The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Haaa…. With this last one, how many goblin and orc groups did we defeat? Isn’t it the tenth?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t count… But I think it was more than ten?” Answers Ricard.

After the first battle, we continued the dungeon invasion and found more groups of goblins and orcs. The further we go, the more orcs and goblins we find in each group. But even with the numbers increasing, Ricard and I are still in good shape. This really seems to be a farming dungeon.

We have been repeating the same procedure for quite some time already. Ricard takes the front and I cast spells from behind. I managed to capture a few more orcs, now I should have five orc bodies. Maybe some goblins too if the Kidnapper captured them during combat, I’m not sure.

“Oh, here they come again! It’s twenty goblins and six orcs this time!” Says Ricard from the front. It’s four goblins and two orcs more than the last pack.

Ricard’s champion rushes to meet the enemy head-on, followed by the two specters. And another battle starts again.

From the repeated battles, we’ve found that the best timing for me to cast Chain Lightning is when the majority of goblins have around half HP remaining. In this way, the damage dealt to both goblins and orcs is maximized with the Shared Voltage triggers. It leaves most goblins stunned, and the damage from the excess damage is accumulated into the orcs, which leaves them at less than 1/4 HP. Low enough for Ricard, the specters, and the skeletons to finish them easily.

So I wait until most goblins are at half HP and cast Chain Lightning. When the lightning shots from my hand, Ricard turns around to look at me and shouts.

“Noooo! Shit! It was too early! There are too many enemies in this pack!”

And sure enough, when the Chain Lighting and the extra lighting jumps from Shared Voltage disappear, there’s still a few goblins doing fine, and what’s worse, not a single of the six orcs is stunned.

Since I generated so much aggro by dealing that amount of damage with a single skill, the orcs and goblins set me as the target. Ignoring the frontline, they start running in my direction.

“Ahhh! Somebody save me!” I shout, imitating a feminine voice the best I can. It’s not like I’m afraid, but I always wanted to find a situation where I could shout it.

“Grrr… Kill me! I’ll never surrender to you!” I say towards the running orcs. Again, with feminine voice. “I’ll rather die than suffer this humiliation!” I always wanted to say this too.

Ricard and the specters try to stop as many orcs and goblins as possible, but even with this, three orcs and two goblins are coming my way.

“Time to earn your keep!” I say to the Demonic Followers.

As soon as the first orc gets close, the three of them pounce on the orc. At the same time, I join the fray with my staff and by casting Cold Blasts.

The first attack I receive is from a goblin. It triggers the Lightning Shield and a blast of electricity shots towards it, leaving it stunned. I have mercy and kill it with the staff, so that it doesn't suffer.

Soon, the rest of goblins and orcs reach us, and a chaotic melee unfolds. The melee is going pretty well, because we overpower them one on one. But there’s a problem: one of the Demonic Followers is being attacked by two orcs, and both have the Bloodlust skill activated because they have less than half HP.

I try to open a path by furiously striking with my staff. As soon as I have enough MP, I cast more Cold Blasts. But by the time I reach the siamese that was alone, the elf half has already died.

Which causes the Demonic Revenge skill from the dwarf half to trigger. A dark aura slowly spreads through the dwarf half, until it completely hides its original appearance. Its stats rise to double its original amount. It currently has more Strength than me without the champion’s buff.

The siamese starts attacking furiously. With the buff and the damage reduction passive, it deals more damage to the orc than the damage it takes in return, even taking into account the orc’s Bloodlust skill.

“Wow, first time I see the skill working, and it’s stupidly powerful! It’s a unit that costs 20 cp but it is dealing the same damage as a 200 cp unit right now!”

Once the siamese kills the first orc, it immediately switches target and starts attacking the next one.

The Demonic Revenge only lasts for five seconds, and you may say that it’s a very short time… But in the middle of combat, five seconds are a lot. By the time the five seconds have passed, the siamese has managed to kill the two orcs.

“Hahaha! A lv 3 40 cp unit (technically two, one unit each half) has managed to kill two lv 7 100 cp units! And they are one of the strongest 100 cp units in melee!” Even if they were at half HP when the battle started, it's still a ridiculous feat.

The most ridiculous part is that the Demonic Swarmer isn’t a unit designed for dungeon invasions, because both its AI and skills are for defending the dungeon, especially in the mushroom areas.

The battle finishes. By the time I manage to kill the remaining orcs and goblins, Ricard has also killed the rest.

“Fiuu… I need a short rest. Out of MP, and both me and my mobs need some time to recover HP. How are you doing?”

“Well, I could still go. But if we take a break I’ll top-off my HP, EP and MP. So let’s rest.” Says Ricard. “I also need to take care of my junior!”

