The Latest Installment in a Journey Through Rift

Traversing Telara is an exclusive series of articles from Trion Worlds that explores Rift's lore and gameplay mechanics through the eyes of one intrepid adventurer. It's a great read and a fantastic introduction to the world of Telara. Even if you're a veteran of Rift, you might enjoy hearing about the game from another perspective! Read on for Traversing Telara #1: Gods and Souls!

                          Catch up on all the past issues of Traversing Telara here!

As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, there is a massive world event going on in RIFT at the moment. It started a few months ago with the Carnival of the Ascended, when the citizens of Telara - Defiant and Guardian - celebrated the one year anniversary of the Ascended returning from the dead to fight the Dragon Gods. But week after week, the celebrations turned from genial carousing to bitter rivalry, and the Defiant and Guardian began to clash once again.

What they didn’t know was that the Laethys and Maelforge were taking advantage of these distractions to form an alliance. An alliance that brought their respective dragon cults, the Wanton and the Golden Maw, together in an attempt to take over Telara. Since this plan has been uncovered, both Defiant and Guardian have been working furiously to un-cover their plot and put a stop to it.

It took a while for everyone to realize what was happening, but now the War of the Wanton Maw is a threat that hangs across the land. The past few weeks have revolved around closing down Earth and Fire Rifts, killing Rift creatures, and just generally trying to stem the flow of the tide. At times it’s seemed almost impossible, especially when you click on your map and see Rift icons popping up everywhere. But it looks as though we are finally pushing them back.

Guardian spies are busy trying to discover what the final plan of Laethys and Maelforge is but, in the meantime, it is the responsibility of all of the Ascended to fight the attackers wherever they may be.

It seems the spies are close to uncovering the truth, because the Dragon Cults are launching last ditch attacks on the Wardstones. Anmar is busy defending Argent Glade, and he comes face to face with a gigantic construct called the Golden Juggernaut. After he has defeated this Earth invasion, he hangs around for a while but, since no more attacks are forthcoming, he heads off to complete some of his quests.

The first of these is to continue his investigations into the Aelfwar threat and what their plans are. Isilwyn Alrai has asked me to gather Faetouched Shards from the Aelfwar along the Silver Coast area. The Aelfwar are using these shards to suck up planar life-magic and increase their power. Isilwyn wants to study these shards to find out more about Hylas.

Anmar heads down to the shoreline and battles the enemy, returning with the shards. Isilwyn says they are definitely artifacts of Greenscale, the dragon from the Plane of Life. She wants me to investigate more about the touch of planar magic that is poisoning the forest. I agree to do so, but there is a call to defend Argent Glade’s wardstone again, so I hurry off to help repel the attack before the wardstone falls.

Defiant

Last time, I mentioned that I had been asked to return to Smith’s Haven to clear out the Deathless Cult generals who were holding the town. The three generals are Fiendlord Ve-digo, Sergeant Bikesh, and Lieutenant Ahdrek. They are found spread throughout the town, so I spend a fair bit of time killing the normal cultists just to get to them.  This is quite easy to do if you just stick to the wall, as the Shade Hounds that patrol these areas are easier to kill than the cultists. But I couldn’t do that because there were other quests to complete at the same time.