The Red String Trail Ride

 

  Although The Red String Trail Ride was supposed to be a spring event, this year it came in the summer. It was also a little modified and the quests that introduced us to the trail were removed. In those exact quests Luciana told us everything about the history of the trail ride and about the inspiration behind it. The event has ended on the last Wednesday, so to celebrate another year of having fun together, with red strings in our hands, I'll tell you everything about The Red String Trail Ride! Get ready for a short, virtual journey to Asia.

 

Red thread of fate

This was the inspiration behind The Red String Trail Ride. It's an East Asian belief that finds its origins in Chinese mythology. It's believed that Yuè Lǎo, a deity of marriage and love in Chinese mythology, was in charge of the red thread of fate. It's supposed to connect people with invisible, red thread and with that, make them destinied for each other. The circumstances, distance between those people and the time that will last before they find themselves is not important because the thread can't be broken.

The belief is a little different depending on the country. In the original Chinese myth the thread is tied around two people's ankles, but in Japanese culture it's tied around man's thumb and woman's pinky finger and in korean culture the thread is attached to both parts' pinky fingers (which is the most common nowadays).

Here is one of the stories, in which the thread of fate appears: while going back home, a young boy noticed an old man standing in the moonlight (it was Yuè Lǎo, the deity of marriage and love that I mentioned before). The man said that the boy is connected by a red thread to a woman who is destinied for him and will be his wife in the future. Yuè Lǎo showed him the girl he was talking about, however the boy, due to his young age and lack of interest in love matters, decided to pick up a rock and to throw it at the girl while running away. Many years later when the boy grew up, his parents arranged a marriage for him. On the night of the wedding, he met his new wife, who was waiting for him covered in a traditional veil. When the man uncovered her face, he happily realized his wife was one of the most beautiful women in the village. However he noticed an adornment right on her eyebrow and immediately asked her why she wears it. She responded, telling him that when she was a yound girl, a boy threw a rock at her, which hurt her and left a scar on her eyebrow. She felt insecure about this and that's why she decided to hide the scar. It turned out that the man's wife was the young girl that he was connected with a red thread to and the one Yuè Lǎo showed to him in his childhood.

Source: link

 

Li family

Now we know what was the inspiration behind The Red String Trail Ride. How did the tradition arrive to Jorvik though?

It's not known who was the first person to hang a red string on the top of Firgrove mountains, however we know that the tradition came to Jorvik together with the Li family. They moved to Jorvik from China and when they learned about the Aideen's Gift, they decided to add red strings to their horse equipment, they wanted the bond with their horses to be a destiny sent from either Chinese deities or from Aideen herself. The residents of Jorvik who were inspired by the bond of Li family and their horses started hanging their own red threads in the mountains and eventually this became an official trail ride. Almost as if that was the destiny, right?

The trail ride

The whole ride is not long but you can find many interesting things, creatures and people on the trail. The trail ride is not available anymore for now but I'll gladly gather all the encounters I've had myself! Of course they only appear when the trail ride is available and you start it via the notice board by the bottom of the Firgrove mountains.

Weather

The sun might be the generic weather for Jorvik, but the trail ride does not spare the trouble for the bravest riders that decide to get to the top. However being such a lover of autumn and cozy weather, this doesn't bother me much!

Fog

Rain

Mysterious

Definitely my personal favorite and the most interesting part of the ride. There might be weird stuff happening on the trail, but what else can we expect at Jorvik?

UFO kidnapping a cow

A circle of mushrooms and (I think) fireflies

Dangerous

The trail ride goes through the wild areas, where the nature rules (or as above - supernature), so you might watch out for some dangers.

Don't let its happy face fool you, its intentions weren't exactly this friendly

Falling trees

Stone avalanche

People

The residents of Jorvik love to take part in different events, so the trail ride doesn't lack familiar faces.

Lisa Peterson performing her songs

Rami and his parrot Pari, unfortunately we can't talk to them

Raptor and his wolf Shakira, yo!

