The Mad Rat’s Lab

This chapter has a different POV.

 

After the usual white flashes, I look around. Everybody’s waiting for my instructions.

This is our third dungeon invasion today. If everything continues as planned, and we don’t make any huge mistakes, we’ll get enough points to enter the Main Tournament.

“All right, everyone! This is our third dungeon, and we’re right on schedule. So don’t worry and let’s proceed as planned.” I say.

Everybody nods at my words.

“Hahaha! There’s nothing to worry about if we follow your lead, Wizardess!”

Barbarian, the other girl in our team, is excitedly swinging her giant axe around. I’m sure she’s itching to attack some enemies already but, as she just said, she always follows what I say. Unless I give the order, she won’t rush ahead recklessly.

“Do you want me to scout ahead, as usual?”

“Yes, please. And remember to check the combat log and see if there’s anything we need to look out for.”

It’s important to keep track of the battle log because there are lots of effects and skills that are very difficult to spot otherwise. I always remind them to do it, because they tend to forget.

“Sure.”

Rogue turns around and a dark veil, the effect of the Shadow Veil skill, surrounds him before he leaves. He’ll soon return and explain what dangers await ahead of us.

“Should I save my MP for critical situations? Or do you prefer me to keep everyone in top shape?”

“Hmmm… I’ll decide when Rogue comes back, but for now, save your MP. And don’t be too stingy with the heals, I don’t want anyone to die!”

“Ok, and about the crowd control? Offensive skills?”

“Only if you see a good chance, or if you feel it’s needed. I leave the choice to you. And I’ll tell you when we need you to attack.”

Druid nods at my words. He’s in charge of keeping everyone alive, but only this would be a waste, so he also provides crowd control and damage. Mostly area ones, like entangling every enemy in an area, or creating poison clouds.

We’re currently in an underground tunnel. In open spaces, his damage skills can be very useful because of the wide areas, but here, there’s the danger to hit your allies. That’s why I tell Druid to not use them unless I give the order.

Rogue returns and explains what he saw.

“There’s a lot of weird monsters ahead. Some of them deal passive area damage.”

“Is that so…?” I think for a moment, before deciding on the plan. “We’re going to do a preventive strike. When you don’t know what the enemies do, it’s the best option because it allows us to see how the enemies react and know how strong or weak they are. Druid, please cast Poison Cloud on the enemies when they are in reach.”

“Sure thing.”

“‘Sword&Sorcery’ is going to crush everyone in our path and reach the top! Hahaha!  ...hey Wizardess, can I hit something already?”

“Not yet.”

“Ooww…”

“Rogue, you lead.”

The Rogue nods at my words and guides the rest of us. If we proceed as usual, even with unknown enemies, I’m sure we’ll beat this dungeon..

 

---

 

“Aaah, how annoying! If only they were as easy as the first ones! I can’t move freely with so much poison!”

“True. And my Poison Cloud is almost useless…”

“Barbarian, just move to the spots without mushrooms and let them come to you!”

“But…!”

“Just do it! And Druid, don’t worry. You know it’s best to avoid wide areas in closed spaces like this...”

*AaAaAaAaAa!*

Interrupting my words, one of those deformed monsters, the ones that are half an elf and half a dwarf stuck together, comes at us.

I move behind Barbarian and cast Magic Missiles, trying to grab its attention. It works, because it rushes in our direction and leaves Rogue and Druid alone.

“You can have your fun now, Barbarian. Remember to kill them both at the same time if possible.”

“Now we’re talking! Hahaha!”

The monsters in the first room were dangerous but weak. With a single preemptive strike most of them died and thus posed no danger to us.

But these ones… how twisted must your mind be to give them both swarming and a power-up when one unit dies!? Ok, they die soon after, but… they surprised us the first time and Rogue almost died surrounded by them!

And that horrendous cry…!

But the worst is they are immune to the mushroom’s poison, so we can’t do much against them. Well, all enemies in this area are immune or resist poison, except the Abyss ones. Now, this reminds me…

“Rogue, I know it’s difficult to move and aim with so many obstacles and all the poison, but I need you to kill all those Abyss monsters as soon as possible. They are difficulting my and Druid’s work by reducing our MP, and Barbarian is vulnerable to them because of her low MP pool!”

The Abyss faction is among the ones I like the least. I know they are disgusting, but that isn’t the important part… The reason I hate them is their skills to reduce or drain MP. As a wizard, that’s something I’ll never tolerate!

“Fireball incoming!” I shout. The others stop moving around at my warning, giving me a clear path to the targets.

The Fireball flies and strikes a pair of Skeletons firing arrows at us, as well as one sneaky Imp. When the fire subsides, only three corpses remain.

Nice job, me! I timed it to perfectly catch as many of them as possible.

“There are no more enemies nearby.” Rogue says.

“Then let’s move. And fast! I want to leave this area as soon as possible!”

Everybody follows after Rogue, who activates the Shadow Veil skill again.

