“I’m back!” As soon as I finish eating, I enter the game, raising my arms up high, shouting. “Now that I finished the new area, I can start with the monsters! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

After a little bit of roleplay, I open the dungeon menu and create a new Template.

“So… every area needs one unit that’s the weakest but also represents the units there. In the cave, tunnels, and laboratory areas, they are the Demonic Swarmers, Goblimp Pests, and Stitched, respectively. This time isn’t going to be any different!”

You could argue it isn’t needed, but I believe it’s better to have a bottom feeder in every area. This way I can apply constant pressure to the invaders while keeping the difficulty low.

The only big difference with the other areas is that until now, all the bottom feeders are either the Stitched themselves or Siamese. In other words, weak units. But here, as the first time in the whole dungeon, I want to increase the difficulty a level and put Basic Chimeras instead.

This increased difficulty will play a double role in my dungeon.

First, it’s a sealed area, so it’s logical that the units inside are stronger and more dangerous. And last, it’s also the area players will find after the first boss, it isn’t weird if the area after a big boss battle is harder than those before.

Yeah, you got me… Because of how my faction works, I can create strong Siamese too if I want to, with higher stats than any other Hybrid I have.

But it’s a matter of how both units work: double the stats is always supposed to be stronger than shared passives and two independent actions. Even if you take into consideration the Siamese’s double level-ups and skills, it’s still easier to make stronger Basic Chimeras or Hybrids.

So yes, the weakest monster in this area will be a Basic Chimera.

“As the first unit I choose the Giant Bat, and for the second…” I select the bodies I want to use from the list of options. “Ah, here it is! The Acid Slime!”

The combination of these two units is very interesting because of the inherent traits of each one.

The Giant Bat can fly and also has the Echolocation innate skill, which will be very good for them because of the lack of light here. And the Acid Slime can change its body shape at will as well as stick to the walls and ceilings without trouble. Also, because of their shape-changing and already slow speed, slimes don’t suffer any penalty for being underwater…

Which means the resulting monster will thus have all those abilities at the same time! It’s literally an all-terrain unit!

Echolocation (Innate passive skill) You don’t need light to see and the Blind status effect has no effect on you.

I’m sure you all know what Echolocation does, so I’m only going to explain the Acid Slime’s innate skill: Corrosive Body.

Corrosive Body (Innate triggered skill) When you make a melee attack, deal an extra (5 + 0,3 * CON) acid damage over the next 3 seconds. This skill doesn’t work on units that have this same skill.

Basically, it’s just a triggered skill that makes them do extra damage with every melee attack, so every time they hit the enemy with their pseudopods.

Now, what would happen if I give this skill to flying bat-slimes? And what if I change the AI so that they stick to the invader’s faces and keep attacking them until either they or the invader dies?

Nasty, right? Hahaha!

“AI changes… here I go! Stay on the ceiling and don’t engage until they walk right below, drop from above on the invader’s heads… Then attack recklessly until they or their victims die…”

Changes done! They’re ready for the level-ups and the rest of the skills! Ah, but first, let’s set how they look.

Ok, this is important. Do you know what the Acid Slimes look like? Well, they’re green slimes. They also continuously drip a substance that releases smoke when it touches anything else, but… the important part is that they’re green, and the bats are a dark brown.

I’m sure you know where I’m going right now, don’t you? Aaaaagh, you say you don’t? But it’s really easy!

Green + dark brown = a slime monster that can change shape and stick to walls, and camouflage with the other slimy green-brown substance I covered the whole area in! You got it now!?

Until these monsters move, they’ll be impossible to differentiate from the terrain!

…unless the players bring some kind of detection skill, that is. But at least it’ll be impossible to see them before they attack.

What’s more, the lack of light certainly won’t help the players spot them; but it won’t bring any drawback for them because of Echolocation! It’s a win-win situation!

Or lose-lose situation if you look at it from the invader’s point of view, but who cares about them? Certainly not me.

“Now that I have the base, I should decide on the skills and levels. Hmm… the bat costs 20 cp and the slime 60 cp, plus the 20 cp from the Basic Chimera. It’ll cost 100 cp… I’m not sure if I’ll use them in Dungeon Battles, but if I want to use them later, I should keep them at a low level. Level 2 or level 3, maybe?”

