I was hungry.

The exit was close— I mean, I didn’t know that for sure, but I was reasonably certain that the exit was close. Probably. Maybe.

It had better be, because I was out of food.

Three long days had passed with me exploring this little dirt dungeon. My potatoes were long gone. I was absolutely sick of eating them after five meals, so that was probably for the best. If I didn’t see a potato for a solid month it would probably be too soon.

Baked wild potato with no seasonings or add-ins got old very fast. I honestly wasn't sure if another meal like that was preferable to my stomach aching from hunger.

I had encountered exactly one enemy during this entire time; some kind of mole-rat looking thing two days in… that had taken one look at the mimic and promptly speed-dug itself away before either of us could react.

Otherwise it had just been a maze of tunnels that looked exactly alike. I had started leaving scorch marks on the walls with my stave to reassure myself that I wasn’t going in circles.

But finally that was changing. The current tunnel ever-so-slightly graded up. Finally, finally, ahead it looked like the walls widened out.

It took awhile, the end farther away than it looked. After fifteen minutes of walking on a barely-perceptible incline, the area I came to looked different; like a wide burrow. The ceiling was higher here, sloping gently into a dome. It was empty.

Huh.

I… didn’t like this. This seemed like a—

The ground exploded.

Dust rained down, blocking my vision and leaving me coughing. The mimic burst around and forward from behind me, rushing into the space. It stopped short in front of me and turned from side to side, tracking something. 

I felt something wrap around my ankle. I yelled as it dragged me into the air. It was way stronger than I was.

“LEAVE THIS PLACE!” A voice snarled, echoing.

Oh. Wonderful. This again. 

Shapes moved in the cloud of debris. As it settled to the ground I saw what I was dealing with. 

I… guess I’d call it a hydra? I mean, it wasn’t, it was pretty clearly some kind of plant, but it looked like what I’d expect a hydra to look like; multiple heads, a big bloated body, vines swinging and whipping out.

I was gonna go with “plant hydra”— that was the closest thing that fit. 

My head was starting to ache, feeling too full. The stupid thing was holding me upside-down and that really needed to stop. I hefted my stave and swung it to get a grip with both hands. Before I could let off some fire the damn thing threw me across the room. 

I slammed against the wall about eight feet up and half-rolled, half-fell down. 

Ow. Um, fucking ow.

“OUT!!” It roared. “Out of my home, foul human! Leave me in peace!” 

Well. Huh. Okay. Now I did feel slightly bad about being here. 

I got to my feet— wincing from the bruises— and decided to try diplomacy. 

“Hey man!!” I shouted. “I actually, uh, don’t need to fight you.”

It didn’t stop moving, exactly, but its vines slowed. All its flower-heads swung around to stare at me. 

“I just need to get out of the dungeon.” I continued, speaking as loudly as I could. “Could you just… let me get past to the exit?”

It was quiet a long moment, slowing its movements even more. Then, “I suppose that is agreeab—”

The mimic moved.

It had stayed so still I hadn’t been paying attention, wrapped up in my discussion with the plant monster. Now I was seeing Deja Vu. 

The chest had grown its arms again— the ones with the nightmare knives on the ends. It had both of them stuck into the hydra, which was oozing thick brownish-green milky sap from wounds in its huge body. 

The plant roared, thrashing and tearing away from the mimic. “A RUSE!!” It screamed. “I am a fool! Of course any being that allies itself with this cannot be trusted!”

“Sorry!” I yelled. “The chest is kind of… enthusiastic.”

The hydra didn’t respond. I got the feeling that it wasn’t really paying attention to me anymore.

The mimic pulled back. It whipped one arm to the side and severed one of the vines that arced forward to smack it.

“Hey, man!” I yelled towards to mimic. “Can you fucking back off? This plant mon— uh, plant thing says it’ll let us past without fighting it!”

It ignored me. It rushed the hydra again, tensing and leaping. It came down with its mouth on one of the heads and cut it off with a vicious swing of a knife blade. 

Well, this sucked. 

I stood there for the next few minutes like a useless tool, yelling ineffectually. “Back off, my guy!” didn’t work. Neither did “dude, fucking stop!” or “it doesn’t want to hurt us!” 

The mimic ignored me, absolutely fucking this plant hydra up.

The hydra screamed and spat something foul-smelling at the chest from its largest middle flower. The mimic sizzled, its metal body corroding. I wasn’t even that mad about it, to be honest— if that got it to fucking stop its shit—”

It roared and turned from mostly bronze to a solid silvery color. The smoking pits in its body vanished, shining metal straps glowing a little.

Great.

It leapt again, much higher this time. It sailed across the space and snapped out its knives, cutting off three more flower-heads on the way and twisting out of the way of more acid jets from the middle head.

I had this feeling in my stomach while I watched it. Regret. And tension, I guess? Unease. This was… This was not good. I’d told this plant-hydra-thing I was friendly. It had been willing to let me go.

And now the mimic was killing it. Because I’d brought it here.

It bounced off the sloping wall with its chonky t-rex feet and launched itself back around for another pass. Four heads fell this time. The mimic opened its mouth and screamed in victory.

The plant had one head left, the bigger middle one. The chest bounced off the ground and leapt again, taking another acid stream right in the teeth as it opened its lid wide. It came down on top of the plant’s middle head, not giving a shit about the acid, swallowing it far down the neck. It closed its lid and snapped the whole thing off with finality. 

The hydra’s huge bulbous body fell to the side and went still. The ground shook and trembled as its corpse fell, and then the room was silent.

The mimic gulped down the neck it still had sticking out of its jaws. It jumped on top of the hydra’s still body, raised its knife-arms high, and roared. 

“Jesus fuck, calm down.” I breathed, shaking. My stomach twisted at the sight. “It’s dead already, asshole. Jesus fuckin’ Christ!”