Welcome to the Elden Ring Walkthrough for the Ainsel River region! Ainsel River is an underground area, similar to Siofra River with multiple ways to enter and covering a similarly large area. It is largely made of tunnels though with a few larger areas in between, so there is generally less to explore overall even though it looks quite large. Entering from Ainsel River Well in Liurnia allows you to fight one optional boss, but then not progress into the other part of the area. To do that you need to either travel to Deeproot Depths or be most of the way through Ranni’s questline, which then allows you to get to Nokstella and the Lake of Rot sections of the map, which then allows you to reach the end of Ranni’s questline for triggering the Age of Stars ending.
For all other regions refer to Elden Ring Walkthrough.
Ainsel River
Progression Order:
Entering from Ainsel River Well:
- Ainsel River Well Depths
- Ainsel River Sluice Gate
- Ainsel River Downstream
- Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella
Entering from Renna’s Rise or Deeproot Depths:
- Ainsel River Main
- Nokstella, Eternal City
- Nokstella Waterfall Basin
- Lake of Rot Shoreside
- Grand Cloister
- Astel, Naturalborn of the Void
- Moonlight Altar
- Cathedral of Manus Celes
Entering from Ainsel River Well:
The first way to enter Ainsel River, is through the well elevator located in Liurnia. It’s the same type of structure as what you use to enter lower Siofra River, and can also be accessed at any time regardless of progression (after you reach Liurnia). When entering this way you are only able to go through the smaller Uhl Palace Ruins section, and then fight the Dragonkin Soldier in Nokstella. You can’t use this route to reach the northern part of Ainsel River or go to the Lake of Rot.
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Head down the elevator to the bottom, where you can find the first site of grace in this part of the area.
Ainsel River Well Depths
Start heading down the path towards the left where the giant ants are. The path to the right leads to a dead-end (and can’t actually be traveled through from the other side either, as you die jumping down the waterfall).
These smaller tunnels are typically full of ants that hang out on the ceiling or walls and drop down when you come near them. You can choose to run past or fight them, but if you want to fight them it might be more recommended to bait them down one at a time with ranged weapons instead of just running underneath and triggering them all at once.
Continue down the tunnel until you reach the lit intersection, and continue down the right side to progress. The left side leads to a dead end with only a single Smithing Stone [3].
Once you reach the next lit split in the room full of corpses, you can go either direction to progress. The path to the right leads to the next site of grace though, so you would likely be better going that way first to grab the grace first.
When you reach the area with the stone structure, head up the path to the right and across the bridge leading back to the left.
Once you reach the end the elevator to progress is directly to the right, but make sure to grab the grace in the cave ahead.
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Ainsel River Sluice Gate
Head down the elevator to reach the entrance to the Uhl Palace Ruins. This area is full of Clayman enemies, similar to ones you might have ran into in Siofra River. They are quite slow, so you can run by them fairly easily if you don’t want to fight them. While heading into the ruins there are two paths you can take. If you go through the lit-up front door, you’ll come, into the next large room, where you will see a Naturalborn hanging from the ceiling on the far side. If you want to just ignore everything in this room, you can go down to the left immediately along the water to reach the next tunnel you progress through.
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If you want to take the route around the room to kill the Naturalborn, go back out to the entrance and then go to the right of the side statue beside the entrance.
There is a tunnel here that leads to the right side of the larger room, where you can then take a fallen pillar up to the right on top of the ruins.
Use the environment to avoid the ranged attacks from the Naturalborn, and climb up the cliffs to reach the platform it is hanging above.
You can then attack the Naturalborn from around the pillar, or run up and smack it in the face. It won’t respawn after you kill it, allowing easier movement through the area.
You can then drop down to the lower area from the southwest side of the platform.
There is a merchant in the area underneath where the Naturalborn was, along with a body where you can find Map: Ainsel River, which reveals the Ainsel River and Nokestella parts of the map.
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To continue, go to the west side of this room, where there is a river leading deeper into the cave.
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Hop up to the higher level on the right to find the next site of grace.
Ainsel River Downstream
Continue further into the tunnel. You’ll reach another area with the Ants and dead bodies. The path leading to the left leads to a dead-end overlooking the Lake of Rot, so go down the right side to progress.
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Continue through the tunnel until you reach the opening to the large room with the giant skeleton on the throne. Once you start progressing further into this room is when the boss will appear, so you can make sure you are prepared when you are at the entrance to the cave.
Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella
Reward: 12,000 Runes, Frozen Lightning Spear (Spell)
A very simple boss – it uses single-hit attacks and no real combos, all its attacks are very slow and very easy to dodge, leaving a lot of time between its attacks so you can deal a lot of damage. After it’s below 50% health it will get some electric abilities and wings – it will start a flying sweep attack which you can easily dodge sideways before it lands. It also will spawn some electric fields on the ground, which you can get out of by dodging/running sideways before it explodes. Other than that it will keep using its one-strike melee attacks. You shouldn’t have much trouble with this boss, especially at higher levels.
After the boss is defeated, you can interact with the site of grace at the north end of the room.
There isn’t anywhere else you can actually progress to from this part of Ainsel River, as you can’t get down the waterfall behind the throne. Just make sure to go into the room underneath where you can pick up a Great Ghost Glovewort out of a chest.
Entering from Renna’s Rise or Deeproot Depths:
To reach the northern part of Ainsel River, which leads to Nokstella and the Lake of Rot, you need to have either progressed through Deeproot Depths, or worked you way through half of Ranni’s questline which is required for the Age of Stars ending. You can check this guide for how to reach Ainsel River following Ranni’s questline: How to Reach Nokstella Eternal City & Lake of Rot. Or the Deeproot Depths walkthrough where the coffin used to enter the area is pointed out in The Nameless Eternal City section.
Whichever of the two ways you use to enter, they both take you to the same spot at the northeast corner of Ainsel River. Progress just ahead to where you can find the first site of grace. You can also grab the Miniature Ranni item from the open coffin before the site of grace if you’re on the step of her quest where you can have entered this area from Renna’s Rise.
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Ainsel River Main
If you are progressing along Ranni’s questline and have picked up the doll, make sure to sit at the site of grace and select the “Talk to Ranni” option at the bottom over and over until you start getting repeated dialogue. Ranni asks you to kill the Baleful Shadow, which is a specific enemy you will fight later on in Ainsel River.
Progress down the river ahead, through the Claymen that also appear in this area. Ahead there is another Naturalborn hanging from the ceiling, directly in front of where you need to go to progress. You can go just to the left and use the ruins to along the way to block the heads.
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Going further down the left path leads to the dead-end waterfall north of Ainsel River Well Depths, so there isn’t much down there and you have to go through the Naturalborn. You can get directly behind where it is, and either just run further into the ruins avoiding it, or go behind and smack it in the head to kill it.
Continue through the tunnel, following the river down to the lower area.
There will be more ants in these tunnels, including some winged ones that fly around to attack you. In the open cavern, the path splits, with a path going to the left that leads to the big cavern with the Naturalborn and merchant from the Well path. Keep following the river to the right to continue towards Nokstella.
Continue down the path and through the doorway to the right to reach Nokstella.
Just down the steps, you can find the next site of grace.
Nokstella, Eternal City
In Nokstella there are two paths you can take, either up the stairs into the city area or down the river path to the right. If you want to take the shorter path you can go down the river and skip the city area, or go up the stairs and through the city for some extra items.
Most of Nokstella is full of Silver Tears, though, unlike the ones you would have seen in Nokron, most of these have electricity around them and will somewhat explode when they die.
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At the top of the staircase there are two routes you can take. Head around to the left first into a building, where after defeating a bunch of Tears with shields you can pick up the Ghost-Glovewort Picker’s Bell Bearing [2] from a chest.
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Continue down the path and up the stairs towards the large bridge leading across to the other side of the area. Go across it and up the stairs on the other side, though watch out for the giant ball that will be rolling around trying to attack you.
Across the bridge you can enter the building to the right instead of going up the stairs, you will be locked in with another one of the giant balls. You can more easily avoid it rolling around by sticking near to the pillars along the wall, then make sure to grab the Great Ghost Glovewort out of the chest when it is dead.
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Continue up the stairs into the next building, where a large number of Tears will drop off the ceiling to attack you.
Another ball will drop off the ceiling to attack you once you take out a large number of the Tears, though, unlike the prior building you aren’t locked in, so you can just run back to the doorway to deal with it.
Continue out the path to the left towards the final building ahead. Inside there is one more of the human enemies, along with two Silver Tears that transfer into human form to attack you.
Once they are defeated you can open the chest under the empty throne at the front of the room, where you can obtain the Moon of Nokstella, one of the legendary talismans.
Through the left side of the room there is an open door leading outside to an elevator. Take the elevator down, then you can reach a platform with a phantom tree and a Golden Seed. You can then drop down to the lower area where the next elevator to progress is located.
