FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 14

Streams of sunshine poured through a window and danced across Russo's face as he lay in bed. His eyes flittered open from the sun's advances. The day was young and it looked to be a promising and beautiful fall day full of whimsy and adventure. It was just one of those days that made you happy to be alive.

"Welp, that's my cue to go back to sleep," Russo thought as he struggled to stretch up towards the window by his bed and close the curtains. "Much better," he sighed in content as he curled back up under the covers.

----------------------------------------A couple of hours later-------------------------------

Russo lay in bed snug and comfy, unwilling to go out and greet the day. Jem had left hours ago at the crack of dawn and with his best bud gone, and master having suspended him from taking up any missions, Russo saw nothing wrong with wasting the day away sleeping. Not like there was anything better to do.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. "Russo are you in there?" Dax called out through the door.

Oh God dammit.

"Russo! The master sent me to check up on you. He doesn't want you wasting your day away in bed."

*Grumble grimble ramble gramble...* "Meddlesome master..."

"Come on Russo open up!" Dax called out as he kept knocking on the door.

Russo sighed into his pillow and slowly pulled himself out of bed. He tossed on whatever clothes he had splayed out on the floor nearest to his bed, while Dax kept knocking on the door all the while.

"I'm up, I'm up, hold your horses," Russo grumbled as he threw on his cloak and fastened his belt around his waist. An unkempt Russo hesitatingly opened the door and was greeted by Dax wearing a big wolfy grin on his face.

"Took you long enough sleepy head," The wolf chirped.

"Yeah yeah," Russo replied half-heartedly as he leaned against the door frame and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to eliminate any bedhead. "*Sigh* What do you want from me?"

"Nothing, the master just wanted me to check up on you is all."

"Ugh. So he sent him here to annoy me huh?" The human thought to himself as Dax kept talking.

"Say, this is a nice house you have here Russo," Dax said enviously as looked past Russo into the interior of his abode.

"Do you... want to come in?"

"S-sure!" Dax excitedly said as he barged inside, full of curiosity and energy. Russo's house was a modest one at best. It was a compact single story home, smashed in between another dwelling and one of the countless shops lining one of Tedrah's streets. As soon as you walked in the door you could see a bed far to the left in a corner. To the left of the door was a window, the curtains still drawn shut. In the far back left corner was a dresser and next to it was a chest, where Russo kept trinkets and tomes he was rather fond of. In the far right corner was a separate walled off bathroom with basic plumbing. While it wasn't well kept it wasn't a pig sty by any stretch of the imagination either. It had a kind of homey feel to it, or at least Russo thought so.

"So this is where you live huh?" Dax asked as he began perusing Russo's home.

"Mmhmm. It's not much, I know, but I'm pretty content with it."

"Aww don't be like that, I think you've got a really nice home Russo!" The wolf said as he opened the curtains to let in some light and took a few sniffs of the air. "You don't spend much time here do you? Your scent really isn't that strong here."

"No, I'm usually out on missions or bumming with Jem at the guild. W-wait. What do you mean my 'scent'? What, do I smell or something?"

"No, no, no it's nothing like that! It's just... well it's hard to explain since you don't have much of a nose. You don't smell good or bad or anything you just, well you smell like you. Each person has their own scent is all."

"Care to try to and elaborate any further? I'm still kind of lost."

"Hmmm... okay well your scent is... your scent is... gentle. It's not something that really assaults my nose or anything. I have to pay attention for it and sniff it out of a crowd. And it's, it's uh... something that doesn't really mix with many other scents. It's subtle but it still always manages to stand out on its own. Like in the guild yesterday! Remember how there were a whole lot of people there and a lot of stuff was going on?

"Yeah."

"Well, there were so many people and scents that day, all mingling and interacting with one another that it was starting to overwhelm me. When you came out of the guest room though I was able to pick out your scent from the crowd right away!"

"Okaaayyyy. Still can't really claim to understand what I smell like, or if I even really want to know," Russo said as he rubbed the back of his head.

"I don't really think it's something humans in general can understand," Dax said teasingly. "Sometimes you can tell a lot about a person by their scent. I'm not quite sure what your scent says about you but honestly speaking I like yours Russo!"

