The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Here they come!”

“I know, I can see it too.”

“...right.”

As the Druid and Wizardess enter the area, I enthusiastically shake Laura’s arm, telling her they did what she expected.

To which she responds indifferently.

The first thing the Druid does is run in the Rogue’s direction and cast a healing spell. Of course, it works and his HP is replenished, but…

“Hah, that’s not going to work! You can’t heal faster than my little sister deals damage when all her DoTs are applied! What a waste of MP! You’re only delaying the inevitable!”

“What did I tell you, Mad Rat?” Laura admonishes me. “Don’t waste time now that they showed themselves! And it isn’t a waste of time, because if they kill her during that time, the Rogue won’t die. So get moving!”

She pushes me in the direction of one of the side passages.

“Remember, use that passage and take their backs so they can’t run away. I’ll go from the front and help Lemon.”

“Sure.”

I leave through the passage. If I continue like this, it’ll lead me to an advantageous position near the Wizardess, from which I can surprise them.

“Fufufu! Hahaha! It’s time for some experiments! Let’s see, let’s see… today, we’ll test how much damage can they take before they die! I’m thrilled to see the results!”

Behind me, a group of skeletons ready their bows and swords.

They’re the last support mobs we collected from nearby zones. Laura specifically asked to keep them alive until now because they’re very good against them thanks to their innate poison resistance.

Now that the Barbarian is busy, the Rogue can’t do anything, and the Wizardess is trying to rescue the Rogue, the only one who can do something is the Druid. But his only damaging AoE is Poison Cloud…

I don’t need to explain anymore, do I?

 

I run through the passage.

When I reach the end, I can see the Wizardess a few meters in front of me, and the Druid a little bit further away, entangled in combat with Laura. The Barbarian is still fighting against Ricard, and Clara and the Rogue continue their deathly hug.

Hmm… now that I take a closer look, the Rogue’s HP bar is too low, how is it that he isn’t dead yet?

Oh, but the Druid’s HP bar is decreasing at a similar speed as the Rogue’s was a while ago… does this mean, he’s somehow sharing his HP with him?

That’s foul! Cheating! Isn’t that skill completely broken!?

A skill that prevents one player from dying as long as the other remains alive is too strong! It’s completely useless if you’re alone, but in a team fight it’s too powerful!

There must be some drawback to it that I don’t know…

This must be the reason why Laura is attacking the Druid instead of finishing the Rogue first… She must have noticed some time ago, or maybe she knew from watching their matches, I’m not sure.

And also the reason why Clara is still grabbing the Rogue: to deal extra damage to the Druid, and also so that the Rogue can’t roam and help somewhere else.

A bunch of magic missiles appear near the Wizardess’ hand and fly towards Laura. Close to a fifth of her HP vanishes with them, reducing her HP to close to half.

Fuck! I can’t delay this anymore! Stop watching the show, Andreu! It’s time for action!

“Chain Lightning!”

As I pop out from the passage, I cast Chain Lightning against the Wizardess. She’s a caster, and as a caster, she doesn’t have a lot of HP. The damage she takes is considerable. Two, maybe three casts more and she’ll die. That is if I had the MP to cast Chain Lighting that many times consecutively, which I don’t.

It’s a shame they’re too far away from each other for the lightning to jump between them.

Though I do manage to get her attention and she stops attacking Laura.

“It’s playtime! Wizardess, you’ll play with me first, ok!?”

“Hmpf! How annoying! You keep popping from everywhere! Why can’t you just come at us at once!?”

She turns around and says. She sounds angry, but why is she smiling right now?

I don’t know if she’s an exception or what, but normal people don’t smile when angry… Unless they’re REALLY angry. But she doesn’t look like she’s that angry right now.

Did she… predict I was going to attack them from behind, and is now pretending to be angry…? No way, right?

The skeletons spread through the area and attack the Wizardess and the Druid with their bows and swords. Ricard really likes the classics, giving rusty swords and crumbling bows to the skeletons…

“I knew it! I knew they would bring skeletons! Fuck this!”

