F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

Orth finished his count on the next labor bell.

The thorned T woke in Hingehold’s outer stone. Something cold searched the wall for the public roots that held names.

The living lintel clenched before the search reached Dane’s cradle.

At the inspection slit, Lir put the glyph’s visible change into words. ”Black-gold light in the hollow center. Current attachment: none. Presentation attempt: obstructed. The mark is awake, but it has no name.”

Bone clicked against iron outside.

”Open a recovery path,” Orth said.

The two claim laborers set down yesterday’s burdens. Through the slit, Lir reported the sack carrier taking up a short maul and the stencil carrier drawing two split wedges from his coat. Each wedge carried a turning eye at the outer end and a barbed wing meant to open after the tip crossed living stone.

They chose the lintel beside the listener groove. They left the ash bar alone.

The maul landed hard enough to shake calcite dust onto Dane’s lid. A second blow drove a narrow iron point along the groove. Its inner wing caught living stone below his lock and pulled at Dane’s widened left hinge.

Lir set her shortened fingers against the closure score. ”Withdraw that instrument. Hingehold is occupied, and the channel is alive.”

”Maintain recovery access,” Orth said.

”He said keep it turning,” the maul worker told his partner. ”I strike on your hand.”

”Then wait until my knuckles clear.”

Three separate pulses entered the iron. The wedge turned. Its rusty tip crept toward Dane’s crooked tooth while the worker’s index, middle, and ring fingers worked the outer eye.

From the maintenance wall on Dane’s right came two quick scratches, a pause, and the soft press of wax into a seam.

Buk shifted on his litter. The motion rasped through the floor roots. ”Low route again. Gray wrist is measuring for Brant’s bad side.”

Brant shoved his shield toward the slit. His right arm remained bound and dead against his ribs; the splint on his left ground under the strap as he forced the rim down.

”I can cover low or keep my shoulder,” he said. ”It already chose for me.”

The runner’s probe punched beneath the shield. Its backward hooks found the old bandage at Brant’s right shoulder and tore sideways. Cloth gave first. The clot beneath it followed.

Brant’s breath broke. Warm blood pattered from his useless hand to the floor, but he drove his left shoulder into the shield and kept the hook out of his flesh.

”Ada, pin the shaft against stone. Don’t chase the wrist.”

Her first brass rod scraped across iron, caught, and bowed. Fresh blood reached Dane’s nose as Ada leaned into the bend. ”My arm opened. The rod still holds.”

Holt hooked both forearms through the maintenance cover’s loops and dragged heel by heel. His wrapped palms lay useless against the iron until the cover kissed the probe and stopped.

The outer maul struck again. A second wedge bit higher in the lintel.

Left-front pressure worried Dane’s lock while the runner probed the right maintenance root. The two routes met inside Hingehold. A scratch from the runner traveled through the open inspection path; Orth answered by changing the maul count.

Two blows outside. One scrape at the seam. A pause just long enough to pull Brant’s shield toward the wrong attack.

Vera’s boot edge scraped against the wall as she listened through the stone. ”They aren’t matching by sight. The runner calls through the inspection route, and Orth returns the count through the main frame. Separate those paths. Leave the iron where it is.”

Ada struck the cradle twice. ”Two knocks and we break your alignment. No answer means no.”

Dane’s lock tear throbbed with every maul fall. He turned it toward the old hearing frame and struck once.

The distinction he had practiced took hold between the main opening and the buried maintenance route. Watered wood grain spread through the frame but carried no weight. The wedges stayed lodged, and the next maul blow crossed with enough force to dust Dane’s lid again.

Orth’s voice still reached both laborers outside.

”Upper wedge, half-turn. Lower, keep pressure.”

But the answer meant for the runner arrived inside as a dull jar without its count. Two frantic scratches came while both laborers reset. Then the maul crashed down during the runner’s next thrust, too early to drag Brant off the seam.

”There,” Vera said. ”Orth’s crew kept the count. The runner lost it.”

Tess’s knees cracked behind Holt as she looped her inert cord over one wrist. ”Upper iron has three turns before the wing locks. Lower has two, unless our chest decides rust improves the meal.”

The lower wedge reached his mouth. Hunger surged at the vibration of three living pulses on the far end, but no flesh had crossed. Dane opened only to his copper-width limit. Rust scraped his wounded tongue. He caught the iron tip between his crooked tooth and the intact tooth opposite it.

The worker hauled. The wedge grated along Dane’s teeth and stopped.

His late lid came down against the strain. Iron stayed between his teeth.

Lir drove both fingertips into the closure score. ”Emergency shut. Both wedges out now. Release the eyes, open your hands, and withdraw. Hingehold will close whether you obey me or not.”

The living lintel began to contract.

The upper worker abandoned his maul, reversed the shaft, and ripped the first wedge free before its wing could catch. His boots skidded outside the line.

The lower worker tried to untwist his wedge. Dane’s bite locked the shaft. The man pulled, and the three pulses shifted along the turning eye before jamming beyond their first joints.

”It’s got me,” he said. The words came high and young. ”Tarn, get the eye off my hand.”

His partner seized the outer shaft. Iron juddered against Dane’s teeth.