"Uh-huh," Russo said unsure of whether or not he should be flattered or weirded out by Dax's compliment. "*Sigh* Come on let's head to the guild then. Better to waste the day there than here I suppose," Russo shooed Dax out of his home as he locked the door behind him and they made their way toward the guild. The master, surprisingly, was waiting for them outside the door to greet them.

"Good afternoon master!" Dax cheerfully said when he saw the old man.

"Good afternoon to you Dax!" The master responded in kind. "I see you managed to get Russo up and moving. Well done."

"Heehee, thanks master."

"What do you want old man?" Russo curtly asked. He'd been around long enough to know that this kind of behavior wasn't normal.

"No need to be so rude Russo. I have some errands I need Dax to run today and I'd appreciate it if you could help him out is all."

"You're sending me out to run errands now?" Russo asked with some indignation in his voice.

"Quit your griping. Don't think of it as running errands, think of it as helping out and doing a kindness for one of our guild's newest recruits. That and as a chance to earn back my trust that you're capable of completing even the simplest of tasks without blowing something up."

"Fine. What do you need us to do?"

"The town's harvest festival is coming up soon and the guild has been asked to assist with the preparations."

"Harvest festival?" Dax inquired.

"Yes, harvest festival. You know, when everybody comes together to celebrate a successful growing season, especially the farmers. This year's crop yield was especially good I hear, so I'm thinking we might all get a bit spoiled by what the farmers have to offer. It doesn't seem like there's any danger of running out of food in the winter anyway," The master explained.

"Sounds fun! Kind of makes me wish my home village had something like that..." Dax said ruefully. "We always tended to barely scrape by."

"Hmm, well you're more than welcome to join us in celebrating Tedrah's harvest festival Dax," The master said warmly.

"Th-thank you," Dax said as a quiet smile formed on his face and his tail began wagging."

"ANYWAY, what exactly are we doing here, master?" Russo interrupted.

The master snapped back to attention. "Right, right. The harvest festival is only a week away and preparations are already underway. Some of the more generous farmers have donated their surplus crop yield for the festival and some of the townspeople are working hard to whip up a feast we'll never forget! We've been asked to secure some salt and cinnamon, along with some other scare spices, to aid in the food preparations. Everyone else is too preoccupied to go out and trade for them at the moment so that's where you two come in. Russo, Dax, I need you two to head north of here to a trading post and bring back as much salt, cinnamon, hell grab some sugar and pepper too if you can, regardless bring as much of that stuff back as you can carry."

"How far is this trading post?"

"Little over half a day's walk. If you two leave now I'm sure you can make it there around nightfall. You can spend the night there, stock up in the morning and come right back."

"Kay. So uh... is this all you needed us to do?"

"Mmhmm."

"Alright, sounds easy enough. Come on Dax, let's grab some lunch and go." Russo said as he walked past the master into the guild.

"Sounds good!" Dax replied as he eagerly followed the human inside.

The master simply shook his head and chuckled to himself as he slowly headed inside as well.

(Then lunch happened. I think they had roast beef sandwiches or something with the bread soaked in the meat juices or something. Huh. That actually sounds really good right now)

"Hey Russo, what are spices?" Dax innocently asked as they headed out of town.

"They're the things that make food taste good more or less. Well, they make food taste better than it already is anyway. How can you not know about them, you work in the kitchen at the guild?!"

"It's not like they let me cook food, I just clean up and sometimes prepare stuff is all."

"Well, anyway you've already tasted some spices before. Those sandwiches we had for lunch? Those were seasoned with salt."

"They did taste pretty good," Dax reminisced as he licked his muzzle.

"Yeah, well salt helps meat stay good and edible for a while and if you don't overdo it, it makes meat taste hell of a lot better than it normally would."

"Mmm.." Dax continued licking his chops as they walked. "What about the other spices the master mentioned?"

"Huh? Like cinnamon and pepper you mean? Eh, I'm not a big fan of pepper, but cinnamon, oh man that stuff is amazing. In years past I've known some bakers to roll dough around in cinnamon mashed and mixed in with sugar and Oh Lord was that bread to die for. Oh! And I remember another year there was a farmer who had just an absurd amount of apples, barrels of them even. He took some and mashed them all to hell into juice and pulp. He mixed that in with some cinnamon and then let some other apples stew in that concoction for like a week. I would've thought it would all turn into a mushy moldy mess but oh my god, those apples, oh my god."