Of course, leveling the units will make them stronger, but it also increases their ‘cp value’. It’s all about how worth it is to have a 10% bonus base stats and an extra skill compared to the extra cost. Because of the limited cp available in PvP modes, it’s important to keep the units you want to use as low as possible.

I generally don’t mind this stuff because most of my monsters are designed for my dungeon and not for PvP. I usually raise my monsters to the level I feel like it makes sense for the skills I want to give them, regardless of the cost.

But not this time.

Not this time because I want to turn this monster into a very good ambusher, one that’s actually dangerous instead of simply annoying like the Goblimp Pests, or random like the Tunnel Mimic. I want to use them in Dungeon Battles in the future.

“Ah, I know! Let’s go the other way around. I’ll look for those skills I really want to give them and raise the level accordingly. This way they won’t end up costing more than needed. Fufufu! I’m a genius, aren’t I?”

Then, let’s go for the first skill, obtained for free at level 1 upon creation. I think I know which one I want to give them for the first one.

They’re ambushers that camouflage and hide in the walls and ceiling, waiting for the invaders to come close before sticking to their faces… There’s one really nasty skill that comes to mind to complement this behavior: the Silence skill.

Silence (Active skill) Cost: 20 MP, 5% Max MP per second Both you and another unit can’t talk or use active skills until this skill ends. This skill can only silence enemy Champions and Bosses for a maximum of 5 seconds unless it’s used by a Champion or Boss. The timer resets one minute after the silence ends.

If they activate this skill when they attach themselves to the invader’s faces, it fits the theme perfectly! It’ll be as if they can’t talk or use skills because of the slime obstructing their mouths!

One of the worst things in this game is not being able to use skills. Regardless of being a mage, archer, knight, tank, healer… If you can’t use skills, at least half your strength disappears.

And yes, I know how nasty this skill is… thanks to a certain group of madmen during the tournament. Oh how much I hated this skill back then! Because of my build, I’m useless if I’m silenced!

But not everything is good about this skill. The biggest drawback of the Silence skill is the high MP cost and the short range. I already changed their AI to fight to the death, so it doesn’t matter if they go to 0 MP as long as they deal the maximum damage during the time the enemy is silenced.

As for its short range… can you really call it a drawback? I mean, my monsters will be attached to the victim the whole time… You might even ignore this part and say the only drawback is the MP cost.

“With the Silence skill, they can be very dangerous, especially if they appear in groups, or during a fight… Wait a moment! If they catch an enemy alone, wouldn’t this mean they almost certainly die…?”

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Being silenced means they can’t talk or make any sound, which means they can’t call for help or warn the other players. It also applies to the monsters they bring with them.

If the affected unit is a support mob, they might be sentenced to death unless the players are lucky and notice the attack. But if the affected unit is a player… It might be too late for them! Hahaha!

Also, because of how the new area I’m creating works, the players are incentivized to split up to look for the key.

“Wait! If there’s a high chance they’ll want to split up, this Isolation skill is awesome!”

Isolation (Triggered skill) You deal 30% extra damage if the target doesn’t have any allied unit within 5 meters.

Isolation is one of those skills that usually don’t do anything. Mostly because invaders always stay close to one another, and bring support mobs with them, which further increases the number of invaders.

But, if you somehow manage to split them up, or if they do it by themselves to look for a key hidden in the dungeon, for example…

Hahaha! Can you imagine this? An invader getting ambushed, silenced, and left behind by the rest of the team, only to trigger Isolation and end up dying without anyone noticing anything!?

“Yes. Yes! This combination will be amazing!” I jump around in glee for a while before calming down. “Ok, so they’re now level 2. If I want to give them another skill, I first need to raise them to level 3 and the skill must be a passive one… is there anything I want?”

I scroll through the passive skill list. There are soooooooo many skills, I’m sure there’s at least one that’ll fit them.

*Sigh!* In the end, I don’t find anything that catches my attention, nor do I have any idea to search for a specific one.

“Then level 2 it is. This makes them cost 110 cp, which isn’t too high for such a dangerous unit. Only the name remains… Oh, I know!”

I write Corrosive Choker in the Template’s name and save it. Now that I finished with this, I can start their creation!

“I have twelve Giant Bat bodies, so I’ll have to do with those. This means twelve Corrosive Chokers!”