Linda, who stands by the trail or is on her way to the Apple Grove. Where else would Meteor want to go? ♥

Kora and Beeper, of course she's mostly worried about wellbeing of the animals living by the trail and tells us to respect that it's their home

Ydris wandering on the trail in his car, with a Zee plushie on the passenger seat and the music playing loudly

G.E.D. worker, who was supposed to cut all the trees marked with red thread, wondering if he's supposed to cut the marked poles too

 

Unfortunately it's not know who is driving the blue car, but it could be someone from G.E.D. or Dark Core

Companions

 

Those are NPCs that accompany us in finishing the trail ride. When talking to them we can choose if we want them to join us.

Linda

Ydris

Lisa

 

Alonso

Animals

Not just the ones that live in the Firgrove mountains.

Mysterious herd of sheep

Solaire, Landon's sheep that was once lost and found by us. On the trail there is a sunshine over Solaire, shining just like a spotlight following her every move - the sheep can either stand in one place or go down the trail. Maybe the previous herd of sheeps is also owned by Landon?

Squirrels having a mysterious meeting. They're great at spying so I'm sure they're sharing interesting information with each other.

Many foxes that we can pet.

Zee that gives us an unfriendly look... I really don't think she likes us.

Falling items

Those are items that literally fall from the sky. You can pick them up and then leave as a souvenir, sell and even use one of them... It's easy to notice when the item is falling from the sky because an animation and sound of something falling appears and the item is marked with golden, shining stars.

These are the items that can be found on the trail:

Some of them are rather funny, some don't really make a sense, but two of them are more interesting than the rest.

 

Mica Stoneground's search party

 

A tiny goat person, wearing a green hat, whose picture is printed on the missing person flyer must be Chaun. It's a Leprechaun that appears for Fortuna Festival, this creature lets us exchange gold for other items. He's absent in the game right now, but do you think that this sculpture of Chaun that can be found in Jamie Olivetree's kitchen in New Hillcrest will be good enough for Mica?

Squirrels' mysterious message

Watch out! Story quests spoilers ahead.

To remind you: the Spymaster is a mysterious person that lives alone in a cave in the mountains above Valedale Village and works with chipmunks and squirrels. They are his messengers that gather information for him or send messages to other people. No one would ever suspect those animals, so it's easier for them to spy on people and they surely have heard and seen much.

As I've mentioned before, we could meet a circle of squirrels on the trail and as it seems, they left something behind - a mysterious message. Of course we can't really read it as it's written in their language, but who else than the Spymaster himself could help us decipher it? There's a computer in his cave with a program that can translate the message from the squirrel language to human language. And I must say, the message was really interesting.

To read the message you need to move the item to the computer. It's only possible during the event.

The message:

"You are in danger. I can help. Everything that they told you is a lie, and you are not who you think you are. I will explain everything if you contact me by-"

The message ends abruptly.

 

I think it refers to story quests, maybe the squirrels managed to overhear the druids. Maybe that's what those mysterious meetings on the trail were about? We're yet to know everything about our destiny on Jorvik and our part in saving the world from Garnok. We're aware that we share the fate with deceased Catherine Holbrook, who had all the circles' powers like us and a horse with the same name as our starter horse's name (as we're aware the Soul Riders' horses stay the same and just change bodies to accompany all the generations of Soul Riders). For Catherine the adventure with the druids didn't exactly end well, the sisterhood of this generation's Soul Riders has fallen and Catherine died while giving birth to Justin Moorland (also leaving a weird diary entry where she seems to be writing about her own death). Are the druids hiding something? Do the squirrels know anything about the danger that happened to Catherine and might happen to us also?

A little change that happened in Fripp after we've saved him seems promising. The creature now puts more trust in Soul Riders' skills. Maybe it means we'll get to know more about our fate on the island soon?

Destination

The trail ends on the top where we can hang a red string to seal destinied friendship with another player or the bond with our horse. We can find tents and bonfire there that are great to take a break after exhausting ride and there are also telescopes nearby that let us look at the beauty of the island from the highest peak. We could aslo meet Maya and Alex, just enjoying each other's company together with their horses.

★★★

I hope this post was interesting for you! Do you like The Red String Trail Ride?

Hugs ♥