Chapter 26: Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

I woke up after resting at The Hub. I was still a little angry, but I had calmed down a lot more than I thought I would. I wasn’t normally prone to bursts of emotion like that, but my anger had truly gotten the best of me in the moment.

Thankfully, I remembered everything that I wanted to do in my fit of rage. I grabbed my armor off the shelf that I had left it on. I was going to have to start using it if I was going to start using violence to start solving my problems. There was no way I was going to get into combat situations without armor, I didn’t want to die.

Plus, I had no idea what I was going to be fighting, so preparing for any worst case scenario was going to be my best chance at survival. I grabbed the full bottle of acetaminophen, doubled up on my medical supplies, and started a full inspection on my weapon.

There wasn’t even a scratch on it. I was seriously impressed, it almost seemed to have a supernatural durability. I wanted to test it one something that would surely damage a normal ax, but I decided against it. If this ax had supernatural durability, I would use it on creatures instead of a metal shelf that was sure to damage it in some way no matter how strong the ax was.

With all my gear ready, I made one last stop at the entrance to The Hub. I dropped off a note that held the information for the floors I had explored since I was last here. Hopefully, Kacey was putting them to good use, or not, I didn’t really care at this point. Even without the information I could gain from others, I was going to keep descending.

That said, I had to wait probably around twenty minutes on the elevator before I arrived back at floor twenty-five. I was a bit worried that I would fall back into the illusion, but it was still the hellish landscape of rotted flesh and blood that I had seen once I broke the illusion initially. There was no way to go back in. I wonder how many people have made it to this floor and died because they were trapped in the illusion that they wanted to see over what was actually there.

I walked into the exit and started descending the stairs with thoughts of anger from what happened on floor twenty-five clouding my mind.

…

I was getting tired of seeing these office spaces on floors. This looked nearly identical to all of the other office spaces I had seen. Waist-height cubicles and desks with sparse decorations. There were computers that didn’t even turn on. The lights were dim, but it wasn’t hard to see anything.

With that, I started to walk on the light brown carpet with my now cleaned boots. I didn’t want to make the extra trip to floor three, so I just did my best to wash the blood and rot out of them. They looked a bit dingy after the thorough scrubbing, but their comfort hadn’t changed.

I had my ax ready in my hand. I wasn’t going to be caught off guard by anything on this floor, no matter what happened. While thinking that, I saw something move in the corner of my left eye. When I turned to look, it seemed like it was just a normal desk with a stapler and papers on it. Maybe me walking by rustled the papers.

When I looked away, something moved again, and I was sure that it wasn’t because of me this time. Something was moving on the desk, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Suddenly, the stapler of all things started to move while I was looking at it. The ground wasn’t shaking, so it wasn’t some earthquake causing issues, something was seriously wrong with this stapler.

I readied my weapon, and it jumped. The stapler jumped at me using spindly black tentacles that had quickly grown from the sides of the stapler. I jumped back and swung down with my ax, landing a direct hit on the hard body of the stapler.

The creature immediately slammed to the ground. It was incredibly light, but hard. My ax barely damaged the creature, but it dissolved into a horrible smelling black ooze, just like the mimics. This floor was going to be filled with mimics again. Why? Didn’t the demon get tired of using the mimics?

Well, at least they were easy to kill, but it seemed like they were going to be a bit harder to spot. I wonder why these mimics weren’t taking the shape of me or other humanoid creatures, that’s what I had seen them do so far. Why not now?

Maybe… There might be different types of mimics down here. Maybe the type that changes into replicas of people, and the kind that are on this floor where they can only turn into objects. It sounded crazy, but I couldn’t think of another reason why the mimics didn’t turn into anything more dangerous than an office utility.

There was still time for these mimics to prove me wrong, but I had a feeling they were a different type of mimic altogether than the ones I had encountered on floors twenty and twenty-three. I had to be on the lookout then, I didn’t know if they were all going to wait and attack like this one, or if some would get the jump on me when I wasn’t ready.

Best to just stay on guard then. I wasn’t going to find out what would happen to me if I let one of those things attack me. The stapler mimic probably would have just put staples in me. Worst case scenario though, those staples might have some sort of harmful substance on them. The stapler mimic hadn’t moved even a bit after it dissolved into that black goo.

