Chapter 54 - Mad rats (1)

As simplest and easy dungeon, as tutorial level dungeon, 'mad rat' dungeon was supposed to be easy breezy. Yet it was not. Problem was system guided or automatic mode. It became a fight between 2 AI programmes and monsters were built in such a way as to win majority of times.

The damage cauld in automatic mode was very less as it is and most of the time, monsters either evaded or parried correctly.

The dungeons are supposed to be a wake up call to ensure majority of players to shift to semi-automatic mode atleast. That's the reason why the game had given option to retry more difficult option within a month and fix it for life. (Probably that was the reason why the players marked as dregs were not told of other options. And these dregs would be acting as leeches and absorbing EXP while the players nurtured by guilds or workshops would start in manual mode from the beginning. That might be one of the reasons why Saachi had no clear recollection of dungeons in village level.)

The problem had been noted by many guilds and workshop people. Levelling up till level 5 was easy but higher than that, in automatic way, was tiresome. Even killing 100 elites would not be enough to fill the EXP bar. The dungeons were loved by all because it had more monsters and they respawned faster too. And all tier of monsters could be found there. A common one to elite to boss ones. And it showed too. The EXP bar was filling faster than in grounds but death rate was more, much more within the dungeon. So the elite turned into semi automatic mode and started practicing outside and batches of cannon fodders entered dungeons to map them and find more about bosses.

Suddenly there was announcement - Party 'This dungeon is pretty easy' had cleared xxxx dungeon. First clear bonus awarded are ...(details omitted as Saachi's party is still burning with jealousy and the author fears them greatly.)

This announcement increased the fervour. More and more parties entered the game and exited just as fastly.

Mad rats dungeon had only 3 levels. The first level had pack rats - level 2 demonified rats in packs. Zerg tactics and skill - bite were only things going for them. Their size was not too big, just a size of puppy but they attacked in groups to 10 to 30. AoE spells were enough to handle majority of them. Then came the elite pack rat, leader of these pack rats with two guard rats. The guards were bit difficult, they fought in tandem thus increasing difficulty level. The elite has learnt spell - Roar , to pull in more pack rats whenever he felt threatened. Most got struck in this level as players got overwhelmed by multiple waves of pack rats. The trick was to interrupt the spell, thus preventing pack rat assembly. It was easier said than done. Harder version was to kill these pack rats within short period, which was tried and tested method.

Saachi's party was not dummy. But they still could not stop the skill twice, this they had to fight with initial 2 waves of assembly. Thankfully, Kylie has learnt blooming arrow, which had sort of AoE effect along with Saachi's AoE attacks. Bree was not allowing spamming of skills to win, that's what she told Saachi.

Once the trick was known and followed, the elite died with unwilling expression. And Saachi was introduced to new method of loot collection - looting the corpse.

Though the game was for adults and legally adults and it touted to be as close to reality as possible, the blood and gory details were PG -13 rated or less. So even after arrows sticking to ass( unfortunately the rat had bent to bite Royo who had fallen down when Kylie had shot the arrow), face bashed beyond recognition (Royo's shield had altered the face beyond artistic level) and body burnt and charred at multiple places( Niyam's fireball had high attack points, it could burn and char even an elite with huge defense), the corpse was not vomit inducing.

As this was first corpse looting for little boy Niyam, Royo, the self proclaimed Guru and heaven blessed individual decided to show how it was done. As said before, the game had altered aesthetics of these events , thus corpse looting was no longer vulgar and bad process. You just had to tap or touch a part of corpse and you would receive the loot. Few preferred digging the stomach region, few more removed the heart all in belief of getting better loot. Ridiculous! Damaging the dead body, ignoring sanctity of dead - actually netted less items or poorer items.

The proof - the loots found by this team. Royo had pulled out gall bladder which changed into item level 2 trash boots with defence +2 . Bree hated touching rat body, so it was Kylie's turn. The abdomen region had closed back after Royo's manhandling of body. Kylie went for heart region. Thankfully, he didn't pull out heart. He just tapped over heart portion. Loot appeared at that point. Item - common cape, level 2 , speed +2, defense +5.

Now, Saachi's turn. It is not written anywhere about the amount of loot items found from dungeons but mini bosses or level holders would drop 2 to 4 items on average. As this was first dungeon, amount would err on higher side rather than lower side. Saachi was good boy. So he prayed once and directly tapped the poor bashed head. His luck was blooming. He got a level 2 uncommon ring - luck +3, charm +3, defense +5. ( Those two guards were indeed female ones.)

So respecting the losers especially when they are dead actually is good karma.

Royo ofcourse did not believe it. He just thought it had something to do with order of things. Was he right? Or wrong?