// You have now left the Eleventh Floor.
Smashing against the smooth metal walls of the inside of a large pipe and tumbling head over tail, Bug is pulled down and down and down as gravity and water pulls in an unstoppable journey along a curving path of turns and sudden straight drops. Flashes of light dart past as the occasional glow stone illuminates the path, pockets of air opening up on the occasional flat areas where the water doesn’t reach to the top of the pipes.
After getting the wind blown out of her within the first two turns, being slammed into walls all along the way, Bug had quickly given up on trying to fill her lungs with air when she could and instead switched to just using her new gills. Unable to stop the rapid and violent ride, Bug curls herself up, wrapping her wings and arms around her body and head to take the blows.
// You have now left the Twelfth Floor.
A straight drop like falling for seemingly a mile, a sudden turn downward leads to Bug falling down a long pipe in a freefall along with thousands of gallons of water and debris. With her legs kicking in the air and her limbs still wrapped tightly around herself in a death’s grip of fright, the drop suddenly hits a slope that breaks her fall and sends her rocketing down like a bullet through the pipes. Another turn left followed by a curving turn down and to the right.
Knocked around and dazed, Bug doesn’t even notice the next drop quickly approaching until she is already in the air. Free falling for what almost feels like an eternity and screaming all the way down, Bug splashes into a large reservoir of water.
Kicking her legs, Bug emerges from the water and takes a deep breath. Looking back the way she came, she finds the water still pouring down as all sorts of debris is dumped in along with her. Slowly filling up with more and more water, Bug looks around inside the reservoir but doesn’t find any apparent ways of getting out. The water just keeps filling in more and more as the ceiling gets closer and closer.
“Uhhh… This is bad, isn’t it?”
Closer and closer, fuller and fuller, until Bug can almost reach up and touch the ceiling. Just as she is about to resolve herself to searching underwater for a way out, a large glow stone in the center of the ceiling lights up green and a horn blows from what sounds like the other side of the wall.
Blinking curiously at this, Bug hears a monotone and maybe feminine voice speak from somewhere in the ceiling by the glow stone.
“-Flushing reservoir 27.B. Rerouting drainage path to 17W.2N.F13.-”
“He-Hello? Who is that? What do you mean, flushing? Hello!”
Bug banges against the ceiling, calling out to whoever the voice might be, but stops as the glow stone flashes thrice, the horn blowing again from outside the wall. Just as she is about to call out to the voice again, she is interrupted by the sound of what can only be described as the flushing of an incredibly large toilet. In a spinning current of water, Bug is pulled down as the reservoir is quickly drained.
“Not again!!!”
Getting pulled underwater again, Bug is sucked down and into another tube. Before she can protect herself with her arms, she gets slammed into another wall. Fighting to get control over her tumbling, she doesn’t notice the piece of wood, a chunk from the raft, that ends up smashing into the side of her head, the horn on her right side snapping off as it takes the hit and protects her from getting her temple smashed in. Everything goes black and she is washed away.
----------------------------------------
// You have entered the Thirteenth Floor.
“Ughhh~” *Cough, Cough! *
Waves washing over her body on the bank of some lower drainage area and surrounded by debris, Bug wakes up moaning and coughs up the earthy water in her lungs. If it weren’t for Pain Immunity making her feel no pain, she would be feeling like a sack of rocks thrown over a cliff right now. Letting out another cough, Bug rolls over onto her back and slowly open up her eyes.
“Today… sucks…”
Not wanting to move, Bug just closes her eyes and breathes for a bit. Going down the list of injuries in her head, Bug sighs as her Skill lists off everything that is wrong with her. Her already bruised body that had only just started healing with the boost from drinking that potion had basically been set back to what it was, if not worse. Currently, it would be easier to count where she isn’t bruised rather than where she is.