Russo continued dwelling on the culinary delights of festivals past and as he did that tempting and decadent images of delicious foodstuffs flitted through his head. Dax was nearly drooling all the while, trying to fathom what all he had missed out on in years past, and just what he might get to look forward to. If there had been a thought bubble above Russo's head filled with images of all the foods he was talking about, Dax would have torn that bubble out of the air and goddamned devoured it.

"Apparently from what I've heard you need to mine for salt or somehow collect it from the ocean, and as for pepper and cinnamon I think those come from plants, it's just that none of them grow around here. This is a landlocked province and I guess the climate here isn't good for growing pepper and cinnamon so we have to trade for and import all that good stuff."

"Do you trade for it often?"

"The salt, yeah. It's pretty cheap and it's absolutely crucial to keeping meat from spoiling. The cinnamon and pepper on the other hand cost an arm and a leg though, so people usually only pack up on some for special occasions, like the harvest festival."

"Oohh... I can't wait!" Dax said gleefully.

"You are far too easily amused," Russo said shaking his head.

The duo continued walking for some time, taking in the sights and sounds of the crisp autumn day. The winding path they walked slowly transitioned from a field of tall grasses to a lightly wooded area. The grass and weeds weren't quite as tall here and the trees weren't terribly dense. They were scattered apart randomly so that there was plenty of space and open ground between them. The leaves on the trees were just beginning to turn yellow and there was a slight breeze rustling the branches. All of it put Russo's mind at ease since not only was it a peaceful and relaxing day, but frankly there weren't many places for any troublemakers to hide. As they continued walking down the road they came to a fork, one path led forward into more open woodland, the path on the right led into a circle of trees... with a treasure chest smack dab in between them? Oh what fresh hell is this?

"Dax... could you do me a favor and tell me what you see down that path?"

"Hmm? Uh... hey it's a chest! Master has a couple of those around the guild and has a bunch of neat things inside them. Let's check it out!"

Dax eagerly plodded down the path until Russo grabbed him by his cloak and yanked him back, nearly throttling him in the process.

"H-hey! What was that for?!"

"Dax. The purpose of a treasure chest is to store things inside it where they'll be nice and secure, right?"

"Yeah."

"And most people keep chests in their houses or someplace safe right? So that way nobody can steal what's inside them, right?"

"That makes sense."

"So tell me Dax," Russo placed a hand on Dax's shoulder and pointed at the chest with the other. "Would any sane person leave a chest, filled with their precious belongings, out in the open for all to see? Where anybody could come along and steal what's inside it with no difficulties whatsoever?"

"Probably not..." Gears in Dax's head began turning as he began to follow the flow of the humans' logic.

"Right. So doesn't it seem a little suspicious to have a chest just lying out there in the open, in the middle of the forest?"

"It does seem a little strange now that you mention it."

"Alright Dax, I know life at this size is new to you so I'll explain. What you see before you," Russo continued pointing at the chest, "Is one of the oldest and laziest tricks in the book. Remember how your initial reaction upon seeing that chest was to run over and open it?"

"Yes...?"

"Unfortunately that's the reaction most idiots... uh... people have. They'll just run over there stupid and giddy as can be, thinking they've struck it rich. As soon as they get to that chest and throw it open they'll claim their prize, which is usually some stupid bauble or trinket, hell maybe it'll be nothing at all. Anyway as soon as they turn around and are about to head off on their way with their treasure in stow... BAM, they find themselves surrounded on all sides by thieves, all of whom had plenty of time to lazily saunter out of the woodwork and ambush them while the aforementioned idiot was gawking over the chest. The thieves rob that person blind, toss something else in the chest or just leave it empty, close it back up and then do the same thing all over again to the next idiot who passes by. That or the chest is a mimic, but don't worry it's always one or the other never both. Thieves wouldn't be crazy enough to hide around a mimic chest, those abominations are way too damn fierce and powerful for any sane person to hang around. Regardless, the main lesson to take away from this is to never go up to a chest lying out in the open for all to see be it in a forest, a cave, etc."

"Geeze, and to think I almost fell for that," Dax said to himself as he looked down at his feet and chastised himself for being so stupid.

"Don't beat yourself too much over it. You're new to this and everyone makes mistakes like those. Only way to learn how to avoid these situations is to make those stupid decisions in the first place, that or learn from someone who already has." Russo patted the wolf on the back.

