The Serpent's Nostril looked exactly like it should. Having seen a real sea serpent the massive thirty foot tall head was obviously something different. But it was dragon or serpent like. And there was a nice stairway leading to its massive nose holes, in addition to the path leading down its throat.

  "Heya!" Shiina looked over to see a group of people, likely the guards they were supposed to help. All of them were in uniform hard leather or steel armor, though there had been little alterations to suit each individual. The group was five men and two women, at least to Shiina's eyes. And all had weapons with good reach, either boar spears, two handed swords, or halberds.

  The man who'd called out to them waved, spear lazily resting on his shoulder. "You're the assisting group right? Boss said it'd be all women and you'd have a mimic gal."

  "That's us!" Shiina happily called back.

  The two groups met up and exchanged polite greetings. Zanya introduced the group. "Ife and I will be in the back in case of emergencies. Shiina is our rogue and Delilah our healer."

  "I'm Thadius," the man said. "She's Sheari, the trio are Primus, Ahmed, and Tertius. Erudnie is the gal with the weird hook thing, and Lenius is the man pretending he's not staring at Ife's chest."

  The dog man called out growled. "Shut it, Thadius."

  Ife smirked. "It's okay, I'm used to it. Best to get your looking in here where it's safe though. It'd be a shame to die to a monster because you were looking the wrong way."

  The other guards laughed and elbowed their embarrassed comrade. After a bit things returned to business. "So our usual tactic is we move in as a combat line and clear the place out. If we need to we'll split up to handle multiple targets. We decided both of you should follow the smaller group to help out."

  Shiina nodded. That sounded good to her. Delilah tapped her staff. "Alright. I should warn you my support spells are going to be weaker than usual because of the group size. But my healing won't have that problem. So bring the wounded to me quickly."

  "Yeah that's the downside of moving in large groups," Thadius said. "So it goes. Anyway, enemies are pretty simple. The common enemies are white slimes, fishmen, and razor worms. The last ones are ambush predators so if you see holes in the ground be cautious around that area."

  "Nothing intelligent?" Shiina asked. She wasn't expecting to run into any kin but she figured she could check.

  Erudine spoke up. "We've never seen a mimic in these dungeons. Occasionally there's been an eelman, but it's a tame dungeon so they usually just walk on out. No one really wants to live in a meat tunnel."

  Shiina nodded. That made sense. Even if the meat was tasty you probably wanted to live somewhere else.

  "Anything else before we start the mission?" Thadeus asked, ears twitching between the two groups. Shiina didn't have anything and it didn't seem like anyone else did either. "Alright. Let's go." The seven guards formed up and began heading up the stairs, Shiina and Delilah following, with Ife and Zanya after.

  As they got closer Shiina could get a good look at the dungeon entrance. The Nostril was about eight feet around, and she immediately understood why people called it a squishy dungeon. Every footstep caused the flesh to deform and leak a little. Shiina could taste the meat through her bottom, though it wasn't anything great. Just savory and fishy. The entrance continued until it met up with the other nostril. There the path got wider, finally leading to a fleshy ramp that sat a little above the ground. If she remembered right this was what humanoids called the 'epiglottis.'

  "First room 'opens' when we step on this here," Thadeus said.

  "After that the dungeon is live," Erudine added.

  Delilah held up her staff. "Let me give what boosts I can. Blessing of friendship. Aid of life. Strength of courage." Magic washed over them, but Shiina couldn't tell the difference between the current enhancement and what Delilah had given her in the last dungeon.

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  After the spells completed the guards began up the fleshy ramp. The way it shifted under their weight felt weird, but it wasn't too unsteady.

  The irregular hollow they entered was different from the dungeon rooms Shiina was used to. This place had no furnishings. Just bumps of meat, thick hairs, and pillars of thick sinew.

  It also had a number of white slimes. The large gloopy masses sensed the change in atmosphere and started towards the group. Shiina was curious, since she knew these things were weak, but had never seen them in battle.

