Rainbows and Nightdust

Pandapie made it to level 15 on the final day of Camp Western!

No downtime between events this time: Star Stable launched into its Rainbow Festival the following day.

As you can see, the festival is based in Fort Pinta this year rather than the grassy expanses outside Moorland. The decorations are fun, but we've found the festival underwhelming otherwise: no Cloud Kingdom or rainbows to chase like last year. Instead, all we got were some very short intro quests, and nothing much since. There are many fun rainbow-themed items for sale, but with no token system, special races, or other special daily tasks, they're too expensive for us to reasonably purchase very many. 

One other fun thing is the "parade route" on the road between Moorland and Fort Pinta, where there are decorative trellises, some happy NPC bystanders, and small celebratory fireworks every hour. The highlight of this so far for me has been this random levitating bystander. XD

It's fun having an excuse to bring out the rainbow tack too: both in celebration of Pride Month and also just because I've always liked rainbows. 

We're doing what we can to make shillings quickly in the short periods we're able to play, such as: 

Stable chores at whichever settlements we pass through

Boogying at the revamped Fort Pinta disco. (25 shillings for just a brief period of dancing, and you can repeat it as many times as you want! However, it's pretty repetitive, so we don't linger that long.)

Daily fishing. 

We're much better at clicking at the right time now than when we started.

Running the relatively new Tumbleweed Rodeo and Dances with Chickens training races at Starshine Ranch. You can do these as many times as you want for 50 and 75 Jorvik shillings, respectively. They definitely take more brainpower than the disco, but again, we do not excessively repeat them to keep things from getting dull.

And yes, we still steel ourselves and compete in championships occasionally. Lately we seem to be getting fourth place quite a bit, which is always a little sad but better for our egos than dead last. We've also lucked out twice and stumbled into championships with only two other entrants, guaranteeing ourselves a ribbon so long as we don't go off course and/or take too long.

Hence, Tigertin came in last (we hit so many moving obstacles!) but still was awarded a bronze at New Hillcrest:

And Brightbeam galloped her way to silver at Silverglade against two lower-level horses:

As you've seen in many of the previous screenshots, we've already bought Clara a rainbow-themed t-shirt to go with the rainbow tack we bought last year. We're hoping we'll scrounge together enough shillings for a rainbow halter for Panda and the new striped pastel saddle pad and matching sweater. Realistically, that's probably all we're going to manage, but we'd really like the white and rainbow saddle pad too! Too bad it's so expensive.

You got a little sneak peak in Brighty's silver screenshot of one of the two new rainbow-themed horses available for purchase now, but here they are closer up. 

On the far left is Bronte, and on the far right is Serenus. They are sister and brother with a sad backstory: Bronte is indirectly responsible for poor Serenus's damaged, no longer functional wings. In the background are the rainbow-themed horses we remember from last year, Tenebri and Prisma. All four are cool, but none of them particularly speak to us. Tiger and Artie will remain our only magical equines for now.

In other Star Stable news, we finally worked up the resolve to finish the "save Nightdust" quest. To our relief, we did not do any more perpetual falling through solid ground. It took a few redos, but we did eventually lead the rampaging bad-man-turned-monster away from the ice cream parlor and out to the harbor. 

At the harbor, we found a convenient cage to lure him into. This part took us many painful attempts. Painful because if we failed and he caught us, we couldn't simply try again right away. Instead, we'd be taken to a screen with Tigertin in a random stall with no way out. This forced us to log off and log back in, where we'd find ourselves back at the bus stop with Tigertin. We'd then have to take the bus to the harbor and run on foot all the way back to the scene of the action. 

Annoying, but we persisted, and eventually...

Success!

Ours either, Erik. 

Clara guided the horses onto the waiting ferry...

...and away they all went, escaping in the nick of time...

...just before someone even worse arrived on the scene, "Darko."

I'm sure we'll see more of him - and monster Mr. Anwir - in the future. *Sighs*

For now, though, the horses and ponies are safe back on South Hoof. 