"Heehee, okay then, what do we do now?" Dax smiled as he swatted the human's hand away.

"Well the smart thing to do would be to just keep on walking past them and make our way to the trading post. However, the more responsible, and fun, thing to do would be to actively antagonize them and drive them out of the forest, seeing to it that nobody else falls for that stupid trap."

Russo took a few steps towards the circle of trees.

"By the way Russo, what's a mimic?"

"I'll tell you all about them later, all you need to know for now though is they're something you'd rather not run into. Those things have no sense of self preservation and will chase someone down no matter what kind of injuries they incur. Only way to stop them is to kill em'." Russo cleared his voice as he moved a few steps closer to the trees. "Follow my lead," Russo said, barely concealing a snicker as he turned back to Dax. He then began to speak in an incredibly loud and pompous voice.

"OH WOE IS ME. I HAVE COME ACROSS YET ANOTHER CHEST SURELY TO BE FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH UNTOLD RICHES. YET I FEAR I CANNOT HOLD ANY MORE TREASURE AS MY WALLET IS ALREADY SO FAT, AND THICK, AND HEAVY AS IT IS. WHAT A TRAGEDY THIS IS. WHAT SAY YOU MY EQUALLY WEALTHY COMPANION?"

"Uh, uh, uh..." Dax stammered after being put on the spot.

"Come on you can do it!" Russo whispered.

"I...I-I agree! M-My BACK FEELS LIKE IT'S ABOUT TO BREAK FROM CARRYING SO MUCH LOOT."

Russo nodded and smiled in approval.

"MY FRIEND I FEAR WE HAVE REACHED A PIVOTAL TURNING POINT IN OUR LIVES. I FEEL NO NEED TO LOOT ANYMORE."

"S-SAY IT ITSN'T SO!" Dax said snickering to himself afterwards.

"YES MY GOOD FRIEND, DREADFUL AS IT MAY SEEM, I AM ACTUALLY CONTENT WITH MY SINFUL AMOUNTS OF WEALTH. COME, LET US RETURN TO OUR COUNTRY ESTATE AND PLEASURE OURSELVES WITH OUR MONEY. THE NEIGHBORS THINK IT UNNATURAL FOR A MAN TO GAZE UPON A COIN THE WAY I DO, TO SLEEP WITH IT, TO HUG IT AND KISS IT, WHY DARE I SAY TO LOVE IT! I SAY THEY'RE JUST ENVIOUS IS ALL! ENVIOUS THAT I HAVE THE KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WITH MONEY THAT THEY WISH THEY COULD HAVE! "

Dax and Russo could both barely stifle their laughter at this point.

"AGREED MY SICK IN THE HEAD FRIEND. LET US UH... PASS UP THIS CHEST AND LEAVE IT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO FIND."

"Good job," Russo whispered.

"Thanks," Dax replied, grinning a mile wide at getting to act so pompous and silly.

The leaves of the trees surrounding the chest began to rustle and shake, unnaturally so, and suddenly a tan and black cat dropped down from the branches. "Okay look, if you're not going to take this seriously you can just walk on by you know."

"Here comes the best part," Russo said as he elbowed Dax in the ribs.

"Yes, haha, we all know this is one of the oldest tricks in the book but you don't have to stand there screaming and rubbing it our faces. I mean-"

ZAP. A bolt of lightning shot out from Russo's outstretched arm, a blue aura surrounding his hand and trails of it wafting off his flesh. The cat was knocked down to the ground, stunned and shaking from the shock.

"B-benny!" A leopard called out as he dropped down from another tree to check up on the cat. ZAP. Russo shocked the leopard as well.

"This seems kind of mean," Dax said as he looked on disapprovingly at Russo. The human could no longer contain his laughter and laughed uproariously after shocking both the felines.

Russo chuckled a few more times before he calmed down. "*Sigh* Ah.. hehe, they're thieves Dax."

"I know but still..."

"Oh, hold that thought I think there's one more left."

"Hey you son of a bitch, knock that off!" A gruff human with dirty blonde hair called out from atop one of the branches in the trees. He remained hidden by the thick leaves.

"I'm sorry but could you repeat that?" Russo called out in an incredibly insincere manner.