I hope we reach the dungeon core soon. I didn’t expect to find so many crazy things right at the beginning and wasted lots of EP and MP to face them…

I’m kind of afraid of what’s coming next, but I can’t show it on my face. I must appear as the perfect leader, the leader the other three expect and deserve.

 

---

 

We leave the tunnel full of poisonous mushrooms behind and enter the next area. We aren’t underground anymore, but the scenery is even more ominous.

The red sky’s covered by dark clouds. And on the ground, a bubbling sulfurous sea covers everything but a meandering path that leads forward, and a few more paths that connect to this one further ahead. I’m sure it looks like a web from the sky. There are also a few islands not connected to any path. Everything’s made of dark red rock, a very big contrast with the yellowish waters.

There’s a wooden sign near the entrance. In ominous letters, but with incredibly polished calligraphy that makes it very easy to read from a distance, it says: “Follow your dreams, or find eternal peace.”

And right next to it, there’s another one that says: ‘Your souls are mine! Hahaha!’ This one is hard to read because the letters are deformed and change sizes, as if it was written by some kid. This second wooden sign is so tattered, that it’s a miracle it’s still standing.

Ok… that’s weird.

The heat and the disgusting rotten smell quickly snap me out of my thoughts.

“Taking into account what we found until now and how big this place looks, I believe this is the last area. Oh, and don’t dare go inside the sulfurous sea!”

Everyone nods at my words. It isn’t the first time we’ve found something like these boiling sulfurous waters, where you take both poison and fire damage every second you stay inside. It’s a typical hazard inside the Wicked Legion dungeons, something you would expect to see in hell.

“Hey, Wizardess! Do you think we’ll find a big demon to fight here!? I hope so!”

“Don’t get your hopes up. I doubt they had so much spare cp to put a big one here.”

I turn around to look at Rogue. When he notices my stare, he shakes his head in denial.

“I have no idea which is the good path.”

“Then let’s choose randomly for now…”

What a shame. If only we could see the dungeon core’s purple glow from here!

“How is everyone doing?” I ask as we move forward. We’re on a tight timer for this first phase, so I don’t want to waste time and do it as we move. They turn to me one by one. The first one is Rogue, followed by Barbarian and Druid.

“I’m fine, about half EP and MP.”

“Although I haven’t used any MP at all, it’s getting dangerously low… I hope we don’t find any more of those Abyss monsters… EP and HP are fine.”

“A little bit low on MP, but the rest is full.”

“I also only lack MP… I can cast only two more fireballs at most.”

I finish with my own evaluation. As expected when fighting against Abyss monsters, we’re lacking MP. Though the only one in the danger zone is the Barbarian due to her low MP and SOU stats, it still hurts me and Druid because we can’t cast as many spells.

We’re about to reach the first crossroads when the first enemies appear. From both paths, several zombies rush at us. Well… come at us as fast as a zombie can move.

“I’ll take the ones on the right path, ok!?” Says Barbarian. Rogue supports her from behind by shooting with his crossbow.

I then turn around and say to Druid.

“Please, slow the other group down for a while.”

“Shouldn’t we kill them?”

“No, I don’t want to waste time or energy on them.” I look around. Something’s telling me this place is dangerous. “Also, they are so slow it’s impossible they can catch up to us.”

“Ok.”

He snares the zombies with one of his spells. When they manage to get free of the restraints, we’ll be too far away for them to catch up anymore.

 

We’re about to reach the next crossroads when Rogue warns us.

“Ambush!”

“Get ready!” I shout in response.

At the same time as more zombies are coming from all three paths, two pairs of imps cast spells from the top of the nearest islands. Fuck! I knew there was something odd about them being so close to the path!

“Do we kill all the zombies this time!?”

“No, we’ll do as the first time!”

Barbarian is swinging her giant axe in anticipation, but it’s too dangerous to waste MP against simple zombies. I’m sure we’re going to find nastier enemies ahead.

“And what about the imps?”

“Ignore them and snare the zombies instead, Druid!” I turn to Rogue again to ask about the path. “Which direction do we take?”

“...the left one, I think.”

“Ok!”

I too have a feeling the dungeon core is in the central part of this sea. We turned right the first time, so turning left now should lead us closer to it.

Ignoring the imps, we kill the zombies coming from the left path and stop the movement of the other zombies before moving forward. I really hope we aren’t on the wrong path because the zombies are starting to accumulate behind us. We’re going to have to fight our way through if we need to go back.

We find a few more crossroads, but each time it gets more difficult than the previous fight. In the third one, Abyss creatures start to appear in the fights too. And in the fourth, we are assaulted by two specters, flying over the sulfurous sea, and I’m forced to cast Magic Missiles to kill them.

Rogue and Barbarian aren’t suited to fight against them, and Druid isn’t good against single enemies. The worst is that it’s impossible to leave the specters behind because they can fly over the sea and quickly catch up to us.

