Memories of Vanilla #15 - Storming the Scarlet Monastery, Part 4

Hey dudes. Silvite Soltis here today to finally conclude my Scarlet story.

Last time, we went into the Library to obtain Scarlet Keys. Along the way, we killed Houndmaster Loksey, got me a new dagger, and experienced the most epic soundtrack in World of Warcraft. Well, today, we're going to finish off my first trip to Scarlet Monastery with a trip to church. That's right, it's time to head in and face the final challenge - the Cathedral.

Before getting into it though, remember to follow my blog so you get more updates when additional stories are added here. With still roughly half a year until WoW Classic releases, it'll be lots of fun to keep the hype train going.

But for now, on with the story!

---------------------------------------------------

Today's Targets

Our group ran back out of the Library, making our way over to the entrance of the Cathedral wing of the dungeon. Now that I had my key, I was looking forward to using it on the door. However, just as we approached, a group that was leaving the Cathedral opened the door and ran out, leaving the door open for us as I was about to click it. Oh well. So much for using my key!

SM Cathedral Map

Anyway, we entered the final wing of SM, ready to take out the baddies within and finally complete the quest. The first hall, while fairly long, was pretty straightforward. We'd learned to be careful of fleeing mobs as we killed each pack, thanks to the Armory, and so managed to clear it out without much trouble. One thing I noticed, however, was that this dungeon was a big step-up in difficulty for our group of 37-39 characters (a couple of us had leveled up through the experience), and I knew I'd have to bring my healing A-game.

When we reached the end of the first hall, the tank carefully looked ahead. This was apparently his first time in here as well, so he wasn't sure where the mobs were. Running a little way into the next room - where the fountain was located - he was greeted with a pack of mobs on each side, and one patrol, all of whom wanted him dead. We did our best to recover, but it was too much. We wiped.

Ok. Not the best start, but things happen, right?

We ran back and tried again. This time, he carefully used LoS to facepull the pack to the right of the doorway while not aggroing those on the left. The mage sheeped one add and we managed to get that pack squared away. We rinsed and repeated for the rest of the entryway until all was clear before actually stepping out into the gardens beyond. Now was the fun part.

See, the gardens were not only full of packs, but also patrols if I remember correctly. So as we made our way over to the fountain to climb the stairs, killing the packs to the left and right as we went, we had several instances of unintentional chain-pulls - where one mob would flee just close enough to a patrolling Scarlet soldier, or the next pack of mobs, and we'd have to improvise. We must have wiped at least 2 more times here, and my gear was starting to turn red from all the deaths. But nevertheless, we pushed on.

The Cathedral

Through careful vigilance and positioning, we slowly progressed up the stairs and over to the Cathedral's entrance - the gigantic doors looming in front of our party as we approached. The warrior made a point to clear out everything in front of the building, as he wasn't sure what would happen when we went inside, and before long, we stood there, ready to swing those huge doors wide open.

I don't remember who actually opened the door, because a bunch of us clicked it at around the same time, but then it happened. The doors opened and we saw, for the first time, the inside of the Scarlet-infested church.

SM Cathedral (Inside)

Our warrior took note of all the enemy packs, and quickly decided that the best way to deal with them would be to, as before, use line of sight to pull them out into the open space. We also agreed that the best course of action would be to clear out the right-hand side of the Cathedral, leaving the enemies on the left up. It was starting to get late and we were getting tired from sitting in this dungeon for what must have been over 2 hours at this point. The bosses were just up ahead, so surely it shouldn't take too long, right?

We pulled the first pack out, getting aggro on a random patrol that we'd somehow missed before opening the Cathedral doors. Our hunter, who had been standing in the back, lay dead and I had to resurrect him before we continued our assault. Well, so far so good.

Slowly, but surely, we progressed along the right-hand wall, clearing the rightmost and center-right packs as we did so. One by one, they fell and before long, we faced Mograine himself. Running up to the back wall along the right-hand side, we carefully positioned ourselves for battle.

