As night fell and the desert turned from burning to chilly the birds quieted down. But the rest of the desert awoke. Shiina carefully watched the various players, getting a feel for the nighttime animals. That way when her attention was elsewhere she'd still notice changes if something dangerous came out.

  The first out were the lizards using the last rays of sunlight to give them energy to hunt the insects that had been wandering about. They were quickly followed by scorpions and hunting spiders. All of which started to establish a pecking order among themselves.

  Next out were the mice, toads, and snakes. Shiina hadn't thought that toads could live this far into the deadly sands, but they were here, croaking for all the world to hear, challenging the mice for supremacy of the oasis. At least until a hungry snake reminded them of the actual apex predator.

  They weren't the brightest, but she was very glad they were here. Because as she saw a toad grab a millipede with its tongue Shiina had a revelation. Delilah was right. She'd been doing this all wrong.

  Mimics couldn't push at long distances. Their tendrils were designed to pull. To drag prey to their 'mouths.' She shouldn't fight it. She should work with it.

  Once she felt she had a good idea of the oasis' feel at night she turned back to practicing. It wasn't easy, but she thought she was on the cusp of figuring something out when morning arrived. She'd get back to it tomorrow.

  Satisfied with how things had gone she moved over to where Majuli was gathering the watch up and getting prepared for breakfast. "Anything I can do to help?"

  The dwarf pointed to a woman who'd nodded off next to one of the wagons. "Yeah, wake that lazy fool up would you, and make it a good scare. She was supposed to get up and feed our yeast but she decided she wanted to nap more. Skulless gal left her weapons in her tent too so extra reason to give her a spook."

  Shiina grinned. "Sure thing!" She moved over to the sleeper, trying to think of the best setup.

  After a bit of consideration, she copied one of the barrels. It was a nice solid piece of work, so she didn't need to obsess about the interior. For her body she put together a drippy doughy mass with vague features. That done she leaned over next to the sleeping woman and whispered at her, "Sooooo hungryyyy."

  The woman twitched a little in her sleep but didn't wake. That was fine. Shiina loomed over her and continued, slowly raising her voice. "Why didn't you feed me? I'm so hungry. You abandoned me!"

  The sleeper's eyes flickered open, slowly focusing on Shiina. Then the woman screamed and fell over backwards, scrambling on the ground. Shiina absorbed the savory taste of surprise while continuing the act. "I am the ghost of the yeast you left to starve! Neither beer nor bread will I ever become! Give me back my purpose! Woooooooo~!"

  Her victim spun around and rapid crawled towards Majuli. "Something's in the dough! It's been possessed!"

  As Majuli burst out laughing, Shiina shifted back to her normal form. "Gotcha~!" She preened at the slack jawed shock. The other members of the caravan were starting to rise and see what the commotion was as well.

  The dwarven woman she'd tricked stared at her for another minute, then turned to Majuli. "You tricked me!"

  "That's what happens when you fall asleep on the job," Majuli replied without a hint of remorse. "Now get back to your work, or we really will be dealing with dead yeast. And it'll be more depressing than funny."

  The dwarf glared at Shiina before walking back to the cart, grumbling all the while. Shiina moved over to Majuli's side. "So why do you have so much yeast anyway? I figure that's hard to transport."

  "Ah, that's one of the things Bone Mountain needed." Majuli started boiling water as the fire warmed up. "The Stone Fucker dropped some spell that killed all the yeast in the area. Had some idiot helping him inside the mountain, so we're lucky that's all the damage. But our kin have been drinking old beer and eating flatbread for a month now, so we're helping restart their cultures."

  "Yikes." Shiina was glad that they'd show up after the caravan had helped resupply the city.

  She helped set up breakfast, then moved to join her friends as they woke up. Delilah was already into her extra rations, nibbling on a bar of fat, oats, and fruits. "Did you have any luck thinking about things last night?" the half elf asked.

  "Yeah actually!" Shiina perked up. "I think I got a good idea."

  Zanya seemed interested. "Oh what did you come up with?"

  "I wanna keep it a surprise," Shiina said with a grin.

  Ife snorted. "I would have thought you'd had enough surprises this morning."

  Shiina let her grin widen just a little too much. "There's no such thing as too many surprises."

  Her friends looked at her and shook their heads almost as one. "Mimics."

