The Mad Rat’s Lab

At the top of the spiral staircase, the cramped tower opens up into a majestic entrance. With torches on both sides and a door engraved with golden decorations, we’re clearly in front of the dungeon’s last boss.

Or at least it looks like it. If it isn’t, I’m going to be extremely disappointed, due to the betrayal of expectations and because this boring dungeon is longer than I expected.

“We should be almost there, right, Baldy?” I ask, hoping to hear a positive answer.

“You’re right, Mad Rat. This should be the last room, according to the info I got before coming here. They clearly said the dungeon core was on top of the highest tower.”

“Nice.”

I try to make an indifferent expression, but… I’m not sure I’m hiding my happiness well enough. After all, I’m really looking forward to leaving this dungeon where I can’t capture a single unit.

…a single useful unit, I mean.

“Brother, are we going to fight a strong monster?”

“I guess so…?”

“Nice! I’ve been looking forward to being useful. There were no strong enemies so far.”

Clara says, filled with enthusiasm. She starts spinning her arms around, but, since they’re in fact tentacles, the spectacle has more of a horrifying vibe than the cuteness you would expect.

Ugh, please… don’t come near me…

To avoid an uncomfortable situation, I quickly start giving orders. “We’ll go as usual. Baldy, you go first. Once he gets the boss’ aggro, you start dealing damage, Lemon. Avoid getting its attention if possible. Lily and I will provide support and damage where needed and take charge of the adds, if there are any. As usual, everyone will take charge of their support mobs.”

They all nod and Ricard proceeds to open the last door. We go inside.

Yes! Follow me, follow my lead. The Mad Rat will guide you to victory! Together, we’ll conquer the world and exterminate all humans! Hahaha!

The first thing that catches my attention is the size of the room. It isn’t as big as I expected. Instead of the grandiose, imposing throne room that I anticipated, what we find is a circular room about ten meters in diameter. There are intricately carved columns all around, with windows in between.

No, they aren’t windows. They’re… stained glass windows. Each one depicts a different character. The light pours in from the outside, illuminating the room with a myriad of colors.

But this isn’t the most impressive thing in this room.

Right at the center, there’s an unusually big circular table surrounded by finely dressed knights. One knight for each stained glass window.

I can only assume they’re discussing something important, as they ignore us for now. I say it like this because, even when they open their mouths, I can’t hear anything.

“Oh, my… This isn’t going to be easy…”

Am I dreaming? Why is Ricard scared? Shouldn’t he, I don’t know, be acting crazy and shouting about acquiring souls like usual? You know, the ‘tasty human souls’ thing.

Who are you, and what did you do with my friend!?

Nonono, I should get serious too. There must be a reason he’s acting like this. I hope it’s nothing serious, like having to go to the bathroom.

“What’s wrong, Baldy?” I ask.

He gestures for us to come closer with a finger on his lips. He starts explaining once we get close enough.

“Did you see the furthest knight from our position, the one opposite to the entrance? The one with the golden armor.”

The one with the golden armor…?

Uaah, holy shit! I got distracted by the windows and whatnot, but how did that stupidly expensive armor elude me? If I had to guess, an armor like that, in the medieval ages, should be enough to buy several villages by itself! How wealthy, or important, must you be to wear something like that!?

It’s at this exact moment that the human wearing the golden armor raises his head and glares at me.

I shiver.

What the fuck!? How did a fucking monster intimidate me with a single glare!? Not even that time I decided to fuck with a dragon did I get this intimidated!

…though it might be because I was prepared to die, and die I did.

“The golden armor is the symbol of the Royal Guard.” He continues. “They’re very strong units for our level that cost 1.000 cp. If we assume it’s also a Boss, we have no hope of defeating it in a 1vs1, regardless of the Champion’s buff or not…”

The Royal Guard raises his hand, and all the other knights stop talking. He then points at us and all of them turn to look in our direction at the same time.

Ricard, explain faster! We don’t have time!

“...the thing is that we’d have a high chance if we were to fight it alone, but with the support of the other knights, it’ll be extremely hard to do. You must know that all Royal Guards get the Leadership skill by default. Don’t think those knights will be as easy to deal with as the ones we fought so far. Think of them as stronger, improved units.”