Now as you probably guessed, especially if you know anything about SM, things didn't go as smoothly as we expected. Pulling Scarlet Commander Mograine triggered THE ENTIRE CATHEDRAL! Mobs ran out from every room, from every corner of the church, and within seconds, we were obliterated.

Seriously?

Now, my gear was all red at this point, but I wasn't about to let this stop me from finishing my quest. Sure, I had no idea where Inquisitor Whitemane was, but at very least I wanted this guy dead. So, we ran back, made the intelligent decision to clear everything in the building BEFORE attacking the boss, and began our renewed assault.

Scarlet Commander Mograine

With so little gear left, my heals barely did anything, so progress slowed to a crawl. Mob by mob, pack by pack, and room by room, we cleared. We even found this one undead guy in the back behind a hidden door who dropped some shoulders (lucky!). Eventually, however, it was time. We returned to the main chamber, rebuffed, and engaged the final boss.

I remember being thoroughly unimpressed with him, as he did pretty low damage to our tank and didn't seem to do much else throughout the fight. Eventually, he died, and I was excited to see my quest light up as complete, but it didn't. Instead, we were greeted by the back door of the chamber swinging open, and High Inquisitor Whitemane charging out at us.

Whoa!

Ok, so that explained where the final boss was for my quest. Now we just had to kill her. As before, she wasn't particularly challenging, and I thought maybe this would over fairly quickly. But, of course, I was wrong.

AoE stun! Resurrection! Didn't expect that!

High Inquisitor Whitemane

We were all a bit shocked when she stunned all of us and ran over to Mograine's lifeless body, and even more so when she rezzed him to full. Now I knew why these two weren't that challenging - this was the real boss - fighting them both together. Unfortunately, I had used all of my mana at this point, and we wiped from me being unable to heal at all.

"Guys, I have to go," one of the DPS (though I don't remember who) said in chat.

"Dude, it's the LAST boss! Let's just get it! Come on!" we begged. He must have agreed, because we made our way back inside just in time. As we ran through that first hall, respawns began appearing behind us. This really was the last chance we had.

We got back up to the Cathedral, faced Mograine and, now that we knew what to expect, were ready. Our warrior charged, and I wanded, hoping to conserve as much mana as possible over the course of the fight. The Scarlet Commander fell, and out came Whitemane. Again, knowing not to use my mana needlessly, we carefully took her down.

The stun went out, we all sighed. I had somewhere around 60% mana left at this point. This was it.

The two attacked and we focused all of our damage on Whitemane. Within seconds, she fell. My mana was running out, but I knew that we had this. Mograine hit the floor, and my quest lit up. All four bosses were defeated.

We had conquered the Scarlet Monastery!

---------------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed my short saga of my Scarlet Monastery adventure. I'm sure you'll be happy to know that Whitemane dropped her hat, though the mage in our group ended up winning it that first run. I did eventually get it on a later run though, so things all worked out for everyone.

It's funny, but one of the clearest memories out of all of these stories was how our group almost fell apart at the very end of the dungeon. But through our joint camaraderie, we decided to stick it out and managed to achieve something great, even in a mid-level dungeon. That's something I really miss from the game nowadays, and something I can't wait for in WoW Classic - that feeling of obligation to your group-mates as you go through these challenges and trials. You can't just duck out right at the end, even if real life is pulling you to. You've got to be in it for the long-haul.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this story, or the other stories in this blog, let me know by leaving a comment. Follow me here, on Facebook, or on Twitter for more updates in the future, and check out my YouTube channel for more content. There's still a lot more to come, especially approaching that big level 4-0, so be ready for more.

Until next time, take it easy!

Memories of Vanilla #14 - Storming the Scarlet Monastery, Part 3

Hey dudes. Silvite Soltis back again with another Memories of Vanilla post.

Today, we're going to continue the story of my first Scarlet Monastery run, as there's still a lot that happened on that cold December day in 2005. But before that, remember to follow my blog for more content like this in the future. We're down into the final stretch before WoW Classic releases, with only a few months to go, so it'll be lots of fun to reminisce about what we'll be reliving come summer.

