The Mad Rat’s Lab

After we climb the metallic ladder, we find ourselves at the entrance of another big room. The ceiling isn’t too high, but the room is both wide and long. Maybe 50 meters on each side. And the whole floor is covered in black and white tiles.

But what catches my attention are the columns that fill the whole room. Yeah, the columns. They aren’t too wide, but there’s a whole lot of them… and all of them have holes the size of a fist in several places.

“That isn’t suspicious at all! I’m sure those holes don’t have anything to do with this room’s traps! Hahaha!“ I say in a sarcastic tone.

“Huh? What do you mean, brother? What happens with those holes?”

Clara… are you saying this because you really don’t understand or are you just trying to make a fool of me? Hmm… suspicious. As suspicious as the columns and their holes…

“They are suspicious. Too suspicious.” Adds Laura. “I’m sure the trap in this room is related to those holes… The question is what are they going to do.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, so let me test if something happens.”

“Wait a moment, you fool!” Before Ricard makes his first step, Laura catches him and forces him to stay put. “Do you want to repeat your previous mistakes? We have support mobs for a reason! We can just send one of them and see what happens!”

“Ahaha… I almost did something stupid, didn’t I?”

Yeah, you did! So stop fooling around already! Weren’t you the one who was supposed to take this seriously because you want to try to win the tournament!? I won’t believe what you say anymore!

In the flooded labyrinth we didn’t lose any support unit thanks to my epic stunning lightning chains. I think we can afford to lose one here to prevent one of us from taking damage. Or be killed. Or whatever this trap is going to do.

“Good idea! But I only have the Kidnapper left, and I would like to keep it alive if possible, just in case there’s something to capture later on, so please use one of yours.”

“Hahaha! It looks like my time to shine has come! I can use one of my skeletons for this job.”

We all agree to send one of Ricard’s skeletons into the room. After it receives the order from Ricard, the skeleton starts to move forward.

The skeleton takes one step, two… For now, nothing happens. But when it makes the fourth one, we hear a *click* sound. Immediately after, from one hole, a burst of fire is released and it burns the skeleton. The fire covers a decent area around the skeleton, but it doesn’t last too long, spewing fire for about two seconds only.

“Aha! I knew it! I knew the holes were suspicious! See? I was right!”

“Yeah, you were right.” Laura mocks me for my reaction. “As if you were the only one who knew they were obviously part of the trap! So… Baldy, how much damage did the skeleton take?”

“Oh! Uh… It looks like it’s only 10 damage, but… Fuck! It’s fire damage! If it hits the specters, they are going to die easily!”

“Of course, it’s fire damage! Didn’t you see the fucking flamethrower? What did you think it was? Confetti painted orange and red!?” Oh, yes. I’m calling them flamethrowers because they work and look like one.

“I did see it, ok!? Also, they aren’t flamethrowers, they’re called ‘Fire Launchers’. It’s a trap common for a lot of factions.”

“Who cares about their official name? They throw fire, so they are flamethrowers.”

“Y-you! Why are you always like this!? If the game developers gave them that name, you HAVE TO call them by that name…”

“So the holes release fire and the triggers are some of the floor’s tiles… This is going to be difficult. Maybe we can only hope to get lucky and try to remember which tiles activate the traps.”

Laura completely ignores us and starts thinking about a plan.

“Hey, if it’s just memorizing, I can try it! I’ve always been good at things like this! Brother! It’s finally my time to shine! I’ll bring you out of here without any trouble! Hahaha!”

“Huh?” I stop arguing with Ricard. I heard Clara calling me. What were they talking about…? …something about remembering the tiles that activate the flamethrowers, right? “Well, why not. You’ve always been good at remembering things like this. I’m sure we’re going to have less trouble that way.”

“Yeees! I’ll show you! Hehehe!”

After deciding on the plan, we proceed to implement it. One of us walks a few steps in front of everybody else, and the rest follow from behind. We keep alternating between ourselves and our support mobs to take the lead because we don’t want any of us to be severely damaged, or worse: killed.

Slowly but surely, we cross the room. That is until Ricard, taking the lead, stops moving after we hear an impact noise.

“Huh… guys. It looks like there’s a glass wall here. I can’t continue moving forward.”

