Chapter 39

We continued down the hallway. Morrigan and Torien were walking a bit ahead of us, quietly talking with each other. They occasionally looked back but didn't say anything else to us on the mimic subject yet. From time to time Mimi chirped out right or left to lead us towards the boss room. Bella seems to trust Mimi wholeheartedly since she experienced a similar transformation herself. Mimi's oath is not to the same depth as her own but Bella probably has a better understanding of how the "unable to knowingly attack or work against their mother succubus" clause feels. Bella also didn't actually get bitten by one the same way Morrigan did either though, so that probably helps.

We walked in near silence for a good two hours or so without running into any other mimics or traps. I had a suspicion that Mimi didn't really want us to fight the other mimics, even if she didn't seem to care that our eventual goal was to destroy the dungeon and everything in it. Eventually I felt like I needed to occupy myself or I would stop paying attention to my surroundings. Bella seemed focused on her surroundings still so I wanted to chat with the mimic a bit while I had the chance.

Since we were walking quietly, I decided to use [Soultouched Connection] to speak with Mimi privately. -- "Can you hear me alright Mimi?" --

-- "Yes master!" -- Mimi happily chirped though the connection.

-- "Don't call me master, Lilith is fine." --

-- "Yes Lilith!" --

I'm not really sure if she understands the nuance of why I prefer she use my name but it didn't feel like an explanation was worth the time right now. I want to get an idea of what she can do and how she can help.

-- "Mimi, what kinds of skills do you have? Do you have anything that can help in combat?" --

-- "Hmm... I'm not really sure. I also haven't really looked at the new skills I received from the changes you gave me... Let's see, I now have something called [Succubus Mimic Anatomy] it says: 'blah blah blah old stuff, oh! succubi mimics not only are able to feed on direct sources of mana but can also gain sustenance from lust aspect magic siphoned from pleasure during sexual encounters.' then it goes into a bunch of stuff about what happens if I don't eat and leveling up from sexual partners and stuff. So basically just like the [Mimic Anatomy] everyone has but with some new sex stuff in it. The wording makes it sound like I don't have to eat to absorb mana anymore, just do sex things. I don't really know how to do that stuff though." --

-- "Mimi, only mimics have [Mimic Anatomy] I don't know what that trait does." --

-- "Oh right, you things are the first things I've seen that move around but aren't mimics. Basically it just says that we have to eat or absorb sources of magic to maintain our bodies and grow. The reason mimics like to stay still for so long is because it takes so much magic to move around. It's just easier to sit still and absorb mana for a while, at least if there's enough ambient mana floating about. That's also why different mimics don't really spend any time in the same area. Even if they didn't want to eat each other to take each other's mana, just being near one another would divide the ambient mana between them." --

-- "Mimics sound more like plants than animals in that respect. Rather than absorbing sunlight and water you siphon ambient magic from the air." --

-- "Maybe, I wouldn't know." --

-- "Any other interesting skills? You mentioned something about a pocket dimension earlier." --

-- "Well, pretty much all mimics have a racial trait called [Pocket Dimension], it lets us store magic and convert things into mana so we can move stuff around. Higher level mimics tend to have proportionally larger pocket dimensions, [Mimic Anatomy] lets us absorb mana from things we eat to grow and level, [Pocket Dimension] allows us to store anything we don't want to absorb right away for later." --

-- "So if you were to store something in your pocket dimension would you be able to retrieve it safely in the same condition it was stored in? Does food spoil?" --

-- "Everything should come out exactly how it went in, unless we decided to absorb that mana instead of course. I don't understand what you mean by 'Does food spoil?' though. I can eat anything and absorb its mana so I don't really know the difference." --

Unfortunately I don't really have anything I can test with but I'm pretty interested in this pocket dimension ability. It would be nice to be able to travel light but giving Mimi everything to carry would present its own risks. Not to mention I have no idea how much she needs to eat.

-- "How much do you need to eat a day?" --

-- "It depends on how much ambient mana is in the area and how much I need to move around. If I found an area with a good amount of stagnant mana I could just sit still and siphon mana away indefinitely, but that's boring. Just from you carrying me around I've been able to fill up my mana store a few times over. That's pretty nice since it means I could convert all of that mana into weight or density when I shapeshift, plus [Pocket Dimension]'s level goes up every time I fill it with mana so I've gained a few levels of that just in the time you've been carrying me around. Once I stop gaining as much from that I'll start to funnel that magic into my overall growth instead. But I need to be careful because the amount of mana I need to maintain myself grows every time I grow." --

-- "Is it the same as leveling up?" --

-- "Not really, I also gain levels from eating things though. It's hard to explain, it's more like I gain new skills and become more powerful the more I grow. But like I said, I need to have enough mana in the area or in my stores that I don't need to worry if I can't find a good source of mana for a while. Otherwise I could become mana starved which would put me in a frenzy until I can't support myself and go dormant." --