I decided it would be best if I just kept moving. There was nothing to be gained from sitting around, just waiting for another one of these creatures to attack me. I kept walking while seeing objects move in the corner of my vision. There were so many of these creatures here that it was hard to take a few steps without seeing a few objects shift and move around.

I would say that probably around ten percent of everything on the desks were these mimics. It was an insane number that I found hard to even comprehend, but none of them attacked me if I pretended that I hadn’t seen them. They were content to just sit there and pretend to be a stapler or a keyboard as long as I didn’t try and interact with them.

I was okay with that, I just kept walking, but any time I stopped to take a break of some kind, I would be assaulted by many of the office mimics. They all grew those spindly legs and crawled towards me at high speed, a lot of them with barely enough co-ordination to move forwards.

It was odd. They seemed to be almost scared of me, and no matter how little I hit them, they seemed to die. I decided to try kicking one of the creatures, but it died as if I had cut off its head or something. This was a strange floor to be on. The creatures were weak and didn’t really attack me even if the got to me. None of their attacks even managed to penetrate my cotton t-shirt.

I was worried though. There were a lot of them, even if they weren’t strong. I feared that they might do something scary if enough of them gathered, so I never let it get to that point. I explored the large office rooms while fighting off large amounts of the mimics whenever I stopped moving.

Slowly though, things started changing. The office slowly became more decrepit, and the mimics were more prone to attacking me first, despite me minding my own business. They were getting bigger, and more powerful too.

I was worried for my prospects on this floor as I kept up. The volume of mimics hadn’t changed, but they were harder and harder to deal with. This was concerning, as I was already stopping to attack a few of them to get them off me, and they didn’t go down with just a single hit anymore.

Some of them needed to actually be crushed into small pieces before they dissolved into the black goo that smelled horrific. I did what needed to be done to survive, but I was getting tired. I had to push on despite that fact though, being tired and stopping to sleep on a floor like this was just asking to be killed.

So, I paced myself. I only killed the creatures that I absolutely had to. I walked at a reasonable pace, something that wasn’t so fast it would tire me out, but fast enough that I could make a good distance in a relatively short amount of time.

The offices became more and more decrepit. Some lights had started to flicker and fail as I walked further on the floor. This created dark spots that I had to avoid, as the dimmer the lights, the more aggressive the creatures seemed to be.

An ax swing to a keyboard here, and swing to a hole-puncher there. With these I was making steady progress until I found a closed door with the label of ‘break room’ above it. The creatures were getting pretty strong, with their spindly legs being replaced with solid looking tentacles that would strike at me if I let them get close enough.

I was breathing heavily as I opened the door and shut it behind me. I was hesitant to go in this room as I knew it was probably a dead end and the mimics outside this room were most likely going to pile up and cause a lot of problems for me when I tried to leave.

I had no choice though; I was getting too tired and needed to find a spot to rest. Pushing on was going to be more likely to end in my death than locking myself in a room. What I didn’t predict though, was the mimics that were now locked inside this break room with me.

Five of them that I now had to fend off all at the same time. They didn’t seem happy with the fact that I was in here as they all lunged for me without hesitating after growing their sturdy tentacle leg things. I was already swinging my ax, almost purely on instinct, there was no thought behind it, only action.

The coffee mug went down first as the porcelain cracked easily under the heavy hit from my ax. The coffee machine itself had proven to be more of a fighter as all that happened was it bouncing away with no visible damage after a well place return swing. The three other mimics all went down in a single hit.

One was a paper plate, another was a plastic cup, and the third being a plastic fork that was on the table. All I had to do was defeat this coffee machine and I would be able to rest for a while. It was easier said than done. No matter how many times I hit the coffee machine mimic, it stayed intact.

I finally chopped down as hard as I could in a spot where I had already chipped the hard outer plastic of the mimic, and I went through. The mimic dissolved into that black ooze, the smell of which I was getting used to. It was still extremely unpleasant, but I didn’t feel sick just by smelling it anymore.

