The Mad Rat’s Lab

After a short rest, we have recovered all, or at least most, of our EP and MP. And also a little bit of HP.

Ricard stands up and stretches. “What do you say? Should we start moving? I don’t know you, but I would like to finish this dungeon today, if possible.”

“Fine by me. I already recovered all my MP a long time ago.” I answer.

With the Mana Core skill, I can quickly recover all my MP. The problem is… that my EP suffers a lot more because of it. But after the rest, I’m about 3/4 of my maximum EP, so I’m fine to go.

“Ok, let’s go. Just do me a favor and do your job properly if we find another Prototype 2. Or any other strong monster that needs tanking. If you make a stupid mistake like in the previous fight, I’m not going to fight with you in the tournament, ok, Baldy? As a punishment.”

“Yeah… Do you know how hard it was to try and stop the Prototype 2 alone when you were launched away?”

“Ahaha… Please, Lily, don’t leave the team! I promise I’ll do it properly from now on! After all, I’m the senior here, so I must show you how good I am. It’s just… that I made a little mistake in the last fight…”

“Little mistake!? …”

While Laura and Clara are complaining to Ricard about what happened last fight, I look around. Two skeletons, two specters, three imps, two… I don’t want to look there, but there are two of those ‘cute’ aberrations, and the Kidnapper. The rest of our support units have been killed by the poison darts or the explosions.

The two specters are still doing incredibly well because all the traps and attacks have been physical until now. But I’m sure they are going to have trouble if we find any trap that deals magical damage.

“... so if you lick my tentacles while calling me Master, I’ll forgive you.”

Yeah… I think it’s time to intervene in their conversation. Before things turn even weirder than what I just heard.

“Lemon!” I admonish her. “Stop spouting nonsense and leave Baldy alone. I’m sure he has already reflected on his mistake… Am I right?”

I look directly at Ricard’s eyes with an angry face. He looks back with an apologetic look mixed with gratitude. Yeah, I just saved you there, so you should be grateful.

“Y-yes! I-i-i have reflected on it! I’m going to do my job properly starting now.”

Everyone’s ready, so after that slightly perturbing conversation, we continue our Dungeon Invasion.

 

“Hey, this room kind of reminds me of that trapped passage, don’t you think?” I ask.

“It sure does… And I’m almost sure it’s also trapped. The question is what kind of trap it’s going to have…” Says Laura.

With a hand on his chin, Ricard opens his mouth.

“I can’t say about the trap, but it looks like every area in this dungeon is connected by one of these trapped rooms. I’m sure it’s the only way forward, so we must enter it even if we know it’s going to have a trap.”

“Hehehe! What will it be? Is it going to have a trap or not? And what kind of trap? I can’t wait to see it!”

“Hmm… why are you so excited about a trap, Lemon? Shouldn’t you be anxious or scared instead?” Or indifferent. Who gets excited about a trap? Definitely not a normal person.

“Because it could be my time to shine! I’ve done very little so far and I want to be more useful to you, brother!”

“Huh. Ok. Good luck.” I shouldn’t have asked. “Also, you did well enough with the Prototype 2, without you the fight would have lasted a lot more…”

“Then pat me as a reward! Hehehe!”

“.....ugh. Ok…” Yeah, I definitely should have shut my mouth. Slimy and disgusting tentacles, here goes my hand… Uuugh, gross!

Ricard looks at us as if looking at the weirdest thing ever, and when I touch her head (made of tentacles) both I and he shudder at the same time.

“Hey, do you want to touch it too? It’s a very… special feeling. You should try once!”

“N-no thanks! I-i’m fine like this!”

Owww, too scared? Hahaha! I can see you shivering. Not that I’m enjoying this, but real friends are for sharing bad times, right?

“Then I’ll do it! I am curious about how it feels.” Says Laura.

“Nooooo! You can’t! Only my brother can pat my head!”

“Come on! It’s only a touch! Come here for a moment!”

“Aaaaah! Brother! Protect me from her evil clutches!” Says Clara as she hides behind me.

“Muahahaha! Come here you little abomination! After I finish with you, you’ll never want to leave my side! Hahaha!”

Laura starts wiggling her fingers in a very perturbing way, extending them towards Clara. Then, she starts chasing Clara, both of them doing rounds around me.

“Aaaaaaaagh! Brother, save me!”

“Just a little touch! I promise!”

Laura finally catches Clara and starts to rub her tentacles everywhere. She’s only tentacles, so there are a lot of places to touch.

“Noooooooo! Don’t touch me!”

Ricard stares at me as if saying ‘do something already’. *Sigh* Ok, I’ll stop them…

“Can you stop fooling around already!?” I shout. “And I mean both of you!”

“Hahaha! I’m sorry, her reactions were too funny and I couldn’t stop myself…” With one hand scratching her head, Laura tries to apologize. Well, it doesn't sound like an apology to me…

“You, you… YOU! I’ll remember this!”