This includes Nightdust, though something strange happened to him upon his return...

Madison and Clara brought him to the hermit, who was surprised but not unduly alarmed.

So, if I'm connecting the dots correctly, Nightdust is magical, which would explain why he could survive and overcome the serum when other equines hadn't. However, the serum seemed to damage his "cloaking ability," so now he will be blue and shimmery all the time. That's not so bad - I think he's even cuter this way. <3 Madison is a lucky kid.

Pandapie

On Memorial Day, Clara rode over to the horse bazaar to bring home a big, fluffy Irish Cob mare! As you probably figured out from the title, it was the black tobiano we could not resist. It's the classic color for the breed, and you can't ever go wrong with a classic. We also love that she has heterochromia, or eyes of different colors: her left is brown, and her right it blue.

The inspiration for her name came from scrolling through various lists of Star Stable horse name suggestions online. The particular player who mentioned "Pandapie" said it was a randomly-generated name that was too out there for them, so we don't feel any guilt taking it for our own.

We think of it more as a combination of panda and piebald (an equestrian term for a black and white pinto), not of panda and pie the dessert, but I suppose it could also be a new name for an oreo-themed pie.

Aw! <3

We thought ahead and had a set of tack waiting in Clara's "backpack," so the first ride was not bareback and bridle-less like usual.

Here are Clara and Pandapie sporting the new salmon-themed Western set... minus the pants (don't love them) and saddle blanket (doesn't fit Panda). It's a bit darker and pinker than the salmon Equestrian Festival set, which makes it more flattering on pale Clara. Yay!

It took us until this weekend to collect sufficient gold nuggets, but we are finally the proud owners of the two new chickens!

Henrietta

Penny

(Is it just me, or would it have made way more sense for their names to be reversed?)

We also earned an unexpected fifth free pet during Camp Western! Meet Hoppalong Cassidy the jackalope!

All we had to do was complete a short quest line and successfully catch him in the new jackalope race. The catching part was easier said than done, largely thanks to the fancy graphics being too much for Milton (our laptop) to handle well. It got so slow and jerky we thought the game might crash, but fortunately, we made it through. How fun to have a jackalope! He's going to come out way more often than the butt-scratching mini yeti. =) 

Pandapie has been Clara's exclusive mount over the last week so that she can benefit from all the extra horsey experience points. The other equines are fine with this, since each already spent at least one day experiencing Camp Western and its scary beasties this year. She should be close to fully trained by the end of the event!

important delivery coming through!

Levitating gold boulder! We could not mine this one, obviously. XD

Pandapie's turn to play pied piper.

Come along, everybody!

black and white cool off party!

how messy this would be afterwards for a feathered horse in real life!

Check it out, other Irish Cob! Panda's made it to level 13!

It's kind of sad that all this one ever gets to do is stand there wearing a harness.

Levitating poo!

Levitating pony!

Don't worry: the pony didn't get stuck

We've seen a few other presumably new Irish Cobs out and about, though the Shire seems to have been the more popular choice. The Shire is larger, but Star Stable's Irish Cobs are pretty huge in their own right.

Thanks for all the pets and fun memories, Camp Western!

Archie, Slinky, and Pricey Chickens

Mom's birthday last Saturday was taste of mid summer in mid May: 80's and sunny. It was so warm that she did not do anything outside other than a morning walk, during which she was already grateful for every bit of shade.

She had an awesome day of relaxing (Saturday birthdays are the best!) and then celebrating with the fam. For the record, here are her gifts pre opening:

And post opening:

This Memorial Day weekend has been much more spring-like weather-wise, which is ok by me. No need to rush headlong into premature summer the way Star Stable has this year, ha ha.

Speaking of rushing headlong, Magicmirror made up for lost time and now has earned not one but two championship ribbons! Both were due to us just hanging in there and making it through the courses (yay for tiny pools of entrants!), but they are ribbons nevertheless. =)

First ribbon ever from the Baroness's Championship! 