I’ll put them in groups of one to three scattered through this area, to add a little bit more of randomness to their encounters.

Oh, by the way. This is what their stats look like.

Corrosive Choker (Lv 2) HP 165 (150) STA 12 (11) SOU 11 (10) EP 132 (120) MP 99 (90) STR 13 (12) CON 15 (14) AGI 9 (9) SPI 9 (9) WIL 8 (8) DEX 5 (5) SPD 6 INT 3 COM 0 Skills

Active: Silence. Triggered: Corrosive Body (Innate), Isolation. Passive: Eternal Pain (Innate), Echolocation (Innate).

“The first and most basic mob of this area is finished! Let’s move to my next trick! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

I can’t stop myself from laughing like a maniac. This is because… I’m sure the next unit I’m going to create is going to make more than one player cry in frustration!

I already explained to you about the card with my logo that will appear in this new area, right? Then let me ask you a question:

Do you know what’s more frustrating than having to look for a small item hidden somewhere in this big area? It’s having multiple of those items, but only one is real!

I’m sure you know where I’m going right now…

I open the Templates menu once again and create another Basic Chimera template. This time, I’m going to use the Mimic as the base. As for the second unit, it’s one called Boulder, from the Primordials faction, the most basic earth elemental in the game.

For the second unit, I could use any other unit, really; but I choose the Boulder for a simple and single reason: when transformed, the Mimic can’t be identified, but can still be attacked and killed.

I can’t prevent the players from attacking and killing the false keys, – aka Mimics transformed to look like the real key, – but I can give them enough resistances and damage reduction to prevent them from dying easily. And thanks to the Earth Elemental skill, they will take 50% less damage as long as they don’t move.

Which is all the time.

I also change their AI so that they don’t do anything and don’t transform back unless killed. This way, the invaders won’t be sure if it’s the real key or a false one unless they attack the key a lot of times, wasting time and EP/MP.

The real key is indestructible, so there isn’t any problem if they attack it relentlessly.

The last thing I do is make them transform back into monsters if they try to use it to open the door and attack the invaders. They aren’t strong, but they sure will be annoying.

And the best of all! Unless they collected all the false and real keys, they’ll have to go back to the sealed area to get the real key!

“It’ll be like: ‘Oh, so you reached the door with the key, but in fact, it’s a monster and it attacks you! Better luck next time!’ Hahaha!”

As for the skills, I don’t want to waste cp leveling up a unit whose role isn’t combat, so I’ll keep them at level 1. And give them the Survival Instinct skill, which gives HP regeneration when low. They’ll cost a total of 170 cp.

Survival Instinct (Triggered skill) When you have less than 30% HP, regenerate 1% HP per second.

This skill, paired with the Earth Elemental and the Basic Chimera’s Eternal Pain skills, might give them enough time to survive the attacks received so the players believe they found the actual key.

“I won’t complicate things and just call them Monster Key.” I write the name on the template and save it before starting the creation of three of them.

In case you want to know, the Boulder is a 1-meter-tall monster. It has two chubby legs and arms, a small head, and its torso consists of flat stones stacked on top of each other. Everything is made out of rock, but this one also has a gooey black substance in the joints, coming from the Mimic.

Monster Key (Lv 1) HP 160 (160) STA 12 (12) SOU 9 (9) EP 240 (240) MP 100 (100) STR 14 (14) CON 24 (24) AGI 3 (3) SPI 10 (10) WIL 24 (24) DEX 11 (11) SPD 3 INT 7 COM 0 Skills

Active: Mimicry (Innate). Triggered: Survival Instinct. Passive: Eternal Pain (Innate), Earth Elemental (Innate).

I don’t forget to spawn both the mimic monsters and the real card in random rooms in this area. From now on, not even I will know which one is the real one, or where the hell it is!

“Now, to the next monster!”

[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

“Smack EVERY access card you see until you get TIRED of it or until the mimic who’s imitating it dies! Then, repeat the process A. FEW. MORE. TIMES. It might be a mimic that survived your previous attacks!

I’ll never get tired of repeating this. You REALLY need to be sure the access card in your hands is the REAL ONE, or you’ll regret it when you have to come back to the area you found it and look for the card again. You don’t want this, right!? Then, CONTINUE ATTACKING it for as long as you need to be sure.”

- Extract from the Chapter ‘Relearning exploration’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’.