[Status: Iron Maiden Mimic – Level 18]
[Current HP: 600/600]
[Hunger: 100/100 (Satiated)]
The transition to the Second Floor was not merely a walk down a flight of stairs. It was a descent into a different kind of nightmare. Where the First Floor was a damp, mossy tomb of stone and bone, the Second Floor—The Iron Sepulcher—was a masterpiece of industrial decay. The walls were lined with rusted pipes that hissed with sulfurous steam, and the floor was made of iron grates that groaned over bottomless pits.
I marched through the threshold, my new, heavy iron steps ringing out like the tolling of a funeral bell.
*Thud. Thud. Thud.*
I was no longer a skittering shadow. As an Iron Maiden, I carried a presence. I was a seven-foot-tall monolith of blackened metal and jagged spikes, but even I knew that walking around in my "True Form" was a good way to get targeted by a high-level raiding party. On the Second Floor, the adventurers weren't Bronze-Rank fodder anymore. These were Silver-Rank veterans—people who knew that if a sarcophagus was walking toward them, they should hit it with a fireball first and ask questions later.
I needed to adapt. I needed to go back to my roots: Deception.
[Skill Activated: Mimicry – Object Morph (Lvl 2)]
[Form Selected: Weapon Rack]
I felt my iron plates shift and narrow. My tall, imposing frame split into a series of horizontal bars. My internal spikes didn't disappear; they thinned out, becoming the "hooks" that would hold my bait. Within seconds, I was no longer a terrifying iron coffin. I was a dusty, unassuming Weapon Rack tucked into a dark corner of an armory room.
But a Weapon Rack is only as good as what it's holding.
I reached into my internal inventory. I still had the shattered remains of Sir Alistair's hammer, the Ogre's massive (if slightly chewed) bone-club, and a collection of rusted swords from my earlier hunts. I placed them carefully on my "hooks."
To a passing scout, I looked like a jackpot. To a warrior who had just lost his primary weapon to a Rust Monster or a heavy-hitting golem, I looked like a miracle.
I waited.
[Skill Activated: Muffle Step (Passive)]
[Status: Deceptive Stillness (Active)]
An hour passed. The sulfurous steam hissed in the pipes. Then, I heard it—the frantic, desperate splashing of boots in the shallow water of the grates.
Two men burst into the room. They were battered. Their armor was scorched, and one of them—a man in heavy plate—was clutching a broken hilt. His longsword had been snapped in half.
[Human Knight - Lvl 22]
[Human Duelist - Lvl 20]
[Status: Wounded / Desperate]
"In here! Close the door!" the Knight gasped, leaning his back against the iron portal.
"The Golem is still right behind us, Bronn," the Duelist panted, his rapiers shaking in his hands. "If we don't find something to penetrate its plating, we're dead. My needles won't do a damn thing against enchanted granite."
The Knight looked around the room, his eyes scanning the rusted pipes and empty crates. Then, his gaze landed on me.
"Look," Bronn whispered, his voice cracking with hope. "An armory rack. And that... is that a Paladin's hammer?"
He was looking at the core of *Truthbringer* that I had placed on my top hook. Even though it was broken, it still pulsed with a faint, holy radiance—a radiance I was now using as a fishing lure.
"It shouldn't be here," the Duelist warned, stepping back. "A weapon like that in a place like this? It's too convenient."
"Convenient? It's a godsend!" Bronn shouted, his desperation override his common sense. "I can't fight a granite Golem with a broken hilt, Jace! If that hammer has even a spark of Light left in it, we might actually make it to the stairs."
Bronn stumbled toward me. He didn't check for dust. He didn't look at the 'hooks' holding the hammer. He only saw the weapon.
I watched him through the 'eyes' embossed on my iron frame. My *Bio-Detection* told me his heart was racing—not with greed this time, but with the raw, cold fear of a man who didn't want to die. It tasted different. Bitter, but intense.
He reached out. His hand gripped the shaft of the hammer.
"Wait!" Jace, the Duelist, yelled. "The rack... why does it have teeth?"
