The Mad Rat’s Lab

“What was that explosion?” Asks Laura.

Clara comes where I am with a worried face. “Are you ok, brother? Are you still alive? It was kind of fun, seeing you flying like that! I thought you would make a hole in the wall like in the cartoons! Hehehe!”

“Ughhh….” As I rise from the ground, I explain to the others what had just happened. “It looks like I’m the only one affected… I’m ok, guys, I just lost a chunk of HP, that’s all. The explosion was caused by a small construct that blew itself up. Though I don’t know where it came from…”

“I think I know what that construct is.” Says Ricard. “It must be a self-destructing golem. If you say it’s tiny, it means it isn’t very dangerous, but their self-destruct skill still deals a decent amount of damage… You can prevent the explosion if you kill it during the activation sequence. But where did it come from? We should have seen it coming…”

“I don’t know… I just heard some annoying ‘bip, bip’ sounds and when I turned my head, it exploded.”

“Hmm… you were sitting there, right?” Laura moves to where I was before the explosion and inspects the zone. “Yes… I think this is why we didn’t see it coming. Take a look, guys. There’s a very small tunnel here, in the corner. If you say that construct was about this size… it could move through the tunnel and appear right next to you.”

“Huh, I see… I understand it now…” I say.

“Oh, no… Don’t tell me…” It looks like Ricard had a very bad feeling because he starts inspecting the whole area, trying to find something. Are you looking for more of those small tunnels, perhaps? “Ummm… guys. I have good news and bad news. Which ones would you like first?”

“The good ones first!” My sister answers his question without hesitation.

“The good news is that we definitely are in another part of the dungeon now.”

“Ok. It looks like we had to cross that trapped passage, after all.” With a hand on her chin, Laura says what we all are thinking right now. That passage was the connection between the two labyrinth areas.

Afraid of what he's going to say, I resolve to ask. “And the bad news?”

“The bad news… There are a lot more of those passages throughout this whole area. And I expect it to be the same for a while. So… I’m more or less sure that we’re going to find a lot more of those self-destructing golems.”

Oh, so it was this. It isn’t that bad, isn’t it? You said we just need to kill them before they explode, we’re going to be ok.

“I can imagine what you’re thinking right now, Mad Rat. And no, it isn’t going to be ok.” What are you talking about now? They are sure to be weak, so we can easily kill them… “We’re only going to be ok if only a few of them appear. What if more than 20 come at the same time? And also, there could be stronger enemies in this area. What do you think is going to happen at that time?”

“I don’t know...”

“If stronger enemies appear, we won’t have the leisure to focus on killing the exploding golems before they self-destruct.”

Well, now that you explain it… it makes kind of sense.

“We’ll have to see what happens.” Says Laura. “But just in case, we shouldn’t stay here for a long time. The more time we stay here, the more bomb golems will come. So let’s move.”

 

*Bip, bip* I kill a golem with a Cold Blast.

*Bip* Ricard swings his sword and strikes the closest one. *Bip, bip* He then slashes again and kills another golem that was very close to exploding.

*Bip* Laura swings her whip and prevents another explosion.

*Bip, bip, bip, bip* *Boooom!*

“Uuu…. I feel useless… Because most of my skills are DoTs, I spend too much time killing them and they still explode… I don’t deal enough damage with basic attacks either...” Sullen because she can’t kill the self-destructing golems before they explode, my sister is feeling down.

“Don’t worry, Lemon. I’ll kill all of those enemies that you can’t kill with my spells. Cheer up! Your super-brother will protect you! Hahaha!”

I pat my little sister while saying these words. It’s… kind of disgusting. I can feel a slimy substance on my hand. And also I’m sure my movements feel awkward for her because I have a hard time looking in her champion’s direction, so most of the time I’m looking elsewhere.

Note to myself: cut, burn and purify my hand after this.

“Ehehe! Ok! I’ll count on you! And when a strong enemy comes, it’ll be my turn to protect you! Hehehe!”