Is he ever going to stop treating me like a noob? Because I’m not a noob anymore! And it’s getting tiresome…

 

After enough resting, we resume the dungeon invasion. We are now reaching the end of the straight canyon, and we can see a turn in front.

“Get ready, because from here on, the serious part starts.” Says Ricard.

“Serious part? Didn’t you say this was a farming dungeon?”

“And it is, but after this turn the dungeon’s difficulty increases. You can say that the previous part was just the tutorial.”

“Well, if you say so…” I’m not very convinced. But I don’t want to go back, so the only option remaining is moving forward.

“After the turn, we’ll encounter a wooden palisade with watchtowers. I need you to take care of the archers stationed there with your spells. Do it as soon as possible, because the goblin archers use elemental arrows and my specters aren’t very suited against them. If left alone, both specters are going to die pretty quickly.”

“Huh… Ok!” He is the dungeon expert, so I’ll follow his orders for now. And I haven’t admitted him as my superior, ok!? I need to make sure, so you don’t get confused! 

Immediately after turning, I can see the wooden palisade with the watchtowers. And sure enough, there are goblins on top of them.

“Let’s go!” Says Ricard as he starts running towards the palisade. There’s a gate in the middle, protected by several more goblins and orcs. I follow him from behind.

As he gets close, the goblins and orcs rush forward in an unorganized mess. Meanwhile, the goblins from the watchtowers shoot arrows from the top.

Until now, the specters were mostly ignoring the physical damage from all the attacks, and the little damage they took was restored with the Draining Touch skill. But now that the arrows have elemental damage, every time one strikes a specter, it takes a significant amount of damage. Every time, I can see a chunk of their HP bar going away.

*Bwoooooo!* An enemy is blowing a horn somewhere. I can’t see it from where I stand.

As Ricard, or should I say the BaldSage?, keeps the ground units busy, I follow his orders and attack the ranged goblins.

I cast one Cold Blast after another. Chain Lightning isn’t suitable here because the goblins are far from one another, at most two of them in the same watchtower.

Unlike what happens with the elfs, which usually fall from the trees once immobilized, the goblins stand on flat ground, so they don’t fall. It takes between two and three Cold Blasts to kill each goblin.

*Bwoooo!* The horn sounds again. *Bwooo!* After the third time, the wooden door opens and a lot more goblins and orcs pour through it, immediately joining the fray.

“Hahaha! Come! Come to me, you weaklings! I’ll exterminate you all, and your souls will feed my legions!” I hear Ricard shouting while surrounded by all sides in the huge melee.

There’s so many enemies that some of them slip through the frontline and come in my direction. But there are two Demonic Followers to protect me, and the enemies come alone, so it’s not an issue. When a new enemy reaches us, the previous one is already dead. When one gets close enough to us, we jump on it like voracious hyenas and swiftly ‘eat’ it.

By the time I finish killing all the goblin archers, there’s already a mountain of corpses near the gate.

Still alive, Ricard’s champion keeps killing everything in its sword’s path. With almost every strike, a new corpse is created. And with the help of the Soul Feast skill, he and his undead are recovering from the wounds suffered during the battle.

Wow! He really is specialized in battling a huge number of weak enemies… How many corpses are there? Maybe more than fifty? It’s difficult to count since they are on top of one another…

Even with the elemental arrows, the specters are still alive. I suppose it’s because I took the aggro of most of the goblin archers by attacking them.

“Hahaha! I’m the lord of death!” Shouts Ricard, on top of the corpse mountain.

After Ricard calmed himself, he approached me while saying. “Let’s move forward. The dungeon is waiting for us to continue!”

 

We cross the wooden gate. Inside, there are tents and simple wood buildings. The path leads us to a wide square, partially surrounded by fences. It kind of resembles an arena.

“Get ready for some more action!” Warns Ricard. “And this time, stay close to me while outside the aura’s range. We have to survive for five minutes under the assault of a constant stream of goblins and orcs. And this time there are going to be advanced orcs, like the orc Warrior.”

“Even more enemies!? Isn’t this like we are fighting against a whole army?”

“Yes, it is! Don’t you think it is awesome? 2vs200!” He excitedly says. “I’m going to focus on dealing with the high rank orcs, you need to protect yourself from the rest! See all those places without fences? They’re going to come from there!”

“Wait, what!? Protect myself from 200 orcs!?” I try to retort. *Bwooooo!* But another horn sounds at that moment and the countdown starts.

We don’t need to wait, as immediately after the horn sounds, goblins and orcs can be seen from all the entrances. I prepare myself.

“Even if I’m going to die, I’m gonna take all of you with me! Hahaha!” I shout. They say morale is the most important in battles, right?

