“I’ll take a break from so many shopping trips and start using them…” I chuckle as I rub my hands together. “Hahaha!”
What about our time playing together? It was ok, I believe. But nothing unusual happened.
In short, the dungeon invasion was a success. I got the monster I wanted, we had a happy time together, and we even managed to clear the dungeon.
If you exclude the fact that Clara and Laura were competing all the time about who got my attention, that Ricard never stopped blabbering about ‘relevant’ stuff and I ended with a huge headache, and that we almost died four times… it was a success. A huge success!
Who am I kidding…?
I only care about the earth elemental I wanted to capture, the rest is irrelevant. I got it, so everything’s good! Hahaha!
“Now, it’s time to put it to use! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
Ok, ok, I know, you’re right… I should be capturing the rest of the units I need for all the dungeon upgrades first, and then make all the changes together, to save time.
But I don’t want to!
I’m tired of going into random dungeons to capture monsters, I must have some fun now or I’ll explode!
I’m not kidding, I have the button to self-destruct right here…
“As always, the first step is to change the environment and the dungeon layout.”
It is important to do this first because if I do it first, I’m more motivated when the time to create the monsters comes. This, and because I might forget about it later, or grow too lazy to do it after I finish with the monsters.
Hey, don’t tell anybody this, but this is one of those rules I make on the spot and change when and how I see fit… Hahaha!
Chuckling to myself, I open the dungeon menu and start editing the dungeon.
“The first thing is to make the first cavern bigger. This will mess up the tunnels, so I’ll have to fix them, but I can move the entrance away and it will reduce the problems caused in the tunnels…”
I smack my lips, planning how to do this as easily as possible. I don’t want to redo all the dungeon only for this change, after all.
“Hmm, yes, I think this is the best option.”
After deciding how to approach this, I start by moving the different dungeon parts around.
The first thing I do is move the entrance area, including the slope that leads to the cavern, about thirty meters away.
Then I extend the cavern up to the new entrance and also make it slightly wider and taller.
Of course, this forces me to reconnect the multiple tunnel entrances to their new positions. I take this chance to increase the number of entrances and tunnels, making the dungeon layout slightly more complicated.
I also add the usual crevices, cliffs, and rocky terrain to the newly created area, but I’m not convinced with the result.
It looks… artificial.
The cavern is now way too large to be a natural occurrence, even with the multiple columns and rocks supporting the ceiling. At least this is the impression I get.
So I decide to split it into smaller parts, each one connected with the others through large holes, crumbling ceilings, or wide archways. All in all, when I finish, you can see most of this area from everywhere like before, but it feels more natural because it’s made out of several interconnected caverns instead of a single, enormous one.
The new, smaller, caverns also complicate the layout. Players won’t have such an easy time navigating this area as they did before.
In certain parts, I add crude, carved rocky stairs, artificial archways, and similar stuff. Not too much, but enough to show this isn’t a completely natural environment.
I don’t know how to properly explain this feeling… but upon discovering those artificial parts, it brings you the chills and you can’t avoid thinking ‘There’s something here’.
Which is exactly what I want.
The last change I make is to extend the underground lake until the central part, splitting the caverns roughly into two halves. I connect the two halves with two stone bridges and an island in the middle of them.
This new water area will help me with… khm! …future and secret plans… maybe. Or it’ll turn out to be just a decoration, who knows.
Of course, I don’t forget to cover the new caverns with glowing and giant mushrooms, the same as it was before.
“Ooooh! I sometimes surprise myself! Hahaha! This looks so amazing!” I clap, simulating an audience. “Thank you, thank you, everyone! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
After a while of fooling around and making sure everything was perfect – I swear, I didn’t waste time, it was completely needed! –, I save the changes without updating the dungeon yet and move to the most awaited part: Monster Creation!
“Finally! Finally, the most awaited monster, the one that can leave the huge claw marks on the ground, will make its debut! But first… there’s another monster, even more important than the clawy monster, that I must create. So much stuff to do, and so little time…”
Yep, you’re right. I’m talking about the monster that’s going to fill the gap left behind by the Demonic Swarmers.
I open the templates menu and start the creation of a new Basic Chimera Template.
This one will be a cousin of the Kidnapper No. 2, the supposedly ‘failed’ experiment of the (actually) failed Silent Kidnapper.