It looks like my words were effective and she cheered up. Hahaha! These kinds of situations make me feel both proud and happy.

When I turn my head, I can see Ricard staring at us… well, at me, as if he were trying to curse me. What!? What did I do now!? Why are you looking at me like this?

 

Continuously assaulted by more self-destructing golems, we continue to move forward. We didn’t expect this, but this part of the dungeon also has moving walls. And it’s even more annoying than before, because we are distracted by the exploding golems… There were two times when one of us almost got isolated because of a suddenly rising wall.

There are so many bomb golems that some of them manage to explode before we can kill them. There’s already been two support unit deaths: one skeleton and one imp.

And that isn’t everything. Because there are also more of those Prototype 1 golems. They are the same as before: weak and slow. But because of their very high HP, we can’t kill them fast enough so we are taking some damage. That’s because we prioritize the exploding golems, of course. It’s better to take one or two hits from an enemy that deals around 10 damage than taking the damage from an explosion that deals around 100.

Slowly but surely, we are getting exhausted. Though similar, this part of the dungeon is a lot more dangerous than the first one.

We are still doing fine, but… As Ricard already predicted, the real problem comes when we find the first really strong golem in this dungeon.

“Prototype 2. It must be a lot stronger than the others.” With her mouth hanging open, Clara comments on the new enemy. It must be her first time seeing an enemy this big. Usually, you dive into dungeons with the same player level as yours, and enemies that big are rarely seen in dungeons below player level 5 or 6.

“Hmmm… I don’t know about you, guys. But if Prototype 1 is that little golem and Prototype 2 is this one, I CERTAINLY don’t want to encounter Prototype 3.”

Yeah… as Laura just said, this Prototype 2 is about three meters tall. It kind of reminds me of that troll. Except that it’s made of metal and stone instead of flesh.

If Prototype 3 is this big compared to Prototype 2 as Prototype 2 is compared to Prototype 1… It’s going to be a building-sized golem. With arms bigger than our entire bodies! I also don’t want to encounter it…

“Leave this one to me! Finally, a chance for my super tank skills to shine! Hahaha! Take care of the little bombs during this time!”

“Yeeees! I’m finally going to be useful! Brother, look at me! I’m going to reduce that big golem to a deformed mass of steel! It’s my time to show how good I can be! Pat me again after I crush it, ok?”

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead and keep it busy. We’ll keep the suicide squad at bay, right Lily?”

“Yes! But don’t relax yet Mad Rat. We still don’t know what the giant golem is capable of. Maybe they’re going to need our help.”

The Prototype 2 is staying completely immobile. Maybe waiting for us to get closer? My doubts are confirmed when Ricard, the first to rush at him, reaches the 10 meter range and the golem starts to move.

First, a red light appears in the golem’s eyes, and then the light courses through its whole body, as if it was blood coursing through its veins. With a *Creeek!* sound, its joints slowly move. It feels as if it’s been a long time since the golem last moved.

Ricard takes the time it takes for the golem to fully awake as an opportunity, getting close to it and hitting it a few times with melee attacks. But this actually turns out to be a bad idea because of what the golem does immediately after fully awakening.

With a *Clack!* noise, part of the golem’s waist changes shape, and the golem’s upper torso starts to rotate. With its gigantic arms spread open, it starts to move forward as the rotating speed increases.

“Be careful!” I try to warn Ricard, but it’s already too late by the time he notices the golem’s actions. He was too engrossed in attacking with his sword. “Shit! Don’t focus only on your attacks, you dumbass!”

As the arms rotate, one of them perfectly strikes Ricard and throws him far away. Even from this distance, I can see a huge chunk of his HP disappearing because of the damage he took from that single hit.

If this was all, it could have been ok. But the real problem is what happens later. The place where Ricard lands is close to a group of exploding golems. And they immediately start the explosion countdown.

