The crate mimics didn’t wait to land until they started their assault. Their tongues lanced out as they were flying over the demonic forces, wrapping around necks and arms. Before the demons could even react, the mimics had latched on, and the momentum of their motion pulled tongues taut. The sudden anchoring made the mimics whip about in wide arcs, smashing into demons with their solid oaken bodies - then they reeled their tongues in to bite on their prey.

Zaria swelled with pride that the maneuver had worked as furious bellows of pain arose from the demons, their hatred swelling in the air - when they weren’t cut off by death rattles. That initial assault had taken out six of the demons in a single volley, and now the crate mimics were in the midst of the demons. The monsters didn’t seem to have the intelligence to respond to such an unorthodox attack - from the way they tossed their heads about and sniffed the air, many of them couldn’t even tell where the attack was coming from.

Many, but not all. The one that had eaten a heart already whirled on the nearest crate mimic and slammed into it with big, meaty fists, punctuating its hatred by bellowing with every strike. Another one, one that had also eaten a heart, grabbed Rav and lifted him over its head, trying to toss the mimic away from the battle. Rav was too quick for that - his tongue lanced out to wrap around the demon's neck. The demon grunted with shock at the sudden change, and Rav reeled himself in, biting into the demon’s head.

Into, not through. This demon had more strength than its fellows, and that translated to increased resistance as well. It flailed about, raking Rav’s sides with its claws. The demon could pull furrows of wood up from Rav’s hide, but Rav just responded by chewing on the beast's skull with even more determination.

Then one of the candle mimics smashed the demon in the stomach with its shield, driving the wind from the demon’s lungs. The demon dropped its arms to protect itself, which was the wrong move in this case - the candle mimic could now bite onto the demon’s wrist, and now joined Rav in chewing on this particular brute. Zaria took some quick notes to herself - she’d have to prepare for higher resistance fights, both from adventurers and demons, in the future.

Moments later, Rav finally got through, and with a sickening crunch, the demon went limp. Rav landed on the ground and, per Zaria’s instructions, regurgitated the demon’s well-chewed grey matter.

That sickening sight broke the spell over the defenders. “Come on, you blighted sheep buggers!” Vysala shouted. “You gonna let boxes and candles have all the fun?”

The defenders rallied at her words and charged forward, taking advantage of the demon’s confusion to push back. Vysala led the charge, whirling her spork about like a master with a glaive. She now was using her runes freely, activating impact runes whenever she struck a demon and there was another behind her target.

Now that they had humanoid threats again, the demons rallied. They knew what they wanted - hearts - and any time they got their claws on a human, the sickening crunch of a shattered ribcage was not far behind. Whenever they ate, they underwent a similar transformation to the first that Zaria had seen feed. They grew more upright, their muscles filled out, and moments later their tactics became smarter, responding to the threat of the mimics less like confused animals.

One in particular had eaten three. He’d been one of the ones wearing armor. After the third heart, he’d fallen back from the fight, surveying the battlefield. Even though his eyes were just horns, somehow there was a malicious intelligence radiating from behind his gaze.

He locked eyes on Zaria, snarled, and charged.

The scorpion made of hands whistled a few notes to the demon, enhancing it in some way that Zaria couldn’t discern. That was all the time it had left, however. Because the moment the last note left the monstrosity’s lips, Maw arrived.

The chest mimic boss slammed into the scorpion’s side like a charging gorilla, and the scorpion demon hissed in response, twisting to try to bring its massive forearms to bear. Maw leapt to the side, hopping to stay ahead of the scorpion’s grasp. That brought him in range of the tentacles it had in place of a tail, which lashed down at Maw. Maw grabbed onto one with both hands and popped open his lid, dragging the appendage into his mouth and clamping shut.

First blood to Zaria’s boss.

