She shovled food in her mouth then ran back to her room, logging back in as Kit. She had eaten in five minutes flat so she hadn't missed much. When she got back she looked around for a moment, processing what was going on. It seemed the boss have broken through the dungeon. "Does anybody else realized that the boss has exited its assigned area completely. It shouldn't be able to come up here this is supposed to be a safe zone." She stated as she pulled out her bow and arrows. "Fire, Beast." She said summoning her beast to help aid in the fight. She then took a few steps back. "Fire, Circle." She chanted, casting a circle of fire around the croc. Her plan was to distract it with her beasts as long as possible, though she could only summon one at a time for now, to allow others to get hits on it and hopefully drain its health.

The sight at what lied in the town's center astonished him, he was far behind words. It seemed as though nobody was prepared for such a large encounter so early in the game. Hearing what Roarz shouted to him Kixod looked to the healths bar seamlessly floating floating above the boss, then looked to Roarz. "Yeah, no kidding. I wonder which sad sap flushes him down the toilet." Kixod said laughing at his own joke, soon following his friend as he felt the friend punch on his arm. A truly satisfied look overcame his demeanor when he heard Roarz talk about the "XP" gain. Kixod abruptly folded his arms at his chest and composed himself. Staring down the boss as Roarz went over the details, close his eyes gently and cocked his head to the side. I don't have any AoE type spells, my damage output won't be where I want it to be. He thought thought to himself. With a determined look on his face he opened his eyes. New game plan, sustained moderate damage. With my skill set that's achievable. Within moments he heard Roarz say something again. "Of course this is going to get out of hand!"

Kixod sprinted towards the Mega Gator hoping Roarz would do as he thought he might. Hearing and seeing the earth beneath the Mega Gator erupt into its underbelly. Kixod smiled and nodded his head, continuing to rush towards the boss. At the sound of the Mega Gator's roar Kixod was taken back, slowing his sprint to a near stop. He hesitated, looking at the Boss with second thoughts. Remaining in his position for a moment, Kixod notices other players rushing in after Roarz's attack. Picking up the pass again using his high speed skill to his advantage, Kixod hastily made his way to the boss. "Imbue, Swords, Mana, Enhanced, Stun!" I his twin short swords glowing a greenish blue colour, depleting his mana bar to a little less than half. With a downward diagonal slash from right to left Kixod struck the Mega Gator. The attack left the Mega Gator momentarily paralyzed. "Damn that took alot of mana, lets hope its not a wasted effort." The stun wouldn't last forever, but he knew it would give the other players an opening to get hits in without resistance.

Roarz Took his hammer in hand and marched towards the gator. Roarz eyes shifted to the many players attacking Mega Gator, most of them were levels lower than ten like himself, but some of them were higher levels. Roarz started to question why these higher level players were not putting in their all, was this an old thing for them? Had they already slain the Gator before? Roarz sucked his teeth at them, and shook his head. Stay focused, Mega Gator is top priority, He thought to himself trying to pay attention to all the people slashing and stabbing the rough, scaly armor of the monstrous field boss.

Roaz watched as Kixod dashed forward with his twin swords, ready to do some dps damage. A grin crept onto his face and he realized what Kixod was doing. He used Roarz attack as an opening to do a follow up attack, but it seemed someone else had already beaten him to it, a player dressed head to toe in leather armor. He bared a buckler and a short sword, with a hand crossbow attached as well. Roarz wasn't an expert in this game, but he did remember once having that same gear, which could only mean this player is a low level.

Roarz had just realized something vital, all of these lower level characters, including himself, are fighting Mega Gator. But It looks to Roarz that Mega Gator is on the defensive, what's it going to be like when he goes on the offensive?? Roarz didn't like the idea of 'kill it before it kills us' so he decided to prepare for when the gator starts to attack back. Roarz started running after Kixod, hoping he would do something that can make and opening. Imbue swords with a mana enhanced stun? Roarz thought. Roarz was vaguely familiar with some of Kixods spells, but this must have been one he was saving. After one quick examination he knew why, it depleted his stamina like crazy.

