Spinning Spiders and an Epic Treasure Hunt

The lack of time-consuming special events on Star Stable has led us to do more questing than we've done in a while.

We continued the "figure out what's wrong with Alberta the giant spider" quest. The local veterinarian sent us to a giant hole in the ground called The Cauldron to pick fruit pods from lobster claw plants to feed to Alberta. We wandered around for quite some time before finding The Cauldron. Then we walked off a few steep cliffs as we tried to make our way down it, but eventually, we made it to the bottom and to the lobster claw plants.

Yeah, it was bad! We were chased by giant spiders all the way out of The Cauldron and beyond. It took us several re-dos before we successfully escaped, but we got there in the end. 

Not a fun day to be Riverrock! He sure had a good story to tell the other horses when he got back, though!

The cause of Alberta's erratic behavior became clear: she would soon be laying eggs! Her pet parent, Professor Hayden, was thrilled. 

The game seemed to realize some players would not be as thrilled. XD Several days later, Clara returned with Artie and pressed on despite the warning. Soon the campsite and surrounding areas were crawling with baby spiders.

I'm not a fan of real-life spiders, but the cartoony Jorvegian ones are pretty cute.

Their happiness was short-lived. A tornado spun up out of the blue!

Oh no, look how scared they are!

All of the spiders but Alberta were sadly sucked up and spun away! 

The distraught professor and spider returned to their house in Crescent Moon Village. Clara, the bighearted person she is, volunteered to go out looking for the babies, which the tornado scattered throughout Jorvik.

It's going to be one lengthy task: there are 100 of them to find! Thanks to Jorvikipedia, where all the spider coordinates are listed, we shouldn't have too much trouble.

Another quest that Jorikipedia made much less daunting was the Mississippi Jones treasure hunt! My sisters and I were inspired to take it on after watching the original Indiana Jones movie on TV this weekend.

The hunt began months ago for us, when James clued Clara in on Mississippi Jones's treasure map and gave her the first of 4 pieces of it. Clara painstakingly tracked down the other 3 pieces and completed the map. We paused it there and decided to save the rest for a slow time later.

The time was finally right. Clara dusted off the map, saddled up Pandapie, and headed back to Fort Pinta.

The first clue (neglected to take a screenshot) was to make our way to Doyle's Chapel as the crow flies. We headed to Doyle's Abbey and found the spot without any problem.

This one wasn't so challenging either.

Off we went to the bridge over the Silversong River. We didn't easily find this one on our own so were very glad for the guide! Turns out it was on the far side of the bridge and down a steep bank.

Time for a cross-country trek towards the castle.

....back to a crossroads

...and on top of a cliff. What a view!

This one would've taken us ages without the guide. We tried to do it ourselves first and rode to the castle without ever finding the "monument." It wasn't time wasted, though, because we found our first baby spider by the castle. =) (1 down, 99 to go!)

From there, we headed back across the bridge and followed the road north to Valedale to enlist Avalon's rune-deciphering skills.

That was it for the day, but before we went home, Panda visited her fellow Irish Cobs for sale nearby. (We're still really happy with our color choice, but the other color combos are great too!)

Clara returned to Avalon on Willow the next day, only to learn that the quest would be longer yet.

Everwind Fields, here we come!

It took us a bit to figure out how to get to said rocks, but once there, no biggie.

Three more to go, but unfortunately, we'd already been playing for a while before this, and we were out of time. To be continued!

Black Beauties

Star Stable has not held any more horse bazaars to tempt us over the last few weeks. There haven't been any special events that have spurred us to stay up late playing lately either. We're all just happily doing our own thing, enjoying our herd of ten, building up our store of hay, and occasionally blowing some shillings on a new saddle pad or shirt.

Yep, that's a new saddle pad and a new shirt. =)

There was this promo for a while that would reward you with limited-addition ribbons at various points milestones just for participating in championships. We put in some effort and managed a few of these special ribbons, but the promo was partially going on while we were taking a hiatus/Mom was on vacation, and you know we're not exactly highly-skilled, enthusiastic competitors. We didn't do great, but it was interesting seeing more players participating again, including many who kick butt. 

Here's Tigetin showing off the ribbons we did unlock in time.

Green

Blue

Orange

Heather

Frost

They're nice ribbons! We don't tend to ride around wearing ribbons much, but maybe we should start rotating them in from time to time when they match the daily color scheme. 

The latest excitement was that Star Stable introduced a new version of the Friesian to the game! They are currently located next to the Lipizzaners out in Jorvik Stables. The previous occupants of this area, the Jorvik Friesians, have been booted to Crescent Moon Village. 

Unlike the Jorvik Friesian, which comes in some more fancy coats, Star Stable seemed to want to stick closer to real life with the Friesian. We get five dark models and two chestnut models to choose from. Aside from a tiny star or odd little roan-like patches here and there, they are uniformly solid. We have trouble even telling most of the dark ones apart.

See what we mean? Very similar!

the two with little stars - usually hidden by forelocks

the intriguing white-swirled Friesian

We think they are quite beautiful and flashy, and it's been really fun seeing so many of them being ridden around by other players. Happily, their manes and tails are much more pleasant to behold than the unfortunately chunk-haired Jorvik Friesian.

funny how the liver chestnuts almost blend in with the ground here

ebony and ivory

They do a bit of prancing in place when idling. We much prefer this to head tossing!

Here's a quick look at their high-stepping gaits:

If we ever get one someday, we're definitely going with the long-maned version, probably the black with the star. <3