I portrayed the younger versions of the sages, among them Cael Reyes, Ethren Reyes' nephew. Cael held a position as one of the sages until his untimely passing, whereupon Simeon Silversweater seamlessly stepped into his place. But, well... I'll always be stuck in this era (>•̀)
C R E A T O R S
Morgyn Ember
@clumsyalienn @missrubybird @bluerose-sims @ashwwa x @ashwwa @madlensims @pralinesims @goppolsme
L. Faba
@valley-tulya @ddarkstonee @remussims x I x @blahberry-pancake @aladdin-the-simmer @arethabee @feralpoodles @helgatisha @sims3melancholic @goppolsme @simandy
Cael Reyes
@brunchystuff @simbience @saruin @ellone-andreea @jius-sims @mmatteog @ellone-andreea @cloutbait @okruee @goppolsme
Sims In Bloom: Generation 3 Pt. 43 (The Power of the Necklace)
Anyone who thought Nancy Landgraab's warning could stop Raven Ouellette from pursuing what he wanted didn't know Raven very well. He hadn't managed to survive this long, on his own, by lacking guile - or audacity!
The double wedding hadn't even started before Raven found Katrina and Dexter Goth alone at the edge of the park. Again. And this time he tried a more generous approach.
"If you give the necklace to me - where it belongs - I will give you a protection spell to keep your entire family safe. Only magic as powerful as mine could protect your husband and son."
Dexter rolled his eyes in disgust. "Protection from who? You?"
"I'm not the only spellcaster who'd love to get their hands on that necklace," he warned.
"You're the only one threatening us for it, but you can't have it," insisted Katrina. "I don't know near enough about my parents, my past, or my abilities, but I've learned enough to know protection spells don't work in a vacuum. If I use a spell to protect my husband and son, it will put someone else in danger and it'll be totally random. Life and death is a balance, and saving one with magic doesn't mean death doesn't still need a body."
"Most people consider their loved ones important enough-"
"If I could guarantee the body would be you, I'd take the spell in a heartbeat. My parents died keeping you from this necklace and I don't know why, but the reason must matter. I'll never betray their memories by just handing it over without a fight."
"Then you better hope you're ready for one," Raven sneered. "Destruction is inevitable if you refuse to let it go."
Katrina's co-worker, Evan Steel, found them in the park before Ari and Lou's wedding ceremony. "There you are," he said, glancing curiously from his boyfriend to Katrina and her husband. "What's going on, here? If Nancy sees you with them again, she'll make trouble for you, and for me with the company."
"He was just leaving," Dexter said, turning away from both men to comfort his shaking wife. Though she'd tried to show Raven she wouldn't be intimidated, she left the wedding more fearful than ever for the fates of her husband and son.
On leave from the company in her third trimester, she kept up her practice with a carved Selvadoradian bone wand Dexter bought for their anniversary. She still felt dismal with it because she was so inconsistent.
She could rarely control her magic and she was usually too afraid to push it, but Dexter believed in her, and she used that to fuel her when she felt like the most hopeless spellcaster in existence.
She focused on practical magic because it seemed the least likely to backfire at the end of her wand - helpful household spells to keep Goth Mansion in fine shape - but she couldn't even master repairio.
They entertained an impromptu visit from Dexter's older brother, Alexander, who'd left the Bay for a few days to reconnect with his family - but he mostly wanted to talk to his father, Mortimer.
With his divorce, Alex broke a promise to himself - a promise to have a more successful marriage than his parents. Now, he faced the prospect of breaking the second. "If I move out to let Lydia stay in the house with the kids, I'm doing what you did when you and mom split up. I barely saw you for my entire teen years."
"I made mistakes," Mortimer admitted, carrying his baking to the stove. "I should have fought harder to stay closer to you kids, but your mother and I probably found peace with each other a lot faster because we weren't in each other's face like a screaming target all the time."
Alex nodded with understanding as Mortimer continued. "And this is just an observation, but you're still wearing your wedding ring. You finalized the divorce, still live under the same roof, and you haven't taken off the ring. You're not letting yourselves move on, and if you don't do that, you'll never get past being angry with each other."
Alexander knew his father was wise enough to learn from his mistakes, and he knew he'd come all this way for his advice for good reason.
"Mom thinks I should take a sabbatical from the mayor's office and go travelling. 'If Lydia can turn a week into a month at a wellness retreat, you can go out looking for what you're missing.' She said she'd watch the kids, and Hazel Nesbitt-Romeo wants the mayor's job as soon as I'm done with it, but my marriage fell apart because I know how important my job is. I can't just take a sabbatical to find myself at 45!"
"And why not? You've got people to help you keep all your plates in the air, so why not accept their offer?"
Alex took his words to heart, but he was back in Brindleton Bay by the time Katrina gave birth to a healthy son. Grateful and relieved at his safe delivery, she and Dexter named him Atticus Goth, after her father.
The new parents doted on him day and night, with Dexter happy to take late-night feedings if his wife was especially exhausted from practicing magic and caring for a newborn all day while he worked.
