The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Hello everyone! And welcome the Mad Rat’s worldwide famous time skip show! Hahaha!”

*Clap, clap, clap*

“As I already told you, this past week I was busy thinking about the first dungeon boss and looking for the bodies to create it. Well, and also training with my sister and friends for the tournament, but that’s not relevant. Fufufu!”

I sagely nod at my own words. Then I open my arms wide and exclaim.

“I also used this time to look for a lot of critters to capture and finally, FINALLY, complete the dungeon rework I started long ago. Look behind me! Contemplate my glorious work!”

I then turn around and move my hand sideways, displaying the magnificence of my latest creations.

“Amazing, am I right!? Hahahaha! And they are all Creepy, what I was missing to give life to the dungeon after the rework! Hahaha! Now, my dungeon can be finally considered a non-noob one! Fufufu! Baldy, I’ll make you eat your own words the next time you try to call me a noob because I’m not one anymore! Hahaha!”

That’s a secret between you and me, but for me to actually be able to create so many Creepy in a single week, I first had to upgrade the Collectionist technology so that I could bring more bodies with me after each dungeon exploration.

“Anyway, I think it’s time to reveal them, don’t you think!?”

“Yeeees! We want you to tell us already!” I answer my own question, simulating as if there was somebody actually listening to my monologue.

“Ok, ok! Don’t be so impatient! And now, without further delay…” I make a short pause to increase the suspense. “Here we go! Hahaha!”

The new monsters are neatly arranged into a row behind me. For this to work, I had to modify their AI to stay still all the time. I’ll return their AI to normal later, don’t worry.

I walk to the first Creepy in the row and introduce it to the nonexistent public.

“Here we have the first Creepy! Hey, say hello to our viewers!” The Creepy stays completely still, ignoring me. Well, I did change their AI to not move, so what did you expect? “This one is the pet of the future! It’s so cute that will melt your heart! I call it, the Octocat!”

*Clap, clap, clap*

“I want one!” “Nice name!” “I want two!” “Only two? I want at least a thousand!”

“Thank you for your enthusiasm, viewers!”

The Creepy I’m talking about is, as its name suggests, a mix of Cat and Octopus units. It has the head and body of a cat and the legs of an octopus. But the tentacles are covered in fur, the same fur that covers the cat’s body.

I found that there is a technology upgrade that allows me to modify how the Creepy units look instead of using the visuals of a single of the two units. It works in a similar manner to how the Hybrid or Basic Chimera work… so I researched it, of course. The new tech only allows me to modify how they look, the stats and skills work the same as before.

“Look at those eyes! And those tiny tentacles! They look like a bunch of tiny furred paws, only that they don’t have bones or joints! Hahaha! Like I said before, the pet of the future!”

“You might be asking how is this wonderful creature going to help with the dungeon defenses, right!? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it doesn’t. Not at all! The only thing it does is stare at you with puppy eyes and make you feel bad if you kill it! Hahaha!”

The Octocat is a level 1 Creepy, after all. It doesn’t have any skill except for the Optic Camouflage innate skill that comes from the Octopus. But it only helps with hiding against enemies, so it’s a non-combat Creepy. I created a total of 11 of them.

“But the best of all is its ability to change its fur colors, like an octopus! You want a black pet today? No problem! You like it white with brown spots? Sure, why not. If you ever get tired of your pet’s fur, just change it! You can even make it have green, blue, or purple fur! Hahaha!”

“Adorable, don’t you think? Well, let’s move to my next creation!” I make one step to the side and put myself right next to the next Creepy. “This one is smaller, so it might be difficult to see from afar. Please get closer, don’t be shy.”

When I edit this video, I’m going to make a zoom-in effect at this point to properly show this Creepy.

“This one can be slightly disgusting, but it can also be cute depending on your preferences. What do you think? Do you like it, or hate it?”

“What’s it?” “I don’t understand…” “Hey, is that liquid that’s dropping from it?”

“Well, it seems this one needs a little bit more explanation than the first one! Hahaha! This one is a mix of a Gecko and Blue Gel! Everybody knows what geckos are, so I’m not going to explain that part, but a Blue Gel is a slime-type monster that looks like blue jelly. I call this Creepy: Blue Gecko!”

About 15 cm in size, the Blue Gecko in front of me looks exactly like a gecko, except it’s translucent, blue, and continuously releases mucus. A similar kind of mucus to the one snails release, except this one is blue, denser, and the quantity released is a lot higher.

If I had to give an objective and simple description of the Blue Gecko, it looks like a gecko-shaped gummy bear covered in sticky goo of the same color.

“But look at this! We also have them in red, green, black, white, yellow, orange, purple… Basically, they come in every color you can think of!”

Of course, this only applies as long as the game devs have created a Gel unit of that color. Which means most colors, but certainly not all.

“We have the whole series! If you call us right now, we’ll give you an exclusive pack including them all! Hahaha!”

