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

Brackenvault built the practice room across Dane’s thoughts and left his body in Kett’s work cell.

Black wax crawled from Kett’s tablet into the brass ownership tag. Every stroke became a route Dane could feel—door, approach lane, bite radius, dead ground. His split left hinge sagged toward one. The dirty copper beyond his intake answered another with an unreachable pulse.

Two dull coppers remained free beneath his tongue. Vera’s chalk-threaded fringe rested against the cracked root. The clean acceptance token stayed pinned sideways in the front groove, wet wax against tooth, while the named kill order waited to turn the next opening into a first bite.

Grib had gone for more resin. Kett watched alone with his stylus lifted.

"Simulation will test kill-command routing without expending licensed delvers."

Saint Rust woke inside the old knife. "Murder becomes very economical once a clerk discovers rehearsal."

The wax lines closed around Dane’s awareness. Four figures gathered from scraps Brackenvault had kept: Vera in chalk blue, Brant in iron gray, Tess in quick silver, and Holt in salt white. They had the party’s heights, equipment, and habits visible from a corridor.

They lacked everything the dungeon had failed to understand.

/==[ Brackenvault System: Feeding Simulation ]==\

| Pattern Set: Pike Party\

| Objective: Kill-command rehearsal\

| Primary Trigger: Mage proximity\

| Secondary Trigger: Rogue contact\

| Reward: Compliance upgrade pending\

==[ Practice Room: Teeth First ]==/

The other three copies vanished. Vera’s remained at the doorway.

Chalk light rolled from its fingers and divided the floor into safe squares. Testing each one methodically, the copy approached along Dane’s damaged left side with a mage’s caution.

No laugh under the breath when the chalk stuck to her cuff. No glance toward Brant before she risked the next pace. Brackenvault had copied procedure and discarded the woman doing it.

At the edge of bite range, the kill order seized Dane’s hinge.

His left corner rose first. Wood grated over the split pin. The acceptance token tipped beneath his crooked tooth and pulsed the root. His tongue dragged across the seam Grib’s tools had opened as the Vera-copy raised a chalked hand toward his lock.

The swallowed copper stayed beyond reach. For one heartbeat, Dane eased his resistance to the intake and let its heat arrive.

The burn punched through his mouth floor. His tongue cramped sideways. Teeth deployed out of alignment, one rank striking another with a crack that shivered through the root. They shut on chalk light a thumb from the copy’s wrist.

The false Vera dissolved. Her last spell marked the inside of his lid before the wax reclaimed it.

Kett drew a hook through the first approach line. "Primary trigger completed. Bite alignment failed after internal heat response."

The reset left Dane’s hinge hanging a little lower.

Brant entered through a narrow guard lane with a shield pressed close and the mage’s empty position behind him. The copy advanced like a gate on legs. It struck Dane’s lid once with the shield rim, forcing him to open against the weight, then brought a wax sword down toward the exposed tongue.

Pain came through the simulation with teeth in it. The blade carved cold fire along Dane’s existing abrasion. His mouth filled with the remembered taste of his own damaged grain.

The copy changed the shield from right hand to left without slowing.

Real Brant’s left forearm was broken and splinted, guarded even while he pretended it meant nothing. His right hand carried the authority—shield, strike, shove, whichever kept the others alive. This figure used both arms with a diagram’s symmetry.

Brackenvault expected Dane to break the guard at center. Dane gave the command its bite and changed the target by inches.

He caught the shield on his right-side teeth, wrenched it across his mouth, and dragged the copy’s impossible left arm into the opening. Wax knuckles burst against his molars while the sword missed his tongue and buried itself in the floor line.

Dane slammed his lid on the shield edge. The jolt tore through his left hinge and drove the pinned token harder against the cracked root, but the copy folded over its own false geometry. Iron wax broke at the shoulder. Brant’s shape collapsed without blood, too neat even in defeat.

Kett changed the hooked trace into two crossing strokes. "Asset selected an unguarded limb outside the projected priority route. Variance attached to target model."

"Your dungeon draws people like furniture," Dane thought at it, without words it could record.

Tess arrived low and fast. She ignored the chalked squares, planted both knees inside Dane’s reach, and set a silver pick against the lockplate.

An excellent stealing posture left no clean escape.

Real Tess priced exits before treasure. Even at her greediest, one heel stayed ready to push while her eyes counted whoever might block the route. The copy bent over the lock with its back to the only door. Brackenvault remembered appetite and misplaced the fear that made her good.

Rogue contact struck the secondary trigger.

