Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland explores the Guardian zones of Silverwood and Gloamwood as a Defiant intent on earning achievements and some platinum. Read on for his tips!

Rift divides Telara quite well between the two factions at low levels. The Defiant-only zones are Freemarch and Stonefield; the Guardian zones are Silverwood and Gloamwood. Upon entering these zones, a rival faction will, at first, only find angry guards, absolutely no quests, and other characters that will try to murder you as soon as your attention is diverted. However, there remain hidden treasures for enterprising adventurers, especially when it comes to achievements and puzzles.

Being a completionist at heart, and OCD in real life, I wanted my Defiant rogue to fully complete these Guardian zones, for both bragging rights and achievement points! Read on to find out what I discovered... and how I made a fair profit off of my explorations!

Getting to the Zones

The first question a green Defiant adventurer will face is: how the heck do I get to the Guardian zones? The obvious answer is the incorrect one — it is impossible to swim directly across from Freemarch to Silverwood, as an invisible wall separates the two starting areas. There are two other routes — the more difficult one is by progressing through Scarlet Gorge, the first truly “shared” zone between the factions. This zone connects with Stonefield to the South and Gloamwood to the Northeast. This involves a Defiant character traveling through Freemarch, Stonefield, Scarlet Gorge (including past several mid-level-20s enemies and past at least two high-level 20s guards), Gloamwood and, finally, entering Silverwood. For the vast majority of my travels I tended to take this route — especially once I had the porticulums, as it seemed faster to get to Gloamwood (which can be entered without guard interaction as long as you can run past some level 28 goblins).

But by far the easier way is swimming out to the Shoreward Island out in the ocean off of Freemarch and Silverwood. This island currently serves absolutely no purpose besides housing some Freemarch artifacts and a hub to ward off fatigue from swimming in the deep ocean. A Defiant character can take off from the shore, (say, from Warden's Point) and easily make it to the island before succumbing to fatigue. From there, head north toward Silverwood's outlying islands and let the true exploration begin!

Shoreward Island

Silverwood

Once you've set foot in Silverwood, it's time to get cracking! The hardest, by far, are the artifacts and rare enemy achievements. There's a handy map available on the official forums that helped me immensely with the artifacts (full credit to Ailurion for this map). In short, the best places to consistently find green and blue artifacts seem to be Overwatch Keep's towers, the northern mountains bordering Moonshade, and the western mountain range bordering Gloamwood. However, from my personal observations, here are my “rules” on rare artifacts:

1. Any artifact has a chance to spawn as a blue artifact.

2. Specific spawns are much more likely to be a green or blue artifact.

3. These spawns usually have longer spawn times or are harder to get to.

The last rule doesn't apply so much to Silverwood. However, I can say that I received the vast majority of my green artifacts from the spots I listed above, and my blues were split about 60/40 between those spots and random artifacts found everywhere.

Also, some spots will not spawn specific artifacts. After canvassing Silverwood for about two weeks, I only had three collections left – and one was the Jerome Drift set, which contains only three common artifacts! I had found Jerome's Secret Ingredient several times, and the Journal of Untested Experiments a couple as well... but I never found his Amazing Hat in two weeks of picking up random artifacts. Why? Because it only spawns near Quicksilver College, which I always ignored (after the western mountains I would head south to Divine Landing and then work my way Northeast). When I started searching Quicksilver College, I found Jerome Drift's Amazing Hat within two runs through the area.

As mentioned before, one of the best spots is the towers of Overwatch Keep. This also happens to hold the puzzle to the zone, called Puzzled at the Top of the World. To access this puzzle, I made my way to 6415, 3153 and clicked on a Mysterious Plaque. This puzzle, unlike many others, is ridiculously easy to complete. Simply head counter-clockwise from where you spawn to the next plaque. After about five plagues, the player will be transported to the top of the towers and given an ivy key, allowing him/her to open the chest there. Keep an eye out for artifacts at each tower — sometimes they cannot be seen unless the camera is moved, and several require death-defying leaps to nab.

There are several other easy achievements as well! Spelunking in Silverwood is fairly simple; the caves are at these coordinates:

1. Spider Cave (Cave of Seasons): 6182, 3115

2. Tongue Chewer Cave (Overwatch Cavern): 6347, 3133

3. Gutter's Cave (Snarebrush Pit): 5865, 2578

4. Satyr Cave (Kelgnaw's Den): 6439, 3203

A High Point is at 6333, 2329, along with an ancient cairn for extra goodies. This will probably be found naturally while hunting artifacts in the mountains, or completing Silverwoodsman. So Much Fun, I Did it Twice is relatively easy, but I recommend a higher level and/or stealthing ability to avoid being one-shotted by the guards! You need to jump off the bridge to Sanctum twice for it, but you won't take damage either time. The only other achievement is the House Aelfwar Shall Fall, which involves killing High Elf enemies in the zone. And what good Defiant needs an excuse to slaughter High Elves? Not I, dear readers, not I.

Odds are many players will get stuck trying to finish the artifact achievements or the Foul Enemies of the Wood. The best time to get rare spawns is right after a server reset. I found Mok and Brod immediately after resets. I can say that Pandora does not respawn immediately after a server reset, however. And to date I've killed Pentheus several times, which awards him my “totally not rare rare spawn” award. As for the artifacts... all I can say is “keep looking!” I had an incredibly difficult time locating another Corrupted Fae Keystone Fragment – I ended up buying it for almost 10 platinum at the Auction House when I finally saw it come up. However, all blues are very rare – just keep at it!

Continue to Page 2 for details on Gloamwood achievements.