If you’ve been grinding the current Dr. Scramble event and keep hearing other players mention a hidden NPC called Nibbles, you’re not imagining things — there’s a genuine secret quest tucked inside the Abyss Ocean biome, and it’s separate from the drone-farming loop most players are focused on. Finding Escaped Experiment #013 and finishing his Stolen Experiment Vault quest is the only confirmed way to unlock the limited Scrambler Bat, and the whole thing can be done in under fifteen minutes once you know exactly where to look and which parts come from where.
This guide covers the cave location, both Lost Parts you can grab without fighting anything, the three Drone Parts tied to the invasion timer, and what to do if your progress counter refuses to move.
Where to Find Nibbles (Escaped Experiment #013)
Nibbles hides inside a cave built into the Abyss Ocean biome, and it’s easy to run right past it the first time because the entrance doesn’t look like a door — it’s a dark gap along the left-hand wall that blends into the rest of the rock texture. Once you’re standing near it, hold your interact key and you’ll slip inside to a small hidden room with a busted machine and a character who looks almost identical to the standard Nibbles pet, aside from the frantic dialogue.
Talking to him for the first time is what actually starts the quest. Skip this step and go straight to farming drones, and there’s a real chance the parts you collect won’t register at all — his dialogue is the trigger, not just flavor text.
The Two Lost Parts You Can Grab Without a Fight
Two of the five pieces are scattered in the open world rather than dropped by enemies, which makes them the fastest points to knock out first:
| Part | Location | How to Get It |
| Lost Part #1 | Volcano biome | Search around the volcano’s base — it’s a pickup, not a fight |
| Lost Part #2 | Prehistoric biome | Tucked behind the bush next to the T-Rex |
Neither of these is timed to the invasion event, so you can collect both at any point after you’ve spoken to Nibbles, even on a quiet server with no drones active.
Farming the Three Drone Parts During the Invasion
The remaining three pieces only come from Dr. Scramble’s drones, and those only spawn during the timed invasion. A countdown in the bottom-left corner tracks the wait, and roughly every 30 minutes the drones flood in across Abyss Ocean and the biomes beyond it. Equip a Bat — the standard one works fine, though the event-themed weapons hit just as hard — and start swinging. Each drone has a small HP pool, so a handful of solid hits is usually enough to drop it.
Defeated drones drop two things: a chance at one of the three Drone Parts for the vault, and Samples, the event’s separate currency you can spend in the Experiment Shop on unrelated cosmetic and pet rewards. The drop rate on the actual vault parts hasn’t been published anywhere official, so the honest answer is that it’s inconsistent — some invasions hand you a part on the first drone, others leave you empty-handed after clearing a whole wave. Showing up for multiple invasion cycles in a row is the most reliable way to close the gap.
How Often Does the Dr. Scramble Invasion Actually Trigger?
It runs on a fixed 30-minute cycle, with the invasion itself lasting only a few minutes once it starts. If you miss the window, the fastest move is to keep playing normally and check the countdown timer periodically rather than standing around waiting — the parts you’d farm from a single invasion rarely justify sitting idle for the full gap between cycles.
Turning In the Vault and Claiming the Scrambler Bat
Once your tracker shows all five parts collected — two Lost Parts and three Drone Parts — head straight back to the cave in Abyss Ocean and talk to Nibbles again. The vault interface should confirm both counters are full; select the claim prompt, and the Scrambler Bat drops straight into your inventory. It’s confirmed as an event-exclusive reward, so once the Dr. Scramble content eventually rotates out, this vault questline is expected to be the only route to it.
Before you leave the cave, it’s worth aiming your camera up toward the ceiling near where you talked to Nibbles. There’s a wall vent that leads into a small hidden workshop, styled after Brockdoile, which hints that Nibbles wasn’t the only outside visitor to Dr. Scramble’s lab. It doesn’t affect the quest itself, but it’s a nice bit of extra lore if you’re the type who reads into these secret setups.
Nibbles the NPC vs. the Nibbles #013 Egg — Don’t Mix These Up
This trips up a lot of players scrolling through the Experiment Shop: the Nibbles #013 Egg, a Cosmic-rarity item purchasable with Samples, is a completely separate reward from the Escaped Experiment NPC hiding in the cave. Buying the egg unlocks a Cosmic Nibbles #013 pet for your collection and has nothing to do with the vault quest’s progress or its parts — you can own one, both, or neither independently of the other.
If Your Drone Parts Aren’t Counting
A few things to check, in order, if your vault counter seems stuck:
- Confirm you actually talked to Nibbles and accepted the quest first. Parts picked up before that conversation don’t retroactively count.
- Make sure you’re fighting drones during an active invasion, not leftover drones lingering after a wave technically ended — those stop dropping quest items once the timer runs out.
- Check you haven’t already maxed out one part type. The counter tracks Lost Parts (2/2) and Drone Parts (3/3) separately, so extra drone kills past 3/3 won’t push your total past five.
- Try a different server if nothing changes after a full invasion cycle. It’s rare, but a desync between your client and the server’s quest state can happen, and a rejoin usually clears it.
Is This Tied to a Bigger Update 5 Story?
Yes, and it’s worth knowing before you rush through it. Nibbles’ escape, the vault, and the hidden Brockdoile workshop all connect into the wider Dr. Scramble storyline that’s been unfolding across this update. A follow-up event, teased as Dr. Scramble’s Revenge, is scheduled to shift the target from Sammy over to Ben, which suggests the escaped-experiment thread isn’t finished with this one quest. None of that has been detailed beyond the tease, so treat any specifics about its rewards as unconfirmed until the developers post something official.
Should You Rush This Before the Event Ends?
The current Dr. Scramble window is expected to wrap up around the end of this month, based on the event’s listed duration, with the follow-up event picking up shortly after. That timeline can shift if the developers extend or adjust it, so don’t treat it as locked in stone — but if you haven’t finished the vault yet, there’s no real upside to waiting. The Volcano and Prehistoric parts take a couple of minutes each, and even a single active drone invasion is usually enough to close out the rest if you’re already at the cave when the countdown hits zero.