The Mad Rat’s Lab

This chapter has a different POV.

Today I’m going to dive into another dungeon. And I am going to dive into this dungeon called ‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’. I don’t really care for the name, but it’s the first time I see a Flesh Monstrosity dungeon, so I want to see what style this faction has. Both in dungeon building and in the kind of units and traps they use.

This dungeon is from a level one player, and I am now level two, so a lower level dungeon can’t pose any problem to me. I’m going to stomp this dungeon!

I’m bringing one orc Hunter equipped with a battleaxe and two Goblins equipped with bows. The Hunter is level three and the goblins are level two. And me? I’m using an orc Warrior as Champion, level three. With more than 600 HP and over 60 Strength thanks to the Champion’s buff, nothing can stop me! Bwahaha!

The first thing I see after entering the dungeon is a rocky tunnel that leads to a huge cave. “So an underground dungeon, huh? Not so different from dwarves… Though dwarves use clearly excavated tunnels and this one looks natural. Well, let’s move!”

I start walking, and just before reaching the cave, *Plof!* something falls on top of me and I take some damage. “What’s this?! Isn’t it a corpse? Uhh… gross!” I’m not worried about the damage, because we orcs have an amazing innate skill called Bloodlust. Having low HP is a boost for us.

Now in the big cave, I see a few figures walking around. They move in small groups of four. “We are going to have some action, guys. Let’s go!”

I start running towards the closest group. In the way, one of them spits something towards me. I look at the battle log and see that I’ve taken poison damage. “So you guys can spit poison. Nothing to worry about.”

Two more seconds and we clash at melee range. I attack first and… “I missed my attack!? What’s happening? It’s like something is making it harder for me to look in the enemy’s direction!!” The enemy is very disgusting. A humanoid with parts of other humanoids stitched together. But it can’t be its looks that makes me miss my attacks… Something else must be happening. But I don’t know what.

With my next attack, I reduce the enemy to less than half HP. With the second hit, it dies. “Hah, they are so weak!” I say. Then I proceed to smash the rest of the enemies with the assistance of the orc Hunter.

When I turn around, I see that the two goblins are engaged with another of those monstrous squads. They’re outnumbered, so they are not doing very well. “So this is why I didn’t see arrows fly our way.” The goblins weren’t shooting because they were engaged in melee combat.

I return to the goblins and start smashing the enemies, the other orc following close behind. In a split second, the new enemies are dead too.

“They managed to reduce the HP of the goblins to less than half, huh… Was it a coordinated attack, or was it just bad luck and they roamed close enough to engage the goblins in combat? Well, I don’t know. Let’s continue.”

We swiftly kill the third and last remaining enemy squad in the cave. Now I can see that there are several tunnel entrances in the cave. One of them must lead to the dungeon core. I don’t know anything about this dungeon, so I can only choose one randomly.

There are lots of junctions with other tunnels… And after a while I don’t know where I’m going anymore. I continue moving forward, until I reach a big cave. “Fuck! It’s the same cave as before! I returned to the exact same spot!” I can see the gross corpses of the enemies we killed before. “Well, let’s try better luck with another tunnel.”

I enter another tunnel. This one is straight, and leads to a small cave. The cave doesn’t have any exit other than the tunnel we used to get here. “I don’t know, I feel like something bad is going to happen if I stay here. It looks too suspicious. Too… devoid of everything. Let’s go back.”

When going back *Plof!* another corpse falls, this time on top of a goblin, and kills it. “Shit! We didn’t enter the room, so the goblins that were moving behind me all the time, were moving in front of me now!”

Something is wrong. Am I really that unlucky? It isn’t possible, isn’t it? Then, is the player who designed this dungeon an evil mastermind? Otherwise, how could it possibly predict that this second trap would hit the weak units that usually go behind the strong ones? And the pincer attack from before. I tried to make it in my dungeon and it’s really difficult to set the AI to do it. I couldn’t manage to make it work. How did the owner of this dungeon manage to make it work with units that only have 1 INT and 0-1 COM? I inspected them after being killed and they are way too stupid for coordinated attacks… Or they should be…

Oh, thanks to inspecting them I now understand what happened with the attacks that I missed. It’s because of a skill called ‘Too gross to look at’. It is a dreadful skill against melee attackers like me. But they are so weak that the skill is mostly useless.

I decide to start moving slower, and pay attention to the surroundings, trying to spot any trap we might encounter.

After returning to the cave, I choose another one of the tunnels to continue the exploration. Again, there are multiple junctions with other tunnels. But this time I’m moving slower and memorizing the path to not get lost again. Some of the tunnels are partially inundated. I decide to avoid those for now, just in case something is lurking under the water. Am I paranoid? I don’t think so. Better safe than sorry after what I’ve already seen from this dungeon.

I’m sure this is the first time I pass through this tunnel. So I’m actually making some progress. It has a narrow elevated passage next to an underground river. The water current looks strong, better to not fall there.

Just now we are in the middle of the elevated passage. From the front, another group of those stitched monstrosities comes toward us. “This is clearly designed in the worst possible way. This is the only tunnel I’ve found that has this small amount of space to fight. And we didn’t encounter a single enemy until now. Too suspicious!” It could also be because of bad luck… but, come on! How unlucky can one get? This is clearly designed to happen this way!