“Shut up, Druid! Now isn’t the time to complain! Focus on the fight! Magic Missiles!”

A bunch of missiles fly my way. I try to avoid them by jumping to the side, but they change the trajectory and hit me anyway.

“They’re targeted? Fuck this! Cold Blast!”

“Magic Missiles!”

“Cold Blast!”

Our spells hit each other, dealing large amounts of damage. Though mine deals less because it’s a basic spell, even with the 40% extra damage.

“Hey, this isn’t fair! Your spell deals more single-target damage than mine! Go closer to your friends so I can show you my true power!”

“Aha… so what!? You should choose your spells better in the future! Oh, and it’ll be more unfair soon.” She turns to look at the others’ fight. She inhales. No way… is she… “Barbarian!” She shouts.

“I’m coming!”

“You bloodthirsty beast! Are you scared of dying, trying to run away from me!?”

“Hahaha! I’m sorry, walking corpse! My leader calls for me! Let’s fight another time!”

“As if I’ll let you run away! I’ll kill you, and then turn your body into one of my minions! And then I’ll bind your soul to it for all eternity!”

I… I don’t want to comment anything about Ricard’s and the Barbarian’s conversation anymore.

The Barbarian jumps over the water canal thanks to her Jumping Smash skill. Upon landing, an unlucky skeleton meets its end. I have to admit she’s good. Even in a situation like this, she has enough skills and awareness to pull off something like this. She didn’t even look in that direction before making the jump!

Ricard tries to follow her, but he can’t jump over the canal like her, so he’s forced to take a detour.

The good thing is there’s nothing that can slow him, so he’ll reach this place soon. The bad thing is… how the hell am I going to survive until he comes? Fighting against the Wizardess and the Barbarian at the same time? No thanks!

Fuck, what can I do?

Now that I remember, Ricard insisted on not getting killed by the Barbarian during the match. Something about her getting very powerful after killing another champion, if I’m not wrong.

So I can’t let myself die. Then, what should I do?

If the push and stun from Lighting Shield trigger, it’ll give Ricard enough time to save me. But if it doesn’t, and I don’t do something else, I’m dead.

Laura’s at about half HP. Clara’s HP is dangerously low because the Rogue keeps attacking her all the time. He takes a lot of damage, which is transferred to the Druid, but this doesn’t prevent him from attacking her since they’re literally hugging each other to death. 

Ricard is the only one who’s doing ok, he didn’t take too much damage.

The thing is I don’t know how much of a boost will she get if she kills me. It isn’t unthinkable that with that boost she could get rid of both Clara and Laura very fast, and only Ricard would remain.

The Druid and the Rogue will die for sure.

In the end, it’ll be a fight between Ricard with our support mobs vs a powered-up Barbarian and the Wizardess. Can he win this? …I don’t think so.

The chances for the Lightning Shield stun to trigger are 20%, doubled to 40% thanks to the Maniac skill… Should I risk it or not?

What do I do!?

There’s the Grand Finale too, but it’s risky to use when there are allies close to me.

Wait a moment, Andreu! Allies close to me? Yes, yes, yes! That’s the key!

I’m on one side of this unobstructed area. The Grand Finale is wide enough to cover most of it, but if we take into account everyone’s positions…

Right now, the closest ones are the Wizardess and the Barbarian, who’s running in my direction.

Then there are the Druid and Laura, who are a few meters away. But Laura has Blink, so it’s almost sure she can escape the area of effect on time.

The last ones are Ricard and Clara. Both are far enough they can simply run away to avoid the damage!

The only enemy who might escape is the Rogue, but he’s at a very low HP, and with no EP or MP. Not a problem at all if he survives.

While I’m thinking, I receive another Magic Missile barrage, and the Barbarian slashes at me two times.

Then, what am I hesitating for…? The only ones in danger are our enemies! Let’s do this!

