Rift Beta 3... Or "Greetings fellow Air-Breather" PART TWO

Act III- Freemarch Under Siege

I awoke the next day, and met up with Swiftsure to do some more missions, and make our way to Meridian. Unfortunately she had left before me and ended up someplace else, so I did not physically get to fight alongside her till a bit later on. In the interim, I amused myself with the destruction of more water rifts, and a few death rifts.

One thing I will say about Telara, there is no shortage of people to help you. Just when you think you are up the creek without a paddle, on a rift that will KILL you... again... along come a few brave souls to help you seal that particular rift. The up side is that with everyone contributing, the enemy that spawns is even stronger, but the rewards are greater. There is a downside though, especially for a healer.

Oftentimes it gets a bit confusing when you have multiple groups of people repelling an invasion or a rift, and you may get the call from someone to "HEAL ME!!!!". Currently there is no real way of identifying who is who in a mass of ungrouped people so finding the person in time and healing them is a tricky proposition at best. Hopefully someone creative will think of a plausible solution to this dilemma, till then, we Clerics may get a bad rap for not healing people in time.

Aww so close to Meridian, yet so far.

I found a little farm overrun with boars not unlike the domesticated one Swiftsure always ran around with, and in this farm there were actually some settlers who needed some things done. Granted, this would not be epic uber missions where the fate of Telara is in the balance, but the little things... the feel good missions that make you proud to be a Defiant, and happy to be of service to a fellow citizen. Not to mention it was a great way to meet other Ascended, and see some rather interesting hairdos...

Oh I see how it is.. the Bahmi chick gets a banging 'Fro, and I gotta go bald eh....

It's ok Trion, you can keep your Afro, I like being bald thank you. :-p

I digress again...

During my daytime travels I actually found Telarans resting... taking a break as it were from the constant sieges of the planar enemies. Believe me, any chance you can get to rack up some Zzz's on Telara... TAKE IT! All too soon your sleep can be rudely interrupted.

I did encounter all sorts of odd occurrences on my way to Meridian to wait for Swiftie... including this phenomenon that only happens once in a blue moon... lightning striking twice!

By nightfall I had made it to Meridian, and I opted to spend a good deal of time there exploring.

I met Orphiel Farwind in his observatory, and carried on a brief conversation with him. I dunno about Orphiel though, something about him does not seem right... I cannot quite put a finger on it.

His Tower is incredible though, as these next couple of pictures show.... Quite an impressive feat of technomagical wizardry!

I was indeed impressed, but not nearly so much so as when I met HER...

Pleased to meet you, again... for the first time... Whatever it is... I made a pledge to you, and I intend to honor it. My mace and my conviction are at your disposal General Catari. You don't know it yet, but you are going to save my life.... errr... well maybe I am here to save yours.

We'll figure it out later. For now, it was time to learn all I could about being a cleric. Including the highlight of this beta test... getting ALL the cleric souls (8 of them) so that I can mix and match.

Yeah... Trion's idea of a joke LOL. The technical reason is that the quests you have to do to get all 8 souls are not ready yet, so this is just the filler text you see for the time being. Makes for a funny read. Personally I think they should just leave it like this, but I suppose they HAVE to change it.

Eventually I found the bar, and an NPC with a chest twice the size of any player's. I had to sit down and hang out with her for a while.

 Of course during my distraction with her, a Water rift spawned outside that  I had to take care of... I will tell you I was none too pleased about this. Not to be deterred, I took out the water rift with a quickness.

After all was done, I promptly went back to my NPC hostess.

At some point in time, I do not remember how long, Swiftie showed up, and I ran her through some of the things I have seen in Meridian thus far so she could catch up, including telling her how to get all 8 rogue souls. May as well take advantage of the free souls while they are there. With that done, we opted to get some more missions done.

Our next major one took us to a place called Lakeside.... an ODD little town.

First thing I noticed was a scout kneeling by the roadside.

Ziara informed me that there was something suspicious about this town that she could not quite figure. For some reason, she wanted me to investigate by talking to the townsfolk.

Seems easy enough... Here were my findings.

Umm... ok?

Uhhhh... Yeah, whatever you say there...

OK THAT'S IT! You are SOOOO NOT fooling me here!

The whole town was a front for the Abyssal cult! Somehow they got their hands on some kinda polymorph potions and were pretending to be humans. They took the entire town over and were gaining a foothold in Freemarch. I knew just what to do... I called upon my inquisitor's fanaticism, and SMOTE them down with all my fervor!

When that was done, I had to take the fight underwater to their hideout. At this point in time Swiftie was not present but another lovely lady came to my aid. For the life of me I do not remember her name though, so though she was lovely, she apparently was not memorable. :-(

A note about underwater... I have not really shown it in my tales thus far but just like RL, you have only so much breath before you begin to drown... and I do not have the magic spell to make me breathe underwater... I am only a silly air breather afterall. By the way, to swim up or down either press the right mouse button and move your mouse, or press both mouse buttons and move your mouse. You'll thank me later.

Several levels later I finally ran into Swiftie! Yay! I must say I like her wardrobe upgrade. We made our way to Smith's Haven, another town under siege, this time by the cult of Death- The Endless Court.

The missions in here were noticeably a bit more challenging, but doable, and we were able to make some serious headway rescuing the town, some of the priceless artifacts that random citizens wanted is to retrieve, and even saving the lives of a few trapped citizens in a cave.

After we got out, and got over the smoke inhalation from the town on fire, we could see in the distance an Air rift in a far off area of Telara... a promise that we have only just begun to walk this road, and that more was yet to come.

We did not have time to mourn our inability to get to the rift as the best was yet to come. Once more the developers spawned an epic rift event that damn near caused the end of the world.... again...

With Regulos one step away from taking over, we did everything we could to beat him back. It took us the better part of a couple hours, but we did it. When we were done we celebrated by entering the Iron Tomb and slaughtering the undead in there too.

 Truly an epic experience, this continued over the next day as we not only ran Iron Tomb but also I was privileged to go back to the Realm Of The Fae in Silverwood, and show the Satyrs that I was back. I have to admit that was the best part for me was being able to teleport to Silverwood, in Guardian held territory and slaughter those Satyrs, with no remorse.

When it was all said and done, I rested on the mountain in Silverwood, to look at the world I once knew through guardian eyes, but now see through my ascended Ethian eyes.

When Swiftsure made her way to Silverwood, we fought side by side once more, and joined a Raid on their way to take Sanctum by force.

The raid mind you was a partial success. We were able to take a few strongholds, and pvp with a few guardians, but we learned in short time that against the NPC guards of Sanctum, we stood no chance, even as an amassed force of players. It was sooo much fun to do however, and we got to see their mascot....

WTF? A giant Squirrel? Leave it to the Guardians...

When it was all said and done, we had an amazing time and I explored so much of the world. I did not want to leave when the time came. I enjoyed my life as a Defiant and am committed to the cause.

I can only hope the next phase of beta takes us to uncharted places, to experience more unique vistas, meet exotic people, and kill them.

Till then, I await inside the halls of Meridian... right next to my Leige- Asha Catari.

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Next beta is January 7, 2011 at 10AM Pacific Standard Time. It lasts all weekend till the 10th which is that Monday following. Join the Rift game site HERE. I am sure they are still giving away beta keys if you would like to see Telara as I have been, and keep your eyes out for the elusive VIP keys which allow ALL access to all betas from here on out!

See you on Telara, thanks for reading.