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!
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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:
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| SM Library Map |
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:
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| 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.
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| Arcanist Doan |
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.
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| Hypnotic Blade |
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.
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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!
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