Eighty-seven percent of all MMO bosses were defeatable via exploits. This was by design. Game companies had sunk billions of dollars in neuropsychology research to learn a simple fact: people loved to cheat. It wasn’t an issue of skill, money, or even time; gamers of all sorts loved to know they had managed to “outsmart” the system. The game developing corporations, naturally, did everything possible to keep the illusion alive. My grandfather had once said that “you can’t cheat an honest man”. It was as nice thought, from a forgotten time. I, for one, had no illusions about myself—if there was a way to cheat without consequences, I would take full advantage.

As the elf lord started casting his spell, I skimmed through the online guide. Entangle and Heartshot were mentioned as being the spells to look out for, along with Drain Stamina. In isolation, neither of these were a problem; however, their purpose was to let the boss amass enough mana to cast one of his unique megaspells: Reflective Shield, Ghost Army, and Forest of Thorns.

“Don’t let him drain!” I shouted, throwing two daggers at his armor. They both bounced off with a cling, dealing one point of damage each. So much for an easy victory. “The armor negates physical. Try magic on it.”

This time FlickerFlacker didn’t delay, launching a Fire Arrow at the boss. The attack interrupted the elf lord’s spell, but the damage was minimal. If Twinkle was here, I’d had have him roam the net for additional info. At this point, though, it was safe to assume that the elf was immune to all damage.

I used my Precision skill and threw a dagger at his face. It bounced off, this time dealing an “impressive” twenty points of damage. So, that was was the strategy: survive the magic and attack his weak spots. This was more boring than grinding! And of course, the devs had been too cheap to add damage feedback animations.

“Nor-dava,” the elf lord said in a deep echoing voice.

The ground in the entire area glowed green. Instantly, I leaped into the air, then performed a triple aerial summersault—the universal game logic was “if it glows, either attack or get as far away as possible”. It didn’t take long to see the results of the spell. Roots emerged from the ground—in the second most horrible animation I’d ever seen—twisting themselves around anything they came in contact with.

FlickerFlacker hesitated. I watched him cast a protect, then try to jump. Too late. Roots with the flexibility of rubber wrapped themselves around his feet and dragged him down an instant after he managed to leave the ground.

“Disenchant!” I yelled, throwing all the knives I had at the elf lord’s head. Nearly all of them hit, moving the health bar towards the twenty-five percent needed for the final transformation.

Landing on the ground, I performed my ultimate. The thin line of death sped towards his head... and vanished. Apparently, the devs had thought of that and granted the elf lord immunity from mass damage abilities. At this point, I closed the online guide. The information there was so outdated, the only thing it achieved was to slow me down.

I opened my market window and bought a pack of throwing knives. The price tag was high, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I could do anything with my Vesperia currency anyway.

I activated my Precision skill and scattered half a dozen daggers all over the elf lord’s torso. Most of them bounced off, dealing the minimum damage, yet a few managed to eat a sliver of his health. The hands were obvious weak spots, though made for difficult targets; armpits and ankles were also legal targets, probably because of a bounding box glitch.

“Hit the ankles!” I shouted, buying more daggers. “Just be careful not to have your mana drain—“

“De-vora!” a deep wave echoed before I could finish. Strands of light grew out of the skin of my virtual avatar, floating toward the elf. A short distance away, a cluster of light was sprouting out of FlickerFlacker.

“Cast anything!” I grabbed my rapiers and rushed at the elf lord. Being a free character, I didn’t rely on magic, and stamina only affected my special attacks. In any other instance, this would be a disadvantage, yet right now, it gave me the freedom to unleash my recklessness.

It took me two leaps to reach the boss’s avatar. Once there, I started my chain attack. My blades struck the armor without any damage, but that didn’t matter—it was the hits I was after. As long as my strikes made contact, they would count as part of the combo, increasing the chain multiplier, which in turn ensured that each time I hit a weak spot, the amount of damage would increase.

A silver glow surrounded me. Buff icons appeared in the air. FlickerFlacker had managed to get his act together and do something useful. The elf lord’s heath bar continued to deplete pixel by pixel. Whoever had designed him didn’t consider players would enter melee combat. To be fair, if it hadn’t been for Flicker’s messup, I wouldn’t have approached him either. Full soaking armor and the threat of area spells was enough to keep most sane people away.

“What’s his health status?” I shouted.

“Thirty-one percent.” Two new bug icons hovered on front of me.

Fire percent left? That was good. I used what little stamina I had gathered to perform a multi-strike attack on the elf lord’s head. He didn’t even defend himself, as if I was doing no damage at all. I opened my inventory and used a stamina potion. The tips of my weapons split the air in rapid succession only to hit nothing—the elf lord had disappeared.

For several seconds I stood there, looking blankly at the empty space in front of me. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. According to my game journal, I was still on the third step of the quest. No cutscenes had started, so I could also assume that he hadn’t entered his third form yet.

“Should I send a priority ticket?” FlickerFlacker asked as he approached. “Might be a bug.”