We try to break it by attacking and casting spells, but it doesn’t budge.

After a few tests, Ricard informs us. “It looks like it’s part of the terrain. This means it won’t break with anything we do… You can consider it as indestructible, the same that happens with the dungeon walls and floors.” 

“Shit! Then, what are we going to do? The wall is so perfect that it can’t be seen unless you are very close! I’m sure there are a lot more of these walls inside the room! Aaaagh! Why couldn’t it be more stupid fishes instead of this invisible maze!?”

Clara comes close to me and pats me on my back. “Hey, don’t worry, brother! I remember every trap until here (I think) so it isn’t a big problem! We just have to find another way around the wall!”

If you say it like this, it sure sounds easy. Though I didn’t like the ‘I think’ part…

After all, there MUST always be a path from the entrance to the dungeon core, so I’m sure we will find another way around the room. What I’m not confident about is not dying before finding the path… Well, let’s try it!

 

Following the new plan, we try to find the room’s exit. We find several more glass walls, but with my sister’s assistance we avoid those tiles we already knew had traps, so we don’t have a very hard experience.

Well, I lied. We avoid MOST of the traps we already activated once.

“Hey! You told me that tile was safe!”

“I’m sorry! I got it wrong… But I remembered a lot more than you, so don’t complain!”

Laura complains to Clara because she told her the wrong tile to step on.

“Are you sure? Because it’s kind of suspicious that it’s mostly me who steps on the wrong tiles.”

“W-what are you saying? Are you implying I’m a liar?”

“If you’re not, then how come Mad Rat hasn’t stepped into a single ‘wrong tile’ yet?? Are you making me step on them on purpose?”

“That’s because I put more effort into it because I don’t want my brother to take damage because of me. But, when it comes to you… I don’t care that much. Hehehe!”

“Y-you…”

With an angry face, Laura glares at Clara. I’m not sure what face my sister is making right now because… well, she doesn’t have a face. Only a bunch of tentacles there.

Ricard and I exchange a look, followed by a nod, and silently agree on not interfering with their argument unless it gets out of control. There’s no need to put ourselves in danger here.

“So… Lily, do you remember if this next tile is a trap or not? After so many times changing direction, I can’t remember all of them properly anymore…”

“Oh, that one? That one is safe, I’m sure of it.”

“Thank you!”

My sister then steps on the tile, we hear a *click* sound and she gets burned.

“Fufufu…”

“Aaaaagh! I know you did it on purpose!”

“What are you saying!? I promise you I was mistaken and haven’t lied to you!”

“As if I would believe your words when you can’t look at my eyes when saying it!”

Silently, I and Ricard keep following them from behind.

“This, that, and the next one are safe.”

“Huh… are you telling the truth?”

With hesitation, Laura steps on the first one. Nothing happens, so she believes in Clara’s words and steps on the second. But at the third one, another *click* can be heard and a burst of fire reaches her.

“AAAAAAAAAAH! Why do you keep making me step on them!?”

“You touched me everywhere before, so I’m just making sure justice is applied.”

“You call this justice!? I was only joking! But you are actually trying to kill me here! Well, trying to kill my champion, but it’s almost the same!”

“Owww, don’t complain that much! You have Blink, so you can use it to avoid the fire when you want. It isn’t that big of a deal.”

“That’s… true. But it still costs MP, so I can’t use it every time. And also, it’s YOUR job to remember what tiles are dangerous, so do your job properly and stop lying!”

“Ok… I’ll stop lying about the traps… I’m sorry… Step on that one, it’s a safe one.”

“Hmmm… Why couldn’t you behave properly from the beginning…?” *click* “Aaaagh! I’m going to kill you!”

“Ahahaha! You fell for it! Hahaha! How naïve! Aren’t you supposed to be the older one? Hahaha!”

From behind the arguing pair, Ricard and I are watching while they fool around. Ricard opens his mouth.

“Hey, do you think we should stop them before it gets too serious?”

“…do you really want to intervene in THAT?”

Laura and Clara are now starting to get physical. Clara is grabbing and pulling on Laura’s succubus’ boobs with her tentacles, and Laura is pulling Clara’s hair… huh, I mean tentacles. Though they do kind of look like hair for some stupid reason I don’t understand (and don’t want to).

