The Mad Rat’s Lab

We’re now inside our first randomly assigned dungeon for the tournament’s first phase.

“Ok, guys! Now’s the time to give our best! We trained our teamplay and polished our dungeon-delving skills for this day! Let’s show the world how good we are! Hahaha!”

Having finished his short motivational speech, Ricard raises his hands in an ‘aren’t I amazing?’ pose. Though I don’t know if Laura or Clara are listening to him or not. I’m certainly not.

“...did you … discussed previously…?”

“I think... Maybe in a few more weeks…”

And looks like they aren’t either, though I can only understand fragments of what they say.

*Clap, Clap!*

I clap my hands two times to get everyone’s attention. “Hey! Let’s focus!”

I then look around. There’s… polished stone tunnels everywhere I can see, with torches every few meters. And also… no, there’s nothing else in my sight.

“If I had to guess, I’d say we are inside a Stone Lords dungeon. But I can’t see anything relevant, and you?”

“It’s true that it looks similar to a Stone Lords dungeon, but you must keep in mind that in this tournament every team has four players. So even if one was a dwarf, we still don’t know what the other three will be.”

“I know, I know…” I say in response to Ricard’s words. I ask Laura next. “...Lily? Any idea?”

“Not really. I think the best we can do is start moving and stop wasting time.”

Just in case, I also ask my little sister, Clara. “And you, Lemon?”

She’s only looking in my direction without saying anything. Well, I think she’s looking here… it’s very hard to tell when her champion has no eyes.

I wait for an answer but she still doesn’t say anything. That’s a little creepy, so I decide to ignore her.

“Then, let’s go. As usual, Baldy goes first as the party’s tank.”

 

The tunnel opens into a slightly wider area. There isn’t anything of relevance here, except for the fact there are three tunnels here. Is this one of those famous traps where you have to choose the correct path or you die?

But my thoughts are interrupted when something starts to make loud clanking noises right next to us.

*Clank, clank, clank, clank!*

What’s making those noises?

“Shit!” Ricard swears and immediately uses Dark Grab. And what appears in his hand when the skill’s animation ends is a very tiny golem. At least it looks like one because it is metallic. “Fuuuck! I didn’t see it when I entered the room, it was well hidden! I just hope it isn’t too late…”

Interrupting his words, loud clanking noises come from the left tunnel. And not too long after, also from the other two tunnels.

“Fuck!” He swears again. He then turns around and explains the situation to us as he scratches his cheek. “...we’re screwed. This golem is something similar to an alarm trap, except that it works in conjunction with others of its kind. We should assume that every monster in the dungeon is headed our way to kill us. The good part is that, because of the cp used on the golems, the other mobs will be weaker than in most dungeons, but… they will come at us all at once!”

“...that sounds bad.” I say.

“Hehehe! You messed it up again, Baldy! You’re always making mistakes! Hehehe!”

Ricard snaps at Clara’s provocation. “I don’t want to hear this from you, Lemon!”

“If every monster is headed our way, we shouldn’t stay here then.”

Ignoring Ricard’s and Clara’s bickering, Laura looks at me and says.

“And what do you suggest?”

“We need to choose one of the tunnels and go inside. We’re going to get killed if we stay here, but if we choose one, we have one in a third chance to survive, don’t you think?”

“Hmm…” Laura’s idea makes sense. “What tunnel do you suggest?”

She looks away and crosses her arms while saying. “It’s your decision as the leader, not mine.”

You want me to choose so that the blame doesn’t fall upon you, huh!? You scheming succubus…

Now, what tunnel should I choose? The left one is the one from which the clanking sounds replying to the first golem came from… Isn’t it too suspicious? Then the central one. It’s the one right in front of us. Isn’t it too suspicious too? It's as if the enemy team put it intentionally right in front of the entrance so that we unconsciously choose it… But then, I have a bad feeling about the right one. Something’s telling me ‘don’t come here!’.

I slowly look at the three tunnels one last time, trying to make up my mind.

Hmm…. I’ve decided! I don’t have any dice or coin to make the decision for me, so I’m going to do it the good old way: running straight ahead like a headless chicken and hoping for the best! Hahaha!

“We’ll take the middle one!”

We can already see some enemies coming from the left tunnel. They are a mix of goblins and dwarves. So we run to the central tunnel and enter it before it’s too late.

But then, Ricard suddenly stops and waves at us to continue moving.

“What are you doing now!?” I ask.

Does he want to get all of us killed? But what he answers in a serious mode, makes me feel proud of him. Well, somewhat proud. Our little baby is growing up!

“I’m staying here. Even if we were lucky and the dungeon core is further down this tunnel, it’s possible for us to get sandwiched between the enemies that are coming from this tunnel and those chasing after us from the other two. I’ll stay here and slow them down as much as I can while you go and find the core. I’m the most resilient one, and also the one who made the mistake, so I’ll take full responsibility for it.”

“Ok.” I say. “I hope you have good luck and don’t die! Lemon, you go first now. You’re the only melee remaining.”

“Yes! I’ll show you I can be useful! Hey Baldy, good luck there!”

“Good. This way our chances to survive have increased. I’ll take the rear then, our mage and leader better be in the center.”

Accepting Ricard’s resolve, I urge the rest of the team to move on. We continue moving forward as Ricard waves at us with his hand.

“Also, I’m an undead, so I can’t actually die again. I’m the one best suited for this! Hahaha!”

…ok, I regret being proud of him. Even if it was only a little.

 

---

 

We fight our way through lots of enemy units. The first ones to appear are the same goblins and dwarfs we already saw appearing from the left tunnel. But soon after, better units appear, like orcs, and some weird golems that throw missiles at us.

