Fraser - Further Adventures in Egypt

Welcome back to the Fraser household. Last time we visited with them Anya and Maximus took an extended vacation in China, during which Anya completed all of the tombs and notable adventures for that country. She also became the Grand Master in Martial Arts by defeating all challengers and making it to the top of the tournament circuit. After returning home, Anya finally became pregnant with their first child and later gave birth to a boy they named Beli. Maximus continued to receive promotions in his sports career and completed his LTW just before we left them. Looking forward, I plan to take Anya to Egypt so she can finish the tombs and adventures there.

First on my agenda for the Frasers was moving them to a new house that I built for them. I used blueprint mode for this one, with liberal tweaking and redecorating, and am reasonably (though not completely) happy with how it turned out.

Street view

Rear view

Basement (under garage)

Ground floor (front of house is at top)

2nd floor

3rd floor

Roof top room and patio

I gave them one day to settle into their new house and get a garden going and such after moving. Maximus had to go to work that evening and Anya finished up working in the garden before working on the board breaker for awhile to fulfill a wish she had. The next morning I had her make the call to head to Egypt for 11 days.

Anya didn't waste any time getting busy with her adventures once she arrived in Egypt. First she spent some time talking to people regarding a quest she'd started in France, and then she set about doing some more work for the locals. Sometime in the midst of doing this she completed her level 3 visa for Egypt. After checking the adventure board at camp, then talking with a few people and handing over a few bribes, she was assigned to enter a secret base. She found the entrance to it inside the household of her last contact--a stairway down opened up in the bedroom when she turned the radio on.

After finding a code stuck to the underside of the toilet handle, Anya headed downstairs and was able to unlock a series of doors to head to the next level down.

She proceeded to unlock the next two levels with a bit of trial and error. I should note here that I had to cheat a bit and look up the codes for this as I had a) cancelled out of whatever message came up when I turned off the radio, so missed that code, and b) wasn't able to read a book from the bookcase to get the code hidden there because there was nothing on it she could read--her skills are already too high. So, if you're working on this one (Black Bag Job is the name of the adventure) yourself, Google is your friend if you find yourself unable to get one or more of the clues for some reason. Just be aware that the codes apparently vary a bit so you might have to just experiment with it as well.

Finally she was able to make her way down to a hidden command center and hack into the main computer there. She collected the contents of the hard drive for her contact and then left to return to him.

The next day was spent talking with several of the locals to convince them that maybe resistance against MorcuCorp wasn't such a good idea. After that, she spent some time gathering turquoise for the relic merchant so she could produce some "relics" for the MorcuCorp representative. After telling the representative the good news about the steady shipments of "relics" he'd be receiving, she headed back to camp to get some sleep.

Anya checked the Adventure Board when she got back to camp and was able to once again obtain the mission that asked her to bring a plate of Shawarma to one of the locals (she'd had this mission before but it canceled for some reason when she returned to Egypt). She ran back to the market, but it was too late to purchase it so she went back to camp again and got some sleep. The next day she decided to head over to the Copper Mine to explore it while waiting for the time when the merchant would be selling Shawarma again (it's only sold at dinner time). Going down the stairs into the mine, she saw lots of rubble piles so she set to work clearing them.

The day passed quickly, and before she'd finished exploring the mines it was 6PM and she had to take a break to go check the market. Unfortunately the food merchant didn't have any available to purchase, so she went to a nearby friend's house to see if she could use their kitchen to prepare some herself. Her friends were agreeable, so she quickly worked some up, leaving the extra in their refrigerator for them. (Note: Some of you may remember that she'd tried this before and it didn't work because she couldn't pick it up after she made it. I researched the problem a bit more when it wasn't available at the vendor and discovered that what you have to do is make the item, put it on the counter, then Put Away Leftovers. Once it's in the refrigerator you can Open the fridge and Take All to get it into your sim's inventory.)

Upon taking the food she'd made to the Relic merchant as requested, she was given the further assignment of going into the Pyramid of the Wind to retrieve the Relic of Eternity. Instead of heading straight there she decided to go back to the Copper Mine and finish up there first, or at least to finish as much of it as she could. She made her way to the end of one tunnel to find a chasm she knew she'd have to zeneport across to get to the chests she could see on the other side. She was getting pretty tired by this time though, so she went back to the surface and pitched her tent to get some rest first.

She faced a problem after crossing, however, in that she didn't have a star keystone to open the last chest. After giving it some thought, she used some of her Escape Dust to get back to the camp quickly, then went to the market to see if the relic vendor had one. She didn't, but the Special Merchant had skeleton keystones that she figured would work just as well. After making her purchase, she headed back to open the last chest after spending time to meditate and zeneport back across the chasm.

Once again she used the Escape Dust to pop back to the base camp after collecting the sigil inside the chest. There she decided to go ahead and get some sleep before embarking on her next tomb adventure. The following morning she headed off to the Great Pyramid to find the tomb she was supposed to enter.

Anya spent some time working her way through the Pyramid, solving various puzzles, unlocking locked and secret doors, and finally made her way up to a sort of balcony area where she found a few chests, the sigil for the tomb, and a mummy! Even though she was getting pretty tired by this point, she still managed to defeat the mummy quite handily, and even was able to take a picture of it first.

Going back down to explore areas she hadn't gone to yet, she came across another mummy hidden away in a small room behind a secret door. Again, she defeated it quite easily (with maxed Athletic and Martial Arts, it's very unlikely she'll fail to defeat any mummies now).

 It took her a few days, but she finally made her way through the rest of the tomb. While nothing was particularly difficult, it did get confusing at times trying to keep straight where she'd already explored and where she needed to go back to. Finally she arrived at the last room where the chest with the relic she was seeking was located. Two mummies sprang out of their sarcophagi when she entered the room to defend the treasure. She was well rested, however, and they didn't worry her. She dealt with them quickly and then collected her loot.

At this point I took a break from playing for several months while moving to a new house, settling in, and then getting distracted with other things and other games. I'm finally attempting to finish playing this round because I'm eager to install Late Night and get moving on this again. Anyway, back to the action.

As it turns out, Anya was close to the end of her trip to Egypt. I did take her back to the board to get another adventure...twice...but ran into problems trying to complete them as they both involved having to go to people's houses who weren't home. Finally I just took her back to camp again and had her read recipe books until she got sent back home. Hopefully whenever I get back to this house and can send her back to Egypt to keep working on the tombs there she'll have better luck catching people at home. Here's a look at how my score stands at present.

As I mentioned, I'm planning on installing Late Night now. While it's true that I've only done a small portion of the Ambitions content, I feel that I've completed enough to have gotten a feel for what the EP added and I want to keep moving forward with adding things in, especially with Sims 4 right around the corner (which I may or may not get as soon as it's released -- I haven't decided yet). I'm thinking I may well move one or more of the Medina "extra" kids to Bridgeport to start up a new line (and free up space in that house). Whether that will happen for the next update or not I'm not sure yet. Until then, take care and happy Simming to all :)