  ---

  Once all the groups had packed away their camps, they started out into the desert again. Soon the hot sun drove most people into the covered wagons, with only the drivers and a few unfortunate scouts stuck outside. Shiina wasn't as affected as the others, but it was still stifling and boring plodding over the dunes.

  Until excitement found them.

  They were about four hours on the trail when Terasil noticed they were being followed. The dwarf trader pulled out a spyglass, and swore as he checked the horizon. "Six camels. Halflings in desert nomad garb."

  Everyone perked up at that. A group that small wouldn't be attacking the caravan, but the chances of the riders just happening to arrive on the same trail despite taking a different route were slim. "Are they scouts, or something else?" Zanya asked.

  "Not sure," Terasil admitted. "The nomads around here hate Al Jirtea because of all the slaving. But I haven't heard about caravan raids. I'm gonna go pump the merchants for more information. Figure they take this route enough to know what to expect."

  Everyone made ready for trouble as Terasil headed out, putting on armor and grabbing weapons. Delilah moved to enhance the cooling rune they'd carved into the floor, but Zanya stopped her and poured her own mana in instead. "We'll want you at your best. The caravan's short on healers." Shiina went over her toxins, grabbing stuff that the desert locals and wildlife wouldn't be used to.

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  Terasil was back not long after, looking grim. "Apparently they're scavengers. The nomads figure something along the trail will be attacking us and killing enough of our plodders we'll have to abandon goods. Then they walk in and pick through the corpses for free stuff."

  "So we're going to be attacked by monsters," Ife said, her tail drooping.

  "Aye." The dwarf pointed to one of the smaller chests. "Delilah, you said you were a Apprentice tier herbalist right? We packed some notes and supplies on the local poisons for our own use, but a mage can use it better. Hopefully they'll be enough to work with."

  Delilah hopped up and hurried to the chest. "Oh that'll be great. I'll start researching right now." Shiina hoped the stuff in there would work on the plodders too, but she was kinda fuzzy on how to heal poisons.

  Terasil continued, "Majuli, keep an eye on the lass just in case. And after the mess you handle the haggling with the ribless little shits up front. Get the most you can without letting them just leave their poor slaves to die. Hell, force them to let us treat the people if they want help for their animals." Shinna nodded along with her friends in agreement. They weren't going to leave people to die if they could help it.

  "The rest of you loosen the canvas ties. We might get hit in a few seconds, or a few hours. Do your best to stay ready while not dying of heat." The dwarf waited for some affirmations before motioning to Shiina. "Gonna have to put most of our fighters in the middle, so would you be willing to join me in the back cart? Figure you're best at turning an ambush around."

  "Sure!" She checked with Zanya who gave a nod of approval. A thought hit her. "But uh if something goes wrong I can only get us out. The plodders are going to be in trouble."

  The dwarf gave a slow nod. "I'll loosen the leads so they can break free if needed. We can gather them later."

  Shiina hopped off the lead cart and moved to the back, while the others shifted around. With a quick pullup she placed herself in the lookout's seat and readied her dagger and shields. Terasil fiddled with the knots on the leads for a bit, then got the large plodders moving again.

  As they continued on the tension in the air was so thick she could almost taste it. The drivers ahead were letting their plodders decide the route a little more, probably so they could look around. But no matter how much Shiina focused her attention there was just the desert and the distant riders following them.

  Then the area turned from bright day to muted night, a strange moon hanging to the side of the trail.

  Shiina barely had time to react before a powerful force hit her mind. Attack. Kill. Feed.

  With a violent shiver she threw the presence out of her head. "We're under attack!" she shouted as she tried to get her bearings.

  The caravan had stopped, the plodders and drivers confused by the sudden change. And from all around them creatures were burrowing out of the sands. Giant centipedes, huge beetles, and three foot long scorpions all surfacing to prey on the caravan next to them. For a moment it looked like a horrific painting of an ambush rather than reality.

  That moment ended fast. The caravan erupted into action, warriors moving to defend the carts and transport animals. "Watch the back," Terasil yelled as he hopped off to swat one of the scorpions moving towards their plodders.

  Shiina let herself fall off the cart, sending her knife to stab a scorpion, while her shield squashed a large tiger beetle. She let her attention sweep under the cart, which was mercifully clear before turning to the back.

