The Mad Rat’s Lab

Something emerges from the black slime lake. It takes a while for us to see what it is because the slime is more viscous than water and it takes quite a while to fall back into the lake. What we can see is the shape of the top part. It’s rounded and full of lumps about a meter in diameter.

When the black slime finally leaves the monster’s body, we can see something red. Is the boss a gigantic red slime with weird lumps in its body?

Oh, now there’s something yellow right next to the red! Does this mean it’s a red and yellow slime? Did double-color slimes exist in the game?

As the slime continues to fall off the monster, something green appears. So a red, yellow, and green slime? Then something purple appears. You know what? I’m going to stop imagining things because it’s getting tiresome; and instead, I’ll wait for the monster to fully show itself.

Then something green, blue, orange… Basically, every lump has a different color from the ones next to it, except for black. The monster is blending with the room’s colors and I’m starting to have a headache. My eyes are bleeding right now!

Is the Boss also going to be a rainbow nightmare? I’ve got enough of random colors already! Why couldn’t the Boss monster be a single fucking color!?

Still dripping slime, the monster starts to walk in our direction as it releases a very loud *Gyaaaahh!* cry, the force of which clears the remaining black slime sticking to it. Finally, we can see something long and thin in the monster’s head, and something white just below.

“...What the heck!? A slime with whiskers and teeth!?” I exclaim.

“I think I know what we are facing right now… It’s a Colossal Rat! Who could have guessed that the Boss of a dungeon filled with only slimes would be a rat!? Ahaha!”

“Baldy, do we need to know anything about this Colossal Rat? Like special skills?”

“Hmm… No. Just keep in mind that it’s fast, and hits like a truck.”

“So what you can expect from a physical boss, huh?”

Listening to Ricard’s and Laura’s comments, I’m left astonished at their lack of tension. It’s as if they think this is going to be an easy fight. The only thing it’s missing is my sister’s comments.

“This is a very weird rat, don’t you think, brother? I’m going to take a screenshot now that it’s staying still! Say cheese! Hehehe, a rat saying cheese! Hehehe!”

Aaaaand, here it comes! Completely unrelated stuff coming from my little sister!

“Guys, aren’t you forgetting about the most important part!? What the hell are those lumps of different colors!?” I shout.

“Aren’t they just decorations? You know, to fit the dungeon theme and that kind of stuff.”

“Do you really think so, Baldy!? In the whole dungeon, how many times was there something that was ‘just a decoration’!? Even those that were decorations were, in fact, distractions for the real dangers!”

“...Hmmm. Now that you say it…” Ricard strokes his chin in a thinking pose when the Colossal Rat charges at us with another *Gyaaaah!* cry. “Ah! Here it comes!”

It seems we’ll need to find what the color lumps are the good old way: not knowing anything until it’s too late.

 

By the way, you might be asking how the hell can an Amorphous dungeon have a rat boss, am I right? That’s an easy-to-answer question. The reason is that factions have something called Mercenaries, which are units not exclusive to that faction but that fit the faction’s theme. Though not all factions have Mercenaries.

In this case, the Amorphous faction, which is filled with slimes that tend to live in sewers, also has rat units, which also live in sewers, that count as Mercenaries.

Generally, Mercenaries are more expensive than the other units because they aren’t from that faction. And they are also designed to fill the faction’s gaps in terms of versatility. For example, the slimes are generally slow, so as Mercenaries they get rats, which are decently fast.

The most common types of Mercenaries are dragons. Most dragons can be used by lots of factions alike, maybe with just a change of colors and breath type. That’s because not all factions have strong units that can compete with some of the other factions’ top monsters.

A few exceptions to this are factions like the Eternals, which use undead versions of legendary creatures like the Bone Dragon; or the Wicked Legion with their demon lord units.

The Abyss? Just imagine something as big and as strong, or even stronger, than a dragon, except a lot more disgusting, and with lots of tentacles, eyes, or mouths. Yeah, they also don’t need Mercenaries.

And the Flesh Monstrosities, you ask? Well, we also don’t have any Mercenaries. Because we can use almost any unit we want from most factions, so why would we need Mercenaries?

This is my personal opinion, but… Fuck this decision, DMA developers! Do you know how hard it is to get some unit’s bodies!? And you tell us we can’t even rely on Mercenaries to fill in the gaps, that we must look for units to capture all the time!? Do you hate the Flesh Monstrosities that much!? …though there’s no way I’ll stop playing them.

Now that I think about it, not a single one of our factions has Mercenaries.

