F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

Kett’s black wax crossed the threshold before the cart did.

Heat left the upper tag nail, then the lower, two separate withdrawals from wounds the brass had taught Brackenvault to use. Grib’s fungus bowl rattled against a cart rail. One warped wheel complained down the Quartermaster Track until the corridor swallowed it.

Dane waited through the silence that followed. So did Buk. The goblin’s breathing stayed small behind the broken shelf, except for every third inhale, when rotten leather dragged across injured ribs.

Once the route order reached the guild gate, Ash Company would send its party, Vera Pike among them. Her name cooled Dane’s lockplate for one beat; hunger filled the space as soon as it passed. He knew her as the mage assigned to watch his response. The route would bring that stranger to his teeth.

Wood rasped softly against a spoon.

”Bone clerk gone?” Buk asked from behind the shelf.

Dane let the loose hinge pin tick once.

”Buk will call that yes. Yesterday it also meant hurt and do not touch the bowl, so Buk is guessing.”

The spoon scraped closer. Buk’s leather dressing creaked when he settled near Dane’s left side.

”Clerk counted fungus twice,” he said. ”Warren cook counted beans that way. Buk told her there were seven. She thanked Buk for finding two extra, then ate them.”

One hinge tick could agree with him, warn him, or announce that Dane’s crooked repair had shifted again. Buk heard whichever meaning kept him alive. Grib heard maintenance. Kett heard resistance. A delver at the door would hear an old box.

Dane needed an answer that reached a human before a hand reached his lid.

Nate had opened him beside old blood. Milo had come close after watching Nate die because retreat meant returning to the guild with nothing. Their need had already beaten fear. Copper offered a warning they might read before hope made the choice for them.

Five copper rims overlapped in the shallow gutter behind Dane’s front lip. Farther back, beyond the pressure he could shape, lay the thin silver and the square-holed coin Grib had called red-stringed. Nate’s brass return charm pressed against the belt knife deeper still. Dane kept his attention away from all of them. One tongue reflex could turn an experiment into swallowing.

He tightened the front rim.

The shallow cluster shifted as one piece. Copper dragged over the wet plane of his tongue, and his mouth answered by bunching beneath it. The lure wanted a spill: five little impacts under the lid gap, bright noise promising more.

Dane held the lid down and drove pressure sideways instead.

The coppers ground against one another. Their edges separated into a crooked line, with one piece leading by accident while the rim drove them as a group. Pain threaded from the rim to the loose left pin. His tongue swelled, trying to throw the whole arrangement forward.

”Little road,” Buk whispered. His voice had moved nearer the lockplate. ”Road goes into chest. That is where roads should not go.”

Dane shoved the end of the line sideways, trying to break the route before Buk finished naming it.

The tongue pushed again. Four coppers slid toward the lid gap. Dane caught the cluster with the rim, but the end piece began to go with them. He pressed one narrow point beneath its edge and held.

The hinge pin bit sideways. Copper cut into the soft inner lip. The other four scraped forward while that last coin shuddered in place.

Something in the pressure map resolved.

/==[ Brackenvault System: Coin Pressure ]==\

| Coin Control: Partial

| Range: Front Rim

| Maximum: Five Coppers

| Intent: Warning

| Lure Translation: Treasure Display

\==[ Meaning: Distorted ]==/

The tongue surged before Dane finished reading. This time he held the trapped copper and drove the nearest moving piece backward. One coin reversed while three continued to scrape toward the gap.

He repeated the reversal before the hinge pain faded. The same copper returned through the scrape of its neighbors, answering alone.

He reached past them for the thin silver. The pressure dissolved into the tongue before it touched the deeper coin. Silver stayed against the charm.

Dane pulled two against the higher edge of the inner lip and spread three along the gutter below, making a crude bite mark beneath the lid seam. If a delver read teeth before touching him, perhaps instinct could finish what language had failed to do.

The left hinge throbbed. One of the upper coins slipped, struck the lower row, and knocked the shape apart.

Buk’s spoon stopped moving.

”Teeth,” he said at last. ”Warren priests put copper between a dead fighter’s teeth. Means his bite still works below. Humans might think shrine.”

Dane flattened the pattern.

Buk shifted his bad ribs and sucked air through them. ”Shrines get opened carefully. Careful fingers still go inside.”

Old blood clung to the inner lip where Nate’s feeding had ended. Dane found the tacky patch by contact and dragged one copper through it. The metal came away rougher, carrying the iron smell. He pulled each remaining coin through the same tack, paying a fresh pinch at the rim.

The lure warmed his lockplate and tried to roll a clean edge forward. Dane held all five in the stain until the warmth eased.

Buk sniffed.

”Blood says sick room,” he murmured. ”Humans cover mouths and leave sick rooms.”

His spoon tapped the floor once.

”Grave men go in anyway. They take rings from important dead with hooks. Guild people bring better hooks.”

Dane started another pass through the blood, searching for enough stink to overwhelm the promise of treasure.

Small hard footsteps entered the corridor.

Buk’s spoon scraped backward. Leather caught on the shelf, followed by one smothered breath. The sounds ended behind the shelf before the door hinge complained.

Grib entered reading from a work strip. ”F-2 Storage Mimic Seventeen. Abnormal retained. Command resistance confirmed. Correction follow-up before Pike route.”

The strip stopped crackling.

Dane held the five dirty coppers beneath the narrow lid gap.

Grib’s boots stayed beyond the arc Dane’s mouth could reach. Chalk scratched through the floor groove near the doorway, paused, then crossed it again.

”Dry,” the imp said. ”Milo took the loose copper.”

A narrow rod touched Dane’s front board. Five light knocks followed, each against a different rim inside the gap.

”All internal. All shallow.”

Chalk grated against the stone to Dane’s left. Grib’s boots settled on the scrape. Dane felt the position through floor vibration and pushed one blood-tacky copper toward that side of his rim.

The lure seized on movement, loading the tongue beneath the other four until they swept into a shallow spread around the traveling piece. Invitation heat sharpened at his lockplate. Across the stone came three rightward steps and a fresh chalk scrape.

Dane reversed the dirty copper. Hinge pain broke his hold for half a beat. The other pieces chased it, their little impacts drawing a path back toward the safest place to lift his lid.

When Grib crossed again, Dane made the warning follow him.

The chalk snapped.

For several breaths, Grib said nothing. His thumb pressed the brass property tag. Heat gathered around both nails, weaker than Kett’s black wax but close enough to make Dane’s tongue tense.

”If that is choosing...” Grib began.

The words ended there. His next whisper barely crossed the lid. ”It heard the kill claim.”

The work strip crackled open. Chalk scratched hard over whatever the imp had started to record.

When Grib spoke again, he used the louder voice meant for a form.

”Responsive low-value display. Position tracking degraded by hinge fault. Command path unstable. Resin correction required before Pike Unit enters.”

Dane sent the five coppers down separate grooves, but the lure pushed every path toward the lid gap.

Grib backed into the corridor without entering the bite arc. ”Deep resin pot. Rim tools. Bring the command brush. Pike route waits until this hinge stops lying.”

His boots broke into a run.

Behind the shelf, Buk held his breath. Dane pressed the crooked pin and felt it yield a fraction. Under the gap, the lure held the five coppers in its inviting spread. Dane tested each edge without shifting the pattern; all five answered separately.

Then metal struck a wooden sled in the corridor, and a thick liquid sloshed beneath a covered pot.