Since his rebirth, Gabryell still had not run Scarlet Monastery Library.
A Mage could ignore Scarlet Monastery Graveyard, but Library was different. The Scarlet Key was inside a small chest in Arcanist Doan's room, and it could only be looted after killing him.
This run had one main purpose: farm a Dog Whistle for tomorrow's duel tournament.
There were not many trinkets available at this stage, and Dog Whistle was surprisingly annoying against casters. It was nowhere near as strong as Barov Peasant Caller, but at level 45, it was more than enough to give casters a headache.
"Pull straight through," Gabryell said. "Just don't grab two packs at once."
At level 45, running a level 34 dungeon did not require much caution. Besides, Carlos and the others had leveled to 36 in Scarlet Monastery Library, so they knew the place well.
They pushed forward aggressively. As long as they avoided sloppy overpulls, nothing here could threaten them.
Scarlet Monastery Library had two bosses. The first was Houndmaster Loksey, located behind the door on the right side of the library garden. He came with three dogs.
Loksey was only a level 34 elite. Carlos pulled him and all three hounds together. Igor and Hugo focused the boss, while Gabryell cleared the dogs with Flamestrike and Cone of Cold.
"Please let this drop first run."
Dog Whistle was not guaranteed. Its drop rate was only around thirty percent, and farming Library was boring. Gabryell hoped it would drop right away and save them the trouble.
"With Luna looting?" Hugo said. "Relax. We're good. Back when we leveled here, we ran Library eleven times and she looted ten Dog Whistles."
Lunatori smiled, a little embarrassed.
Her luck was not just good. It was ridiculous.
Houndmaster Loksey lasted barely a minute before going down.
She stepped forward to loot.
"It dropped!"
Her voice rose with excitement. Dog Whistle was their main goal this time, so getting it in one run felt even better than the ten she had looted before.
Dog Whistle (Uncommon)
Binds when picked up
Unique
Requires Level 25
Use: Summons a Tracking Hound to fight for you for 10 min. (10 min cooldown)
Carlos laughed. "That's it. Run's already worth it."
"Luna really doesn't miss," Hugo said.
To be honest, none of them wanted to farm Scarlet Monastery Library longer than necessary.
Gabryell took Dog Whistle without hesitation. One more trinket for the duel tournament meant one more way to win, especially against Warlocks. They already had pets interrupting a Mage's casts. If a Mage had no way to return the favor and disrupt the Warlock, the duel could become extremely passive.
"Keep going. Let's grab the key."
Getting Dog Whistle and the Scarlet Key in one trip would save him from having to come back and solo the place later.
They continued clearing deeper in. The final boss, Arcanist Doan, was in the innermost room of the Library. At level 45, he was not a threat. The only annoying part was clearing the trash along the way.
After about ten minutes, they reached the deepest part of the dungeon.
No one in the party needed Doan's gear. They only wanted to kill him quickly so Gabryell could grab the key.
The level 37 Arcanist Doan was brutally beaten by five level 45 players and lasted only a short while.
The moment he died, Gabryell went straight to the side of the room and opened the chest to take the Scarlet Key.
"No one's looting him?" Carlos asked when no loot window appeared.
"No one wants the junk this guy drops," Igor said lazily.
"Junk still vendors," Carlos said. "That's a few dozen silver."
As a Warrior, he treated every bit of silver seriously. Every gold a Warrior owned had been saved one coin at a time.
Lunatori said, "Sorry, I went to get water. I'll loot."
So that was why she had not touched the corpse right away.
She walked over and looted Arcanist Doan.
The moment the roll window popped up, everyone went still.
"Holy shit!"
Carlos shouted before anyone else could react. "Epic!"
Gabryell, who had just picked up the key, immediately looked over.
When he saw the item in the roll window, he froze too.
This was actually possible?
From a boss everyone had been too lazy to loot, Lunatori had pulled one of the lowest-level epic items in World of Warcraft, and the only epic item in Scarlet Monastery.
Deadman's Hand (Epic)
Binds when picked up
Unique
Finger
+10 Stamina
Requires Level 29
Item Level 36
Equip: When struck in combat has a chance of freezing the attacker in place for 3 sec.
A forgotten god-tier item.
In later WoW Classic, barely anyone talked about it. The pace of Classic moved so fast that Deadman's Hand had almost been forgotten, to the point that some players were not even sure whether Blizzard had left it in the game.
But this ring was absolutely a PvP monster.
+10 Stamina was exactly the kind of stat PvP needed most, and the proc rate was surprisingly high. The strongest part was that ranged attacks, melee attacks, and spells could all trigger it, freezing the attacker in place for three seconds.
Gabryell had never gotten one in his previous life. The only time he had seen it in action was in level 70 arena, where a Discipline Priest wore it in a 3v3 match. Several times, its proc saved that Priest's life and helped his team turn the match around.
An item useful even in level 70 arena was more than worthy of being called god-tier during a level 45 open beta.
"This is a PvP ring, right?" Carlos asked.
He was getting better at reading gear.
"Yeah," Gabryell said. "A very strong one."
He explained, "Ranged attacks, melee attacks, even spells can trigger it. If it procs, the attacker gets frozen in place for three seconds. Think of it like a mini Frost Nova."
Carlos's eyes widened. "So if a Warrior wears this, he basically gets his own Frost Nova?"
"Sort of."
"That's huge," Carlos said. "Maybe Warriors won't spend every Mage duel getting kited like idiots."
Gabryell laughed. "If you can't reach the Mage, you still can't reach the Mage. One ring won't fix that matchup."
Deadman's Hand could help, but it could not erase a Warrior's disadvantage against Mages. A Mage's toolkit countered Warriors from top to bottom. As long as the Mage was not terrible, losing to a Warrior in a duel was almost impossible.
Carlos thought about it and realized he was right. As a Protection Warrior, he had already given up on dueling unless he wanted to embarrass himself.
"You take it" Carlos said. "You actually need it tomorrow."
With that, he clicked Pass.
"I don't really PvP," Lunatori said, also passing.
Igor sighed. "Fine. But you owe me breakfast for a month."
Then he clicked Pass too.
Hugo followed. "My PvP is garbage. Giving it to me would just make the ring sad."
Of the five people in the party, everyone except Gabryell passed.
He was touched, but for some reason, the whole thing felt strangely familiar.
Then it hit him.
This was how loot drama always started.
A good item dropped, everyone smiled and passed it to one person, and suddenly that person looked like the guild's favorite child.
Gabryell felt awkward. Somehow, he had just been handed the perfect setup for loot drama.
"This is fine between friends," he thought, "but in raids, we can't do this. Loot needs to follow the guild rules, or people will start calling me Ninja Ogabs."
Everyone had already passed it to him on purpose. Refusing now would only make things weird.
So he clicked Need and took Deadman's Hand.
Some people might say Mages did not need Deadman's Hand because they already had Frost Nova.
That was wrong.
Frost Nova had a cooldown and a range limit. Against ranged classes like Warlocks and Hunters, it might not hit at all.
Deadman's Hand was different. As long as you got hit, the attacker had a good chance of being frozen in place. Three seconds was enough to do a lot of things.
Sometimes, it was enough to turn an entire duel around.