Chapter 5: The Cat Tricks the Rats

Mimics!

The bane of adventurers, and pretty much anyone that can’t spot a mimic, which is most people. Now as the name suggests mimics engage in mimicry that is to say they don’t actually shape-shift or transform, but instead their bodies are formed such that they can pretend to appear as the inoffensive thing. For example, the iconic mimic, the chest mimic pretends to be a chest, but in reality inside the chest is a gaping maw, and limbs are usually hidden on the bottom and sometimes on the sides.

Now, mimics vary in awareness and will, in particular the most common variance is brought on by the Law of Willed Blood . A being that consumes beings with greater will can itself end up gaining that will. Due to the nature of this method, it is common for the willed being to be chlanic and thus quickly lose its newfound greater will. Some mimics however naturally have greater will, having full voice with which to speak.

Most however are on the level of animals, lesser in voice and will. Of these types, trained mimics are valued as brutal sentinels, consuming would-be tresspassers. The majority of mimics are native to Awarth and the Urlbris, the worldmaze of the oncedead.

The chained coffin shaped like a strange creature, the most obvious of the mimics stood up. Its belly, the lid of the coffin split down the middle revealing where its massive maw was as it called out indignantly.

“Hey take that back! All of us are brilliant mimics!” claimed Chains.

Olice eyed the mimics, the one that the ribbon was going inside was the metal one with a lovely sheen. That was the one she needed to be swallowed by. Olice you see had read about mimics, she knew that these mimics were the sort that held a space larger than themselves inside of their bodies. In that space their victims or food slowly wastes away feeding the mimic over a long period of time.

She was a bit worried about going inside a mimic, but was sure that Gander was more powerful than these mimics. She could sense their patterns and heartflames, it was a bit difficult as they pretended to be something else, but clearly studying under the Witch of Dimensions had done wonders for Olice’s magical perception. By what she sensed, she knew that Gander could handily deal with them.

“Us?” questioned Oily. “Nobody here but two coffins and one mimic”

The metal one unfolded, looking vaguely like a pitch black pudgy man with plated back and no head. Instead of a head, it had a large fanged mouth on its body and several eyes dotted about its body.

Olice found it quite distasteful. Having been around Gander for as long as she had however, she wasn’t that bothered by vaguely creepy creatures.

“You boneheads! You’ve ruined it all!” Shrieker shrieked.

“See, you are really quite terrible mimics!” Olice repeated.

“Nobody here but a coffin and two mimics” Oily said.

“Oh knock it off!” Chains said, kicking Oily.

Oily sullenly unfolded herself revealing a vague drippy tar-like form of a headless woman. Oily’s mouth was like a sash along her body and the lid of her coffin trailed along behind her like a tail, while the rest was like spines on her back. As with Shrieker, her body had eyes of varying sizes all along it.

“It might have worked” Oily muttered.

“This one is pretty small!” Shrieker shrieked unhappily.

“Quite a bit of power to it though!” Chains mentioned.

“Well since she didn’t open one of us, shall we divide her in three?” Oily asked.

Olice didn’t like that idea at all.

“Oh that’d be far too little each of you would get then” She claimed.

“She is right” Chains said.

“Well, if we aren’t dividing her, who should get her?” Oily asked.

Olice knew this was her chance to get swallowed by the shrieking one. She just had to play this right.

“Do you know the story of the three rats and the sausage?” She asked.

The three mimics stared at her.

“No, do tell” Shrieker shrieked.

Olice paused trying to think of how she’d get the right mimic to swallow her.

“There was three rats that one day found a little sausage far too small for them to split between themselves…”

Olice paused again. She actually had no idea where she was going to go with the story. She got the feeling it was a stupid plan.

“Uh… a cat came along and ate the sausage. The rats swore revenge against the cats. They took up little spears made from splinters and went hunting the cat, they found the cat lapping up water and attacked surprising it, they killed the cat and there was so much of it they were fed for days!” Olice finished.

There was a faint sniggering from her shadow, Olice was a bit flustered, that wasn’t at all helpful.

“Oh right I get it” Oily said.

“Really?” Chains questioned.

“No, not at all” Oily confirmed.

“What is a sausage anyway?” Shrieker shrieked.

It was in that moment that Olice realised that while she was learning all kinds of magical knowledge she had no idea how sausages were made. She just knew that they had meat in them.

“Its a kind of… meat tube?” Olice offered.

“Enough about meat tubes!” Oily protested. “What are we doing, who gets to eat her?”

“I’m not sure about this” Chains said “I mean she has such a strong heartflame, and why is there a child here anyway?”

“Probably isn’t a child, it feels like a powerful beast doesn’t it?” Shrieker said.

“Maybe we could pretend to be coffins and it’d go away” Oily wondered.

Shrieker and Chains gave disapproving stares at Oily.

Olice saw this as her chance.

“Gander come out and back me up on this” she muttered.

The coffin mimics were startled when Gander burst from Olice’s shadow and loomed above her, drooling shadow over her.

“Hahahaha!” Shouted Olice dramatically posing with he legs wide and her hands on her hips.

“I am powerful and terrible! Fear me!”

The coffin mimics huddled together, looking quite worried.

“I wish to enter the fat one!” She said, pointing at Shrieker.

“AW NO! I don’t know what’d do to me” Shrieker wailed.

Oily and Chains however just grabbed hold of his arms keeping him in place, then they forcefully pulled his mouth open.

“Sorry, but it’ll leave us alone if it goes for you” Oily apologised.

“If it makes you feel any better we’ll avoid eating your body after you die” Chains said.

Olice wasn’t taking any chances for them to change their minds.

She jumped right into Shrieker and vanished.

Chains and Oily quickly backed away from him… but after a while, there was still nothing happening.

“I think I’m not talking to you guys ever again” Shrieker shrieked.