Why do I say they are cousins? It’s because although the purpose and behavior of the two will be completely different, the two will look similar and one of the units to create them is going to be the same.
So… more like third-grade cousins? Distant relatives, maybe? You know what, let’s forget about this simile, ok?
“Where was I…? Oh, yeah, the Template.”
I choose the two units I want to use from the list of available bodies. They’re the Myconid and the Giant Turtle.
Then I set their appearance: a turtle with purple spots of varying sizes covering the entire body, and a giant mushroom growing on top of the shell.
I already told you they would look similar to the Kidnapper No. 2, didn’t I? They both have a mushroom in the same place, and both are about the same size.
The only other monsters in this area, except for the Goblimps that are everywhere and the hidden monsters I’ll create after this, will be these turtles. My plan is to turn them into heavy artillery tanks, filling a role not yet seen in this dungeon.
Why tanks, you ask? Because if they’re resilient, the players will be forced to spend quite some time dealing with them, time the Goblimps can use to ‘play’ with them.
And why artillery? It’s easy to understand. In this somewhat open area, what can be more dangerous than a monster that deals lots of damage from a long distance?
So with their aspect and role settled, I move to the skills section.
“I don’t want them to have too many skills, I want to keep them simple…” I talk to myself. “I think giving them the minimum skills and then upgrading the relevant ones will be nice. Yeah, let’s go with this.”
I already have an idea of what skills I want to give them, so I won’t waste any time choosing the first one: Light Beam.
| Light Beam (Active skill) |
| Cost: 100 MP |
| Deal (5 + 0,6 * SPI) light damage to every unit in a 50-centimeter wide beam. |
It’s been some time since I started searching for a laser beam skill, and this one, Light Beam is the closest one I’ve found.
Of course, it isn’t perfect. The damage is relatively low, it’s a wide beam instead of a thin one, and it doesn’t deal continuous damage… But, technically speaking, it’s a laser beam, so I can’t complain.
Also… Three-meter tall turtles (including the mushroom cap) that shoot light beams from their mouths? Sure, sign me in!
Similar to the active skill, I also know which triggered skill I want to give them. So I quickly select it.
| Reflection (Triggered skill) |
| When receiving a single-target ranged attack or spell, there’s a 10% chance to reflect it back to the attacker. |
Reflection is a very funny skill that usually is only used on tank-type dungeon monsters because it’s almost useless for the invaders to have.
Of course, it only has a 10% chance of working, and the reflected attack can be avoided as per usual…
But this skill will make the turtles a lot harder to deal with. They’ll attack from a long range and the players won’t be able to retaliate without getting close or risking a free counterattack!
Fufufu! Hahaha!
And if you add the Giant Turtle’s innate skill, Shell… I’m sure they’ll be very difficult to kill.
| Shell (Innate passive skill) |
| Reduces all damage taken by (3 * level + 0,2 * CON) damage. |
You could argue this flat damage reduction is worse than a percentage one. And you’d be right. You’d be right… if only the turtles didn’t have the Reflection skill.
This is because Reflection especially punishes strong attacks, and Hardened Shell is the opposite.
With both, there’s no safe way to attack the turtles unless you use area attacks, which definitely aren’t cost-effective against a single target; or get close to the turtle to attack in melee, receiving the Light Beams to your face on your way there.
But then, when you get close, there’s the Myconid’s Paralyzing Spores to deal with! Hahaha! Isn’t this combination perfect!?
“With this, only the passive skill remains, so… do I want to make them more dangerous, or more annoying…?”
I think for a while, but then I realize there’s only one correct answer to this question.
And the answer is… YES!
Surprised? The answer is ‘yes’, because… I want to make them both more annoying and more dangerous.
And I believe I’ve just found the perfect skill for this.
| Sniper (Passive skill) |
| Increases the range of all your ranged attacks and spells by 20%. |
What’s more annoying and dangerous than a tank-like turtle that shoots beams from afar? The same turtle, but that can attack from even further!
Don’t you agree with me?
“With this, I have the minimum non-innate three skills, one of each kind. Now I can start upgrading. This looks promising… Hahaha!”
