A sᴜʀᴘʀɪsᴇ ᴇɴᴄᴏᴜɴᴛᴇʀ!
"Guys, where did the chest go?" Gale frowned, staring at the place where they had left the wood shards. The trio had grouped around their small fire (okay, I say small fire but it's pretty much just the ground) after destroying the box and finding the feather to cook dinner. They were snacking on baked apples and chunks of 'mystery meat' that Adelaide had found (she refused to say what it was, but it tasted suspiciously like chicken) and swapping stories.
Gale's concern cut through Mike's retelling of the time he accidentally sheared his father's sheep instead of milking them, and the blue male fixed his gaze on her curiously.
"Those centaur things probably took it back to fix it and prank another traveler." The two kalons turned to stare at where the planks had been. Mike then continued with his story. Gale slowly went back to her previous position, but then did a double-take.
"Where did Adelaide go?!" She yelped, her wide eyes fastened on the stone that Adelaide had been sitting on. She looked to Mike, about to ask if he had seen what happened to her, but to Gale's surprise, Mike was gone as well.
"Guys?! This isn't fun-" Dark arms wrapped around her waist, snapping her backwards, and Gale blacked out.
The trio of kalons woke in a strange room, unable to see anything even if their eyes were opened. Gale put her paws to her forehead, trying to suppress the splitting headache she woke up with. Judging by the groans of her friends, they were experiencing the same issue. The three huddled close together, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the almost nonexistent level of light in the room and hoping their headaches would go away.
If she squinted, Gale could make out a small box in the corner of the room. It seemed to have a heavy padlock on it.
"Mike, there's a chest over there!" She whispered excitedly in spite of her headache.
Mike shook his head to clear it, blinking blearily in the direction she had pushed his muzzle.
"It looks like.... it looks like the chest that we destroyed earlier..." he murmured.
Adelaide tilted her head back against the wall they had been laying against, her eyes closed.
"How is that possible? Gale broke it. Did those little monsters fix it that quickly?"Sniffing, Mike squinted at the box again.
"No... it shouldn't be possible. Unless... unless we've been out for days. But I'm not hungry or thirsty, so I don't think it's been that long..." He rubbed his nose, taking a moment to rest his eyes. The headache wasn't helping his train of thought at all.
"Maybe it's a mimic." "Oh, heck, no! I'll smash that thing again if it is!" Gale shouted, causing her two friends to wince at the spikes of pain that shot through their skulls.
"Sorry," the redfurred kalon mumbled.
"So, if it is a Mimic, what do we do?""Well, mimics spend all their time looking for prey. We might be able to barter with it. If not, we kill it and get the heck out of here," he whispered.
Adelaide nodded slowly.
"I have some chick- meat in my bag still." Gale and Mike both blinked at Adelaide. She raised her paws.
"What? They're literally everywhere up there. How could you expect me to gather food and not take an easy kill?" Mike sighed.
"Whatever. If Raffi murders you for stealing from him, I'll speak at your funeral." Mike shook his head again, putting a paw against the wall to steady himself as he stood up.
"I've got some baked apples left to add to what you have, Adelaide. Gale, do you have anything?"
"Uhm..." Gale looked down.
"No. I think I dropped my apple when the thing grabbed us."Mike nodded.
"Alright, hopefully this is enough. You guys okay to walk?" Adelaide stood up immediately, a bit wobbly but all-together intact.
Gale attempted to stand, but sank back down to the floor with a gasp of pain.
"Aaah! My ankle... I think my ankle's broken..." She rubbed it to try and relieve the pain.
Adelaide placed a paw on her shoulder.
"Mike, if it's okay with you, I'll stay back with her. She's light. If we have to run, it won't be a problem for me to pick her up and skedaddle."Mike gulped, fear causing the back of his neck to prickle, but nodded. He took the chi-
mystery meat from Adelaide, and put it in his pocket with the two baked apples. The male slowly turned away, trotting stiffly towards the box. He knocked gently on the lid, standing straight up and peering down nervously.
"Umm... hi there," he started, giving a small wave.
The chest jumped up, opening its lid and tilting upwards, almost as if looking up to stare Mike directly in the eyes. It unnerved the blue kalon, and he shuffled his paws.
"Well, you see, um.."
"Get to the point, kid, I haven't got all day." The mimic's voice sounded of hard wood being struck against a wall, and it did nothing to improve Mike's headache.
"W-would you be interested in striking a deal?""Mmm..." the chest creaked.
"A deal, you say? What sort of deal are you ttttalking about?""I have some recently broiled chicken," Mike could almost feel Adelaide glaring daggers between his shoulders,
"and baked apples that you may be interested in?"
"And what would you like in return?"
"Let us free from here." The chest slammed shut.
"No deal."
"Buh- wait! What else do you want?!" Mike panicked. The chest slowly raised its lid.
"That red kalon over there?"
"Gale?"
"Yes, that's the one. She looks deeeelightfully delicious. Leave her and you and the other female can go."
"No deal."
"Then I guess you're trapped here forever, and I get to eat all of you!"Mike growled, turning away and heading back towards Gale and Adelaide. He shook his head.
"The mimic won't let us go unless it's allowed to eat Gale."
"WHAT!??!" Gale shrieked just before Adelaide clamped her paw over the redfurred female's jaws.
The striped female looked at Mike.
"So what do we do?"Mike tapped his chin.
"I've got an idea..."The blue male returned to the mimic, the food in his paws.
"Excuse me, sorry to bo-"
"Have you decided to let me eat the red kalon?"
"Well, no. You see... sh-"
"Then go away. I have no business with you."
"Wait! Uh, you see, she's injured. Very sick. And because of that, she won't taste as good as you think. The sickness she has, it bitters her flesh and seeps away at the nutrients." Gale dramatically wailed from her position on the ground, curling up and whimpering.
The mimic considered this for a moment.
"What a shame. Too bad I don't have tastebuds."Mike hadn't planned for this. He felt cold sweat forming behind his ears.
"Uh... well, uhm... if you eat a kalon with this sickness, you'll contract it too." Gale cried out again, clutching her stomach.
"I don't get sick, idiot," the mimic chastised, as if offended by Mike's little knowledge about the medical habits of mimics.
Mike held out his paws.
"You don't understand, this is a terrible sickness. It's killed many mimics from the area around my hometown. In fact, it's called the Mimic Blight."Something almost like fear slithered into the mimic's voice, and Mike knew he struck a nerve.
"M-mimic Blight...? You don't mean..."Mike nodded. The mimic shoved itself backwards into its corner.
"Get out! Take her and all of you and get out! Don't ever come b-back here again with that cursed disease!"The blue male dipped his head.
"Thank you. Could you, ah, show us how to get out?"A door opened behind Mike, bright light shining through and flooding the room. Mike squinted, the glare hurting his eyes after so long in the darkness. He was happy to discover that once he breathed in the fresh air, his headache lifted and his head was clear once again. Adelaide picked up Gale, carrying her out through the doorway. Mike waved goodbye to the mimic, which just shivered in its corner, and followed after them.
When they turned around, there was no sign of the stone room they had been trapped in. Perhaps the mimic had moved it already, fearful of the sickness that Mike had promised.
"Nice thinking with the Mimic Blight thing," Gale said cheerily.
Mike chuckled.
"Oh, it's a real thing. Mimics aren't biological creatures, so they can't really get normal sicknesses. The Mimic Blight is just a fancy term for termites!"
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