Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland takes a look at some of the secrets these Rift zones hold for the newly Ascended. Check out his guide to see if you missed anything in your travels!

Stonefield

Stonefield has many similar features. The puzzle, Spinning Plates, is incredibly easy. Once I located it at 4575, 5974, I just needed to activate the telescopes in a specific order then throw the middle lever. Looking at the telescopes from the lever, the sequence is 5, 2, 1, 4, 3.

Directly behind this puzzle and up the mountain is the first of Stonefield's sunken treasures, called “Ancient Cairns” at 4662, 5007. Those interested in achievements can continue up this mountain — at 4903, 4734 there is a group of squirrels dancing, and using the /dance command grants an achievement and the title “Dances with Squirrels.” Around the same area (the rocky part a bit south) the player will automatically get the Mountain Climber achievement and, by lining up on the cliff at 4840, 4940, a player can jump into the pools near Granite Falls for the “Plop!” achievement. In the southern mountain range there are two other ancient cairns. However, only got one of these from Stonefield itself (located at 5900, 5030); the other I approached from outside of Meridian, climbing up along the mountain side to the southwest of the gates (right next to the Guardian wardstone that usually appears). This cairn was located at 5325, 5365.

Completing the achievement for quests in this zone was very difficult for me. I managed to get to 83/87 quests through the chains and then I was stuck. The remaining quests were found in several places – first, there is an escort quest called Taking the Trogg for a Walk from Goorn, who supposedly spawns near the well. Why supposedly? Because no seems to have seen him — indeed, the quest isn't even in ZAM's wikibase yet. However, I lucked out when the server reset. Upon logging in, sure enough Goorn was back. This also fixed the quest “Tracking the Traitor,” which had been bugged for people the entire day. In the Titan's Well there is an enemy that drops an item to start a quest (and there is an achievement for diving and surfacing several times in the Well).

Finally, I took about half an hour to climb the scaffolding at 5250, 5205 and pick up the Lucky Pick to get my final quest completion. Deciding that the 10 rare kills would simply take too long, I resigned from the achievement hunt after killing 50 Giants and stealing some miners' loot (which awarded me with the title “the Red Handed”). With those accomplishments under my belt, I bid farewell to the people of Stonefield and moved out of what I consider the Defiant newbie areas and into the PvP-filled zone of Scarlet Gorge.

These side items should not take away from the meat of the zone that a new player will discover. Rifts, invasion events, dungeons and quests all take up the vast majority of the zone — these other things I've listed are simply perks for the completionist for the explorer. However, I believe it speaks volumes that Trion put in all of these items to find. The secret treasure, for example, caters directly to an explorer's nature. I climbed the mountains behind Granite Falls just because I could, and was shocked and excited to find all the achievements located up there. Anyone new to the Defiants is encouraged to get out there and look around the world Trion has set up. As for me, I'm off to Scarlet Gorge for now – see you in Telara!