*Bip, bip* *Bip* *Bip* *Bip, bip*

Without thinking, I immediately cast a Chain Lightning towards the enemies surrounding him, quickly leaving them with 1 HP and stunned. But I didn’t think about one thing. A very important and crucial thing. The damn self-exploding skill doesn't deactivate unless they die. So now they are stunned, but the countdown keeps ticking.

Only those that got stunned before activating the skill aren’t going to explode because they can’t activate it while stunned. I know this because we tried what happened before… though I didn’t remember about it at the most critical moment.

*Bip, bip* *Bip*

“Shit! Lily, help me! We must save Baldy!”

Laura turns around at my words and starts attacking the bomb golems at the same time as I cast a few Cold Blasts. She’s biting her lower lip, agonizing about something. I’m sure it’s about whether she should use Hellfire to kill them or not. Because if she uses Hellfire here, Ricard is going to take the damage too. In the end, she decides to not use it, hoping that Ricard will recover his senses before it’s too late.

Though we aren’t fast enough to kill all of them, a few still explode before we can kill them.

*Bip, bip, Booooom!* *Bip, Booooom!* One after another, the remaining little golems explode.

“Oh, no! We were too late! He got done in by the explosions! He was a good guy… sometimes. Why is it always the (only sometimes) good guys who are the first to leave us!?” I say to nobody in particular, while I feign to cry.

“Hahahaha! Don’t worry! I won’t be done in like this! Hahaha!”

I’m so sad that I can still hear him. “Hahahaha!” See? I hear his laughing voice even after his death… Maybe I can hear the voice of the dead now?

From the smoke, I can see a silhouette appearing. Whoever it is, it has deathly pale skin and shining blue eyes… Aaaaah! He returned from death as an undead! You didn’t tell us about that skill, didn’t you!?

No, wait! What are you saying, Andreu! He was an undead from the beginning!

Surrounding Ricard, there are a lot of the bomb golems' corpses. Some of them blew themselves up, but most of them are split in half. He must have killed them with the Whirlwind skill before they exploded.

“I’m sorry for worrying you, but I was stunned for a while after receiving the golem’s attack. I couldn’t talk or use Whirlwind to kill them…”

*Bip, bip, Booooom!*

“You are supposed to be the one to protect us, not the other way around! So stop making mistakes during combat and actually look at what the enemies are doing!”

*Bip, bip* *Booooom!* *Bip* *Booooom!*

While we were saving Ricard, the battle situation was getting worse. Bomb golems keep exploding here and there, and our units are suffering because there’s no champion protecting or helping them.

“Brother, watch out!”

“What!?” I turn to look toward my sister, but I only see a wall getting close. Hmmm… why is a wall moving…? “Gofu….!”

As I’m flying through the air, I get a perfect view of the giant golem, Prototype 2, running toward where me, Laura, and Ricard were just a second before. I can also perfectly see the destruction the giant golem causes as he moves forward.

With his arms still spinning, he hits and sends flying everything in its path. Since the first one was me, I can see the golem sending Laura flying. ‘Hehe, now we are in the same situation.’ And also Ricard a second later. ‘It’s already your second time, Ricard. You must be enjoying this because you wanted to repeat the experience...’

A lot of the bomb golems are also sent flying. And they aren’t as lucky as us, because a single hit is enough to kill them. After Prototype 2’s wake, there’s a rain of wreckage and debris falling to the ground.

‘Oooh, shit. This is going to cost us very much. Maybe we’ll have to stop the invasion here…’ I think while flying. The last remaining Braindead Follower, and a few other support units were also caught in the golem’s destructive path.

Yeah, I have a lot of time because it's a veeeery long flight.

I finally land and see that I’m not stunned, unlike Ricard the first time. “Am I lucky? Or is he unlucky?”

Finally, after so much destruction and devastation, Prototype 2 stops spinning and starts attacking normally. He smashes an imp, followed by a skeleton.

Clara is damaging the golem, but it still ignores her and continues to kill our support units. “Stop killing my cute babies, you brute!” She shouts.

“Taunt!”

