The Mad Rat’s Lab

Inside a dark cathedral, several hooded figures stand in a line. They all have different heights and shapes. The only light, coming from a few candles distributed in essential points of this cathedral, does nothing to reveal their faces.

They stay completely still, not daring to move a single muscle. The eerie silence continues until a loud male voice breaks it.

“Welcome, everyone! Welcome, those who’re ready to see the truth of this world! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

Dramatically raising his arms up, the man starts laughing.

Lightning falls outside the cathedral, temporarily illuminating the scene. The man’s silhouette is clearly defined against the bright light. Though his expression and face can’t be seen, his exaggerated laughing pose as well as the crest on top of his head are evident to everyone present.

The light also illuminates ten more silhouettes of different shapes and sizes surrounding the man in a semicircle. They’re on top of the cathedral’s altar, standing completely still, similar to the hooded silhouettes. But unlike them, they aren’t hiding their faces.

The man stops laughing and looks at the hooded figures. He slowly scans them one by one.

“You’re the chosen ones, carefully selected from all the unworthy players. Today, you came to join our holy order. To show this world the truth! Together, we’ll change this world and their worthless beliefs! Because, as you all know… All shall despair!”

“All shall despair!”

The ten individuals surrounding the man start echoing his words in a chorus. The man lets them do so a few times before raising his fist, and they all immediately stop.

“But first, you’ll have to pass one last simple test. Today, you all will form teams with one of our veterans and be initiated into the truth of this world. Today, you’ll have the greatest honor of entering The Mad Rat’s Lab, and enjoy the worst things in it, guided by our most devout believers!”

The man makes a signal, and the ten players surrounding him go down the altar’s stairs and walk in front of two of the hooded figures.

“Go! Feel despair! Understand despair! Embrace despair!” The man extends his hand as if wanting to grab the sky. “For sooner or later, the world will understand! Nobody’s free from it! All shall despair!”

“All shall despair! All shall despair!”

The ten veterans start chanting again, and soon the hooded newcomers join them. Meanwhile, the man starts laughing.

“Learn from Him, enjoy His dungeon, and finally, show the world His greatness! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

“All shall despair! All shall despair!”

Still chanting, the hooded players follow behind the ten veteran players and leave the dark cathedral.

 

 

Today is the day. The day I’ll get initiated into the Mad Rat’s Cult.

I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’m not crazy.

It’s just… It’s been some time since I started competing with my friends on who could reach the end of The Mad Rat’s Lab first… but nobody has completed the dungeon yet. So I thought: ‘What’s the best way to clear the dungeon?’, and came up with a crazy idea.

Crazy as in unexpected, don’t misunderstand.

This crazy idea was to join the Mad Rat’s Cult. What could help me more than receiving advice from those obsessed with the dungeon? In the forums, they say the Mad Cultists – as they like to call themselves – know absolutely everything that happens in it, after all.

Every secret. Every monster. Every trap. Every passage.

They say the Mad Cultists even know what’s the worst way to clear the dungeon, making sure to encounter all the dangers. If so, shouldn’t they know how to avoid them too?

That’s the reason I applied to join them.

Feigning passion for the ‘All shall despair’ cause, I applied to join them. The introduction ceremony was weird and creepy, and now I’m ready to enter The Mad Rat’s Lab, supervised by one of the veteran players.

I think he called himself the ‘first apostle’, or something similar…

We form a team and enter The Mad Rat’s Lab.

After the light disperses, the usual forest area appears in front of me. From here, it’ll slowly get creepier as you advance, and the plants will start to have a suspicious reddish tint.

“All right, rookies! You’re the luckiest rookies in this batch, as you have the honor to be taught by me, Bil, the greatest and first Mad Rat’s apostle! I’m the only player who has been directly taught by Him! Aren’t I amazing?”

The self-called ‘first apostle’ looks at us, waiting for our reactions.

He’s using a wereshark as his Champion. His pointed teeth and wide smile give him a stupid and somewhat ferocious look at the same time.

Similar to what happens with all werebeasts, the wereshark is a humanoid with shark traits. With this, I don’t mean a human with a shark head, that’d be too disgusting and ridiculous.

The traits all weresharks share in their humanoid form are thick grayish skin, a big dorsal fin on their back and smaller ones on their arms and legs, and a long and thick shark tail.

Then, there’s the head. Weresharks have a slightly longer neck than humans, which is as thick as the head, making it impossible to differentiate between the two parts. The snout extends over the lower mandible, the same as real sharks.

And finally, both upper and lower jaws are filled to the brim with dangerously pointed teeth. Three rows of them.

