Memories of Vanilla #22 - Zipping Around in Zul'Farrak, Part 1

Hey dudes! Silvite Soltis back with another MoV for you!

Zul'Farrak Loading Screen

Last time, I wrapped up my story of how my ragtag team of adventures saved the baby gryphon, Sharpbeak, from evil forest trolls and acquired the all-important Mallet of Zul'Farrak. And while that was a crazy adventure with a very specific goal, I feel like it's important to backtrack a bit and talk about my first experience with everyone's favorite troll-themed dungeon. So, let's rewind a bit back to level 45 or so and put on some nooby goggles to head across the world to the legendary instance known as Zul'Farrak.

Here we go!

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The first time I went to Zul'Farrak was a chilly day in early 2006. I clearly remember that, though I don't think it was quite winter anymore at that point. I'd just gotten to that point in the "Saving Sharpbeak" quest chain that required me to get "Nekrum's Medallion" from the instance, and considering that I'd gotten a few more quests by that point, it seemed as good a time as any to go for it. However, I distinctly remember that I didn't want to heal, as I was getting pretty tired of being a healing tool at this point (especially since I felt like such a badass bringer of death with my Shadowform), so I set out to find a group as a DPS for a change.

It wasn't too hard to get a group, but it did take a while. About 20 minutes into my spamming of Tanaris general chat and killing some local wildlife, a druid whispered me asking if I'd set up a group if he healed it. So long as I didn't have to heal, I was fine with it. Thus the long campaign truly began. I knew we'd need a mage and a tank - that much was standard dungeon procedure to me at this point. But how to get them to join?

Well...just keep spamming, of course!

I could be mistaken about this next part, but if I'm not wrong, there was a channel called "World" chat at this point, allowing all players in the world to chat with each other at all times. Using this channel (or maybe Trade, I can't really remember at present), I managed to find a hunter, warrior, and mage to fill out our team. With a team of 5, we all headed down and over to the instance.

Or...that was the plan, at least.

Zul'Farrak

Unfortunately, I had no idea where the instance actually was, despite my many adventures in Tanaris and the multitude of quest leading me there. Sheepishly, I asked the druid if he could guide me there, as I'd not done it. And man, he was a bro about it, running out of the instance and all the way back over to me in Gadgetzan to guide me to the nearby instance. Eventually, (something around an hour after I'd initially set out to find a group, mind you) the five of us were stood inside and ready to begin. As was custom, I passed the lead to our warrior, who proceeded to pull without marking anything - leaving us scrambling to clean up.

Well, not ideal, but it worked. We managed to take out the first and second packs without significant issue. "Not too bad!" I thought to myself as I sat to drink after the third pack.

Well...not yet anyway.

By the end of that first hallway, our tank had begun marking a mob for sheeping and a kill target for us, which made things go even more swimmingly. We progressed along the sandy structures at a fairly brisk pace, pausing briefly for mana only every other pack or so. But the problems were about to start. As we approached that fountain at the split in the road, we were faced with our first hurdle - patrolling mobs in a small space. Until now, we'd had a decent amount of space to work with, pulling back along walls and out of sight. Here, however, there was no escaping the wandering troll troops as they approached. When one troll got low, it began running toward the patrols and instantly grabbed another 4 or so for us to deal with.

I'm not sure if we recovered from that or wiped to be honest, but I do remember sighing as I died from pulling aggro with an ill-timed Mind Blast. Either way, whether we wiped from that or not, we moved onward - passing CAREFULLY around the corners, through the paths, and over to the big open room with all the scarabs with that one boss patrolling around.

Theka the Martyr

Now, of course, someone warned us NOT to AOE because we'd be overwhelmed with scarabs. But, come on! It's vanilla! Someone (probably the hunter) HAD to do it. Thus as we attempted to kill the troll boss guy, we got roflstomped by about 30 scarabs and wiped.

Good times...

Well, fortunately for us, we'd only been in here for about half an hour at this point, so we still had plenty of time to finish the dungeon. So, we ran back in, back over to that boss, and CAREFULLY  pulled him backwards into the hallway to avoid a repeat of the previous attempt. With him dead, we continued along the hallway straight over to the Witch Doctor's room.

