RIFT MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

Long gone are the days of seemingly endless camps or 72 player raids slogging through hours of trash just for a shot at a contested boss in the hope of shiny new loot. Like it or not the new era of MMOGs have taken the loot carrot off of the string and have peeled it, cooked it, smothered it in honey and dropped it right on our virtual plates. Rift is no exception to this and has multiple paths available for players to earn high quality gear doing whatever they enjoy in the world of Telara. One of the most interesting and fun methods of obtaining blues and purples is done via exploring some of the more hidden areas of the world and through completing puzzles.

Every zone in Rift has hidden within it objects that, if found, can be looted once per character and typically contain high quality gear – although results may vary. These are usually identified as Cairns (a man-made stone pile commonly used as a marker or a burial tomb), and are often placed in an area that is hard to access, requiring precise jumps or persistent wall walking to reach. Puzzles are also a once per character event that require varying amounts of deduction or luck to complete and will award a lootable chest and an achievement.

We begin our series of exploration in one of the most unique zones for treasure hunting – the underwater environs of Lake of Solace. As the name implies, our objectives here are all located in a lake – with this in mind it becomes beneficial to do both the puzzle and the lootables in the same session. In addition to proximity, the main benefit to doing these at the same time, and in a specific order is that each successive looted treasure grants you an additional water breathing buff that makes the route much quicker and much less likely to result in your untimely demise.

Entering the water from the cove near the Discarded Strongbox, make your way around the map following the color coded key provided. It will be necessary to do some searching and pixel surfing in several of the locations, but most objects are pretty easy to find. Once you have finished looting all the items, make your way to the puzzle location (located roughly between the L and the A in Lake on your map) and dive down until you see the circle of lanterns begin to appear. Activate all the lanterns by clicking on them as they phase in and out to complete the puzzle and reveal the treasure chest.

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