Roarz ran as fast as he could towards the Gator while it was stunned, hoping to get in at least one attack with his hammer before the croc starts attacking back. Roarz got within distance of the gator and swung his mighty hammer as hard as he could. His main stat being strength, Roarz could pack a hard punch when it comes down to it. He hit the gator on the side of his nose, making the alligators head swing. Immediately after impact Roarz dashed backwards and starting saying some words, he shouted them for the sake of RPGing. "Healing, Burst, Shield, Area!" Roarz spell gave everyone around him an instant 250 Hp, and gave them defense up. Afterwards, Roarz ran from the Gators line of sight by running in large circles around him. Letting everyone else attack while his spells cooldown.

Despite the fact that everyone fighting at the moment had this thrust upon them, Aegis was surprised to see how many players (especially the lower leveled ones)had actually taken up arms against the massive gator. He also noted that someone here was actually smart enough to use an AOE spell on the monster. "Looks like we don't have entirely all noobs in the mix." He tried to find the source of the spell, but decided that it would take too much time so he instead began to absorb hits for those lucky enough for him to be near. He noted that the boss had finally reached a red level state in his life, and immediately the gator began to thrash about tail flailing, jaws chomping. He noticed that about 5 players had already been killed by the sudden change in attack pattern, there was bound to be more, as people were probably running out of mana at this point. Aegis spotted a player wielding a hammer, and then he saw that his life jumped about 25% more and he saw the defense up buff. "Well, this will help." Looking towards the kid who had just cast that spell (who happened to be running towards Aegis). As the player was running towards Aegis, he saw the gator's tail coming up from behind the player with the hammer. Quickly reacting to the threat at hand, Aegis used the last of his mana to use the words "Cover" "Protect" on the player and braced himself for the impact. Getting into his defensive position granted from his sub-class, Aegis raised both shields in front of him. As the tail was coming in, the spell automatically kicked in, teleporting Aegis in between the player and the gator's tail. A large crack was heard as tail met shield. Aegis felt the enormous impact reverberate throughout his body and he watched in amazement as his stamina bar had once again been emptied by the hit. He had successfully countered the whole impact, only to find that the world's physics engine kicked in sending Aegis flying over a crowd of players into a nearby building. The blow from the tail had done substantial damage (60% HP) while the collision with the building had taken another 15% out of his HP. "Note to self, sue the creators for installing a real world physics engine." He layed there on the 2nd story of the building not moving. Waiting for the "Daze" debuff to wear off.

---

@Undying Curiosity

Kit stayed back, watching the fight from a distance, she had managed to find a high spot to launch arrows at the gator, her attacks were purely to lower some health, though it did little anything helped at the time. "Maybe I should work up my strength stat, my arrows should do some more damage that way." She stated. Her eyes then focused in on her half wolf companion, who had been flung away my the gator's tail. She quickly headed to where he had landed. "Heath circle." She said and a circle formed around Aegis and began restoring his HP. "You all right Aegis?" She asked as she looked down at him. He looked dazed which was probably the case since he had gone flying. She offered her hand to help him up.

Kixod looked to the gators health bar to see it was finally getting low, dropping in to the red zone. He felt as though it were about time, there had been enough players attacking it simultaneously despite their low levels. Though there was a lot of commotion going on Kixod was still able to hear Roarz shout out his spell words. With the recent boost to health and defense up buff he figured he would pump out as much DPS as he could. However before he could start striking the Mega Gator it began thrashing around, killing and sending players flying left right and center. Luckily he found himself in one of the few safe zones around the gator where he could barely reached by the Gator's head or tail, but still managed to suffer damage. "I'm lucky Rotary through up that health up and defense buff or I might have suffered a ton more damage." He said to himself as he looked around for his friend. He saw the Gator's tail coming right for Roarz, but he was too far away to get to him in to get him to move or take the hit for him. "Dammit... Roarz!" He cried out to his friend frantically, hopping it would get him to notice the Gator's tail. Out of nowhere a tank like player appeared in front of Roarz to absorb the hit, sending him flying due to the real life physics mechanics of the game.

