The Anvil of Crom: Traveling the Silk Road

So how do you get from Age of Conan's old world to the lands of Khitai (or the encounter zones prior to entering it)? A couple of sharp-eyed readers wrote in to let us know that we failed to mention where to pick up the caravan protection jobs last week, so let's quickly correct that oversight before jumping into the remaining encounters. First off, head to the Stygian city of Khemi, either via a travel NPC or a Call to Khemi or Call of Asura ability. Once you step off the boat and into the city of serpents, head for the ancient pyramid across the harbor, southeast from the main area. You can elect to pay 75 copper pieces to be ported across the bay or swim it if you're feeling cheap. The caravan master awaits near the animal cages situated a short sprint beyond the beach. Talk to the caravan master and hopefully you'll get the encounter you desire (if not, you can call back and try it again).

Silk Road Pass

While all of the encounters take place along the mythical Silk Road, the terrain can vary quite a bit. The Silk Road Pass finds your caravan parked just outside a desert canyon and besieged by bandits intent on stealing whatever valuables your caravan master might have stashed away. He's certainly not paying you much for your protection duties, so we're not sure what the bandits are after, but in the end it doesn't really matter. Fend off the waves of NPCs looking to make mincemeat of your guard captain or fail the instance (which we did repeatedly). The other caravans' guards will distract a couple of the incoming baddies, but the AI is predictably ineffectual and you're left to do the lion's share of the fighting yourself.

Silk Road Desert

Another instance you may encounter finds your party winding its way through the desert terrain and running out of your most precious resource: water. Your first task is to make your way past a number of desert whirlwinds (basically big swirling dust storm NPCs) that knock you off your horse and flat on your pixelated arse. Keep these annoying guys in mind, because they'll be back for a return engagement after you beat a path to a nearby spring and draw its water into a small bucket.

You've got a limited amount of time to bring the water of life back to your parched guards, and of course the whirlwinds make the task a bit arduous not to mention time-consuming. We managed to save a measly two guards, but thankfully that was good enough to complete the instance and carry on towards Khitai.

Silk Road Gorge

The Silk Road Gorge instance is the shortest of the bunch. As for the setup, something has spooked both your caravan master and your fellow guards, and they refuse to continue into a gorge until they've sent in the requisite red-shirt (you) to check it out. Forge ahead into the grotto and take out the sandworm nasties that block your path, then make your way back to your cowardly cohorts and proceed on to Khitai.

Silk Road Oasis

Next up on our Silk Road instance tour is the Oasis zone, a decently sized map crawling with lots of festering zombies begging to be smote by spell or blade. The storyline on this one seemed a little fuzzy to us: something about contaminated water and the need for a lone hero to sneak past a horde of undead to fix the problem. Apparently the thought of pressing on to the next (presumably zombie-less) oasis never occurred to our caravan master though, so in we went to click the relic at the bottom of the pool and save the day yet again.

Silk Road Canyon

The final land-locked random encounter takes place in the Silk Road Canyon, apparently the same one your caravan has stopped short of in several of the other zones. While the gameplay portion of this instance is a pain in the proverbial butt, the visuals more than make up for it, particularly if you're running with DX10 enabled. The god rays cutting through the canyon bisect the landscape into stark sections of dark and light, and the attention to graphical detail here can't be over-emphasized; you can almost taste the dust particles floating through the air.

The goal is to clear the canyon of Hyrkanian bandits, many of them popping out from beneath camouflage netting or sniping at you with bows and arrows from ledges high above. The instance is fairly large and extends vertically, allowing you to climb up portions of the canyon walls to deal with your adversaries. While we succumbed to the onslaught of level 82 mobs before completing the instance, it was quite a bit of fun, due to both the challenge and the pervasive eye candy.

The instance that must not be named

The last instance we had hoped to experience was the second of two rare pops that Silirrion mentioned in our article last week. To recap, there are 11 total zones that players may experience when traveling to Khitai, nine of which we've covered already. Additionally, there are two rare zones, one of which allows you to receive a quest from the emissary of King Mitradites of Zamora. As of press time, we've been unable to get the other rare zone to pop, and we'd be curious to know if any readers have experienced it. We're assuming it grants a rare quest like the 500-crystalline-stone-collection odyssey from the Silk Road Crossroads instance.

That about wraps up our look at Age of Conan's random encounters. Feel free to post your own impressions in the comments and fill us in on the second rare zone if you're lucky enough to experience it. Until next week, we leave you with the requisite concept art.

Jef Reahard is an Age of Conan beta and launch day veteran, as well as the creator of Massively's weekly Anvil of Crom. Feel free to suggest a column topic, propose a guide, or perform a verbal fatality via jef@massively.com.