It even happened to match the color scheme we were going for that day.

We might have gotten better than third in this Firgrove Championship had we not somehow missed the final checkpoint and having to circle back for it. Oops. At least we didn't accidentally go through it the wrong way and get disqualified yards before the finish line. That really would've stunk.

Snowsecret was Clara's mount on Mom's birthday. Before heading out to Starshine Ranch, they pulled off a win in a small Moorland Championship. Great job, Snowy! <3

Why the trek out to Starshine Ranch? Because Camp Western came early this year, kicking off on May 15 instead of in July like last year. The timing is puzzling to us, since we thought Camp Western was a summer camp, and we're earning summer tokens. Um, Star Stable, this entire event is taking place in spring, and kids are still in school. You do realize that, right?

Along with Camp Western came the rollout of a new horse breed, the American Saddlebred! Loads of them have been prancing around the Starshine Ranch area with their proud new owners, bedecked in western tack. 

My favorites, naturally, are the pintos, but they're all quite nice.

It's not my favorite breed in real life - they've always given me showoff vibes - but I'd say Star Stable did a pretty good job with them. 

Camp Western itself seems very similar to last year, but happily, the pets you can earn are different. There is also one new set of western gear that can be purchased with those summer tokens. (Aw, man. This seems to be the year of the salmon.)

The beasties are back again, of course. 

The wolf population seems to have decreased somewhat from last year, but there are still more than enough prowling around to keep us on our toes.

Thanks to YouTubers who are faithfully posting daily video guides of wandering horse and renegade chest locations, we're finding those without much trouble. 

Returning to the corral with all the wandering horses in tow

Some of the more interesting chest locations:

by that gravestone again

behind some random blue storage boxes in a little valley (still wonder how the boxes got here)

in a wolf cave

Like last year, the most desirable chest with a key inside is somewhere in the wolf den area every single day. *Sighs*

The number of daily tasks you can complete for summer tokens has been dramatically reduced this year. You can still return wandering farm animals, participate in training races, and lunge your horse, but they only give shillings and horsey experience, not tokens. There are still 3 varying daily ranch chores that reward with tokens, though, and they are the same ones as last year.

leading a hesitant foal in circles in a paddock

shearing sheep while avoiding the bull

(we had to do this one every day for about a week straight)

herding ranch horses to the beach to cool off

(the bull came at us right after this screenshot was taken...)

filling a water trough with this small, sometimes slightly levitating bucket

Magic?

making various trips to pick up or drop off items

We've herded many a farm animal for shillings anyway and haven't had any issues with them getting stuck.

The most time-consuming task we're facing is collecting gold nuggets. It will take a whopping 6666 gold nuggets to take home both of the new chickens, Penny (black) and Henrietta (gold).

We whack at most rocks we come across and veer out of our way to snag many floating lone nuggets, but  they're not adding up as quickly as we'd hoped. Will we manage to collect enough before the event ends on June 5? We'll sure try!

Again, thanks to the YouTube guides, we jumped through the necessary hoops to take home the other two free pets, Archie the terrier and Slinky the cat, without any major issues. 

Yay! I think they're every bit as cute as Atlas and Kerfuffle from last year. =)

And finally, the most exciting part of this post for me, is that a 1-week horse bazaar is currently going on! From left to right, we have the Lusitano, the Welsh Pony, the Shire, and the Irish Cob all on sale!  None of these are particularly western, but whatever.

The player on the Thoroughbred was still standing there when we eventually signed out, probably either trying to decide on a horse or a name. We feel you, fellow player.

The first 2 don't tempt us much, nor does the Shire since we already have one (Magicmirror.) However, we've had our eye on the Irish Cob ever since our first visit to Valedale. One of these three pintos in particular:

the palomino sabino

the black tobiano

the seal brown tobiano

We're all on board with taking home one as our 9th horse, even Lily. (How could you not love these guys?!) Which one will we choose, though, and what will we name her? Bethany will let you know in our next post!