Chuckling, I select the most important skill, Light Beam, and look at the possible upgrades.
| Light Beam (Active skill) |
| Cost: 100 MP |
| Available Upgrades |
| Light Absorption: Reduce the MP cost by 15. |
| Wide Beam: Increase the beam’s width to 1 meter. |
| Dispersion: After hitting terrain or reaching maximum range, the beam explodes in a 3-meter radius dealing (2 + 0,2 * SPI) light damage. |
| Converging Rays: Increase the light damage to (10 + 0,8 * SPI). |
“Wow, there’s some very interesting stuff in here!” I exclaim.
Although all the upgrades look powerful, I immediately discard the Wide Beam and Dispersion upgrades. I’m not interested in Dispersion’s effects. And regarding Wide Beam, though it would make hitting targets a lot easier, I don’t want to make the turtles dangerous.
Well, not TOO dangerous.
Increasing the beam width to one meter would make the spell almost impossible to avoid except for pro players, and I don’t want that. I want the invaders to jump around, drop to the ground, push each other… or whatever it takes for them to avoid the beams, really.
I want them to be a pain in the ass, not unavoidable.
On the other hand, Light Absorption and Converging Rays are too good to ignore. 15 MP seems like nothing, but it adds up quickly, and the extra damage is always nice to have.
What’s more, if I pick up both upgrades at the same time, they synergize and make the Light Beam ridiculously powerful and MP efficient.
I don’t think it twice, raising the level of the template to five and giving the turtles the two upgrades.
“As for the other skills…” I scratch my head in thought. “Is there anything interesting…?”
I browse the skill upgrades and start crackling.
“Hahaha, I know I wanted them to be an artillery tank, but if I give them these two upgrades on top of the Light Beam ones, it would be so ridiculous…! I love it!”
I’m sure you’re curious which ones I’m talking about. Well, here they are:
| Reflection - Lv 2 (Triggered skill) |
| When receiving a single-target ranged attack or spell, there’s a 10% chance to reflect it back to the attacker. |
| Upgrades |
| Reflecting Arrays: Rise the chance to reflect attacks and spells to 15%. |
| Shell - Lv 2 (Innate passive skill) |
| Reduces all damage taken by (3 * level + 0,2 * CON) damage. |
| Upgrades |
| Hardened Shell: Increase the damage reduction to (4 * level + 0,3 * CON). |
No extra functionality, just an improvement over the base values. But oh my god what an improvement!
“Fufufu! Hahaha! Marta, you were complaining about how easy my dungeon was, weren’t you? Now, I want to see if you can say the same after I put these babies into my improved dungeon!”
Imagining her despairing face after receiving her own attack back, a nasty grin appears on my face. Ah, I tremble in excitement at the prospect.
What a shame it’s not going to happen. At least not anytime soon.
But it isn’t the same for the usual invaders, they’re going to find them soon. Very soon. I wonder how they’ll react…
“This makes the turtles level seven, the maximum level I can get for now. They’re the only ones with the highest level right now, the same as my champion!”
As for the AI, I only want to make sure they stay as far away from each other as possible, to prevent two of them being at the same place. In fact, I can set it directly on the Zone options, so I don’t need to change the AI at all.
By default, their AI, when out of combat, makes them randomly walk around or stand still for a while before moving again, and this is good enough.
There’s only one thing remaining: to give them a name.
“An artillery tank monster, a turtle with a mushroom… Hmm…” I turn my head around in thought. “Turtlenator…? Nah, too lame. Termishroom… even worse. This is hard… Beaminator…? Ugh, I disgust myself with the last one. I somebody wants to kill me, I’ll accept it, I deserve it.”
I think for a while without coming up with a good name. Some of the worst ones I come up with are Shelly, Portable Turret, and, for some stupid reason, Bob.
As any normal human would expect, I hammered my head on the nearest wall as a punishment for coming up with the latter.
“Aaaah, I don’t know… maybe I should keep it simple. Why not call them Beam Turtle? It’s short, easy to remember, clearly represents what they are… and, most importantly, it doesn’t give me the creeps when I say it. Yes, let’s go with Beam Turtle.”
I write the name in the Template’s section and save it. The next step is to start the creation process.
“If I use all the bodies I have I can create six of them. I know this area is huge, but given their long range, this should be enough. Too many of them would overwhelm any noobish player.”
For now, I’ve decided to create the six I can. If, later on, I find the need for more, I’ll have to add more ‘ingredients’ to the ‘shopping list’.
