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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1083600" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 28The gap-toothed mouth expanded until it crossed half the width of the chest, then it started speaking, a rough, gibbous sound that filled the confines of the chamber. “What is it saying?” Ruphos asked, his mouth twisted into an expression of disgust.Arun had hefted one of this throwing hammers the moment the chest had started moving, but he held his throw as he listened to the spew of gibberish coming from the chest.  “It’s speaking Undercommon,” he finally said, lowering the hammer fractionally.  “Or at least it’s trying to, its accent is... poor.”“What is it saying?” Fellian asked, echoing Ruphos’s question.  He, too, had his bow half-ready to fire, but the chest-monster seemed content to hold its position, not advancing any closer to them.“It says that it doesn’t want to fight us,” the dwarf said, his expression clearly conveying his skepticism.  “It claims to have been set here to guard the rat, but it doesn’t sound quite content with its current employers.”“Maybe you should tell it that it’s now unemployed,” Zenna said.  “I don’t know, maybe we don’t want to tick it off,” Mole said.  She’d unslung her crossbow, and now pointed it warily at the chest as it continued to gibber at them.  “What is it, exactly?” Fellian asked. “It’s a mimic,” Arun said.  “Aberrations, shapeshifters that are sometimes found in the deep ways of the Underdark.  They can imitate just about any inanimate object, and they’re tough combatants to boot.  It may not look it, but that thing weights several thousand pounds, and you’ll feel it when it hits you.”“All the more reason not to make it mad,” Mole added. “Will it let us pass?” Zenna asked. “Hold,” Arun said to them, listening to the creature’s continued babbling.  He said something to it in Undercommon, and the mimic responded.  “It says that it was tasked with guarding the rat, not the entrance to the Fortress.  But it’s hungry—apparently the skulks only feed it rats and spiders.”“Yuck!” Mole said. “It’ll let us take the rat, if we give it something tasty to eat.”“I shudder to think what that thing might find tasty,” Fellian said.  “Well, there was those skulks we killed in the room with the floating lights,” Mole said.  “It’s only been a few hours, they probably aren’t too ‘ripe’ yet.”“So you wish to deal with this... thing, then?” Ruphos asked her. “Well, I certainly don’t want to fight it,” the gnome replied.  “And we should probably take the rat; with the skulks dead, it’ll starve to death, and it’s not like it did anything wrong.”Arun frowned.  “I do not sense evil from the creature.”“Well then, let’s get it a meal and be on our way,” Fellian offered.  Arun said something to the mimic in Undercommon, but it reared back, its huge maw twisting in a clear expression of distaste, spitting out a response.  “It doesn’t savor the idea of eating skulks,” the dwarf said.  “Apparently they smell and taste rather... poor.”Zenna raised an eyebrow.  “I’m not sure I’d want a guard creature working for me that knows what I taste like.”“How about those hobgoblins we fought earlier?” Mole suggested.“Great, now I’m a waiter for an aberration,” Arun said, turning back to the creature.  But the mimic seemed amenable to the idea, saying that it hadn’t eaten a hobgoblin before, and was willing to accept the opportunity.  “Well, now we just have to find a way past these doors,” Mole said, as they moved past the mimic—giving it a wide berth—and approached the circular door.  The portal seemed malevolent, threatening, given what they knew about the gnomish doors and their tricky traps.  “So all of these little doors are trapped, then?” Fellian asked.  “Well, the skulks thought so,” Zenna replied.  “We only tried two, and one shot out a cloud of acidic gas, and the second a blast of fire.”  “Yes, and we don’t have our special door-opener any more,” Mole pointed out.  She moved ahead, and examined the door and its surrounding threshold.  There was a runic mark on the door, which Mole said was a gnomish letter “R”.  There was a small notch in the stone threshold to the left of the door, which Mole examined carefully before drawing back and turning back to them.  “It looks like this is a keyhole of sorts,” she said.  “But we don’t have a key.”“I’ve got a key,” Arun said, stepping forward with his warhammer readied.</blockquote>

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