“...I think it’ll be better if we don’t.”

“Wise words, my friend. Wise words.”

“Hahaha! Yes! Praise me more! You can also call me Sage from now on!”

Shit! I praised him without thinking and now I’m going to regret it!

 

Exhausted, we finally reach the end of this damned fucking trap room. I hate it so much right now! My head’s going to explode from hearing my sister and Laura argue the whole time. This, and Ricard’s ramblings after he got excited when I praised him.

Future me, I have a very important job for you. It’s also very simple, but I promise you that if you don’t do it, I’m going to kill you. You must NEVER praise Ricard again! And absolutely never call him ‘wise’ another time!

We didn’t get too many losses. In fact, only one of Ricard’s specters died. They have high physical resistances but have low HP in exchange, and because they fly, they got struck by more flamethrowers than they should if they were at ground level. Hahaha! Flying isn’t always an advantage! Also, there were no mobs they could drain, so they couldn’t recover the HP lost to the traps.

All of us also took some damage, but the worst ones are, obviously, Laura and Clara. Because this is a game, their champions don’t look affected at all, they don’t have burns or charred clothes. But after taking the damage from so many traps, they have low HP right now.

“I’ll NEVER believe in you again!”

“Hmpf! As if it was my fault! You’re the one who started it all!!”

“Heeeeey! Both of you stop already! It’s time to focus on the dungeon exploration again!”

I try to pacify them, to no avail. But at least I do manage to stop them from arguing anymore.

We continue moving after a short break. This part of the labyrinth also has moving walls and Prototype 1 mobs. But there’s a distinct difference between this part and the previous ones. It’s a ‘quality’ difference.

Not long after reaching the new zone, we encounter a Prototype 2. We already know how to fight against it, so this fight is a lot easier than the first one. But then we encounter another one not too long after the first… It looks like they are considered normal mobs in this area.

“Don’t you think the difficulty increased too much?”

After I ask the question, Ricard takes this chance to show his wide game knowledge.

“Maybe you can say it has. But if you look properly, these golems aren’t as strong as the first one, we know how to fight against them, and also we don’t have bomb golems obstructing us, so it’s actually a lot easier.”

“Now that you say it, it does feel easier.” We haven’t taken that much damage even after fighting against several Prototype 2 golems.

Everything is going smoothly until Clara, who for some unknown reason is going first, looks around a corner and immediately starts running in our direction.

“Aaaah! Somebody kill that thing!”

Huh? What are you talking about? But I don’t have time to think because following her, a 2-meter golem shows itself, chasing her. On its head, it says Giant Protobomb, and it looks exactly the same as the small bomb golems… except that it's ten times their size.

*Bip, bip!* With a sound a lot louder than the smaller versions, the giant bomb golem rushes in our direction.

“Shit! Why is it so big!?” I complain while running away. “Do you think we can kill it before it explodes?”

“I don’t think so…” Answers Ricard. “But maybe we can distract it with one of our mobs. I’ll try with the remaining specter, with its high resistance to damage it should be able to survive…”

Ricard sends his only remaining specter to fight against the Giant Protobomb. It must have worked, because we can hear the *Bip* sounds getting away from us as we run away.

*Bip, bip, Booooooom!*

The golem self-destructs with a huge explosion. We are quite far away, but it almost manages to reach us. The Kidnapper, our slowest unit, was only a few centimeters away from the affected area.

When we go back, we only find steel wreckage everywhere. There’s no sign of the specter.

“Shit! It killed the specter with a single explosion! Taking into account how much HP it had before the explosion and the damage resistance… It means the explosion must deal at least 300 damage!”

Yeah, as I said, this area has an increased ‘quality’ compared to the previous ones… Every time we encounter a Giant Protobomb, we have no other option than to sacrifice a support unit. That’s unless we spot it from afar and I manage to immobilize it with Cold Blast, or Laura charms it with her Charming Eyes, before it activates the self-destruction skill.

 

“So we reached the trap area… Well, it doesn’t look like the previous ones, this one looks like a factory… Is it here where all those golems are created? Also, isn’t that a person…?”

