Greetings to you, fellow Rifters. This week I have been mostly completing the last quest in Phase 3 of Carnival of the Ascended. If you will recall, the final task required me to murder 10 Defiant players, and I had a vague idea I would be wandering aimlessly around Telara until I spotted a likely victim.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way, does it? At least, I didn’t think it did at first, but I may be wrong. I tried to swim across to the Defiant side, but I died in the waters beneath Port Scion. But there must be a way to get across. I’m going to try again later on, but in the meantime I decided on an alternate method of going head to head with the Defiants.

I’m talking about Warfronts, something I hadn’t tried before. And having taken part in a few, I can see why. They’re  hard. Of course, I did pick the Valley of the Codex warfront, and this particular instance only opens up for you once you hit level 20. Caedryn is level 21 so just meets the basic requirements. If this was a funfair ride with one of those “You have to be this tall to ride” boards Caedryn would probably be turned away even if he just met the eight requirements, because, to be honest, he was a bit rubbish.

But hey-ho, in at the deep end.

Ooh. Pretty lights. Pretty lights, of death!

The goal of the Valley of the Codex warfront is to collect 1000 points by holding strategic positions, or failing that, to see which side has the most points after 20 minutes. This involves a lot of running away, leaping about, dashing in and out to fight your opponents while trying to avoid the streams of lethal magic criss-crossing through the air.

It was while doing this that I first noticed there were not many warriors around. Nearly everyone was playing mages and rangers, people who could stand at a distance and fight, keeping themselves out of danger. While poor Caedryn had to get right into the skirmish if he wanted to score any points. This tactic ended with death on about four occasions, but still, I have to admit, it was fun. In a “oh-crap-oh-crap-oh-crap-I’m-gonna-die” kind of way.

And there’s even a bit of backstory on the valley. Apparently the monks of Thontic make it their mission in life to guard the powerful and dangerous mysteries of the Eth. And here in the valley the Defiant stumbled across some ancient Eth ruins while they were on one of their archeological digs (searching for the Ark of the Covenant or something). Anyway, the Defiant thought, “Score!” and were about to start digging it all up, but the sneaky silent monks went off and alerted the Guardians.

As you can imagine, the Guardians put foot to the valley and battle ensued. Now the two sides fight each other for control of the dig site. Apparently, the central Codex is worth  the most points, but the Vault, the Statue of Thontic, and the Translation Scope are also worth taking. Just so you know.

Once more, unto the breach dear friends. Once mo-- Hey, wait for me!

So, that was my first experience at PVP. I decided this was a bit above my level, to be honest. I need to come back when I’m up to 25 or so, just too even things out. In the meantime, I read online that the Black Garden warfront is for players from level 10. Maybe that would be more my cup of tea. But it’s pretty much the same. I think you are put into warfronts only with those in your level range, and seeing as Caedryn is 21, he is thrown in with the 20-29 players. He needs a Rocky training montage before he will be any good.

The Black Garden is a “Capture the flag” warfront, similar to how we used to play paintball. Except instead of small plastic bullets filled with paint we have lethal, sharp-edged weapons, necromantic magic, and arrows of flame to combat the enemy with.

I head on into the fray, (the Fang’s location signified by a streamer of silver light) – oh, hang on, I should probably explain about that. When Regulos’s body was destroyed, one of his fang’s survived. The defenders of Telara sealed the fang in a shrine in the Black Garden. Now the Guardians and the Defiant both want to get their hands on it, each faction thinking the other unfit to keep the relic safe.  

Kind of a silly thing to get so worked up about, no? Especially seeing as the Fang has damage-dealing properties. So although the aim is to get hold of it, once you do this it will eat away at you, making you weaker and weaker and easy prey for your enemies. So… good luck with that. Caedryn doesn’t have to worry about this, because he never actually gets to touch the Fang. He does get to touch a lot of his enemies’ blades, though. Usually quite intimately. So there’s that.

I'm coming, fellow fighters. Coming to die!

There’s one more warfront, this one also for level 10 and above. The Library of the Runemasters. This one is pretty similar to the Black Garden, actually. Dwarven Rune Vessels have been found in the Library of the Runemasters, and you have to hold onto them for as long as you can. But the vessels once again eat away at you, causing more and more damage the longer you hold onto them. They used to belong to powerful planar beings, and the thinking goes that they could be sued as some sort of weapon to help your armies.

Again, well, let’s be blunt about it. Caedryn sucks. Everyone else seems to be surrounded by glowing shields, moving super-fast, bouncing over his head etc. I have a vague feeling I’m missing something, that’s I’m not playing these PVP instances correctly, that everyone else knows something I don’t.

But it’s more than likely I’m just really bad at these one on one fights. But one benefit of all this is that any Defiant players killed when I take part in a warfront, (even if I didn't kill them), counts as a kill on my Carnival quest. Bonus.

Next week Phase 4 of the Carnival of the Ascended. Let’s see what that holds for Caedryn.