The other human angrily shoved leaves and branches out of the way and poked his head and started screaming. "I SAID-" ZAP. Russo shocked him as well and watched him tumble through the branches and smack into the ground with a resounding thud.

"Hehehe..." Russo softly chuckled to himself.

"That wasn't very nice," Dax said frowning at Russo.

Russo chuckled a bit more before responding. "*Sigh* Dax, chances are these guys have robbed people before. If we just walked on by and ignored them I'm sure they would have robbed the next poor soul that was stupid enough to fall for that old trick. Hell, maybe they would have killed them, I don't know."

"I... hadn't thought of that."

"Surprisingly there's a lot to take into account whenever you deal with these kinds of problems. You learn, well, have hammered into you by the master actually, that the lazier and easier route tends to screw over somebody else at a later date and time, and you could have done something to prevent it. Trust me, I've gotten chewed out before for taking the easy way out..."

"So the master encourages you to seek out and take care of bad people and evil wherever you find them?"

"Not really seek out, just that if we happen to stumble across them we really ought to knock them around a bit and see to it they don't cause problems for others. He goes on and on about being proactive rather than reactive in our effort to help others. I imagine in this case he'd say it would be for the best for us to run these thieves out of the forest before we end up getting contacted about it after they've caused enough trouble. Frankly I think we'd probably make more money if we were more say 'reactive', since we do charge a fee of sorts for the guild's services."

"Hmm..." Dax pondered what all Russo had to say as the three thieves slowly started to pick themselves up off the ground, groaning in pain. Russo quickly put all three of them back down with another batch of bolts. "Damn this lightning spell is weak. They shouldn't be getting back up anywhere near that fast."

"I know this might seem a little off topic Russo but how'd you learn so many spells? I mean I've seen you teleport, toss up barriers, and now you can use lightning?"

Russo shrugged his shoulders. "Mastering magic is all about manipulating its flow. It's pretty easy to get down the basics for any given spell. It's just that most mages focus on only a few spells is all, since it takes a lot of time and effort to truly master a spell, that and the way you control the magic for some spells, take fire and ice for example, are polar opposites of each other. I mean, when you cast a fire spell you kind of imagine the magical energy exploding out from your hands, completely unrestrained. Shooting out fireballs requires you to imagine shooting out little bursts of concentrated energy as opposed to all at once but that's not the point. With ice magic you imagine yourself contracting and drawing all of the magic and warmth out of the air around you, leaving nothing but a cold void in its wake. It's weird because you imagine and focus on casting that void and that drain of energy out into the world around you when you cast an ice spell. Learning how to control two completely different magics makes it a lot more difficult to master the later and more advanced versions of any given spell. It's hard to shift between trying to imagine spreading out a void of magic and an explosion of magic on the fly."

"So... you're saying you haven't mastered any spells yet? But the stuff I've seen you do seemed plenty strong as it was!"

"Oh... trust me Dax, what you've seen me pull off is nothing compared to what some of the more talented mages can pull off. Eh, but I chose to be this kind of mage, sacrificing strength for versatility. It gets boring just studying one or two magics all the time. I mean I am the strongest mage in the Tedrah guild but there are plenty of others who are stronger yet. That lightning spell of mine? Sure it hurts like hell but I doubt it can actually kill anybody." Russo shocked the thieves again once more to demonstrate. They continued to moan and groan but they didn't look to be severely injured. Russo walked over to the gruff human and dragged him over to the cat. Dax followed suit with the leopard. When all three of the thieves were grouped close together Russo cast a small barrier around them, preventing any escape.

"Well... you might not think you're that great a mage but I do!" Dax said reassuringly. "You think you could maybe umm, teach me some spells sometime?"

"I guess I could.... Try..." Russo said with some hesitation.

"Yes! Oh man I can't wait to learn to teleport!" Dax said excitedly, wagging his tail.

"Before you get too excited we still have something to take care of," Russo pointed towards the chest. "We need to get rid of that thing before any more would be thieves stop by and set up around it. I figure we ought to, you know, reward ourselves to the treasure inside there for being such good people and taking out these thieves. We'll obliterate the chest afterwards. That'll make it all the harder for any thieves to set up here since they'll have to lug a new chest all the way out here if they want to pull this trick again. We deserve whatever reward is in there for our proactive good deed after all." Russo said smirking.

