wilde poured his soul out to Forest while his wife was getting a makeover at the salon.

He was delicious.

As far as Forest knew, Ace’s wife never found out.

After that, Forest did get a makeover. Something he thought was more suitable to his ascendant position in the underworld.

He also rearranged his bedroom. He tried not to be too conspicuous in moving around the new equipment while his family could watch. Fortunately, they never ventured into his room.

Being a creature of the night had entirely different comfort requirements.

He also enjoyed the extra strength and endurance the new form granted him. It compensated for the uncomfortable feeling of his skin burning if he stepped outside during daylight. It was a good thing he did most of his work at night anyway.

Hunting was fun, but he really didn’t need to do it all that often. Some of Hunter’s exotic produce quenched his thirst in a pinch. It was interesting that something so entirely vegetable could taste so much like blood.

Forest couldn’t let that happen when his family could be caught in the crossfire.

It was time to do something before Flynn could act next.

———-

I’ve been playing sine 2009, and I NEVER had a burglar in any game I played. Then the Samples had three in succession — like one every other night. (The pics of the first two were lost, of course.) That certainly seemed like a signal that Flynn was mustering his forces.

Of course, with this family, it was a race to see who would beat up the burglar first.

Reinstall update: I spent like three hours yesterday evening copying to the new Windows partition and updating my mods. After all my fretting about the installers for my custom worlds, they were exactly where I would have put them if I’d remembered I put them someplace ;). I loaded up and confirmed that the Samples are OK. Woot!

I do seem to have lost the folder I was keeping my user interface captures in. That just means that I don’t have much material for Simantics, and I may be missing some zingers for the Wonderlands. Considering that I’m restoring after a full system wipe, I’ll take it.