The Great Thief

Bloodmage Thalnos was from the Kirin Tor faction and was an absolute asshole.

Kirin Tor was a Mage organisation dedicated to researching and documenting all forms of human magic, and had existed for over a thousand years.

A long time ago, most Wizards and Magi resided in Stormwind City. However, the ruler during those times was afraid of magic and sorcery and thus, began setting up restrictions and limitations to control the powers of these Mages. Most of them fled to the North and built the City of Dalaran with the help of the High Elves.

As time went on, more and more came to seek shelter in Dalaran, which became a paradise for Mages.

However, as their numbers and power grew, more and more magi began to practice their arts. This caused the fabric of reality around Dalaran began to weaken and tear, allowing the demons of the Burning Legion to enter the world.

The Burning Legion were too overwhelmingly powerful for the Dalarans to deal with and so, the Kirin Tor was founded to defend against them.

Unfortunately, Kirin Tor could not alter the fate of these Wizards. While Prince Alsace Minnel led the Scourge and swarmed the land of Lordaeron, Kel’thuzad summoned Archimonde using the Book of Medivh.

The arrival of Archimonde left the city in a pile of nothing but ashes and sorrows.

Thalnos, who was a mere Magi Disciple at the time, watched as the great City of Dalaran become nothing but ruins.

The irony was that he never resented Kel’thuzad, Archimonde nor the leader of the Scourge, Alsace. Instead, he envied how strong and powerful they were.

Through the years, Thalnos hid in the camp of the Crusaders and explored the world of Necromancy.

He tortured the spirits of the weak and the poor, and even the spirits of dead Crusade soldiers.

His job in the Crusaders was to quarantine and execute those that were plagued with diseases. As such, he could freely acquire spirits and demons for his Necromancy.

Based on his background lore, Thalnos sounded like he would be too powerful for a group of level 30 players to defeat.

However, over the years, he had suffered injuries and contracted the plague of the Undead, turning him into a fearsome, skeletal being. He now prowled the Scarlet Monastery graveyards as a much weaker version of his old self.

Lu Li approached the largest tomb stone in the graveyard and pushed opened the door.

Two large bats appeared and began attacking them. These were the guards of Blood Mage Thalnos and were responsible for dealing with uninvited guests.

Azure Sea Breeze managed to aggro one of them, while the other one aggroed onto Lu Li.

Everyone focused on the bat that was aggroed by Azure Sea Breeze. These bats had higher HP than Elite monsters but were relatively easy to deal with.

When the two guards were defeated, the Blood Mage sensed the intruders.

He slowly appeared from the graveyard, with his red, glowing eyes threatening to suck them into an endless abyss.

Bloodmage Thalnos: Level 30, 150,000 HP. He wore a dark green Mage robe and a tall Wizard hat. His face appeared blurry and no one could see his expressions clearly.

In his hands, he held a long staff which was topped with a skull.

The eye socket of the skull was flickering flashes of a gloomy shade of green. The mouth was distorted and let out disturbing, mournful laughs.

"Azure Sea Breeze, don’t just stand there! You can attack him! Wandering, stay put near the entrance and make sure Thalnos doesn’t leave the dungeon room. If he tries to escape, then use Taunt to lure him back into the room," Lu Li commanded.

This was one of the strategies to defeat Thalnos. If he escaped out of the room, he would resurrect the corpses and souls which would just create more problems for Lu Li and the others.

Fighting Thalnos inside the dungeon room decreased the difficulty by at least 20%, which could be the difference between a successful or failed run.

The other teams that were attempting to complete the First Clear for this dungeon were struggling because of the small mobs. They were extremely difficult to deal with and they greatly increased the difficulty of the dungeon.

The mobs that Thalnos summoned were at least 10 times stronger than the Zombies summoned by the Tomb Guards. These mobs were on a completely different level and they also received healing from Thalnos.

Of course, besides this strategy, there were other factors that made this dungeon difficult.

As the final boss of the Scarlet Monastery, Thalnos was extremely annoying to defeat.

The room for the boss battle was quite cramped and the lighting was dim, which made the fight much more difficult and confusing than it would have been otherwise. Because of the dim room, the flashes of magic and animations of skills were very distracting for players. They also gave Lu Li a headache.

"Everyone space out and keep at least two yards from each other!" Lu Li yelled.

"My skill will be out of range!" Remnant Dream shouted back.

"You don’t have to go so far – just stand next to March Rain. When she moves, you move with her." Lu Li was speechless at her lack of common sense.

"Sister March Rain, can you guide me later?" Remnant Dream was slow to react but was clever enough to ask for help.

"Ok." March Rain smiled at the young Hunter.

After some shuffling around, everyone was finally in the correct positions.

No one knew what Lu Li was up to, but they all followed his commands anyway. Wandering was the only person that didn’t blindly follow Lu Li’s arrangement. Instead, he figured out that this formation allowed the team to react quickly under any situation.

"You underestimate my powers," Thalnos laughed as he pointed his staff towards them.

"Riceball, move 2 yards in any direction! Quick!" Lu Li yelled.

Sesame Riceball was a dungeon veteran and knew that he was in a bad position. He quickly shifted to his left by a couple of steps and stood near Lonesome Flower.

After 10 seconds had passed, Lu Li made him move to his original position.

Sakura Memory was targeted next. Since she was a melee class, there wasn’t enough space for her to move around. As such, Lu Li, Moonlight, Sakura Memory and Azure Sea Breeze all had to shift two yards away from where they were originally standing.

There was a reason for the 2-yard spacing between each player.

If it weren’t for Lu Li orchestrating the movement and positioning of everyone, anyone that stood still for three seconds would be affected by a debuff that stopped time.

The debuff wouldn’t cause any damage to the player, but for two minutes, they would be unable to cast skills, move, or even blink.

A two-minute window where a player could not deal any damage did not not seem like much, but Thalnos casted this skill every 30 seconds. This de-buff was an area of effect skill that had a radius of 2 yards and was casted randomly in the dungeon room.

This was the reason why Lu Li had arranged the formation in such a way.

All Lu Li had to do was watch the attack patterns of Thalnos and keep an eye on where his staff was pointed towards. Then, he would command the corresponding person to reposition accordingly. This required great foresight and intense judgement skills.

Many other Elite groups of the big guilds were struggling greatly to deal with this skill.

Even Sorrowless was clueless about this dungeon. Glory Capital had been trying to defeat Thalnos the entire afternoon the day before but were annihilated countless times. After many runs, they had devised a number strategies to deal with the de-buff skill.

Their strategy however, only had the accuracy of around 50%.

This meant the 50% of the time, a party member would be hit by the de-buff.

According to Sorrowless’ calculations, you needed an accuracy of 80% to defeat Thalnos.