“Ooooh, amazing! We’re so lucky!” The other initiate, right next to me, says with enthusiasm. “I never expected to meet a legend like you on my first day! Great First Apostle, do you think I’ll be able to meet Mad Rat? I’ve been looking forward to it since I watched the tournament!”

She’s a female player, and she’s playing a well-endowed succubus. Her horns are big, her eyes and hair are the same red color, which contrasts with her pitch-black wings, and her figure is incredibly alluring.

It isn’t only me, so don’t call me a pervert… I’m sure any male player would agree with me.

Rumors say there’s been an increase in female players using Succubus as Champions since the last tournament. It’s because of Mad Rat’s companion, who liked to physically stick to him, and he didn’t mind it. Of course, this only applies to the Mad Rat’s Cult or similar crazy players.

Distracted, I’m late to react.

“Ooh, yeah. It’s amazing!” I try to sound as excited as possible. It’s hard when you don’t really care…

“Nice. Then, let’s start by introducing ourselves. As I already said, I’m the great ‘first apostle’, name’s Bil.” Bil sticks out his chest proudly. “Then… you look more enthusiastic, so you go first.”

Bil points at the succubus right next to me, and she introduces herself.

“My nickname’s Anaconda, because I like to strangle and torture my victims before I finally eat them, as any normal demon would. But please, call me Ana because it’s shorter.” She curtsies and softly chuckles.

I involuntarily make a step to the side at her words. Omg, this woman is dangerous! She’s like a poisonous apple! It looks amazing, but if you take a bite…

“Nice name, I like it.” Says Bil. “It is a very good name, indeed. It brings me back to some of my best memories… Fufufu…”

He chuckles to himself, remembering something. I have no idea what it might be, nor do I want to know.

Now it’s my time to introduce myself.

“My full nickname is Sleeping Spymaster, but please call me Spy. As you can see, I’m a human because I like they don’t have any specific weakness, unlike most other factions.”

“Tsk! Humans…” Bil looks annoyed. “I don’t like humans. As He says, humans are the worst and should go extinct. But our strongest player is also a human, so we haven’t banned them…”

“Yeah, humans are boring!” Adds Ana from my side.

Sorry-not-sorry for being boring. I prefer being boring than crazy.

Bil looks around. “I see you haven’t brought any support mobs as instructed.” He nods to his own words. “Ok, then… Oh, I almost forgot! What are your roles? Tank? DPS? Healer?”

“I’m a melee bruiser,” I say. “Depending on the situation, I can protect the team or join the attack.”

“I see…” Bil looks uninterested.

“I’m a burst mage! I can deal a huge amount of damage in a large area in a very short time, but then I’m completely useless until I recover my MP!” Says Ana. “I took this idea from Mad Rat, but my build is better when dealing with strong enemies!”

“Ooh, nice! I see you’ve already been introduced to His great ways already!” Bil pats Ana’s shoulder. “But you should never compare yourself to Him in the future, ok? Nobody should. He’s too great for us to compare to, understood?”

“Ok, First Apostole. I’m sorry…” Ana lowers her head in shame. “Will I be eliminated because of my mistake?”

“Hahaha, don’t worry! It’s great you’re so enthusiastic! I would never disqualify you because of this!”

Is it just me, or this situation is getting more ridiculous as time goes by?

*Khm!* Bil clears his throat and tries to adopt a dignified posture. I say ‘try’, because he fails at it.

“Now, you two will take this dungeon head-on. I will follow you closely and evaluate your performance. Remember our Leader’s words: feel despair, understand despair, embrace despair. I’ll decide if you can join us or not depending on how you react.”

Are we going alone? Us two? Are you kidding me?

I haven’t managed to clear this dungeon even with two of my friends, all of us with our support mobs, and you want us to clear it!? Alone? Are you fucking crazy!?

No, this can’t be… I’m sure Bil will give us tips if we ask politely.

“Oh, great First Apostle, I’ve been here before, and I have a question I would like to ask.”

“Doing extra homework, aren’t we? I first thought you weren’t worthy to join our group, but I see I was wrong.”

“...yes. I’m very motivated. So… is there a way to make sure you fall into one of those Tunnel Mimics? Sometimes, I can’t find them…”

I put the saddest face I can make.

I have to ask it in reverse so he doesn’t suspect me. I want to know how to avoid them, so I need to ask how to find them instead.

“The Tunnel Mimics, huh? You remind me of Gery, he’s always ‘accidentally’ being eaten by them… But I’m sorry, I can’t give you any tips now. My lips are sealed.”

Are you kidding me!? You aren’t going to guide us, or tell any of this dungeon’s secrets!?

Maybe, it’s classified information? It wouldn’t be so weird.

