And the journals up to 3.4 all point back to this xera chick and what she was doing as being hella important, but storywise, to reach the xera chick, you gotta know what the matthias guy (some blip in one journal, you apparently learn hella more about him beforehand which changes everything) eventually did, and you gotta know what that sabetha girl is up to and why you're even dragged into this whole mess in the first place. To say nothing of the random monsters which only make sense in context of the story. It's actually kinda sad that a whole block of White Mantle stuff is sealed behind raids, and what was presented outside of that is "Here's some enemies with no real introduction oh they're dead moving on."