I poked at every object left in the room, just to see if there was anything else just waiting to attack me that could be baited out, but I didn’t find anything willing to move. There were some bottles of water and snacks, but I didn’t trust them.

I had enough resources of my own to make it through here without risking consuming a mimic. I could only imagine what it would try to do to my insides if I ingested one of them. With my main check done, I took off my bag and got ready to sleep. I set my bag on top of the table while still holding my weapon in my hand when the table itself started to move.

With my bag still on top of it, the table started to grow extremely robust looking tentacle-like appendages that reached for me while they grew. I tried to fight them back with my ax, but it was deflecting my blows, as if it was used to combat.

I grew worried as I checked the door behind me, there were countless mimics blocking the only exit to the breakroom I was currently in. I was trapped in here with the table mimic that was better than me at fighting. Quite the situation I found myself in, not what I expected to have happen when I started this floor.

With no other choice, I pushed the offensive on the table once the appendages had stopped growing. It didn’t seem to hit me back, but it would efficiently block every attack with my ax. I was exhausted, but I had to keep fighting. If I stopped attacking and it decided it wanted to actually attack me back, I was done for.

I kept attacking it, but I was getting slower and slower. Eventually, the table had put three of the tentacles around my bag, holding it securely. There were probably twelve tentacles in total, it was hard to count them with how they kept moving around.

The table mimic knocked the ax out of my hand as I fell to the ground exhausted. Was this how I was going to die? Locked in a room I put myself in, killed by a table? I closed my eyes and accepted my fate as I felt my heartbeat in my throat.

However, moments passed, and nothing happened. I waited for the table to attack me, but it just sat there, waiting for me to get up, and it had moved my weapon back towards me. Was it playing with me? Was it trying to get me to die from exhaustion?

I grunted and forced myself to stand. Everything hurt, my breathing was slow and laborious, and my vision was blurry. I grabbed my ax and used it to help me stand up. I was going to give this table everything it deserved.

As soon as I swung, it disarmed me again, my ax flying to the other side of the room this time. I fell over again, but in desperation, I crawled towards the ax. I crawled with everything I had left in me. I was going to kill this table and win. When I realized that the creature had grabbed my ankle with its sturdy appendages, I thought it was all over.

However, all it actually did was just hold me in place. It made no moves to attack me, and if it had a face, I felt like it would be looking at me with pity. I stopped fighting against it. I was clearly outclassed, and this table could have killed me earlier, it wasn’t going to kill me here at least.

I just laid on the ground, breathing heavily. I had pushed myself too hard and it felt like I was going to pass out, but I held on. If I passed out, I wouldn’t even have a chance to fight back if the table tried to kill me. I wanted to at least die with dignity if I survived for this long.

I held on, I held on until my heart could no longer be felt inside my skull, until I managed to breathe normally. I held on until I had recovered enough energy to stand. I looked at the table after it let me stand, and it grabbed my weapon.

I was nervous as it brought me weapon towards me. I was ready to dodge at any moment, but it turned the handle towards me and waited for me to grab it, I did, but I didn’t attack immediately like last time either.

The table emanated a feeling of curiosity, it seemed to be unsure why I was l no longer attacking it. I pointed to my bag, and as if understanding something, it reached inside with a tentacle and pulled out a water for me. It wasn’t going to give my bag back just yet, but it wasn’t going to bar me from using my supplies.

How this table mimic knew I wanted water, I could only guess. Its motives were unclear to me, but it seemed to want me to attack it still. Was… was it training me? For what reason would this mimic want to train me, was it because of this being the break room?

I wonder if this is a situation similar to floor seventeen with the fox masked creature. I wonder if these things don’t actually want to kill me, most probably just want to be left alone, and this one table in the breakroom overcame that, or is resisting the urge to attack me somehow.

I had no choice but to do what the table wanted. I attacked it. This time, when it tried to disarm me, I managed to avoid it, and keep hold of my weapon. I wasn’t able to land a proper hit yet, as it kept blocking my attacks with the skill of an expert.

I was frustrated, but I calmed myself. Blindly attacking this thing was going to get me nowhere. I did wonder how it was able to tell where I was attacking from with no eyes, or maybe it had eyes, I just couldn’t see them.