  The guards moved as a unit, making sure they couldn't get attacked from behind. Whenever they got in range of a slime they stabbed the monster. Sometimes the creatures rolled away, but usually they puckered up as white liquid spilled out. As the slimes tried to seal their wounds a heavy slash would confirm the kill.

  "Another wave," Erudine called out. Shiina let her attention shift back to the room and saw that a batch of slimes had rolled in from one of the exits. She wasn't used to that either. Normally doors stopped that kinda nonsense. Still it didn't look like there were enough to be a threat.

  Shiina worked her way behind the line of guards and waited with her dagger. She saw Delilah hit one with a rock, but the creature just kinda shrugged it off. "Blunt damage won't work," one of the guards called back.

  "Well at least I hit it," Delilah muttered.

  One of the other slimes got close enough that Shiina was able to reach out and stab it. The outer coating was actually really hard to get a good puncture into. The rubbery skin trembled and deformed while still resisting the stab. And when she managed the thing managed to pucker up and close the wound. She'd have to use some poison next time.

  Of course that slime got stabbed and slashed soon after. This wasn't really a fight, so much as an extermination. The dungeon was a little crowded from not having been cleaned, but the first rooms were still pretty short of challenge. After a few more minutes all the slimes were puddles of goop on the ground.

  "Alright, all clear. On to the next room," Thadius said, starting towards the open passage leading further in.

  "Nope! Wrong! Minus twenty points!" Shiina called out while holding her arms above her in an 'X.'

  The guards all paused and looked at her. "What, should we be looking for traps? The slimes got through fine."

  "Are you a slime?" Shiina asked, getting a few chagrined head shakes. "There might be traps at head height or something. But also, you forgot to loot the room."

  "Wait, there's no way there's some treasure here, I mean-"

  Thadius stopped as Shiina cut open a thin layer of sinew to show a flesh pocket with three pink pearls sitting inside. She waved her finger at the greenhorns. "Rule two, there's always treasure in the first room." Ife shook her head while Zanya smirked.

  The guards kinda looked at each other and shrugged, while Delilah leaned over. "Is that actually true?"

  "Mali always said so," Shinna replied. "Though if the place got cleaned out recently it'll probably only be like a coin or two." She turned back to the dungeon path and worked her way to the passage. "Now let's make sure we don't get like coated in acid or something." It was trap finding time

  So I imagine a lot of you mimics out there are wondering what's up with humanoid senses. Or you're humanoids wanting to know about how awesome mimics are. Well here's a quick primer on the differences.

  The big thing is humanoids have distinct sensory organs. Well okay they can 'feel' everywhere around them, and magic sense is linked to that. But all their other senses require specific organs, and sometimes those are weird.

  Eyes are the biggest difference between mimics and humanoids. Unlike us mimics who can sense light from all around giving us complete vision of our surroundings, humanoids (and a lot of other animals) need to see using their eyes. That's right, if a humanoid isn't facing you, they can't see you, so use that for extra surprises!

  It's not all weaknesses though. Humanoids get great depth perception and can accurately guess the distances to things hundreds of feet away. If they can see you, you're in danger from arrows or other projectiles. We mimics need to focus to see things that far out, leaving blindspots similar to humanoids. And I still don't get how they aim so well.

  Humanoid hearing requires ears. Which honestly doesn't matter that much, since sound carries. Humanoid ears can get blocked or damaged, but sometimes that can help. I really hope mimics are immune to siren song....

  The weird one is taste and smell. We mimics don't bother with smell, but the humanoid ability to taste is located only on their tongue, they have another way of sensing stuff in the air. It's linked to their nose, since they need to breathe in air anyway, and apparently its similar but different to taste? I'm not sure how that helps. The whole mess is a huge disadvantage in my opinion. Though I suppose that means they don't have to taste what's on their streets....