How did the Endless attack Freemarch?

Alright, I'm running a Defiant alt through (about to enter Scarwood or Iron Pine), and I'm trying to trace the tracks of Alsbeth and the Endless Court.

Stonefield is still standing, so sending an Endless army through there wouldn't make sense. Alsbeth set the Death Rift trap in the mines as part of taking Port Scion, but that's it.

So did the Endless in Freemarch come from Port Scion? How did Port Scion get invaded? How does one even ENTER Port Scion, or is it only by boat?

Basically, how are there so many Endless* in Freemarch? Obviously not counting scores of undead, but instead the living cultists.


*Attacking the Ark from Regent's Cove, burning down farmlands at Todrin's Estate, cornering the Defiant at Savage Hill, and taking over Smith's Haven.


The rest of the Endless invasion makes sense. They headquartered and grew from Stillmoor since the Shade, Iron Pine Peak didn't have may of them, Moonshade Highlands was only influenced by Alsbeth, they committed forces to hold Scarwood Reach and scout out Scarlet Gorge and Gloamwood. I just don't understand how there's so many (even if they had to be bolstered by the masses of undead from graves) in Freemarch. And on that, I don't understand how so many of the endless entered Port Scion.

I know the gameplay reasoning. But Trion is actually pretty OK at explanations of why mobs are where they are.

Do the rifts teleport people? Did Alsbeth or others have teleport spells? How would those work?

Most of the Endless were once bandits or other residents of Freemarch that abandoned their faith in the living after the fall of Port Scion. As the rifts swept across Freemarch it emboldened many of them who had been farmers or craftspersons to paint their faces and throw in with Alsbeth. With everything looking so bleak for Telara and the Defiants of Meridian, eternal life through necromancy seemed to be a viable solution to how to continue on in the world.

Then Orphiel's device activated and an army of chosen ones spilled out from a slivered future.

Great. I considered that, but my primary theory was Port Scion (even though I couldn't make it make as much sense to me as I wanted). I should have remembered that the bulk of any cult was the lost masses of Telarans. So in Freemarch, those that hadn't already fallen to Abyssal before, saw the fall of Port Scion, the arrival of Alsbeth, and the return of Jakub, and over the course of weeks/months(?) abandoned their stations/homes/families/occupations and joined the Endless en-masse, while those that stayed tried to join the newborn Defiants or else hope in the Wardens (which in turn came to join with the Defiants).