Seeing his friend was no longer in danger for the time being, Kixod reverted his attention to the Mega Gator. Beginning to slice gator rapidly strike after strike he knew it wouldn't be long before the boss was defeated. Knowing some of his spells were still on cool down Kixod jumped backwards from the Gator, putting a good bit of space between them. I didn't want to have to use a spell like this but I have no other choice. With this he pointed the sword in his right hand towards the boss while the left sat at his side. "Electric, Shock, Damage." His sword lit up and began to glow again before immediately discharging and sending a single bolt of lightning down from the sky to strike the Gator, dropping its health to dangerously low levels. Instead of charging in to deal more physical DPS Kixod ran towards Roarz, staying clear of the Mega Gator's attacks. "Are you alright man, I saw that that massive attack." He said as he got close to him.

Yash frowned as the Gator suddenly switched into rampage mode, its mouth lunged forward aiming to consume him. "Vanish!" he shouted quickly disappearing from view briefly as the attack passed through where he was before reappearing. Then he heard a loud crack and saw Aegis go flying through the air. A quick look at the party section and he saw Aegis's HP drop down to a mere 25% HP. Holy... if that gator could could 75% of Aegis's HP and Aegis was building full tank and was six levels higher than him...

Basically if the gator got one hit on him he would die. Of course there was no way he would let it hit him. That in mind he un-equppied his shield as clearly it wouldn't matter if he got hit and it would only slow him down. His choice of words let him excel against enemies like this that hit slow and hard. Well it was time for another trick, he quickly took out his crossbow and fired off a single bolt at one the gator's eyes, whispering the word, "Pain", the bolt glowed a malicious crimson color as it plunged into the creature. That should be good enough to grab aggro, his pain spell didn't do much damage but it was one heck of a threat generator. He backed away gaining some distance and yelled, "Over here ugly!" just in case it couldn't figure out who had hit him.

Roarz's ears rang slightly as the sound of two incredible forces slammed together, the vibrations could be felt in his chest. The player who absorbed the attack went flying just as fast as the tail swung, maybe faster. Roarz sat there in confusion for a second as he tried to comprehend what exactly happened. One moment Roarz was safely running away from the boss' line of sight, the next, There was a player in front of him getting hit by an immeasurable force. that player quite possibly saved my life...I'll thank him later, in the meantime I must make the death of Gator main priority, Roarz thought to himself.

He readied his massive hammer ready to attack, when he noticed someone had done some serious DPS. Only when he saw a lightning strike did he realize it was his friend. Coincidentally, Kixod came running towards him shouting some things. The real world mechanics made the ringing in his ears last longer than he wished, because if this, Roarz couldn't make out what Kixod said. He caught the last words, but just barely. "Yeah, crazy..." Roarz replied with no enthusiasm. "Great work of DPs, I think I might be able to shatter his health now." Roarz tightened his grip and ran at the gator, his heavy armor slowed him so much it was more like a jog. Luckily for him some low level character was pulling aggro, so he didn't need to use any defensive magic, this only made thing easier. It was like seeing the threads of fate, everything was happening so smoothly and so perfectly, Roarz couldn't imagine his killing shot go wrong.

Roarz didn't have a lot of stamina so he didn't want to run all the way around the boss to hit its face, so he targeted the gators stomach. If the real world physics were as impressive as he thinks, then the gators weak spot should be it's soft underbelly. This was perfect. As he came closer and closer to Mega gator he started to wind up his attack. There was a brief moment were Roarz smirked, everyone's victory was nigh. The gators health was extremely low, there was no aggro on him, he was going to strike it's weak spot, this was it. Roarz whispered a spell that would seal the deal, "Burst, Touch." His hammer was now infused with and explosive spell.

Roarz Swung his hammer in an arc moving upwards. His hammer connected with the gators belly perfectly, and on contact, made a small explosion that further damaged the boss. The huge lizard flipped over from the impact, dying while it was still turning. As he landed on his back, Mega Gator shattered into hundreds of shards of data. 'Congratulations!' a message floating in the sky read.

Relief.

Roarz raised his hammer in joy as the boss died, along with all the others who helped defeat him. But his victory cheer was short lived, he made a point to thank the player who saved his life. He looked over at kixod, "Help me find someone. He's got two shield and heavy armor, that's all I could see when the gator hit 'em!" He looked around the area briefly, but with all the commotion of low levels getting exp, he didn't see much.