For now, though, on with the story!

------------------------------------------------------

We'd just finished up the Armory and were about to head over to the Cathedral. Running out of the instance, we noticed our rogue was sitting idle back in Herod's room, not moving out along with us. Confused, I asked in party chat what he was doing.

About 30 seconds later, he simply replied "gtg" before leaving the group. We were now down 1 and without a key as we exited the instance.

Of course...

Well, luckily, one of our party members had a hunter friend who had apparently just logged on, so filling the spot ended up being easier than expected. The only problem, however, was that we were still without a key. Our mage, however, had a solution:

SM Library Map

"Hey, if you guys have time, why don't we do Library first so we can get the key?"

My party members and I must have agreed, as within minutes, we were stood inside the Library, planning our moves.

The mobs in the library were much less challenging than the Armory had been, falling like dominoes to our level 37ish group. Before long, we'd cleared our way into the courtyard, similar to the first dungeon, and our tank managed to get us over to a small room off to the right. I smiled when I saw the boss within, standing together with three hyenas:

Houndmaster Loksey

Houndmaster Loksey.

Here he was! The 2nd enemy for the quest that I'd ventured here to complete. Our warrior marked them up, indicating we needed a sheep on one of the dogs. Then, he ran in, pulling the boss and the other two dogs as I scrambled to keep him alive. The damage wasn't too intense, but I had been distracted at the exact moment he went in, so I remember spamming Flash Heal really hard to get him back up.

Anyway, we managed to defeat him, as well as the three remaining dogs, without significant issue. My quest lit up again, as it had in the Armory just a few minutes prior, and we pressed on.

Within minutes of Houndmaster Loksey's demise, we found ourselves in a long hallway filled with several packs of Scarlets - at least 5 packs in total. I was amazed at how much trash there was in here compared to the Armory. Though the enemies were all fairly easily defeated, with us outleveling them all by roughly 3 or 4 levels, it still took quite a while to get through the long hallways leading up to the actual library portion of the instance.

Our tank paused at in front of a doorway, telling us to stay back and asking for the mage to polymorph the mob marked with the moon as soon as he'd pulled. Peering inside, I noticed that this was a large, square room with several packs lined around the pillars, along with a treasure chest nestled off to the left. As I was looking, however, the warrior pulled a group from within, and we scrambled to hide around the doorway to get out of line of sight. It was definitely time to focus on healing.

The next two rooms followed a similar pattern - the tank carefully pulling into the previous room using LoS, the mage sheeping one mob, and me spamming the crap out of Flash Heal to make sure no one died. When we'd finished the second of these large square rooms, we made our way into the final hallway of the Library, the long stretch filled with way more enemies than I'd imagined - even more than the Armory's final hallway.

A couple of my party members grabbed a book from the shelf off to the left. Naturally, I asked them to share the quest with me, so that I could complete that quest as well, but I don't actually remember if it was shareable or not. I feel like it was and that I managed to complete that quest too, but I'm not 100%. Either way, we began clearing that final hallway, slowly but surely making progress toward Arcanist Doan at the end.

Finally, after roughly 40 minutes of dungeoneering, we'd arrived at the end of the Library. We got our health and mana replenished, charged in, and were greeted with the most epic soundtrack that I've ever heard in World of Warcraft - even to this day: Legacy.

Arcanist Doan

If you saw my post on my Top 5 Classic WoW Music Tracks, you probably already know this, but this song is my absolute favorite song in all of World of Warcraft. It really felt as if we'd accomplished a great feat of exploration and were about to reap the rewards - taking the treasure of the Library for ourselves as we charged headlong into Doan's chambers.

