Haven't been in the forest much at all the last week or so after I found a big hard lump on my rat's neck. I managed to get a hasty vet appointment, but the long and the short of it is the vet doesn't know WHAT it is or how its going to affect him. She sampled some of the interior tissue, and the first time she analyzed it, it came back as crystals.
Which is bizarre, because the only place you generally see crystals, as she explained to me was in urinary tracts and joints affected by gout.
So she did a SECOND sample, and this time got lymph cells, as well as white blood cells... which only really means that his immune system is attempt to fight off whatever this is, and that its affecting that particularly lymph node.

But he's still eating like a little porker, running around and behaving normally, and shows no pain response to having the lump touched, poked, prodded, squeezed and whathaveyou.

The vet put him on baytril as a sort of catch-all, in the hopes that its actually a deep-tissue abscess that will respond to the antibiotics. Surgery at this point would run about four hundred bucks, although apparently she's had some good results treating rats with tumours (cancerous) with prednisone, so we may try that.

Essentially, I'm one big ball of nerves right now; I just hope it IS an abscess, and that the antibiotics will kill the infection. *sigh* And if the gods of employment and bank balances are listening, I could really use some extra hours at work now.
Guh.

And I can't even remember what the R stands for now. *blink* But alas, this was my first truly unpleasant experience in the forest. Not only did this deer chase Grim EVERYWHERE spell-spamming, but they stood in, on, stomped, struck at and taunted Grim whenever he stopped running.
At one point, Grim was lying a distance away from this deer (well clear of any spell-sources I might add...and that was on purpose) when they started running all the way up hill to a fungus tree, then running BACK to spell-spam Grim. I spent fifteen minutes making Grim shake his head NO, bellow and finally rear in frustration, to no avail.
As a last resort, Grim left... only to have them follow. Grim laid down on the rocks at the playground, the obnoxious deer started humping him. Hid for a while around the ruins, but that didn't last long; eventually I logged out in disgust.

<-- this is my annoyed face. You can't see it, but know that it is formidable. *snicker*


If this is you, impressed, I ain't.

Did have some fun before that, playing around with a deer I don't know.


Totem pole!

Man, I really love this set. Now that Grim's finally got his look together I can post a proper introduction for him. JUST need to finish his sketch first.

I'm not sure if this has been done before, but it occurred to me while I was uploading con badge examples; would anyone be willing to trade me the skull mask spelldata for a portrait of their stag or doe? I admit I haven't drawn any deer yet other than Grim, but I'd love to take a crack at it.
Here are the two sketches I do have for examples:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o135/TheWormwood/EndlessForest/grim.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o135/TheWormwood/EndlessForest/deerma...

Cheers in advance!
~W

I've got a few questions, that I'm sure you veterans are going to giggle at a bit. *cough*
Anyway, what would cause a deer to become invisible? I know its sometimes hard to see when they've become a bat or a bird, but I moved the camera all around, and couldn't see anything but the picto and a shadow. Is this a glitch of some kind?


Has this happened to anyone else? I tried to switch all the display settings to maximum, and my poor archaic old videocard just about croaked. As a result, TEF crashed. I logged back in naturally, and fixed the settings as best I could (its still not fabulous; I have a LOT of trouble moving/clicking when there are a number of deer in frame), only to find... Grim was still there.

I crashed a SECOND time (no clue about that one), and rebooted only to watch the Grim-clone rise from the ground in a rather spooky, if nifty manner, then start running in place.

And finally, a question about masks/antlers/pelts... I think I remember reading somewhere that the skull mask, the day of the dead mask/pelt, the zombie pelt, the red 'bleedy' antlers and candle antlers were something you could only get at halloween. Is this true? My only real aspiration for Grim is a skull mask. *grin*

(And just for fun...)

Grim: Ladies and Gentledeer of the jury...

Thanks in advance!

I'm afraid I really don't know anyone's deer well enough to be able to identify them, so I thought I'd post a few recent screen caps and see if someone could give me some names to go with the faces.


Grim: Okay, here's the plan...


I'd love to know who this deer is; I had lots of fun racing through the forest with them!


Grim: So, which way d'we go?
Another deer I was having a blast playing with got turned into a bat! Grim covets those wings. *grin*
Edit: Aha! The stag-turned bat was Blackhoof. *grin* That was a blast; can't wait to do it again!


Grim: Nice antlers kid. *grin*



If you recognize anyone, don't hesitate to say so!

Finally managed to log in! For the last week I've been trying, but the login system gave me some strange parsing error. Whatever it was, seems to be cleared up now thankfully.

At any rate, my stag Grim has been meandering about the forest for going on two months now, harassing the wildlife (please Grim, stop chasing the frogs...), playing hide and seek with any number of other deer and leaping through trees. *grin*
I was pleased as punch when I finally managed to collect the entire orca set... then promptly fell in the pond. Now Grim wears whatever tickles his fancy... at least until he's collected all the pieces again.

I admit that though I've been playing on and off for almost two months now, I'm really a complete newbie to most things (I only JUST figured out how to move the camera... clever, clever me... *cough*). But this game has seriously inspired me. Since I started, my sketchbook doodles are almost invariably little human-faced deer with wild looking antlers. Once Grim gets his act together and settles on a look, I'll do a nice drawin' of him; for now all he's got is a sketch I did when he became a stag. Hope this isn't going to turn out to large!


Anyway, tis time I got a bit of shut-eye.
Look forward to seeing you all in the forest!
~W