The zombie had stepped out of a side room about thirty feet down the hallway, its rotting flesh revealing cracked bones underneath. Its jaw hung loose, extended past where the jaw of any human would normally be able to reach. Rags hung off its body, leaving his lower left leg completely exposed. I could feel its bloodlust radiating out of its rotting flesh, fighting to satiate its eternal hunger. It began creeping slowly towards me while I came up with a plan.
Hey Magic Guide, if I kill and eat this zombie I can take its form right?
This is correct, although Flawed Mimicry can not produce an exact copy of the consumed individual.
That'll have to be good enough, just being able to move around more freely will be a huge help for getting out of here. So then, how do I kill it?
Zombies are undead monsters, meaning they can only be killed via decapitation. Any severed limbs will continue to move on their own, and broken bones will only slow the zombie down. This one appears to have a broken ankle, causing it to move extremely slow.
Got it, so as long as I can cut its head off i should be fine.
I began looking around using Magic Sight, trying to find a weapon of some sort to take the zombie's head off. I could hear its broken leg scraping along the ground as it moved closer toward me. After about a minute of searching I spotted a rusty dagger laying on the floor, clearly unused for some time now. Using my mimic tongue, I snatched the dagger and prepared to cut this zombie into pieces.
This Dexterous Tongue ability is actually super useful, I can still fight even without limbs. Maybe this mimic body isn't all bad after all.
I used my tongue to attack the zombie, aiming for its neck. My first hit made contact, but didn't cut all the way through. I pulled back the knife and prepared for another strike, this time making its way cleanly through the neck. The zombie's head fell to the floor with a sickening thud, blood spattering on the faded stone walls. I had won my first fight in my new body.
Now it's time for the worst part, eating this nasty rotting corpse. Oh this is gonna be absolutely disgusting but I gotta do it, I need a form that I can fight in a little easier.
So eat I did, and it wasn't pleasant so I'll spare you the details. It was gross and very, very bloody but I had gained now power.
NOTICE: After consuming the zombie, you have gained FOUR new skills:
Flawed Mimicry: Zombie
Undead Resilience
Unhinged Jaw
Stomach Storage
I can take a guess as to what Undead Resilience means, but what about Unhinged Jaw? Sounds creepy.
Unhinged Jaw allows you to temporarily dislocate your jaw in order to consume more food at a single time.
Okay that's really gross but whatever, it allows me to save some time when I'm chowing down. What about Stomach Storage?
As mimics can drop a variety of high tier loot, all of said loot is stored in their stomach after consumption. Adventurers can typically gauge how long a mimic has lived by the amount of loot it drops when killed.
Great so when I eventually keel over all my stuff will go flying all over the ground, fantastic. Enough of that though, time to check out the REAL good skill I got out of this. Flawed Mimicry: Zombie.
I didn't even have to think to activate my skill this time, it just activated in response to my intentions. I could feel my body begin to morph and take on a new shape, the chest morphing into a more human-like appearance. Limbs sprouted from my changing form and the rags the zombie had been wearing were replicated in a more torn fasion, so they didn't cover my entire body. My stomach and lower legs were exposed, but some clothes are better than none. I opened my new eyes for the first time and looked around, actually SEEING my surroundings for the first time. It was as if everything was more blurry than before with Magic Sight, like someone had given me glasses with a prescription that was too strong. I moved my new arms and legs around too, trying to get used to the new body. I looked like a human who died of starvation and had begun to rot away. I had no hair and my rotten flesh was extremely pale. The body had nearly no muscle in the arms or legs, which would cause me to move fairly slow. But hey, anything is better than dragging myself through the labyrith super slowly while in mimic form. I rotated my shoulders a couple times and did a few sqauts in order to become better acquanted with my new form.
Not bad, but not great. I won't be super strong or fast in this form, but it'll have to do until I can find something more agile.
With that thought in mind, I sprouted a second mouth on my hand using my skill, and used the tongue to grab the discarded dagger I had used to slay the zombie. Reeling it back in towards me and catching it, I was prepared to attempt an escape from the labyrith.