Ink and watercolour sketch of an abandoned mine cavern: an iron cage brazier burning on the left, a pit glowing red in the floor and a red-lit passage with a pale crystal at the back.

Location

Healand Mines

Once Meliora's chief source of silver, abandoned after a Rift collapsed its tunnels, and the hidden gateway of the goblin invasion.

  • Before the Invasion
  • The Goblin Invasion

Description

The Healand Mines lie near High Oak, a small town in the mountains, and once produced most of the silver used in enchanted instruments throughout Meliora. Several decades before the invasion, a new Rift opened spontaneously inside, destabilising the already dangerous caverns and collapsing most of the tunnels. A Rift Gate was raised to protect people from the volatile Rift within.

Historical context

The citizens of High Oak abandoned the mine for safer, if less profitable, trades, and no one kept watch on what happened below. That neglect let the invasion catch Meliora off guard: deep in the mine the young Rift was corrupted, its crystals were harvested, and behind the newly sealed Rift Gate orc shamans held open the portal through which the horde was summoned. The stranger broke through and saw the portal collapse.