Rift Part 3: Levels 12-33

Man has leveling slowed down. Well yeah, my last Rift post was when I was level 11, and yeah this post is about 21 levels. But man it's a slow process. With leveling, dinging tends to be a surprise that I don't expect. There has been more than one occasion where I closed a rift, defeated an invasion, or discovered a new area and BZZZZAP! Red Lightning! I leveled up!
Some things never change. That includes Quests. 
The basic questing grind is tiring at most. My biggest (and only) complaint about Rift is traveling. I don't mind having to travel large distances, but the easiness of being dismounted (by grey mobs too) and the fact that I really can't out run or out live mobs once I get dismounted is really annoying. Respawn rates are really fast (not Cataclysm fast, but fast enough) and I am constantly spending too much time trying to clear a wave of mobs just to reach one destination. And don't want it to be a clean run in and out thing, but sometimes there s such thing as TOO much. That is Rift.
Because of my constant grind fest, I tend to out level areas before I leave. This is also coupled with the decent experience I gain from doing rifts and invasions, which I NEVER pass up. The spread of other toons at your level is actually starting to show cracks in the rift/invasion system. While rifts aren't really difficult to finish off, large scale invasions have been failed more than once because there is simply not enough man power leveling in that area to counter the waves and waves of small invasions running at the wardstones. Although I haven't seen it happen too often over the course of leveling from 1-33, I have seen it a lot more, as I try finishing up Scarlet Gorge. Considering my guildmates are now all 4-5 levels higher then me, I'm probably gonna leave and move on to Scarwood Forest without really finishing Scarlet Gorge.
Oh look! An Alliance Guardian Member! 
I don't play on a PvP realm, because I'm allergic and all that jazz, but I did encounter my first Guardian. The only race differences between Defiant and Guardian is that they have Dwarfs and we have Brahmi (Asian Indian types) The Defiant's Kelari are basically dark High Elves, and the Defient's Eth are the Mathosians, but darker skinned. Yep. Variety is the spice of life. There is a chance I ran near a bunch of Guardians, but just merely didn't see the difference. I saw my first dwarf though and it was an odd experience. We'll see what happens when I move onto higher level, more contested areas.
Dungeons
We've done a few dungeons together. I like that our group composition is not entirely standard. We have a the warrior tanking, the hunter and mage dpsing, the cleric in some sort of half healing/half tanking/half dpsing spec (yes that's 1 1/2) and me in the super sexy Chloromancer spec, which gives me main healing, but some off spec damage. This has served us well so far. between my good group heals and Beacon of Light type tank shin-dig and the Cleric's splash heals, we don't need to follow a basic set up. And we all get to do what we want. I love it.
OMG...Ew...
There are some really gross looking monsters in this game. From the Foul Gorge final boss, to the epic story quest's unseen agent. Ew....just ew.... 
The little things
I've been doing some platform gaming around the world, looking or items called Cairne Do. They all go towards an achievement and there is one in every zone. This, along with finding the puzzles in every area, has given me so much joy. It's like Archaeology, but with faster results. Love it. And Artifacts. I love it all.
And the Dancing with Squirrels achievement. That is just by far epic.
I still love Rift. But let me not get dismounted so fast Trion! KTHXBAI