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

Dane found the loose pin six times after the first.

Each tick came from the same thin ring of space inside his left hinge. Too much pressure lifted his lid. Too little sank into the wood and vanished. He learned the difference by hurting himself: press, listen through the metal, release before the ache spread into the iron band.

On the seventh attempt, heat tore from the pin to both tag nails. His lid jerked against the latch, and the five coppers on his tongue cut five shallow grooves into living flesh.

He stopped.

Control remained 0.04 percent. Grib’s repair had given him a damaged place he could reach, not a better body.

Beyond his boards, water worried at the same cracks in the annex floor. Nate’s old blood had lost some of its iron stink. The ordinary copper abandoned by the rat still lay in the wet groove near the threshold. Dane knew its position from the tiny answer it gave whenever a drip struck the stone beside it.

The door had never closed after Grib left. His toolbox had knocked it across the uneven threshold, and the bottom edge now rasped whenever the corridor draft worried it.

Something heavier than the draft pushed through.

Wood scraped stone. A metal bowl struck the door. Someone’s breath caught, and one leg dragged after the other. Inside the room, the stranger’s adult weight settled hard enough to vibrate stone. His next breath broke before it filled, carrying fresh blood to Dane’s seams and thickening the tongue under the coins.

"No biting, honored chest," the stranger whispered in rough Common. "Buk is poor eating. Too much bone. Ask anyone."

Tap. Scrape. The shallow bowl gave the object a name: spoon.

Two breaths later, Buk risked movement with the spoon leading: tap, good foot, dragging foot. Sounds in the corridor stopped him cold. Between them, he moved with cloth pulling tight around his ribs and thread rasping near one side of his head.

Two sets of steps crossed the doorway and faded.

Buk let out the air he had been holding. "Still two ahead. Chain behind."

He tested the broken shelf with the spoon. Rotten leather slid down and struck his shoulder. Buk caught one strip against his chest with a pained grunt; the rest slapped the floor. He folded the strip over the sackcloth already bound around his ribs and cinched it tight. His breath stopped halfway through the pull.

The spoon returned to the stone. Its edge dragged wet grit across the blood he had brought in, splitting the scent toward the shelf and the cracked crate. Then it probed the shallow dip beneath Dane’s lower board.

"Buk hides until chain passes," he said. "Coins stay where they are. Spoon stays with Buk."

Permission was impossible. The spoon slid under Dane, and Buk followed sideways, shoulder first, squeezing his wrapped ribs through the narrow space. His dragging heel scraped stone until his body flattened into the dip. Warmth spread across Dane’s lower board. Buk’s breath struck the wood in short, damp bursts.

Blood was closer now.

Dane’s tongue rose. The coins dug deeper as the muscles beneath them tried to shove bait toward the front of his mouth. His teeth shifted in their gums. The bad pin took more of his lid’s weight, loading itself for an opening Dane had not chosen.

Buk went rigid underneath him.

"Closed is good," he breathed. The words came faster when Dane’s lid strained against the pin.

A horn sounded down the corridor.

Buk flinched hard enough to crush his injured side against Dane’s underside. A wet sound escaped him before he bit it off.

The reply came as boots, two spear butts, and a chain dragged without concern for quiet. Orders snapped in the goblin tongue. Dane’s borrowed understanding caught only runner, baskets, and blood.

The door shoved wider.

"One goblin runner," a broad voice said in Common. "Split ear. Bad leg. If you pass him because the floor is dirty, I’ll add your share to mine."

One guard sniffed at the threshold. "Old human blood in here. Chest fed already."

"Then find the new blood."

A spear point scratched across the stone. The other guard entered beside it, lighter and quicker, while the chain remained near the door. The first guard followed Buk’s divided scent toward the shelf. His spear struck the cracked crate.

Rotten wood collapsed. Leather slid, the guard coughed, and the spear shaft knocked twice against stone as he recovered it.

"Trail splits," he said.

"Blood comes from one body. Search."

