I am dead. Well, not yet but soon I will be. What happened you asked? I fell into the lake. How? After all that talking about how dangerous will be if the fight happened in the water, how come I was so careless. Let's recap for now.
After I entered the cave I walked alongside the lake at first. I tried to lure the Rage Nightmare to attack me quickly and then try to move the fight to the cave walls. At first, I thought that I succeeded. The monster stood up, first on all fours and then on the two back limbs. It was almost three meters high when it stood up. While it was lying down on the small rock it didn't look as big. Once more I got frightened. My opponents so far were only Rage Beasts. Even though they were strong they were also simple-minded. They just rushed at you not caring about anything else.
Rage Nightmare was not like that this opponent was far too cunning for my taste. My predicament proved me right. I looked at the Rage Nightmare when it started moving around the lake as well, waiting for my chance to move to the walls.
I didn't want to move to soon so I looked at its movements and made a judgment when should I move. When I made my first step towards the wall that is when everything went sideways. I didn't even know how it happened but I was already in the lake. I felt the impact from my right side and then splash. I was in the water trying to figure out what happened. But before I knew what to do I heard another splash. I looked towards the sound I saw open jaw coming at me.
And then my death premonition came. I truly thought that I would die now. Somehow I managed to lift my staff and plant it in front of the jaw. I managed to stop the jaw coming for my throat, but now I could see his claw coming for another swipe. This time it came from my left side and I knew that my chance came. I didn't give any resistance and let the impact force me out the water. Since I was close to the bank of the lake I managed to crawl out of the lake.
But Rage Nightmare wanted to pull me back in. I avoided its claw that went for my legs and without turning around started moving towards the walls. I don't know how I arrived at the wall of the cave. Rage NIghtmare didn't give me any chance to think about my next move. Its attacks were relentless from the moment I fell into the lake.
My only thought was to escape. There is no way for me to kill this thing by myself. I should try to escape and bring other players with me here to kill the Rage Nightmare together. But its easier said than done. Attack after attack came at me, not giving me any chance for pause and rest. My full concentration was on its attacks and the exit. With every attack of his came my evasion and block with the staff, and my legs were moving towards the exit.
One chance came all of the sudden when he swiped at me and I lunged under his arms straight into the tunnel. I didn't even look back to see if the Rage Nightmare was chasing me. I ran as fast as I could. I could still feel his stare on my back. A minute later I finally mustered enough courage to look back. There was no one behind me. That made me feel relief.
It would seem I was correct in my assumption about Rage Nightmare not exiting the cave. I am not certain if more players would actually be enough to kill this monster but we could try if anything else. While I was walking through the tunnel I called Borko, the only guy I had in my friend list not counting Wolf and Marco. Borko was the guy who helped his wounded friend come back to the village for me to treat him and left their killed Rage Beast in the woods. I could see he was a good guy so I accepted his friend request.
, Doctor what do you need?" asked Borko with great enthusiasm. Since I didn't call him so far he was eager to help.
, Borko I need you to gather players. One's with shields at least 4 of them and as many with bows and arrows as you can find. We need to kill a strong Boss. Others players can also join but they should have good agility otherwise they will be first to go back to the temple." When players die they teleport inside the temple.
, That must be one strong Boss when even you can't defeat him alone. Don't worry I will find them. Where should we go?"
, Go to that cave up on the mountain. That is the place all Rage Beasts come from. I will wait for you guys at the entrance. And yes, I almost forgot. Guys with the shields need to have more than half of their stat points put into endurance if not all of them. You know what, try to find even more than four players with shields, this will be a tough and long fight."
, Don't worry brother Raven I will do as you say." said Borko and went to search for other players.
By the time we finished talking, I exited the tunnel and arrived outside. I sat down to rest and check on my body to see if I missed some injury. the only thing sore were my ribs and back from the first impact. I applied a little of the medicine just to be sure.
I was thinking about the fight right now and how should we fight as a group to kill the Rage Nightmare. The reason I told Borko to find as many players with shields and bows is so that we can endure the attacks while we attack from the distance. I was the highest leveled player in the village so maybe I could kill it with similarly leveled players like Wolf or Marco. But two of them aren't here so the only thing I could do was to find as many lower leveled players as possible. I was level 9, and as far as I know, there is not even one level 8 player
I thought that with killing Rage Nightmare I could finally reach level 10, but it would seem that no matter how strong level 9 player is, killing Level 10 Boss is not possible. I skimmed through my stat page, to see my progress so far and to see my skills. I went from top to bottom and then to top again since something bugged me. Level 9, there is no mistake, but when I saw how much experience I would need to level 10 I almost fainted.
