"Ummm...." I touched my head to feel a small mushroom on top of it. I took a deep breath and tried to pull on it. "Ouch!"
"Faith! We all got mushrooms growing on our heads!" Sei yelled out. She seemed to be panicking.
"Relax. I will cast appraisal on us." I turned and looked at everyone. Each one of us had an identical mushroom growing out of our heads. "Appraisal...."
"A mimic mushroom?" I looked at the status effect on us and was a bit confused. I did not understand what it meant by mimic mushroom. There was no explanation....
"Ummm.... Should we try to attack the mushroom?" Sally asked, she seemed confused as to what to do.
"I am not sure...." Thinking for a moment, I decided to have Adel attack since she was the one with the lowest attack power. So if she used a sword to attack, it would not do much damage. My only issue was the mimic part which was why I was being so cautious. "Adel you will come with me. I want you to poke the boss with a sword. Do not attack but just poke it."
"Okay?" Adel gave me a confused look but it was still hard for me to explain since I was not one hundred percent sure this was correct or not.
We both walked towards the mushroom. I had my sword drawn just in case, but even when we stood right in front of the boss it did not move. "Okay, poke it gently."
"Like this?" Adel poked the mushroom with the sword I handed her, and as soon as it touched the mushroom, the mushroom wigged, and Adel let out a pained cry. "Ouch!"
"I figured this would happen...." I said as I rubbed my chin.
"If you knew this would happen, why did you ask me to poke it!?" Adel gave me an aggrieved expression. I gave a cheeky smile as I kissed her lips. "I choose you because you have the least amount of attack power. If I did that I would end up with most of my health gone. The same goes for the others."
"No fair!" Adel pouted. She explained that she felt pain throughout her entire body. It was as if she was struck by electricity. She even lost two points of health as well. But this allowed me to understand one thing. This first floor boss was no joke. The mushrooms on our heads acted as a transmitter. It transmitted the damage from the big guy to the little guys, which meant these little mushrooms were basically a parasitic type of mushroom that would then transfer that damage to the user.
"No one is to attack...." I said as I gazed at the stupid mushrooms on our heads. A thought came to mind, but I was not sure if it would work or not. Since the big mushroom was connected to these little mushrooms, would the big mushroom take damage if the little ones took damage?
"Don't be alarmed if I suddenly cry out in pain. I am testing something." I warned before taking my sword and stabbing it at the mushroom on my head. And sure enough, my guess was completely and utterly..... Wrong! "Ouch! Heal! Heal!"
My poor health! Even my heals were doing nothing! These damn little mushrooms are like the root of all evil! "Faith! What happened!?"
"Do not attack the little mushrooms, and do not get hurt. We need to figure out how to deal with this. I just took off five hundred health by attacking the mushroom on my head, and all my heals seemed to be transferred to the boss!" I cried out. There was no visible injury, but the shock you get from harming the little mushroom was intense!
"What should we do then? We can't just sit here doing nothing...." Sei seemed to be very worried about our situation.
"I am not sure we will just need to figure things out. For the time being, let's try to see if we can find anything unusual in the room. If you do, yell out." The girls nodded, and we all began searching the room. What we were looking for, I had no idea, but we had to look around for some kind of means to beat the boss.
As of now, we only knew two things. The boss would send a physical attack back at its user. The mimic mushroom on our heads would do the same. My heals seemed to be ineffective when trying to heal myself. But we had yet to use magic on the boss. I was a bit afraid to do so and would only do so if we could not find anything to deal with our current situation.
We looked around our room all over the place and could not really find anything worth mentioning. There were glow mushrooms, but even if you stepped on them, they did nothing. I know this because I tried, just in case. I kicked all the rocks, and seven stabbed the walls of the room, but nothing seemed to have any effect.
"There has to be something!" I looked around and only saw the boss mushroom silently sitting there doing absolutely nothing amusing.
If we could just figure out how this boss works, everything would be fine. But I am afraid if we do something wrong, one of us might die. If this happens, I would not be able to live with myself knowing I caused a friend's or lover's death. But then again, this could be the meaning behind it. What if the pain we are feeling is a means to defeating the boss? I know it sounds crazy, and it could be that this boss needs one of us to die to move on, which I can not allow. It makes me wonder if I can jump out of the dungeon and then bring back a monster or something to test this theory.... I guess I will leave this thought to be a last case scenario....