“Come to me and face my creations! If I like your performance, I might even add you to my ranks! Fufufu! Hahahah!” I shout again, this time while raising my hands, electricity running through them. I’m preparing to cast Chain Lightning.

The first goblin runs in my direction, but as soon as he reaches our range, both my staff and the Demonic Followers' attacks meet him and he dies.

“Poor goblin, couldn’t manage to get a single hit! Hahaha!”

Ricard is moving around all the time. He only needs the enemies to enter his aura, and after taking damage they will target him automatically. It’s a nice way to aggro most of the enemies so that they don’t come my way.

But he is starting to get overwhelmed. Unlike Goblins and orc Hunters, the orc Warriors have better stats and deal more damage, so his HP is steadily getting lower. At this rate, we won’t survive for five minutes.

I release the Chain Lightning in his direction, and it deals a decent amount of damage to the warriors. What’s more, since it also strikes some goblins, the damage accumulates and I manage to stun one of the warriors.

“Thank you!” Says Ricard, relieved. “Nice timing!”

“Of course! I’m the spellcaster here! If you need damage, call me and I’ll nuke them!” I must demonstrate my usefulness! Though in reality I can’t nuke them… because I can’t kill them with lightning damage…

Ricard keeps moving through the arena and I run towards the stunned orc warrior.

“Hahaha! You’ll make a nice hybrid after I capture you!” As it gets close, the Kidnapper starts the capturing process. “Now, protect the Kidnapper with your lives! You must prevent the enemies from interrupting him!” I shout to the two siameses. Of course, they don’t react in any way.

I’m worried if I’ll manage to capture it or not. I don’t want to waste this precious opportunity.

A few enemies jump at us, but with my incredible skill and perseverance, we manage to kill them and the Kidnapper properly finishes his job. (Non-embellished version: only three goblins reach us and are insta-killed.)

“Nice! A new body for my future experiments!” I say, rubbing my hands together.

“Hey, Mad Rat! A little bit more help would be appreciated!”

“Ok! I’ve already finished here!” I reply. “I’m coming to your rescue, BaldSage!”

“Who said I need you to save me? I just need you to do your job!”

“Hahaha! Don’t be ashamed to ask for help!” After saying this, I cast another Chain Lightning and stun most of the enemies currently chasing Ricard.

 

“Huh… huh… I know this is a VR game but I got tired after so much running anyway!” Complains Ricard.

“What are you saying? I’m perfectly fine!”

“... because you haven’t been running for the last five minutes!!!” He shouts, enraged.

“You haven’t either! I’ve seen you stop a couple of times… here, and there too.” I taunt him. I just want to pay him back for not stopping the jokes about him teaching me and about him being better.

“What!? How dare you…” Ricard starts to shout.

*Bwoooooooooooooo!* But he gets interrupted by another horn. This horn sounds a lot louder and lasts for a lot more time. After the horn sound stops, the ground starts to shake in a rhythmic way .

*Pooom! Poooom! Pooom! Poom!* Something huge appears from behind one of the wooden buildings.

“Oooh, shit! I forgot about this!”

“You forgot about this!? How can you forget about something this big!?” I shout at him.

He stammers, it seems he doesn’t know what to say. “I-it’s… it's my bad, ok? I-i didn’t remember about it… because it’s not important for me, that’s it!”

*Pooom! Poooom!* It’s a humanoid figure bulging with muscles. About three meters tall and wields a huge club. Well, more than a club, it looks like a tree trunk.

“Not important!? You fucking with me! THAT thing is enormous!”

“We-well… It’s a troll… a troll Boss at that… and it’s going to be very hard for us… because we have very little single target damage…”

“Weren’t you the ‘oh so great sage’ who knew everything!? The ‘oh so mighty pro player’ that was calling me noob all the time!? How can you forget about this dungeon’s Boss!”

“Ugh… I’m sorry, ok!” He meekly replies.

The meat hulk is coming towards us and I take this chance to inspect it. The fucking troll has a buff that increases all stats by 100%. It works exactly the same as with the champions, and it makes sense because it’s the only way that the defending player can have a strong enough unit to defend the dungeon. Bosses have the same buff as Champions.

I almost have a heart attack after looking at the troll’s stats and skills. It has more than a thousand HP, and the Regeneration trait… the two together, it recovers more than 50 HP each second!

“Hahaha!” I can’t stop myself from laughing. I laugh to avoid crying. “If we manage to beat it, we are going to be legends!”

“I don’t think we are going to be legends. But we’re going to have a hard time.”

I can dream, ok? I can dream about being a legend for killing a troll, ok?