Aaagh, sorry for the random ramblings. Returning to the boss fight…

 

The rat charges at us and is Ricard, the tank, who receives the hit. After a loud *Clang!* impact sound, I can see two things I previously couldn’t.

The first one is the Boss’ size. Ricard is quite tall at close to two meters, but this rat is at least twice its height. So around four meters tall. But rats aren’t very tall compared to how long they are… and this one is longer than ten meters, without counting the tail. Yeah, now that it’s fully out of the slime pool, we can see its tail, which is as long as its whole body and wider than my torso. The name Colossal Rat is certainly appropriate.

The second one is the Boss’ name. Or template name, there’s no way for us to know which is it. But the important part is what it says: Slime Covered Colossal Rat. Still, quite a lame name for this boss, similar to the rest of the dungeon mobs, but this time I must thank the dungeon owner for the lack of imagination when naming things... because I suspect what the name means.

“Those lumps aren’t decorations! They’re slimes sticking to the Boss’ body! Be ready for a lot more dangerous fight than we expected!” I shout.

“W-what!? They are slimes!? Ugh!”

Distracted by looking at the colored lumps, Ricard misses his timing and the rat makes him fly some distance away. Then it takes this chance to jump on one of our support mobs and chomp on it, killing the poor… whatever it is (it’s one of Clara’s abyss monsters with lots of tentacles that look like leeches) in a single strike.

“It’s true! I can’t properly latch my tentacles on the boss because the lumps are in the way, and the tentacles stick to them and they take the damage instead!”

It’s at this moment, when the first slime takes damage from Clara’s attack, that all of them start acting at the same time. Was that the trigger? Until now, they were feigning to be decorations.

Lots of pseudopods extend from the lumps on the rat’s body, attacking anything that gets close enough. And if this wasn’t enough, the slimes also spit a barrage of elemental attacks that falls on top of us, severely damaging all the support mobs.

Are you sure we aren’t inside an Abyss faction dungeon? Because the boss currently looks quite similar to one of those eldrich horrors… If you ignore the colors, that is.

“Quickly attack with your area skills, Baldy and Mad Rat! We need to reduce the number of enemies as quickly as possible. We can’t afford to fight against so many enemies at the same time as the boss!”

“Sure thing! Chain Lightning!”

Following Laura’s suggestion, I continuously cast Chain Lightning, dealing as much damage as I can to the Boss and the slimes covering its body. Ricard returns to the fight and uses Whirlwind like a madman, and Laura casts Hellfire and uses the DoT effect to continuously damage the boss and slimes. Meanwhile, Clara is trying to grab the boss with her tentacles, but the slimes keep putting themselves in the middle.

Wow! I haven’t seen so many visual effects yet in the game! Between my lightning, Laura’s Hellfire, and the continuous barrage of elemental spells by the slimes, I’m sure somebody with epilepsy would have a seizure right now.

You also have to add to the mix the absurd amount of HP bars floating near the Slime Covered Colossal Rat. I don’t know which one is from which slime, or which is the Boss’ one.

But there’s a problem with Laura’s plan. And that is…

“Shit! They have too much HP and my lightning jumps are random! I’m going to run out of MP before we manage to kill most of them! I’m going to use our trump card! Everyone, run away!”

“Good luck! Just remember that their souls are mine, ok!?”

“Brother, you can do it! Kill them all!”

“I’ll give you a kiss if you do your job properly. Okay~?”

While everyone runs away, followed by the support mobs, - except my support mobs, who obviously follow me - I cast Chain Lightning two more times to try and get the monster’s aggro. Which works, because the Boss stops chasing the retreating units and charges at me.

I then extend my arms up high while talking to the charging boss and slimes. This is the preparation for our trump card.

“Hahahaha! You did well! I would really like to capture and experiment with you all, but it seems you exceeded my expectations! Now, you only leave me with my last resort. Fufufu! Let’s meet again in our next lives! Hahahaha! GRAND FINALE!”

Blinding light accumulates around me for a short while before being released in a wide and intense explosion.

*Boooooooom!* The whole room trembles. I’m sure the explosion can be heard throughout the whole dungeon.

Grand Finale is the skill I got when I reached player level 5 and upgraded the Mad Rat to level 6. At that time, our team was doing fine in dungeon explorations, so I didn’t need to pick or upgrade any specific skill to complement the team.

But we were lacking a trump card. Something that allowed us to turn the tables against enemies or situations we couldn’t hope to beat in the tournament. And I was the best one to pick something like a trump card because of my 40% increased damage to spells.