Anyway, that was the first time I'd ever heard that track, and it really stirred something within the depths of my soul - I loved this feeling of adventuring with a group, diving into the dungeons and taking out the enemies within. As Doan fell, I felt one of the greatest senses of accomplishment that I'd felt until this point, despite it being a fairly simple and straightforward encounter. Quickly, however, I composed myself and braced for another onslaught of Scarlet Trainees that never came.

Doan was looted, and to my delight the Hypnotic Blade appeared at the bottom of the screen. Now, I had been hoping for the Illusionary Rod that Leika had gotten when he ran this dungeon so many months ago, but the dagger seemed a great prize too. So, the mage and I rolled need.

Hypnotic Blade

I won! I actually got an item from a dungeon! Woo!

I equipped my dagger, noticing in the process that I had no offhand to equip at the moment (doh!), and admired it for a few seconds before noticing that our warrior was jumping by a chest in the back of the room.

Running over, we rolled to see who would get the key - as we assumed it was a one-and-done deal. Again, I rolled a high number and was allowed to loot the chest for the key, much to the mage's dismay. Luckily, however, the chest didn't despawn after I got my Scarlet Key, and each of us managed to get our keys in time.

And so, with smiles of accomplishment, we backtracked through the Library and made our way over to the final destination - the Cathedral.

------------------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed this installment of MoV. To be completely honest, the Library is my favorite of the SM wings, so it was a pleasure to reminisce about it as I worked on this post. It's really surprising to me just how clearly I can recall some of these events, such as my Hypnotic Blade, the track 'Legacy' playing at the end, and even the treasure chest sitting off to the left in one of those square rooms. I think that it's really a testament to how well this dungeon was crafted, as well as how powerful these old experiences were on my 15-year-old mind. Truly a masterpiece.

Anyway, next time, we'll finish off the monastery with my 2nd favorite wing - the Cathedral, with all its zealots and surprises. And man, that's a real doozy of a story. Remember to follow my blog by adding yourself to the email list below so you don't miss that update when it comes out. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter, and check out my YouTube channel for more stories. If you enjoyed this, I'm sure you'll enjoy those too!

But for now, guys, take it easy!

Memories of Vanilla #13 - Storming the Scarlet Monastery, Part 2

Hey dudes. Silvite Soltis back again to continue my story of my first trip to the Scarlet Monastery.

Last time, I told why I was sent there, as well as my epic journey through the Western Plaguelands and past the Bulwark. Well, today we're diving into the monastery itself - one wing at a time, starting with the Armory.

Today's Target

Before getting started though, remember to follow this blog for more updates, or check out my videos over on YouTube. If you like this, I'm sure you'll enjoy those as well :)

And now, on with the story...

-------------------------------------------------------------

Scarlet Monastery

It was a cold day in late December 2005 when our party ran through the now-opened door and into the swirling blue portal that lay beyond. Our warrior, mage, rogue, 3rd DPS (I forgot what he was) and I soon passed the loading screen and were stood in a short hallway. Here, we buffed up, got our mana, and began our adventure.

The dungeon itself wasn't too challenging to be honest, as we were all around level 36-38. And with a rogue and a mage, our crowd control made it all the easier. We passed through the first open area carefully though, clearing the hallway as we went to avoid accidentally pulling additional enemies. Within minutes, we began our descent down the first flight of stairs into the armory proper.

Scarlet Monastery Armory Map

This is where things began to get a little bit hairy. See, I wasn't aware of the pack waiting directly at the bottom of the staircase. So as the tank stood idle, waiting for the mage to drink up to full mana, I ran straight past and facepulled the first pack. Luckily for me, this clearly wasn't his first time doing the dungeon, nor experiencing noobs facepulling, and he quickly picked up the two mobs eating my face. The mage sheeped the caster in the back, and we managed to survive by the skin of our teeth.

"Sorry," I said in chat.

"No problem. We lived. Just be careful next time," he replied.

And I was. For the remainder of the dungeon, I stayed in the back, always behind the warrior and never daring to move too far ahead. Looking back, this really is the first time I learned not to go in front of the tank in a dungeon - a lesson I still remember when playing MMOs to this day. 