I tried to feint it, but it seems that it saw through my plan and once again disarmed me. I wasn’t able to move out of the way and my ax once again went across the room as my wrists began to hurt. It hit my wrist this time to disarm me, and a bruise was already forming. This table had insane strength.

I raised my hands in a gesture of defeat and the appendages that weren’t holding my bag down went limp, as if it was resting. I could probably try and attack it, but it most likely wouldn’t end well right now. I think this table mimic was trying to train me.

Whatever its reasons were, I wasn’t going to question them. I would gladly take some time to properly use my weapon against something. I was severely lacking actual skill anyways, so it was better to train against something more skilled, but not trying to actively kill me.

My wrists hurt quite a bit, and the bruise was turning interesting colors, but I had to keep pressing on. I grabbed my weapon and stretched my wrists. Despite hurting, they were still usable, permanent damage to them might be on the line here.

I planned my attacks against the mimic. I was starting to see points that it defended less. I started to aim more and more at those points. Eventually, I managed to sink the blade of my ax into one of the tentacles.

It had tried to deflect my hit away from itself, but I hadn’t put much strength in it, to say I was surprised how fast I turned it back by shifting my weight was an understatement. I put more strength into the hit than I knew I had. It sunk extremely deep into the sturdy tentacle and it was harder to cut than some of the metal office mimics I had fought.

Then, the mimic grabbed onto my ax and finished the job, cutting the tentacle the rest of the way through. In doing so it had removed the ax from my hands, but it quickly returned it to me. While I was still processing its actions, it had removed one of the three tentacles holding my bag down.

Only two remained. It was probably running on a three-win system. So, if I managed to hit it two more times, it was going to give me my bag back. That seemed fair enough to me. I did, however, stop for another rest. I was tired. So tired that as soon as I laid on the ground, I fell asleep.

…

I panicked as I woke up. I didn’t want to fall asleep, but I had anyways. The table perked up as soon as it noticed me moving around. It seemed to be waiting for me excitedly, as if I was a fun toy. I smiled a little. I guess this was kind of fun, if not a little sad on my part.

I was currently in an office break room, trying to get my supplies back from a table mimic that had taken hold of them, and it was training me while I tried to get them back. It was odd, but I was going to take advantage of it while I could.

The same strategy didn’t work again, it was more on guard than ever, and I wasn’t able to spot a single spot where it was letting it down. It was using its many appendages to its advantage. However, I was getting better at feinting my attacks. It was slowly becoming worse and worse at predicting which hit was going to have any strength in it.

After a few hours, I managed to cut two more appendages off. I cut them off with my own strength this time, without the table finishing my sloppy work. I felt stronger, but I was dead tired. The table seemed proud of itself as it set my bag next to me while I laid on the ground.

I was confident now.

…

After another sleep, actually resting, I was ready to leave the break room. The table was still sitting in the corner of the room, but it seemed to be resting too. It was still missing the three tentacles I had cut off, but knowing these mimics, it could probably grow them back eventually.

I gave the table a small pat as I left the break room, it seemed happy, but I had no way to actually tell. Outside of the room, most of the office mimics had left already. A few of the nearby ones immediately attacked me, but it was much easier to send them off with the side of my ax now.

I wasn’t much stronger now, in fact, I was more tired than I had been in a while. I was nervous sleeping beside a mimic that had just trained me in combat. It seemed like I had become way more skilled with my weapon, and how to read these mimic’s patterns. They all attacked the same way, and I had somehow been trained to spot these differences.

I could tell what hit was going to be where, almost by instinct. I smiled, that table mimic did a lot for me, and all I could do was give it a pat. Oh well, I was thankful no matter how one sided what just happened was. For me, it’s do or die.

The rest of the floor was fairly simple with my new training. The mimics near the exit were strong, but nowhere close to being as strong as that table was and I easily killed them as I made my way to the door. I had no choice but to kill some of them.

It won’t weigh on my mind though, even if the demon is forcing them to attack me. I have to survive, and I have to get to the bottom of this place. I wanted to know what was at the end, and as I stood at the top of the stairwell to the next floor, I realized I was more motivated than ever.