The thieves slowly started shaking off the shock of the lightning spell by this time and began to pound against the barrier. "Hey we found that chest first!" The cat yelled.

"What, so you bums couldn't even be bothered to drag a chest all the way out here?" Russo said in disbelief. "Besides if you idiots just found it out here first why didn't you just open it?"

"Hey, when you open a chest it's a one time thing. You find something nice inside, maybe some gold or a necklace maybe, and then you sell it. That's great and all, but still it's a one time deal. That chest there has a lock and if we smash that off and force it open, people might see that damage from a distance and get suspicious and walk away. Way I see it, setting up around that chest and robbing whoever comes up to it provides us a steady source of income! We can make more money in the long run continuously robbing whoever stops by than we would if we just opened the chest up and sold what's inside. Well actually it is a bit of a crap shoot since it's possible there's some priceless artifact inside that thing but still, we had a good thing going here."

"Huh. Okay that's a little odd it was already here, but whatever." Russo strode over to the chest and put his hands on the lock to fumble and rattle around with it. As soon as he placed his hands on the chest the lid ripped open tearing off the lock, and it flipped back completely revealing rows of jagged irregular razor sharp teeth along the lid and the body of the chest. A huge disgusting scarred tongue rolled out from the chest and an unnatural growl could be heard emanating from the dark bowels of the chest's body.

"HOLY SHIT, IT"S A MIMIC!" Russo screamed as he jumped back terrified. The mimic chest lurched forward and swung its lid shut, snapping at the air, right where Russo had been standing half a second earlier.

(WHAT THE HELL, IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OR THE OTHER NEVER BOTH)

"AAAHHH!!!" Dax and the thieves screamed in unison.

"RUN!" Russo screamed as he hauled ass away from the clearing desperately dragging Dax along with him.

"Oh God keep the barrier up!" The cat screamed as he and the other thieves huddled together.

Vines, no, tendrils that looked to be made out of oaken wood slithered out from under the mimic chest and it slowly rose to its full height, which rivaled that of Russo's. Its tongue draping out of its mouth, cut and bleeding from the bottom row of its razor sharp teeth piercing and cutting it, the mimic rapidly propelled itself along the ground and sank its teeth into the barrier. What had originally been intended to trap the thieves was now the only thing protecting them.

"Wh-why don't we just teleport away!?" Dax asked panicked as he and Russo got about one hundred feet away from the clearing and stopped to look back at the plight of the thieves. The mimic continued biting at the barrier and lashing it with its tendrils. Cracks were starting to form in the barrier and the cat, leopard and human huddled together terrified.

"Shut up, I panicked! Besides, if I let that... THING roam around here and freaking devour people I will be in deep shit if the master ever finds out I was somehow involved. Ugh, and I suppose we can't just leave those three idiots over there to be killed."

"W-what do we do then?"

"Kill it!" Russo yelled as he concentrated magic in his fingertips. A red aura surrounded his hands and balls of flame erupted from them and connected with the chest. The mimic burst into flame... and proceeded to chase after the human and wolf.

"AAHH!" The duo screamed in unison as they proceeded to run away. "Okay so, I think setting it on fire might have just enraged it. Grr... and those things have a reputation for being hard to kill as it is!" Russo said as he worriedly looked back. "Well at least those three idiots aren't in any immediate danger anymore," he thought to himself as they led the mimic away from the clearing. As Russo and Dax kept running the human looked back and cast another fire spell. The mimic was briefly stunned, but it shook it off quickly enough and continued giving chase.

"Dammit dammit dammit! None of my spells are strong enough to kill that thing before it catches up to us. Guh, and the strongest spell I know actually takes some time to prepare. Dax I need your help for this!"

"What?! W-what do you need me to do?"

"I'm gonna *Huff* Oh God I'm already getting tired from running. I'm gonna-I'm gonna see if I can blow one of the larger branches right off of one of these trees. I need you to, you know, use some of that giant strength of yours to use the tree limb to club it to death."

"I don't know if I like this plan." Dax said worriedly as he began to slow down a little. The mimic was rapidly catching up with them.

"Oh would you just suck it up, I really need your help for this! I'll distract it or something but we need to kill this thing!"