If so, I’ll need to pass this test and join the Mad Rat’s Cult before I can obtain the precious information.

What a hassle... I expected the initiation to be enough. But not everything is bad. I managed to fool Bil into thinking I’m one of them.

I worry about the future. How much will I have to suffer, today?

Me, alone with this crazy bitch that only knows how to blow stuff up, in The Mad Rat’s Lab? This is the worst recipe I can think of. One that assures disaster.

 

 

“Haa… haaa… This was amazing! Don’t you think so too, rookies?”

Exhausted for running away for a long time, Bil turns around with a crazy expression on his face and asks a stupid question.

I say stupid because of what happened just now.

“Yes, it was! I was so close to dying!” Says Ana. “First I wanted to cry, but then I understood what despair means and really enjoyed it.”

“You’re making nice progress there, rookie! Hahaha! You’ll soon be ready to join our ranks.”

The two idiots – as well as Bil’s support mobs – got caught in a hide-and-seek game with the Goblimps not long ago. Ana nearly died after running out of MP, and Bil needed five whole minutes to get rid of a single enemy.

And now, they’re celebrating it!

Crazy! They’re crazy!

Though I must admit I enjoyed watching them running around without a clue of how to do this properly.

“Yeah, it was quite good…” I add, a tad too late. If I want to join them to get all their secrets, I must first earn Bil’s recognition. “But I don’t know, I think there must be a better way to enjoy this…”

Contrary to what I expected at the start, I didn’t learn how to beat the Goblimps easily. Instead of focussing on killing them fast, Ana, and then Bil too, followed them at their own game. The worst thing you can do, really.

What I did learn, though, is how I shouldn’t fight them, thanks to the two of them.

From this fight, I can infer that the best way to deal with the Goblimps is to: either ignore them until they decide to start combat; or use something with a high chance of hitting (and hopefully killing) them as soon as you spot them.

I also never expected Bil to join the fight just to suffer with us two instead of helping, but this is now irrelevant.

“Ah, I see…” Bil awkwardly scratches his head. “I see you don’t like fighting the Goblimps too much. I can understand not everybody likes the same, but you should learn to enjoy other stuff too. You can’t always be focussed only on the Tunnel Mimics, you know?”

Why the Tunnel Mimics again!? I don’t like them, ok!?

I asked you about them to try and get information on what’s the best way to avoid them and not because I enjoy being eaten by them!

I force a chuckle. “Hahaha, yeah, you got me there…”

“But don’t worry, Spy!” Bil gently pats my back. “When the time comes, I’ll teach you everything you need to know about the Tunnel Mimics, I promise. Of course, I’m not as much of an expert as Gery, but I’ve heard so many times how much he enjoys being eaten, I can consider myself half an expert! Hahaha!”

Finally, some useful information at last!

Bil gets closer and whispers right next to my ear. “For example, and this comes directly from his mouth… A very good way to enjoy it is to allow the worm to eat and digest you until you believe you’re going to die, and then start attacking like a madman until only one remains! A fight for survival! A fight against time! And the best is that so much time would have passed since you got eaten, that you’ll have absolutely no idea of where you are once you get out! The thrill, the unknown…!” Bil hugs himself in ecstasy.

“Hey, this isn’t fair! I want to know it too! It isn’t fair if you only tell him…!” Ana complains, but Bil only shrugs his shoulders.

Why did I…? Why did I think, even if it was only for an instant, that what he’s saying makes sense!?

I shudder.

 

There were some crazy players, arguably as crazy as those in the Mad Rat’s Cult, who were willing to pay other players to infiltrate the aforementioned group of madmen and get all the information they could get before they were discovered.

The problem with this? Most players didn’t dare to join the cult because there were almost no players who came out of it. Not sane, at least. That’s why they had to give awesome rewards.

What nobody can be sure of, is if those rich players were really expecting to get any useful information out of it, or if they only desired to watch other players fall into madness.

 

Radosh

Hey there, everyone, I hope you liked this chapter! I bring two pieces of important info.

I plan to start Patreon soon, in case you want to support me or read ahead, you know what it means. In the beginning, there won't be many chapters because I have a very short backlog, but I plan to write more intensely from now on. If it's successful, I might be able to write even more!

I also want to start writing another series soon. Some of you might already know, but this is my first time writing, and I consider The Mad Rat's Lab an experiment of sorts (ironic isn't it?), so this new one will be the first 'serious' one I'll write. It'll be a no-nonsense epic fantasy about a guy who can create monsters, striving to eradicate humanity.  If you're interested in being an alpha reader, PM me. And don't worry, I don't have any intention to drop The Mad Rat's Lab. Borrowing Andreu's words: It's my cute, useless, little baby!