The door unlocks and open, the bars blocking it audibly sliding back into the walls. In the center of the room, a chest appears out of thin air, about a foot off the ground, and falls to the floor, landing in a pile of slime with a wet slap.

Bug is just sitting there on the back of her Undead mount, dripping with slime, and looking like she is completely done with dealing with today. Wiping some slime off her face and shaking the blue stuff off her hands, she lets out a long, tired sigh.

“I hate this…”

Looking down at herself, Bug is incredibly thankful that no one is here to see her like this, right now. Hannah would probably be enjoying it though…

And I just cleaned my clothes too; and now they’re gone... Ah, I need a bath again. Hell, I will even take dirty water right now if it means getting even just a little clean.

Taking a canteen of water out of her Inventory, Bug dumps it on her head and tries to scrub the slime out of her hair, the stuff falling out as fat globs of blue that splat on the floor in big gloopy clumps.

Behind her, Mimmie is still gnawing on its cage, but nowhere near as frantic as it was when it thought it was about to be eaten. Now it just wants out because it hates the cage. Turning around in her seat and cringing at how her blankets and pillows are all either half-digested or soaked in slime, Bug open up the bone cage and lifts the fat little Mimic out, pulling it close and giving it a hug.

“Don’t worry, Mimmie, I killed it. I probably should have thought of a better way to do it, but… yeah, it’s dead now… I guess you and I are taking another bath when we get back to the Safe Room.

Mimmie got hit with its fair share of blue as well. But the dumb little brick doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest by being dirty. It just blinks at Bug curiously and then licks some slime off the side of its brick with its long tongue. Apparently, it doesn’t mind the bad taste.

Looking at the chest in the center of the room, Bug tries to get excited again. Maybe she will get something nice.

“Bring me closer. Still, I had hoped that this route would have brought me to my lost minion. Knew I should have taken that lower path instead. But that bridge was just calling to me, right Mimmie? Especially with how it goes over that waterfall… Open the chest and show me what’s inside.”

A skeleton trudges over through the piles of slime and grabs the chest for her. Opening up the lid, it reaches inside and hands over its contents.

“Mana shards, nice! What else, what’s in this bag? Little glass balls? Let’s see… Spell orbs. Single use items containing a low-level spell. These are, smoke screen, huh? That could be useful, keep. What else, a red key… Used to open a red lock. Ok, well, if I find a red lock, I guess I’ll use this.”

Bug stores everything away in her Inventory, and interesting thing happening when she deposits the key.

//Key Ring slot added to Inventory. You can find all your keys located here. To use your keys, hold your hand over the corresponding lock and say, “Open.”

“Oh, that will be handy. But I wish I could have gotten back one of my minions instead of a dumb key… Oh well, I should get going. It’s already too late to get back to the Safe Room, so I’ll have to find somewhere to camp for the night. I’ll jump in a waterway or the lake first…”

Bug turns her mount to leave the room, but Mimmie starts to freak out in her hands and draws her attention.

“Mimmie, what’s up with you? Calm down.”

But the little Mimic refuses to relax, its eyestalks fully extended and peering past Bug back towards the chest as the insect continues to carry them away.

“What is it? Are you hungry again? Mimmie, I don’t need you getting any fatter; you already can’t even close your brick. Mimmie!”

Mimmie is positively freaking out now, gnashing its teeth, and trying its hardest to jump out of Bug’s grip. And the entire time, it absolutely refuses to take its eyes off the chest.

Bug makes her mount stop and looks back at it too.

“What, is there something you want with that chest? Ok, ok! Hold on, chill! I’ll let you see it, relax. Here, you happy?”

Bug brings Mimmie back over and hold it out closer to the chest. By this point, Mimmie is stretching its entire grey body to the point where its mouth is extending out of its brick, it tongue is fully stretched out even further and clearly attempting to grab the chest.

Curious, Bug goes ahead and leans forward, finally allowing Mimmie to touch the chest.

The tongue makes contact and sticks fast. With surprising force, Mimmie rips itself out of Bug's grip, brick flying through the air like a rubber band let loose and smacking against the side of the chest. Like a slug, Mimmie moves dawn the lid and towards the rim, happily chittering as it gets closer and closer. When it does, it wiggles open the lid, nothing more than a crack, and then Bug hears a sucking noise as the brick, sitting flush against the side of the chest, shakes like something is happening inside.

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A second later, with Bug not being able to see what just happened, Mimmie’s brick falls to the floor and the lid of the chest slams shut.

Reaching out with her wing, Bug picks up the brick off the slime covered floor and looks it over.

“It’s… empty? Mimmie?”

The brick is nothing but an empty shell of red rock, the surface of where Mimmie’s mouth used to be and the entirety of the brick's contents, now simply missing. The brick almost looks like someone had used a spoon to scoop it all out like an empty tub of ice cream.

Looking up from the empty brick, she watches the chest. It is shaking a bit, and after a moment the lid starts to creek. Grey flesh begins to seep out from the rim, flowing over and covering the iron hinges, hasps, corner reinforcements, and even the decorative bands and straps, and handles. Grey even seeps out from between the wood to seal all the gaps and cover even the small decorative elements like studs and the heads of nails. With the grey shifting into a silver/metallic sheen, a final part grows out from the front, forming into a sturdy latch and lock.

The shaking stops, and the chest, which looks like an absolutely normal and completely inconspicuous, although certainly nice and fancy looking, chest, goes still.

“Mimmie?”

