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

Before the undead labor bell could leave Dane’s body, bone struck Hingehold’s notice plate.

Its last iron vibration passed through his base and the crooked floor stone into the rib drawer jammed around his flattened copper. Stripped of filaments, the organ below stayed quiet while the empty place in Dane’s front gutter remained colder than the rest of him; beyond the gate, two loaded sets of boots shifted behind a third as canvas rings clicked on one side and a heavier iron edge ground on the other.

Lir kept the grown ash bar seated while the inspection plate opened above it. Root fibers tightened around the latch and carried the load into Dane’s cradle.

”Give me your name, the work you claim, the authority you brought, and every body at my line.”

Orth’s bone stylus left the plate. ”Claim-Clerk Orth, for Lord Thorne’s residual recovery license. The primary seal and counting slate are dissolved. Their final ledger number remains disputed authority. Three bodies outside, including mine. Named equipment claimed inside.”

”The ledger counts you as a body?”

”It bills me as one. Counting is less sentimental.”

Lir’s boot settled against the bar’s latch end. Beside her, the threshold guard took the shortened lever. Brant’s shield rim scraped into place behind them; he braced it with his boot and left shoulder while his bound right arm stayed against his side.

Orth spoke again. ”Your floor rang an undead work call while an unlicensed responsive container sat beyond this gate. I request inspection.”

His voice carried through the listener groove. Cold entered Dane’s raw strap sockets and followed the old claim routes toward his widened left hinge. His body sorted the pressure beside owner and carrier, eager to turn a man’s job into a right over him.

The front gutter held no ordinary copper now. Far below Crude Drag’s reach, the dirty coin remained stuck beneath his intake. Deeper still, the thin silver edge and the square hole of the red-string coin rested untouched among the familiar weights.

Ada’s rod tapped stone beside the cradle. ”The old socket route is taking load. I have no new contact inside him.”

Lir asked, ”Dane, can you tell me that pressure is safe enough for our bar to rise?”

He struck three times.

Bad. Unclear. Nothing more.

The lever stayed down.

”The equipment answers,” Orth said.

”Dane answers,” Vera said.

Charred cloth and clean salve placed her near the inspection plate, both burned hands away from its roots. ”You asked to inspect him. Tell the room what else your people are carrying.”

Canvas breathed as one worker tightened his grip.

”I requested inspection,” Orth said.

”You brought a recovery sack.”

The sack’s iron mouth rings knocked together. Its carrier pulled the opening shut, slowly enough that every link spoke.

”It stays tied unless the clerk orders recovery,” the worker said. His voice came rougher and younger than Orth’s. ”I was told this was a marked-box job.”

Buk’s litter creaked near the root table. ”Buk waives nothing. Sack is sack. Buk knows what sack does after box gets marked.”

The worker wound the tie once more around the rings.

Lir drew a root leaf from the wall. Its damp fibers parted with a sound like bark peeling. ”No affected resident has given me a waiver. If one does, this leaf takes that voice alone. The challenge stays public for everyone else.”

A pause replaced the expected stylus scrape.

Vera chose the object instead of the argument. ”Your current claim names equipment. Does it claim any person in this room?”

”The current person claim is none,” Orth said. ”Dane Rook remains disputed equipment.”

Root fibers tightened around the leaf after Lir repeated his answer aloud.

”The shelter cycle?” she asked.

”Unchanged. A challenge neither shortens nor extends it.”

That left Buk’s named-witness hold where it stood and every living resident outside the sack’s present reach. Orth conceded both points before Vera had to fight for them.

Iron dragged against a worker’s coat.

Vera heard it too. ”The other load.”

The carrier answered before Orth. ”Square stencil. Iron. Thorned T around an open center. Black-gold winding on the frame.”

”External license notice,” Orth said. ”Hingehold’s outer stone may receive it when disputed equipment remains beyond a recognized challenge threshold.”

”Which bell wakes it?”

His pause lasted one beat of Holt’s blood dripping into the wash basin.

”The next labor bell Hingehold recognizes.”

”And when it wakes, whose name does it touch?”

The stencil carrier changed feet. Its lower corner struck calcite before he caught the weight.

Orth stopped pretending the iron was incidental. ”It presents every recorded name beyond the marked stone to Lord Thorne’s license as attached recovery interest. Presentation is an attempted attachment. Ownership remains none until adjudication.”

Buk’s good claws scraped closed over the edge of his named record.

Two soft fingertip taps landed on the old score below the fresh leaf. Living root cinched harder around the bar. ”Hingehold had teeth before it had clerks,” Lir said. ”The score reads occupied bite-risk threshold, individual approach until clearance. My guard and I lift. The injured resident reports pressure to us; the bar moves under our hands.”

She read the new leaf back slowly enough for the roots to answer each fact with a tightening click.