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At the bottom of the elevator, you can find the next site of grace.
Nokstella Waterfall Basin
If you talked to the Ranni doll prior, there will be some more dialogue that you can get from it now if you want, though it’s not required to progress. Continue down the tunnel ahead, watching out for the Basilisks in the middle that will spray Death clouds at you. When you reach the open area ahead you can find the Baleful Shadow enemy if you were working through Ranni’s questline.
This is effectively you fighting Blaidd, so if you’d summoned him to help with any bosses prior his moveset looks the same. Big slow slashes with the sword, which you can dodge through relatively easily. He will heal once at half health, so watch out for that. He is weak to Bleed attacks, so those can be helpful if you are able to focus him with them. Once it is defeated, you will gain the Discarded Palace Key. This key is used to open the chest in Raya Lucaria Grand Library (Rennala’s boss room) where you can obtain the Dark Moon Ring which is required after you defeat the area boss to progress.
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Continue through building ahead and down the elevator, to where you can find the first site of grace in the Lake of Rot area.
Lake of Rot Shoreside
Before progressing too far, make sure to grab Map: Lake of Rot from the body along the shore.
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Your goal now is crossing the lake. When you go in the water you will constantly be inflicted with scarlet rot, which if you’ve managed to not be inflicted with it before is basically just stronger poison. Keep some Preserving Boluses on hand to heal rot building, or just try and heal your health while progressing through the lake.
First off start heading to the right towards the pillar in the distance. These pillars in the lake have buttons in front of them that will raise sections of ground for you to walk on, meaning you don’t have to attempt to just run through the water across the entire lake.
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Continue along the now raised path, where there will be another pillar just across a section of lake where you can raise another section.
The next section is only a few small platforms you can cross, so watch out for your rot level as you are going. Continue to the right off the platform with the round pillar to find the next spot with a button.
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Once the large section of pillars raises up, you need to jump onto the bases of the pillars to continue further to the west side of the lake.
Once you reach the final pillar, you can see the final set of platforms ahead leading towards the far side of the like. Follow them towards the area where the two torches are at the base of the large statues.
Head past the torches and you can see the water flowing off a ledge ahead. Go to the left of it, where ther is a large set of stairs leading down to the left towards the next site of grace.
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Grand Cloister
You now need to get down to the lower area to continue. To do this you need to go down the first set of stairs, then start dropping down the ledges ahead where the ground has crumbled away.
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Continue forward through the area towards the building ahead.
Inside the building where all the prawn enemies are standing, you can find the Scorpion’s Stinger dagger, though that isn’t where you need to go to progress. To continue follow the river to the left, where at the end of the river you can find an open coffin that will take you to the next area.
After the scene, you will be in the small area at the very south of the Ainsel River map. You can then continue to the north to find the golden fog gate leading to the boss.
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Astel, Naturalborn of the Void
Reward: 80,000 Runes, Remembrance of the Naturalborn
This boss is relatively slow and doesn’t attack often. It has some ranged attacks, all of which can be dodged sideways, and some melee attacks that it only uses when fighting it at close range. With a mage you can simply spam the Rock Sling spell from a safe distance, and dodge all its attacks sideways. As a melee char you shouldn’t have too much trouble either, spawn some Ashen Remains to distract the boss and attack when it’s focused on your Ashes.
After the boss is defeated, head towards the north side of the room where you can activate the site of grace.
Just past you can also find a blue fog door if you do not yet have the Dark Moon Ring from the chest in Raya Lucaria Grand Library. If you have the ring then the wall just won’t be there, and you can continue forward to the elevator which leads out of the area.
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This elevator leads to the Moonlight Altar area, which is the section of the map in Liurnia directly above the Village of the Albinaurics. Follow the path just ahead to find a site of grace.
Moonlight Altar
If you are progressing to the end of Ranni’s questline, continue up the hill to the large ruined building ahead.
Watch out when you reach the front of the structure, as Glintstone Dragon Adula will appear to block you. You can feel free to run past this dragon through and just head inside.
Head towards the back of the cathedral to find the next site of grace.
Cathedral of Manus Celes
Walk to the south of the site of grace, where you can find a hole leading into the ground.
Continue down the ledges ahead, then interact with Ranni’s body on the platform where you can go through all of her dialogue and complete her questline, allowing you to earn the Age of the Stars ending.
For all other regions refer to Elden Ring Walkthrough.
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