The total cost is… 310 cp for each one, 20 from the Basic Chimera, 120 from the Myconid, and 170 from the Giant Turtle. This times six, 1.860 cp. Not too bad.
The Lab Assistants are going to be busy for a while…
Oh, yeah, before I forget. These are the Beam Turtle’s final status and skills.
| Beam Turtle (Lv 7) | |||||
| HP | 512 (320) | STA | 35 (22) | SOU | 33 (21) |
| EP | 400 (250) | MP | 368 (230) | ||
| STR | 41 (26) | CON | 64 (40) | AGI | 17 (11) |
| SPI | 41 (26) | WIL | 49 (31) | DEX | 11 (7) |
| SPD | 3 | INT | 4 | COM | 1 |
| Skills | |||||
| Active: Light Beam - Lv 3 (Light Absorption, Converging Rays), Paralyzing Spores (Innate). Triggered: Reflection - Lv 2 (Reflecting Arrays). Passive: Sniper, Eternal Pain (Innate), Shell - Lv 2 (Hardened Shell) (Innate). |
I’m sure you already know about the Myconids, so I’m not going to comment on that part.
Regarding the Giant Turtles, as you would expect, they have average stats but they excel in defense. In particular, they have an extremely high Constitution. The worst part about them is their speed, but it doesn’t matter since Chimeras and all other ‘mixed’ units always use the speed of the fastest creature.
I say slow, but they’re still faster than the Stitched, at 2 Speed. Though the Myconids aren’t the fastest either, with a Speed of 3.
Fucking Stitched! You’re slower than a turtle, and I mean it literally!
“The Beam Turtles’ attacks are easy to evade? You fool! Don’t dare say such blasphemy! Sure, one turtle is doable if you know how. Two? Not so much. Three? WISH one of them is close to death or you’re in DEEP trouble.
God forgive you if you ever have to avoid the crossfire of four or more at the same time… if you do, RUN AWAY as if your life depended on it, BECAUSE. IT. DOES! Tread with care because this is an open area, so it’s bound to happen sooner or later!”
- Extract from the Chapter ‘Unexpected Dangers’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’.
“I’ll take a break from so many shopping trips and start using them…” I chuckle as I rub my hands together. “Hahaha!”
What about our time playing together? It was ok, I believe. But nothing unusual happened.
In short, the dungeon invasion was a success. I got the monster I wanted, we had a happy time together, and we even managed to clear the dungeon.
If you exclude the fact that Clara and Laura were competing all the time about who got my attention, that Ricard never stopped blabbering about ‘relevant’ stuff and I ended with a huge headache, and that we almost died four times… it was a success. A huge success!
Who am I kidding…?
I only care about the earth elemental I wanted to capture, the rest is irrelevant. I got it, so everything’s good! Hahaha!
“Now, it’s time to put it to use! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
Ok, ok, I know, you’re right… I should be capturing the rest of the units I need for all the dungeon upgrades first, and then make all the changes together, to save time.
But I don’t want to!
I’m tired of going into random dungeons to capture monsters, I must have some fun now or I’ll explode!
I’m not kidding, I have the button to self-destruct right here…
“As always, the first step is to change the environment and the dungeon layout.”
It is important to do this first because if I do it first, I’m more motivated when the time to create the monsters comes. This, and because I might forget about it later, or grow too lazy to do it after I finish with the monsters.
Hey, don’t tell anybody this, but this is one of those rules I make on the spot and change when and how I see fit… Hahaha!
Chuckling to myself, I open the dungeon menu and start editing the dungeon.
“The first thing is to make the first cavern bigger. This will mess up the tunnels, so I’ll have to fix them, but I can move the entrance away and it will reduce the problems caused in the tunnels…”
I smack my lips, planning how to do this as easily as possible. I don’t want to redo all the dungeon only for this change, after all.
“Hmm, yes, I think this is the best option.”
After deciding how to approach this, I start by moving the different dungeon parts around.
The first thing I do is move the entrance area, including the slope that leads to the cavern, about thirty meters away.
Then I extend the cavern up to the new entrance and also make it slightly wider and taller.
Of course, this forces me to reconnect the multiple tunnel entrances to their new positions. I take this chance to increase the number of entrances and tunnels, making the dungeon layout slightly more complicated.
