Cleatus stared at them coldly. “I must be needin’ ta clean me ears. Can’t have said what I thought ya said.” He stuck one of his thick yellow fingernails into his ear. He withdrew it and inspected the burnt orange thick wax under his nail.

  “I cannot tell you what you did or did not hear, but our quest concept is simple: we have adventurers charged with doing a check-in on you,” Keylynn explained simply. Judging by the buildup of wax that he pulled out of his ear, he was in need of an ear cleaning. The fact that he hasn’t appeared to change his clothing once since they’ve met, it's time for a full body cleansing.

  He wiped his finger on his already grime-covered pants. “Ye gots ta be kidding me. Now I gots to deal with them idjits? Ain’t it enough I let them get ate by me mimics?”

  “It’s that, or else you have to work to maintain the quest, like replacing quest items, or welcoming a company worker to do that for you on the farm,” Ragna added. He gave Cleatus the ‘don’t be stupid’ look.

  He cleaned out his other ear. “Fine. Fine. I’ll deal with the damn morons. But I ain’t gonna be peachy about it. Ain’t no one said I had to be nice about interlopers on me farm. Anyone who ticks me off gets ta meet Lucille.”

  “We would never subject you to a quest where you can’t feed an idjit to a mimic once in a while.” He reassured him.

  “Fine, fine. What do ya need from Ol’ Cleatus today?”

  “I have a messenger coming, because we have paperwork we need to get to my boss. And my team will need to run through the quest a few times to see how things go and ascertain if we need to make any adjustments,” she answered. She hoped they wouldn’t have to move many mimics. They weren’t like Pebble, so she wasn’t sure they would stay where she put them or if they would even cooperate.

  “Heh? Adjustments? I didn’t agree to no adjustments.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest.

  “Oh, my apologies. I think there is a misunderstanding. I simply meant adjust mimic locations. We simply want to ensure the optimum mimic positions to best… eat the adventurers.” She didn’t like the terminology, but it’s best to use the verbiage that he was comfortable with. It would prevent further confusion.

  He narrowed his gaze at her. “Alright, I’ll allow that. Just come get me to show me where ya need em, or moved em.”

  Her shoulders relaxed. Good, he was going to cooperate. “You have my many thanks. I will note every change we recommend and ensure you are part of the process. It is your farm.”

  “Thank ye kindly; now if ye don’t mind, I’ve got work ta do. The farm won’t run itself, ya know.” He walked past them and wandered towards the large tractor. Keylynn suspected it was a mimic.

  “Alright, Demetra, you will take the team and begin the quest design testing. I assume Ragna has the write-up of the quest, so Tsunami, through your tests, please do your best to ensure it passes your scrutiny. Inferno, make note of any mimics that we should adjust the positions of,” she ordered. “I will join you after the messenger has arrived.”

  “Should Tsunami start out at the town?” Demetra asked. Tsunami glared at her.

  Keylynn shook her head. “I don’t think that would be necessary. It’s the farm we are most concerned about.”

  Tsunami stretched his arms. “I’ll give him a couple more minutes before I go find him. Ragna, can I see what you have for the quest so far?”

  Keylynn stepped away from her team and walked towards the ‘Welcome to the Mimic Farm’ sign. She expected a courier to arrive at any moment now.

  With every step she took, she felt the slug mushroom wiggle on her nose. Without warning the mushroom's hyphae released her nose, plummeting to the ground. Before she could catch it, it blossomed into a pool of slime on the muddy ground below.

  Crouching, she attempted to collect her slug slime mould, but her fingers grazed against frozen mud. Frowning, she tried again only to scoop up chunks of ice. Where had her slime mould gone?

  She reached out with her magic into the ground and found it buried deep in the soil below. She called to it several times, but it ignored her. That was peculiar. None of her fungal colonies have ever ignored her before. She reached out to it again, and it was dormant.

  “Well, that was fast,” she mused to herself. She knew that the slime mould was the highly motile stage of the fungus’s life cycle, but she didn’t expect that. Maybe the slime mould’s role in the life cycle is to find optimum growing conditions to produce the slug-shaped fruiting bodies. The explosion into the slime and the various reactions that can happen are likely a defence mechanism to prevent the fungus from being eaten. What creature would want to eat a mushroom that could explode into extremely chilling slime?

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  She stood and wiped her hands on her pants. Unless she wants to unearth it by moving the earth around it, that fungus will stay there. She didn’t think it could do much harm to the mimic farm anyways. If anything, the fungus would help feed the plethora of mimics.

  While she waited for the courier, she read through her requisition for a beta test team. She didn’t agree with the lethal ranking she gave The Mimic Farm, because it didn’t do Cleatus any favours. The majority of guilds don’t pay for access to lethal quests because of the simple truth that dead adventurers make for terrible customers.

