Jonah Attaway was sick of it all.It was always about Kylie.
Kylie got to follow her dreams.
Kylie was a firefighter.
Kylie saved lives and was loved by the whole town. But what about Jonah? Sitting around at home changing diapers and watering vegetables.
Now, he loved his family, and they loved him back, but he had dreams too. Didn't he deserve adventure?
One day, her expressed his concerns over the breakfast table.
"It's just not
enough, you know?" Jonah said through a mouthful of sandwich.
Kylie and Zachary pretended they didn't notice his horrible table manners.
"Well, we do have some spare cash now.... Why don't you take a trip? You know, for a change of scenery?" Kylie suggested.
"You could go to China! We were just learning about that in school, did you know there's a whole bunch of hidden tombs and dungeons there?! You could be a great explorer and find treasure and and-"
"I don't know about
China... a trip to my cousins Moonlight Falls will probably do..." Jonah said, cutting off Zachary's babbling.
"Oh, nonsense. I saw that look on your face. Jonah Attaway, you're going to China for a weekend and that's that." Kylie said.
"Are you sure? I mean, it is expensive... And who will look after the garden? And the rest of the house, for that matter?"
"I can do it! I can do it!!" Zachary volunteered.
"
I'll handle the garden. Jonah, just
go. It's just for a weekend. Besides, if money's a problem, why don't you take Zachie's advice and look for some tombs or something? I'm sure if they're full of treasure you can earn back the money it cost for the trip. And if not, it really isn't such a big deal."
Jonah thought about it for a while. Jonah Attaway the tomb raider. He liked the sound of that.
"Alright, I'll go then."
"Bring back souvenirs!!" Zachary said, gathering the plates from the table.
And so Jonah called the travel services and booked a trip. To his surprise, they had a spare seat on the next flight and an available room in Shang Simla, so he called a taxi and left immediately - without even packing.
It wasn't until he was already long gone that Kylie and Zachary realized that he'd actually left already.
That.... wasn't quite what Kylie meant, but oh well. Whatever worked.
Soon enough, Jonah arrived in China. He didn't even stop to check out base camp before immediately hopping on a rented bicycle (that just spawned into existence, somehow) and heading to the first landmark he could find.
It was certainly impressive. Jonah'd have to show his family some pictures when he got home.
But for now... what was the point of that footprint-thing? It just screamed 'out of place'.
The most sensible thing to do, Jonah decided, would be to stand on it.
The plate depressed under Jonah's weight, and a click resounded. Suddenly, a hole opened in the floor, revealing a staircase!
Huh. Maybe he really could do this adventurer thing.
Jonah was surprised to find that the torch was lit. Had someone been here recently? If so.. why was the door locked?
It was then that he noticed the panel in the wall, with a key-shaped indent. That was most likely the way to unlock the door.
Luckily for him, he
had a key-shaped stone. He wasn't sure how he got it, really - he took a nap on the flight, and then when he woke up again, it was laying in his lap. He brought it with him for no real reason, really.
Jonah lifted the stone and fitted it into the indent, and suddenly a bright blue light came from the panel, dazzling him. When he recovered, he realised - the chains were off the door! When did that happen?
The first thing he was when he opened the door was a shining pile of coins. Treasure! Jonah immediately picked it up, without thinking about the fact that maybe it wasn't his to take.
Finders keepers, losers weepers.
Next up - that plate on the floor. For a moment, Jonah thought it was another footplate - but when he stood on it, it didn't depress very much. Perhaps he needed more weight? His eyes glanced across the room for something he could use, immediately landing on the large statue.
It was about as heavy as Jonah had expected - very.
He hadn't even moved it all the way over the plate when he heard a satisfying click. He wasn't entirely sure how having half of the statue on the plate was more effective than him standing on it, but he was willing to brush it off. More importantly, the door was open! Ignoring the holographic yellow arrows, Jonah headed through the door.
(I was hoping the yellow arrows wouldn't stick around in the screenshot, since my cursor doesn't. I was unfortunately mistaken.)
The next room was basically the same thing, only with two plates and no free gold.