But they don’t pose too much of a problem. Even if we are only three, because we are running in the opposite direction as them, we encounter them scattered. And they die easily to our concentrated attacks.

The bad part is that there are lots of extra tunnels everywhere, so we have to backtrack our steps more than once. And every time we do, the next group of enemies we encounter is harder to beat because the enemies had time to lump together. Though it’s nothing a few Chain Lightnings and Hellfire combo can’t make quick work of.

We continue running through polished stone tunnels until we reach a room with something that glows in a faint purple light.

“Hey, brother! Look at that! There’s the dungeon core right in front of us! We did it! You chose the correct path! Yay!”

“It’s thanks to my amazing deduction and analytic skills that we could safely reach the dungeon core and break it! Hahaha!”

See? As I was saying before, the headless chicken approach always works! Hahaha!

“Wow! You’re amazing, brother!”

Laura looks at me skeptically. “...so you were lucky choosing randomly and now you’re bragging about it, huh?”

Aaaagh! Don’t look at me with those eyes! It hurts! Not wanting to suffer that stare any longer, I quickly concede.

“Ok, ok… you are right. I was lucky... I just chose one tunnel randomly.”

“Hey! You lied! Do you think I’m still a kid, and you can easily lie to me all the time, huh!?”

“Now, now, Lemon.” I pat her head and she calms down. “I was just spouting bullshit, do you really think I was trying to deceive you?”

“...no, I don’t.”

Hahaha! Easy! Too easy! It’s so easy to convince her of anything! Though I had to touch something disgusting and now my hand is slimy, so not everything’s good.

When I look away from my little sister, I notice Laura still staring at me with the same eyes as before. She must know I just manipulated Clara’s thoughts…

But why do I feel there’s something else mixed in her gaze? Something like jealousy, maybe…? Naaah. What are you thinking, Andreu!? Why should she be jealous? It’s impossible to be jealous for patting my sister’s disgusting head.

Trying to break the awkward mood, I decide to talk about what happened with Ricard.

“Do you think Ricard’s alive?”

“I’m almost sure he’s dead by now. Maybe he’s coming here in his phantasmal form, and will soon start to brag about his heroic deeds.” Says Laura.

“Aha…”

“Didn’t you feel a little bit disgusted at his attitude? I’m sure he thought he was some kind of noble warrior sacrificing himself for his princess!”

Clara… it isn’t nice to say bad things about dead people. Though I must say I totally agree with what you said.

But we shouldn’t be wasting time here. Until we crush the dungeon core, we can still be killed… or something worse. So I move to the dungeon core and crush it.

Then, I say. “We’ll never forget Baldy. He sacrificed himself so we three could survive and live another day… It’s a shame we’ll never see him again.”

I feign to wipe my nonexistent tears. Then, a phantasmal version of Ricard comes close to us from the passage we came from.

“...Hey! I see you managed to survive and clear the dungeon! Hahaha! Nice job!”

Of course, I can see and hear Ricard, but I still open my mouth again and say the following words. “I’m so sad I can still hear him…”

“Yeah, me too. I can still hear his unending ramblings, explaining everything about the game, even those parts that nobody cares about.” From my side, Laura continues my joke.

“Heeey, guys! Stop ignoring me!”

We walk to the dungeon portal that will teleport us to our second randomly selected dungeon.

When we reach it, I say, in a very sad voice. “Life is so hard… Poor Baldy. We’ll miss him dearly.”

“Yeah, we will.”

It’s at this moment that Clara opens her mouth. Was she waiting for this exact moment to say something?

“Uh, Baldy? Who’s that? Who are you talking about? Was there somebody called Baldy?”

So she’s taking the ‘we already forgot who he was’ route, huh? Nice! I decide to go along with her.

“...Baldy… I feel he was someone important to me, but I don’t know anymore. It seems I’ve forgotten already.”

“...is that so? I feel the same.” Says Laura.

“Hey! I know you are joking, so stop it! It isn’t funny.”

We continue to ignore him. A second later, I suspire again. Then, in a normal tone, as if everything previous to this moment wasn’t real, I say. “Well, let’s move on! We three still need to clear as many dungeons as possible!”

Laura and Clara nod at my words.

“N-no way… Can it be real? How is it that they can’t hear me…? Is it a bug?”

Ricard continues spouting nonsense. It seems he’s starting to believe our words. Somehow. If you knew it was a joke, how come you are doubting your own words now? Hahaha.

But when I’m about to cross the portal…

“Pffft! Hehehe! I’m sorry, brother, Lily. I couldn’t hold my laughter anymore. Hehehe!”

What a shame. We were so close to making him believe he was an actual phantom and nobody could see or hear him anymore…

From my side, Laura bursts out laughing too. “Pfft! You must admit you were getting desperate there, Baldy! Hahaha!”

With our laughing voices and Ricard’s complaints, we cross the portal and enter our second dungeon for the tournament’s first phase.

 

“... As I already told you, most teams design a very lethal dungeon for this first phase. This time we found something like an alarm trap that called all monsters to our position, a very nasty one. But once we enter the next dungeon, who knows what we’re going to encounter.

You must stay alert all the time! Because the only sure thing is that all other players will have planned nasty and deadly encounters for us.

Remember that the way you design dungeons for Dungeon Invasions or Dungeon Battles is different! The latter also applies to the tournament. For Dungeon Invasions you try to make the players enjoy the diving experience, but in Dungeon Battles you want to kill them as soon as possible.

Though the definition of ‘fun’ differs from one player to another, so it’s possible to find normal dungeons where they try to kill the enemy invaders too…”

- This was part of the ‘knowledge drilling’ done by Ricard in retaliation for ignoring him in his phantasmal form.