*Pooom! Poooom!* The troll has already entered the arena, and it immediately switches to attack mode.

“Don’t come near me!” I shout. “You can have him as a snack! This undead has a lot more meat than me!”

“Hey, don’t use me as bait!”

After Ricards says the word bait, I have a crazy idea. “Ooooh, wait! I have an idea! If we use the Kidnapper as bait, he will be able to hold the troll for five seconds! If we time it right, we can use this time to pummel the troll into oblivion!”

Ricard nods at my bait tactic. “Nice idea! Let’s try it!”

I get close to the troll, but just before I’m inside its attack range, I run away. Now the troll is following me, but since the Kidnapper is a damned stitched and it moves abysmally slow, he soon is left behind. It’s the first time I’m glad that the Stitched are so slow.

When the troll has the Kidnapper in melee range, it swings its huge… club?, trunk?. Anyway, it swings his weapon and smashes the poor Kidnapper.

“A one hit kill!” I shout. Or it would have been if not for the God’s Intervention skill. A white film covers the stitched’s body.

Everyone takes this chance to attack at the same time. Me and the two remaining Demonic Followers, and also Ricard and his four undead.

The fucking troll regenerates thrice more HP per second than the damage I can deal with the staff. But with the combined effort from everyone, its HP is slowly being reduced.

“This won’t be enough! At this rate, we’re only going to reduce it to half HP before the Kidnapper dies!” I warn Ricard after making an assumption about how much damage it will take.

“Then, let me do the tanking after it dies. You know I have a second life!”

“It won’t work! If you die, after the 30 seconds it takes for you to revive, not a single one of us will be left standing!”

“Hmm… that’s true. But still, it’s better if I get the aggro. I should be able to tank at least a few of its attacks.” Says Ricard. It’s true that I might be crushed by only two or three of its attacks. Maybe one if the troll uses an attack skill.

And as predicted, when the troll’s HP was below half, the white barrier from the Kidnapper disappears. With the next attack, the troll smashes the stitched. The tree trunk has so much force that, if this weren’t a game, not even the corpse would remain.

The troll finds its next target and immediately swings again. This time, it strikes one of the specters. Even with the 50% damage reduction they have, the specter takes more than half its maximum HP as damage.

“Attack me, you dumbass!” Shouts Ricard. It must have activated a taunting skill, because the troll’s next attack goes towards him.

I slowly walk away while continuously casting Cold Blast. It seems like Bosses have resistance to status effects, because after casting more than ten times, the immobilization hasn’t activated a single time.

Every time the troll swings his club, a chunk of Ricard’s HP bar vanishes. By the time that he is almost killed, the Cold Blast finally applies the immobilization and the troll stops attacking.

“Yes! It finally worked!”

During the immobilization, we focus everything on the troll again. But it lasts less than expected and the troll soon moves again. Maybe another resistance towards status effects?

“Almost there!” I shout. The troll currently has less than fifty HP, one big hit and it’s going to die.

I cast Chain Lightning to finish the troll. But at the same time as the lightning leaves my hand, the troll strikes Ricard once again, killing him.

Then the lightning reaches the troll, and it is left stunned with 1 HP. Even as the regeneration keeps going, the mobs take this chance to kill it. Finally, the troll Boss is dead.

“That was close! A little later and we would all be dead!” I say.

“Yep, really close!” Answers Ricard in its phantom form. He now needs to wait for 30 seconds until he is resurrected by his skill.

“No more surprises after the troll, right? Because if there are, I’m gonna kill you again, this time in real life!”

“No, the troll was the last enemy… Hope so.” Answers Ricard.

“Ok, then let’s wait until you resurrect and leave the dungeon. And I’ll NEVER call you ‘master’ or anything of the like. Especially after you forgot the most important part of the dungeon!”

Ricards feigns to be crying while saying. “Noooooo…. My title and reputation have disappeared because of a single mistake!”

“Title? Reputation? You never had any of those!”

“W-what! You demon!”

I had to leave things clear. And what moment could be better than after he made such a big mistake? You must capitalize on other’s mistakes.

 

“Create bosses that fit the theme of your dungeon. Sure, if you put that unit you like so much, because it has X skill, you can make a challenging boss. But players won’t remember your boss because it was challenging.

Compare a dragon inside a volcano, surrounded by lava waterfalls while breathing fire into the enemy invaders, and the same dragon inside the sewers, infested by rats and slimes. It’s the same boss, but it’s evident which one is better.

Now put a gigantic slime that fills the whole sewage tunnel, from which the players must run away unless they want to be swallowed and digested. Better, right? You should find a balance between challenge and aesthetics for your bosses.”

- Tenth point from ‘10 things to do to improve your dungeon’.