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...

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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.

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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!