A godly quest! Again! How lucky! Mimi thought with a grin as she peered into an inconspicuous entrance which, apparently, led to where this spooky and terrible dragon called its home.
The clinks and clatters of metal on stone signified the arrival of her soon to be friend, Emthraxiatus Mertalicus Sepheroxus, or Em for short. With Aura Sense, she saw her coming well before the sounds reached her, but it was nice to pretend sometimes.
“I can’t fit through there.” The Arachni bluntly stated, wary of her but trusting nonetheless.
“You can’t fit through there for now.” Mimi corrected, flashing a grin back to the towering monster of metal.
After finally climbing up the lip of the small plateau, Neia and Ruven followed up the rear. Mimi clapped, gathering the attention she already had. “We shall now delve into the den of dragons in a daring rescue mission! This is your last chance to walk away! Speak now or forever hold your peace!”
All three looked at her, quite un-enthusiastically if she was being honest. A little hurtful, but she’d been through worse. “Then! Let us be off! I shall lead the way!”
With a quick morph into a Delenzer, a monster known for eating and melting through stone like it was water, Mimi surged forward with her new armored wormlike body into the narrow entrance, creating a massive tunnel as she cleared the way with no stealth whatsoever. The grinding and rumbling of stone would alert any who dared stray and block her path.
Delenzers were blind, but so was she in her natural form. It was great that Aura Sense was better than eyeballs any day of the week. She could see past the walls and through them, the tiny nearly imperceptible air pockets and all! Even the form of the two humans who were quickly appro—Oh, they’re gone. Correction, she could sense the blood trails they were leaving behind as they were just run over!
A little past where they were pulverized, the rough cavernous tunnel opened up into a wide lobby. It was smoothly carved, with eerily smooth blocks making up the flooring. It was currently filled with chairs, tapestries, and a handful of people who were staring at her with wide and frightened eyes.
You’ve been the target of a failed Identify attempt!
You’ve been the target of a failed Identify attempt!
You’ve been the t----
Annoying!
A sickly green orb of flame was being summoned by one of the red-robed people, aimed at her. Shocker! As it slowly sailed through the air, Mimi morphed back into that nice Dark Elven lady Nilthallia, shrinking to a size much smaller than before, dodging the spell without even trying. The same red- robed figure attempted his foolishness again, so a quick Counterspell solved that issue. All fire was bad. It didn’t matter what color it was.
“Attention! I am here for one Lee Barnes! Bring him to me, and I give you my word that most of you will live!” She announced to the stunned and fearful room, as Em, Neia, and Ruven finally arrived behind her.
“Most of—” The flame-thrower muttered, his head disappearing into a wriggling mass of her flesh before being ripped off. You’d think after seeing a several ton worm morph into a much smaller woman that they’d realize that even fourty or so feet away, that they were still in danger.
“Now! All of you will live if you bring me Mr. Barnes in five minutes!” Mimi stated, a smile plastered on her face.
“Are you mad!? Dendros is going to masacre you, and then us for letting you through!” A younger female around Lee’s age, dressed in a simple commoner's garb shouted. Her voice was angry and defeated.
“I am actually very happy! A quest from god! Again! What a wonderful day!” Just as Mimi finished her declaration, she took a large distorted step forward. Her leg ripped outwards, the flesh extending to cross a thirty foot gap.The womans face twisted in a mixture of disbelief and terror as Mimi grew near in a single step.
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Mimi leaned forward, hands on her hips. “Well?” She scanned the frightened faces shuddering before her. “Who wants to live, then?”
Several of the figures in the room shared glances, but no one moved. Whether it was the fear of Dendros or Mimi herself, she couldn’t be sure. A heavy silenced settled, and Mimi let them think her offer over for a few seconds longer before she gave a heavy, audible, and exaggerated sigh.
“Fine, I suppose we’ll have to look for him ourselves.” She announced solemnly and dejected, glancing back at her new companions. “You guys wanna do something helpful this time? Or is it up to me again?”
Em slammed her legs down onto the smooth stone floor, cracking it with the rhythmic show of force. “You’ll be faster.” She said, frowning.
Before the screams and masacre could commence, Neia spoke up. “Where is Dendros?” She asked the now gathered humans. None of them spoke, too afraid or too shocked to even function.
Ruven was looking around the room, his bow firmly in his grasp. “Something feels odd about this place. Odd but familiar.”
