The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Hello everyone! I’m back!”

Today I’m going to spend yesterday’s reward. After the dungeon invasion with Ricard, I obtained a lot of cp, resources, and bodies. And I’m going to spend them in new dungeon stuff.

I check the dungeon status and the cp and resources available. It looks like the amount of players diving into the dungeon is slowly but steadily increasing, so I have some passive income even if I do nothing.

“First of all, I must unlock some new technology.” I mutter as I open the dungeon technology menu. “When reaching level 3, I unlocked the tech to upgrade the champion. But I still need to research it.”

I start by looking at the Units technology tree, where I can find the Champion Upgrade technologies. I’m only interested in the upgrades to the Hybrid champions, as I don’t have any intention of creating new Champions. Also, after researching the Siamese, I got some options for new unit types.

This upgrade will basically allow me to upgrade the Mad Rat by adding a new unit’s parts, stats and innate skills. Of course, I am the one that needs to provide the body, so I first need to get it from a dungeon invasion. Only in the first champion creation I could use any body I wanted.

I start the research for the Champion Upgrade - Hybrid technology. I’m not going to upgrade the champion yet, but it will be soon. And at that time, I don’t want to have to wait for four hours for the research to finish.

Also, I need to think about it in more detail. Because by upgrading the champion, it will also increase the cp value of it, limiting what options I can take during Dungeon Battles.

“If I spend too much cp for the upgrade, it will reduce how many traps and other units I can bring with me in the dungeon battles. But if I get too short, the champion won’t be very powerful and die anyway…”

After starting the champion upgrade research, I take a look at the rest of the available units. Because the Flesh Monstrosities work by using units from other factions, and can have more variety depending on what units they use, they have a smaller pool of available unit types compared to the other factions.

So they obtain more flexibility, but have less unit types. Still, there are two new units I can currently research, both unlocked after the Siamese were researched: the Fleshling and the Basic Chimera.

“This Fleshling is on a similar level of disgusting as the Stitched. It’s a quadruped mass of wriggling flesh, with no head... It looks like a single creature instead of parts of several different creatures stitched together… but it’s still on the top ten of  ‘most disgusting things’ I’ve ever seen.”

This seems to be a decent unit regarding its utility and stats. Until now, the Stitched were the only unit where I didn’t have to look for specific bodies to be able to create them. Now, if I unlock the Fleshlings, I can create them without worrying too much about getting specific bodies.

“It’s because there’s an option to create them in bulk. If I do so, I can select any innate skill from any unit used, so I only need one ‘good’ body with the innate skill I want, and all the Fleshlings will have that skill… It’s the perfect unit to dump all the bodies that I got but don’t want to use.”

And believe me when I say that I’ve started to get a few of those undesired bodies. Also, the Fleshlings have the same stats regardless of what units are used in their creation.

I can already imagine the enemy invaders being swarmed by a pack of fleshlings, and then being… bludgeoned to death…? Because they don’t have a head, so no biting or tearing.

But the real interesting stuff comes with the other unit, the Basic Chimera. Since it’s called ‘basic’, I assume there’s going to be better versions unlocked later on…

“It’s fun that this Eternal Pain skill actually makes them stupidly tanky in short fights. To actually kill one chimera, you need to stay at least 10 seconds in combat, even if you should be able to kill them with a single attack.”

If I unlock the Basic Chimeras, I will finally be able to use the Tunneler body that I got some time ago. But I don’t have a second non-humanoid unit to pair it with… so I’m not going to unlock it yet.

“Chimeras have more customization than most other units. They can have multiple heads and tails, and even extra limbs and weird body compositions, like having one head in front and one head at the back.”

A few crazy ideas come to mind… But those are going to be plans for the future…

In the end, I only start the research for the champion upgrade, and forget about the Fleshlings and Chimeras. I will research them in the future.

 

The next thing is the Buildings technology tree. I want to look for a technology that will allow me to capture big unit’s bodies in case I find some in the future.

In this last invasion, it was impossible to capture the troll because it was a Boss, and the game doesn’t allow the capture of bosses. But if I find another troll in the future, I won’t be able to capture it because I don’t have any building to put the body in.

“I don’t know about other units, but if I ever find a troll, I MUST capture it. It would be a shame to waste the chance to get one of the best passives I can think of… So I need to unlock the building to store them now!”

“Fufufu! Hahaha!” I imagine a giant monster with both defensive skills and regeneration, and the players facing it getting annihilated. It won’t be a simple troll, it would be an already extremely dangerous monster, that has both regeneration and any other crazy innate skill I can think of!

Luckily, it takes no time to find such a building. In fact, it’s right next to the Small stasis capsule that I already researched. There’s also another tech for storing even bigger bodies.

“Hahaha! The colossal stasis capsule is absurdly big! It takes the same space as a normal sized house would in real life! And can literally hold all units in the game. Obviously, dragons, leviathans, and the like are included!”

