The Arcane Path

The world

The world was always magical. Most people simply never saw it, because the Order made sure they did not: for a thousand years it worked in the shadows, keeping humanity safe from what magic can do. The traders are its quiet hands. The Lost Knight who speaks on this server is one of its knights.

Magister Corvane, once of the Order, wanted more. He founded the Scourge and tried to draw power straight from Agartha - the hidden world beneath this one, where mana rises from the Wellspring. The working broke. That night, the Sundering, is why the dead walk: the Hollowed are what the backlash left behind. The ferals are the Quickened; the radiated drank deepest of the breach. The Scourge never meant to end the world. Now it pretends it did.

The four roles are the Order's four disciplines: the Shield (Paladin, the storm), the Crown (Royal, the tide), the Fist (Thug, the stone) and the Mask (Jester, the fire). The Scourge answers with its Black Fortress, and with the Heralds that walk through the cracked Seal below.

1The four elements

/cast fire, lightning, earth or water lands 8 m ahead of you, on the ground, and only hurts the dead. Costs: fire 25, lightning 30, earth 20, water 15 mana.

They react - and the reactions are the game.

• Water, then lightning: the bolt hits drenched targets for 1.5x and arcs to every wet one nearby.
• Earth, then fire: the stone shatters - double damage.
• Water, then earth: mud - a heavy slow instead of stone.
• Fire, then water: the flames go out (half damage) - useful when it is your friend on fire.

Earth also raises a short stone rampart in front of you for 20 s. It will not rise inside someone else's land claim, a trader or a protected lobby.

2Mana - where it comes from

Everyone starts with 100 mana. It comes back three ways:

• On its own - 1 a second.
• From the dead - every zombie you kill gives 2 back. Fighting keeps you casting.
• Mana Potions - 60 at once. They brew only at a Potion Stand - craft your own at a workbench and set it up anywhere: boiled water, 3 yucca fibers, 2 coal, and wood for the fire.

Your mana sits on the HUD under the stealth bar. Logging out does not refill it - you come back where you left off, plus what you would have regained.

3Your fifth trial - a quest of your own

Finish your role's four trials and the trader offers Trials 5. Accept it at the trader and within a few seconds the Lost Knight - the Order knight who speaks on this server - finds you and walks you through 9 steps. Each step hands you a named quest item, and the quest tracker on your screen always names the next one. Every role brews Mana Potions at a Potion Stand you craft yourself, and the last two steps go below, to Agartha: drink a Mana Potion on the altar and the Knight puts your staff in your hands, then the boss comes through the Seal.

How you always know what to do next:

• /quest - your journal: every step, what to do now, and how far and which way it is.
• Order notes - the purple candles. Walk up to one and it reads you a page of the Order's story, and, underneath, your own next step.
• Hint papers - when the trial begins the Knight puts the Order's notes in your pack (your role's page and a pilgrim's guide to Agartha), with another at the Forging and one before the boss. Hold one and use it, the same as reading a book: the page opens on your screen. Put it away to close it.
• Quest items - hover any of them: the description says where to go next.
• The Lost Knight - speaks at every step, and reminds you if you have been quiet for a while. The radio's whispers do too.

Paladin - The Oath of the Storm

1. The Cull - Kill 200 zombies - any weapon, any way, anywhere.
2. The Scourge Camp - Go to the army camp the beacon points at (/quest gives the distance and direction).
3. The Broken Oath - At night, Ser Aldric the Oathbroken walks near you.
4. The Brewing - Craft a Potion Stand at a workbench (20 forged iron, 8 empty jars, 6 mechanical parts, 25 clay), place it and light it like a campfire.
5. Stormcopper - Kill charged, radiated or feral zombies.
6. The Deep Clear - Take a tier 4 (or harder) CLEAR job from any trader (traders offer tier 4 once your trader level allows it), go there, press E on the rally flag, clear every sleeper, and turn the job in.
7. The Discipline - Cast lightning 40 times - /cast lightning in chat, or your role tome's spell.
8. The Altar Below - Go down to Agartha.
9. The Oathbreaker - In Agartha, walk onto the Seal - /quest gives the way.