Now, it may not have been customary to do this back then (and it DEFINITELY isn't now), but for some reason we were instructed to run over all of the graves before we attempted to fight the boss in order to get rid of the adds. Again, I don't remember if this actually did anything for the fight, but I remember that as we killed all the undead trolls that spawned, I got too close and aggroed the Witch Doctor from outside, resulting in him spamming us with spells while we attempted to clean up the mess of death.

It wasn't pretty, but somehow (maybe after wiping once), we managed to kill everything in that room and get our loot - the Bad Mojo Mask! Super-hyped up, I smashed the need button! And within seconds, I received...

Bad Mojo Mask

Absolutely nothing.

Again, much like Whitemane's Chappeau, I was beaten by our local mage for this amazing headpiece... Aww man!

Well...by this point I was getting pretty used to it, so we pressed onward without issue. By this point, I was getting really tired of this instance, but hey - the end had to be close, right? And so, we moved around the corner and were greeted with a MASSIVE pyramid structure and several troll huts with packs of mobs, patrols, and a whole bunch of adventures just waiting to be had.

Our tank pulled the patrols first, clearing a path up to the pyramid. However, our mage (yeah the guy with the shiny new mask...) mentioned that for 'the event' we'd better have everything cleared. Curious, I asked:

"What event?"

"Oh! You're new here, huh? You'll see! :)" he replied.

"Ok..."

With surprising speed and ease, we cleaned out all the mobs wandering outside, including a random patrol that was wandering around a different path off to the south-west. Slowly, we headed up the steps of the pyramid to face him - the Sandfury Executioner.

Now, I expected this to be some big epic boss encounter, but he just kind of fell over. One of my party members looted him, picked up the key, and ran over to the cages that lay just beyond.

"Ready?" he asked us.

The Stair Event

Clearly everyone else was ready, so I went along with them and watched as the doors swung open and out stepped a group of 5 NPCs. As they walked over to the edge of the steps, I gasped in real life at the sight of what was happening at the base of the pyramid: hundreds of trolls had just spawned. And before I could gather my composure, they began running up the steps towards us...

Luckily, they were mostly non-elites, so even though there were several running up at any time, we managed to pick them off fairly easily. Still, I felt uneasy as the pack below never seemed to get any smaller, despite the increasing size of the waves of approaching enemies. Eventually, I managed to sit for a moment to drink and catch my breath, but as I did so, I watched as two particular trolls spawned at the back of the pack - Nekrum Gutchewer and Shadowpriest Sezz'ziz.

A Sandfury Cretin

With new strength, we pushed through the final waves of troll mobs and began our attack on the troll leaders. Somehow, despite all the hardship and lack of mana, we managed to defeat the two and were rewarded with some basic loot stuffs and a quest item (yay Nekrum's Medallion!). Mission accomplished!

Well...not quite. Again, one party member asked "Ready?". To this, I just sighed and sat to drink before nodding. Without any idea of what was going on, I looked on in amazement as the NPCs we'd just saved turned red and began attacking our group. Our mage managed to sheep one add while we burned each of the others in some sort of order, but it was pretty much a huge free-for-all. Ahh well...we can't all be epic gaming legends, right?

Anyway, Sergeant Bly and his companions (including the goblin that tried to run away) fell, and we looted yet another quest item from his corpse before we continued our assault. After all, there were still two objectives left for me at this point - Gahz'rilla's Electrified Scale and the Tiara of the Deep. Naturally, I had no idea where these items were, but I followed the team as they ran down the last remaining pathway...

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I hope you enjoyed this tale of adventures in Zul'Farrak. Originally, I'd intended for this story to be one installment by itself, but as I worked, I realized that it's just too much for one post. So, I decided at the last minute that I should save the ending for another story. After all, dungeons are just too epic to tell about in one sitting, right?

Anyway that's it for today. If you enjoyed this story, remember to follow my blog for the conclusion! Also, check out my YouTube channel for similar content in video form. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for updates or to chitchat about Classic WoW. And no matter where you are or what you're doing...

Take it easy!