It was too late.
[Skill Activated: Internal Execution (Variant)]
I didn't wait for him to pull the hammer. I didn't even wait for him to realize the 'hooks' were actually my fingers.
*K-CHINK.*
The Weapon Rack didn't fall over. It collapsed *inward*. The horizontal bars snapped together like the teeth of a giant shark. Bronn's arm was caught instantly, the iron spikes of my interior driving through his gauntlet and into his forearm.
"GAHHH! IT'S A TRAP! JACE, HELP!"
The Duelist reacted with impressive speed. He lunged forward, his rapier blurring in a series of precise stabs aimed at my "joints."
*Ping. Ping. Ping.*
The rapiers struck my Level 18 Iron-Bound plating and did exactly nothing. It was like trying to kill a mountain with a toothpick.
"My turn," I thought.
[Skill Activated: Magnetic Pull]
I didn't just hold onto Bronn; I used him as a tether. I pulled him toward me, and as I did, I shifted back into my *Iron Maiden* form in a violent explosion of metal and wood. The Knight didn't even have time to scream before my front doors swung open and engulfed him.
*SLAM.*
[Internal Execution Active: -75 HP/sec]
"BRONN!" Jace screamed, his eyes wide with horror as he watched his partner disappear into the belly of a metal sarcophagus.
Jace was fast, but he was a Duelist. He relied on parries and evasion. Against a seven-foot-tall tank that could pull metal toward itself, he was out of his element. He turned to run toward the door.
I wasn't going to let a Level 20 Duelist escape to tell the others. My *Agility* had taken a hit when I evolved into an Iron Maiden, but I still had my legs.
[Skill Activated: Ambush Leap]
I didn't skitter. I launched. My massive iron body flew through the air, a thousand pounds of jagged metal and spikes hurtling toward the door. I slammed into the iron portal just as Jace reached it, pinning the door shut with my weight and crushing his arm against the frame.
"Please!" Jace begged, his rapier dropping to the floor. "I have gold! I have a map of the Third Floor!"
"Krieeeeeeeet."
My doors opened again. The half-dissolved remains of Bronn tumbled out, his armor pitted by my acid, his soul already being converted into XP. I reached out with my tongue—now thicker and reinforced with Alistair's holy essence—and wrapped it around the Duelist's neck.
[Enemy Defeated: Human Knight (Lvl 22)]
[Enemy Defeated: Human Duelist (Lvl 20)]
[Experience Gained: 2,400 XP]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Iron Maiden Mimic -> Lvl 20]
[Milestone Reached: Level 20]
[New Evolution Potential Detected: 'The Sentient Fortress']
[New Skill Unlocked: Humanoid Partial Morph]
I stood over the bodies, the steam from the pipes hissing in rhythm with my own mechanical heart. Level 20. The Second Floor was supposed to be a challenge, but I was eating through the competition faster than the dungeon could replace them.
I looked at my hands—or rather, the clawed iron limbs that had replaced my spider legs. With the new *Humanoid Partial Morph*, I felt a strange sensation. I could... extend them. I could make them look like arms.
I experimented. From the sides of my iron sarcophagus, two articulated limbs made of wood and iron sprouted. They had five fingers. They had elbows. They were clunky, but they were mine.
I picked up Jace's rapier. I held it. It felt small, but the potential was enormous.
"I'm not just a trap anymore," I thought, my embossed iron faces twisting into a metallic grin. "I'm a warrior. A warrior that carries its own prison."
I reached for the map Jace had mentioned. My new fingers gripped the parchment carefully. The Third Floor was called *The Sunken Archive*.
"Archives," I thought, my hunger already stirring again. "Books. Knowledge. I wonder what a Wizard tastes like."
I turned toward the exit, my heavy steps echoing in the armory. I had a long way to go before I reached the surface, but the Second Floor was already starting to feel like a very small pond.
And I was the biggest fish in the rust.
[Hunger: 100/100 (OVERFLOW)]
[Evolution Selection Pending...]