“I’m not sure.” I could really use Twinkle right now to go through the next for me. “Do you know if anything like this has happened before?”

“Give me a sec.”

This was the thing I hated most about games: quest trigger glitches. There was this new free game that I tried a few years back that, which had the buggiest quest system imaginable. The developers had put in a lot of effort to get the game running, but they were a small startup, and it had showed. Every third quest chain wouldn’t start because I somehow killed the objective target before reaching the appropriate step. The only workaround was to logoff and logon again. It was an annoying experience I hoped I wouldn’t have to relive here.

“It’s not a bug,” FlickerFlacker said. “It’s a safety measure which was added in patch point-twelve. Too many people were charging the second form, so if he receives continuous melee damage, the elf lord disappears and reappears again with five percent health restored.”

“Fun.” Daggers and spells it’d have to be, then. “Anything else?”

“Not that I can find.” Flicker looked at me. I could tell he had an AI assistant, though probably not a companion. “The final form has also been updated. Lots of speed and melee.”

We waited. The first few seconds I stood there, ready to resume my attack the moment the boss reappeared. When that didn’t happen, I cautiously went to gather a few daggers in the nearby vicinity. I had barely gathered two when a new set of trees started sprouting from the ground.

Without wasting a moment, I jumped back. The area affected was far larger than I imagined, replacing the battered forest with a new set of trees. There was a chance for this to be the system respawning the flora of the area, but I doubted it.

“Get your disrupts ready.” I found a spot between two grieving trunks. “He might appear with a megaspell.”

The next thing I knew, the elf lord was standing in front of me. The large game avatar looked down at me with his plastic expression, arms crossed. He glanced at me, his lips forming a slight smirk, then his armor exploded in the most vicious display of shrapnel I had ever seen in a game. Ninety percent of my health was swept away, as the shockwave threw me back like a fly in an exhaust pipe.

What the hell?! I consumed all potions I had allocated on shortcuts, returning my health to sixty percent. This was the first time I’d seen anything remotely similar. One-kill bosses were a thing, but only with slow enemies and not at such a level difference. If I’d been anywhere near the minimum quest level, I’d already be dead.

The elf lord laughed. He was half naked, his skin glowing pale green. With the grace of a wooden puppet, he drew two scimitars of light from his chest and waved them about. No doubt about it, this was his final form.

“Buff me!” I shouted, drawing my own weapons. With the damage I’d done in his previous two stages, I could tell I had the aggro. A new glow of light surrounded me along with the standard game effects and buff icons. My health shot up to maximum. I made a note to thank Flicker when this was over, and changed forward.

Fighting with support always was a much easier experience, yet against this enemy, all the endless amounts of heals and protections achieved was to put us on an equal playing field. The boss’s speed was surreal, probably a function of the level difference between us. For every three attacks he did, I managed to deflect one; annoyingly he could parry half of mine. My health moved up and down like a pendulum with hiccups; just as FlickerFlacker managed to heal me to an adequate level, a series of attacks would follow and bring it down again.

“Cast something at him!” I shouted performing a double spin, followed by my ultimate attack. The elf lord went into a blocking stance, parrying my strike, while the trees near him fell, sliced in half. “Damn it!”

I checked his health. Four percent. At this rate, it might as well be a hundred. The net damage I was dealing was insignificant, and there was no telling when FlickerFlacker would run out of mana. Even with his endless resources, buying a mana potion from the market would cost time, during which I would remain defenseless.

“I hope you’re recording this, Claire,” I whispered under my breath. Even without the hint, the footage would be worth at least a few hundred.

“Get down!” FlickerFlacker yelled behind me. I obeyed, falling to the ground.

A wave of arrows flew above me, turning everything in their path into a pincushion. Over a dozen hit the torso of the elf lord, making him pause, then stumble. His health bar flashed, only a sliver of life remaining at the very end. This was it! I jumped up and threw both rapiers, targeting his chest. The first one was deflected by a sudden slash, but the second didn’t miss.

“Got you.” I smiled.

The elf lord dropped his weapons, falling to his knees. Specks of light flew up from his body like fireflies, disappearing into the air. A message box emerged before me, along with the annoying sound of harps and trumpets.

Congratulations!

You have completed the Heart of the Forest!

“Here it comes.” I closed the message box and the three others that followed. I didn’t care about the fluff that came with the completion of the quest, nor the reward. All we had to do now was get the hint, so I could log off and head to work.

“I don’t see anything,” Flicker said after a few seconds.

“Give it a moment.” I looked around.

Ten more seconds passed without any changes. The Forest was calm, all traces of our battle erased by the area reset. The forest had reverted to its original state, leaves and blossoms glowing softly with a pale light. A minute passed, then another.

Flicker approached. “You think we did something wrong?”

I could tell this wasn’t the question he wanted to ask. We had spent hours going through the forest and doing absurd quests, and didn’t have anything to show for it. The truth was I had messed up, and messed up hard. As things stood, I was no longer sure if we had enough time to get our fourth hint before the timer reached zero.