Mimic Listed as 'Furniture' in Adventuring Party Contract

BRINDLEMOOR, CHAPTER 9 HEARING ROOM, 0 FEET UNDERGROUND (I checked, twice) — The hirelings of the Fourth Attempt filed a formal grievance this morning. Their adventuring party contract lists a mimic as "furniture," and the mimic has been eating their hazard pay.

The clause sits on page six, under Schedule C, Items Provided by the Employer: "one table, three stools, one chest (large), and miscellaneous furnishings." The chest is a mimic. So is one of the stools. The party's contract writer has not said which.

"Hazard pay applies to monsters," said Ansel Pottage, steward of the Fourth Attempt's hirelings, holding the contract in one hand and a bandage in the other. "Furniture doesn't count. So when the chest took my thumb, that was an accident with furniture. I'd like it noted that the thumb is also not furniture."

The box score is grim. Pottage went into the party's rented room at 11 hit points and came out at 4. The party's fighter is at 19. The party's bard, who asked to be named, says the chest "seemed friendly." It was a mimic. It is always a mimic. The stool, which has not yet been identified as a mimic, is currently holding up the cook.

Deputy Registrar Pell Oddingwick, speaking for Chapter 9, called the matter "well within the scope of the guild's furniture framework" and said the hearing is "on track." He did not say what the framework was. Asked whether a mimic is a monster under guild rules, he said it is "a monster whenever it is inconvenient and a chest whenever it is not," then asked reporters to move along.

Shieldwall Mutual Assurance Society has taken the hirelings' side, which is unusual. A Shieldwall Mutual adjuster said a mimic that bites someone is "a covered peril," while a chest that bites someone is "a manufacturing defect." Either way they have to pay out. "We just want to know which form to use," the adjuster said.

The hirelings' demands are modest. They want mimics reclassed as monsters, hazard pay backdated to the first bite, and a clause requiring anyone who calls a thing "just a chest" to open it first. Pottage also asked for a replacement thumb. The hearing is set for next tenday. The mimic has been invited and is expected to attend as a seat.

Ten-foot pole count for the season: seven. The seventh was lost to the stool.

— H.D., filing from below