Bug’s ribs, of the three that had been corrected and where on the mend, one had broken loose again. A couple of toes are broken, her ankle is twisted in the wrong direction, and her left wing is snapped at where the hand is halfway up its length. Surprisingly, none of her four arms are broken, but they are all bruised up and swollen to hell, and if they weren’t covered in scales and fur, they would be completely colored in ugly red and blue marks. Oh, and for some reason half of one hand is missing? Wait, she just lost another finger and now that she is paying attention, she can hear crunching…
Bug forces her bruised and battered body to move and sits up, her muscles shaking at the effort. Lifting her arm with the wounded hand, bottom one on the left, Bug looks at her hand with dull eyes. She can’t even get mad at what she finds there because she is just entirely done with today and all the bullshit…
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Hanging from her hand and currently munching on her middle finger, Bug finds a brick that is split down the middle, reddish rock somehow turning to grey flesh as a mouth full of sharp teeth is revealed. Even with Bug holding it up in the air, the little Mimic doesn’t stop as it happily bites off her finger and swallows it.
Bug just blinks at the little thing as she watches it happily eat her. Does it think she is a corpse? Is she food?
“Oi.”
When the baby Mimic doesn’t stop eating, Bug gives her hand a shake and repeats herself.
“Oi…”
It freezes mid bite, about to take off her ring finger.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Bug watches it, a frown plastered on her face. The Mimic, slowly, extends one of its eyes out of its mouth and looks up at Bug’s face, its little eye going wide in shock as its gaze meet Bug’s.
“Hi. You mind explaining what is you are doing? Eating my hand? Do I taste good?”
The Mimic snaps shut in a hurry, biting off what is left of what it was chewing on and half of a finger before dropping to the floor and looking like nothing but an everyday, run of the mill brick that you could find just about anywhere. Even using Identify on it gets Bug nothing but, ‘Brick. It is a brick.’
“Become Weapon…”
A quick push of magic has Bug’s arms, legs, wings, and even her broken off horn healing back to a pristine state. Now, if only she could do that for the rest of her body…
Oh, wait, that’s right. Bug spent all her saved-up points on hunting down a giant fish for a golden scale. All the points she was saving up so she could buy something that would have fix all her problems. Instead, now she can breathe underwater and glow in the dark!
Which, admittedly is nice… And it did lead her to her getting that beautiful, gorgeous, and downright majestic golden scale…
Keeping an eye on the Mimic that is still acting like a regular brick, Bug goes ahead and opens her inventory so she can give a loving look at her pile of treasures.
“Worth it~”
Below her, the baby Mimic opens up on its underside and forms a tongue like muscle. Moving slowly, it tries to sneak away…
A clawed and scale covered foot suddenly steps down on it and pins it to the floor.
“Oi.”
Unfortunately, even if Bug is happy to have gotten that absolutely amazing and superbly wonderful golden scale, and to see her personal treasure hoard grow, she is still pissed. Today has been just one thing after another. Just one more damn thing after another!
The boss fight, nearly dying, Hannah and the others leaving, throwing up because of the damn potion making her sick! And now she spent all her points and got flushed down the pipes, she has no idea where her three most favorite minions are, and now, and now!? Now she is apparently being treated as food by a fucking living brick of all things!!! Could this day get any worse?
Bug looks down at herself, ignoring the squirming brick that is trying to escape the underside of her foot. Her clothes are ruined and torn and soaked with dirty water. Bug’s hair and fur feel matted and sticky, and her scales are dirty with sand and stuck in blood and what she can only assume is fish guts… Bug really, really, needs a bath.
Why can’t she just find a BATH!?
The poor little Mimic, feeling Bug’s rage and the weight of the foot stepping down on it only getting stronger, panics and gives up all pretenses of pretending to just be a harmless brick. Splitting open down the middle and turning into a forest of sharp canines, the baby Mimic bites off Bug’s big toe and quickly squirms off as fast as it’s tongue can carry it over the ground.
Which isn’t very fast at all…
Using its tongue like the foot of a mollusk, or more like a slug honestly, the best it can do is slowly inch across the floor as it threateningly bears its teeth filled mouth at Bug and glares at her with warry eyes. It's almost like an angry snail, if a snail where to somehow have a brick for a shell and glued a bunch of nails to the top of its shell.