The injury infuriated the scorpion demon, and it scuttled back, getting some space between itself and Maw, then whirled on the boss and shrieked. The sound was like fingernails dragged across the fabric of reality. The air rippled in front of the boss, travelling in a wave towards Maw. It blasted bits of wood and splinters off Maw, who had to sink his hands into the ground to avoid being bowled over by the force of the blow.

Then the scorpion rushed back in, grabbing onto Maw with its massive hands, and slammed the boss into the ground.

Zaria charged.

The sword demon that had been charging her a moment ago froze in shock. He must have assumed that she’d be immobile. A dangerous assumption. Zaria took one quick step to the left and balled the talons of her foot into a fist, side-swiping the demon with a kick. He parried with the flat of his blade, but the sheer force behind Zaria’s kick was enough to send the demon’s blade back, cracking the sword against his helm. Then Zaria kept moving.

Maw had gotten his tongue wrapped around one of the scorpion demon's larger arms, and was biting into the creature’s wrist. It was shrieking in agony as it slammed Maw against the ground repeatedly like a child throwing a tantrum, but the chest mimic was a boss. It provided a challenge for five low level adventurers. Blows that would have shattered a man’s spine or broke a lesser mimic in half just made Maw bite harder.

Then Zaria closed the gap. The scorpion had been so entranced with its prey, it hadn’t registered Zaria’s approach as something it needed to worry about - just another sound in the cacophony of battle.

Zaria put an end to that assumption by stomping down on the scorpion’s back, putting her full weight into the motion.

To her surprise, the scorpion demon did not explode like an overripe tomato, but something in the creature did snap, drawing pained shrieking from it. It latched onto Zaria’s legs with its smaller hands and lashed at the bottom of her home with its tentacles, but Zaria was now determined. She sunk her talons into the scorpion demon. The moment it was secure, she started to stomp rapidly, slamming it between her bulk and the ground faster than it could break free.

In the chaos, it lost its grip on Maw. The boss staggered to the side, a bit rattled from being slammed about, then noticed the sword wielding three-heart empowered demon. Zaria did not know how much strength one heart, let alone three, gave a demon, but it certainly gave this one the brains to hesitate before charging Maw.

Maw giggled.

Zaria said, even though her commands couldn’t work out here. But Maw could still hear her, and it made Zaria feel better to speak. She stomped again, trying to finally kill the scorpion.

Maw charged the sword demon, lunging to close the gap.

The demon leapt to the side, moving with preternatural grace, and swung his blade with far more finesse than he’d displayed earlier, drawing a quick slash on Maw’s arm.

Zaria stomped a few more times as she watched the fight unfold. Maw moved with an animal’s fury, lashing out with fists and trying to grab on, while the demon moved like a master swordsman. Just moments ago, he’d been a near mindless brute, slashing wildly, and now he looked like he’d spent years studying the blade. He could easily give Vysala a run for her money now.

But Maw was a boss mob.

Now that the fight was in full swing and nothing could get in his way, Maw could activate his abilities. He leapt back from the demon and landed on all three limbs before popping his lid open and letting loose with a veritable stream of digestive juices. They washed over the demon, and immediately set the thing screeching in fury as its skin sizzled and popped with sounds like bacon and released smells like a latrine. In a dungeon fight, a healer would be able to get rid of that acidic debuff with a simple spell. But the demon didn’t have a healer. He had a sword and fury.

He charged back in, slashing at Maw, but the acidic spray had eroded the demon’s eye-horns. The demon could still discern his surroundings, clearly, but his motions were far less precise than they had been a moment before.

Maw capitalized on the clumsiness, lunging in to grab the demon by the shoulders. In a single motion, Maw bent forward, lifting the demon up into his mouth. The demon had just enough sense for its enraged screams to become screams of terror, right before Maw bit down hard on the demon’s upper torso. Because of Zaria’s injunction against swallowing, Maw just chewed happily on the demon as it kicked and thrashed, using his hands to shove the demon back in if it ever looked like it was going to break free.

