As soon as my eyes hit the pink of the tongue, my heartbeat went through the roof, and I jumped back as hard as I could. The issue was that the tongue was much longer and stronger than I hoped it would be. Like a fish caught on a line, I went out with my sudden jerk, and then I was snapped back in as soon as I landed.

I saw the box open on its own as beady eyes popped up on the front. The edge of the lid turned from smooth into a jagged maw of metal teeth. Two tentacles, each about four feet long, popped out of the sides of the chest. The tentacles reached back into the trunk and began to pull out gremlin spears.

I started to yell and scream as I drew my sword. “Blink! A little help here!”

When I got my sword out, I had already been pulled to just a few feet from the chest. I lashed out with my sword triggering Rotting Fear as I aimed at the tongue. When I hacked into the tongue, I met a stronger resistance than even the orc skin. I saw only a thin line of blood, or perhaps red sap, start to leak out of it.

This whole time I was pushing myself back with my legs, trying to pull my arm away from this evil thing. While the tongue was strong, it appeared to only have quick-firing muscles in that my constant pull let me pull back to about 10 feet.

This would have made me happy, but the thing was still attached to my left wrist and was getting close to breaking it. As a result, my movement was restricted, and my hacking with my sword seemed to be doing nothing. I took just a moment to try to reset my feet and felt myself get yanked back in.

Once again, I was pulled close; this time, I was on my face with my left arm above my head. The tentacles with the little spears started to try to hit me with them as I was rolling to try to get my feet in front of me.

“Blink! I have a Mimic here where are you!” I yelled as I braced my feet on the edge of the chest.

I was swinging my sword to block the spears while also trying to hack at the tongue. None of it was working well. I felt my left wrist pop as the pressure was finally enough to separate the joint for the wrist. I felt my left thumb roll in and break as the mimic closed tighter around.

I stopped caring about the tentacles and started to hack with wild abandonment at the tongue of this death trap. I saw that from my thin little hacks, a brownish-black started to spread. It was slow at first, but as I bottomed out, the mana I had in the sword and in me the lines met, and the area around them turned to spongy soft rotten wood.

I had been straining with my legs this whole time, pushing myself back and away. Finally, when the tongue gave way, I shot back about five feet like I had jumped. I landed hard and went feet overhead as I tumbled back. As I stopped moving, there was a brief moment of peace and then the searing pain of one of those arrow-sized spears being slammed into my neck.

If I hadn’t been wearing a coif, my neck would have been shredded. As it was, I saw that my health dropped down to just a 10th left. I got up and scrambled back out of its reach and fished my potions out of my backpack. I thought as I was getting them out that I needed a better way to carry them as this wouldn’t work in combat.

Once I downed the health and mana potions, I looked down at my messed up hand. I had stacking debuffs of dislocated bones in my hand. So I basically couldn’t use it until I got things lined back up.

I felt out for Blink, and the bond showed me that she was above the mimic. I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t helped, but I was glad to be out of its reach for now.

As I started to remove my left gauntlet, I sent to my friend, “Why didn’t you help?”

I sometimes hated the way that the bond would send emotion across as well as words, but it let me know better what she was trying to say. So when she sent the answer of, “How.” It was accompanied by a wave of derision.

I had come to think of Blink as almost unstoppable, yet here we were with something that she didn’t know how to take on. I worked on my wrist and hand, painfully moving the bones around until I would get a debuff to drop. Then I would move on to the subsequent bone; I only had 10 that I needed to move back.

The mimic had pulled back in on itself. The lid closed shut, but the lock was still on the ground. So I had no way of knowing whether the lock was part of the mimic or something in place for me to use to be safe.

Once I got my hand back together, I got up and headed far around the mimic toward the safe room. I figured that I might as well take a day to rest and come back out to finish off this monster and then get the token to head down. But, first, I needed to repair my equipment and figure out how I wanted to fight this thing.

I grabbed the door nob and tried to open the safe room only to get a message that I hated.

Safe rooms cannot be accessed when hostiles are present.

I wasn’t too pleased to see that I needed to solve the mimic problem before I could head in and recover. I understood it on some level. This whole place was for me to train in so that I could fight the dark ones’ armies. I would have liked a better way through than trying to hack apart a wooden box with a monster in it or part of it.

I didn’t have all my tools with me, so that was causing a problem with my versatility in how I could deal with the monster. If I could have used the skill book, then I would have, and then I could have calmed the beast down. However, since I couldn’t read, I couldn’t use this dumb book.

I was full of mana and health after the use of the potions and waiting for a bit. Which meant that I was better ready for the fight. Part of what hurt the first time was the ambush. It was almost a matter of chance that I looked down at my wrist when I did. I would have been yanked in if I had finished opening the chest. I had no idea how quickly one of those things could chew me up.

My rot did some good, but I wasn’t sure how much as it didn’t appear to spread. It might have, but then again, it might just have broken off the part that was attached to my wrist and was now fine.

It was acting like a wounded animal, however. So I had that going for me. The problem that I was facing was that my sword was out of mana, and so I only had my personal mana to use.

I was going to guess that the lock wasn’t part of the mimic and so I would try to re-lock it. Which hopefully would keep it from being able to eat me while I tried to kill it with my hatchet. If the monster took on more than just the appearance of wood, then I was hoping the fire magic in the hatchet would help to kill it.

The first part was going to be tricky. If I just ran it, then it would open up and fight back. If, however, we could surprise it, then we might be able to defeat it. My plans were all based on lots of things going in my favor, but I didn’t have any other ideas.

I sent via the bond, “Blink I need you to drop on the mimic so that I can get the pad lock back on. When you do I am going to run in and stab it with my dagger and then lock it shut.”

The whole idea was that things would work at the right time. That went out the door when I got the message back from Blink, “Okay.” As I felt her plunge onto the box. She had been waiting for a reason to attack. I just wasn’t in my place. My knife wasn’t drawn, and I hadn’t fully thought everything through. I was out of options.

I ran forward as fast as possible, drawing my knife back out. I needed the pausing effect to help freeze it in place long enough for me to lock it back down. I saw Blink impact the top of the chest and was now trying to hold it shut with her weight. She was digging her claws into the wooded front, and I could see that she wasn’t even straining much.

I got there in time to see the lid trying to open just a bit. It was rattling around and with the top popping open just an inch only to slam back down. I stabbed it at the wrong time, and the lid was frozen open. I needed it closed so that I could get things right. I was angry and scared, but I still grabbed the lock and the latch. As the second of being frozen shut, the lid slammed back down, and I threw the latch in place and slid the lock on.

The whole chest was bouncing; it was rocking back and forth as it was trying to slide the lock out. Finally, I lost my hold on the lock, and it started to slide out. I franticly grabbed the padlock and tried to close it, but the chest was moving too much for me to get it lined up. I let go with one hand and felt around for my dagger.

When I got my fingers around my dagger, I laid into the mimic again. Freezing it in place. I stabbed it twice and felt all the mana drain out of the weapon. If it needed mana again, it would take it from me. I dropped the knife again and slapped the lock shut. When I heard the click, I was almost giddy.