Royal - The Tide Answers

1. The Cull - Kill 200 zombies - any weapon, any way, anywhere.
2. The Scourge Camp - Go to the army camp the beacon points at (/quest gives the distance and direction).
3. The Crown's Letters - Stand beside three different traders to deliver the Crown's sealed letters.
4. The Brewing - Craft a Potion Stand at a workbench (20 forged iron, 8 empty jars, 6 mechanical parts, 25 clay), place it and light it like a campfire.
5. The Drowned Court - At night, three Drowned Courtiers rise near you.
6. The Deep Clear - Take a tier 4 (or harder) CLEAR job from any trader (traders offer tier 4 once your trader level allows it), go there, press E on the rally flag, clear every sleeper, and turn the job in.
7. The Discipline - Cast water 40 times - /cast water in chat, or your role tome's spell.
8. The Altar Below - Go down to Agartha.
9. The Drowned Regent - In Agartha, walk onto the Seal - /quest gives the way.

Thug - The Mountain Knows Your Name

1. The Cull - Kill 200 zombies - any weapon, any way, anywhere.
2. The Scourge Camp - Go to the army camp the beacon points at (/quest gives the distance and direction).
3. Debt Collection - At night, three Scourge Enforcers come to collect.
4. The Brewing - Craft a Potion Stand at a workbench (20 forged iron, 8 empty jars, 6 mechanical parts, 25 clay), place it and light it like a campfire.
5. The Test of Fists - Kill 10 zombies with your fists or knuckles - nothing else in your hands.
6. The Deep Clear - Take a tier 4 (or harder) CLEAR job from any trader (traders offer tier 4 once your trader level allows it), go there, press E on the rally flag, clear every sleeper, and turn the job in.
7. The Discipline - Cast stone 40 times - /cast earth in chat, or your role tome's spell.
8. The Altar Below - Go down to Agartha.
9. The Quarry King - In Agartha, walk onto the Seal - /quest gives the way.

Jester - The Curtain Catches Fire

1. The Cull - Kill 200 zombies - any weapon, any way, anywhere.
2. The Scourge Camp - Go to the army camp the beacon points at (/quest gives the distance and direction).
3. The Courier - At night a Scourge Courier runs past you with their ledger.
4. The Brewing - Craft a Potion Stand at a workbench (20 forged iron, 8 empty jars, 6 mechanical parts, 25 clay), place it and light it like a campfire.
5. The Riddle - Answer the Lost Knight's riddle with /answer <word>.
6. The Deep Clear - Take a tier 4 (or harder) CLEAR job from any trader (traders offer tier 4 once your trader level allows it), go there, press E on the rally flag, clear every sleeper, and turn the job in.
7. The Discipline - Cast fire 40 times - /cast fire in chat, or your role tome's spell.
8. The Altar Below - Go down to Agartha.
9. The Ringmaster - In Agartha, walk onto the Seal - /quest gives the way.

4Staves - the fast way to cast

Four staves: Storm (lightning, the Paladin's), Tide (water, the Royal's), Stone (earth, the Thug's) and Fire (the Jester's). Every swing is a spell - one every 0.6 s at 100% of the /cast price, and your role's discount stacks on top because each staff is one of its role's elements.

Quality matters: each quality level takes another 3% off the cost. And a staff has mod slots, which is where the orbs go.

5Orbs

An orb is a staff mod. Put one in and every spell that staff casts gets bigger:

• Lesser Orb - 1.5x damage, 1.25x radius. Workbench: 2 raw diamonds, 8 electrical parts, 5 glue.
• Greater Orb - 2.25x damage, 1.5x radius, and walls stand 1.5x as long. Workbench: a Lesser Orb, 6 diamonds, 20 electrical parts, 10 forged steel.

One orb per staff. Your cast message tells you which one is working.

