“Aha! So this is his dungeon… I already know what to expect, because he has explained about it more than one time. But still, it’s going to be very difficult to avoid everything that’s dangerous in this dungeon…”
My first impression after entering The Mad Rat’s Lab is that it looks like any other underground dungeon. Ok, maybe a little more wild than a dwarven dungeon, because of the natural rocks and passages, but not that different.
“First of all, the trap at the cave’s entrance. Ok, here it is. Trigger it, move away… and wait for the corpse to fall. Done! Let’s continue!”
I enter the huge cave. It’s quite dark, but bright enough to see the silhouettes of the dungeon mobs. Could be worse.
“Here comes the first enemy!”
It looks like half an elf and half a dwarf monstrosity. He? She? It? They? Well, whatever. The ‘thing’ is coming towards me at full speed, faster than I can go. It releases a terrifying howl when starting combat. Is it calling for help?
“I didn’t know that the dungeon had this kind of enemy… It must be quite new…”
The fight starts. It looks like the ‘thing’ counts as two units, because it has two HP bars. I kill one first to see what happens, and the moment the first is killed, the second half gets crazily empowered. Luckily, it dies by itself after five seconds.
“Hmmm… I need to find a way to counter them. The after-death skill is too strong. Hmmm… Oh, I know! Next time I’ll use Charm after the first half is killed, buying me some time to get away. Maybe two or three seconds of being charmed are enough?”
It’s nice timing to test the idea, because a second of those ‘things’ comes towards me. Supposedly attracted by the first’s howl.
The combat starts and I charm it after the first half dies. The plan works perfectly.
“Yep, better this time! Charming them for just two or three seconds while moving away is enough. The time they take to react after the charm, plus the interruption caused by the status effect, makes them waste the full 5 seconds and die by themselves, without harming me.”
I need to note this for the future.
“Oh, here comes something else. Is it a fly…? A flaming fly?”
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I attack it with the whip. It dies, but then… *Booom!* it explodes in a burst of fire and I take some fire damage.
“Quite a high amount of damage from that little stupid fly. Are there more of them? If so, better kill them from afar.”
I continue moving, but I stop when I notice that my HP is steadily getting lower.
“Oooh, shit. One of those butterflies is attached to me. Luckily, I already know what to do.”
I blast myself with the Hellfire skill, and the butterfly immediately dies. I also take some fire damage, but better taking some now, than dying later.
“Both those annoying pests are critter units… Ok, it’s decided! If possible, I’ll put a ban on using critter units when I challenge him to a dungeon battle!”
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“Ughh… how annoying these tunnels are… I spend more time resting to recover the HP lost to those poison mushrooms than actually moving. But I must make a map of the full zone just in case he uses the tunnels area for the dungeon battle…”
In this area there are more of those half-half monstrosities. But since I already know how to deal with them, they are easy. Unless there are mushrooms close by… Because those ‘things’ must have some skill that makes them ignore the effects of the mushrooms. They don’t get poisoned, nor do they fall asleep.
“It’s decided! No mushrooms either for the dungeon battle. I must ban their use to prevent this combo from happening…!”
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I’ve finally managed to reach the laboratory. This should be the last dungeon room, as far as I know.
There’s a single enemy in the room, but I don’t see the dungeon core. So he must have extended the dungeon…This means more work for me. Nothing I can do about it, I still need to map everything.
When the fight ends, I see that most of my HP, and even EP and MP, are depleted. This was one hard fight.
“I won only because I had the Champion’s buff. In a dungeon battle, where I don’t have this buff, I’ll need to be at full HP, EP and MP to face this enemy. Otherwise I’ll die…”
I think I’ll need some preparation in advance. Maybe I can prepare some mobs to help me in this battle, but I have a better idea.
“I’m sure I can ask him how much cp this ‘Lab Assistant’ mob costs, so that I can put the limit of cp per unit lower than their cost. This way he won’t be able to use them, and I’ll have an easier time.”
I see that there’s another passage continuing from the laboratory, so I enter it and move forward. I must map and prepare everything before the dungeon battle!
“Hahahaha!” I laugh evilly. “I’m going to make you cry! Hahaha!”
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
While Andreu was wasting time and fighting against hordes and more hordes of goblins and orcs, ‘A Lil’ Demoness’ was planning how to beat him in a dungeon battle. She called this operation: ‘How do the rats cry?’.