Mimi tilted her head as she sent a barrage of Flesh Appendages out to reap the lives of the unhelpful. As screams and shouts filled her ears, she honed in on her Aura Sense, sensing an almost imperceptible flow of mana being sucked down below. It was something she’d felt and experienced a few times in the past.
“Oh? A leyline… No wonder this dragon called this place home. How nostalgic!” She murmured. Shaking her head to clear the thoughts of the past, she looked around at the corpses that now filled the room. “Loot or no?”
Neia stared at her blankly with her icy blue eyes. “No. Let us move.”
After choosing a random exit, out of the four in the underground lobby, Mimi sauntered down the math with some pep in her step. Oooooooh! What a reward this will be! Last time was more than I could have hoped for! Now, I’ll have a favor from a god! My god! Oh-ho!!! She thought with glee.
Nothing could ruin this day.
Without warning, even to her senses, an ear blasting boom from an explosion deep beneath them rang out through the tunnel. Bits of rubble and dust fell from overhead, from the blast of sound, coating each of them in a layer of debris.
With a quick glance to her companions, Mimi raised an eyebrow. “That didn’t sound good.”
Ruven walked forward, his long pointed ears perking up as his head slowly tilted to the side, deep in focus as he listened. “Some creatures are barking and roaring down below.”
“Hmmm…”
Mimi didn’t like that. She didn’t like that one bit. As soon as the explosion happened, something began to feel off, almost as if…
“NO!” She snarled, spooking the Elves and the Aracne before sprinting off down the path. As she ran, she morphed with Flesh to Facade into that of a direwolf. Her quest! Her quest was gone! The brilliantly warm glow that filled her to the brim was fading! Someone robbed her!
Not long after shooting off, she began to hear the barking roar of the creatures Ruven mentioned. Ten seconds later, she came to a tunnel lined with poorly carved rooms. The sound came from the massive archway leading off to the left. After surging down the path and sliding to enter the room, she saw the source of the noise and the scene of the explosion.
Bits of melted coins pooled and created a small river of gleaming gold and silver as two juvenile green dragons, scarred and beaten, roared into the air. On the floor, fifteen feet away from them, the face down and burnt form of a human lay unmoving. His clothes were in tatters. Mimi used Identify.
Lee Barnes - Human (Dead) - Level: 57 Miracle Worker (Legendary)
All joviality was gone. It was flushed away and replaced by a rabid, uncontrollable rage. Her flesh rippled, unable to maintain her form, causing her to revert to her natural state. Flesh and fur turned to old and weathered wood, her scowling and snarling face morphing into that of a heavy, hefty lid of a chest.
The chest jostled about, like it was containing a wild animal. Then, with rapid thunk, the top lifted up, revealing an inky dark interior. The rim of the chest was lined with jagged sharpened teeth and a coiled and barbed fleshy muscled tongue. Spit and spittle flew outwards as Mimi rages. "Y-Yooouuzzz diiee! Stolem… mine, it wuz mime! Y-youzz took it from me’z! SUPHER!"
The coiled tongue launched forward like a snake, wrapping around the neck of one of the young dragons, before tugging it back into the waiting maw of the Mimic. With a massive clamp of the the lid, the Mimic chomped down and horrendously decapitated it in one fluid motion. The other dragon, seeing its brethren be beheaded, began to flee, only to find itself unable to move.
Emaz, the final dragon, looked down to find its legs coated with a deathly blue frost. A trail of cold leading from his rooted feet to the corpse of the fallen human. As it looked upon the corpse, the corpse looked back. Two rainbow swirls glowed in the dim cavern as a bloodied and manic grin smiled upon it.
Above the corpse, a large, nearly crystalline haft of ice materialized into being. White wisps of cold frosty air floated out from the spear of glacial ice, before it rocketed through the air and impaled Emaz through the chest. It went clean through, leaving a open and bored hole through scales, flesh, and bone.
The body of the now dead dragon fell without any resistance, folded over in a mangled mess of limbs.
Then, Mimi’s tongue lashed out, grabbing the now dead dragon before taking tiny chomps out of it piece by piece.
—-----------
Lee decided that Fale Data - Death was one of the best spells he’d ever created. Also, he was going to continue playing dead until whatever immediately killed the dragon Lupin and was feasting on the corpse of Emaz went away.