“Look, boys, a veritable feast for you,” one of Luther’s duplicates announced, causing another to chuckle. The poltergeist could control dozens of different objects at the same time, so the trick he used while fighting adventurers was to engage using five identical bodies. One of these bodies would be slightly different from the others, and only this body would be vulnerable. If that body was destroyed, he’d be knocked out.

 

In a Confrontation match, he used the same trick, but with nearly a dozen bodies, making him a one-man army. He couldn’t recover the duplicates during a match, but early on, he was a force multiplier.

 

Calliope glanced between the two identical mask-wearing mannequins and shook her head. “That’s very disconcerting, you know.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” the real Luther replied, as he adjusted his fine purple tuxedo jacket and top hat. “But I can’t make it too obvious which of me is the original, and which are duplicates, that would make things too easy for our opponents to single me out.”

He passed a puppet-like hand in front of his face, and the ceramic mask changed from a jovial expression to a serious one. “Are you prepared for this?”

 

“I’m prepared, but I’m still a little unsure why I’m here, though. It’s not like I can heal your mannequin bodies, or the constructs,” Calliope replied, gesturing to the forces gathering around them.

 

There were a handful of clockwork constructs, which usually sat around Luther’s floor pretending to be furniture, a flock of magical books that were flying around the group like birds, and a variety of mutated furniture with eyes and mouths.

 

“If I had to guess, it was to look after the mimics since Talia’s relying on them to clean up the early defenses,” Luther said. As he paced back and forth, Calliope lost sight of his mask for a second, and when he turned around again, it had turned into a thoughtful expression. “It is strange, though, you and Toto are probably the most vulnerable to poison out of all of us.”

 

“I’m sure she has a reason, I just wish she’d told us what it was,” Calliope sighed before turning and climbing up onto Toto’s back and dropping into a crouch. The giant crab immediately rose to his feet and blew out a stream of bubbles, eager to go.

 

“I very much doubt it was malicious, and if we’d asked, she would have told us, but you know how Talia can get when she’s preparing for a match,” Luther said.

 

“Extremely focused on the task at hand, and scatterbrained when it comes to anything else,” Calliope smirked. “Trust me, I know.”

 

The pair glanced around the cavernous stone room just beyond the entrance portal. It contained huge stacks of crates marked "fragile" and the names of various poisons. Just beyond them was an open area containing several alchemy apparatus set up on tables, bubbling cauldrons, and beakers. Lots and lots of beakers.

 

“They really go hard on the poison theme, don’t they?” Luther chuckled.

 

“They do…” Calliope replied, far more cautiously. “How do you want to go about this?”

 

“I say we stick to Talia’s plan, and improvise as we go,” Luther said, stepping to the front of the group. When he turned back, he had a malicious grin. “Shall we?”

 

Calliope took a deep breath, then nodded. “Let’s.”

 

Luther turned towards the large group of shifting furniture at the back and raised his voice. “Otto, it’s time!”

 

The pillows on the large sofa in the middle rose, revealing a mouthful of jagged teeth and a long, prehensile tongue. “Eat?” it asked.

 

Luther nodded, and the oversized lounger rocked back and forth in glee. “Eat!”

 

The furniture all scrambled forward, moving far faster than they should have been on such stubby little legs, and charged into the next area.

 

As they did, a number of hunched figures emerged from behind the tables. Each one wore long purple cloaks, black masks with long snouts, long leather gloves, and aprons. They all had bandoliers and bags full of vials.

 

“You go no further trespassers,” the one announced, pulling a handful of vials from the pouch at his waist and throwing them towards the horde of mimics.

 

Instead of shying away, two of the larger mimics shot out their long prehensile tongues and snatched a vial out of the air, while two more, which looked like footstools, leaped up and snatched the other two, like eager puppies.

The rest of the horde didn’t even slow.

 

“Uhhhh…” the man muttered, momentarily stunned by the action. Thankfully, he recovered his senses before getting overwhelmed. “Attack!”

 

The other Alchemists immediately started showering the area in vials and bottles. Some were intercepted, while others crashed into the oncoming furniture, filling the room with a mixture of green and purple gas that quickly became so thick that it obscured everyone’s point of view.

 

After throwing his last potion, the lead alchemist tossed his satchel aside and pulled a wicked-looking, curved knife dripping with poison. “Prepare yourselves, the others won’t be that easy to…”

 

He didn’t get a chance to finish because a colossal prehensile tongue shot out of the cloud, wrapped around his arm, and yanked him into the fog.

 

The room was filled with wet crunching noises, followed by a burp.

 

A second later, a pack of Alchemy equipment came barreling out of the fog. The Alchemists stared at it in confusion for a minute, until a tongue shot out of a bubbling caldron and attempted to snag one of them.

 

The remaining group immediately backpedaled, sprinting from the door in an attempt to outrun the rampaging furniture. They were saved by the fact that every time one of the mimics bumped into something, they attempted to stuff it into their mouths. Tables, glassware, bottles full of toxic ingredients, everything went straight into their ravenous maws.

 

“Eat!” Otto declared, shoving an entire bookshelf into their maw.

 

Calliope just stared. “What just happened? How did they change form like that?”

 

“Oh, that’s the trick. They didn’t!” Luther declared as he strolled towards the chaos. “Mimics don’t change form; it’s just your perception of them that changes.”

 

“I… don’t get it,” the girl replied, nudging her crab forward. She carefully swept any broken glassware out of their way with her trident. There was no point in taking chances.

 

“Well, you see, Mimics may appear to be individual creatures, but they’re all part of a greater being. The one that hungers. Every mimic is like… a finger, a tendril of the great one. When they devour something, that thing is channeled back to the greater body,” Luther explained.

 

“Wait, are you serious?” Calliope asked. “If that’s true, why can adventurers kill them?”

 

Luther turned back towards her, his mask had an exaggeratedly raised eyebrow. “Have you ever seen a mimic corpse? No? It’s because they don’t have one. When a mimic is ‘slain,’ it simply severs the connection.”

 

Calliope shook her head, confused. “I don’t get how that allows them to change form.”

“Again, they didn’t. Mortal minds can’t actually fathom what tendrils of the one that hungers look like, so they try to fill in the blanks. You expected furniture when you came in, so you saw furniture. When they were obscured in the gas, you thought ‘Alchemy equipment is appropriate here’, so you began seeing them as such,” Luther explained.

 

“That’s crazy!”

 

“That’s the truth! The world is a weird and wonderful place!” Luther replied with a laugh.

 

“Wait… if you’re not messing with me, and they are the tendrils of some sort of dimensional being, shouldn’t we be doing something to get rid of them? They’re dangerous,” Calliope exclaimed.

 

“Oh, people tried, but they realized two things. One, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t exterminate mimics. When one dies, another just… pops up,” Luther said, before pausing dramatically.

 

“And? What’s the other?” Calliope prompted.

 

“They’re an extension of ‘The One That Hungers,’ not 'The One Who Starves’, or ‘The One That Devours’. As long as they get food like everything else, they’re not overly aggressive. In fact, they're friendly. They’re probably one of the least dangerous other-dimensional entities you can find,” Luther said.

 

“Insanity,” Calliope muttered, just as the pair caught up to the mimics.

 

Most of them were rummaging about, picking at scraps, but one shelf full of alchemical ingredients sat in the middle of the group, its tiny legs splayed out.

 

“Tummy ache!” it declared, before burping up a cloud of green gas.

 

“I think you’re up,” Luther declared as he strolled past the milling group.

 

Calliope just shook her head. “It’s going to be a long match,” she muttered.