Zaria took a moment to look at her prey as well, and realized she’d been stomping a bloody corpse for some time now. She cast it aside with a single flick of her talons, then turned her attention to the defenders.

The battle there had turned, and the demons were finally being driven back, but it had been a costly victory. Three of Zaria’s candlemen and two of the crate mimics were dead, as well as ten of the town’s defenders – every single one of the latter missing their hearts. Vysala was leaning against her spork, using the tool like a staff, and panting heavily. She’d picked up several bruises and cuts over the course of the fight, but was alive.

There was one last demon, a gravely injured creature that was scrabbling on the ground, trying to get away from Rav. The crate mimic was reeling it in by its ankles, and no one seemed inclined to finish the job, instead letting Rav pull the monster to his jaws and biting down hard.

“The Fissure,” Vysala said to Zaria. She pointed in the direction. “Can you close it?”

Zaria put herself back in her body. “How?”

“Just damage the edges of it.” Vysala took a deep breath. “Since you want the Fissure Core, press in from the sides, don’t just stomp it.”

Zaria said. The chest boss was still chewing on the demon, and ignored Zaria’s command. Right. She hadn’t told the mimics to return when the fight ended, just when twenty minutes had passed. To save time, Zaria gently scooped the boss up with her talon and brought it up to the floor of her house. The moment it was in contact with her structure again, Zaria could give it new orders. She did not know how long they had before new demons came pouring through.

Maw cackled in what Zaria hoped was affirmation. Sure enough, the moment the boss was back on the ground, he loped off, charging the Fissure. He battered the sides with his fists, and the air rippled around the point of impacts. With each blow, Zaria could see the Fissure visibly shrink, the crack growing smaller and smaller. She moved her vision closer, trying to get a better look at what was on the other side.

What she saw shocked her. The flying creature with lamprey maws was on the ground now. Demons were swarming around it, snarling and scraping, but the creature was putting up a decent fight. That word - creature - felt right. Something about it felt off in comparison to the demons. Part of that was the lack of horns - instead the creature was just eyeless - but something else was just wrong in a way even the demons weren’t.

Zaria said to Rav, just needing to rid herself of the thought.

Her speech drew the attention of one particular demon, however. Even though she’d been using telepathy and was on a different plane of existence, he whipped his head to face her. He had the most humanoid build she’d seen so far, tall and muscular, and wore black leather that contrasted with his skin - so pale it was almost translucent. Most noticeably, however, were the actual eyes. Although horns still grew where a human’s eyes would sit, this one also had more normal eyes – just located where a human’s temples would be. And twice as large. And black where a human’s eyes would be white.

That was, without question, the same type of eye that had peered through at the beginning of the battle.

The demon had been watching the fight with the lamprey-bat thing. Now that he had Zaria’s attention, he - without turning away from Zaria - pointed a single finger at the monster.

A bolt of bright green and purple lightning leapt from the sky, nearly as thick as Zaria’s entire structure. It crashed down into the lamprey-jawed beast, a monster that had been fighting and holding its own against dozens of demons so far. Even though she didn’t have eyes, the blast still dazzled Zaria’s vision.

Then it cleared, and the beast was gone. Not dead. Just gone. Erased from existence. All that remained to show it had ever been present was a scorch mark on the ground and several dead demons.

Then came those words again, words that split reality to manifest themselves to Zaria.

Dungeon, know this. The Error has Been Logged. We have noticed.

An instant later, Maw’s final blow snapped the Fissure shut, sealing the demon on the other side. No, not just a demon. A word rose to Zaria’s mind, unbidden, and she immediately knew it had to be the correct word for what she’d just seen.

That was an archfiend. One that she’d just gotten personally interested in her.

Maw giggled as he scooped up the Fissure Core, and notifications flashed across Zaria’s vision informing her of her victory.

Congratulations! You have reached Tin 5!

See new features now? Y/N?

Glad to have something to occupy her mind while the people grieved their dead and her mimics returned, Zaria selected yes.