I start fighting with the enemies. The passage is too narrow to fight side by side with the other orc, so only I am in melee range. The goblin, again, doesn't shoot arrows this way. So I look back and see… that the enemies are doing another pincer attack!

“No way! Why did it have to be now!?” I can’t allow the last goblin to die, or I won’t have anything to attack at range. So I try to move to block the enemies coming from the back.

There’s no problem with the orc, because it’s idle right now. So I swap positions with it and he starts fighting with the enemies that came from the front. Then I try to pass next to the goblin, but one of the enemies spits at me just at that moment. The spit distracts me for just an instant, but in that instant I don't look where my feet are going and step outside the narrow passage. Fuck!

“Aaaah!” I cry as I fall towards the river. Then *Splash!* I fall into the river. I try to swim against the current, but it is too strong.

When I reach the shore, I’m in the big cave again.

“Fuck! I’m sure that the orc and remaining goblin are going to die, alone versus so many enemies!”

Don’t tell me that the pincer attack was a strategy to force me to fall into the river and then take advantage of my forces being away from me to kill them… What a nasty strategy!

“The only thing I can do is return to that tunnel and try to save them if they are still alive.” I start running through the tunnels. I more or less remember the turns I took to reach that place.

When I finally reach the tunnel with the elevated and narrow passage, it’s already too late. There’s only corpses. I can see the corpse of both the goblin and orc. “Shit! I was too late!” There are also five corpses from the disgusting enemies. The orc must have been the one to kill them.

“Who was the one saying this dungeon was going to be easy? That we were going to pass through it without troubles!? Oh, yeah. It was me.” I am getting a little crazy right now. How can a stupid dungeon from a stupid level one player be this tricky?

I exhale, trying to calm myself. “Aaahh, nothing I can do anymore about what has already happened. I alone should suffice to finish the dungeon without any trouble.”

Before continuing the invasion, I take a look at my status. “Hmmm? Why is my HP so low? And why does it keep getting lower!?” I’m not poisoned, I don’t see the poisoned status. “What the hell is going on!? Why is my HP continuously getting lower!?”

Is it something in this room? Or was the water from the river? Can someone explain to me why this is happening!? In the battle log the only thing that says is that ‘Your HP has been reduced by 2’, and more those messages keep popping every second.

“I can’t waste more time! At this rate I’m going to die soon!” I start running through the tunnels, trying to reach the dungeon end before I’m dead.

I encounter the remains of one of the two squads that attacked us at the narrow passage. But I can’t stop here, my remaining time is limited.

“What a shame that I must run from those weak enemies. Running from enemies that I can kill with one or two basic attacks! I never thought I would have to suffer such a shame… My orc pride! Where is my orc pride now!?”

I can finally see a change in the tunnels. Now there are parts that are clearly excavated and the rock is even. “Am I reaching the dungeon end?” But I don’t have time to think about it, I’m almost out of time.

I enter a zone that looks like a laboratory. There are strange machines everywhere. But the most important thing is that at the center of the laboratory I can see the dungeon core. “Finally, some luck! I can reach and destroy it before the remaining 20 HP I have disappears!” I almost start jumping in joy, but stop myself before it’s too late. I don’t want to die here.

So I move towards the dungeon core. There are no enemies in the room… How strange. The usual is to have the dungeon core protected by the most powerful units in the dungeon. Well, better for me. It seems all the bad luck until now is finally turning into equally good luck.

I walk towards the dungeon core in high tension, looking for hidden enemies. Then I reach the place where it is and extend my hand to crush it. Just then, *Plof!* something falls on top of me.

“Wait! Whaaaaaaat!? What the hell was that!?” I'm a phantasmal version of myself right now. I can see my corpse under my feet. Next to my corpse there’s… another corpse? “Did a fucking trap kill me!? Because... it's the same trap as before, right?”

“What the hell is going oooon? Was everything a highly convoluted trap!? How good the dungeon’s owner must be to predict my actions from the beginning? Otherwise, how could the player predict that I would reach this room with so little health and on a time limit!”

“And it’s evident that the room devoid of enemies is like this so that the invader relaxes and lowers its attention! Because otherwise nobody would fall for this trap, you only need to step to the side to avoid it!”

“I couldn’t do anything! ANYTHING! From the start everything was planned to make me die in this stupid falling corpse trap!” I shudder at how dangerous this dungeon is going to get when it is further improved… “I must warn other players about this dungeon! Otherwise, their pride, and more importantly, their sanity, is going to take a huge hit!”

“‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’... what a dreadful dungeon this is…” 

This is the story of the first victim of ‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’. Later, some more victims appeared and complained together in the forums. They concluded that the player who designed the dungeon must be a real evil mastermind, trying to drive the other player’s mad. Their reasoning? Because the dungeon was too difficult and with too many unexpected things.

It slowly turned into a situation where the players were delving into ‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’ and competing for who would clear the dungeon, or simply to see who fell into less traps and evil machinations. Those who conquered the dungeon and posted the replays were hailed as heroes and revered by the rest of the players. This was the beginning of the legend about the ‘Mad Rat’ and ‘The Mad Rat’s Lab’, and the impossible difficulty of the dungeon. But this is a story for the future.

Radosh

I added the current dungeon units to the Glossary. I will keep the doc updated with the last dungeon changes. Also, there's the stats and descriptions since some time ago.