The Mad Rat’s Lab

The unbelievable sight in front of me cools down all my excitement. My face hardens and my twitching muscles, itching for battle until a second ago, turn soft like jelly and start trembling like the legs of a newborn foal.

“Please tell me I’m seeing things.”

I look at my two brothers, Diq and Krut, expecting them to deny my words. They turn their heads away instead of giving me an answer, but the action itself is the answer I was waiting for.

Why? Just WHY!? Why the fuck did Mhah have to complicate everything so much!?

Laying on its back, there’s the corpse of the Laboratory Assistant, a signal that Mhah has come here and defeated it. This would be enough to make me angry, especially after admonishing him after his first blunder with the secret boss in the turtle cave. I might have forgiven him if he decided to push forward and tried to defeat the monsters in the next room, as I might have done the same in his position. This would explain why we found the escaped Panicky Spitter in the tunnels.

But what he did was way worse than any of this. He had to fucking go and open the three gates connecting to this room! Only players can open and close doors when invading the dungeon, so I’m sure it was Mhah who did it.

“Fucking Mhah… If he doesn’t die before I find him, I’m going to skin him alive.”

I tighten the grip on my battleaxe. If he’s dead, I’ll have to find another way to release the anger filling my whole body. Maybe… mutilate the cadaver? Until we find him, I have time to decide how I’ll murder him.

“Haa… this is bad. It’s so bad I can’t put it into words.”

Not only the gate to the second laboratory, the one with the Laboratory Assistant and the Panicky spitters is open, but the doors to the Rabbit Paradise and the Freezer also are.

To prevent something worse from happening, I quickly close the doors to the two other areas. This way, no monsters can escape to those areas, or come in and surprise us. Then we go to the second laboratory area to check how much damage Mhah did to this dungeon invasion.

As I expected, we find the corpse of the second Laboratory Assistant there, but there’s no trace of the Panicky Spitters. This means the shortest path to the Minitaur Queen, the one I was planning to take to keep the streak of victories going, is closed until we find and kill all the Panicky Spitters.

But who knows where they ran to, with the three doors open? They could be anywhere all the doors were open!

I shake my head. “Mhah… didn’t you learn anything at all? And here I was, giving my best for your sake, to help you improve…” 

“D-don’t worry, sir Orc! I’m sure we can find him and fix everything. Me and Krut will help you, right, Krut?”

“Uh? Sure.”

“See? Everything will be fine, sir Orc.”

Huh, huh, huh! With Krut’s high-pitched voice and lower stature, he’s like a cute puppy wagging its tail, trying to cheer his owner. Unexpectedly, he did manage to improve my mood.

“Yeah… you’re right. Nothing can stop me! Huh, huh, huh!” I flex to forget about my troubles. “Who are we? We’re the Green Gang! Nothing can stop us, this is but a minor setback! We’ll find our lost brother, save him from himself, and then trample over any monster who dares to show up! Huh, huh, huh! Let’s go, Green Gang!”

“Green Gang!”

“Green Gang!”

I smile and shout but, deep inside, I start thinking about how to solve this terrible situation.

Diq and Krut might not know this yet, but when things go south in The Mad Rat’s Lab, they go REALLY bad. Not like your usual ‘I messed this up, let’s try harder’ kind of bad but the ‘we’re all going to die’ kind of bad.

Was all my luck spent fighting and defeating the Monster Train and The Tunnels’ Nightmare? It seems we’re back to the usual hard mode, where we don’t know what will happen next.

Here go my dreams of clearing everything without much trouble.

I go back to the first room followed by Diq and Krut and stare at the two closed doors on opposite walls. One leads to the Freezer and the other to the Rabbit Paradise. There’s no good option, both are bad. But which one is the less bad?

I struggle to decide for a while, as both are equally dangerous now that there are rumors of fire-breathing monsters in the Freezer. In the end, taking into account precisely this, I decide it’s better to try our luck with the rabbits. I should know everything about them. If he’s there, our chances to find Mhah and survive will be higher.

If he went to the Freezer instead… good luck, I guess?

“Alright, I’ve decided. We’re going to the– Again? I’ll get you this time!” Fucking Goblimps, I’m so tired of them! “... What!? Where did it go…? Am I hallucinating?”

Similar to the time in the tunnels, I see a dark shadow move and hide behind a machine; but like the first time, when I reach that place, there’s nothing.

“Are you looking for the black cat?” Asks Krut. “It has been following us since a long time ago.”

“Black cat…?” I furrow my eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, a black cat. It caught my attention because it has purple eyes. But when I tried to get closer, it suddenly disappeared like just now.”

“Y-yes! I’ve seen it too, sir Orc.”

I glare at the two. “And you didn’t warn me? How many times do I have to teach you the basics of this dungeon?”

Diq fidgets and stares at the ground to avoid my gaze before answering. “I-I’m sorry, sir Orc… since it did nothing but follow us, I thought it was harmless… I-is it a dangerous monster?”

Harmless? A fucking monster of this fucking damned dungeon, is harmless? HARMLES!?

You must be joking.

“Haaaa…” I exhale. “...it’s fine.” I must act like I know everything even though I never heard of such a monster. “I’m sure it’s nothing, huh, huh, huh!” I hope it’s nothing. “We’ll be fine.” I hope we don’t die.

There has never been any report about a black cat in this damned dungeon, which means this is something new.