The second spear passed near Dane’s front rim. His mouth measured the heat behind the shaft: hand, wrist, blood moving inside both. His tongue tried to clear the coins from the bite path.

Buk pressed one palm against Dane’s lower board. The bent spoon lay trapped between his ribs and the floor. Every tremor of his breathing entered Dane.

After Buk’s next breath, the broad goblin’s chain scraped closer.

Dane had no face to compose and no harmless posture to take. He could only remain shut and hope they mistook him for furniture.

He pressed the loose pin.

Tick.

The spear carriers stopped.

"Awake?" the broad goblin asked.

"Bad hinge," the nearer guard said. "Grib’s work."

"Grib’s work makes noise after you touch it. That answered first."

The chain crossed the threshold. Heat drove through both of Dane’s tag nails, square and heavy. One line of pressure found his hinge, another his mouth. Brackenvault recognized the authority carrying it.

The upper nail pulled toward the chain; the lower pressed into the root of his tongue. Each throbbed to the links dragging over stone.

"Open it," the broad goblin said. "Then run a spear under the boards."

The nearer guard’s breath changed. "Captain Skek, Grib put this chest in the wax register. A bite writes the orderer’s name beside it."

"Every chest bites wrong. That’s why I brought you."

Silence answered Skek. The guard’s grip creaked against the spear shaft.

Its point settled on the floor in front of Dane and began to slide along the dip.

Scrape.

Buk flattened until the wrapped ribs stopped moving; his heel ground warm against Dane’s lower board as wet grit advanced ahead of the spear.

Dane’s lid loaded against the latch.

If the lid opened, the guard’s hands were near enough for Dane’s teeth. So was Buk. Either warm body would satisfy the hunger tightening his tongue until one copper cut hard enough to taste metal and his own blood together.

Scrape.

The spear point touched the edge of the rotten leather Buk had pulled beneath himself.

Dane drove his 0.04 percent into the loose pin and held it past the safe tick. Pain raced through the left hinge. He pushed the vibration forward into the rim planted against the stone, never moving his body, only making wood and metal shudder where they met the floor.

The wet groove carried the tremor.

Near the door, the abandoned copper rocked, rolled one finger-width down the slope, and clicked against grit beside Nate’s old blood.

The spear stopped.

Its point remained a handspan from Buk. The runner’s held breath still trembled against Dane’s lower board.

"Moving bait," the first guard whispered.

The tag nails burned hotter. Skek’s chain shifted in place.

Two horn calls broke from the east corridor.

"East drain," the other guard said. "Fresh blood found."

For three breaths, only Buk’s blood and Dane’s mouth moved.

Skek spat near the threshold. "Trail here is fouled. The hinge answers, the lure moves, and black wax will remember who opens it. I’m not trading a spear hand for one lame runner while the drain is sounding."

The probing point withdrew from the dip.

"Mark the room for Grib," Skek said. "East drain."

The guards backed out. Spear points left the stone. The chain crossed the threshold last, and the pressure through Dane’s tag nails receded with it. The door struck its warped frame but caught again before closing.

Water dripped six times without another bootfall.

Dane held the pin until the last bootfall disappeared, then released it. Pain throbbed through his hinge. The copper remained in the groove. Inside him, five ordinary coppers, the thin silver, the square-holed coin, Nate’s knife, and the return charm settled slowly as his tongue gave up its reach.

Buk remained pressed flat.

At last his ribs dragged in a careful breath. "Chest heard spear. Chest sent coin."

The same mouth had spent the whole search arranging Buk for a swallow. Dane had only a hinge tick, useless for confession.

Buk shifted the spoon back into his grip. "Buk remembers. No claim on chest. No claim on coin. But Buk remembers."

Remembering was better than owing. Dane still had no answer for either.

He meant the final press as no, or enough, or stop deciding what I mean. The loose pin gave him only one sound.

Tick.

Buk’s laugh caught against his ribs. "Chest says yes."

No.

Buk eased his dragged leg into the dip and settled again. His heel remained warm against Dane’s lower board while the bent spoon rested ready in his hand.