We cleared each pack, slowly progressing through the twisting, but linear path until we arrived at the final stretch. The trash in that final hallway was brutal, if I remember correctly, with the Scarlet Myrmidons hitting like an absolute truck. We wiped once on the trash there - having gotten just a bit too close to the next pack down the hall. Luckily, we had no respawns yet, so we were able to run back through and finish the last of it without significant issue, being considerably more careful not to let a similar mistake happen again.

Herod, Our Target

Finally, we'd arrived: Herod's chamber at last. Again the rogue walked up to the door blocking our path to unlock it. As it swung open, our warrior ran inside. Stood below, in the center of the large, circular room, was Herod, the Scarlet Champion.

Now, I had no idea what this guy did, so I thought it would be a good idea to stand up on top of the stairs for the fight alongside the mage. After all, we were both casters and as long as we were within range, it should be simple enough.

The warrior jumped down and engaged the target, spamming Sunder Armor like there was no tomorrow (I assume, anyway. He never lost threat). I remember the damage on him being a bit heavy, but not so much that I couldn't heal through it. So, as you do, I cast a couple Shadow Word: Pains and Mind Flays in on Herod when I could, nearly wrecking my mana pool by the end. The spinning whirlwinds offed our rogue, who had attempted to follow the tank (and thus Herod) as he moved away from the damage, and so we were down one from around mid-way through the fight. Looking back, I probably could have kept him up if I had been playing my role properly, but that's besides the point.

Anyway, the final 10% got quite intense, with the mage and I being completely out of mana and our warrior nearly dead. However, with the last of our combined wand damage, we got him. Our tank still stood at a lowly 5% health, my quest lit up with the words "Herod Slain 1/1" on the right hand side of my screen, and everything seemed alright. Whew! We did it! Success!

Well...almost.

You see, back then when Herod, the Scarlet Champion was killed, it spawned a crap-ton of low, non-elite Scarlet Trainees to attack the party. Unfortunately, the mage and I didn't know this, and I guess the other party members either hadn't noticed our position or had forgotten about this little event. So as soon as Herod fell, the two of us were swarmed by these mobs and killed within seconds, having no way to defend ourselves from the surprise attack.

Scarlet Trainees

We sighed (I assume they did, because I sure did), ran back to the instance, and made our way back to the final chamber - carefully noting any remaining patrols as we did so as to not get killed again. Collecting our loot (I feel like it was an ax, but honestly don't remember 100% to be honest), we turned around and made our way out to head over to the next destination - the Cathedral.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed this installment of Memories of Vanilla. Like I said, this experience with Scarlet Monastery is a very clear memory and has a lot of nostalgia for me, so it'll take a few posts to get through the whole thing. Remembering back now, this must have happened sometime during my school's winter break, as I clearly remember doing all of this in one sitting, which means Leika must have been working. Also, I know that I got my level 40 mount sometime in mid-January (a story coming soon!), so it seems to line up properly. Honestly, with over 13 years since these events took place, a lot of the exact details regarding time and dates have gotten mixed up in my mind, but this is one I am fairly certain about.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this post and would like to see more in the future, remember to follow my blog for email updates when new posts are published. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for other updates, and consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. There's a lot of content over there as well.

For now, though, take it easy guys!

An Important Announcement

Memories of Vanilla #12 - Storming the Scarlet Monastery, Part 1

Hey dudes. Silvite Soltis back again here in 2019 for my first installment of Memories of Vanilla for the new year!

Scarlet Monastery Loading Screen

Last time, we traveled through Desolace and committed genocide against centaurs just to complete a quest. Well today, we're going to flee back to the Eastern Kingdoms (partially to evade the centaur retaliation, but mostly) to storm into the sanctuary of the Scarlets. I am, of course, talking about the first time I did the Scarlet Monastery.

Now, I actually remember a lot about this event clearly, so I think it's only fitting that I divide it into two or three parts, rather than drone on forever all at once. So today, we'll start off with what brought me to SM, as well as my journey to the instance.

