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

The July Bazaar

Willowwind got lots of attention over the last few weeks as Clara's exclusive mount. Even though she's not a pinto, wow, is she pretty! We're so glad to have her in the herd!

She's gotten to run most of the championship courses now. She even competed against another champagne TWH one day. (I don't remember which did better.)
 

She made steady progress through the experience levels, each one getting its own sparkly celebration.

She participated in some quests, such as this one where we had to keep tracking down a creepy scarecrow.

She won her first ribbon out in Goldenhills! (Appropriate, right?)

And here she is on Friday night, doing the rear and sparkle one last time.

In the midst of Willow's training, Star Stable held another bazaar! We were surprised it came so soon after the last one... and kind of sad, because we knew it'd be really tough to justify buying another horse already. This time, they only discounted 3 breeds rather than 4: the Belgian Warmblood (again!), the Dartmoor Pony, and the Percheron. Their sale area has room for 4 models, so they just doubled up on the Belgian Warmblood.

The Belgian Warmblood seems to be a crowd favorite on the game. They look great in motion and come in some cool coat colors. We'd probably already have one by now if their idling animations didn't bug us. They toss their heads a lot and do this thing we call the shark bite: where they reach up and chomp the air.

So... we decided to pass. Again. We do love warmbloods and really want a sporty-looking warmblood (no offense, Frosty. We love you just how you are) in the herd eventually. We'll probably hold out for one of the newer warmbloods to come on sale someday... hopefully the Dutch Warmblood? Please, Star Stable?

Next up, we took a long look at the Dartmoor Pony. 

We think they're super cute. Not quite as cute as the Gotland Pony or Jorvik Pony, but a close third. =) Being the newest pony breed on the game, everything about them seems more streamlined than the older pony models. Ponies are also extra useful on Star Stable, since there is a ponies-only championship and a ponies-only training race. For all these reasons, we were quite tempted to buy one of these guys. 

What stopped us? Another idling animation we just don't love.

They do this thing called the Flehmen response, where they raise their heads and curl up their upper lip. We know real-life horses do it for a variety of reasons, but a big one is breeding-related, so we don't find it cute.

That left the Percheron.  

We loved the idea of adding in a French breed with the Paris Olympics on the horizon. We also thought it would be fun to have a draftie that could wear leg gear. Star Stable's Percheron just wasn't wowing us enough to commit, though. Their manes and tails are pretty clumpy, and their muscles seem oddly more defined than Star Stable's other horses. So, no Perchie either.

All that to tell you that we're saving our star coins and remaining at an even 10 horses for now. That's a good thing, or at least that's what we're telling ourselves when we see others riding around on their new Belgian Warmbloods, Dartmoors, and Percherons.

The other horses are back in the rotation now that Willow is fully trained. Even though they enjoyed their vacation, I think they're happy to be getting out and about again.

Frosty had fun competing in a series of championships this weekend. He even made it through the Baroness's championship, which we still need way more practice on. (It was not pretty, ha ha.)

He also got to do more chill activities, like grooving outside the disco while Clara was on the dance floor, and galloping down the beach to take Clara to a good fishing spot.

I think Tigertin wanted to underscore for us that another pony was unnecessary, because she proceeded to give us another gold in the Silversong Pony Championship and win the "fastest time of the day" prize in the pony training race.

You rock, Tigertin! <3

We are so proud of our 10 wonderful equines! Here they all are: