While most adventurer types are known for raiding dungeons and fighting monsters, there are in fact many different types of places to explore for fame, glory, and loot that are safe enough to be explored by groups with no combat training. Spurred by a bulletin board tip about a recent discovery, one such group now delves into the basement of an abandoned ancient structure once used for unknown purposes.
 
All is quiet, devoid of monsters and dangerous things. Magic lanterns are bolted to the stony walls, still lit after all this time by some mystical means, providing ample light for exploring a multitude of hallways and side rooms.
 
The group is eager to look around. They split up into groups of two or three and set off in different directions. One group includes an anthro bat called Arthur. He is not much to look at: short, scrawny, with vestigial wing-arms incapable of flight and short-fingered hands that can't do anything more dexterous than a high-five. Still, he's a brave little bat, and that's worth something.
 
Going through one doorway and taking a couple twists and turns, Arthur and an ordinary anthro lizard named Reskis find themselves in a small alcove with three wooden, metal-banded treasure chests – some of the biggest ones he's ever seen, and the kind that are always known for inexplicably carrying fantastic loot. In front of the chests is a pedestal with a placard on top. The placard has writing on it, maybe a clue as to which chest to open, but the writing is an ancient scribble and completely meaningless to the untrained adventurers. An experienced group would stop and weigh its options, yet the notion of getting treasure from those big boxes is unbearably tantalizing.
 
"There's a puzzle here, right?" Reskis says. "So whatever this thing says is some clue as to which treasure chest you're supposed to select." He frowns and shakes his head. "Maybe we should try another room. You'd have to be a language expert to figure this one out."
 
The "treasure chest" (that is, the thing masquerading as treasure), though without eyes or any obvious method for sensory input, feels the two anthros enter, trying not to shudder in place from excitement. It is most enticed by the bat; his presence makes the air taste different from anything else it has eaten before. It knows this tasty bat might not get close if he suspects trouble, and so it remains completely still.
 
Even though the placard's writing is indecipherable, it has some additional shapes and colors. Three circles of red, blue, and yellow are drawn at the bottom. On the back wall, three shiny gems, similarly red, blue, and yellow, glimmer in the lantern light. Obviously, these things have something to do with each other, but determining what that is would be a random guess.
  
Arthur, ears twitching as he thinks, looks around the room. "Well, this doesn't seem too hard. The gemstones have something to do with the boxes." He approaches the back wall and considers the gems. Being a brave little bat, he wants to impress the others by showing how helpful he is, even with his meager physique. Also, he'll get some of that treasure himself if he's right.
 
Of course, his selection of a gem is essentially random. He has no idea what to make of this puzzle any more than anyone else does. But from his perspective, it's not like anything bad could happen here. There are no monsters in sight, the walls are bare of traps, and there's no sign of anything dangerous. The only point of question is why everything appears clean and untouched – a place this safe should have been ransacked a long time ago. But that's the furthest thought from anyone's mind.
 
With no logical reasoning, Arthur takes the yellow gem from the wall while his lizard companion watches with an unimpressed scowl. Reskis knows full well that this bat is a klutzy showboat and often tries to impress others with what he doesn't have.
 
"Big box of loot, here I come," Arthur says. Each of the chests has three color-coded locks – a puzzle within a puzzle – and he merely selects the largest box, touching the gemstone he selected to the corresponding lock. Mimic or not, there is a correct answer to the puzzle.
 
His choice, however, is incorrect. Very incorrect.
 
The lid of the chest mimic – the same box Arthur selected – swings open, revealing a fleshy interior, lined with huge, curved teeth along the edges. The monster looses a strange and disturbing gurgle-growl sound into the bat's face, blasting him with caustic and humid air that makes his fur tingle.
 
Arthur staggers backward in shock, wobbling on his feet, when a tentacle-like tongue springs outward from the center of the mimic's maw. At such close range, it easily whips and loops around his thin torso once, spins him around so his back is facing the mimic, and lifts him a few inches off the ground. In a panic and without weaponry, Arthur waves his wing-arms and kicks his dangling feet, but he has no leverage or purchase on anything. "H- hey! What's going on? Help, Reskis! Help!"
 
The mimic gives a friendly gurgle of appreciation at what it believes is the bat's correct choice, showing off its big teeth and long, wet tongue in a squishy smile. It drools down its front side as it savors the unique and delicious flavors of the anthro bat.
 
To a carnivorous predator, Arthur is weak, helpless, and unique. It is already enjoying the calls and struggles of its prey. The mimic's inside is fleshy and drippy, with its teeth and tongue appearing like they take up most of the space, implying that the bat will be the one to conform his body to the confines instead of the other way around as it tugs him backwards to its maw.
 
The mimic takes the bad against its lid, eager to suck, squeeze, and schlorp its prey inside. It's a tight fight as it wraps its tongue around Arthur's wing-arms as the bat is constricted, trapping him as his warm, furry body starts to press into what passes for the mimic's stomach.
 
Arthur can not believe what is happening right now. He is in such utter shock that this place is the complete opposite of safe – that a monster like this was waiting in ambush to scoop him up. And he's not just being attacked. This monster is trying to eat him alive.
 
Guided into the mimic's maw butt-first, he is forced to awkwardly (but conveniently for the mimic) fold forward, his head bumping against the upper lid while his legs drape over the lower portion. The mimic's insides are like a cauldron of slobber and slime; he gasps as his rump, thighs, and hips feel like they are submerged in goo. It's distracting enough that he falters in putting up any resistance, not that it would help. The mimic is an overpowering ambush predator, too strong and precise, and Arthur is no fighter who could out-muscle a predator like this.
 
Already around the bat's backside, the flesh pushes in around him, starting to encase the bat as he is given a noisy but harmless chomp and swallow, followed by another one, and another, as the tongue continues tugging him inside.
 
Arthur squirms and whimpers, having flapped cutely and rather ineffectively, unable to reach out with his wing-arms as he is folded forward within the closing. The mimic takes the time to savor Arthur's weakening resistance but gives no chance for escape as it closes around the bat, leaving his legs and feet visible and twitching as they are gulped along. Arthur's thin and light frame is squished into the cushioned mass from all directions, leaving no room as the mimic's belly (trunk?) stretches tight and taught.
 
From what little use he has of his legs and constricted wing-arms, the poor bat tries one last time to hold the lid open, eyes wide in fear, teeth clenched, as his best efforts still do nothing to stop the mimic's tongue from dragging him deeper inside. "It's eating me! It's eating me!! Help me! Why aren't you helping?!" he cries to Reskis, who is likewise immobilized by fear and shock.
 
The mimic appears almost smug in the way it slurps up the bat's feetpaws for good as he is eaten alive and soaked down by mimic juice. Its tongue presses on his paws as it gives a wet, echoing gulp to compress and squeeze him into place.
 
The supposedly wooden sides of the mimic bulge out organically as Arthur is crammed into a tight fit. With almost no room to maneuver, all the bat can do now is kick weakly against the walls, producing the occasional thump or bump, but nothing that seems to faze the mimic. A glorping, almost sizzling sound becomes steadily louder as the mimic vibrates and wobbles, intensity increasing, faster and faster, until the bulged walls compress inward with a loud and wet crunch, going back to their normal angular dimensions.
 
The mimic's insides are hot, gastric, and wet, like an overbearing cushion pushing in around the bat's body. The furry figure keeps getting pushed back into place whenever he tries to struggle. The strong muscles around him churn and press as they work him down with loud gurgling, as if putting on a show.
 
The mimic's lid opens once more to release an earthquaking URRRRRRP, flinging a slime-coated bat skull clear across the room to bounce against the wall and clatter onto the ground. There is no doubt about what just happened. Arthur has just become mimic-chow.
 
And it seems there is one very foolish lizard who has failed to even move while all of that was going on…