-- "Does that kill you?" --

-- "I don't think it means I'm actually dead, it just means I'm sleeping until I absorb enough mana ambiently to wake up. If that happened anywhere around here another mimic would take the opportunity to eat me though. I'm not entirely sure what it feels like, I've just seen it happen to the other mimics. They get too greedy or fuel their growth while another mimic is trying to eat them. Sometimes it works and they win the fight but then they can't maintain it, eventually going dormant till another mimic wanders by and eats them without any resistance. I don't like eating the others though so I usually just left them be. If they woke up they'd just try to eat me anyway so it wasn't worth watching them." --

-- "Life sounds tough for mimics." --

-- "Does it? That's just how it is here." --

-- "So say we get out of this place and find enemies that aren't other mimics. Would you be willing to fight them? Can you even fight something without eating them entirely?" --

-- "Mmm, I guess I wouldn't mind fighting things other than mimics but I've never seen anything else so I don't know if it would bother me. I can fight things without eating them but I don't know why I would bother if I wasn't able to consume the mana from them. I would do it for you if you asked I guess but moving around a bunch would eat through my mana stores for no reason." --

-- "Well, if something is attacking us we might need to defend ourselves. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find things for you to eat without fighting." --

-- "If I can get food without fighting and you carry me around a lot then I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with that I guess." --

-- "Also, just to be clear, you're not allowed to eat Bella, Torien, Morrigan, or myself. If we're around something hostile you could probably eat that, but don't do that in front of people you don't know." --

-- "Okay!" --

I don't really know how I felt about how blasé that answer was but from her personality I don't think she was actually taking what I said lightly.

-- "What can you do in a fight anywa—" --

-- "Lilith! There's a demon mimic over there. It seems like a pretty strong one too, it's level 15." --

I could feel exactly where Mimi indicated through our connection and saw a large bookshelf on one wall up ahead. We weren't that close yet so I decided to let Mimi tell them so I didn't have to try and explain how I knew or how I can talk to Mimi telepathically.

-- "Good job Mimi, go ahead and tell the group out loud." --

"Hey guys! That bookshelf up there on the left is a level 15 demon mimic!." She blurted that out a bit louder than I was hoping for but we were still far enough away that it didn't seem to hear us. Actually, are mimics even able to hear in the same sense? Never mind, not important.

I pulled my heavy two-handed sword into a ready position and caught up with the twins. "This one is a lot stronger than any of the other ones we've faced so far. Do you think we should try to fight it or go around?"

"You said it was level 15 Mimi? I don't know if it's a good idea to fight it." She prepared to nock an arrow regardless, likely in case I decided we go in anyway.

Morrigan gripped her staff tightly but I suspect it's in anticipation rather than fear. "I say we fight it. They don't seem to use magic so we can probably pin it down with the four of us. A level 15 enemy will also be pretty good experience." Maybe telling her my level backfired a little, it sounds like it went into her calculations on whether we can win or not.

"Should we be taking unnecessary fights? We just want to get out of here right?" Bella asked.

"We still have to fight the boss to get to the dungeon core. There's a pretty good chance that it'll be higher level than this demon mimic anyway, that's why I think it's important to get experience now while we're relatively safe," Morrigan said.

Torien tapped a finger on her arrow. "Hmm, that's a good point. I don't like the idea of going against a monster so much higher level than most of us but we'll have to do that anyway when we find the boss. It might be a good idea to get experience while we can still run rather than when we're stuck in the boss room."

I looked at Bella. "Would you be able to disable that bookcase with your magic?"

"My nature magic doesn't work particularly well in an environment like this. If I had some seeds or something I could grow them into vines but I don't have anything like that on me right now."

"Alright, remind me to buy some for you next time we're in town. Mimi, what do you think?"

"I don't like fighting other mimics but I won't complain if you guys want to. Incidentally there isn't any other way around that demon mimic if you are looking for the boss room.

Shit. I sigh. "Looks like we don't have much of a choice then. Getting more experience is probably a good idea anyway. Morrigan, can you make a wall of fire behind it? It would be best if it didn't run from us and the mimics don't seem to like fire."

"Fire hurts a lot..." Mimi added.

"Sure, I can do that. There's so much ambient fire magic around here holding a fire wall in place shouldn't be too hard to do."

I look over at Torien. "Alright, that means I'm in front, and you'll be taking pot shots with your arrows when you can." I put my hand on her shoulder. "I trust you but I'm just going to say it anyway, Please don't shoot me in the back."

She laughed, "I'll do my best, you do have a big ass."

The joke caught me so off guard I flushed a little, "Ahem, right. Lets do it then." I readied my sword and we began to approach the large bookshelf.