I also add the usual crevices, cliffs, and rocky terrain to the newly created area, but I’m not convinced with the result.
It looks… artificial.
The cavern is now way too large to be a natural occurrence, even with the multiple columns and rocks supporting the ceiling. At least this is the impression I get.
So I decide to split it into smaller parts, each one connected with the others through large holes, crumbling ceilings, or wide archways. All in all, when I finish, you can see most of this area from everywhere like before, but it feels more natural because it’s made out of several interconnected caverns instead of a single, enormous one.
The new, smaller, caverns also complicate the layout. Players won’t have such an easy time navigating this area as they did before.
In certain parts, I add crude, carved rocky stairs, artificial archways, and similar stuff. Not too much, but enough to show this isn’t a completely natural environment.
I don’t know how to properly explain this feeling… but upon discovering those artificial parts, it brings you the chills and you can’t avoid thinking ‘There’s something here’.
Which is exactly what I want.
The last change I make is to extend the underground lake until the central part, splitting the caverns roughly into two halves. I connect the two halves with two stone bridges and an island in the middle of them.
This new water area will help me with… khm! …future and secret plans… maybe. Or it’ll turn out to be just a decoration, who knows.
Of course, I don’t forget to cover the new caverns with glowing and giant mushrooms, the same as it was before.
“Ooooh! I sometimes surprise myself! Hahaha! This looks so amazing!” I clap, simulating an audience. “Thank you, thank you, everyone! Fufufu! Hahaha!”
After a while of fooling around and making sure everything was perfect – I swear, I didn’t waste time, it was completely needed! –, I save the changes without updating the dungeon yet and move to the most awaited part: Monster Creation!
“Finally! Finally, the most awaited monster, the one that can leave the huge claw marks on the ground, will make its debut! But first… there’s another monster, even more important than the clawy monster, that I must create. So much stuff to do, and so little time…”
Yep, you’re right. I’m talking about the monster that’s going to fill the gap left behind by the Demonic Swarmers.
I open the templates menu and start the creation of a new Basic Chimera Template.
This one will be a cousin of the Kidnapper No. 2, the supposedly ‘failed’ experiment of the (actually) failed Silent Kidnapper.
Why do I say they are cousins? It’s because although the purpose and behavior of the two will be completely different, the two will look similar and one of the units to create them is going to be the same.
So… more like third-grade cousins? Distant relatives, maybe? You know what, let’s forget about this simile, ok?
“Where was I…? Oh, yeah, the Template.”
I choose the two units I want to use from the list of available bodies. They’re the Myconid and the Giant Turtle.
Then I set their appearance: a turtle with purple spots of varying sizes covering the entire body, and a giant mushroom growing on top of the shell.
I already told you they would look similar to the Kidnapper No. 2, didn’t I? They both have a mushroom in the same place, and both are about the same size.
The only other monsters in this area, except for the Goblimps that are everywhere and the hidden monsters I’ll create after this, will be these turtles. My plan is to turn them into heavy artillery tanks, filling a role not yet seen in this dungeon.
Why tanks, you ask? Because if they’re resilient, the players will be forced to spend quite some time dealing with them, time the Goblimps can use to ‘play’ with them.
And why artillery? It’s easy to understand. In this somewhat open area, what can be more dangerous than a monster that deals lots of damage from a long distance?
So with their aspect and role settled, I move to the skills section.
“I don’t want them to have too many skills, I want to keep them simple…” I talk to myself. “I think giving them the minimum skills and then upgrading the relevant ones will be nice. Yeah, let’s go with this.”
I already have an idea of what skills I want to give them, so I won’t waste any time choosing the first one: Light Beam.
| Light Beam (Active skill) |
| Cost: 100 MP |
| Deal (5 + 0,6 * SPI) light damage to every unit in a 50-centimeter wide beam. |
It’s been some time since I started searching for a laser beam skill, and this one, Light Beam is the closest one I’ve found.
Of course, it isn’t perfect. The damage is relatively low, it’s a wide beam instead of a thin one, and it doesn’t deal continuous damage… But, technically speaking, it’s a laser beam, so I can’t complain.
Also… Three-meter tall turtles (including the mushroom cap) that shoot light beams from their mouths? Sure, sign me in!
