Character: Dalia Vivian
Month: July
5 Lore Submissions:
Entry #16
– Sebastian! What are you doing with my diary?
This was how I woke up today! I was dreaming, imagining the leaves on the trees swaying in the morning breeze, but that were actually the pages of my diary being written and ripped out… So my beautiful dream ended when I opened my eyes to see a bunch of torn and crumpled pages scattered on the ground.
This Sebastian… I didn’t even manage to scold him properly! He was so happy that as soon as he saw me he came running and jumping like a child to show me his drawing: “Dalia, we are going to have a new home!”, he repeated excited as he gladly handed me the notebook with his drawings.
Maybe I was too hasty yesterday to convince him that if he lived with us he could have food and everything he needed every day. I know I wasn’t allowed to promise something like that, but I’m sure a thinking and speaking papoo can be well trained and will be of great use to our community.
On the way, Sebastian told me about Dr. Kylon and his experiments. I knew that papoos always aroused the curiosity of our scientists, but I never imagined that they were actually testing them. Is there anyone else who knows about Sebastian? Dr. Kylon hasn’t been with us for a while, maybe a year. Has Sebastian been alone all this time? This could explain why he seems so excited about “having a new house”.
Although his drawings aren’t exactly what we would call “a house”… well, what was I expecting from a papoo?.. he would be happy to have space and freedom… but will they really agree to make the large natural reserve that Sebastian drew and planned for him and his papoos friends?
The meeting has been running for a few hours now so we’ll probably know their decisions soon!
Entry #17
“I even drew flowers there to match with your name!” Sebastian said. Looks like he was serious about his plans for “our new home”. I don’t even know where he got that idea… although it was so sweet that he thought about me.
Of course I already have a house… I mean, it’s not a house, but I do have a place to stay… and although it is not exactly “mine” I have been staying here for a few years now. It’s not that I was bad before, but Helen was quite insistent on this point: “You’re growing up, you need privacy!”. That day if Sara and Miranda didn’t hold her, I think she would have hit Arthur on the head with her Walking Stick! Among all men, Arthur was the one who definitely didn’t have any sort of hidden motives in telling me I could stay at his house. After all, his entire heart and mind only belong to one person. But that’s a thought for another day, what matters now is that I really wish I could help Sebastian get his house too.
Oh, that’s right, Sebastian’s drawings are still here in the middle of the diary. Fortunately, the plans for the natural reserve were approved and our engineers immediately started looking for a suitable place to build it.
Meanwhile Sebastian went looking for his papoos friends to convince them to join the future reserve. “Papoo Village” is what everyone is already calling it. Everyone is excited to start construction.
Today one of the engineers came to ask me what was this house with flowers. I ended up answering that it is a sort of “community center”, “a place to hang out, have a drink together, laugh and have a lot of fun.”
– This sounds more like the description of a bar. – Jonas intervened.
– No! More than a bar, this should be a club! – Answered Ben, and as always he began to tell the stories of Earth and its famous places.
So in the end they decided that that house would be the “Carolines” in honor of a place on the old Earth!
Entry #18
How tired! No, it wasn’t just the construction of the reserve! Well, that was tiring too, but it was worth it. Or at least that’s what I thought when we finished it. The problem was the Boars!
But maybe I should start at the beginning… after all I ended up not even writing anything because I was so busy the last days… actually it was a lot of hard work, but finally everything was ready! And the grand opening was scheduled for the next day!
No one could have imagined that today, the day of the opening of the reserve, we would wake up to find the boars invading the entire area. Especially the fence suffered a lot of damage. It seems that when Sebastian came with the brown papoos from the NEO mountains in the North, they passed the Mountain Boars halfway. They started following them to the new Papoo Village and then they were attracted by the fruits planted inside the fence.