”Stop pulling,” Orth ordered from the same side of the frame. ”Open the three fingers and reverse through the eye.”

”I’m opening my hand. They won’t straighten.”

The sanctuary guard hauled the ash lever down. ”Last warning. Hand clear or hand lost.”

Three trapped pulses hammered through the iron. Dane tasted his own blood where rust reopened his tongue. He could release the wedge and leave the lintel held apart, or keep the invading iron still while the living stone shut.

He held.

The first pulse vanished beneath a hard calcite squeeze. A nail ticked against the turning eye; then something softer tore with a wet drag. The man’s scream swallowed the second sound. Dane felt the middle pulse stutter, race, and end. The third finger fought longest. Its bone knocked once through the shaft before the closing stone sheared it at the joint.

The weight beyond the wedge disappeared. Boots and a body struck the outer floor.

”Index, middle, ring,” Lir called through the slit, each word forced level. ”All three off at the proximal joints. Both men are outside.”

Hot copper flooded the listener channel. It never reached Dane’s mouth. The thorned mark caught the blood on the outer face, and its pressure swelled through the wall.

Lir read what formed there. ”Current attachment: none. Claim feed: accepted. Maturity pressure: quickened.”

The gray runner drove in again under cover of the scream.

Its probe tore free of Ada’s first rod and skimmed over Brant’s shield.

”It’s following his blood along the rim,” Vera called. ”The hook is under the shoulder wrap.”

The loosened bandage ripped wider.

Brant dropped to one knee. The shield pitched with him.

Vera planted her boot against its base, wrapped hands held away from every edge. ”Keep the right shoulder behind iron. Shift your good side left and make it follow the blood it already found.”

”It follows, you take the arm,” Brant said through his teeth.

He dragged the shield left. The hook chased the bleeding side and pushed the runner’s forearm farther through the seam.

Ada let rod one fall. With the curved middle of rod two, she rolled the probe down instead of opposing it. The runner’s wrist struck the stone lip.

”Cover coming,” Holt warned. ”Someone give my hands the day off they keep demanding.”

He threw his weight into the forearm loops. The maintenance cover slammed onto the intruding arm and stopped against flesh. His palm wraps darkened at once.

The runner twisted. Skin rasped on calcite, but its wrist remained pinned and the probe stayed in Ada’s bend.

Holt set the root shear around the shaft. He looked to Vera while blood ran from his wraps to the lower handle. ”Tool or wrist? I can reach either.”

The trapped arm strained hard enough to grind Vera’s boot against the floor. ”Tool. We need it gone, not the hand that carried it.”

Tess fed her dead cord through the shear’s forearm loops and braced behind Holt’s elbows. ”Lean when I pull. If you chase it, your palms open before the iron does.”

She hauled. Holt leaned. The jaws bit through the probe with a crack that traveled into Dane’s base.

Ada rolled her rod clear. Holt lifted the cover just enough. A wet strip tore against calcite, and boots hammered away along the maintenance run.

”Arm clear,” Ada said. ”Hand attached. It left skin and half the probe.”

Against that retreat, Brant shoved the cover home with his shield and Holt dropped the latch pin using both forearms.

Outside, Orth told the uninjured laborer to recover the upper wedge. The man stayed with his fallen partner. Dane heard him tear cloth with his teeth and bind the ruined hand while Orth repeated the order once, then stopped.

”Full closure,” Lir said.

Only then did Dane release his bite.

Calcite swallowed the lower wedge’s scarred tip and sealed around it. The iron became a useless splint in Hingehold’s outer skin. Watered grain fell from the frame. The maintenance run, main room, and outer corridor returned to one ugly volume of the maimed worker’s sobbing, Brant fighting for breath, and Orth demanding the white line remain clear.

Lir raised the inspection plate one finger’s width. ”Your access failed. Both laborers are alive and outside. Hingehold is returning three severed digits and the loose blood beyond its line. The stain belongs to your mark.”

The runoff slot opened. The guard reported the three fingers sliding out together, then flushed the channel until its pressure against Dane cooled.

From the inspection slit, Lir reported, ”Tarn has him upright. Orth took the other shoulder. They’re carrying him back, and the upper wedge is going with them. The bitten wedge remains in our lintel.”

Ada rebound Brant’s right shoulder without disturbing the dead arm’s sling. Tess unthreaded Holt’s forearm loops and held fresh cloth while he pressed his palms into it.

Dane worked iron grit from his tongue. His rank, form, Control, hinge, and hidden inventory had not changed. Neither had the claim outside. They had won the room and fed the thing trying to take it.

Vera returned to the inspection slit. ”Can we cut the mark before it feeds again?”

Lir touched the inner root that had recoiled from the thorned T. ”The living stone can release its back line so we reach the claim, or it can keep rejecting the claim while it heals. It cannot do both. During the release, another holder must keep this side distinct from Orth’s.”

The root stayed compressed beneath Lir’s shortened fingers. Vera’s boot left Brant’s shield and stopped beside Dane’s damaged hinge, close enough that he felt the floor take her weight, not close enough to touch him.

No one asked for his answer while blood was still being wrapped.

But the doorway would need one.