“Okay, that’s the plan. Everyone got it?”

“That’s not a plan, Thadan,” Mira said. “That’s a prayer with extra steps.”

“Makes perfect sense to me!” Pockets bounced on her heels. “Get in, do the thing, don’t die. Classic Thadan strategy.”

“I knew I should have left yesterday.” Mira checked her quiver. “I’ve got six arrows left. Six. I wasn’t exactly gearing up to die in a basement today.”

Brakar watched the exchange with a familiar mix of resignation and amusement. The four of them stood in what would eventually become their shop’s main room, surrounded by the evidence of their cleaning efforts. The wooden floor had, at least, been scrubbed to a respectable shine. Even the walls seemed brighter, though no amount of cleaning could completely erase decades of neglect.

Their furniture-shaped allies had arranged themselves strategically around the room’s perimeter. The bookshelf-mimic had positioned itself near the front window, its surfaces gleaming with an almost smug polish. The cabinet-mimic lurked in a corner, occasionally shifting its drawers in anticipation. And Brakar’s chair-mimic... well, it had insisted on following him around like an oversized, furniture-shaped puppy.

“Look,” Thadan said, pacing the length of the counter for the third time, “it’s simple. We keep it distracted while Brakar does his magic thing. No killing, no permanent damage—just buy him enough time to work.”

Mira raised an eyebrow. “And how exactly do we distract something that’s apparently powerful enough to make other mimics nervous?”

“The usual way?” Thadan suggested. “You know—dodge, weave, make witty remarks about its mother?”

“Do mimics even have mothers?” Pockets asked, already pulling various mechanical devices from her many pockets. “I mean, how do they reproduce? Is it like budding? Or do they split in half like cells? Or maybe they’re more like fungi, with spores and mycelial networks—”

“Focus,” Mira interrupted. “We’re discussing how not to die, remember?”

Brakar cleared his throat. “Actually, mimic reproduction is quite fascinating. They—”

“Later,” Thadan said firmly. “Right now, we need to concentrate on the task at hand. Mira, you’ll take high ground—there’s a decent vantage point on those old storage shelves. Pockets, set up whatever traps you think might slow it down, but remember—we’re not trying to kill it.”

“Non-lethal traps, got it!” Pockets pulled out what appeared to be a tangle of gears and springs. “I’ve been working on this new net launcher design. The weighted edges create a rotational momentum that—”

“Perfect,” Thadan cut in before she could launch into a full technical explanation. “Brak, you’ll need...?”

“Space,” Brakar said. “And time. This isn’t like communicating with our other friends.” He gestured at the friendly mimics. “Whatever’s down there—it’s old. Powerful. The magic will be more complicated.”

“Right then!” Thadan clapped his hands together. “Simple plan: get in, keep the big scary thing busy, don’t die while Brakar works his magic. Any questions?”

“Several,” Mira muttered. “Starting with why I let you talk me into this.”

“Because you missed us?” Pockets suggested brightly.

“Because you’re curious about what a walking weapon rack looks like?” Thadan offered.

“Because you have a death wish?” Brakar added helpfully.

Mira sighed. “All of the above, probably.” She tested her bowstring one last time. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

They gathered their equipment with the practiced efficiency of longtime adventurers. Mira checked her arrows again, mentally calculating angles and trajectories. Pockets continued pulling an improbable number of devices from her various pockets, muttering calculations under her breath. Thadan bounced on the balls of his feet, radiating his usual pre-adventure energy.

And Brakar... Brakar tried to ignore the growing sense of unease in his stomach. The friendly mimics had been very clear about the danger below. Whatever waited for them down there, it wasn’t going to be as simple as their previous encounters.

The cellar door stood before them like a challenge, its weathered wood bearing the scars of previous attempts to breach it. Deep gouges marked the frame, as if something with immense strength had tried to force its way out. The air around it felt wrong somehow—stale and ancient, carrying hints of metal and old blood.

“Ready?” Thadan asked, hand on the door handle.

“No,” Mira replied honestly.

“Perfect! That means we’re right on schedule.”

The door opened with a groan that seemed to echo through the entire building. Stale air wafted up from below, carrying that wrongness Brakar had sensed earlier. The stairs disappeared into darkness, wooden steps vanishing into shadow despite the morning light above.

“Ladies first?” Thadan suggested.

“Age before beauty,” Mira countered.

“Technically,” Pockets interjected, “if we factor in relative species lifespans and cultural age metrics—”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’ll go,” Brakar said, mostly to prevent another of Pockets’ impromptu lectures on comparative anthropology.

The stairs creaked under his weight, each step seeming to protest his presence. The darkness thickened as he descended, swallowing the light from above until only the faintest glimmer remained. Behind him, he could hear the others following—Thadan’s confident stride, Mira’s careful steps, Pockets’ excited shuffling.

The cellar proper revealed itself gradually as their eyes adjusted to the gloom. Stone walls rose around them, their surfaces slick with centuries of dampness. Ancient support beams crossed the ceiling like the ribs of some massive creature, their wood darkened by time and moisture. The floor was packed earth, worn smooth by countless feet.

And in the center of it all...

“Oh,” Pockets breathed. “That’s new.”

The creature that faced them defied easy description. It stood nearly seven feet tall, its body a twisted amalgamation of weapon rack and humanoid form. Arms of polished wood and metal extended from its torso, each ending in hands that gripped weapons with unsettling precision. A spear in one hand, a dagger in the other, while its body-rack displayed an impressive array of additional armaments—sword, axe, mace, each gleaming with malevolent purpose.