Laura is saying something, but I interrupt her. “Finally! A unit I can capture! Quickly, let’s go and defeat them so that I can capture them…”

Before I can finish, Ricard shouts so loudly that I’m forced to shut up. “SOOOOULS! Yeees! Finally, something to feed my undead legions! Kill them all fast! Hahahaha!” And he starts running towards the closest enemy.

Aaaaagh! My eardrums hurt! Well, they don’t because this is a game, but they would be bleeding otherwise.

What did we see, that I and Ricard reacted like this? It’s humans. Or at least they look like ones. They must be some kind of engineers or factory workers.

“Let’s follow the two fools so that they don’t get killed…” With a hand on her face and an exasperated look, Laura turns her head towards Clara.

“Hm! I’m going to help my brother, but only because I want, and definitely not because you told me to! Brother, wait! I’ll help you!” Clara sticks her tongue out before following me.

Laura shakes her head. *Sigh* “It looks like I have to help the crazy undead…”

“Come! Come at me! I’ll kill you all and feed on your souls! Hahaha!”

 

I’m sure this area was ‘supposed’ to be the hardest one yet. Mostly because it’s filled with contraptions and traps that the humanoids operate. So they aren’t randomly activated or need a trigger but instead are manually aimed at us. Lasers, explosions, poison clouds… everything you can imagine is used to try and kill us.

Did you notice that I put extra emphasis on the supposed word? That’s because… both me and Ricard are so enthusiastic about killing and capturing them, that in under 5 minutes, we have completely wiped out the whole area.

The only problem is that we are now very low on EP and MP, but who cares!? I finally got to capture something in this dungeon filled with stupid golems! Hahaha!

“Hahaha! I’m sure they have lots of DEX! They’re going to be a lot of help for my dungeon in the future!”

You need high Dexterity to operate traps and contraptions, so it’s evident they are going to have high Dexterity. Finally, some more helpers for the lab! The Lab Assistants have been too busy lately.

“YEEEEEEEEES! Look at this! This pile of corpses! I was missing this sooo much! Nothing can compare to slaughtering a bunch of humans! Hahahaha!”

We ignore Ricard. I’m sure that sooner or later, he’s going to return to normal. Maybe? Well, it might be too late already.

“This must be the door to the dungeon’s boss. We are close to ending this dungeon at last!”

As Laura pointed out, this gigantic double door must lead to the final boss of this dungeon. I mean, it DOES look like a ‘final boss’ door.

“I’ll open it!” My sister doesn’t want to wait anymore, so she immediately pushes the door, but when she sees what’s inside, she starts to laugh uncontrollably. “Hahahaha! Pffft… It looks like you jinxed it after all! Hahahaha! Now every one of us has jinxed it at least once! Hahahahaha!”

What the hell are you talking about, Clara? Jinxed? Didn’t we stop talking about it a long time ago?

But, when I can see what’s inside the room, my brain stops working.

“...well, I did say I didn’t want to meet the Prototype 3… so I think I jinxed it…” Says Laura from my side.

Inside the huge room, the biggest room so far, there’s a single enemy. About 10 meters in height, its colossal size makes the room look small. On top of its head, with letters proportional to its size, we can read ‘Prototype 3’.

When the doors finish opening, the golem’s eyes shine red and it turns its head, as big as my whole body, in our direction.

“Oooooooh, shit!”

 

“...

Did you know that the Magic Engineers can customize the golems? Instead of having a default appearance and innate skills, they can change the unit’s parts so that its status, innate skills, and looks fit what you want.

One of the innate skills we’ve already seen is the one the Protobombs have: self-destruction. But there are a bunch more you can customize your units with. And as you level up and research technologies, you can unlock more of them!

And the same happens with the unit’s appearance. You can ‘assemble’ them as you see fit, with certain limitations. They can also change the size of the same golem to alter its stats. You must keep in mind that in a Magic Engineers dungeon, the general rule is: the bigger a unit is, the higher stats it has. The default size is the same as humans. This is very important for golems that look similar.

There are also tiers that change how the golems look and kind of break the previous rule. But then the next rule applies: the more fancy and streamlined a golem is, the stronger it is.

…”

- Random ‘knowledge drilling’ done by Ricard during the Dungeon Invasion.