Yash grinned as he heard the distinctive ding noise that accompanied every level. Hmm gator scales dropped as well, those might come in handy. "Hey hammer guy, you're looking for Aegis. He's on that building over there if you want to thank him." he said distractedly as he pursued the words he had for choosing. Making up his mind he added the word, Lightning, to his list. Then he switched to party chat, "Well that was bloody exciting, you guys wanna jump towns? That was probably the most exciting thing that is going to happen here. Maybe find a dungeon along the way." He thought a little longer about the two players that had been most helpful. They could use some extra hands, 5 players almost made a full party after all. "Also mind if I invite the guy that scored the last hit and his friend?" he inquired of his friends. Looking at their tags they were named Roarz and Kixod. Looks like they had gotten lucky with their names like he did and hadn't needed to add in arbitrary extra characters,

"You alright Aegis?"Aegis still lay there counting the time until the debuff would go away. "5...4...3...2...1... Finally" He could feel life going back into his body. Although it was a Daze debuff, Aegis swore that it should be called paralysis. Shaking his head and sitting up, he looked at Kit who stood there guarding him (that's what it felt like to Aegis). "What happened Kit? Is the gator dead?" He said somewhat absent mindlessly as he stood up looking down on the scene before him. He looked just in time to see the gator disappear and the "Congratulations" text appear. His menu automatically opened and he looked t the list of information. Aegis had reently leveld up so he wasn't surprised that he didn't gain a level, however, it brought him 65% of the way to lvl 9. He muttered about how good the experience was then looked at the items received. "Hmmm.... Gator Scales and a {Eye of the Gator}? He pressed the item name on the menu to see what would appear. In his hand appeared the same small green gem that he had grabbed before the boss attacked him. Looking at the description he quickly became less happy about it. Sighing and closing his menu, he tossed the green gem to Kit, "Its a summoning gem, looks like it will let you summon Gators, water type."
Jumping down from the 2nd story floor of the building and landing as graceful as he could, Aegis began to take in just how much damage the gator had caused. The town was noticeably less empty, and quite a few buildings lay wrecked around him. He was grateful to see that his tavern wasn't destroyed in the fight and he began to look Yash. He had hoped that his lower level friend had survived the fight.

Kit hadn't been paying much attention to the fight after Aegis had gone flying. So when her menu opened and her XP bar moved up she turned to see the comgratulations banner where the gator once was. She had received what was labeled as gator visors. She pulled it out of her items menu to observe it. After a quick look she put it back in the items menu. She then observed the gem that Aegis had given to her. She smiled a little, now she had another form of beast to summon. "Thanks." She said following after him to find Yash. Her XP bar was now almost full she was sure that if they completed one or two more quests she would level up. The thought of a quest reminded her that the party currently had an active one. "Now that that's over we can complete to quest that I got for us before I went into the sewers." She said, elbowing Aegis as they walked.

Kixod watched as the gator got flipped on to its back and shattered into hundreds of pieces of data as it landed. The monstrous Gator was finally dead after what seemed to be an everlasting battle. With the appearance of the 'Congratulations' banner above where the Mega Gator once stood he heard the same 'ding' sound many were most likely hearing as well, signifying a level gain. Kixod wanted no time in choosing his new spell word to add to his arsenal, but he couldn't immediately choose one. He wanted to make sure the word he chose would be versatile with the words he already had and he couldn't come up with any off the top of his head. I'll just wait on it for now I guess... Or at least till I think of something good. He thought to himself, covering his mouth with his hand as he squinted his eyes.

"Help me find someone. He's got two shield and heavy armor, that's all I could see when the gator hit 'em!" Kixod knee exactly who his friend was referring to, he had seen the player save Roarz and seen in what direction he was flung. "Roarz, he was sent fl-" He cut himself off at the sound of another player replying to Roarz's statement. Kixod went completely quiet looking awkwardly at the player. He meant nothing bad by the look and the silence, he just wasn't very good at conversing with people he didn't know, some might even say that he was utterly horrible at it. With nothing more Kixod waited, hoping Roarz would say something or at least head towards the play called Aegis so he wouldn't be stuck in this position any longer.

Roarz swung his head back and forth from the player and Kixod, finally giving his neck a break when he came to the conclusion that the player was speaking in this conversation. After acquiring the necessary information from this unknown player, he placed a hand on kixod's shoulder and looked at him with a certain expression. An expression that clearly read 'That was easy.' Roarz looked back at the player while his hand slipped off his friends shoulder and rested back to his side. It didn't 'click' until now that this player, who seemed to know the heavily shielded tank, was the same player who dealt one of the first attacks on the boss.

