The Mad Rat’s Lab

 

This chapter has a different POV.

 

“It’s the time! The time to invade ‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’ again! Huh huh huh!”

Laughing alone, I’m about to start my weekly routine of invading the aforementioned dungeon. I don’t know how many times it has been already, but I’m sure that this one time is going to be the time when I finally beat it!

“I can feel it in my muscles! It’s today! The day when I recover my orc’s pride has finally come! Huh, huh, huh!”

My guttural laughter spreads through the wasteland that’s my dungeon. Wooden fortifications and buildings populate it, spreading as far as the eye can see. Everywhere you can put your eyes into is full of green-skinned humanoids: goblins, orcs… even some trolls here and there.

These are my prided companions. We fight together, and squash everyone who dares to stand in our path! Oh, how fun it is to fight to the death with all my glorious mobs! The only one who has managed to curb our efforts so far is that damned Evil Mastermind guy!

“But today’s different! Today I’m sure I’m going to beat it once and for all! Just you see, I’m going to beat the dungeon alone and show everywhere how to beat the dungeon even when you are unlucky!” I shout while raising my fist.

Nowadays, the forums about ‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’ are full of people who don’t understand anything. They advocate for joining other players to invade the dungeon to have an easier time.

What the heck are they saying!? A true warrior can beat the dungeon alone! I’m going to show all of them how wrong they are when I beat it! Also, this damned dungeon is designed by the Evil Mastermind! It doesn’t matter how many players enter it, because if you are destined to die, you will die, that’s all!

“Let’s prepare carefully the units I’m going to bring today.”

After some deliberation, I decide to bring with me two Goblin archers, one Goblin mage, and two orc Warriors. Taking into account what I found in previous dungeon invasions, I think this gives me the best options for clearing the dungeon: a mix of weak ranged units and strong melee units.

Not like I’ve tried other combinations to see if they work better, mind you. But if it works in all other dungeons, why shouldn’t it work here?

“Ok, let’s go! I’m already anticipating the moment I can finally crush the dungeon core! I KNOW that today’s the day! Huh, huh, huh!”

 

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“Ugh… Why is the dungeon teleportation so annoying?”

I don’t really like the dungeon teleportation. This white flash of light makes me think I’m going to go blind every time, and I hate it!

I turn around. Behind me, I see that the orcs and goblins have already appeared and everything’s ready for me to start the dungeon invasion.

“Let’s crush them all, guys! My muscles are excited today, wiggling in anticipation of our victory! It’s time to finally have our revenge on this damned dungeon! Let’s open a path with the blood of our enemies!”

Not wasting time, I move toward the dungeon entrance. I know there are players who dislike the entrance because of the dread it can make you feel, but I personally like it a lot.

“Now that it has this dungeon entrance, the dungeon feels complete. Before, the first time you entered it, you wouldn’t know anything about the dungeon… but now with the new entrance, you must be a fool if you don’t understand how dangerous it is by the first things you see.”

Just the bloody plants and the dark and ominous cave entrance should be enough to warn any player about its dangers. Unless they are too dumb, but that’s their own problem and has nothing to do with the dungeon.

“I like very much the giant claw marks along the cave entrance. I’m looking forward to the time I can fight such a dangerous enemy! Huh, huh, huh!”

Imagine the size of a monster capable of doing such giant claw marks! It must be pretty strong by itself, but because of the faction’s nature, it will be mixed with another strong monster and turn out to be even stronger! I shudder in excitement just thinking about it!

There are also a lot of weird glowing mushrooms everywhere, but I don’t care about them at all. They are decoration elements only… as long as they don’t surprise me by releasing poison clouds or the like, I won’t take a second look at them. They are only mushrooms.

After a short walk, we reach the big cavern at the end of the path. I can already see (and hear) the horrendous monsters that populate it.

“Now, be ready guys! The action starts now!”

It isn’t very long after that the first enemy comes rushing at us. *AaAaAaAaAa!*

Aaaagh, my ears! You don’t know how much I hate their screams.

“I’m going to send you to hell just to shut you up!” I angrily return a shout to the screaming monster.

“Aaaaagh!” *AaAaAaAaAa!*

We are now competing for who can shout the loudest. Of course, I’m the winner.

The fight plays as usual: the monster screams for reinforcements, we all jump to kill it, then the reinforcements come but we have already killed the first one, then the fight continues when the enemies reach our position… This is then repeated until no more screaming monstrosities are nearby.

It isn’t a surprise anymore after the first time because you just need to take care of not being surrounded by enemies. Though it can turn out to be a lot more troublesome if this happens in the middle of another fight…

 

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We are crossing the big cavern when an arrow strikes me from above.