“That,” Mira said slowly, “is not a normal mimic.”

“You think?” Thadan’s sarcasm bounced uselessly off the weight of the thing’s presence.

The creature’s surface shuddered like disturbed water as it adjusted its stance. No eyes were visible, but Brakar could feel its attention fix on them with predatory focus. The weapons in its grip shifted slightly, metal catching what little light reached the cellar’s depths.

“Positions,” Thadan ordered, his voice dropping into the command tone they all remembered from their adventuring days. “Mira, up top. Pockets, work your magic. Brakar...”

“I know.” Brakar was already reaching for his magic, feeling the familiar way it twisted and warped in his grasp. “Just keep it busy.”

Mira moved with feline grace, scaling the weathered shelves until she had a clear view of the battlefield. Pockets darted to one side, hands already blurring as she assembled something complicated from her seemingly endless supply of parts. Thadan stepped forward, drawing the creature’s attention with his most irritating grin.

“So!” he called out cheerfully. “Come here often?”

The mimic’s response was immediate and violent. Its spear arm extended in an impossible manner, the weapon lashing out like a striking snake. Thadan barely managed to dodge, the spear’s tip passing close enough to trim a few hairs from his head.

“I’ll take that as a yes!” He danced backward, drawing the creature’s focus. “Nice place you’ve got here. Love what you’ve done with the... everything.”

Another strike, this time with the dagger. Thadan weaved between the attacks, his movements fluid but clearly strained. The creature was faster than it should have been, its weapons moving with unnatural precision.

Mira’s first arrow struck the mimic’s shoulder, the impact sending waves across its flesh like a pond touched by rain. But instead of penetrating, the arrow simply stuck there, gradually sinking into the creature’s substance as if being absorbed.

“Well,” she muttered, “that’s not ideal.”

Pockets’ first device activated with a whir of gears, launching a net of fine metal mesh toward the mimic’s legs. The creature didn’t even try to dodge—instead, its lower half simply flowed around the net, reforming undamaged.

“Fascinating!” Pockets exclaimed, already assembling another contraption. “The surface tension properties alone must be—”

“Less science, more helping!” Thadan called, narrowly avoiding a swing that would have taken his head off.

Brakar closed his eyes, focusing on the magic building within him. The usual awkwardness was there—that slight misalignment between intent and execution that had plagued him throughout his magical studies. But where other mages saw weakness, he had found strength. The “accent” in his spellcasting might make traditional magic difficult, but it let him speak to creatures like this in ways few others could.

He began the incantation, letting the words twist and flow in that peculiar way that matched mimic-thought. The air around him began to thicken with power, heavy with potential.

The creature paused in its assault, its surface rippling with possible recognition. Or maybe it was just hunger.

“Is it working?” Thadan asked, using the moment’s respite to put more distance between himself and those weapons.

“Maybe,” Brakar replied, maintaining his focus. “It’s... listening? I think?”

The mimic’s response was to pull the sword from its rack-body, adding it to its already impressive array of wielded weapons. Its surface flowed like quicksilver, redistributing its mass to better accommodate the new configuration.

“That doesn’t look like listening!” Mira loosed another arrow, this one aimed at the creature’s weapon-holding appendages. Like the first, it simply sank into the mimic’s substance without apparent effect.

“Different dialect, maybe?” Pockets suggested, launching another device that sparked with electrical energy. “Try speaking slower?”

The creature batted the device aside with its spear, then launched a coordinated attack that forced them all to scramble for cover. The sword swept low while the spear stabbed high, the dagger weaving between them in patterns that seemed to defy physics.

“Less talking, more not dying!” Thadan rolled behind a support pillar, which promptly acquired several new gouges from the mimic’s weapons.

Mira’s eyes narrowed as she tracked the creature’s movements. “Something’s changing in its patterns. Getting more... deliberate.”

The mimic’s weapons moved with newfound efficiency, each strike flowing into the next with predatory grace. Where before its attacks had been wild and aggressive, now they showed an unsettling precision.

“It’s reading our footwork,” Thadan called out, barely avoiding a thrust that would have skewered him. “Every dodge, every counter—it’s learning how we move.” His next evasion brought him directly into the path of the sword, forcing him to throw himself awkwardly sideways.

A wave coursed across the creature’s form, its substance redistributing with liquid grace. The spear arm stretched, then retracted just as quickly, forcing Mira to abandon her shooting position.

“The way it shifts its mass...” Pockets observed, frantically assembling another device. “Each time we evade, it adjusts its reach, its striking speed—”

The mimic punctuated his observation by demonstrating exactly that—its dagger arm condensing and thickening, trading reach for raw striking power. The blow shattered the pillar Pockets had been using as cover.

“Pockets, do something useful or shut up!” Thadan shouted, noticing how the creature had begun to anticipate their preferred escape routes. Each retreat was met with a precisely aimed strike, forcing them to stay within its reach.

Brakar strengthened his spell, pushing more power into the twisted syllables even as he watched the mimic’s tactics evolve. Its weapons had stopped moving independently—now they worked in concert, the spear herding them toward the sword’s arc, the dagger intercepting any attempt to slip past its defenses. The air grew heavier with each word, magic crackling with potential. The friendly mimics upstairs had responded to this same technique—surely this one would too?

The creature paused, visibly vibrating with increased agitation. For a moment, Brakar thought he felt something resist his magic—an essence deep and primal, layered with lifetimes of insatiable craving.

Then the mimic pulled the axe from its rack, and things got considerably more complicated.