And Grand Finale is the perfect skill for it: with my current stats, I can deal about 800 damage with it. If you add the 40% extra damage for spells, it deals over 1.100 damage.

Though not everything is good for this skill. Grand Finale is a skill exclusive to champions because it would be too OP if random mobs, or even bosses, could have it. That’s because to compensate for the stupid amount of damage you can deal with this skill, it reduces your stats, almost crippling you.

For a champion, this is a huge drawback. Once you die, you lose. But the same doesn’t apply to dungeon mobs and Bosses. That’s the reason only Champions can pick skills like Grand Finale.

The only reason the skill doesn’t kill you is that unless you play in a team, using it would be an instant game over. Instead, by reducing your stats to 1/4 of the original value, you can still beat the dungeon but are effectively useless. In short, it’s as if you were dead, but it doesn’t cause a game over.

Also, because of the stats being reduced to 1/4th and the damage I take from the Maniac skill, it’s easy for me to kill myself with this skill.

But the most important thing about Grand Finale is that… what’s more mad-scientist-like than blowing yourself up when you lost the battle? Grand Finale fits the roleplay perfectly! Hahaha!

 

After the light from the explosion disappears, only me and the Colossal Rat remain. All the slimes have perished in the explosion. Oh, and the Colossal Rat has less than half HP right now!

Limping away, I call for help. Let’s see if I can avoid dying to the boss. A single attack will kill me right now.

“Guys, it’s done! Now come back and save me!”

“I’ll save you, brother! Just wait and see!”

Running as fast as she can, Clara runs to where I am, tentacles extended to try and grab the boss as soon as possible.

‘Aaaagh! Don’t come, you monster!’ I imagine myself shouting in fear. Luckily, the monster’s target isn’t me but the rat.

But not even Clara, the one with the greatest range, or Laura, the one with the Blink skill, are going to reach me before the boss does. It’s right in front of me, after all.

The Slime Covered Colossal Rat opens its mouth wide and jumps. I’m going to die… Goodbye world! I close my eyes and wait for the inevitable to happen.

I wait but… the boss doesn’t hit me? When I open my eyes, I see the boss completely stopped, standing on the floor, still in the jumping position, and with its mouth still open. I can only think of one possibility.

“Cyam! I love you! You managed to petrify the boss at the most critical moment! Hahaha!”

Yep, the boss is petrified right now. I put Cyam in the corner of the room, hoping for its petrification to work at some point in time. I must tell the truth here, I didn’t expect it to work at all due to the difference in stats, but… It worked! And at the best moment! Hahaha!

Still limping away, I walk as far as I can from the boss. With all the stats reduced so much, I think I move slower than a Stitched right now.

I’m going to leave the rest of the fight to the others.

With no slimes in the way, Clara quickly latches her tentacles on the boss, and with the help of Ricard and Laura, they safely defeat the boss.

By the way, now that it doesn’t have any slimes attached to it, we can finally see the Colossal Rat. It has a vicious appearance, its front teeth look a lot more dangerous now than before. The tail moves like a whip, hitting anyone who dares try to attack it from behind, and its red eyes are filled with madness.

But the most important part is: the rat is BLACK. Finally, some enemy that doesn’t cause my eyes to bleed! I think I’ll stare at a white wall for a few hours after we finish this dungeon, to recover from the color shock. I know it’s boring, but I’ll need eye therapy after this.

Anyway, after defeating the boss, we find the dungeon core and quickly break it. I’m sure Cyan has captured a lot of units during the dungeon invasion, so I’m excited to see which bodies I can bring with me.

“NOOOOOOO!” I shout. “I can only bring 4 bodies with me because the stasis chambers are filled! And I’m sure they are filled with stupid units! Aaaaagh! How much I hate this faction sometimes!”

I’ll have to completely remove the Silent Kidnappers from the dungeon for now… I thought reducing their numbers would be enough, but they are still filling the stasis capsules with random units, most of them weak, and I can’t bring other and more useful units because the stasis chambers are filled!

On the verge of tears, I select four of the Spitter Slimes. The spitting skill was an innate one, and they have decent stats for what I plan to use them for. But still… I HATE this so much!

Why can’t DMA developers allow us to discard useless bodies in these kinds of situations!? What difference does it make for them that we can discard useless units to make room for better ones after a Dungeon Invasion!?

 

“It’s possible for somebody to be overwhelmed by visual effects while playing DMA. If you are affected negatively by the visual effects, go to the Settings menu and change the visual effects options. Also go there in case of color blindness or visual-related illnesses.”

- Bits of information from DMA’s player manual, which most players don’t ever read. Some don’t even know it exists.