Through the Wardrobe

We have finally been to HI2's Narner Isle! We have known about its existence for a while (thanks to seeing our buddy Pinto's location show up as "Narner Isle" once), but we hadn't yet been there. We were waiting so that the anticipation could build a bit - and so that when we finally did visit, we'd have a better chance of having the isle to ourselves.

Our fairly new HI2 buddy Gem (we met her thanks to this blog =)) suggested we go to Narner Isle together. The timing was right one night last week, when I was playing Pepsi. My lucky mount for the mini-adventure was Quasar, my Missouri Fox Trotter stallion. He just happened to coordinate quite well with the mare Gem was riding, Reef the Canadian Horse.



Gem had already completed the first part of the quest that is necessary to get to Narner, so she hung out in the Angled tack shop while I made blueberry muffins (thanks to Esroh Legends, I knew we'd need them) and talked to the necessary NPC's.

The premise of the quest is that a package for ProfLongStorySon (that name's a mouthful!) ended up getting delivered to the wrong person. This person, ProfEuclidean, put it in her wardrobe. Once I was ready to search the wardrobe, Gem and I met back up.

Narner, here we come!

Our horses also magically appeared under us. All four of us awkwardly overlapped. =)

So this is Narner! Half snowscape, half meadow/forest. Quite appropriate, I'd say! Once we'd disentangled ourselves from each other, we talked to the NPC waiting to greet us.

MrHummus? XD So clever of you, HI2!

We gave him the muffins in exchange for the package for ProfLongStorySon. Gem also commented on the butterflies. Butterflies?

No, she had not lost her mind. I just had my special effects turned off. Once I switched them on, voila! This led to some interesting screenshots.

Once the horses had grown somewhat used to the swarming butterflies, we explored the unfrozen half of Narner as well. In the little forest, we met MrMagician.

Quite the NPC, isn't he? Gem said something about him being involved in a quest, but he didn't seem inclined to tell us about it. His cabin was also locked. I checked.

We meandered around the isle for a little while, me mostly checking for wild horses and pirate treasures. None to be found. 

It was time to wrap it up. The butterflies were really starting to get to Reef.  

Gem led us behind an ice block near where first appeared, we got out our magnifying glasses, and then...

Erm, hi. XD

Gem had to log off then, but I figured I might as well finish the quest and find out what was in the package.

Yum, chocolate chip!

Pepsi has been back to Narner twice since that first visit with Gem. I went again with Umber the following day to see if horses could be fluted on Narner. Nope. I just got that lame message about wild horses not naturally occurring on the isle. (Come on, HI2, Narnia had plenty of horses on it!) But it was worth the trip: I found a pirate treasure and a pot of gold! I also discovered that the butterflies aren't always swarming. Sometimes fog rolls through Narner instead!

Julie and Teddy visited Narner this morning. The butterflies were back, and they found two more pirate treasures on the beach.

Does it tickle, Teddy? XD

I wonder if any other sorts of "weather" occur on Narner. We'll have to visit a few more times to find out!

Valentine's Day Newfie

The word cloudberry was accepted into the HI2 dictionary! :^D



This guy can become "Cloudberry" after all if Bethany so chooses. Good job submitting it, Felicity!

But the story doesn't end there. The very next day, Valentine's Day itself, Felicity and I (I was playing; she was watching) found another high-stat equine in the livery. She was surrendered there by the same player who surrendered the Dole the day before.

We felt a little sorry for her. It seemed like a shame for such a nice little mare to be there ownerless on Valentine's Day, especially one who was so antisocial. (She probably really disliked being stuck in the barn with so many other strange horses!)

We waited to see if any one else would adopt her. 20 minutes later, nobody had. So, before we had to log off, I adopted her. I don't know if we'll keep her permanently or just keep her until she can be ridden bareback, but for now she seems content enough. (Our ranch may be home to many horses, but she can lay low in her quiet box or find a secluded stretch of beach or grass whenever she feels the need.)

Dark dun is an interesting horse color. On HI2's Newfies, it looks like dark bay - you can't really see any leg barring or dorsal striping in the artwork. The only thing to tip you off that she's dun is her dark face. 

the dark dun Newfie's face

a dark bay Newfie face

Her avatar looks dark bay too. 



The other odd thing about Newfies is that their face markings aren't very accurate. This mare's "star" looks way more like an adjoined stripe and snip to me!

Vinca, who also has a "star" according to her Gen markings list, has a marking that looks like a stripe. And it's not even consistent with the dark dun Newfie's marking. Weird.

Vinca, Felicity's Newfie

Today there were a few moments when I thought the herd might expand yet again. When I logged on to take the two screenshots above, I happened to notice this "unicorn" in the auctions. 

A dude with a flower? XD At least it's red.

