RETURN TO KARAZHAN: Smoldering Ember Wyrm Guide

I'll get to the "let's catch up and see what Des's been up to" after we talk about why you came here to begin with:  The Smoldering Ember Wyrm.
 
Maybe I'm just a bad web-search-bear but after endless hours of research, I could not find a guide that showed me exactly what I NEEDED to know about how to navigate this instance in order to successfully farm this mount.  (Yes, as of 10/14/18 - it is STILL available! GET YOU SOME!)

 Right, so first things first - head to Karazhan.  You're going to look for the upper entrance, rather than the entrance you'd use to farm the Fiery Warhorse's reins.  You're going to need the Dungeon Difficulty set to: Mythic.

Head on inside!

 After the load screen finishes:  You'll be met with an emote: The strange chill of a dark presence winds through the air."  This starts the timer for you to get to the first soul fragment.  Hopefully, this guide can get you through the instance fast enough for you to beat the timer and summon Nightbane for your chance at the Smoldering Ember Wyrm.

Just a heads up on a few things:  There is a 20% drop chance for this mount for any party member that is NOT loot locked.  That means:
1 person?  20% chance the mount will drop
2 people? 40% chance of a mount drop
3 people = 60%...you see what I'm getting at.  It's a high drop chance, it's just not guaranteed unless there are five people in your group.

My druid's gear/spec aren't sufficient to survive and kill mobs fast enough to beat the timer on my own either.  And...anyone that knows me at all knows ALL too well that my navigation skills are none.  I have none.  Closet? I'm lost in it.  That's why I snuggled up to my dearest Lindariel so that I could FINALLY make a guide that players like myself can follow.  So, all the credit, kudos, what have you should go to Lindariel for showing me around (and beating the timer so that this druid could spend some time writing you a guide instead of continuing to farm this instance...)  Anyway, without any further blah blahing...

I'm going to apologize in advance for folks that don't like a ton of screen shots but I'm a VERY visual person.  You can tell me to go through the seventeenth door on the right that has the pink curtains on it but if I don't know what that door is supposed to look like...I'm going to miss it.  So, LOTS of pictures coming up with hopefully very few words...

IMPORTANT TIPS:
*  Only one person in the group should be clicking on the soul fragments. 
*  You'll know if you failed the run if you see an emote:  "The air grows slightly warmer".  Go ahead and throw your keyboard, but I'd continue the run anyway just to practice and learn the dungeon better.  Plus...gold, right? 
*  There is also a quest that goes along with these fragments that you pick up near the entrance of old Karazhan (I believe).  I don't know what effect the quest has or does not have on completing the timed run for the Nightbane encounter.  I did not complete the quest yet.

Let's start with the entrance and your emote again...

 THIS IS THE ACTUAL GUIDE PART, YOU CAN START READING HERE  :) 

Upon entering the dungeon on MYTHIC, you'll see the emote: "The strange chill of a dark presence winds through the air."  

You have 8 minutes to fight through and click on the first soul fragment now.

From the very entrance point, you're going to want to start heading toward your right.

Make your way toward the opera stage...

Head up toward the doorway to the opera stage

Keep on going...

Turn right once you pass through this doorway.

Most of the first leg of the journey is self explanatory.  You just keep following the path until you come to the end of a hall or a doorway.  Once you're through this next little ramp/hallway, you'll arrive at the stage to fight!

This is one of the fights you'll have to win in order to continue onward. 
Once you've beaten the stage fight, head toward the doorway ahead.

Once through that doorway, you're going to turn left, walk a little ways then turn left again at the next doorway

Head through this doorway and continue on straight ahead until you come to the next doorway leading to a ramp that goes DOWNARD.

Head through this doorway and follow the ramps downward. 

You'll come to yet another doorway on your right. 

Once through that doorway, the opera audience will be to your right with the first soul fragment. 
Chances are, you're not going to make it to the fragment without attracting some attention. 

Once you're done murderfacing any friends you made in the audience, go ahead and click on the soul fragment.
***BE AWARE:  The soul fragments are CHANNELED.  You have to stand there and wait for it to finish channeling.  
This soul fragment gives you a 6 minute buff called Medivh's Echo.  Each subsequent soul fragment adds five minutes to this buff timer.
If you don't, you're going to have to try again next week because you'll have lost your shot for this week!"

Once you're through channeling the fragment,  turn toward the doorway at the opposite end of the room from the stage.

Head through the doorway and turn left toward the grand ballroom area.

Once in the grand ballroom, turn toward your left and head toward the ramp (but don't head down that ramp just yet...)

You're going to want to take the doorway to your left as you're heading toward the ramp.  This is going to lead toward the guest chambers.

Once you're through that doorway you'll want to turn RIGHT and start fighting/heading toward Maiden.

There is NO need to actually fight Maiden.
You're going to enter the room to your left JUST before her chambers for the second soul fragment.

The soul fragment will be in the back, left corner of the room.

Now, retrace your steps toward the grand ballroom again.  Exit the 2nd soul fragment room, turn right, then go through the doorway to your left, marked here.  If you start going down another ramp right now, you've gone too far.

Welcome back to the grand ballroom...once you've entered, you're going to turn left and head toward the ramps going down.

Go ahead and take the ramps downstairs now to get to Moroes.

When you reach the bottom of the ramp, you'll come to a doorway.  You want to head RIGHT once you've one through the doorway.

Straight ahead, you'll see MOROES in the banquet hall.  The mobs in here are easy kills and given that this fight can be a little rough, you may as well clear the room quickly before engaging Moroes.