Leadership, leadership… Ah! I think I remember!

This is one of those skills that would be completely broken if Champions could have it. Because players are intelligent and the AI isn’t.

If players could use this skill, since all the support mobs are technically under your command, all your mobs would have a 20% stat increase as long as they’re weaker than you, which would be broken. On the other side, since the AI is stupid and hard to control, giving orders to other units might actually make them act worse. However, I don’t think it’ll be a problem here, as the ‘attack’ command isn’t that hard to understand.

This makes one wonder why the I in AI is Intelligence… Shouldn’t it be AS, as in Artificial Stupidity?

But no, don’t get distracted! This isn’t important right now!

The important part is that with the status bonus and the knight’s ‘innate’ (read as automatically acquired upon creation but not exclusive) skill, Dauntless, they will have almost a 50% increased damage against us!

There are twenty of them, for fuck’s sake!

Oh, no… this is bad… I’m a mage, not a tank! I’m squishy! I’ll pop faster than a balloon smacked against a needle. Melt faster than an ice cube in summer. Be caught faster than a Stitched playing tag…

Alright, alright. You know what I mean so I’ll stop.

“Thank you for the explanation, Baldy.” I talk as if I had everything under control when I’m sure I’m the one panicking the most right now. “We must strike first. Lily, follow me with an area attack trying to deal as much damage. Baldy will get the boss’ attention and Lemon will follow the original plan. Throw your minions under the bus, sacrifice them if needed to save yourselves and I’m sure–”

In the middle of my speech, the Royal Guard presses a button on top of the table. With the sound of shattering glass, an almost invisible dome covering the table quickly disperses in the air.

I thought we wasted our chance to strike first but we couldn’t do anything against that barrier anyway…

Then, the knights shout, unsheathing their swords, and come at us all at the same time.

Oh, shit, shit shit! I don’t want to die! Not to a bunch of boring and useless humans!

I cover behind the closest Good Follower while preparing to cast Chain Lightning. Strategy? To hell with it! We’re going to die if we don’t do something!

As soon as the spell is finished, I cast it against the closest enemy. The effect isn’t as I expected. Due to their relatively high stats and the fact that they split up into several groups, the lightning only strikes three of them.

“What a waste of MP… I’ll have to use Chaos Beam instead.” As I cast it, I take a look around.

Chaos. It’s pure chaos.

Ricard is entangled with the boss on the other side of the room. Clara can’t reach him because a group of six knights is surrounding her. Laura is doing her best healing and helping everywhere, but she can’t keep up. She can’t help him either.

I turn my head at a disgusting crunch. The Glutton just ate a knight.

Our largest monster is stuck in a corner, surrounded by knights. One of them just died. But they deal so much freaking damage that God’s Intervention will trigger soon and it’ll inevitably join its victim.

At this rate, Ricard will die. He’s taking too much damage and can’t deal enough to keep up. If he dies and the boss still has more than half HP, we’re done for.

But the only one that can reach him is me, and I’m not suited against a single enemy. I should be helping with the knights.

“Good Followers, go and help Baldy. Attack the boss!” I order, signaling with my finger in the direction they must go so they understand. “Leave these knights to me.”

I took them with this purpose: to help me with single-target damage. Their poisonous attacks should help deal with the boss.

Following my orders, the two remaining Good Followers – one died a moment ago – start running in that direction. But the knights they were fighting won’t allow this unless I get their aggro, so I do by casting Chain Lightning.

The problem is… they’ve been protecting me so far. Now that I don’t have my meatshields, I’m in deep trouble.

“You stupid knights, leave me alone!” I say while running around. “Can’t you see my scraggy body and falling fur? I’m an elderly! You should respect your elderly instead of chasing after them with pointy, metal sticks! Auch!”

As expected, it didn’t work. But I had to try, don’t you agree?

The battle continues as I’m chased by four knights. I keep casting Chain Lighting to get rid of them, but by the time they fall paralyzed to the ground, the battle has reached a dangerous point.