So without further ado, let's get to it:

-------------------------------------------

I had just completed a pretty straightforward quest from some dude in Nijel's Point - go to the southern part of the zone and kill a crap-ton of skeletons, then return. I thought that would be the end of my interactions with this guy all dressed in red. After all, most of the quest givers that offer you these types of quests were a sort of one-and-done deal. But this time was different. This was part of a quest chain, and his follow-up tasked me with going all the way to Southshore, over in the northern part of the Eastern Kingdoms.

Well, by this point I'd seen enough of this dreary zone, so I thought it would be a nice change to head back over to Southshore - even just to turn in this quest. After all, I was level 36 or so by this point, and I was running out of things to do in this wasteland. So, I cleared my bags, ran over to the flight master, and began my journey to my next destination.

The trip was quick enough, considering how long it took to get anywhere back in those days, and I soon found myself in front of Raleigh the Devout in Southshore (yes, I had to look up his name). Thinking nothing of it, I turned in the quest and accepted the follow-up. When I checked the location label of the task at hand, however, my jaw dropped. Scarlet Monastery.

The Bosses of SM

Leika had told me of this place - of the crazed zealots in the massive cathedral who would stop at nothing to rid the world of undead. And though I'd never actually been there before, my attention was instantly focused on my new objective - slay Inquisitor Whitemane, Scarlet Commander Mograine, Herod, and Houndmaster Locksey in the Scarlet Monastery!

Time to start spamming general chat:

/1 36 priest LFG Scarlet Monastery!

After several minutes, I gave up my general chat search in Hillsbrad and decided it would probably make more sense to try my luck in trade chat. So I flew down to Ironforge and tried again. No sooner had my gryphon landed when I sent my next message:

/2 36 priest LFG Scarlet Monastery!

Immediately, I was invited to a group of 4 other adventurers, all right around my level, who had apparently been looking for a healer for some time. We exchanged greetings, got on our respective flights, and began our way back north.

Now, here's where my memory starts to get a bit fuzzy. I know that I flew to Chillwind Camp in the Western Plaguelands, as it was the closest flight point to where Leika had told me that SM was. However, I have no idea how, or when, I got this flight path. I must have headed north along the road or with the river through the Alterac Mountains, I guess. Anyway though, I arrived in Chillwind Camp and began my long journey towards Tirisfal.

My Route Through WPL

Remember, I was around level 36 at this point, so literally everything in this zone wanted me dead. I must have died at least 5 times as I ran through the forest - getting mauled to death by plagued bears, eaten by spiders, and just narrowly escaping from the Bulwark's soldiers. But I made it! With most of my equipment damaged and no hope of repairing my gear until we were done, I made it to the Tirisfal Glades.

Now, onward to the next step of the adventure: finding the dungeon.

The Destination

My group members were all still a ways away in Hillsbrad and Silverpine (the route I should have taken) except for the mage. He was already in Tirisfal Glades and was sitting still up in the northeast area of the zone. So, that's where I went.

Following a small road to the north, I was greeted with hanged bodies and elite patrols walking around a large red and white building. Seated, AFK by the meeting stone, awaiting our arrival, was our mage. I promptly joined him in wait and followed his example.

It took a while, but our party members eventually arrived, having run all the way north from Southshore, through Silverpine, and across Tirisfal on foot. Finally, we made our way inside, easily overpowering the lowly level 20-something elites guarding the entrance with our combined might.The rogue in our group ran over to the door to the right and within a few seconds it swung open.

It was time to enter, the Scarlet Monastery!

-------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed this first installment of my SM story. If you did, remember to follow my blog so you don't miss the rest of the story down the road. Like I said, I remember a lot from the first time I went there, so it makes sense to spread out the story, so to speak. 

Anyway, that's it for now. If you're hungry for more content, check out my other posts on my blog here, or my videos on YouTube. Follow me on Facebook, or on Twitter for updates. And until next time, take it easy!