Even worse, they destroyed the entire plantation and the big boars started to spread out in the habitable zone to the west and attack people! They were so many that our soldiers could not stop them on their own. But we couldn’t stand by and watch them invade houses and destroy everything in their path. Then everyone started to join East of Crystal Bay to block the way of the boars. All those who could grabbed their weapons and the others took whatever they could use to fight the creatures: torches, sticks, canes, frying pans, etc…
It was a hard struggle, but finally the boars began to retreat… After many hours, we managed to eliminate the threat, and the remaining boars, finding themselves at a disadvantage, began to head back to the North.
Only the little Mountain Boar Piglets stayed inside the fence. And as they are not a danger to the community, we think it’s good to create some there for consumption.
The feeling of having finished a job and doing it well is great. Seeing everyone together, hanging out at Carolines and resting and talking out here around the fire. This is a priceless moment.
Well, speaking of campfire, it looks like everything is ready to start roasting, so maybe I should go help now… in the end, trying to look at things positively, I think we’re going to have big boar steaks for the whole year!
Entry #19
“What a wonderful day!” I thought to myself looking up at the bright blue sky. The sunrise, Igor’s papoo pet making noise in the morning, the waves on the beach and the wind blowing in the bamboo forest… “I really like this place!”, I smiled, looking at the fishes in the small pond.
And in an amazing way, today I didn’t feel like every day here was the same anymore.
First, I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive… I feel like I haven’t explored many things and I’m already back… I haven’t even gone far enough! “What if they don’t like my reports?” I was quite worried… After several hours of waiting, the council finally came to an agreement.
And in the end it looks like they liked it! They congratulated me on my work and asked to continue with my journey! I even got an armor and a little robot: it’s a L.A.R.A., which is supposed to help me with the data collection.
I’m ready to go again. I’m just sad to leave Sebastian like this.
“I’m going to destroy all these boars!”, was what he said angry.
The reserve was built, but in the end the boars chased away the papoos, and it was a big mess. The gray papoos ran away to the plains northeast of the reserve, near Neophyte Village. The reds returned to the Ancient Ruins, leaving only a small wave of them next to the reserve. The brown papoos seem to like more arid and rocky terrains, so they settled next to the rocks, East of Shepherds Beach.
So only the yellow papoos stayed in the North and East of the reserve, enjoying the oasis.
Even the climbing zone is empty. We’ll probably have to find another use for it.
The fence now is full of small piglets, so it has been decided that we are not going to plant the fruits there again. It was also determined that when the big blue eggs brought from the screecher grotto hatch, some of the small schechers can be raised on the fence along with the piglets.
And Sebastian got upset and went to live in an old ruin that is East of Papoo Village. Maybe with time his hate for the boars will decrease, I hope.
Entry #20
Why is everyone in this place “shoot first, ask questions later”? And he still asks me if I’m upset! Of course I’m upset! What did he want? That I thank him so much for getting me out of the mess I ended up in and for bringing me to this place? I didn’t ask him for anything! I could have made it by myself… I mean, I probably would have thought of a solution… well, maybe it wasn’t that easy… after all I’d already heard those rude men talking to each other about how they should get rid of me…
“I was so happy when I started this trip!”, I sigh.
I had no idea that those rude men from Resa would rob me. They took my stuff, put me in a tent at Resa Docks and didn’t even bother to tie me up properly, claiming that the only way I was going to get out of there would be becoming shark food.
But in a short time the silence turned into a chaos. The gentle lapping of the waters on the pier started to become stronger. “Is there a vehicle approaching?”, I thought, peeking out of the tent. But none of the Resas seemed to notice. Suddenly a burst of shots echoed, followed by screams, more shots, what sounded like engines from some kind of helicopter, and strong footsteps running along the wooden walkways… it was scary! And then the silence returned…
I waited a few minutes to gather my courage and leave the tent… and maybe I should have stayed quiet… the Resa men were… on the ground and… I don’t want to remember those images anymore…
I turned around so I wouldn’t continue to look and I came face to face with a soldier who quickly put a gun on me. I fell back and the few moments I saw the gun reload seemed to be in slow motion, and still I couldn’t move, not even say a single word.
– Eleanor? – A woman’s voice called – Stop! Are you Eleanor’s daughter?
So that’s how in the end I came with NEO to their territory.