Threadbare had never actually seen a mimic. They were legendary creatures, who were famous for shifting their shapes to resemble mundane objects. Insatiable predators, they lay in ambush waiting for the unwary to put a hand on their sticky skin. Or just to get near, if they were hungry enough.

These mimics seemed to be a touch more ambitious than the ones in the legends, though. They hopped, crawled, and stalked forward on chair legs, surging down the hallway like a tidal wave of indoor furnishings.

Threadbare looked to the mimics, looked to the cross hallway, and saw that there was no point in fleeing. He could reach it in time, but Graves was slower, he knew that. And the poor Mousewife was no adventurer, he rather doubted her agility was up to the task.

“Stay behind me!” he called, as he moved forward, feeling his claws unsheathe from his paws for the first time in years. “Do what you can.”

And then he chanted the litany of buffs that seemed most useful, in the moments before the mimics reached him. “Bodyguard Mousewife. Flex. Strong Pose. Guard Stance.”

It had been a very long time since he'd had to fight. And he was quite all right with that. He'd much rather be hugging his friends. But Threadbare felt his body moving in the old familiar ways, and he struck a pose, flexing and shifting one foot forward, turning to the side a bit, claws up and ready to meet the charge.

The smallest and lightest of the mimics led the charge. The first to reach Threadbare was a small jewelry box, with a toothed maw open and chomping and a tiny decorative ballerina inside madly dancing and cheering the box on. Threadbare put his paw through it, then hopped back and shook his hand, expecting the corpse to stick to him... but it didn't.

That was odd. He had always heard that mimics had sticky flesh. Perhaps this was a young one that hadn't grown into its full ooziness?

Behind him, he heard graves yell “Bomb!”

He ducked, just in case, but needn't have bothered. There was a snapping hiss, then a black ball with a burning fuse sailed well over his head, and landed down the corridor. There was a muffled WHUMP, and bits of furniture flew everywhere.

But Graves had put the bomb well behind the mimic front lines, and the next wave was upon Threadbare before he could straighten up. The bear's guard stance served him well then, as he quickly slapped aside thrashing table legs, charging chairs, and jumping jewelry boxes. A few managed to thump him, and every time he twirled aside, trying to memorize contact, but none of them stuck to his fur.

“Something's strange!” he called back. “Are we sure these are mimics?”

“That's what the sign said!” Graves called back, before shouting “Bomb!” again, and blowing up the next wave.

“I'm not sure the sign is telling the truth,” Threadbare replied, swiping his claws through the first two legs of a trampling table, sending it crashing down onto a pair of kiddie-sized stools. A pair of chairs struck at him, but his guard stance easily let him parry and slip out of the way. His paw lashed out as he did so, swiping the leg off the chair without any conscious thought of his own.

Your Riposte skill is now level 2!

“Let me try something!” The Mousewife squeaked. “Eye for Detail!”

“You're an animator too?” Threadbare asked, surprised. The pause cost him, as a chest dove from the crowd and swallowed him whole.

The Mousewife's scream of panic cut off as Threadbare burst his way out, sending splinters of wood everywhere.

“AAAAAHHHHH— Oh. Oh whew! You had me worried for a second there, sir!”

Threadbare didn't have time to reply, as he was beating a table to death with another table.

“What does your skill say?” Graves asked her, chucking another bomb.

“They're animi, sir! Level four! Called Mimic Mimics!”

“Level 4... this is a bluff,” Graves said. “They're trying to get us to overcommit resources. Let's have a new plan. Threadbare, kick the Mousewife from the party!”

“What?” The Mousewife shrieked, betrayed.

But Threadbare knew what Graves was intending, and it was entirely malice free. “Remove Mousewife from Party.”

“You'll get levels this way,” Graves told her. “Command and invite the animi, then use them to fight the others.”

“Oh. OH!” she said, and happily started chanting. “Command Table to join party. Invite Table! Command Chair to join party. Invite Chair. Command—“ she broke off. “Is that a chest or a trunk? I can't tell.”

“Not the time, just grab whatever you can!” Graves shot back.

“But it would match so well with the other ones I'm controlling,” she said. “It's cherry wood, it looks like, and I love that hue.”

Threadbare took a few hits, dug his way out of a set of grasping bedsheets, and flipped over the swing from an oncoming coat rack.

“It's a portmanteau!” Graves yelled. “Now get to it lady!”

“You know,” Threadbare said, balancing on one of the coatrack's arms, running up it, and toppling it onto a chest of drawers, “It wouldn't be a bad idea for all of us to stock up on minions. Remove Graves from party.”

And once he was out, Threadbare chanted his own skills, falling back to defend as he grabbed his own set of minions.

With a sigh, Graves did the same.

And with that, the battle ended swiftly. The maximum party size was seven. With six minions apiece, each buffed by their own minion-boosting skills, they no longer had to take a personal hand in the fight. Already damaged by Threadbare's offensive defense and Graves' bombardment, the remaining waves of wardrobes and barrages of beds slowed to a halt, then stopped as the last uncontrolled animi was stomped into splinters.

“Oh, it's leather after all,” sighed the Mousewife, running her hands over the portmanteau. “It's just dyed to look like wood. Pity.”

“Did you level?” Graves asked.

“Oh yes! I'm a level four Animator now, thank you so much!” The Mouswife smiled. “I feel so much better.”

Threadbare hadn't gotten anything out of that fight, himself. The enemies had simply been too weak. But they were strong enough to give the Mouswife a boost, which was why Graves had suggested removing her from the party. She wouldn't have gotten any experience otherwise, due to the level differences between them.

