THE HALL OF THE DAMNED AND THE VAULT OF THE RAVENIAN

The next chamber houses the Hall of the Damned, where Doctor Tholen Krastinov, a.k.a. "The Butcher," resides.  Outside the entrance to Scholomance, two shadowy figures stand near a shack and greet characters who stop to listen to their tale.  The woman, Eva Sarkhoff, explains that they were once servants in the house of Barov at the height of its wealth and power and witnessed the decline of Caer Darrow and the House of Barov as the noble family not only sought to enrich themselves but made plans to become immortal so that they could horde their riches forever.  Eva tells of the gruesome treatment she and her husband, Lucien, received and their horrifying almost death.  I say "almost death," because Krastinov keeps Eva's and Lucien's remains with just enough life in them so that their spirits remain trapped to this world.  (Why can't we have an instance with fluffy bunnies who only want cuddle and do nice things for people?)

After telling her tale, Eva asks listeners to kill Krastinov and burn the remains of Eva and Lucien to free their souls.  Note that many players pass Eva by without a glance, because she does not start with a big exclamation mark over her head.  She only gives you her quest after you listen to her "gossip text" tale.

The Hall of the Damned contains mostly those diseased golems that explode with a nasty poison gas cloud upon their deaths.  As before, the best tactic is to stun the golem as it nears death, have the melee characters back away, and have the spellcasters finish the job.  The other mob type in the chamber are a type of skeleton that one would normally first experience in the room with Jandice Barov.  They're non-elite, so they would seem to be easy pickings.  However, they are immune to shadow, arcane, fire, and ice magic.  They are not immune to physical or holy magic attacks, however, and I haven't gotten a definitive answer as to whether they are vulnerable to nature magic or not.  My nature damage wand is able to damage them.  However, I noticed that I was also able to damage them with my fire damage wand. Something strange may be going on with wands.  Anyway, for the most part, you can use physical and holy damage attacks to kill them.  They're not elite, so they still die quickly.

Krastinov (or as most players call him simply "The Butcher") dies easily.  He doesn't have any special attacks other than a bunch of hard-hitting melee attacks.  The remains of Eva and Lucien Sarkhoff are across from one another, and there's nothing special that you need to do with them.  Simply right click the remains and they instantly combust.

Krastinov dropped this set pair of plate gauntlets.  Hmmm... two set items dropping from two named minibosses (not counting the non-drop of the Lorekeeper).  Perhaps this is the start of a trend?

At the back of the room is a clickable work bench.  Is it merely a decoration or something that will be used later?  One can only guess.

We next went downstairs to the Vault of the Ravenian.  The normal mobs were pretty standard fare that could be pulled in small numbers.  The ease with which the normal mobs were cleared belied what was to come.

The Ravenian stands waiting at the back of the room for unsuspecting players to come wake him up.  Indeed, at first glance, he looks easy.  He's just standing there alone, hunched over, and without a sign of any high intelligence to indicate any special magical attacks.

But then one selects him and is in for a surprise as you can see above.  I am level 60.  The Ravenian's level is shown as a white skull on the upper picture and as a "??" in the information box in the lower right corner.  It turns out that he is a level 100 elite mob and that buried deep in Scholomance in this most unlikely of locations is the second most powerful mob in the game.

Or not.  But it sure is fun telling Scholomance first-timers that baloney right before starting the fight.  Say stuff like "I can't believe we're going to try this,"  "We should summon some people to help us," "I don't think anyone's beaten this guy," and "Let's just try it. What've we got to lose?"  I've also found that it helps to say he's the second most powerful mob in the game.  If you say he's the most powerful mob, then people will know that you're full of it.  If you say fifth or something, then it sounds like you're picking a number out of a hat.  But for some reason, if you say he's the second most powerful mob, there's that little seed of doubt that gets planted in the mind.  I think "Get Smart" was onto something there.  ("Get Smart" was the second best TV show I ever saw).

The truth is that I have no idea why the Ravenian shows up as a level ?? mob.  He's killed readily.  Perhaps he's been mistakenly assigned a non-integer level and the user interface can't handle that.  I don't know.  Anyway, he's the second easiest miniboss to kill in this instance.

He dropped these set leather boots.  Looks like the Cadaverous set is some sort of rogue set.  Three set items in three miniboss drops.  The trend continues.

UP NEXT:  The Barov Family Vault and the Shadow Vault