Roarz lit up like a light when he realized who he was talking. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the player with a smile, "You're the one who took aggro with your crossbow! Great job man!" Roarz said joyfully, maybe going a little overboard with his enthusiasm. Roarz walked forward a few steps and spoke up again, "So! Can you lead us to em?"

Roarz looked back at Kixod. Roarz knew he felt uncomfortable, for his friend, this was a common occurrence. Every time it made Roarz feel like he was pushing his friend into these kinds of situations, and in turn, it made him feel guilty. Roarz thought to himself, as if he was speaking to his friend, It'll be quick, I swear. I'll thank this guy name Aegis and we'll be on our way.

"Eh, no biggy." Yash said in response to the praise. Really Aegis had done most of the tanking and the other like 30 people doing DPS. "Sure just a sec." he pulled up his mini-map and Aegis's icon on it. "Follow me," he said leading them straight to Aegis and Kit. "Hey Hammer guy wanted to say thanks for saving his butt. These two seem like they know what they're doing, we can party up with them. We need as many people as we can get for the jungle and if that gator was any indication then there may be some unexpected surprises that we don't know about." Yash pointed out.

As Aegis and Kit were looking for Yash, Kit elbowed him and said, "Now that that's over we can complete to quest that I got for us before I went into the sewers." Smiling slightly at the notion of another quest, they quickly met up with Yash who was being followed by 2 more players. "Hey Hammer guy wanted to say thanks for saving his butt. These two seem like they know what they're doing, we can party up with them. We need as many people as we can get for the jungle and if that gator was any indication then there may be some unexpected surprises that we don't know about." Yash said as the 2 groups neared.
Aegis examined the 2 players behind Yash looking at their levels. Both were level 8 and if Yash seemed to think they were competent than Aegis had no argument against it. Some of the newer dungeons he had read about were classified near raid level difficulty. The suggested party size for these new "intense dungeons" (that's what the forum said) was for 6-8 players all at the average level of the dungeon. Looking at their levels, if the 2 were to join, they would have 5 people, close to the amount needed to safely traverse these dungeons. If only we could find a few more people. Aegis thought to himself as he walked forward extending a hand to the "hammer guy".
"Well, you are the very first random person to ever thank me for taking a hit. My name is Aegis, nice to meet you."

Kixod followed the two in silence looking to the ground for the most part. However, he did catch himself staring up into the clouds, watching them float through the sky like he would outside of the game. He didn't mind Roarz wanting to say "thank you" before they go back out to grind, farm, or quest because this was a frequent event when with him. There was no doubt in his mind that this wasn't going to take long, they were never exceedingly long. Kixod then heard what the player they were following said to who he presumed to be Aegis. "Hey Hammer guy wanted to say thanks for saving his butt. These two seem like they know what they're doing, we can party up with them..." He shook his head slowly, missing the rest of what the player said. He became never as one thing spun around his mind. A party... If one could see through the Armour and cloth around his face they would see how uncomfortable it was making him. He caught the greeting from Aegis, Kixod looked to him with a nod. "Im sorry but we must be going." He said in an unsettled tone of voice, turning to Roarz before continuing. "Im sorry, but pleas make your thank you short." Kixod just looked at his friend before walking away from him and finding a spot to sit as he waited.

Roarz felt the weight of his armor as he raised his hand to meet Aegis'. With a pleasant, toothy smile he shook his hand and spoke, "Yeah, nice meeting you too." He said. Roars lowered his hand back to his side and perked up when he heard his friend speak. It was a classic Kixod move, leaving before he could finish his thanks, but it still made Roarz worry. He watched as his friend left, it was obvious to Roarz how he was feeling, but he wasn't sure if the others knew. He felt like he needed to clear the air, even if it wasn't necessary. "Please forgive him, he isn't a very social person when it comes to strangers. Don't take it personally.. Anyways, yeah, thanks for taking the hit, i probably would be back at the town spawn right now and would've missed out on everything." When he said 'miss out on everything' he reminded himself that he didn't claim his reward yet. So he did that quickly.

