Mouth Ejections
Mouth ejections aren’t waste. After extended periods of time spent without exposure to their masters’ body heat, full-size CURIOS® attempt to clone themselves.
(NOTE: CURIOS® belonging to CureSleeve® users will neither attempt to self-clone nor ever even ready themselves to self-clone if the CureSleeve® is used as instructed on a daily basis.)
Some signs that your CURIO® is readying to self-clone include missing patches of velvet, hiding of the face in the hands or the underarm, slowed or incomplete consumption of daily WorkPellets®, tremors, excessive scratching at the torso or legs, D-minor bleating, overpreened (occasionally bleeding) claws, glazed eyes, trembling lips, and general slackness of the face muscles (a “hangdog look”). If you discover that your CURIO® is readying to clone and don’t wish for it to clone, simply pick it up and apply body heat.
If, on the other hand, you do wish your CURIO® to clone, don’t touch it. Soon enough, it will lie prostrate and hiccup violently for as many as sixty minutes. The fit of hiccupping will be followed by a mouth ejection, which entails the ejection, by mouth, of a glossy, cream-colored sphere—a pearl—roughly twice the circumference of a typical rear ejection. The first time you witness this, with its attendant throat-grasping and self-inflicted torso-punching, it might seem as though your CURIO® is in some kind of danger. It isn’t. DO NOT INTERFERE.
After catching its breath, your CURIO® will circle the pearl a few times, then pick it up, press it between the palms of both hands, and begin once again to violently hiccup. The hiccupping will cease when your CURIO® has mouth-ejected a splash of sticky, effervescently pink fluid on the pearl, at which point your CURIO® will rapidly turn the pearl in its palms and blow air on it as if to polish it with and then dry the effervescent pink fluid. The CURIO® will repeat the cycle of hiccupping followed by fluid ejection followed by polishing/drying-off-type behavior anywhere from five to ten more times until it has produced a marble identical to the one from which your CURIO® itself once emerged.
Your CURIO® will set the marble down in a secure place. At this point, you should feel free to engage with your CURIO® as you normally would. You’ll note that it looks a bit depleted, and you might want to give it an extra WorkPellet®, but shouldn’t feel obligated to do so. If you want to avoid its automatic deactivation, however, you should apply body heat to it.
If you’d like the marble to hatch, all you need to do is follow the steps described above, in the section entitled ENERGIZING YOUR CURIO’S® AUTOCONSTRUCTION.
If you don’t care to energize the autoconstruction of another CURIO®, simply apply body heat to your CURIO® so it can’t see what you’re doing, and dispose of the marble (or store it at room temperature for later). Thereafter, your CURIO will continue, same as always, to behave like a lifelike friend that believes it’s your pet®!
Raising Clones
Normal clones coexist without difficulty. They exercise together, exchange body heat, acquire one another’s skills, and share their quarters (NOTE: a PillowNest® can safely sleep up to four CURIOS®; a CureSleeve®/SlumberHardTube® can safely abide/sleep two). The company and body heat of a CURIO® are no substitute, however, for the company and body heat of a human master. Every CURIO® needs access to its master’s body heat in order to function.
Hobunks
Sometimes a pink or purple hobunk will emerge from the marble of a self-cloning CURIO®. Hobunks possess the same physical traits as the CURIOS® that self-cloned them, but once out of their nascence, they will behave aggressively toward other hobunks and CURIOS® they encounter. This aggression can manifest as violence, which can lead to the injury and, potentially, the deactivation of those they attack. Of the two kinds of hobunks, purples are the more violent, and are far more likely than pinks to deactivate others.
Pink hobunks emerge from pink marbles, which are produced by CURIOS® with a history of being prevented from self-cloning prior to the pearling portion of the mouth-ejection phase (i.e. just before or during the initial hiccupping), as well as by CURIOS® attempting to self-clone during nascence (i.e. fewer than three weeks after emerging). Because pink hobunks emerge from pink marbles, it is impossible to identify them as hobunks prior to their emergence. The clones of pink hobunks may be pink hobunks, purple hobunks, or standard CURIOS®.
Purple hobunks, on the other hand, emerge only from purple marbles, which are easy to identify (and to cull, if you wish to cull them). Purple marbles are only ever produced by CURIOS® that were, prior to emergence, kept in contact with their masters’ body heat for more than 24 hours after their marbles had begun to show bright colors. Purple hobunks cannot self-clone. When deprived of its master’s body heat for long enough, a purple hobunk will behave as other CURIOS® and hobunks do when readying to self-clone, but instead of producing a mouth ejection once the hiccupping begins, it will automatically deactivate.
Illness
CURIOS® are impervious to most illnesses from which human beings suffer, including the common cold. Psittacosis (often carried by pigeons), however, can cause SECRT® malfunction, leading, in some cases, to scaly skin and misshapen, though firm, rear ejections, and, eventually, deactivation. If your CURIO® shows signs of infection, be sure to wash your hands with soap after any contact and take it to the nearest CURIO®-certified veterinarian.
(NOTE: sneezing is not a sign of illness in CURIOS®, so if yours starts sneezing, don’t be alarmed.)
Deactivation
In the case of your CURIO’S® deactivation, please refer to your state and local laws for instructions on how to dispose of it.
PerFormulae®
Graham&Swords Corporation offers two lines of PerFormulae®—GameChanger® and PlayChanger® (sold separately).
Use the GameChanger line of PerFormulae® to produce clones with novel physical features. Simply add the contents of the ampule to your CURIO’S® water container and, 24–30 hours later, induce self-cloning. Your CURIO® will then produce a marble with randomly distributed patches of color (the color of the patches depends on the kind of GameChanger PerFormula® you purchased) showing through the casing. Energize the clone’s autoconstruction the same way you would any other CURIO’S® and watch it grow into a whole nother thing®. Effects of some GameChanger PerFormulae®, such as SwimHands® and RooLegs® will be apparent as soon as the CURIO® emerges, but you won’t be able to see the effects of some others—e.g. Chunker®, MegaChunker®, Dwarfer®, and PinnochiNose®—until your CURIO® reaches full size. There are even a couple of newly developed types of GameChanger PerFormulae®—Fanger® and FiveHead®—that don’t enhance your CURIO® til a few weeks AFTER it has reached full size.