  A four foot long brother of the tiger beetle was scurrying at her huge jaws open wide. Shiina yelped and put her large shield in front of the creature's jaws. The insect grabbed and started trying to yank it away, but Shiina's grip held firm. She took a cue from the scorpions and let her arm swing around to stab the beetle in the side and top.

  The angle weakened her blows. The first bounced off armor, but the next dug in, letting the poison dagger inject insecticide. The creature continued wrestling with her for a bit, before suddenly going into convulsions. Shiina took that as a sign to stab it more.

  When it properly curled up to die, Shiina shifted to face the caravan again. It looked like their group was doing good, though Terasil was having to guide the plodders to the safety of the group. The big lizards weren't thrilled with the sounds of battle that way, and were trying to go back.

  The dwarf was so busy that he missed the centipede running towards him, poison pincers ready to strike. "Look out!" Shiina yelled but it wouldn't be quick enough.

  She was at the limit of her reach, a friend was in danger, and all she had was an untested idea.

  It'd have to do.

  'Please work' she prayed as she reached out. Her empty tendril slapped weakly into the centipede and latched on to the body. Shiina summoned every bit of her strength and weight, then hauled back. "Fishing strike!"

  It all clicked together.

  Her forceful pull sent the centipede tumbling to the side, completely disrupting its attack. As the creature recovered Terasil whirled and swung his axe without hesitation. Five furious chops later the danger was past, the centipede now in pieces.

  Shiina turned to the rest of the caravan, just as the sun returned. The surviving attacking creatures scurried back into the sand. The dwarven carts looked like they'd weathered the raid well, but one of the merchant's wagons had been smashed by something that looked like a sandy overgrown angler fish. And from the shouting further up the Al Jirtea group had problems too.

  Terasil gave her 'chest lid' a hearty slap. "Damn fine work lass. I owe you one." He looked at the mess up front. "Ah, a falsemoon fisher. That explains the mess. Well let's go take account of the damage and see what we can do to fix it."

  "Yeah." The two hurried as best they could over the sands to where the others were gathering. As they got closer Shiina saw Delilah was already working to triage wounds from the survivors of the merchant cart. Meanwhile Zanya and Ife were inspecting the dead falsemoon fisher. Or at least Zanya was while Ife leaned on the ophidian for support. Shiina moved to join them.

  Zanya looked down when she arrived. "Everything go okay back there?"

  "It was rough, but we made it" Shiina gave a wide smile. "I think I might have pulled off a Technique too!"

  The snake woman's inner eyelid blinked. "What? After a day of work??"

  "Mimics are favored by the chaos gods, and Bone Mountain by the law gods, so it's more likely than you'd think." Ife gave a long yawn. "Still good work. You'll want to refine it properly later."

  Shiina gave the fox woman a once over. "Are you okay?"

  "She pushed herself hard and nearly ran out of mana," Zanya said.

  "You can do that when you've got a lot of fighters to guard you," Ife replied without a hint of shame. "Besides, the faster we ended things the less wounds Delilah has to treat."

  That seemed like good reasoning to Shiina. And Zanya didn't seem annoyed. Shiina turned her focus to where people were cutting off the fish monster's lure. "So what should we do now?"

  "Either help out or keep an eye out for other monsters. I don't expect anything, but better safe than sorry." Zanya started helping Ife back to a wagon. "We've still got a ways to go."

  Appaaaaaarently what I got wasn't a full Technique. Still I'm proud I pulled it off, despite my personal weaknesses. One of my biggest failings is that I'm too aggressive. Mali always said 'a good adventurer prioritizes defense.' And Zanya agrees. I've been training

  That's actually one of the big differences between adventurers and wandering duelists. If you're on your own the best reaction might be to strike back, trying to kill them before they kill you. But if you've got a team you really should go on the defensive. So long as you don't die, the healer can patch you up while your team covers for you. Or if you are the healer you can patch yourself up while your friends convey their displeasure to the attacker.

  So good adventurers default to defense. If I'm being honest, it's one of the reasons I've gotten away with some of my pranks.... Still I'm working on being more defensive myself. I'm not a lone monster, I'm a team mimic!

  That might be why I managed to pull off Fishing Strike. It's in between attack and defense. It's aggressive enough that my instincts approve, but it's not a killing blow so I can still rely on it to save people. I'll have to practice to see if I can only target enemies or if I can yank allies out of the way of stuff like arrows. Though humanoids tend to be unsteady enough I can pull them without special effort.