“Lemon, I said stop already!” I admonish her again. It’s weird because I’m sure she’s now pouting, but I can’t see her expression because she has no face, only tentacles.

“Uaaaah! Brother, it was so disgusting!” She comes to me, feigning to cry. She then hugs me and puts my hand on her head, yet again. What do you mean by disgusting!? It’s you who feels disgusting, so don’t cling to me!

“Hey, hey, it’s ok now… She won’t do it again, right?” I glare at Laura, and she nods. “See? She won’t do it again.”

“Well, I’m going forward. If you want to follow, stop whatever you’re doing and follow me.”

Tired of everything, Ricard enters the clearly suspicious room without waiting for us.

“Yes! We’re coming!” I say.

…it’s a little hard to walk with my sister still clinging to me and glaring at Laura all the time.

 

The suspicious room isn’t that big, maybe around 20 meters on each side. The weird thing is that it has only one door, the entrance. How are we going to continue if it only has one door?

There’s also a clearly suspicious lever at the end of the room. This can either be to open a secret door or to activate the trap. Or both things.

As we look around, trying to find any other clue, Clara takes this chance to get near the lever and immediately pulls it down.

“Done! I pulled it!”

“What have you done!? We first had to look around for any clues…”

As Ricard tries to admonish my little sister, something happens to the room. First, the whole room trembles for a second. And then we find ourselves floating in the air, followed by a falling sensation.

When we reach the ground, I look upwards to see how far we fell. I can see the door we used to enter the room very far away… it looks like the fall was quite high.

“The ground broke down! Hahaha! This is funny, let’s try it again!” Says my sister.

“Shit! Now we can’t go back! That’s why I told you we first had to look around for clues!”

It’s Laura the one who answers Ricard’s angry shouts.

“Hey, calm down, we had to activate it anyway because it was the only clue we had to continue this dungeon. The question is what we do now.”

“Guys, it looks like this wasn’t the end of this trap.” I warn them after noticing something very important.

Around the same height as the door, several big pipes are starting to release water inside the room. And another door has now opened, at floor level, right next to our position.

“Now it's getting flooded. If we want to go back, we only need to wait for the water level to reach the first door. Or we could also try this new door.”

As I finish talking, something the size of a big dog falls from one of the pipes. It looks like a fish with a metallic sheen. There’s a name on top of it that says Protofish.

Does the owner of this dungeon have some kind of obsession with the word Prototype? Because the basic golems were called Prototype 1, the big one Prototype 2, and now the fucking metallic fishes are called Protofish. Even the small self-exploding golems were called Protobomb! Is it a kink? Or is the owner really THAT bad at naming the monsters he or she creates!?

“Attack it!”

We immediately jump towards the fish and attack with everything we have. It’s kind of fun because the water level hasn’t risen a lot yet, so the fish can only flop around without doing anything.

After the fight, Ricard analyzes the situation. “This was easy, but they are a lot stronger than the Prototype 1 we have been fighting until now. If more of them appear when the room is filled with water, we’re going to have a lot of trouble. I suggest we continue through the new door.”

“I agree. Also, if we wait for the room to fill with water to go back through the same door, we’re only going to be stuck again.” What Laura says makes kind of sense too.

“I don’t mind! I’ll do whatever you choose, brother!”

“Then let’s enter this new tunnel.” An idea comes to me at this moment. “Also, I’ll take the back because I’m the best at stopping large numbers of enemies. If we assume more Protofishes are going to drop as the dungeon floods, then they are all going to go after us. So we better have a countermeasure prepared.”

 

This part of the dungeon is again similar to the previous ones, where the walls changed over time. Only this time there are no Prototype 1 golems and instead, only Protofishes appear, most of them coming from behind.

Slowly, the water level rises and the labyrinth is flooded. After two minutes, the water reaches our knees, and after another five, we are forced to swim.

In DMA, the only difference between being inside water or not is the speed at which you move. You can walk and run normally on the ground but at a lower speed, or spend a lot of extra EP to swim, also at a lower speed. There are no problems with oxygen because the game owners didn’t want to punish players too much.

I believe this was implemented like this because they wanted to allow players to create any type of dungeon, and at the same time allow enemy invaders from all factions to come inside without too much of a drawback.

Also, if the unit is specialized for swimming, then it can move at normal speed and doesn’t waste extra EP for swimming. In exchange, it then has trouble moving when there’s no water. That’s why the fish was only flopping when the water level was too low. They are so specialized in swimming that they can’t do anything at all when outside the water! They are like a fish out of water, hahaha! But in exchange, they can freely move when in water and are one of the fastest units in it.

Of course, there are amphibious units too, but then they receive half the penalties from both sides, so they are only really suited for dungeons that have both water and ground one next to each other.

“Hey, I know I said I would keep the back safe, but I think I would appreciate a little bit of help with killing them!” I shout, to make sure all of them hear me.

Right now… I look behind me. Yeah, it looks terrible. Let me explain what happens and how the situation turned out like this.