But I won’t need the Colossal stasis capsule any time soon. If I find one such gigantic enemy, I’m sure to die anyway… so I don’t need to plan for capturing them any time soon.

Generally, the bigger the unit, the higher the stats it has. So a unit that’s as big as a house must have at least ten times my stats… which translates into a one-hit-kill. Maybe two hits if I’m lucky.

In any case, I don’t have the resources nor cp to research the Colossal one, so… let’s forget about it for now.

“But the Giant stasis capsule is the one I was looking for, so let’s start the research! Once researched, it costs 250 cp for every capsule, so for now it has to be a single one.”

I don’t plan to capture a lot of giant units yet, so with only one for the ‘just in case…’ is enough. Still, researching the technology and building a single one is going to get close to a thousand cp. “Expensive!”

The Giant stasis capsule is a five meters tall and three meters diameter glass cylinder. Yeah, it’s definitely giant compared to the humanoid sized one.

 

“Ok, now I want to look through the Decorations technology tree! I want some new traps or maybe dungeon elements to improve the dungeon!”

Just as I open the Decorations technology tree, I hear a game’s notification sound.

*Piring!*

I have received a message from someone? I stop what I’m doing and take a look at the message.

 

[A Lil’ Demoness]

‘Hi there! I’ve read about an especially dangerous dungeon that’s currently the talk of a lot of low-leveled players… which happens to be your dungeon. And I decided to take a look at it.

I must say it's decent for a new player, but it definitely doesn’t deserve the attention it receives. So I challenge you to a Dungeon Battle to demonstrate I’m better than you! That is, if you don’t go hide away like the rat you are!’

 

“Fufufu! How dare you say I’m a coward! Of course I’ll accept your challenge, …huh… what was your name? Oh, yes… Of course I accept your challenge, A Lil’ Demoness! Hahaha”

How dare she (because with that nickname I suppose it’s a she) send me such a message!? Hide like a rat!? I might have a rat’s head, but that’s the only rat-like thing I have!

And I myself don’t really understand the reason why my dungeon is getting popular, but this doesn’t give you a reason to mock my dungeon!

“You don’t understand how much blood and tears (virtual) I had to spill to get to this point! What are you!? A demon!? Ahhh.. oh, well… from the nickname I should assume she really is a demon… Anyway! …Fuck you!”

“You’ll see, I’ll make you eat your own words and demonstrate that you are the one that has its ego inflated! And then I will dive into your dungeon and use your own units to create new flesh monstrosities! Hahahaha!”

In the message, it doesn’t say anything about the time for the match or even the battle rules. So it’s up to me to choose?

What should I do? Send her a challenge with the dungeon battle rules set by me? Or be a gentleman and let her choose the rules?

“I still don’t have too many options for customizing the dungeon mobs and traps, but I do have enough units to cover at least the 1.000 cp mode with ease… Yes, let’s send the challenge with the 1.000 cp budget and let her choose the rest of the rules.”

But first, I send a message in response.

 

[Disguised Koala]

‘Run away you say? Who would run away from a challenge like this, more so if the challenger is so desperate for attention? I’ll show you that it isn’t that I was lucky the reason why my dungeon is popular!

When do you want the challenge? Is right now ok? Because I don’t even need to prepare to beat someone like you! That is, unless you chicken out! Hahaha!’

 

Maybe I got a little too incensed because of the challenge… but I don’t regret sending the message. It’s only a few seconds later that I receive the reply from the other player.

 

[A Lil’ Demoness]

‘Now’s fine by me! I’m the one who challenges you, so feel free to send the Dungeon Battle Challenge when you’re ready! And I’ll send you to your eternal sleep! But don’t worry, you won’t feel any pain… other than your pride being shattered, that is!!’

 

“Ohoho! Now she sounds as incensed as me. Well, It’s fine if we are both as motivated for the battle or it won’t be as fun.”

I don’t waste any more time and send her the challenge. As I already decided, I send the challenge with only one battle rule set: the cp budget of 1.000 cp. She will be able to choose the rest of the rules.

“Aren’t I gentlemanly? I even let her choose most of the battle rules! Hahaha!”

This time, it takes a little more time for her to set the rest of the dungeon battle rules. Things like the dungeon size, the maximum number of traps, the maximum cp cost for a single unit, the maximum level for the units, etc.

Most of the time, the players leave them by default, which is the ‘no limit’ option. But it seems like she’s changing at least some of them.

Soon I receive the message saying that she accepted the challenge.

Now, it’s time to prepare the units, traps and everything I’m bringing to the battle.

“First, let’s see what dungeon rules she changed...”

 

“When you challenge another player to a Dungeon Battle, it’s proper etiquette to send a message first and then let the other player initiate the Challenge. In this way, the receiver of the challenge can set what rules it wants for the Dungeon Battle first, showing your respect towards the other player. And if you win, you can say that you won even with the other player’s rules, which is even more of a shame for the challenged player.”

- Basic DMA etiquette.