“Not again! Aaaaagh, I hate them so much!”

I look up and see a fucking Goblimp Pest standing on the cap of the closest giant mushroom. The thing is that the giant mushrooms are too big, and also it’s very difficult to climb there during combat… so we can only ignore it or try to kill it at range.

As if having little ranged options and power wasn’t bad enough, the Goblimps are fucking annoying because they follow you if you try to run away! So we can only kill it here before it meets its teammates and ambushes us later on.

“Go, kill them fast!” They are two units in one, that’s why I use the plural. “We can’t waste too much time here!”

The two goblin archers and goblin mage start attacking the Goblimp under my orders. Meanwhile, the fucking pest keeps hurling attacks and spells at me while dancing and trying to avoid as many attacks as possible.

I HATE them so MUCH!

“Come here and meet my battleaxe, you fucking pest! I promise you’ll have a nicer time than dancing around!”

The only good thing is that they are weak, absurdly weak. With a few more arrow shots and spell casts, both halves die and we can proceed with our dungeon invasion.

We took very little damage, you could almost say it’s negligible the amount of damage we took. But they are SO ANNOYING!

“If I could, I would ban them from appearing! If only the game had a feature to remove a specific kind of mob from the enemy dungeon…”

 

Not long after, we reach the entrance to the mess of convoluted tunnels.

By now, I’ve already been here quite a lot of times, so I kind of remember the path through the tunnels area. Yeah, kind of. The only problem is that to avoid as many mushrooms as possible I must make a large detour… or choose the rabbit area instead.

But the rabbit area is too dangerous for me with the weak goblins: they can be killed with a single strike if I’m unlucky, and I want to keep as many of them alive as possible for the fight against the guys with the lab coats. So I’m left with no other option than to take the long and convoluted path that avoids most mushroom areas.

“They were hard to find in the big cavern because of how huge the place is, but here, it’s very easy to see the new creepies that resemble a gummy gecko. I must admit they also match well with the glowing mushrooms.”

You don’t have to ask. It’s evident that EVERYONE that wants to dive into The Mad Rat’s Lab has seen the video about the reveal of the new monsters and Boss. Who would be the FOOL to come inside knowing you can have an easier time just watching a short video that explains most of the info about the new monsters!?

Though there are people like that… They like to call themselves ‘purists’. If you ask me, they are just a bunch of fools, and they don’t achieve anything because information is power, and it’s the most important thing in this damned dungeon!

“I only hope we don’t find a Stareshrub in the middle of an important combat because the five seconds of being paralyzed can effectively destroy us. Especially for a faction like ours that lacks ranged power to kill it before it’s too late.”

With me at the front, we enter the tunnel. I’m resilient, so I can take some damage from traps without having to worry… though the same can’t be said for the goblins. That’s why I put them in the middle, this way they are also protected from ambushes from the back.

We continue moving until, ahead, I can see a different kind of lightning to the one generated by the glowing mushrooms.

“How weird… this kind of light is what you see in the tunnels with holes from where the sunlight enters, but all of them should be close to the rabbit area, and I’m sure this tunnel doesn’t lead to that area.”

Afraid of what’s to come (I generally like surprises, but I ABHOR them when it comes to this dungeon), I come close to the tunnel’s turn, stick out my head, and peek at what’s ahead. What I see is… a glowing sheep that’s constantly releasing lightning.

“Oh! It’s one of those lightning sheep! If I’m not wrong, they are weak but can deal lots of damage when killed…”

I decide to use Phantasmal Weapon here. I throw a translucent copy of my battleaxe, and it flies to where the sheep is standing, hits it, and the sheep dies. *Baaah! Bzzzzt!* With the sheep’s death cry, an electric burst is released, wide enough to cover the whole tunnel.

“Weak but dangerous! Luckily it only took one strike to kill it, so we didn’t take a single point of damage here! Huh, huh, huh!” My guttural laughter echoes through the tunnels as I continue the dungeon invasion.

 

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“Haaaa… I live for this! The battles against these guys are always very good! Huh, huh, huh!”

I can’t keep my excitement after fighting against the guy with the lab coat, the first ‘real challenge’ we faced so far. I always find it funny that it wields a pencil instead of a weapon, but this guy is no joke! If you get too absorbed in the combat, the ice waves will surprise and immobilize you. Also, weak melee units are quickly killed with the fire aura… That’s why I gave all weak units ranged attacks.

I take this chance to look around and find the two orcs staring at me with impassive faces. Some place a little far away, two goblin archers are slowly treading towards our current position.

“Wait a moment… Before the fight started I also had a goblin mage with me! Did it get killed during the fight?”

