It was a quiet late afternoon in Azeroth; Leechy and I were hunting the red dragon in the Plaguelands. As we ran out of prey, Sloub suggested a quick visit to Scholomance, which we gladly accepted. We met Lumk and Quixall at the gates of this gloomy school. I had already ventured inside with larger groups, but the missions that brought us there that day required a smaller team. The atmosphere was excellent, and we progressed at our own pace, meaning slowly but surely, trying to fight only a minimal number of enemies at once. Of course, we had a few intense moments when an occult patrol showed up in the middle of a fight, just as one of us caught the attention of a third group of undead with an unfortunate misstep… Some passages were even tense, like the vocal cords of our guide during a slaughter in Molten Core, but we were doing pretty well.
The guardians of this place fell under our repeated blows, and we made our way without too much trouble to face Rattlegore. Catching our breath after his death, we wondered how to continue our progress behind the door to the Vision Chamber, which we knew was locked. Fortunately, as we were taking a dinner break, Quixall noticed a key on the lifeless (and now un-lifeless) body of our fallen foe. Relieved, we hacked our way through with swords, fireballs, and ostrich beaks to the door of the Vision Chamber, which I opened mechanically by pulling a key from my pocket. As the words “who opened this?” echoed around me, I had a fleeting vision of a previous Scholomance run we had to abandon early due to the lack of a key… But, being a good fighter, I didn’t let those past images distract me for long… Though just enough for me to be caught off guard by a classroom suddenly transformed into an animated graveyard, with swarms of angry students rushing at my companions! After a brief fight, they explained to me that we had interrupted the professor in the middle of a lecture… Such passionate students! We then set out to calm the anger of this corrupt professor’s soul once and for all. And in the process, we dealt with a frustrated lich, various noble representatives, a cruel executioner, and the headmaster. Of course, we came close to death several times, but the angel of death, merciful in the face of so much bravery or determination, always allowed our souls to return to our bodies…
As we passed through the different rooms of the school, some of us gathered property deeds for Alexi Barov and avenged the castle’s servants. However, their specters still demanded justice by sending us to kill Jandice Barov. We were tired from so many battles, but out of respect for their pain, we agreed. This was probably a mistake. We entered the cursed school again, but the path to Jandice was difficult. Hordes of undead guarded her alcove, and they gave us quite a challenge. When we finally reached her, she cast many illusions, making the fight hard, especially since we had attracted some ghouls left in the hallway behind. Our first defeat led to a second, and after some discussions with the angel of death, when we returned to the doors of Jandice’s lair, her guardians were waiting for us, just as numerous as the first time… After several more failed attempts, we decided it would be best to retreat for the day. Fortunately, no one will ever know about our retreat after about seven hours in the dungeon, as we all swore to keep this shameful ending a secret…