In the beginning, only one or two Protofishes were following us, so I defeated them with Cold Blasts or some staff attacks if they got too close. But after the tunnels got full of water, more and more Protofishes came and I couldn’t stop them without using Chain Lightning.

The problem is that Chain Lightning doesn’t actually kill them because of the Shared Voltage skill. So… slowly but surely, the number of Protofishes following us increased because they accumulated.

And right now it has reached a point where it’s absurdly ridiculous. The whole tunnel is full-packed with Protofishes. And I mean THE WHOLE TUNNEL. They are one next to each other and there’s not a single water spot that my eyes can see. Only fishes. Fishes everywhere! And because they are metallic, they look as if instead of water it was a mercury sea.

Because the water hasn’t yet reached our head level, I can see the situation from above the water, and I can’t see the end of the fish mass anymore. They reach all the way to the next labyrinth turn.

The fun thing is that I can actually keep them at bay easier like this, because every time I cast Chain Lightning all of them get stunned at the same time, and then block the newcomers because the whole passage is packed with the stunned ones.

Or I can just let one of them attack me so that Lightning Shield activates and the stun chain created by Shared Voltage starts again. They don’t deal that much damage with one attack, so it’s ok. And also, I don’t want to spend too much MP, because I could kill myself with the Maniac skill, so I’m letting them hit me with basic attacks more and more so that the Lightning Shield triggers, and I save MP. And also HP, because I take less damage from a basic attack than the HP I lose when casting Chain Lightning.

The lightning never stops jumping until all Protofishes are stunned thanks to the increase in damage that the Battery upgrade provides on every jump. From my perspective, it looks like a lightning wave that moves forward while stunning everything in its path.

But the situation is too ridiculous. Just look at the fish wall! We definitely can’t go back anymore… there’s an artificial wall behind us. Also, we aren’t getting any cp from killing them because… well, obviously, they don’t die. I can see their HP bars and, except the newcomers, all of them must have 1 HP only, so only one area spell and they all are going to die.

“Hahahaha! What did you do, brother!? It’s so fun to see so many of them stunned at the same time! Just look at their mouths, which keep opening and closing! And their eyes! They angrily look in our direction but can’t actually reach us! Hahaha!”

While talking, Clara tries to put her finger… ugh… tentacle? …inside the mouth of one of the fishes. Please, Clara, stop behaving like a kid already!

“Uaah! It bites!”

That’s what you get for fooling around.

“It’s quite an impressive view.” Says Laura. “So, do you want to kill all of them?”

“Nah, in fact, it’s easy to keep them at bay if there’s enough of them. Just kill the front ones every now and then, and it will be better. We get extra cp and still be safe from them.”

“Goood! Gooood! The cp reward from this dungeon is going to be incredibly high! Hahaha!” Ricard starts to talk alone as he rubs his hands together. It looks like seeing so many enemies getting killed has activated his roleplaying mode. “They’re going to be a good boost to my undead legions! Though it’s a shame that they are constructs and I can’t obtain any souls from them! Hahahaha! Just die and become my cp!”

I turn towards Laura and Clara. “Let’s leave him alone and continue the dungeon exploration, ok?”

“Ok. Just let me cast Hellfire once more.”

“Hahaha! Bye, bye, Baldy! Hahaha!”

“Wait for me!”

 

“I think this might be the end of this fish area.” Laura is pointing at a metallic ladder in front of us. “And if things go like the past two times, after we climb the ladder we’re going to find another trap room and behind it the next labyrinth area.”

“I think so too.” I say.

“So the time has come, huh? The time to abandon this perfect place to farm cp… What a shame! If only we could stay here some more time… Maybe around two full days? What do you say?”

“We won’t, ok,? Also, what are you complaining about, Baldy!? It was me and Lily who did all the work. You’re only sponging off our kills!”

“Hahaha! Don’t be like this! What are friends for if not for sharing the benefits?”

You dare! You only talk about friendship when it’s beneficial for you!

“Stop spouting bullshit already and focus!” Laura hits Ricard’s head. “We need all our focus for the next room, assuming it’s going to be trapped too.”

“Hey, Lily! You didn’t need to hit me! I was going to stop on my own!”

As we climb the ladder, I and Laura finish all the remaining Protofishes for the extra cp. Seen from above, the whole area looks like a metallic sea. There’s not a single spot in the whole area where normal water can be seen.

It’s a little ridiculous, don’t you think?

We had it easy thanks to my build, but what do normal invaders do against so many fishes? Or it’s just that it looks more dangerous than it is because they are all clumped together?

Who knows… I certainly don’t.

Now, what will the next trap area be?

 

"You should create a balanced party when invading dungeons with other players. A lot of players only think about skills that help them defeat the boss monsters and don’t consider any other aspect. What’s the good part of being able to kill a boss in under a minute, if you die when being swarmed by multiple weak enemies before you can reach it?”

- A tip from a professional DMA player to newer players.