As it would turn out, mimics in this world weren't much different from the ones of myth. Their base form very much so resembled the sort of treasure chest one would expect to find in a fantasy world's dungeons. Having them sitting around in clusters of three in an otherwise large, empty room wasn't exactly inconspicuous. The haunted mansion theme wasn't doing them any favors either.
The walls and floors looked fancy... sort of. The walls were covered in a layer of wallpaper with wood paneling at the bottom. However, it was cracked and peeling in places with cobwebs and dust throughout the room. Meanwhile, the floors were hardwood with some of the floorboards being so old and rotten that they now creaked when walked upon. The place certainly suggested the theme of the floor well enough, even if it still wasn't exactly 'haunted'. However, it wasn't exactly a treasure vault or a sunken ship where one might expect to find a large treasure chest just sitting around.
Veronica would have to put in some work to make the mimics blend in better. Fortunately, the price to research evolutions for [Monsters] was always a flat cost of 250 DP. It would have been painful if the cost had increased as she unlocked new floors. In the end, she decided to go with four different options for her mimics.
Name:
Evolution Cost:
Info:
Barstool Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and a barstool for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new barstool without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
Armchair Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and an armchair for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new armchair without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
Sofa Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and a sofa for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new sofa without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
Bed Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and a bed for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new bed without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
Now that was an interesting development! When it came to goblins, they couldn't change size, but they were stuck with their class once she evolved them to have one. Meanwhile, her gargoyles could be evolved into a specialty type and then could further be evolved into a larger size, unless the evolution type didn't have that option, like with her winged monstrosities. However, it would seem the mimics were able to infinitely evolve, but the evolution itself would only ever change its form and wouldn't help it be better at combat. Well, that wasn't necessarily true. She had only tried to make a few types, she'd have to experiment more before she'd know for sure.
For the rooms themselves, she just reused the same furniture she had researched for the lower floors. The first six [Monster] fields were made to alternate between first and second floor decorations with both bedrooms and sitting areas. In order to keep the adventurers on their toes, she made sure to mix up which forms the mimics took in each room. The next six [Monster] field rooms were made to look like pool rooms with bars, gyms, and sitting areas with furniture from the third and fourth floors. It wasn't like mansions were all bedrooms, after all, but it also wasn't like she had the luxury to add a ton of variation either. There wasn't modern technology in this world to make more specialty rooms, the rooms were too large to make them something like a bathroom, and anything better would require her to do further research.
The last ten rooms were a mix of more bedrooms, dining rooms, and kitchens with furniture from the fourth and fifth floors. Since she hadn't unlocked the sixth floor yet, there weren't really a ton of options for where to borrow the themed furniture from. Still, she was fairly certain that this would offer a good mix of different themes for the adventurers to enjoy. Of course, even if they wanted to complain, she was more likely to kill them to care about what they had to say. She was just that tired of people making demands of her and not caring what she thought. Bo and the last group of adventurers she had met had taken enough from her for her to no longer feel generous in that aspect.
As she had plans to include a kitchen among her challenge rooms, the kitchen mimics were things besides sitting furniture. The second challenge for the floor was called 'haunted kitchen' and involved the adventurers having to create a random dish from her restaurant's menu and then consume it. It was unlikely they'd know how to do so, which was already a bonus in her eyes, but that was hardly the most difficult part. First, she added disguised mimics.
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Name:
Evolution Cost:
Info:
Shelf Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and a shelf for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new shelf without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
Icebox Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and an icebox for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new icebox without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
Wood Stove Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and a wood stove for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new wood stove without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
Then, Veronica researched some mislabeled poisons to add to the shelves stocked with ingredients. While she didn't have things like poisonous mushrooms or specialty poisons brewed by an alchemist, that didn't mean she couldn't get creative. Mislabeled shakers full of powdered daffodil, crested iris, tomato leaves, elderberry root, and peace lily leaves ran her 100 DP each. It was a steep price, but the dungeon was likely compensating for the fact that it wasn't labeled a [Trap], yet it could easily pose a danger to her enemies.
It cost her 150 DP to evolve each mimic, so the prices were quickly adding up between the challenge rooms and [Monster] fields. However, it simply couldn't be avoided, so Veronica just shrugged it off and kept powering through day after day. The floor would take months to complete, but only her mana would increase since there were no non-dungeon entities to visit the dungeon. Still, avoiding spending what she had saved up previously wasn't helpful.
The first challenge room for the floor was actually not the kitchen, but a mirror maze. She had previously researched wall mirrors, so it didn't even require any research to put together. Just stack two mirrors on top of each other to cover the entire wall and fill every wall in sight with mirrors. Without the carnival-style mirrors, the effect wouldn't be quite as disorienting, but it would still work well enough to confuse adventurers.
Where the haunted kitchen has a reward of a five-piece stainless steel cookware set, the mirror maze had a folding brush with mirror. During her childhood, the pocket brushes were quite popular. This one was made from boar hair bristles rather than the plastic from modern-day ones, but it was still just as effective. Besides, it seemed funny to offer something with a mirror to adventurers after making them spend so long lost and confused, trapped in a maze of mirrors. As for the cookware set, she already had it researched for her tavern's kitchens, so it was an easy way to save a bit of DP.
The last challenge room was called 'deceptive pairs' and was, essentially, a giant game of memory. It cost 200 DP to research the giant memory match game and then another 250 DP to research card mimics.
Name:
Evolution Cost:
Info:
Card Mimic
150 DP
Requires a mimic and a card for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does moderate combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Can take the shape of a new card without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
As it turns out, the mimics could become as large or as small as necessary to replicate the original object they were mimicking perfectly. Taking inspiration from the mirror maze's reward, she researched a set of playing cards for the reward. After setting the challenge rewards and locking all of the doors, she was left with 293,900 DP. Now all she needed to do was make a boss room and she'd be able to focus on the tavern menu. Those were always an exhausting affair to get sorted, but she already had the menu planned out since she had plenty of downtime where she was waiting for her mana to regenerate.
With the fifth floor, she had unlocked brimstone floor [Traps] as a freebie. They were the perfect addition to a sitting room themed boss room. They were rectangular in shape, just like rugs, so she lined the walls with sofas and plants before adding a square of brimstone floor [Traps] in the center of the room. Finally, she just needed the boss to be sorted out.
Name:
Evolution Cost:
Info:
Fireplace Mimic
300 DP
Requires a mimic and a fireplace for it to take the shape of. The object in question will be consumed as part of the evolution process. Does above average combat damage, but lacks intelligence. Due to its form including fire, it can use fire magic as part of its attacks. Can take the shape of a new fireplace without further dungeon point expenditure, but requires a separate evolution to evolve into anything else.
She had to also spend 150 DP to research a giant version of a stone brick fireplace. Since the mimic was just taking the form of the object, she needed a large enough base version for it to steal the form of. There was no way the mimic would be camouflaged in the room, but it wasn't really necessary in this instance. A boss was meant to pose a threat, not to kill people with cheap shots.
It was surprising to find out that more powerful mimics were actually possible, but it was even more interesting to see the evolution cost doubled rather than an additional mana cost added. In some ways it was very consistent with the way the other mimics had functioned, but it was simultaneously very different from how every other [Monster] evolution worked. Still, even if she needed to conserve her dungeon points as much as possible, it was still worth it to get a suitably powerful boss [Monster].