Similar to the active skill, I also know which triggered skill I want to give them. So I quickly select it.
| Reflection (Triggered skill) |
| When receiving a single-target ranged attack or spell, there’s a 10% chance to reflect it back to the attacker. |
Reflection is a very funny skill that usually is only used on tank-type dungeon monsters because it’s almost useless for the invaders to have.
Of course, it only has a 10% chance of working, and the reflected attack can be avoided as per usual…
But this skill will make the turtles a lot harder to deal with. They’ll attack from a long range and the players won’t be able to retaliate without getting close or risking a free counterattack!
Fufufu! Hahaha!
And if you add the Giant Turtle’s innate skill, Shell… I’m sure they’ll be very difficult to kill.
| Shell (Innate passive skill) |
| Reduces all damage taken by (3 * level + 0,2 * CON) damage. |
You could argue this flat damage reduction is worse than a percentage one. And you’d be right. You’d be right… if only the turtles didn’t have the Reflection skill.
This is because Reflection especially punishes strong attacks, and Hardened Shell is the opposite.
With both, there’s no safe way to attack the turtles unless you use area attacks, which definitely aren’t cost-effective against a single target; or get close to the turtle to attack in melee, receiving the Light Beams to your face on your way there.
But then, when you get close, there’s the Myconid’s Paralyzing Spores to deal with! Hahaha! Isn’t this combination perfect!?
“With this, only the passive skill remains, so… do I want to make them more dangerous, or more annoying…?”
I think for a while, but then I realize there’s only one correct answer to this question.
And the answer is… YES!
Surprised? The answer is ‘yes’, because… I want to make them both more annoying and more dangerous.
And I believe I’ve just found the perfect skill for this.
| Sniper (Passive skill) |
| Increases the range of all your ranged attacks and spells by 20%. |
What’s more annoying and dangerous than a tank-like turtle that shoots beams from afar? The same turtle, but that can attack from even further!
Don’t you agree with me?
“With this, I have the minimum non-innate three skills, one of each kind. Now I can start upgrading. This looks promising… Hahaha!”
Chuckling, I select the most important skill, Light Beam, and look at the possible upgrades.
| Light Beam (Active skill) |
| Cost: 100 MP |
| Available Upgrades |
| Light Absorption: Reduce the MP cost by 15. |
| Wide Beam: Increase the beam’s width to 1 meter. |
| Dispersion: After hitting terrain or reaching maximum range, the beam explodes in a 3-meter radius dealing (2 + 0,2 * SPI) light damage. |
| Converging Rays: Increase the light damage to (10 + 0,8 * SPI). |
“Wow, there’s some very interesting stuff in here!” I exclaim.
Although all the upgrades look powerful, I immediately discard the Wide Beam and Dispersion upgrades. I’m not interested in Dispersion’s effects. And regarding Wide Beam, though it would make hitting targets a lot easier, I don’t want to make the turtles dangerous.
Well, not TOO dangerous.
Increasing the beam width to one meter would make the spell almost impossible to avoid except for pro players, and I don’t want that. I want the invaders to jump around, drop to the ground, push each other… or whatever it takes for them to avoid the beams, really.
I want them to be a pain in the ass, not unavoidable.
On the other hand, Light Absorption and Converging Rays are too good to ignore. 15 MP seems like nothing, but it adds up quickly, and the extra damage is always nice to have.
What’s more, if I pick up both upgrades at the same time, they synergize and make the Light Beam ridiculously powerful and MP efficient.
I don’t think it twice, raising the level of the template to five and giving the turtles the two upgrades.
“As for the other skills…” I scratch my head in thought. “Is there anything interesting…?”
I browse the skill upgrades and start crackling.
“Hahaha, I know I wanted them to be an artillery tank, but if I give them these two upgrades on top of the Light Beam ones, it would be so ridiculous…! I love it!”
I’m sure you’re curious which ones I’m talking about. Well, here they are:
| Reflection - Lv 2 (Triggered skill) |
| When receiving a single-target ranged attack or spell, there’s a 10% chance to reflect it back to the attacker. |
| Upgrades |
| Reflecting Arrays: Rise the chance to reflect attacks and spells to 15%. |
| Shell - Lv 2 (Innate passive skill) |
| Reduces all damage taken by (3 * level + 0,2 * CON) damage. |
| Upgrades |
| Hardened Shell: Increase the damage reduction to (4 * level + 0,3 * CON). |
No extra functionality, just an improvement over the base values. But oh my god what an improvement!
