Deep beneath the old roads, where the roots of trees could no longer reach, there was a cavern filled with mushrooms. Some were small enough to hide beneath a boot. Others grew taller than a dwarf, with wide caps that caught the pale blue light of the cave. The air was always damp, and every sound seemed to travel much farther than it should. Water dripped from the ceiling, beetles scratched beneath the stones, and somewhere in the dark, things with too many legs moved between the stalks.
The goblin visited the cavern every few weeks. Several of the mushrooms growing there were useful for brewing. The small brown ones gave his beer a bitter taste, while the blue shelf mushrooms, when dried properly, added a faint sweetness that his regulars could never quite identify. On one of these trips, he first encountered the mimics. He spotted an old wooden chest resting beneath a cluster of blue mushrooms. This was unusual, but not unusual enough to make him suspicious. Adventurers abandoned all kinds of things in the dungeon, usually because they were running from something larger than themselves. The goblin put down his basket, took out a small iron bar and carefully lifted the lid. The chest tried to bite his hand off. He escaped with all his fingers, though one of his gloves was never recovered.
The mimic did not chase him far. It returned to its place beneath the mushrooms and settled back into the shape of a chest. Only then did the goblin notice the smaller shapes scattered around it: a cracked clay pot, a leather boot, a little wooden box and a stone with teeth. The chest was not alone. It was a mother protecting her young. After that, the goblin became more careful when gathering mushrooms in that part of the cavern. He kept his distance from the family and made sure they could always see him coming. Sometimes he left scraps from the tavern near their hiding place: bones, spoiled meat or anything else that even a goblin considered unfit for the stew pot.
The mother mimic never became friendly. Mimics rarely do. But after several months, she stopped snapping at him whenever he passed. The young ones grew used to the sound of his boots and often followed him through the mushrooms, badly disguised as stones, bottles and pieces of discarded equipment. The smallest of them was especially curious. It once spent an entire afternoon pretending to be the goblin's mushroom basket, although the tongue hanging from beneath the lid made the disguise less convincing than the little mimic probably believed. The goblin knew better than to treat them as pets. They were creatures of the dungeon and perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. Still, he grew fond of them. On quiet days, he sometimes remained in the cavern after filling his basket and watched the young mimics wrestle over bones while their mother rested nearby.
The tavern had been unusually busy. A collapsed passage had forced travellers onto the old dungeon road, and for nearly a month every table was occupied by merchants, mercenaries, monsters and adventurers searching for another way through. By the time the last of them left and the beer barrels were nearly empty, the goblin realised how long it had been since he had gathered fresh mushrooms. He returned to the cavern. The first thing he noticed was the silence. The second was the smell.
Broken arrows lay between the mushrooms. There were cuts across several of the larger stalks, scorch marks on the ground and dark blood on the stones. The goblin found the young mimics first. Most had died in whatever shape they had taken when the adventurers discovered them. A cracked barrel lay beside a shattered clay pot. Near the wall, something resembling a small shield had been split almost in two. Their mother had died close to the nest. Deep cuts covered the old wooden chest, and one side had been burned black. There were sword marks on the floor around her and blood that did not belong to any mimic. She had fought back. The goblin recognised the work. A group of adventurers had found what appeared to be an unguarded treasure chest and tried to open it. Perhaps they had not seen the young ones before the fighting started. Perhaps they had. It made little difference now.
He placed his basket on the ground and began moving through the nest, looking for anything that might still be alive. He found nothing. Eventually, he returned to the mother and sat beside her for a while. There was no prayer to say. Mimics did not have gods, at least none the goblin knew about, and the gods had never shown much interest in what happened inside dungeons anyway. He was about to leave when something beneath the dead mimic scraped against the stone. The goblin drew his knife and waited. After a few seconds, a small wooden box pushed its way out from beneath its mother's body. One corner was badly cracked, and it moved only a few inches before collapsing. When the goblin reached towards it, the box opened a tired little mouth and bit down on his glove. It was the smallest one.
“All right,” the goblin said. “Keep the glove.” He wrapped the mimic in an old cloth and placed it inside his mushroom basket. It hissed all the way back, but it no longer had the strength to climb out. The goblin gathered no mushrooms that day. He carried the basket back through the dungeon and returned to the tavern before nightfall.
Bringing a mimic into a tavern caused exactly as many problems as one might expect. For the first few days, the little creature hid behind the counter and refused to eat. It changed shape whenever anyone approached, becoming a bottle or a bowl, and once, with very little success, a piece of firewood. The goblin left food nearby and otherwise left it alone. The tavern's regulars quickly learned not to reach behind the counter.
The tavern had always welcomed both travellers and creatures of the dungeon. That was the goblin's rule. Whatever hunted you in the tunnels could sit beside you at the bar, provided neither of you started trouble beneath his roof. Weapons remained sheathed, old grudges waited outside and nobody hunted anybody until they had paid their bill. Most monsters already knew why everyone obeyed the rule. Long before he became a tavern keeper, the goblin had travelled through places that even experienced adventurers preferred to avoid. He no longer carried his old weapons, but they still hung above the fireplace, and there were enough stories about him that few creatures felt the need to test whether he remembered how to use them.
As the weeks passed, the little creature began to leave its hiding place. At first, it came out only after the tavern had closed. Later, it started watching the customers from between the bottles. It still reacted badly to armour and raised voices, but it learned that fighting inside the tavern ended quickly, usually with the goblin throwing someone through the door. It also learned that not every adventurer who entered the tavern meant it harm. Some left scraps beneath the counter. A dwarven merchant gave it an old brass buckle, which it guarded for months as though it were a royal treasure. The mimic never became tame. It stole coins, chewed holes in sacks and occasionally replaced harmless objects simply to watch people search for them. But it stopped hiding whenever the door opened.
Of all the shapes it tried, the mug became its favourite. No one knew why. Perhaps it had spent too much time watching the goblin work behind the bar. Perhaps mugs were the only objects in the tavern that everyone treated carefully. The goblin suspected it simply liked being carried around and had discovered that biting people was easier when they picked it up willingly. Whatever the reason, it stuck with the same shape: a small wooden mug with iron bands, a wide handle and a row of teeth hidden beneath the rim. It usually slept on the shelf behind the counter, although it sometimes moved to another table when no one was looking.
Regulars knew which mug not to touch. New customers were usually warned, though not always before the mimic had taken an interest in their jewellery. If someone noticed a tongue curling around the edge of a shelf, the goblin would simply place a strip of meat on the counter and continue pouring drinks.
It knew that beneath this roof, no one would hunt it again.