He opened a small message window that read 'congratulations!' followed by some reward info. He only gotten experience, not enough to level though, so he accepted it and closed the window. "If I heard correctly, you guys are going to make your way to the jungle area right? That's just the next area map over, or whatever. Kixod and I were planning on doing the same thing, but we were planning on raising his lvl to match mine. I'm pretty sure he leveled from Mega Gator, but he still hasn't completed the quests I had." Roarz said, he spoke quickly, but still slow enough to be understood. He looked back over in the direction Kixod walked off in, then back at the three players before him. "If we go into grind mode we'll be in the Jungle map in no time. I'm sorry again about my friend, but it doesn't seem like he wants to party.... Maybe, if we meet again, he'll change his mind... For now, I'll add y'all to my friends list."

Roarz went into his menu and added the three into his friends list. He knew the name of the tank, Aegis, but he just learned the other two;Salazarkit and Yashatatsu. Roarz Smiled and started to walk off, giving them a wave as he turned his back. As he walked away he thought about what just happened. He realized he didn't really give them a chance to speak, it crossed his mind to go back and apologize but he didn't want to come off as weird or whatever. He eventually met back up with Kixod, he didn't mention anything to him, he just stood by him and said, "You ready?"

Yash shrugged disappointed, well the party life wasn't for everyone. "Well good luck hope to see you again later." he called out as Roarz walked away to meet up with his friend. He turned back to Aegis and Kit, "Guess that makes us ready to cut our way through the jungle on our way to the next town, anything you guys need to finish up here?" he asked looking like he was ready to head out.

Aliana sighed and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The Mega-Gator field boss was a complete surprise to new player. Perhaps this whole RPG thing would't work out after all. She was in the middle of getting her staff enchanted when the boss appeared. Looking back to the blacksmith, she finally saw the amount of money it would cost to enchant her staff. "Oh my. That is a little out of my budget at the moment." Aliana thanked the smith for his time and went to the daily quest board to see if there were any quests that would make her the appropriate amount of money so that she could enchant her staff. She began to talk to herself as she looked at all the various requests. "Exterminate snakes in the jungle? No... I hate snakes. Rid sewers of rat infestation? Yuck... rats are so gross." She continued to look at the board, trying to find an easy yet well paying quest. Sadly, no such quest existed and Aliana decided to take a quest in the jungle area that was 2 levels above her. And recommended 3-4 people.
Accepting the quest, after brushing all the warning notices that she was too low a level and that she didn't have a party. Aliana got her quest and began to make her way to the jungle area of the world. Moving to the center of town, she saw the warp gate that allowed players to quick travel to any area they had previously found a portal for. Looking at her list, Aliana saw that the closest place she could warp to was the entrance of the forest, and the quest marked itself somewhere in the middle of the forest. Selecting that she wanted to warp to the forest, Aliana walked through and found herself standing in front of a large jungle like forest.

---

Aegis looked at his inventory to see that everything was in order. Potions were in the right areas, scrolls and other items were as well. Seeing that all was in order, Aegis made his way to the center of the town and stepped towards the warp gate. He hadn't actually gotten too far through the forest, so he only had the forest entrance warp gate available. Selecting the entrance warp gate, Aegis walked through and saw a large and massive jungle looming before him. Standing at the entrance of that jungle was a girl in a white robe who was to under leveled to be risking such an area. Quickly making his way over to where that girl stood, he was shocked when he saw a web engulf the poor girl and drag her into the the jungle. Immediately, the system opened a quest notification to Aegis and his party. {Do you want to go save the girl?} "Hmmm. This also must be new to Infintie story. He had read about impromptu quests given by the system when certain things happened, and it looked like that a low level player getting abducted by monsters was grounds enough for the system to create the quest.
Further looking into the information provided, it was going to be a timed quest, the group would be given 25 minutes to find and rescue the player. Hand on his head, thinking about what he should do, Aegis decided to accept the quest and waited for his friends to do the same.

Yash warped in quickly after he did after a brief systems check. Needless to say, everything was in order. As soon as he entered he saw a girl getting dragged away by a web. He fired a shot just in case he hit the source but as he expected no result. He quickly accepted the quest pop up, "Looks like Kit isn't coming, probably got booted by her parents for too long playing video games. That leaves the two of us, guess we're off." Yash said as he quickly rushed afterward chopping through the thick foliage and blazing a path for his less speedy friend.