Russo, starting to breathe heavily from all the physical exercise, readied another spell and concentrated magic in his fingertips. He shot out a bolt of lightning, the most powerful he could manage, and aimed at a nearby tree. It blew off a large branch, and most of the bark on the tree, but it did the job. He looked back worriedly at the mimic which had rapidly closed in on them. It was only about twenty feet away and gaining. Russo frantically fired off another fire spell to grab the mimic's attention. Half of the fireballs that erupted from his hand completely missed their target but a few managed to hit it. The ones that connected blew off chunks of metal and wood that composed that mimic's body, but the wounds still weren't enough to slow it down in the slightest. The chest continued to pursue Russo doggedly as Dax veered off course and made a beeline for the ruined tree. The wolf tossed off the necklace that contained the small dispel crystal Jem and Russo had forced him to wear. His body promptly exploded with muscle and he shot up a few feet in height. His clothes became dangerously snug as he picked up the unwieldy tree branch and swung it around like a club.

"O-okay I'm ready Russo!"

"Got it! I'll just circle back..."

The mimic chomped at the air right behind Russo. The human could hear the misaligned teeth crack together as the lid of the chest slammed shut. That abomination was less than ten feet behind him.

"Uhhh... scratch that," Russo yelled back as he became increasingly terrified at the prospect of being torn to shreds and eaten alive. He quickly teleported into the upper branches of a nearby tree. The mimic circled around the tree a few times before it wrapped its tendrils around the trunk and slowly started climbing it.

"Oh for fuck's sakes those things can climb trees?!" Russo screamed in panic. He immediately teleported back to the ground and quite a ways away from the tree. While Russo was hauling ass back towards Dax, the mimic disentangled itself from the tree and resumed chase.

Russo's breathing was noticeably heavier and tired. "Jesus these things don't give up! *Huff, huff* You ready Dax?"

"Ready as I'll ever be..." The wolf said with uncertainty in his voice.

Russo and the mimic rapidly approached Dax, who stood there waiting with the tree limb firmly in hand.

"Now Dax!" Russo screamed as he ran towards Dax head on. The human immediately teleported out of the way and Dax raised the tree limb overhead and swung straight down, smashing the mimic chest into the ground. The lid of the chest was caved in and blood could be seen dripping from the mimic's mouth. Its teeth had been mashed together and its tongue skewered in between them. It slowly pulled itself off the ground and moved towards Dax. The wolf fearfully stepped back but it only made it a few inches before it erupted in flames again as Russo bombarded it with a steady stream of fireballs. The mage repeatedly set it on fire until it collapsed on the ground and ceased moving entirely.

"Good job Dax," Russo said in between bouts of heavy breathing. Dax nodded in affirmation, still shaking a little from the experience. He slowly shrank back down to Russo's size. (Sure he could've become a giant but still, that mimic was scary). Dax looked around for his dispel crystal necklace and placed it back around his neck. He walked back over to Russo who was staring worriedly at the mimic chest, as its body was rumbling even after its apparent death.

"R-Russo what's happening?" Dax said worriedly as he hid behind the human.

The mimic's body shook violently as the human and wolf took a couple more steps back. Moments later Russo and Dax were painfully pelted by all kinds of gold coins as the mimic chest exploded. "Hey, coins!" Dax eagerly said as he went around picking up some of the shiny gold coins off the ground and shoving them in his pockets. Russo put his hands over his face and gently shook his head.

"Christ, I really can't do anything without blowing something up in the process, can I?" He let out a deep sigh before continuing on. "Screw it, let's go Dax," Russo said in a defeated tone.

"What about the thieves though?" He asked curiously as he walked over to Russo, his pockets jingling.

"Who cares. The barrier around them will fade over time anyway after having been damaged so much by that mimic. Besides we took care of the bigger problem here anyway," He kicked at the ground where the monster had once been. "And I imagine the whole experience of nearly being eaten alive traumatized those three enough that they wouldn't dare try pulling something like that again anytime soon." Russo walked back onto the main path with Dax following alongside him, his pockets jingling the whole time. They made their way back to the fork in the road and sure enough the barrier and the thieves were nowhere to be seen. Russo shrugged his shoulders and the two continued down the path to the trading post.

"Wonder what Jem's up to right now?" Russo wistfully thought as he walked down the path dotted with trees. He looked up towards the sun and shielded his eyes as it momentarily blinded him and a crisp but refreshing breeze blew through the trees.