DO NOT FORGET TO LOOT THE KEYS THAT FALL NEXT TO MOROES' BODY.
DO NOT.  FORGET.  TO LOOT.  THE KEYS. 
Forgetting to loot the keys can cost you the entire attempt because you'll have to backtrack and even at level 120...backtracking could cost you too much time.

Once Moroes is dead and you LOOTED THE KEYS, the third soul fragment will be found behind his table.  Grab it.

Retrace your steps out of Moroes' room.

You're going to head out the door to the left again, as if you were heading back toward Maiden.

This is the door you're looking for.  Take this and head back up the ramp toward Maiden.

Once you're up the ramp, you're going to take the door on your right.

Instead of turning left once you pass through this doorway, you're going to turn LEFT.

Turning right will bring you to another doorway and ramps that head down to the spider room.

Spiders...my favorite.

There are two "rooms" when you first enter the spider room.  Carefully navigate the first room, avoiding stepping on spider webs to avoid extra spiders, until you reach the second room.

Once in the second room, you'll find a doorway to your left.  Go through that door and turn toward your right.

In the back of this new room, you'll find the fourth soul fragment and a portal.  Work your way through the room and channel the fragment.

Soul Fragment #4

Once you have completely channeled the soul fragment, click on the portal.  Be careful not to click on it prematurely or, well, you're not going to be very happy...and it will very likely cost you the whole run.

You'll be teleported back to the beginning of the dungeon once you click the portal.

Start running forward, hanging toward the right and following the curve of the wall around.

Don't enter that doorway yet.

You're going to be following the ramps/stairs upward until you reach Curator and the fifth soul fragment.

Go through the doorway at the top of the first ramp.

Go through the doorway at the top of the second ramp.

Head through this opening and keep on following the staircases/ramps upward.

This part is another pretty self-explanatory portion of the journey.  Just keep following the pathway upward to Curator's room.

Keep going!

More stairs...but you're almost there!

Head through that doorway to the left.

There are two sentry guys here.  You might be able to avoid them.  You might not.  They're not a huge obstacle.  You can even drag them into the room with Curator if you like.

Head on through the doorway into Curator's room.  He'll be patrolling to your left.  There are some mobs in here that are just time consuming.  If you can pull/kill Curator without having to fight these extras, go for it.  (I was preoccupied with taking notes on how to navigate this beastly dungeon, and I face pulled...so I'm not sure if you can pull him by himself or not.)

Unfortunately, I didn't take the screenshots while we were actively running this dungeon for the timed run, so I don't have a screenshot of this fifth, and FINAL fragment, but once you down Curator, it will appear between his feet.  Go ahead and click that.  You now have FIVE MINUTES to get to Medivh and talk to him to start the Nightbane encounter.

Your soul fragment buff should now read: MEDIVH'S PRESENCE and should have a 5 minute timer.***DO NOT GO THROUGH THE PORTAL AT THE END OF CURATOR'S ROOM.  THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO THE UPPER DUNGEON AND YOU'RE GOING TO FAIL THE TIMER***

Instead, we're going to retrace our steps back towards the dungeon entrance.  Head back out of Curator's room toward the ramps/stairs.  Run/Sprint/Move Fast!

Keep heading out of Curator's area toward the ramps.

Just outside of Curator's area, there's a green rug.  You can actually jump off of the ramps where my character is to save time.  You'll take some fall damage, but it's not enough to kill you unless you're not already at full health.  I think it does takes about 40% or so of your health bar.

This is the spot we jumped from from above.  Go ahead! Jump!

You'll land somewhere around here.  Turn around.

You'll see this doorway.  Run through it.

Then you'll run through the next door to your right and you should be back outside.

Once outside, you'll want to take the next door to your right.

And now you're back INSIDE.

Once you're back inside, you'll come to the same ramps you began the journey to Curator on.  You don't need to run all the way down (but you can if you so choose).  You can jump from this spot though to get to the bottom a bit quicker.  Again, it doesn't do enough damage to really worry about.

This will be your view upon landing.  There will be Door #1 to your left or Door #2 ahead.

For the purpose of this guide, I choose door #1, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter which door you take.  As long as you still have some time left on your buff, you should still run into Medivh.

Don't go down these stairs.  This leads to where Attumen and Midnight are.  You can come back and kill them to try for that mount AFTER the Nightbane encounter.  Attumen isn't in a hurry to get anywhere, but Nightbane is.

Again, I failed to take the screen shots while we were in the active dungeon.  Medivh will be around the halfway point when you follow the outdoor walkway around.  He almost looked stealthed, so be careful not to miss him.  At any rate, click on him and talk to him to get the encounter started.  There are a lot of guides out there that explain the Nightbane encounter, so I'm not going to get into detail other than to say don't stand in the fire.  Even at 120...it stings!

Talking to Medivh here also gets you the achievement .  Mmm nerdpoints...

Now, I'm going to throw a disclaimer in here.  There's a reason I've been out of game for the past almost five years and it wasn't so much that I stopped enjoying the game.  That's not even a little bit of the reason.  You see, I went and got remarried a little over three years ago.  We ended up having our first child together 9 months after the wedding (heh...ahem...) and then 20 months later...another son.  So, currently this bear has a teenage cub with two little guys that keep me running almost constantly and more surprises in store.

My in game time is casual, to put it nicely.  I don't have the time I used to.  

That being said, if there are any errors in this guide or something needs adjusting - PLEASE comment below or reach out to me in game and I'll get it fixed ASAP!

Missed y'all!  So happy to be back in Azeroth!