The Mimic Becomes a Merchant King

Of all the creatures who haunt the various dungeons and ruins of the world, few are more dangerous than the insidious Mimic. Ogres may be stronger. Manticores may be rife with terrible poisons. Yet such creatures pale in comparison to the Mimic's cunning. To date, no other monster can exploit the greed of mankind half as well. And how fortunate we all are that such creatures never focus their abilities on anything other than filling their stomachs.

- Callidus Pike, Almanac of Monsters Vol. 2.

Darkness lurked all around, the air thick with the tasty iron scent of blood. The treasure chest was drawn in by the stench, clambering about on dark, elongated limbs across the stone floor. The room around him was overgrown with glowing toadstools and lichen, surrounding him at every step.

Nasty plants, disgusting green things. A mimic would sooner die of starvation than to eat such filth. The lid of the treasure chest creaked and groaned, a throaty chuckling sound echoing from within. With each step the mountain of gold coins and relics inside the chest clinked and clattered.

Mimics, like magpies, were drawn to shiny things. And while it was entirely possible for a mimic to simply create the illusion of gold using their own matter and shapeshifting abilities, they much preferred the sensation of real, physical goods rattling about in their jaws. Fortunately ruins, their usual territory, tended to have an abundance of the stuff to store away.

And gold, in turn, always drew in tasty snacks to chew on.

The Mimic's tongue slithered from his mouth, nearly two meters long and dripping with amber-hued saliva. It had no visible eyes, and in the oppressive darkness of the ruin eyeballs wouldn't have been of much use anyway, but the creature's sense of smell never lost track of the blood, moving from room to room with silent steps in pursuit of it. For now he kept his eyes folded inward, and could reopen them at the first sign of trouble.

Passing by a room that had once been a dining hall, the tables and chairs within half rotted to dust, he came to a halt in an ancient dust-caked library. Many of the bookshelves within had collapsed from the passage of time, the books eroded to being completely illegible.

But there, among the rotten tomes, he spied his quarry: Human, definitely. His back had been feathered by tiny arrows. Goblins. Nasty things, tasted terrible, gave a mimic such terrible wind that they'd rather starve than eat another one. But good at killing, never let it be said that goblins weren't good killers. Especially when folks got too cocky and carefree in their presence.

The Mimic loomed over his quarry, sniffing his remains. He found no trace of poison on his remains. Not that goblin poisons could harm a mimic too much, but it would spoil the meat partially. But it had been so long since he last had a proper meal, so could he afford to be too fussy?

Still, as he regarded the flowing purple robes of the fallen human, he couldn't help but pay attention to the staff clutched in his rigor mortis frozen fingers. Rings forged from meteorite metal glittered on his digits, shining with a lustre more brilliant than any silver. At the same time, he spied a hat that had fallen a few paces from his head. A pointy thing, with star patterns sewn into the fabric.

The word 'whizz-ard' flashed briefly in the Mimic's mind, having seen more than a few men like this in the past. Usually flanked by humans in armour. Whizz-ard's were, from his experience, no fun. Too smart to be tricked by Mimics, both from having little interest in treasure and also having spells to see through their disguises. Getting to eat one for himself, that would be an interesting experience.

If anything, this fellow would likely taste better than his usual fare. He had no issue tearing through plate armour and chainmail, and any such inorganic matter could be dissolved and spewed out by his internal acids, but it was always such a pain. The tang of steel just had a nasty aftertaste to it.

His tongue unfurled, coiling around the whizz-ard's waist and hoisting him up with ease. The lid of the treasure chest came down with a sicking crunch, shredding through flesh and bone, blood gushing over his elongated fangs. Another bite, another crunch, pulling the broken body deeper into the treasure chest. Now his fangs were poised above the whizz-ard's waist, heedless of the potion bottles hitched to the man's belt.

The lid fell. Bones cracked. Glass shattered.

The Mimic shrieked, spitting out his half-eaten meal, and landed harshly on his back. His gangly limbs kicked and thrashed about, while a luminous blue liquid smoked on the surface of his tongue. It was soaked into his flesh before he could do a thing about it, each drop of the liquid sending strange pulses through the entirety of his being.

Then, in an instant, the shrieking and thrashing stopped. The beast grew still and silent.

Some hours later the Mimic stirred awake, groaning from a pain that rocked him from end to end. Slowly, he rolled onto his back and groaned in pain. A sound rose in his throat, the same noise he had heard many adventurers make when they realised all too late that the treasure chest they'd just opened was very hungry:

"Bugger!"