To reach level 10 I need to earn 45000 EXP. Not that much since I already had more than 8000 EXP into level 10. Those developers always have a way to surprise you, whether it is a good or bad surprise. Well, all games I heard about before had some kind of a barrier before levels 10, 20 and so on. With the clever calculations, I surmised that Level 10 is equal to all levels before him. I better not think about levels above.
Thinking whether to tell other players about this before reaching level 9 when all of them will eventually find out, I decided to tell them after the boss fight. I shouldn't traumatize them before the fight. After maybe half an hour I saw a great number of players coming this way led by Borko. There were at least thirty players, as far as could count from my position. I stood up and they stopped when they arrived in front of the cave.
, We came brother Raven." said Borko and the others also said hello mostly using the Doctor title I earned from them, What should we do? You can command us as you see fit."
I looked at them, some of them I knew, some I didn't, but I could see that all of them were eager to kill a Boss.
, Okay ladies and gentlemen, this is how are we going to do it. Since the tunnel which leads to the cave in which Boss resides is narrow we are going to talk about strategy here. How many of you have shields and how many of you have bows, please stand on left and right sides. The rest should stay in the middle."
When they heard me they grouped as I told them. Now I could see that there are nine players with shields, a dozen with bows and ten or so with swords, axes, and clubs. One or two healers should be nice right now, but pity that there are not yet any players with that class.
, Very well, you guys with the shields will be in front. The first line will be with five of you the second with four, I will be together with you guys. You with the close combat weapons will be on the sides, five each on the left and right side. Archers will be behind. If the Boss wants to attack the archers stop him immediately if you can't I will try to get to you as soon as possible. Archers don't spare the arrows if some of you get wounded come to me. We must kill this Boss quickly and without any deaths. That will be the biggest victory. Let's go."
Everybody cheered and followed after me. I didn't have any experience in leading a large number of people. How will my first leadership role go I don't know. Will my strategy work, that I also didn't know, this situation was a first for me. As we were walking through the tunnel I could hear players behind me talk excitedly. It would seem that for them this wasn't anything new. Most of them probably had this kind of experience in other games. This fact made me a little calmer.
We arrived at the cave and started entering one by one. First the shieldbearers and I, then close combat players at the sides and behind us archers. Rage NIghtmare didn't wait for us to get in the formation it pounced at the first shieldbearer and he flew almost to the entrance. Good thing that archers were there so when he fell on two of them, they soften his fall. This made others a little confused so I charged at the Rage Nightmare with Borko and another player beside me. Two of them crashed with their shields and I banged it on the head with my staff.
That felt good. Having others support you is a lot easier when fighting strong bosses. It seems that my hit stunned Boss as it struggled a little. This gave others the opportunity to assemble the formation. Shieldbearers stood in front, other close combat players stood at the sides and archers started firing their arrows. Arrow after arrow flew at the Rage Nightmare while it attacked at the shield bearers. After I checked the one that first got hit and made sure he is okay I returned to the fight.
Rage Nightmare attacked the shieldbearers with all of its strength. But all of them had a solid defense and they helped each other to block its attacks. Seeing that it couldn't pass through them to the irritating archers, Rage Nightmare turned to the sides. Swordsmen and axemen couldn't wait anymore to join the fight so they took the initiative to attack first. I was scared that this will break the formation but this attack surprised the Boss because I saw it flinched a little. I used this chance and send two of the shieldbearers to that side to support them.
Archers had the easiest time as they just released one arrow after another on the Boss. This slowly chipped at the Boss's health bar. There were few close calls when the Boss almost reached archers. We had to move the entire line of shieldbearers to one side. I am afraid that if the Boss got to the archers we would be finished. Luckily we stopped it on time.
When it's health got to the critical level, the Boss got mad. That was when the chaos began. It was naive of me to think that all of us will survive this fight. When it got enraged the Boss jumped straight into the archer's formation and started the slaughter. I could hear female players creaming as the male players tried to protect them. Then the first light went into the sky. Not long after two more followed.
, Shiledbeabres surround it!" I yelled before it could kill more of the others. They quickly rushed at the Boss, swordsmen, and axmen as well. They slammed into Boss whether with the shields or with their own bodies. I also charged and slammed my staff right on its skull. All of the impacts seemed to slow it down a little so shieldbearers managed to make a circle around it. A few minutes later the Rage Nightmare finally fell after it managed to kill two more archers, one shieldbearer and two swordsmen. With that our casualties numbered eight people. We all fell to the ground and looked at the Boss which had wounds from swords and axes. Arrows stuck out all over its body.