In this damned dungeon, it isn’t wise to ignore the things you don’t understand because they are sure to come back to bite your ass later on. To avoid it, I try to find its corpse and understand how it died… but find nothing.

“What the heck!? There’s no corpse? What happened to the goblin, did it just disappear?”

After a few minutes of trying to locate the goblin, or at least its corpse, I get tired of searching. I even backtracked quite a lot of distance to no avail.

“This makes no sense…! Until now, there wasn’t a single time when a support unit vanished without a trace! It could be killed, ambushed, poisoned or put to sleep, or even fall into the river and be dragged away… But you could always find the corpse somewhere!”

Tired of wasting time, I decide this is a lost cause and continue with the dungeon exploration.

This part, called Freezer, is dangerous because of the vast amount of enemies and exploding corpses. Everyone knows that the best strategy here is to walk some space ahead of the group to trigger the traps, so that they only damage one person, and to change who goes in front to spread out the damage.

I might not be the smartest one, but it’s common sense to follow what others have proven to be the best, so I’m going to do the same and switch with my orc Warriors. The goblins are too weak for this job.

By following the strategy I manage to reach the end of this area without any trouble. Well, not more trouble than usual, I mean… because getting surrounded by those grotesque monsters is a thing that’s going to happen at least once in this area, with so many of them.

But with my and my orc’s strength and resilience, we manage to kill all enemies before it gets dangerous! So it’s nothing to worry about!

“Also, I know that today’s the day when I’ll finally beat this damned dungeon and recover my orc’s pride! I’m not afraid of anything! Just bring it on! Huh, huh, huh!”

…Y-you know, actually… just forget about what I just said and be nice to me, ok, Evil Mastermind?

 

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Pumped up for what’s to come, I find myself looking expectantly at what’s inside the room in front of me.

“Huh, huh, huh! The time has come! I’ll be one of the first invaders to face the new boss! And I’m sure I’ll manage to reach the end of this dungeon once and for all! I can feel it in my bones that today’s the day I beat it! And then I’ll brag to everyone in the forums! Huh, huh, huh!”

Right in front of me, there’s the new boss area. The water canals occupy most of the room, creating a labyrinthic area full of unknown dangers.

“Did you really expect us to believe there was only the boss here, Evil Mastermind!? I’m sure you added a lot of tricks to this room and you didn’t explain about them on purpose to get us killed! But I’m smarter than you thought and I’m not going to fall for your evil machinations! Just watch as I cross this room and destroy your dungeon core once and for all! Huhuhu!”

I’ve been resting for quite a while just to recover all HP, EP, and MP for the fight that’s going to come right now.

Yeah, who would want to run from a strong enemy!? Of course, this is going to be the biggest fight yet for me, so there’s no way I’m going to run away here! And most importantly, I’m confident I can kill the Minitaur Queen and beat the dungeon!

“Huh, huh, huh!” I continue to laugh while imagining the glory that’s to come for me. “Follow me, guys! This is the biggest challenge we have faced until now!”

I confidently walk inside the room, followed by the orcs and goblins. I randomly chose a path, and continue moving forward. There’s no need to wait a lot for the boss to appear.

“Here it comes! Prepare for battle!” I shout.

The orcs and goblins immediately put themselves into position, following my orders. The goblins take the rear with their bows and the orcs prepare to engage in melee while protecting the goblins the best they can. Of course, I’m in front, ready to receive the boss’ charge.

Without hesitation, the Minintaur Queen charges at me. It isn’t very tall at only a little over a meter, but its aura sure is imposing. It must be stronger than me, but I’m confident in my melee prowess, I’m not scared at all.

“Come! Let’s enjoy this fight! I’m going to beat you!”

We both exchange the first strike, but, after receiving the Minitaur Queen’s attack, I feel myself being pushed away. Right after, I can’t feel anything under my feet, and soon find myself falling into a water canal.

Oh, shit, I forgot about the push… Also, I have this kind of deja vu feeling, I wonder why…

“Fuck you, Evil Mastermind! You had it planned all along!! You knew I would lower my guard if I had an easier time than the previous invasions, didn’t you!?” I shout while being dragged away by the water.

Meanwhile, in the distance, I can see my goblins and orcs trying to fend off the Minitaur Queen on their own. At this rate, they are going to get crushed…

 

“RUN, YOU FOOLS! That’s the only thing you can do against the Minitaur Queen! TRY to fight it and you’ll only make yourself KILLED! Or worse, DROPPED into the water canals and ISOLATED from your support mobs… And when you come back, the boss will have completely recovered, and your mobs will be dead! Like I said: RUN, YOU FOOLS! This ain't a boss you should be fighting!”

- Extract from the Chapter ‘Relearning exploration’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’.