Magic Missiles is my favorite spell because of how versatile it is. You can spend very little MP to kill a single weak enemy or devastate groups of them by creating more missiles. It’s even possible to blast strong enemies into oblivion by targeting them with all the missiles at the same time!

Barbarian is clearing the path ahead of us while I focus on sniping

“Rogue, I need you to kill the Abyss monsters! They’re sapping our MP away!”

“It’s too difficult! They hide behind the zombies when I target them!”

“Fuck! Then let’s run ahead and leave them behind!” I shout.

The only good thing is that we can finally see a purple glow ahead of us. We’re close to the end! We weren’t wrong, the dungeon core is in the middle of this sea. If only we can reach the dungeon core and break it…!

We reach the end of the path. It opens up into a wider area, surrounded by the sulfurous sea on all sides except this path. In the center, there’s the dungeon core. But it’s surrounded by twenty zombies. They are one of the most annoying creatures to kill because of their innate skill: Zombie Resilience.

Zombie Resilience is stupidly good against melee fighters. I and Druid could kill them easily with our spells, but… we don’t have any MP to spare on them. That’s why I’m trying to avoid fighting and run away instead.

“Barbarian, I need you to clear the zombies around the dungeon core, as fast as you can! Rogue, you help her! And Druid, you and I must keep the other mobs away! If they get within twenty meters of the core, we’re done!”

Luckily I still have some MP left and can quickly kill any enemy that gets too close… But when I look behind again, I see IT floating on top of the sea, coming in our direction.

“No, no, no! Not a fucking Banshee! Not now!”

We’re in a very dangerous position. If the Banshee uses her Wail innate skill, even if a single one of us gets stunned, we’re going to die for sure.

We can’t afford the risk, so there’s no other way than for me to use all my remaining MP to kill it.

Ten Magic Missiles are launched when I cast the spell, creating an impressive light effect. But I’m not sure they’ll be enough to kill the Banshee, and I don’t want to take any chances, so… I squeeze all my remaining MP and cast Magic Missiles again with all my remaining MP. Some more missiles appear a while later and fly toward the Banshee. There are five or six of them in this second volley.

I was right at casting the second spell, because the Banshee survives the first barrage, but the second one kills her right when she was preparing to use Wail.

I then look at the zombie mob that was following us from behind all the time. They are coming, slowly, but steadily.

“Druid, what are you doing? Cast your slowing spell again!”

Druid looks awkwardly at me before saying. “...I’m sorry, but I’m out of MP…”

“Fuck this!”

Barbarian and Rogue are still fighting against the zombies. We need to kill them before the other zombies come close enough.

I do something I haven’t done in a very long time, almost since I started playing DMA: go into melee range and attack the enemies with my staff. Druid joins me in the desperate attack against the zombies around the dungeon core.

“Die! Die! Die!” I shout with each attack.

Finally, after killing the second zombie, I hear a cracking noise. This is the sound produced when the dungeon core breaks. Not long after, the remaining enemies vanish. We cleared the dungeon, so the game made them disappear.

We rest for a moment to calm ourselves before I order everyone to move on to the next dungeon. We can’t waste time because it’s limited.

“Wizardess, do you think we’ll fight against another bunch of weird monsters? You know, like the ones from the first two areas. Because I hope not…”

Druid looks at me. Rogue’s right next to him, nodding at his words. They expect me to deny the possibility.

“...I’m not sure. But… they are from a very weird faction, the Flesh Monstrosities, so I don’t think we’ll encounter any other player from the same faction.”

With the hand on my chin, I think about it a bit more before continuing.

“Though… if we had such a hard time in this dungeon, I’m sure the other teams have died a lot, so… if the team doesn’t suck at invading other dungeons, I’m sure they’ll make it to the second round. Maybe we’ll play against the team who designed this dungeon again.”

“Maybe those weird monsters were the only ones they have, and there won’t be any more surprises? I know they weren’t very strong, but a single mistake there could have sent us to the grave.”

Not believing his own words, Druid enters the portal that will teleport us to our next dungeon, followed by the rest of us.

“I hope the next dungeon has normal enemies! I want to wildly swing my axe around, regardless of everything! Strong enemies? Leave them to me! Lots of weak ones? You’re welcome!! …but if they are tricky ones like the ones in this dungeon, you can take care of them, Wizardess. This dungeon… it was evil!”

I sigh at Barbarian’s words. Why do you like to roleplay a musclebrain so much!? And I don’t like tricky enemies either! You must be crazy to like them!

 

“This team, called Sword&Sorcery, was a group of friends who liked TTRPG a lot and decided to play DMA as a team. After all, what’s better than customizing your character as you like, and diving into real dungeons instead of imaginary ones?

Wizardess, Rogue, Barbarian, and Druid are the nicknames they themselves wanted to be called as, as well as their actual nicknames in the game. Why those generic names? At first, they used them to help them avoid using their real names by accident. But then they got used to the nicknames and decided to keep using them.”

- Stuff Andreu and the rest learned later on, during the Main Tournament phase, when looking for information about the other teams.