  The only reason the lethality ranking was given was because of the high level of mimics on the farm. She can’t change the ranking until they know exactly how many mimics adventurers have a risk of running into, as well as how dangerous that encounter would be. And that is why she is requesting a beta test team.

  Beta test teams usually are booked well in advance to test new upcoming quests, and they can be very picky about which quests they are willing to test. They are true adventuring teams that work for the Royal Assessment Department and Adventurer Welfare Council and only have to meet their quotas of quests tested per year.

  The same sparrow kin landed in front of Keylynn with a cheerful chirp. “Hello, hello. I was summoned for a parcel pickup.”

  “Salutations, yes, you were. Here is my ID.” Keylynn handed over her ID. The small bird kin read through it and handed it back. “Do you happen to have any envelopes available?”

  “I sure do! It’s policy to always fly with a spare for pickups. You never know what will be on hand at a quest,” they chirped cheerfully and dug through their messenger bag. They withdrew it and handed it over to Keylynn.

  “You have my many thanks.” She smiled and carefully slid the new signed deal and her beta team requisition inside and sealed the envelope. “May I see your ID?” She asked after she addressed the envelope to Lark.

  “Right, yes, thank you. I almost forgot.” They withdrew their ID from their plumage and handed it over to Keylynn with their feathered wing.

  Keylynn read through it quickly and handed it back. “Thank you. Although I had no doubts about who you were, but policy is policy.”

  “Not a problem, I almost forgot. Oh, and I checked out the HR portal. You were right! They have so many things to help us contracted workers. I can have time off, and I have medical benefits!” They trilled happily as they bounced on the ground.

  “You are most welcome. Was there a missing persons report filed for your missing friend?” She inquired. If there was one filed against The Mimic Farm, it won’t do the quest any favours, but it’s necessary. They can’t fail their many contractual workers by allowing them to go missing without an investigation into it.

  “I’ve also told all my friends, and they have all made appointments to check in with their HR representative just to learn all that they can do for them,” the sparrow kin added.

  Keylynn smiled. “Make sure to tell yours about who onboarded you.” She handed over her envelope.

  “Oh, that’s a good idea! I’ll tell my friends to do that too!” They slid the envelope into their messenger bag. “Well, I have more picks to do. I’ll deliver your parcel by day’s end!” They chirped before jumping into the air and flying away.

  Keylynn walked back onto the farm, hoping she would run into her team while Tsunami was doing one of his runs to find Cleatus. Instead, she found them on his way back to the farmhouse.

  “Next time you want me to talk to him, you do it. I don’t want to hammer fence posts all day,” Tsunami huffed at Demetra.

  “I was trying to be thorough. I didn’t think he’d give you the hammer. You have a mimic chewing on your foot,” she retorted.

  “So, how many mimics did he run into?” Keylynn asked Inferno.

  He looked up from his matrix. “I have upwards of 25 mimics on his path. Only about 10 attempted to eat him, and all of them were smaller. At no point did he need me to help him.”

  She turned her gaze to Tsunami.

  He nodded. “The crazy old man was the worst part of that test. Ragna’s words or whatever are good; I have no problems with them.”

  “Excellent, Ragna. When you are happy with your work, please email them.” She looked forward to giving Lark a good update on the quest. She looked forward to a simple email that won’t give him cause to call her on her comms.

  Ragna nodded at her.

  “So, we were going to start at the welcome sign for the next run and not talk to Cleatus, only find him,” Demetra said, giving Tsunami a pointed look.

  Keylynn watched her team do dozens of runs of The Mimic Farm quest throughout the day, to Cleatus’s irritation. Each time Tsunami ran through the farm, they tracked how many mimics attacked him, and to her surprise, it wasn’t as many as she thought it would be. For the most part, as long as he didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother him. It gave her hope that the quest wouldn’t have to be ranked as lethal.

  Each time he encountered fewer mimics, worry blossomed in her chest. What if all the ease he was experiencing was because he learned where all the mimics were? If he knows where they are, it will ruin the suspense of anything being a mimic. That also gave her a biased view of the overall lethality of the quest.

  Overall the outcome was random nearly every time Tsunami ran through the quest. He rarely took the same route twice, and if he did, there was a chance that different mimics would attempt to eat him.

  She hoped that her requisition was addressed quickly enough; the last thing anyone needed was for her and her team to stay here waiting for them. She dreaded to think about what the inn would be serving for dinner that evening. She was grateful for her hyphae that could absorb what she doubted was food and turn it into fresh, nutrient-filled mushrooms that she could dine upon instead.