Dane’s tongue fired so hard the abrasion split wider. It looped for the copy’s wrist. He felt the warm shape the command wanted him to drag between his teeth. Hunger rose behind it, delighted by a smaller joint.

Intent on the lock, the copy kept picking as Dane drove his tongue down.

The pick punched through its tip. Silver wax sank into the raw channel, convulsing his whole body. He curled the tongue anyway, crushed the tool against his lockplate, and flung it aside. The Tess-copy followed with both hands and stumbled out of the bite line.

Kett’s stylus hesitated. He boxed the crossing strokes rather than erasing them.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Fault Pattern Review ]==\

| Delayed Feed: Repeating\

| Target Variance: Recognized\

| Compliance Upgrade: Unstable\

| Refusal Category: Under Review\

==[ Wax: Looking For Intent ]==/

Recognition was Kett’s label, not a gain. Dane’s hinge had opened farther; blood slicked his real tongue while the wax stayed clean, and the token wobbled under a tooth losing its grip.

The fourth trace appeared with Holt already kneeling in front of him.

The salt-white copy placed its mace beyond reach, showed both empty palms, and leaned toward Dane’s crooked opening as if reasoning with a trapped creature. It bypassed Vera, Brant’s shield, and even Holt’s nervous prayer. The dungeon had taken his mercy and removed the people who gave it judgment.

The kill order changed tactics. Force drained from Dane’s lid. His lure pulled the corners into the appearance of weakness while Sound Lure formed a hurt noise behind his lockplate.

The copy came closer while the command held Dane’s hinge open and demanded a bite. One more pace would put those empty hands on his rim and make the first-bite fault real.

"Spoil the lie," Saint Rust said.

Every ugly truth of Dane’s body ruined the invitation as his split hinge shrieked open. Misaligned teeth punched out in uneven rows, scraping splinters from one another. He slapped his wounded tongue against the lockplate until the false whimper became a repulsive clang. The Holt-copy paused, palms still extended.

The order forced his tooth down.

Dane forced down harder.

The acceptance token took the cracked tooth’s full weight. Wet wax burst from its square seal. Copper bent, held, and then snapped beneath the root with a bright report. One broken edge drove into the tongue. The other kicked upward and shifted the tooth in its socket.

Agony whitened the practice room. Dane’s lid crashed shut before the empty palms reached him. The impact tore the left hinge another fraction, hammered the brass tag against his shell, and ground shattered token pieces under the tooth. The Holt-copy lost both hands at the rim and broke into salt-colored wax.

Kett dropped his stylus.

Saint Rust sounded pleased. "That was an expensive refusal. Clerks respect those."

The four traces flared across Kett’s tablet. Hook, cross, box, fracture. Brackenvault compared them, found intention where it wanted malfunction, and answered by removing the promised reward.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Rehearsal Result ]==\

| Kill Command: Active\

| Compliance: Failed under simulation\

| Acceptance Token: Broken\

| Fault Type: Voluntary refusal suspected\

| Reward: Withheld\

| Field Test: Authorized\

==[ Bad Asset: Prove It On Guests ]==/

The wax released Dane into Kett’s cell amid iron bars, resin stains, the old knife, and the black tablet. His real tongue held the cut, and his real hinge sagged. Only Dane had suffered.

Kett recovered his stylus. "Field confirmation supersedes further rehearsal. Route bait requires licensed pressure."

Grib returned with resin on his sleeve. "Tell me the chest learned manners."

"It broke the acceptance token, injured itself four times, and taught the registry to suspect intent."

Grib stared at Dane. "One of us is being mocked, and I dislike all available answers."

Black wax spread across Kett’s tablet before the joke could breathe. The writing passed from the staff record into the guild slate, rescue board, and contract queue above.

/==[ Public Guild Notice: Rescue Contract ]==\

| Missing: Milo Trent, trainee delver\

| Last Tag: Brackenvault Floor 2 / Old Storage Route\

| Candidate Match: Pike Party\

| Rescue Clock: Active\

| Route Change: Authorized after entry\

==[ Mercy Routed To Teeth ]==/

Milo Trent.

Dane remembered the alert provisional trainee who followed a bad situation faster than older men followed pride. Dane had performed faulty and placed a copper beyond the bite line; Milo recognized the chance and lived. Brackenvault had turned that mercy into bait.

Two free coppers remained under Dane’s tongue, with the dirty coin burning beyond reach, Vera’s fringe at the cracked root, and shattered clean-token pieces trapped under the shifted tooth. The F-1 body was gone. The named order remained, and real footsteps would replace wax when Pike Party entered.

This time, failure would have blood in it.