Ricard is about to die. Even with the help of my Good Followers, he has less than 10% HP, and Laura can’t heal him fast enough.

Most of our support mobs are dead, too. And I’m not that far from joining them in their eternal rest.

What’s worse, I’ve already used my Indomitable Will and I’m out of MP. I can cast one more spell at most.

But the worst isn’t that. The worst is that most of the knights are still doing fine. Sure, their HP bars aren’t full, but as long as they’re not dead, they deal the same damage as if they were at full HP.

If only I could do my job properly… why did the knights have to split into groups and keep enough distance that my Chain Lightning was useless? It was even worse for Laura, whose AoE hits everybody. Not a good idea in a melee like this one.

“Ah, shit… this is bad. Extremely bad…”

The only one who’s doing fine is Clara. She can’t kill lots of enemies quickly, but she can at least heal enough so that she doesn’t die. She’s currently the only one in the room, enemies included, that has more than 60% HP.

“Hmm… at this rate, I only see one way out… I must use IT.”

Having decided what to do, I quickly start giving orders.

“Lily, stop everything you’re doing and start healing Lemon. Also, cast Hellfire on the middle of the room.”

“...what? Why? She’s the one with the most HP! Shouldn’t I heal Baldy instead?”

“No, it’s no use. Just do as I said, quickly!” It’s Ricard’s turn now. “Baldy, meet me at the center of the room.”

“Ok. Are you going to save me?”

“Hahaha, as if! I’m going to kill you! Hahaha!”

“What!?”

Regardless of his scream, he still comes to the middle. We meet on top of the round table, and the boss soon joins us.

Wow, scary. I’ve been far away until now, but it sure is imposing. I feel like a weakling.

“Now what?” Asks Ricard. “How are we going to win this?”

“Now, I kill you.” I start laughing at the dumbfounded face he makes. “What did you expect? I never lie. NEVER. If I said I was going to kill you, it means I would.”

“...But… then… what about the dungeon invasion…”

I ignore him and start casting my last spell. My ultimate spell: Grand Finale. Given the size of this room, with me in the middle, it should hit literally everyone inside.

Which means I’ll kill Ricard. I’ll also kill all the knights. Also Laura and our remaining mobs. And, the boss too, if it doesn’t have a skill to resist death.

I really hope he doesn't…

“Alright! Here I go! Grand Finale!”

The three seconds of charge have passed and light fills the whole room. Did you think a pentakill was impressive? That’s bullshit. I just killed more than ten! It’s a decakill! Eat this, you noobs!

I anxiously await for the light to fade. Somehow, I miraculously didn’t kill myself this time. But it was so close! My current HP is 13. Any hit might kill me.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk… and to think a Royal Guard would fall like that… Pathetic! You should learn from me. I’m unstoppable! The next time you fight, you, should, take…” I stutter.

As the light clears up, an imposing figure covered in golden armor shows up in front of me.

“Aaah, shit…”

A steel flash later, and a message pops in front of me.

Yeah, well… I was expecting it. The boss did have a skill to survive lethal damage, after all.

I stand up in my phantasmal form and watch as the Royal Guard starts advancing in the direction of our last surviving member: Clara. I was hoping she would survive if she had enough HP, and it turned out I was right.

“Brotheeeeer!” She shouts. “How dare you kill my brother, you ugly monster? I’ll take revenge. Feel the wrath of The Queen of… Huh, it died?”

True to her words, the boss just fell to the ground, dead.

“Hahahaha!” I start laughing like a maniac. “Eat this, boring and useless human! Blame the player who created you! Hahahaha! Skills that prevent lethal damage a single time do nothing against poison! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

He died, to my Good Follower’s poison. I don’t know if it had a healing skill or not. If he did, he didn’t get enough time to activate it.

We won. But at what price?

I observe the room. There are corpses everywhere. I also happen to see the ghosts of Ricard and Laura, who, like me, are looking around, observing the chaos. The only survivor is my little sister.

Then, as if to mock my efforts, the dungeon core falls from the ceiling and lands on top of my corpse.

…whatever.

 

“Mutual assured destruction. Ah, how nice it is!”