The sound startled him so much that he immediately fell on his backside, large hands pressing to his lid. He hesitated, slowly pulling his hands away. He regarded his own digits with newfound clarity.

Driven by instinct and hunger in the past, the Mimic had thought little of his own existence. Like a dog seeing his own reflection in a mirror, he had no concept of what it was to be an individual. Now, however, he was all too aware of the new thoughts bubbling in his head, growing in intensity as his earlier stupor melted away.

"I can speak," he said in a low murmur, the words ill-formed on his flailing tongue and shifting lid. All those strange words and murmurings he had heard in the past suddenly made sense to him.

Slowly, he turned around on all-fours, and focused on the mangled whizz-ard. What, exactly, had been in that potion bottle? Something potent, no doubt, but he spied no traces of a label among the shattered glass to tell him what it was.

Words formed in his head. Words gleamed from eavesdropping on plenty of conversations. They all had meaning now, meaning he could grasp and articulate. "I'm smart now. Smart as a human," the Mimic said, furrowing his lid in thought. But, he asked himself, what could he do with that? Perhaps it would make things easier to trick humans if he could talk to them?

'No no my good man, it's alright. I may be a talking treasure chest, but I'm a NICE talking treasure chest. Not like all those other Mimics who want to gobble you up. Incidentally my teeth are killing me, do you think you could pop your head under my lid and see what the issue is?'

He pondered that mental image for a time. No, that would never work. Humans were stupid and greedy, they certainly weren't compassionate.

Then again, he reasoned, greed defined him almost as much.

Humming, he reached into his lid and produced a fistful of golden coins. He inspected them briefly. How beautiful the gold glittered in his grasp, how sweet it smelled. Even the texture felt wonderful! He wanted more. That was something that his rise in intellect hadn't changed, at least.

Perhaps, he thought, his new wits could give him a way to make more money? He knew these ruins intimately, and by now much of the gold in the place had been picked clean. Partially by himself, admittedly. If he wanted more gold, this wasn't the place to do it.

But what could he do? Leave and explore the world outside? A Mimic could blend in here, but a treasure chest in a grassy field was hardly inconspicuous.

The Mimic grumbled in though, staring at the handsome face printed on one coin. Then, slowly, his gaze shifted to the mangled whizz-ard.

"Do I have to look like a treasure chest?" he asked himself. He'd never considered it before, lacking the capacity to do so. In the past he'd taken an abundance of shapes and, like most of his kin, settled on looking like a treasure chest. It was, after all, a disguise that always reeled in greedy fools.

But in theory a Mimic could, well, mimic anything if it wasn't too large or small for their biomass. They had simply evolved to fixate on dungeon fixtures to blend into their local environment. Changing their shape came as easily as breathing to the mimics. But looking like a human, that was entirely possible... surely? Perhaps, in ancient times, mimics had even done so. But if they could not act like a human, the disguise would have been worthless.

The Mimic lurched forward, spewing his gold onto the floor, and then set about focusing on his own body. Flesh warped, bones shifted, every facet of his being seeming to almost melt like heated candle wax. The shape of a treasure chest evaporated away, his gangly limbs shrinking and condensing.

He used the whizz-ard's body as a frame of reference for the proportions, albeit less... mangled. And, gradually, he adopted the physique of a short and slim man. The face he moulded was a blend of several he had seen over the years, and could be regarded as handsome in a conventional sense. His head became topped with feathery black hair, dark locks framing the sides of his face. That was the tricky part. All those little follicles with a silky texture. Fortunately he'd eaten enough hair to know what it looked and felt like.

Humming, the Mimic inspected himself. Not bad, he reasoned. "Ten fingers, ten toes. That's the right number, isn't it? And I have one of those... things down there. Ah, right, humans usually cover themselves in fabric." And he, having little mind for fashion, let his biomass shift again to recreate the purple robes, dark trousers and polished boots of the whizz-ard. The texture of fabric was generally easier to recreate than that of metal, and easier to move around in.

Anyone who looked upon the Mimic now would see a human. And what whizz-ard would think it necessary to cast a detection spell on him at a glance? Yes, he reasoned, this look would allow him to move about freely. And if he could move about freely, he could help himself to the gold of the world above.

He lifted one of the coins, inspecting his warped reflection in it. But he was still missing one thing, he realised. Humans all referred to each other by a title. Usually they screamed it in grief whenever their companion was half-crushed in the jaws of a hungry treasure chest.

So, to walk among humans, he needed to have a name like one. As he stared at the coin he couldn't help but grin to himself, struck with inspiration for a name: The most beautiful name in the whole wide world.

"Coin," he said aloud. "They can call me Coin."