”The current claim covers named equipment only. The current person claim is none. The shelter term is unchanged. Each interior approach is individual, and sanctuary hands operate entry. The glyph stays on the outer stone. Maturity comes with the next recognized labor bell. At maturity it attempts name attachment. Ownership remains none before adjudication.”

Orth scratched the notice plate after the last word. ”I accept those facts while disputing the equipment classification.”

The root leaf took the scrape of his answer, and its fibers stayed tight around the bar.

Lir addressed the workers. ”One of you may approach the white line without sack or stencil. You tell me what you consent to before your first step. My bar stays seated until my guard and I choose otherwise.”

The canvas rings settled on stone. The sack carrier came forward alone, boots heavy with iron dust.

”I’ll walk to your line,” he said. ”If the bar stays down, I turn around. If it opens, I cross once and come straight back. Nobody puts teeth, rope, a mark, or a claim on me.”

”The line is all I have cleared,” Lir said. ”Walk to it.”

His pulse entered the groove before his next step landed. Sweat and warm leather followed. Dane’s tongue lifted against the cut he had reopened biting himself. Hunger opened through every missing tooth and offered the laborer as food because food was the only category his body understood without being taught.

The man stopped at the line. His boot sole ground once, then held.

Lir asked Dane, ”Do you have a clear safe signal for us to lift?”

Dane held his lid closed and struck three times.

The worker’s breath caught. ”That means it wants me?”

”It means bad or unclear,” Lir said. ”Either one keeps wood and ash between your blood and his mouth. Step back.”

He retreated at once. The sack rings clicked when he reclaimed the tie, but he left the mouth knotted.

Mother Kesh’s courier scratched one claw over the reed packet. ”Kesh’s sealed copy goes out. Buk stays. No route names spoken. Courier crosses room to road once and owes this threshold no return.”

Dry reed and bitter archive wax moved from Dane’s room side toward the frame. He recognized the packet; the living pulse behind it remained an unnamed adult body. Its declared direction pressed outward.

Lir asked, ”With that sealed load moving out, do you read enough safety for us to lift?”

Dane struck once.

The guard hauled the shortened lever. Lir took the latch end. Roots peeled away from the ash bar with a wet wooden groan while Brant drove his shield forward between the opening and Orth’s voice.

The courier’s claws crossed stone. Reed scent passed the listener groove and continued away. Before Orth’s boots could alter their pressure, the guard dropped the lever and Lir rammed the bar home.

Buk still breathed beside the table. Kesh’s proof was outside.

Orth approached the white line alone.

The claim-shaped cold returned through Dane’s left socket, harder now that the clerk had put his body inside the frame’s approach. It dragged at the old hinge and warmed the tear below his lock. Hunger rose beneath it, delighted by the possibility that an owner could also be meat.

”Dane,” Lir said, ”do you have a clear safe signal for this approach?”

Three knocks struck the cradle.

”The bar stays down,” she said.

”On the report of disputed equipment.”

Lir shifted her weight into the latch root. ”The bar is mine.”

Orth’s boots withdrew from the line. His stylus tapped the notice plate once for the worker, once for the courier, and once for himself. Then the bone tip shifted toward the heavier iron.

”Proceed with the external notice,” he said.

The stencil carrier grunted the iron upright. His partner planted behind him and asked, ”Outer stone only? I keep both boots this side of white.”

”Both,” Orth said. ”Hold the center level.”

Lir reported the work through the slit. ”Square iron against outer calcite. Thorned T upright. Hollow center beside the challenge plate. They have not crossed.”

Bone entered the hollow with a dry scrape. Orth spoke the dissolved primary seal’s final ledger number.

Wire melted with a hiss.

Heat reached Dane through the wall before the powder smell did. Living roots recoiled from the stencil and pulled the ash bar toward the opening. Brant’s boot scraped backward. Shield metal boomed against root. Lir and the guard caught the latch load together while the scent of scorched teeth thickened in the listener groove.

Charred cloth and salve stayed beside the slit while Holt’s basin received another soft drop.

Rod one scraped upward until its brass tip knocked the inside stone opposite the mark. Its weight stayed against the inner face instead of tracking the stencil.

”Outer face,” she said. ”Heat is driving the living root toward us. The inner face is untouched.”

The stencil carrier gave one pained grunt through his teeth as the iron settled. ”It’s holding its own weight now.”

Orth withdrew the stylus.

For one breath, only cooling wire and strained roots answered him.

Lir read the center of the mark aloud. ”Current attachment is none.”

Buk released the breath he had been holding and scraped one claw across the name on his record. The bar’s roots settled against Dane’s cradle; his empty front gutter felt only its own cold.

Then Lir read the line beneath it.

”At the next recognized labor bell, the target is every recorded name beyond this stone.”

She shut the inspection plate.

Outside, Orth began counting the interval.

Beneath Dane’s base, the trapped rib drawer struck his flattened copper once.