“Fufufu! Hahaha! Marta, you were complaining about how easy my dungeon was, weren’t you? Now, I want to see if you can say the same after I put these babies into my improved dungeon!”
Imagining her despairing face after receiving her own attack back, a nasty grin appears on my face. Ah, I tremble in excitement at the prospect.
What a shame it’s not going to happen. At least not anytime soon.
But it isn’t the same for the usual invaders, they’re going to find them soon. Very soon. I wonder how they’ll react…
“This makes the turtles level seven, the maximum level I can get for now. They’re the only ones with the highest level right now, the same as my champion!”
As for the AI, I only want to make sure they stay as far away from each other as possible, to prevent two of them being at the same place. In fact, I can set it directly on the Zone options, so I don’t need to change the AI at all.
By default, their AI, when out of combat, makes them randomly walk around or stand still for a while before moving again, and this is good enough.
There’s only one thing remaining: to give them a name.
“An artillery tank monster, a turtle with a mushroom… Hmm…” I turn my head around in thought. “Turtlenator…? Nah, too lame. Termishroom… even worse. This is hard… Beaminator…? Ugh, I disgust myself with the last one. I somebody wants to kill me, I’ll accept it, I deserve it.”
I think for a while without coming up with a good name. Some of the worst ones I come up with are Shelly, Portable Turret, and, for some stupid reason, Bob.
As any normal human would expect, I hammered my head on the nearest wall as a punishment for coming up with the latter.
“Aaaah, I don’t know… maybe I should keep it simple. Why not call them Beam Turtle? It’s short, easy to remember, clearly represents what they are… and, most importantly, it doesn’t give me the creeps when I say it. Yes, let’s go with Beam Turtle.”
I write the name in the Template’s section and save it. The next step is to start the creation process.
“If I use all the bodies I have I can create six of them. I know this area is huge, but given their long range, this should be enough. Too many of them would overwhelm any noobish player.”
For now, I’ve decided to create the six I can. If, later on, I find the need for more, I’ll have to add more ‘ingredients’ to the ‘shopping list’.
The total cost is… 310 cp for each one, 20 from the Basic Chimera, 120 from the Myconid, and 170 from the Giant Turtle. This times six, 1.860 cp. Not too bad.
The Lab Assistants are going to be busy for a while…
Oh, yeah, before I forget. These are the Beam Turtle’s final status and skills.
| Beam Turtle (Lv 7) | |||||
| HP | 512 (320) | STA | 35 (22) | SOU | 33 (21) |
| EP | 400 (250) | MP | 368 (230) | ||
| STR | 41 (26) | CON | 64 (40) | AGI | 17 (11) |
| SPI | 41 (26) | WIL | 49 (31) | DEX | 11 (7) |
| SPD | 3 | INT | 4 | COM | 1 |
| Skills | |||||
| Active: Light Beam - Lv 3 (Light Absorption, Converging Rays), Paralyzing Spores (Innate). Triggered: Reflection - Lv 2 (Reflecting Arrays). Passive: Sniper, Eternal Pain (Innate), Shell - Lv 2 (Hardened Shell) (Innate). |
I’m sure you already know about the Myconids, so I’m not going to comment on that part.
Regarding the Giant Turtles, as you would expect, they have average stats but they excel in defense. In particular, they have an extremely high Constitution. The worst part about them is their speed, but it doesn’t matter since Chimeras and all other ‘mixed’ units always use the speed of the fastest creature.
I say slow, but they’re still faster than the Stitched, at 2 Speed. Though the Myconids aren’t the fastest either, with a Speed of 3.
Fucking Stitched! You’re slower than a turtle, and I mean it literally!
“The Beam Turtles’ attacks are easy to evade? You fool! Don’t dare say such blasphemy! Sure, one turtle is doable if you know how. Two? Not so much. Three? WISH one of them is close to death or you’re in DEEP trouble.
God forgive you if you ever have to avoid the crossfire of four or more at the same time… if you do, RUN AWAY as if your life depended on it, BECAUSE. IT. DOES! Tread with care because this is an open area, so it’s bound to happen sooner or later!”
- Extract from the Chapter ‘Unexpected Dangers’ from ‘How to Stay Sane in The Mad Rat’s Lab’.