Mortimer could look upon his youngest son with pride. He'd missed a lot of Dexter's upbringing thanks to the divorce, but Bella had raised a fine young man and doting father.
While the men watched over baby Atticus upstairs, Katrina busily practiced her magic in the foyer.
But she was so focused on the end of her wand, she didn't notice a figure let themselves in until they spoke. "Nice wand work, but your stance is a little off. You'll get more power if you line your toes up with your fingers."
Katrina jumped as she registered the redhead in her grand foyer. "Ari?! What are you doing here?"
"Lou's having a Full Moon visit with his family and new baby sister in Moonwood Mill and Lando's spending all his free time with Miriam the wedding stylist, so I thought I'd come out here to see you. We should be better friends."
"How did you get in?"
"I could hear you practicing from outside, and the locks on old houses are pretty destructible if you know the right spells."
Katrina gaped. "You're a spellcaster?"
"I didn't know you were a spellcaster, either - until Lando caught you trying a cleaning spell in the studio showers. I was surprised at first, because I thought I could tell a spellcaster from a mile away thanks to my training...but once I started watching you, I realized you don't have any training."
Katrina frowned. "I'm that obvious?"
"It's not a bad thing. If you didn't have any mentors to help you hone your skills growing up, I'd be more surprised if you were actually any good."
"My parents were spellcasters in Selvadorada, but they died when I was four."
"Was it over that necklace you wore at the wedding? The one Evan's boyfriend was so interested in?"
"Evan's boyfriend? That's Raven. He thinks the necklace is his."
"Nancy might know who Raven's parents are, but she doesn't know...he can never have that necklace."
"That much I know," said Katrina. "But I don't know why."
"Because he'll use it to destroy the Magic Realm, and claim all of its power from every spellcaster on both sides of the portal gates."
"How could a necklace destroy the whole Magic Realm? How do you even know this?"
"Every spellcaster mentored in the Magic Realm knows the legend of the Ravengraab diamond. That's what we called it, anyway, even though no one had ever seen it. Even the ancient, immortal spellcasters claimed they didn't know if it was real. But according to the legend, Admiral Landgraab bought the diamond off a mysterious broker without realizing its potential. Once the diamond was set into a necklace and given to Lady Ravendancer herself, it became infused with magic so strong, in the wrong hands it could destroy the whole Realm."
"Hands like Raven's," acknowledged Katrina.
"After Lady Ravendancer's death, she was buried with the necklace," Ari continued. "Someone unearthed it - probably Raven - until he lost a duel and had to hide back in time to avoid the bounty on his head. The necklace couldn't be destroyed for fear it would backfire and destroy the Realm anyway, so it was buried deep in the Selvadoradian jungle. When someone unearthed a diamond necklace and handed it to the museum, sorcerers allegedly descended on Selva to protect it."
"They must've asked my parents to protect it, because Raven killed them over it."
Ari frowned. "I'm sorry. But it sounds like the necklace's power is still there if it found you, instead, now that your parents are gone."
Katrina pieced together Ari's story and started to sweat. "So you're saying I'm supposed to protect the necklace and the Realm now that my parents can't, even though I can't even come up with a spell to fix a toilet? I don't feel anything magical when I wear the necklace."
"I can mentor you, if you want. I'm not the greatest spellcaster in the world and I'm not saying I could help figure out what to do about the necklace, but maybe we could help each other train. I don't have anyone else here to help me keep my skills up."
"You'd do that for me?"
"Of course I would. For the ballet company and the Magic Realm, I don't want you defending the necklace on your own."
"What about the necklace?"
The women were interrupted when Dexter came down the stairs, and Katrina relayed what Ari had told her. "I could train her a few hours a week if you don't mind me taking her to the Realm for some of it."
"If you promise you can keep her safe, I'd never say no," he insisted.
So Ari began training with Katrina a few days a week. Their duels in the arena were pretty one-sided, but each time, Katrina showed progress. With Ari's help, she became a neophyte and finally perfected repairio.
With luck and a lot more practice, Katrina hoped she could carry out her parents' mission to protect the necklace and the Realm - without sacrificing the health of her husband and son. ->
<- Previous Chapter | Gen 3 Start
Gen 1 Start | Gen 1 Summary
Gen 2 Start | Gen 2.1 Summary | Gen 2.2 Summary | Gen 2 Finale
Ari Nymph and her brother Lando are by @hashimasims. I said I wasn't sure whether Ari being a spellcaster would be a plot point, but I knew Katrina needed someone to help her with magic. And Ari having someone to help her keep up her skills feels like a great partnership in the making.
I drew these earlier this week but forgot to post them here so they still count as 2025 lol
Borrowed some OCs cause I felt like drawing some clothes but it turned out I also wanted to design tattoos so it turned into a paper doll treatment after I went a little hard on the tattoos oops! Still had fun tho Now that it's 2026, I need to shift my focus back onto my comic cause I took a bit longer of a break than I intended.