The great Jonah Attaway wasn't swayed by such a simple puzzle.
The next room was crowded with about half a dozen of the exact same statues, and the faint crackle of what sounded like electricity. Seems like whoever build this dungeon didn't have much creativity. Either that, or someone really liked this design.
He was going to have a backache after all of this.
Shifting the statue seemed to turn off the electrical trap hidden behind them. With those out of the way, Jonah had a clear path to...
More strenuous chores! Yay!
Clearing the pile of rubble revealed another footplate, but stepping on it didn't open the door to his left like he'd assumed. Instead, a section of wall opened up to admit him!
It was just like in the movies he saw as a kid.
Like every good explorer, Jonah beelined for the treasure chest.
(It's been a couple weeks since I took these screenshots, and I didn't keep track of what I found where, so I can't tell you what I found in the chest. A full list of treasure is at the end of the update, if you're interested.)
More statue pushing, more holographic arrows, more treasure.
There were some nice looking ancient pots laying around too. Jonah was tempted to take a couple of them home too, but they were already cracked, and Jonah didn't want to be responsible for breaking priceless ancient pottery.
Besides, there was a magnifying glass sitting next to one of them. Someone was probably researching them or something.
Probably the same guy who was lighting all of these torches, too. Hopefully they didn't mind him taking the gold and the treasure...
There was nothing else to look at behind the secret door, so Jonah headed back. That was when he noticed a little hole in the wall...
So of course, he shoved his hand in it. Nothing bad could possibly come from that.
Except maybe bugs and horrible clipping. That was always a risk.
"I am definitely replacing this shirt when I get home.." Jonah muttered to himself, before reaching back into the hole and flipping a hidden switch, unlocking the door.
Of course, he headed through.
The first thing he saw was a large pool of water. In fact, aside from a locked door... that was the only thing in the room. Deciding that it was worth looking at, Jonah headed to the edge of the water for a closer look.
But standing on the edge turned out to be a bad idea - it was slippery, and with the help of a very strange slip, Jonah managed to fall head first into the pool.
It was a lot deeper than he had anticipated and he was having trouble finding his way to the top. For a horrible moment, Jonah thought he was going to drown.
But eventually, he surfaced again.
Upon looking around though, Jonah realised that he wasn't even in the same room anymore! Was that a hidden tunnel, then?
The room was empty except for a chest containing a keystone, so of course poor old Jonah had to dive again. This time, he found his way back considerably easier and immediately inserted the star-shaped keystone into the panel on the wall.
The same blue light enveloped his vision, and before he knew it, the door was open.
And beyond the door was yet another room - but this time, it was just three chests, out in the open, and a simple footplate. No more pushing statues and swimming in wells - just loot!
His next course of action should be obvious by now.
And before he knew it, it was over. He was back at the beginning.
Jonah felt disappointed. Sure, it was tough work, but he felt
important. No longer was he simply Jonah the house-husband that nobody gave a second glance - he was Jonah the great explorer!
But all good things come to an end, and this was no exception.
At the end of the day, Jonah was fairly glad to be back at base camp - but did they really need so many stairs?
And thus ended a long day of work. He couldn't wait to get back home to his family and tell them all about his adventure. But first, he still had another couple of days left....
-----
I've played pretty far ahead from where I am with actual updates so far, so maybe expect a few quick updates while I catch up. Playing the game is more fun than typing :P
I didn't want to make this update too long, so I cut out the second dungeon. I'm not going to put it in another update for fear of getting repetitive, but
here is an Imgur album with all of the screenshots from it. I didn't get to go all the way through, but there's still quite a lot, so warning in advance.
I don't have any other spare screenshots for you guys, since Jonah was the only one doing anything in this update. I hope it was enjoyable anyway!
Total loot:
Five lapis lazuli in different cuts
One oval cut tanzanite
Five uncut platinum
Two uncut silver
One silver ingot
One uncut diamond
One uncut quartz
Three money bags of varying worth
The Chinese symbol of The Halls of the Lost Army
Two other Chinese relics
One dive well fragment
A whole load of dry food of varying quality
I earned several thousand simoleons from all of this.
