The boss’s cry heralded its death, and the end of the boss fight. Many players cheered, but Alex was left feeling a little empty. He extracted the ridiculously sized cleaver from the rapidly disappearing flesh of the boss’s now deceased form. And that was the problem, whatever he did in the game, it didn’t amount to anything. Destruction ultimately amounted to a whole lot of mess, and while the mess might provide its own cathartic satisfaction, destruction didn’t leave mess in Alfheim online. Therein lay the problem.
A window popped up indicating the increase in his straight sword skill, leather armour, acrobatics, sprint and familiar communication skills. An increase he didn’t care about. He flicked the window out of existence and it was immediately replaced by another screen, this time displaying the items he’d received. He’d received two weapons, the boss’s cleaver and a… zombie arm. Yeah… The boss cleaver was quite good. Flesh render was its name. No special abilities, but better than his in every way. It can’t really stab, though. Alex noted. Alex equipped it, and as expected, the giant cleaver in his hands shrunk until it was a little bigger than a normal great sword. However, a warning sign showed up. Damn, I don't have enough strength for it. Alex thought. He put it into his inventory and took a look at the zombie arm. It was called unarmed combat.
“Ha ha.” Alex said humourlessly.
Of course they would add something like this. A zombie arm called unarmed combat. It was actually quite decent. It was a 1 handed weapon that was affected by your unarmed skill, increasing its damage by using both the unarmed and the one handed mace skills. It could turn into a powerful weapon, assuming it found the right user. So he should probably sell it or something.
Alex took it out of his inventory and held it, swinging it around. It was lighter than he was used to, but it moved like a normal hand. Or at least, he thought it did. He wouldn’t really know, he’d never seen a dead body before. He had some fun swinging it around, but put it back in his inventory. Unfortunately for him, the entertainment value of his new zombie arm slowly faded down, and he realised that he was kind of bored. And it would likely only get worse unless he found something he wanted to do.
Alex opened up the system and began writing up a report to the game masters. He didn’t really pay attention to the words, because in the end, he was practically nit-picking. That said, it deserved a report. Dear GMs. Today, we fought a boss – the one that was made up of corpses. I forgot its name. He wrote. Alex was easily bored. He didn’t go to school anymore, but he didn’t have any aspirations in life. He lives life to live, because that’s a good thing, but he doesn’t have much fun with it. At some point in time, the boss activated his dark magic, but several veteran players noted that it was earlier than usual. He continued. What made people happy in life? It was something he didn’t really know. His life was good, his family was good. He had likes and dislikes, good relations. But he couldn’t find something to keep him occupied. His attention shifted from thing to thing. Games, books, TV shows. Sometimes he’d stop reading a book halfway through because he knew exactly what would happen. And that was a problem. Then, at another point, the boss’s AI changed. It was similar to sentience. It used a powerful knockback attack followed with a slam to kill several players at once. Then it began targeting the healers. Maybe instead of spending time in VRMMO’s, he should do something productive. Like go to university, or get a job. Become a space pirate. Anything. Anything to relieve the boredom. And preferably something that’ll be seen by his children, and his grandchildren. All of his descendants. Something that would be a testament to his great mediocrity for all to see. Assuming he had children, grandchildren or descendants at all. It was kind of alright in the end, but you should probably look into it. He finished. He thought for a second. Also, I don’t know if it was intentional, but I picked up its cleaver and started dealing huge damage. He added. He thought for another second and erased it. That was something interesting, short-lived as it was, and he didn’t want them to patch it out.
At any rate, there was nothing Alex could keep doing forever. He would get bored of it really fast, and he never felt any measure of investment in something, once he'd squeezed out every last drop of fun he could get. He wanted something to keep him interested. Something refreshing, or exciting. Maybe he could learn some magic, or he could give original skills a go.
The message went something like this:
RE: This is a message. It concerns a glitch, so it's kind of important. Dear GMs. Today, we fought a boss – the one that was made up of corpses. I forgot its name. At any rate, it glitched out during the fight and I’m pretty sure you should look at it. So, the fight went something like this: When it started, the tanks drew its attention while the DPS beat the crap out of it. Standard strategy, whatever. One thing to note was that while the boss design is interesting, it’s pretty much just a brute that has some dark magic and is pretty boring. There was this one cool magic, but I’ll talk about it later. Anyway, at some point in time, the boss activated his dark magic, but several veteran players noted that it was earlier than usual. Still, it was pretty much standard procedure after that. Then, at another point, the boss’s AI changed. It was similar to sentience. It used a powerful knockback attack followed with a slam to kill several players at once. Then it began targeting the healers, as if it knew what was going on. The boss made a portal out of dark magic and hit the healers through it, which is cool as hell. But also annoying because the ones who didn’t die got a debuff which made their eyes radiate dark energy, which was blinding them and appeared to be distressing them (there was no loss of health, however). The status effect had something to do with purification. The names of the debuffs on each person were varied, but were usually some take on ‘I’m blind’, or ‘purify me.’ I don’t know if he could actually do that or if was a glitch, but I want that spell. Seriously, tell me how to get it. At any rate, the boss roared after it hit the healers, but it skipped a segment or something so it sounded weird. Then it roared again, normally this time, and returned back to normal. Totally killed the mood, though. I count around 3 possible glitches. 4 if you include the dark portal he may or may not have (I haven’t fought the boss before, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). It was kind of alright in the end, but you should probably look into it.Alex hit the send button and stretched a little. It wasn’t a big thing for him, the glitch. That said, it might be big for someone else, and that wasn’t exactly a great thing. As he stopped concentrating, some conversation filtered into his attention. "You know, you can’t exactly consider yourself a decent player if you’re going to complain about every hit point you take. Oh yeah, and if I were administration I would probably make every boss continuously harder if too many people are able to CK it." His freshly revived spriggan party member (Kite) said. “They wouldn’t make money like that, you know.” Alex said idly, yawning after he said it. He noticed that the group leaders were arguing, likely about the glitch that happened. But before he could throw in his two cents, another of his party members spoke up. "What are you two complaining for? As raid group leaders, you should be more concerned about your failure to lead properly and anticipate unexpected events in a battle situation. You may have fought this boss many times, but that is no excuse to become complacent and lazy as a raid leader. A competent leader should be prepared for whatever happens and accept their own failures." Their salamander shield-bearing swordswoman said (Athena). “Now, now.” Alex said. “You should remember that this is a game. Fighting the boss multiple times is a great excuse to become complacent and lazy, because games run on patterns. And besides, a game is supposed to be fair, especially an MMO. They wouldn’t have something like that without telegraphing it first.” Thankfully, their cat archer spoke up. "So," She (Arina) said. "We did it. What did you guys think about this?" Alex thought for a bit. It was kind of easy at the start, but then he did the jump-onto-its-head-and-stab-it-repeatedly thing, which was great. Then the boss threw his cleaver, which missed Alex by barely anything, which he also later picked up. That was also great. But as he mentioned before, the glitch was a real mood killer, and that was all he could think about for the last part of the fight, which was about as mediocre as the start. This all boiled down to one statement which he tended to use an awful lot. Alex shrugged and gave his answer. “It was alright, I guess.” He replied.