Finally, Ricard decides to do something useful and actually work as the tank he’s supposed to be. Immediately after he uses Taunt, the golem turns around and rushes at him.

“Now let’s return to our original strategy! Baldy and Lemon attack the giant golem while Mad Rat and I kill the bomb golems before they can explode! And don’t mess it up again, Baldy, or it’s me who’s gonna kill you, UNDERSTOOD!?”

Ooooh, how scary. An angry Laura appeared! But how are you going to kill him? He’s already an undead. So… are you going to resurrect him first, so that you can kill him later? Or does resurrection already count as killing an undead…? So you can leave him ‘alive’ and it would count as having ‘killed’ him?

You know? These kinds of questions give me many sleepless nights.

After the epic failure at the start, the rest of the combat goes well enough. The golem keeps attacking Ricard in melee, but as the tank of the team, he can hold his own. And when things turn complicated, he just needs to use Taunt to prevent another catastrophe.

Most of the damage is dealt by Clara with her DoT skills. I mean, just look at the golem’s HP! It’s continuously decreasing!

The golem activates the spinning destruction two more times during the fight. But since we already knew about it, it’s easy to prevent the destruction the golem caused the first time. And by easy, I mean that Ricard only needs to use Taunt and then start running like crazy so that the golem doesn't get close to him.

‘Run! Run, you little corpse! Don’t get squashed by the big golem! Hahaha!’

Meanwhile, Laura and I keep the small exploding golems away. By the end of the fight, I think that Prototype 2 actually killed more bomb golems than the two of us together. Mostly because of his uncontrollable spinning tornado of death, which hits everyone in the path indiscriminately.

Hahaha! Thank you for helping us! Thanks to your spinning attacks, we had an easier time than we should!

Though even with Prototype 2’s assistance, it’s very difficult to kill them all on time… So a few of them manage to explode during the combat.

As Prototype 2’s HP reaches 0, it starts crumbling away. First, its right arm detaches, then it falls to the ground because the left side now weighs more. When it touches the ground, cracks spread from the impact point until its whole body falls apart. Only a pile of metal rubble remains in that spot.

We decide to take a rest after the fight. It looks like there was a need to kill Prototype 2 to stop the self-exploding golems, because since we defeated it, no more small golems have appeared. A good thing at last!

“I’m sure this was a key monster and killing it was the condition to stop the labyrinth from creating more bomb golems. It was too strong to be a normal monster. Maybe we’ll find a few bomb golems later, but I’m sure it’s going to be a lot less than until now.” Says Ricard. “Let’s take this chance to rest for a while. I don’t know you, but I’m tired as hell from running so much.”

Key monsters are monsters that change something in the dungeon when defeated, like opening a dungeon door, deactivating a trap, etc. If what Ricard says is true, Prototype 2 was a key monster, and defeating it stopped the dungeon from creating more self-exploding golems.

“Hahaha, you always get tired by running around like a headless chicken!” I taunt him.

“Hey! Don’t be stupid! Next time you can be the one getting targeted and running all the time if you find it so funny!”

“No, no! I’m sorry! Please spare me from that! I’ll never laugh at you again for running so much, I promise!” I say with a smile on my face. But then I add in a lower tone so that he doesn't hear. “That’s until next time, of course. It’s too funny to see you running away from a giant enemy to avoid being crushed! Hahaha!”

 

"The thing I hate the most in dungeons? That’s an easy question. What I hate the most is to encounter a dungeon that has key monsters that only make you waste time. The worst of them all, and by far, was that time when we had to find a small and invisible monster and kill it to open the door to continue the dungeon exploration.

Why the hell do you think this is enjoyable!? The only thing you get for putting key monsters like that is a low rating! Key monsters should never be used like this! They can be used to give the invaders a bonus if they find and kill the key monster or to block a door until you ‘find and defeat the three strong monsters’, for example. And not just to make people angry because they are wasting time searching for a stupid monster that is only hiding!”

- Excerpt of an interview with a random DMA player.