Elemental Confluence

The Elemental Confluence is a level 95-100 hunting ground (minimum of level 80) that is reachable from every major town (each town has its own instance). One must have an elemental soulstone or gleaming multicolored soulstone that has been filled with elemental energy by killing elemental creatures while wearing it. The soulstone is reusable. The energy equivalent of 10 capped elemental kills must be stored in the soulstone to enter the Confluence by pushing in the correct location, as 9.5 souls (950 creature level kills) will be subtracted on entry.

The "hotter" elementals (lava, fire, steam, and lightning), are level 99 and 100, while the "colder" ones (air, earth, ice, and water) are level 95.

Entering the Confluence

There are five entrances to each local Confluence, corresponding to the five different elemental attunements, and a character using ATTUNE SENSE will receive the general location for the entrance that matches their attunement. Once in that location, use ATTUNE SENSE again to get a vision of the exact room. If this fails to give you an exact room, which is uncommon, it means the room has some magic properties that prevent locating it directly. Search special areas within that location or perhaps use an elementally churning core to teleport directly there. These are found by extracting plinites that have been looted from the Confluence.

Each entrance manifests as a point of elemental instability which changes location at random time intervals. To enter, PUSH the instability with an elemental soulstone. It is not necessary to remove the soulstone before pushing. A character entering an instability with the same attunement does not suffer any damage upon entry. Entering a non-compatible instability causes knockdown and some minor damage.

Entering the Confluence drains 1-2 spirit points and dispels all non-native spells:

You approach the elemental instability, pushing your multicolored soulstone into the fluxing energy before you.  Essence trapped within your soulstone begins to flow through you and into the elemental instability, briefly opening a gateway to another realm that draws you in instantly!  You feel drained as some of your own essence is drawn off too!

Elemental energies explode all around you as you hurtle through a twisting elemental vortex.  Fortunately, the vortex seems to accept you as one of its own and allows you clear passage.

You feel yourself moving through an unseen but disturbingly spongy barrier!
The dully illuminated mantle protecting you begins to falter, then completely fades away.
Like sand through an hourglass, your visions of the future slip away and fade from your mind.

You suddenly burst through the insubstantial membrane and land gracefully in an alien realm.

Once inside, it is possible to apply any non-native spells without additional risk of environmental dispels.

Movement

Teleporting within the Confluence without being elementally attuned is risky. -Coase

Inside the Confluence, it is possible for characters to incur hard roundtime (RT) moving between rooms. This makes use of PEER decidedly indispensable. The RT can be reduced by further training in Survival (primary) as well as Climbing (secondary), and is also influenced by a character's Agility and Intuition. Extremely high values in these skills and/or stats are required to entirely remove the possibility of RT, but it is possible without enhancives for some races. For example: a Dark Elf with perfect AGI and INT (30 bonus to each), 202 Survival ranks, and 101 Climbing ranks, still sees an occasional 1 second RT.

Gold rings work for movement within the Confluence, but not to enter/exit. It is, however, useful to set a gold ring at the location of the exit, so you can leave quickly. Getting 'navved' will deposit you back into the Confluence.

Transference (225) can be used to teleport to another character within the same local Confluence, to either plane.

Geography

The Confluence map has a shifting/random layout that changes at random time intervals with the following message:

Earth and stone begins rapidly materializing and dematerializing all around you, changing your surroundings in mere moments!

Each local Confluence is divided into two elemental planes, each home to a distinct variety of either hot or cold elemental creatures. The planes are connected by a gaping bottomless pit, which you can enter to be teleported to the other side with 5 seconds of roundtime. The pit also changes location at random time intervals.

To exit the Confluence, find a point of elemental tranquility. Those who pass through the tranquility, whether living or dead (drag [person] tranquility), rematerialize in Elanthia at their attuned entrance. Since the entrance can move at random time intervals, even while you are inside, you may find yourself at a different location than where you entered. There appears to always be one tranquility on either plane, with a 3rd tranquility that can randomly be placed on either side at a given time.

In some situations, you may choose to take the emergency exit, by using an elementally tranquil core to teleport you, and your group (including lost children!), outside of the Confluence, to your current entry point/instability. These are commonly found by extracting plinites that have been looted from The Confluence.

"Homing" teleportation abilities such as Spirit Guide (130) and Traveler's Song (1020) will place the caster at most one or two rooms away from a tranquility. Symbol of Return has its group functionality disabled and will only transport the user; group transport still works for Spirit Guide and Nexus. If a character is not attuned to any element, there is a chance for teleportation to be disrupted by a damaging backlash.

Indigenous Plants

The following items can be foraged at any location inside the Confluence:

Indigenous Creatures

Cold Plane

Hot Plane

Elemental Dispel Mechanic

A huge lava elemental pounds at you with a molten fist!
  AS: +475 vs DS: +636 with AvD: +44 + d100 roll: +96 = -21
   A clean miss.
The unfocused raw elemental energies of the lava elemental's attack destabilizes your magical aura!
A faint silvery glow fades from around you.

Whenever an elemental misses with its primary attack, there is a chance that the target will be subjected to a dispel mechanic that randomly removes one of your elemental spells. Some elementals MSTRIKE, so multiple spells can be removed at once. The likelihood increases with the margin of the miss. End rolls between 0-100 will usually not trigger a dispel, but as the end rolls become more negative, the chance of a dispel becomes greater.

Adventurer's Guild

Characters wearing an elemental soulstone are eligible for Adventurer's Guild bounty tasks within the Confluence. In towns without a capped hunting ground such as Mist Harbor and River's Rest, this also allows for one to be assigned bandits, which is otherwise impossible for higher level characters.

Resources