Two slits on the lid, which would have been impossible to notice previously, open and blink a couple of times in response to hearing its name. With much surprise, Bug finds herself staring into Mimmie’s eyes as it stares back into hers. And then it smiles. The chest’s lid impossibly opens at the corners as wood and metal turns to grey flesh, and Bug gets to see a big smile full of sharp and crooked teeth, a big grey tongue quickly darting out to lick the lid and one of its eyes.

“Mimmie, you got bigger! So exciting! Identify, let’s see here…”

‘Lvl8 Adolescent Mimic (Treasure Chest). Not many Baby Mimics manage to reach adolescents. As the requirement for doing so isn’t a matter of age, but of success as a hunter and of being able to find a new, adequate shell to house their growing body. Most simply starve to death before reaching this point, their corpses forever remaining as whatever they had disguised themselves as, with no one being the wiser. It is believed that at least one in every hundred homes has at least one dead Mimic built into its construction. As adolescents, the Mimic’s available options for prey have increased, but so to have the chances for failure and of being discovered. If your cat or dog ever suddenly goes missing in your attic or basement, it might have been eaten by a Mimic disguised as some old furniture. It is recommended that any found adolescent Mimics be killed on sight, before they manage to reach adulthood and become a true threat.’

“Oh, so exciting! And here I thought that this was going to just be a bad day. Look at you; in such a pretty new shell~ Your metal fittings look so shiny and freshly polished, yes they do~ Who’s a good Mimmie? Are you a good Mimmie?”

Bug reaches out to pick up Mimmie, who is giving her a big toothy smile with its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth.

*Slam!*

Bug looks down, the smile dropping of her face like a brink into slime.

Her entire hand is currently in Mimmies mouth, and when she pulls her arm back, it comes away with a bloody stump…

“OIiiii!!!!! Will you stop eating me!?!? Wait… I had rings and a bracelet on that hand! Hey, give those back! Open up!”

With three hands trying to pry open its mouth, soon joined by a fourth after it finishes regrowing, Bug fights to open Mimmie’s mouth/lid, but the Mimic refuses to comply like a dog that has something in its mouth and doesn’t want to give it back.

“No, my treasures~!!! Give them back, you brat! Ahhhhhh!”

Mimmie didn’t give them back…

----------------------------------------

Climbing out of a waterway, dripping with brackish water and not smelling all that much better, Bug pulls out a towel and gets to work on drying herself off. A little way's down, her small army of Undead minions are busy bullying some dumb monsters that thought to interrupt Bug’s bath, if it can even be called a bath…

At least she isn’t covered in slime anymore. That’s all that matters.

Getting dry and working on getting her hair into a manageable state again, Bug goes through her Inventory and sorts through her recently acquired(stolen) clothes. Thanks to Fel, she has some spare underwear to wear after Bug’s just got destroyed.

Not as nice as mine were, but I can’t complain too much. It’s better than going commando. And the guys had such big underwear. These things are practically shorts!

Paying the fee to get some of the clothes adjusted to perfectly fit her body, Bug gets dressed into a black pair of formfitting cotton and leather padded pants, with a simple, white button up t-shirt. After that there is leather armor on top. Her chest guard, some simple pauldrons for her shoulders, and then some extra armor for her legs and thighs. With the belts holding everything together, Bug adds some pouches. The System is more than happy to add them on with no trouble, so she doesn’t even have to bother with trying to run the belts through their straps or anything. They just pop into existence, right where she wants them to be. She had considered putting on some chainmail, but honestly, Bug just doesn’t like the idea of wearing it, and besides, her scales are just plain better. Especially when considering that leveling Vitality increases the durability of natural armor. If she keeps going like she is, Bug’s scales will eventually be tougher than even the strongest of steel plate armor. It's just a matter of time at this point.

That does raise a good question though. Just how strong is Mimmie’s bites? Little brat can bite right through my scales, and it isn’t even half my level yet. I wonder how strong it will get…

Leaving her mind to wander, Bug’s hands go over her body as she works on the finishing touches.

In the pouches and where she can, throwing knives and other useful things are added, like the recently acquired spell orbs so she can quickly access them in a hurry. A fancy curvy dagger gets strapped to one leg and her original dagger to the back of her belt, sitting just above her tail. As for most of the jewelry, it is now safely stored away in her Inventory, save for the Vitality boosting ring, and Fel’s shiny silver bracelet, which is still wrapped around one horn. Bug isn't going to risk anymore of it getting eaten by Mimmie...

Looking at herself in her Build Menu, Bug can’t help but smile.

“I look just like an adventurer now. So cool! Mimmie, what do you think? Cool, right?”

“Hiiiissssss!!!”

“Mmh, I dooo look cool now. Thank you, Mimmie.”

Mimmie is currently grounded to its cage and is very upset. Good Mimmies don’t eat their master’s jewelry. Only bad Mimmies do that. So, Mimmie is grounded to the cage until tomorrow morning. Without treats!

Bug nods to herself as she gives one last look over herself and closes the menu.

“Alright, this is much better. Still need a proper bath, but that can wait until we get back to the Safe Room later. Let’s find a spot for the night and then pick up the search in the morning. The Dungeon is going to pay for wasting my time like this!”

Mounting the insect, which has been scrubbed clean of slime and redressed with new blankets and pillows to replace the ruined ones, Bug heads out deeper into the Dungeon, a very upset Mimmie thrashing in the cage behind her and cursing the unjustness that is being inflicted upon it. After all, it's not Mimmie's fault! Mimmie was hungry. Its stomach was making the rumblies that only hands could satisfy!

Mimmie is innocent!

But alas, Mimmie can't talk, so it can't plead its case. Life is just so unfair...