“Eww… they look gross! I don’t want one even if they are for free.” “I want a red one!” “I want a yellow and blue combo!” “The black one looks cool.” “Are they edible?” “I want all of them, so I’ll get ten packs!” 

“Yes, yes! Thank you for your enthusiasm! Hahaha!”

As a side note, those from other colors are called Red Gecko, Green Gecko, Black Gecko, and so on. Also, it’s now the most common unit in my dungeon (yeah, there are more than Stitched).

Geckos are so stupidly easy to find that they appear in most underground dungeons. And gels are the critter units from the Amorphous faction, so almost all their dungeons are filled with them. In short, it’s very easy for me to create more Colored Geckos if I want to, I just need to dive into two different dungeons and capture a bunch of geckos and gels.

That’s why I’m using them as the most common mob inside the dungeon. Right now, I have 127 Colored Geckos in the dungeon, and I plan to fill it with even more of them as time goes on. It’s the first easy-to-get combination I’ve found that I like, so I’m going to create loooooots of them! Hahaha!

“And like with the Octocat, Blue Geckos and all their variants are completely inoffensive! Hahaha! See? They only are a little sticky, but you can safely squish them as much as you want! What do you say, you want a bunch of them? Hahaha!”

Colored Geckos are also level 1, and only have a single non-combat innate skill: Sticky Trail. Oh, and they can walk through any surface because both geckos and gels can climb walls and even stick to the ceiling.

I stop squeezing the Blue Gecko and leave it in its previous position. “Now, let’s move forward to the next one! This one is, by far, the most disgusting you’ll see today, hahaha! Here’s the Stareshrub!”

With a hand gesture, I present the next Creepy in the row. This one is a close competitor with the stitched for the most disgusting unit. The winner depends on your preferences.

“As you can see, the Stareshrub is a disgusting shrub with lots of eyeballs. The base is a shriveled shrub, from which slender branches grow and end in eyeballs. They kind of remind me of snail’s eyes, but the eye globes are a lot bigger!”

“Eeeewww!” “Hahaha, so disgusting…” “Ugh, I want to puke.” “Somebody, please crush my eyes so I don’t have to see that thing anymore!”

“Fufufu! Yes, that’s what I’m talking about! This Creepy is the first one that actually has some defensive capabilities. If you stare at their eyes for too long, you are going to have some trouble, hahaha!”

This is because one of the units used to create the Stareshrub has the Eyes Everywhere innate skill.

“Maybe you don’t know yet, but DMA released a new faction a few days ago. A faction based on dreams: the Dream Vestiges! They have lots of unrealistic units based on people’s unconscious, and also have units based on nightmares. This Creepy is a mix of an Awakened Shrub, from the Sylvans faction, and the Mass of Eyes from Dream Vestiges! Hahaha!”

As you can already guess, the Mass of Eyes is a critter of this new faction that follows the nightmare design. Everybody has had a nightmare where lots of eyes are looking in your direction while you are paralyzed, right?

Oh, and a lot of Dream Vestiges units look very powerful, but in reality, most of their innate skills are based on status effects. They are a ‘mental’ or ‘imaginary’ faction and thus they manipulate other units’ minds, rendering them useless while they kill the enemies unimpeded.

But precisely because it’s a faction so new, I couldn’t find a lot of Mass of Eyes to capture. So I only have seven Stareshrub for now.

“What’s the best is that, other than being extremely disgusting, they follow the invaders and try to trigger their innate skill, Eyes Everywhere. I pity those who activate the skill because five seconds of being paralyzed inside a dungeon can mean certain death… and with so many eyeballs, it’s very hard to avoid them all. What do you think? Nasty, right!? Hahaha!”

While laughing, I quickly get away from the Stareshrub. It’s so gross I want to stay away from it if possible. To avoid touching it by accident.

“Let’s move to the next one! Fufufu…! This one, fufufu…! This one is my favorite! This is a mix of Canary and Goat. As you can see, it’s mostly a tiny yellow bird, with short tiny horns on its head. And let’s not forget about the goat beard made of feathers! Don’t you think it’s adorable!?”

“Aww… So cute!” “It reminds me of that famous yellow cartoon character...” “It stabbed my heart with its tiny horns and now I’m in love with it!”

“I know, I know. It’s astonishingly cute! But I still need to explain to you why I like them so much. First of all, I’ll tell you its name. Ready? I call it Annoyer. Yeah, Annoyer, you heard it right.”

I put a hand on my chin as I continue to talk, nodding to myself.

“You may not know, but goats are animals that can make one of the most disgusting sounds. They can even sound like screaming humans. Now, imagine a bunch of flying little birds, hiding everywhere in the dungeon, while making disturbing and annoying sounds from time to time…Call me crazy if you want, but I find it fascinating and absurdly funny! Hahahaha!”

I’ve already told you a few times that DMA developers try to make the game feel as close to reality as they can, so the goats inside the game can make those disturbing sounds. And of course, the Annoyer can do them too because it’s half goat.