6Arcana - the perk

Under Intellect, Combat. Five ranks (Intellect 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10). Every rank, on every spell - staff or /cast:

• +12% damage, +8% blast radius, +15% reach
• +20 maximum mana and +0.5 mana a second
• 4% off every cost

At rank 5: 200 mana refilling at 3.5 a second.

7The Arcane Trials - after your staff

Your Trials 5 opens a second line at every trader: the Arcane Trials, where the staff learns to hit harder.

1. The Current - brew 3 Mana Potions at a Potion Stand, then fell 15 ferals. Reward: a Lesser Orb and 5 potions.
2. The Storm Within - 15 radiated, with the Lesser Orb on you so it can drink what they spill. Reward: a Greater Orb and 10 potions.

Role trials, then your staff, then two orbs: a player who walks the whole road has the full arcane kit.

8The tomes

Each role has one signature spell, written in its tome. Read it once and the spell is yours for good - it survives death and restarts. Only your own role can read your tome; anyone else gets it handed back.

Where tomes come from: rare in bookcases; a workbench makes one from 50 paper, 20 leather and 5 Mana Potions; and surviving the Siege pays one out.

9The Siege of the Black Fortress

The Black Fortress is the Scourge's: a black stone keep that rises wherever the veil to Agartha is thin, pouring the Hollowed out of it. When the radio crackles, it has risen somewhere in the field. /join takes you to its walls. Five waves, then its captain, the Warden. Kill the Warden and the Scourge loses its foothold.

Every role has its own objective - /siege mine shows yours. The Jester's is magic: cast 6 spells inside the walls. Meet your objective and survive: 500 Knight Caps and your role's tome.

Kill the Warden and its Warden's Sigil drops: use it and for ten minutes every element answers to you at your role's discount.

10Soul Echoes

Die, and a Soul Echo stands up where you fell, wearing your name and fighting like your role. Anyone can put it down; only you are paid for your own - caps, XP and a Soul Relic (more XP for half an hour). Leave it standing too long and it becomes a bounty for everyone.

The Order's library

Some things in this world are meant to be read. Hold one and use it the way you read any book, and the page opens on your screen; put it away (or wait a minute and a half) and it closes. Nothing is used up - read them as often as you like. Codex volumes turn up on bookshelves and in book piles; the tomes open their page when you learn the spell; the hint papers come from the Lost Knight during your fifth trial.

Books and tomes

Codex I - The Sundering

How the world broke: Corvane's Word of Opening and the first of the Hollowed.

Codex II - The Four Disciplines

The Shield, the Crown, the Fist and the Mask.

Codex III - Corvane and the Scourge

The rival order, its mark, and the Black Fortress.

Codex IV - Agartha and the Wellspring

The hollow world below, and a map of it.

Codex V - A Primer of the Four Elements

Fire, water, lightning, earth - and what they do to each other.

Tome of Terra Rampart

Opens when a Paladin tome is read.

Tome of Sovereign Tempest

Opens when a Royal tome is read.

Tome of Flame Sprint

Opens when a Thug tome is read.

Tome of Chaos Bolt

Opens when a Jester tome is read.

Hint papers

The Oath of the Storm

The Paladin's fifth trial, step by step.

The Tide Answers

The Royal's fifth trial, step by step.

The Mountain Knows Your Name

The Thug's fifth trial, step by step.

The Curtain Catches Fire

The Jester's fifth trial, step by step.

A Pilgrim's Guide Below

Getting to Agartha and finding your way.

On the Brewing of Mana

Given at the Forging.

Of the Four at the Seal

Every boss and what breaks its ward. Given before the boss.

The short version

Pick a role and finish its trials. Trials 5 takes you to Agartha, where the Lost Knight gives you your staff and the Herald gives up its heart. The Arcane Trials give the staff orbs. Put points in Arcana. Read your tome. Kill things to keep the mana flowing - and when the radio crackles, bring all of it to the fortress.

The roles →   The full guide →