This was the way of the world; you couldn't hide behind your elders if you wanted to grow stronger, not all the time, anyway. You had to go out and struggle through things on your own, or with up to six similarly-leveled individuals. Otherwise the strange words that enforced the will of reality wouldn't give you the power needed to survive higher-level threats.

“I'm glad you have an adventuring job,” Threadbare told her. “I didn't expect you to be an Animator, too.”

“Oh well I chose it because I wanted to make the kids laugh, sir,” the Mousewife said, climbing up onto the biggest of the chairs she'd seized as a minion, and having it reverse so that the back was between her and oncoming trouble. “The children do love it when their toys come to life and play with them!”

“We should keep moving,” Graves recommended, shifting his all dark-oak set of minions up to occupy the intersection. “Our goal hasn't changed. We need to find the others. So...” he looked down the cross corridors. “We've got something that's full of steam and thumping noises, or down into a cave. Which one, do you think?”

With a start, Threadbare realized that his companions were looking at him to make the choice. For a second, that old feeling of wrongness rose up in him. That feeling he'd gotten a few months ago, when he realized that he was much more comfortable following someone and lifting them up, than leading people who were trying to lift him up.

He thought he'd left that feeling behind forever when he'd abdicated his seat on the council. And though that hadn't been the main reason he stepped down, it was definitely quite a bit off pressure off his shoulders, after it was officially done.

So Threadbare studied the two passages, and recalled what he knew of dungeonlore. “I don't know how our enemy set this one up, but we need to rescue people before we do anything else. We should probably check to make sure nobody's in danger on this level before we go down to the next one.”

With that in mind, he took the lead and started into the steamy tunnel.

Threadbare regretted it after the first fifty feet or so. His fur got all soggy and he felt the water start to soak into his stuffing. Still, he'd been through worse, so he focused on trying to peer through the steam. Behind him his collection of minions clattered along, blending with Graves and the Mousewife's herd to fill the passage with an assembly of animated furniture that mimicked mimics.

It really wasn't how he'd planned the day to go, and he was starting to think that he might not make it home in time for dinner if this kept up.

The steam got thicker the further they went, and it became more and more difficult to see through it.

“Threadbare,” Graves called. “Shift a few of your animi ahead. We might as well get some use from them before they get pounded into splinters.”

“Not a bad idea,” Threadbare agreed, as he reshuffled the marching order. “Do you have anything to see through this mess?”

“Not much, but... hm. Detect Magic. Now I can at least see magical trouble coming. Hopefully.”

“Keen Eye,” Threadbare dutifully recited, recalling his Scout training.

Your Keen eye skill is now level 13!

That particular skill enhanced his perception. Of course, it occurred to him, perception covered more than just sight. So he fell back on one of his bear necessities.

“Scents and Sensibility.”

Immediately the world expanded. The steamy air took on nuances that told their own stories. Everything from the sweaty skin of Mr. Graves behind him, to the way the stone smelled as the air heated it painted a picture that needed no sight to perceive.

It really had been too long since he'd done this last. When was the last time he'd drawn a breath for any other purpose except talking? He really had to get back into the habit.

And that enhanced sense of smell was what saved him from a horrible fate, as the texture of the air shifted, the motions spreading out in a way that suggested more space opening up abruptly.

And stone. Very, very hot, burning stone.

“Stop!” Threadbare called, just as wood clattered ahead, and there came a splash from ahead. Ahead and below. One of his animi vanished from his party screen, and his nose filled with the brief scent of woodsmoke.

Unknown_Chair 1 has left the party.

“There's a trap door or pit up ahead that leads down to the lava room,” Threadbare decided. “We must have come up a rise and doubled back.”

“Let me test a theory,” Graves said. “Force Bolt.”

The simplest of Wizard spells, it hurled a blue bolt of energy down the hall, disappearing into the mist and cracking against distant stone.

“I saw the impact. It looks like the corridor ends up ahead,” Graves said. “There's probably nothing on the other side of the pit. That's how I'd set this trap up if I were our unseen enemy.”

“How horrible!” the Mousewife squeaked. “Also there are doors opening in the walls near me and I'm very scared!”

Threadbare charged before she completed the sentence, running back to protect her. Midway through he felt himself pulled through the air at an astonishing speed, as a ten-foot long metal sword intersected him, and knocked him to the ground. Looking up, he had a brief view of a red '41' floating up into the air, before he got his feet under him. The Mousewife ran past him, screaming, and a metal shape easily ten times his height loomed out of the fog.

Your Bodyguard skill is now level 19!

“Don't run too far! Get to Graves!” Threadbare called out, then shuffled aside as the sword descended again, gouging the stone inches from him.

“Steam Knights!” Graves shouted. “This calls for armor-piercing magic. Force Bolt!”

The steam around them cleared, and abruptly Threadbare saw three of his borrowed animi fall away from his party status.

Unknown_Chair 2 has left the party.

Unknown_Chair 3 has left the party.

That_One_looks_Cute_Remember_To_Bring_It_Home_And_Show_Celia has left the party.

Threadbare winced at that last one. It had been a nice rug, and it matched their dining room. He had thought it would really tie the room together.

Gone now. But why?

“The floor's opening up back here!” The Mousewife screeched behind him.

But Threadbare was too busy dodging, as a series of crossbow bolts the size of a man's arm came flying out of the mist.

That armament, he thought. A sword and autobow. I know who these foes are.

“Reason!” shouted Graves, as the steam cleared enough to see the ten-foot-tall suits of mechanical armor chugging forward, one with a sword and the other with a crossbow rigged with gears and wire mechanisms. “They've turned Reason against us!”