And they say it has been following us for a long time? This is bad. It’s way worse than Mhah’s blunder. We could have died a hundred times over, we’re lucky nothing happened yet.

No, what am I saying? Didn’t I bring the kids with me precisely because of such situations? I just need to use them as bait. I can just give vague guidance, let them do their best, and take all the credit for discovering what that cat monster does.

“If you see the black cat, tell me immediately, ok?” I wait for them to nod before shaking my head and walking to the door leading to the Rabbit Paradies. I pull the lever to open it. “We’ve wasted enough time already. Let’s go and find our lost brother–”

“Ooooh, the door is open! I thought I was going to die!” Mhah’s shout interrupts me. “Help me, brothers! They’re chasing after me! There are too many of them and they’re too fast!”

Before the door completely opens, we can see Mhah being chased by a group of green-skinned monsters with rabbit ears.

“Ooh, here he comes! Huh, huh, huh!” My guttural laughter fills the whole room, louder than Mhah’s shout. “Run, Mhah, run! Or you’ll die!”

He got entangled with the Not A Rabbits and now he’s running for his life in this direction, asking for us to help him. Serves you right, Mhah. You got what you deserved. 

Hmm… Should I help him, or let him die…? I can pull the lever back to close the door and it’ll help me release some stress while teaching him a lesson about what not to do inside a dungeon, especially not inside one like this one…

No, I have better plans for him.

I’ll try and save him because he can still be useful as bait. Now that I know about this black cat monster, I have the perfect task ready for him.

“Save meeeeeee!”

I ignore Mhah’s shouts and turn to the rest of our team. I’ll save him, but I want to suffer some more first.

Diq and his two orc bodyguards, Krut and one of his two goblins, and Mhah’s troll. We found the last two on our way to the laboratory area.

“Green Gang members. Mhah deserves punishment because of what he did. But he’s still our brother, so we must save him from those abominations that defile the honor of all greenskins. Let’s show them who are the best warriors!” I raise my battleaxe high. “For honor and glory! Let’s go. Waaaaaaaah…!”

“Waaaah…!” Krut immediately follows after me.

“I-I’ll do my best, sir Orc!”

With such a high number of players and support units, we won’t have any trouble fighting the orc-rabbit monstrosities.

“Bring it on, lame imitations. You can’t beat the real deal, huh, huh, huh!” I always enjoy a fight against strong enemies.

 

---

 

“Haa… haa… I’m saved… I thought I’d die.” I ignore Mhah’s complaining and take a look around.

This is weird. There’s no trace of that black cat monster anywhere. I was sure it’d attack or do whatever it had to do when we were fighting the Not A Rabbits… but it didn’t show up. Is it harmless, as Diq and Krut said?

It is at this time, looking around the mountain valley filled with innocent-looking rabbits grazing on the grass, that I see it: a huge structure on top of a flat part of the mountain, larger than a football stadium. It’s hard to see and I have to squint my eyes because the sunlight reflects on its glass surface, but there are plants inside.

Since when has this building been here? I’ve never seen it before. I was so focused on the battle that I didn’t notice it until now.

Aaah… something new. Again.

Why is there so much new stuff recently? I come here every week, but I can never feel truly safe. It isn’t fair!

Although the greenhouse is situated a lot higher than the valley’s ground level, it is right on top of the door leading to the laboratory areas. I’m sure connects to them somewhere.

“More new stuff…” I say in a low voice so that the kids can’t hear. “... I hate this so much. Fuck!”

Now that I take a closer look, there was a cliff on this side of the mountain, but now there’s a slope instead. The slope goes over the tunnel that divides the valley into two and reaches the same level as the greenhouse. There must be an entrance if we follow that path. Otherwise, why bother changing the terrain into a slope?

I’m scared of what might come next, but it’s also a great chance.

Since nobody said anything about a greenhouse yet, it means nobody found it yet. I can be the first one! I can hog all the glory to myself and boast to everyone about being the first! The best part is that I can leave all the dangers to the three kids but take the credit! Huh, huh, huh!

Furthermore, there must be another entrance that connects to the laboratory areas, so I’m sure we can skip the locked door without going through the Freezer. I’ll have to go to the Freezer eventually, to record the new fire-breathing monsters everyone is talking about; but for now, I can skip it and go to this unknown area.

“But everything will be new… which means danger and death…” I shiver. “Aaaagh, screw it! We’re going there! There’s no pride in running away!”

We’re going to be the first to go to the new area. We’ll clear it, and show off. And then, we’ll go defeat the Minitaur Queen and Overgorger for a full run. It’ll be the best dungeon invasion ever!

Huh, huh, huh! I knew today would be a great day!

 

"There are NO harmless monsters in this damn dungeon.

As I’ve said multiple times, it’s best to stay ignorant and don’t poke anything that doesn’t come and hurt you. But there’s a BIG EXCEPTION: when the monster chases after you. Like with the Goblimps, you should NEVER allow them to stay hidden, because they’ll attack when you CAN’T DO ANYTHING about it.

For your own sake, don’t ignore a monster just because it hasn’t done anything yet or because it looks harmless. If it’s chasing after you, KILL IT as soon as you can… Or you’ll be the one getting killed.

After all, what’s the worst that can happen, that it EXPLODES when you kill it? THAT’S NOTHING! Nothing new in this damn dungeon. Even if the explosion kills your monsters, it’s better than it exploding in a worse situation.”

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