“Hahaha! Just imagine how annoying is going to be! Hahaha! Or funny, depending on who finds them. But to compensate for how annoying they are, the Annoyers also don’t have any combat skills, or any skill at all, so don’t expect anything more than making the players confused and distracting them from what they should be paying attention to.”

Both canaries and goats are relatively easy to obtain if you invade human dungeons, but I didn’t want to make the invaders too crazy, so I only created five of them. I think five is going to be enough to make some players go crazy, but not too angry.

Also… with only five is easier to surprise the invaders, because everyone’s reactions are more impressive when finding something not expected.

If there were Annoyers everywhere, the players would think ‘another one, huh?’. But if I only put a few, they are going to think ‘what’s that?’ when they hear the goat’s cry.

“Moving on, moving on! We still have two Creepy to show and time is running short! Fufufu!” I make one step and stop next to the fifth Creepy.

“I’m sure most of you have suffered from a discharge caused by static electricity at least one time in your lives. You know, like when you touch somebody wearing a wool jumper. Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to get real damage from one of those discharges? Well, this Creepy here brings that idea to the extreme! Hahaha! I introduce you to the Static Lamb!”

“Ooooh, it looks dangerous!” “Hey, do you think it's safe to touch it? I want to try petting it!” “How cool, a lightning sheep!”

The sheep next to me looks like a normal sheep, except it slightly glows, and is constantly releasing sparks.

“I’m sure you all remember the Fiery Flies. The Static Lamb is exactly the same, except that it’s been created by using the body of a Sheep and an Electric Spark. It also deals constant electricity damage around itself and explodes when killed, so you better stay away! Hahaha!”

I don’t think there’s a need to talk a lot about this one, you should be already familiarized with it thanks to the Fiery Flies. The Static Lamb is level 3, I didn’t change its AI, and these are the skills it has. The only important part is that I’ve created six Static Lambs.

“If you want my honest opinion, this one is definitely the most dangerous Creepy we are displaying today. Though the next one is quite dangerous too! Hahaha!”

I quickly move to the next and last Creepy. This one is also relatively small, though it’s bigger than the Colored Geckos.

“I intentionally left this last Creepy for the end. Mostly for how absurdly crazy it is, hahaha! This one comes with a short story behind it, that’s how I came up with the idea to create it. I would like to tell you the whole story, but we are short on time and the clock is ticking, so I can’t, I’m sorry.” I stick my tongue after saying this.

“Hey, we came for the show, so tell us!” “I hate you when you put on airs like this!” “You liar!”

“Huhuhu. I’m sorry, but life is cruel sometimes. Let’s say that it all comes from this question: what happens when you find a water elemental inside the water? Well, you might already know, but a water elemental inside water can move completely unimpeded and is also almost impossible to spot. I’m explaining this because the last Creepy is half water elemental! Say hi to the Water Ant! Hahaha!”

“Hey, I can’t see it properly, are you sure there’s anything there?” “Are you blind? It’s there, but it’s hard to see because it’s made of water!” “Do you think it’s cool to the touch?”

The last Creepy looks like a giant ant. Except that it’s completely transparent as if made of water, only its contour can be seen properly due to light refraction. I must say that it looks quite badass, objectively speaking.

“Now, you might be asking what the Water Ant can do and why did I create it. If you put them inside the water, they can swim better than fishes and are close to impossible to see. Now tell me, what do you do with a swarm of almost invisible giant ants? Of course, you release them so that they bite anyone they find in their path! Hahaha!”

The Giant Ant is one of the extremely few critters that can actually attack. They only deal 1 damage with their bite, and because they aren’t aggressive, you must change the AI so that they actually start combat. Which I did.

“Imagine a swarm of Water Ants inside a river. You can’t see anything, but you can feel multiple bites as you try to escape the river alive! They are way worse than piranhas! Hahaha!”

I created 64 Water ants for now, and put them in all the places with water: the river, underground lake, inundated areas… I also interconnected all water zones with tiny underground canals so that the Water Ants can freely move through them.

Water Ants use Giant Ants and Water Spark units. I was incredibly lucky for this one and found a Primordials dungeon where the dungeon owner added only water elementals, so I only had to farm that dungeon a few times. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to create as many Water Ants.

They aren’t that strong, with 1 HP and dealing 1 damage, but if they bite the invaders enough times… And what’s more important, now the water areas aren’t safe anymore! Hahaha!

“We’ve now seen and explained all the new Creepy. Do you like them? I hope you do! Hahaha! But now we must continue with the program and move on to the Boss introduction. We also have a surprise at the end of the program, so don’t leave until then! But first, the pause for the ads. Fufufu! Hahahaha!”

 

Not long after, Andreu uploaded a video called ‘The Big Reveal’ that showed all the new units he created, as well as the effects of their skills, to the world. It was a video from the ‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ series. The video quickly became incredibly popular for the non-player populace, especially among the young girls, because ‘the Creepy are so cute’.