He was going for something like $6.3k to the foreign bidder. With less than a minute left in the auction, still nobody else had bid. I went for it with a $7k bid, but this time it wasn't meant to be. A bidding war ensued between two other players. To my amazement, the <1 minute seemed to reset back to 1 minute every time a bid was placed. I never have realized this was a thing before! Theoretically auctions could go on for ages like this. No wonder that final "minute" seems to drag on so long. Last I saw before he disappeared, the horse's price had shot up to $100k. He is a really cool Paint. It was probably a waste of time to worry about him going to the foreign bidder, but you never know, right? Just ask Onyx, Jenga, and Quincy. <3

Chocolates and Fruit

Hooray for black chestnut Calabrese stallions! I fluted another one this morning while riding Cascade. This one was a sabino like Galileo, hence I switched to Galileo for the screenshots. 

Before I could take the first screenshot, the horse moved behind the apple tree.


When he finally moved away from the tree, he wouldn't face the camera...


....and then he moved back behind it. -_-

As you can see on the mini map (if you look closely, anyway), another player appeared on the isle right then and promptly rode in our direction. Out of time to get the clear, front-facing shot of the wild I was after, I captured the big stinker. When I'd finished, that player was looming right by us, so it's a good thing I caught him when I did. Here he is up close:



Aw, he sure does remind me of Galileo! He's an inch taller, though, and he has birdcatcher spots rather than the roany flank thing Galileo has going on.

Galileo

What's funny is that I'm pretty sure it was the same player (the one who invaded our personal space) who bought the wild in the auctions a few minutes later. I guess he/she really wanted him! 

After I'd put the Calabrese and another wild horse in the NarrowTon auction house, I decided to check out the livery horses. (Why not as long as I was so close, right?) I clicked merrily along, and in the midst of the D's, I found this guy!




Let me be clear - since he wasn't over +80 in his stats, I did not impulsively snatch him up, okay? First I rode Cascade up to the NarrowTon library to see what I thought of the dapple gray Dole avatar. It was a nice slate gray with white dapples - different from the avatars of any of our other dapple grays. Then I rode back down to the livery. He was still there. 

Okay, I told myself. Look through the rest of the horses. If he's still there when you're done, then maybe...

I did. He was still there. 

Since I already have my first dozen stallions, I knew I didn't have much of a chance at convincing my sisters I should keep him myself. So, I called Bethany over. She was still looking for her 12th stallion, after all. She'd also decided to keep the dun Norwegian Coldblood Trotter mare she caught, so I knew she liked Norwegian horses.

It worked. She adopted him! Here she is riding him for the first time:



Lily was not thrilled when she found out, since he is only +75, and since we already had a Dole in the herd (my beautiful mare, Tang). Luckily, she's on board with Bethany keeping him as long as Bethany doesn't find a wild stallion she likes better by the end of February. 

It may be a bit early to be thinking of names, but I couldn't help myself. Since Dole horses make me think of fruit, I suggested that Bethany name him Cloudberry. Even though he's gray, not the yellow-orange color of the berry, most people wouldn't know that, and it sounds nice. He'd look good in yellow or orange tack. Sadly, even though the cloudberry is a real fruit, the word is not in the HI2 dictionary. We could try to get it added, but you never know if that's going to work or not. Bethany says she'll think about it. =^)

cloudberries

I'm not a big Valentine's Day fan, but it does seem appropriate that we'd find a "dark chocolate" horse and a "fruity" horse during Valentine's Day weekend...

See Ya, Handsome

Zephyr and I took a refreshing trip to the mountains a while back, and I've finally gotten around to writing about it. Our buddy Pinto tipped us off to some wild horses she'd come across there, so off we went. One Crater Mountain ledge had two horses hanging out on it! The dun was a Kaimanawa stallion, and the grullo was a Kiger Mustang stallion, in case you're curious. 

I caught the dun first. =)

Then the grullo impressed us with his levitating skills.
Zephyr only managed it with one hoof. XD

Next time I logged on, there we were: still in the mountains. So, Flora and I did some mining. Unfortunately, we maxed out our quartz allotment - even after crafting as many quartz necklaces as our sewing points would allow. It seems so wasteful when that happens: the extra quartzes just disappear into thin air.

We found a couple more wild horses as well. The most amusing one was this well-camouflaged steel gray Tersky mare.

Oh no! Her tail is stuck!

Julie and Fort took over once Flora and I navigated our way out of the mountains. Back on Plains, where they auctioned off the mountain isle wilds, they came across some players whose names made us smile.

ChubbyStarfish, ShinySquirrel, and my personal favorite, BlandApricot? =) Well done, fellow HI2 players! 

In the auction house, Julie also found a 5/6 Hanoverian stallion going for less than livery price. It seemed like a shame for him to disappear from the game. And, well... 

That <1 minute sure seems to take forever. Julie figured somebody would outbid her, but nobody did. Mr. Hanoverian and his pigeon buddy were ours.

As much as we would love a Hanoverian in the herd, we decided that this one wasn't the one. His stats were excellent but not over +80, which is the minimum we generally look for in non-6/6 horses. We'd have been tempted to make an exception (ha ha, we've made lots of them...) if his avatar wasn't so similar to Burgundy's.

the Hanoverian

Burgundy

After giving him a fond farewell, we surrendered him in the livery. We hope he was adopted by somebody who appreciates him! The pigeon stayed with us, though. We're not sure which horse to give him to yet. <3