It's time to blow something up!

“Fufufu! Hahaha! You’re asking for death, you know!? Did you think I would fear you ganging up on me!?”

I make sure to shout as loudly as I can so that both Ricard and Clara hear me.

“I’m doing it! Everyone, run!”

At the same time, I open my arms wide in a dramatic pose and activate the Grand Finale skill.

“Fufufu! Hahaha! Let’s see how you survive this!”

“Now, Druid. Barbarian, do it now! Everybody, get ready!”

“W-what!?”

I’m astonished at the Wizardess’ reaction. Shouldn’t she be… I don’t know, …scared?

The first one to react is the Barbarian. She makes another jump, landing right behind me. Then she kicks me, sending my body flying a few meters toward the center of this area.

Of course, I don’t take any damage because I’m invulnerable right now. But being invulnerable doesn’t mean they can’t forcefully move me like what happened right now…

Fuck this! I never expected them to do this! If I explode here, it’ll be almost impossible for Ricard or Clara to run away on time!

But, when everything goes to shit, and you believe it can’t go worse than it is, life surprises you with something even more ridiculous. Always.

“Ensnare!”

As the Druid uses his spell, the whole area is covered in vines and roots that quickly grapple everyone. And I mean everyone. This includes me, Laura, Ricard, and Clara, our support mobs, as well as the four of them. All of us are affected.

Now everyone is immobilized and inside the area of my skill…

What the hell are they doing!? Are they fools!? They’re going to kill themselves like this!

“Emergency Esca…”

“No, you don't!”

This time, it’s the Wizardess who prepares to cast a spell. But Laura, who I’m sure was expecting something else to happen after seeing the Druid cast Entangle, Blinks closer to her and activates the Charming Eyes before the Wizardess can finish casting.

Emergency Escape (Active skill) Cost: 50 EP, 50 MP Mark the area you are currently in. When you activate this skill, you can teleport any number of allied units you can see to the marked area. After the teleport, all units lose all their current EP and MP. This skill can only be used once per Dungeon Invasion or Dungeon Battle.

Wow, that was close… If Laura reacted any slower, this match would end in our defeat… We knew she had some kind of trump card saved, but I never expected it to be this skill.

Ahahaha! That must have been their plan all along, to kill us when I used Grand Finale! And I fell into it! It’s a good thing they failed, because otherwise…

Like this, the Wizardess can’t do or say anything anymore. Not until the charm ends. Which means… everyone’s going to die, right? Except for me, I mean. I won’t die after using the skill.

Well, it should be. This means we won! Hahaha!

We won! And I managed to blow everyone up as I wanted to! Fufufu! Hahaha! But my laughter stops when I see the Barbarian moving.

Ah, shit! Don’t run away!

As a last resort, the Barbarian uses Jumping Smash to run away. If she escapes, she’ll survive, kill me after the explosion, and they’ll win the match.

But, hmm… is that a bug? Or maybe a skill upgrade? In theory, when you’re immobilized, you shouldn’t be able to use skills that move you… Unless it’s a teleport skill like Blink.

“Not so fast, you brainless idiot!”

Ricard forcefully brings her back with his Dark Grab skill, dragging her once again right next to him, and inside the explosion radius. Hah! It didn’t work!

But fuck you, Ricard! If you had used it before, when she came at me, I wouldn’t have been forced to use the Grand Finale and we could have won this a lot more easily!

Sigh! No use crying over spilled milk…

The invulnerability time reaches the end and Grand Finale activates.

The last thing I see is Laura looking slightly over my head before suspiring. Over the vines and roots entangling everyone, the black fire of hell appears, burning everyone before the inevitable happens.

What is she doing?

*BOOOOM!*

The whole area is covered by a blinding bright light as the Grand Finale skill activates. The light expands, covering the vines, the black flames, and everyone; obliterating everything in its path.

Only light remains.

 

There was only one way to describe that fight: Total Annihilation.