Storming the Castle Part 4

We finally managed to make our way through the second area, but it took us longer than we had hoped. The area was littered with traps, countless doors and hallways, as well as multiple enemies that while didn't really do much damage had absurd pools of HP. The hallways were also pretty narrow, and since we had a lot of people it made it difficult to move around properly. Luckily with the time we saved by splitting up at the beginning, we should still be on a good pace to finish first. A few more low and medium-leveled players also died, and since most of them didn't have revive items of any kind, they couldn't really do much besides spectate us. A few more players also seemed to get lost, and we don't really know where they are, or even if they're still alive. After aimlessly wandering the hallways and checking nearly every room, we ended up finding a room that wasn't quite like the others, and after moving some furniture around we found a secret entrance that led upwards. The passage we found was fairly wide and lit up with lanterns. Upon reaching the end of the passageway, there was what looked to be a solid wall, but after pushing it the wall opened like a door and let us out.

We looked all around to try and figure out where to go next but found ourselves in a once lavish hallway that was now broken down with the option to go either left or right with no indication of where either way led.

"There's no point in wasting time here. Come on, let's go left."

Mike seemed to quickly understand that trying to decide what way to go would only lead to our precious time being wasted, so he just chose a random side and began to lead everyone down that way. After a few minutes of running, we stopped and saw a figure waiting at the bottom of a set of stairs that led upward. The figure was hooded and fully covered with clothing. Their figure resembles that of a human, but I seriously doubt whatever it is will be friendly to us. It didn't seem to notice us yet, so Mike indicated for us to be quiet and quietly asked for a high-level mage to use a powerful spell. A mage from another strong guild came forward and after preparing their magic for a good twenty seconds, it was ready to fire.

"Where are those humans at? Perhaps they died on the second floor; that would be great if they did. Hmm?"

He noticed something out of the corner of his vision, and upon turning his head he heard someone say something.

"flame prison"

Fire surrounded Moluaria from all sides and he was trapped in a box of fire. Any attempt to escape would result in him being severely burned or worse.

"Is this... expert-leveled magic? Did I really just stand there while they cast this on me?"

The large group of people began approaching with their weapons drawn. He hadn't expected them to come from the direction they did because the only marked way up to this area was through a path in the opposite direction. He had set up traps, undead, and many other such things to weaken them before reaching him, but they ended up coming from the other way. How did they do it?

"Aqua Blade"

A sword appeared in Moluaria's hand, and he slashed it at the cage. After two swings, the cage vanished into a large mist cloud, and everyone lost track of where he was.

"Does anyone see him?"

"Where is he?"

We looked around, but still couldn't see anything; that was until we heard a noise in the mist and looked towards it. A few seconds of curiosity passed and skeletons began to run out of the mist at us. First one, then two, then four, ten, twenty-five, they just kept coming. We fought back, but they just wouldn't relent.

"Someone use wind magic! Clear out the mist!"

The same mage from before used some wide area wind magic without chanting, and the mist vanished. Once gone, we saw the hooded figure flying in the air with a tome in his left hand; that's probably what's summoning all these enemies. We couldn't see his face, but saw two blue lights where his eyes should be.

"You fools will go no further! At least you can take solace in the fact that the great Moluaria defeated you."

"…"

"Who?"

"…"

I don't know who had said, but the lights in his eyes vanished for a few seconds, and when they came back, the speed at which the skeletons were being summoned sped up exponentially.

"WHY DID YOU ANTOGONIZE HIM?"

"WHO DID THAT!"

The enemies were still in a manageable state, but it was obvious that if nothing was done soon, then we would be overwhelmed. If that happened were all but guaranteed to fail at being the first ones to complete this. The tanks in the group pushed forward and were holding off the skeletons for now; while they did that, the archers and mages fired from the backlines as the people who specialize in hand-to-hand combat rushed in.

Moluaria raised the hand which didn't hold the tome, and an almost clear barrier formed in front of him, blocking the arrows and magic. When the close combat people got closer, he tried casting magic at them, mainly fire types, but they were mostly unsuccessful since their speed was high, and those whose speed was low had a large amount of HP to make up for it. Some people took damage, but no one died. Moluaria seemed to know that close combat would be very disadvantageous for him, so he started summoning higher-leveled monsters to fight. Armored skeletons now started appearing next to him, and they wielded weapons of various types. The thieves in the group sped around them and began attacking Moluaria from behind; when that happened, he used some type of repulse ability, and the player was thrown away. When using that ability, he had to lower his barrier, and the backline took advantage of that and began firing magic again. This time they hit and his hood was blown off. Everyone got a good look at him as well as his skeletal and bony head. He put the hood back on, but now that everyone knew he was a lich, defeating his was trivially easy. Basically, a lich's health is tied to their MP, and it looks like he can only use two types of magic at a time, so as long as the close combat people keep attacking, he'll either have to stop the summoning magic to deal with them, which leaves him being overwhelmed by all types of attacks by over fifty people, or he'll have to fend off the fighters while summoning which will leave him open to long-range attacks; plus, now that they knew he was a skeleton, nearly all of the people switched to bludgeoning weapons, and the archers swapped to explosive arrows.

The close-range attacks continued, but he didn't stop summoning the monsters. He probably knew that even if he was getting hit at close and long range, if he stopped summoning, he was guaranteed to lose. Someone with a two-handed hammer suddenly appeared from above and landed a heavy hit with all of their might. Moluaria fell to the ground and dropped his tome. He tried to quickly stand up and get a hold of it again, but the damage had already been done and the skeletons had been unsummoned and vanished. The horde of players ran at him as he was being hit by heavy attacks from behind. Luckily he still had one way of getting out of here; a way to live to fight another day.

"telepo-"

He couldn't speak. His body froze, and he was unable to cast the teleportation magic to leave. The words of her majesty came into his head once again. You will defeat them or die trying. He couldn't go against her commands, no matter how hard he tried. The only way to survive was to defeat them all. It was impossible. No one could do such a thing, not even her majesty.

As the group of people got closer, the attacks only increased, and Moluaria swiftly vanished into purple particles. He left an amulet behind, which Josh quickly pocketed, but that was it. Now that Moluaria had died, we looked at the staircase and started our ascent to the top.