Growing her big toe back, Bug doesn’t even bother getting up and just reaches over to grab the fleeing slug/snail/mollusk, or whatever the heck a Mimic is, of a brick from where she is sitting. She tries to pull it off the ground, but it is using its tongue like a suction cup and is stuck to the floor tight, refusing to budge even so much as an inch.
“Hiss~!”
Gnashing its teeth, the little Mimic hisses at Bug and tries to bite at her fingers, but she has it by the sides of the brick and refuses to let go. Apparently, its mouth doesn’t extend to the sides of the brick, is it actually like a shell? Did it grow the brick, or turn the brick into its shell? Is it like a hermit crab maybe? Regardless, Bug is not afraid to get bitten anyways, and she certainly isn’t about to let the critter get away from her. Worst that could happen is losing a finger, and she can grow those back almost endlessly if she were so inclined.
“Come on, I just want to look at you. Why you trying to run away, huh? You think I’m mad about you eating me? Come on, let me, just, TAKE A LOOK!”
Pulling her dagger out of her inventory, Bug quickly stabs down for the open mouth with an angry scream and murder in her eyes.
Quickly sealing up and turning back into a solid brick, Bug’s dagger clangs against hard rock instead of piercing into soft grey flesh. Unluckily for the Mimic though, in its fright, it had turned entirely back into a brick and let go of the floor.
Clicking her tongue, Bug picks it up and looks the brick over. No matter the angle, it just looks like a regular brick. She can’t even find the seam for where it opens, almost like it is somehow able to transform the brick itself, rather than just opening and closing it.
So, not actually a shell? How does this thing work? Meh…Doesn’t really matter.
“Come on out~ Come on… Don’t be so scared. I just want to stab you, you little finger eating shit~” She coos sweetly, like she is trying to entice a kitten to leave its hiding place under the bed after pissing on the couch.
The mimic refuses to comply, clearly not buying what Bug is selling.
After a few minutes of the mimic remaining as nothing but a brick, Bug eventually gives up and puts away the dagger.
“Screw it. Not worth the effort.”
Bug stands up, her body protesting the movement the whole way, and gets ready to chuck the brick into the water, but stops as she looks around and finds that she is all alone. No signs of her lost minions or anyone else. Not even any monsters around to fight and kill. Just alone at the end of a water way with nothing but a dumb brick that ate her fingers…
I wonder how long it lived in that hole in the ceiling, all by itself?
Lowering the brick to look at again, she asks, “You alone too?”
It naturally doesn’t respond, but Bug shrugs lightly, not expecting it to respond to her anyways. Tilting her head and thinking for a bit, Bug eventually comes a decision.
“You like food? Guess you like meat, right?”
No response again, but Bug goes ahead and pulls some jerky out of her inventory. Holding up a piece in front of the Mimic, she waves it around where she is pretty sure its mouth should be.
“Come on, you hungry? Here, have a piece~ I promise I won’t try to stab you again~”
Splitting open a little, the Mimic quickly snatches the hanging meat from her fingers and seals up tight again. Bug smiles as she watches it.
“Taste good? Do I taste better? I hope I don’t, far too many things want to eat me…”
Waving another piece of jerky gets it to eat again and Bug’s smile grows a little bigger.
“Alright, I’m taking you with me. At least until I find my minions. Then I’ll decide what to do with you…”
Turning away from the bank, Bug heads over to a ladder and climbs up into another waterway, her path leading straight ahead. Walking down the waterway and looking around once she reaches a crossroad, Bug focuses on her connection to her lost skeletons. Surprisingly, they appear to still be active, though that shouldn’t be too surprising considering that Bug did build them to be extra durable. There’s lots of calcium in those bones!
“Should be this way… Come on, hmm, I’ll call you… Mimmie. You want more meat? Here you go, Mimmie~”
Feeding another piece of jerky to her new pet brick, Bug sets off to go and find her missing minions.
“I just hope they are ok. I don’t have very many bones left in my inventory for rebuilding them if they are broken…”