“How many rooms full of skeletons has that been? Ten? Can’t there be some different enemies in here?” Harriet grumbled.

“Hey, I don’t know about you but I don’t mind it.” The warrior, Carl, said cheerfully as she smashed in the skull of the last one.

“That’s easy for you to say,” the rogue class adventurer grumbled, “You’ve got a mace as big as my arm, and all I’ve got is a pair of knives. Sticking a knife between the ribs doesn’t work so well when there’s nothing behind them!”

Carl and Harriet were a fairly recent duo as far as adventuring went - they were both freelancers, and both in between parties. They’d known each other for a while and decided to work together on a quick and easy dungeon clear quest to put some extra cash in their pockets to tide them over until they found further employment.

“According to the records, that should be this dungeon cleared.” Carl said, looking at a sheet of paper they’d gotten when they took the quest. “There’s two rooms left, and both of them are treasure rooms.”

“Hm. We said a 50/50 split, right? But how do we split stuff that’s not cash?” Harriet asked.

“That’s a good question.” Carl thought for a moment, before snapping his fingers. “I take one room, you take the other. Contents of whichever room we pick is ours and no hard feelings if one of us gets a bit more.”

“Seems fair. Flip for it?” Harriet took a gold coin out of her pocket. “Heads I pick, tails you pick.” The coin flipped, and Harriet decided to take the left room.

The room was fairly small, but it had multiple chests - that was enough to make Harriet think she’d picked a good room. Of special note was the chest with a gold trim instead of the usual iron grey - a rare one, that would have some nice loot! Harriet was quite pleased with her gut instinct as to which room to pick. Odds were low that the other room would also have a rare chest.

Harriet started picking through the contents of the normal chests first, finding little of note. A fair chunk of gold. Assorted health and stamina restoration potions. A decent quality kite shield. Idly, Harriet wondered how such a low level dungeon kept getting more goods. Even beginner adventurers weren’t likely to lose there, so it wasn’t like the skeletons were looting from them. By most logic, all the chests should have been long looted. But one doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so she wouldn’t question it too harshly as long as she kept getting the goods.

With her new stash safely secured, she turned to the rare chest, eager to see what was inside of it. She carefully picked the lock, making sure not to break it and seal the chest. Then she popped it open, and stood and bent over to see what her loot was.

As it turned out, it was nothing, unless trapped air counts. Harriet blinked. Had it already been looted? But the chest was locked… wait, had the bottom moved?

She didn’t have time to react as a sudden, forceful intake of air from the chest bent her double. She shouted, but the walls were soundproof; even if Carl had been standing at the door he’d have heard nothing. The suction intensified, until she couldn’t keep her footing and tumbled into the chest. She tried to twist and sit up, but she barely had time to orient herself before the lid snapped shut and plunged her into blackness.

Harriet tried to push against the roof of the chest, but it wouldn’t budge - it was locked tight, and the mimic had her. She felt it moving around her, trying to settle. Suddenly, the stale air of the inside of the chest had something added to it. She smelled something nice. Something that made her want to relax.

She knew that she shouldn’t inhale it, and tried not to, but in the tight confines of the chest and it’s limited air supply her efforts were in vain. Her body slowed, and eventually stopped struggling, even as she continued to try and make it move.

From Harriet’s current position, it was essentially impossible to see what was happening to her. She felt her body begin to stiffen at the extremities, but couldn’t see the yellow coloring tht was overtaking it. She could feel the stiffness extending down from her fingers and up from her feet, but not see the gold overtaking her body. She could feel how cold and rigid her body began to become, but couldn’t see how her arms and legs had turned to solid gold from the elbows and knees down.

The gold crept up her body, claiming more and more of her as she could do nothing but lay there unable to move. It felt… honestly kind of good, although that was likely the interior gas of the mimic making her feel that way. As the gold took hold of her gut and her chest, the insides solidified as much as the rest of her - but due to the magical nature of the transformation, she was quite alive as it started to take over her neck. Soon, she was frozen from head to toe, a solid gold statue of an adventurer - although one that could still think and wonder what had become of her.

Then came the heat. The inside of the box grew hotter, and hotter, and hotter, like a smith’s furnace roaring to life at temperatures well beyond what a wooden chest should have been able to bear. Harriet felt her metallic body heat as well - and her rigid structure loosened. She was moving. Not on her own power though - but simply because the gold was melting.

The statue rapidly softened and then dissolved to liquid, sloshing around in the box as more and more vanished, the last to go being Harriet’s face, the last evidence of what she’d once been sloughing into the mass of molten gold. Being liquid was rather more strange than even being solid metal - she was moving, but under no power but gravity and mass.

For some time, Harriet sloshed around the chest, but soon things continued. While she still couldn’t see it, she could feel channels directing her liquid form to various parts of the chest - which seemed to have grown bigger and wider. The molten gold soon settled in place, and she felt the chest changing it’s temperature again in the opposite direction, becoming chilled and freezing her.

As she solidified, she realized she was in dozens of separate pieces. Settled in it’s molds, the liquid gold began to take its final shape. It took some time to sort out what was what, but Harriet soon began to recognize the shapes she was feeling - some of her had become a necklace. Other parts, earrings. A significant portion of her mass had been molded into dozens of golden bangles, and more into rings for each finger. Much of her had come to form… clothes? Loose, not very concealing metallic clothes - a barely there loincloth and a bikini style top, enchanted for softness and comfort despite it’s material. The last of the change was a series of jewels embedded in each piece as was needed.

Harriet was… confused, and more than a little angry. She’d gone from adventurer to elaborate jewelry in minutes. Thankfully, she wasn’t left to stew in her own anger for long - she heard something outside of the chest.

Light filled the world once again, and Harriet looked up to see… Carl. “This room must have been piled high with loot if she left this much behind… 50-50 my ass… oh well, that’s where the luck went.” he muttered to himself, as he picked up the necklace from the chest. He whistled loudly in appreciation. “This looks nice… and enchanted? Is it all enchanted?” He said, as he looked at Harriet’s assorted pieces through an Identification Scroll.

Suddenly, Harriet was filled with a desire - no, a need. She needed to be worn. She needed to throw herself onto somebody, to look beautiful and make her owner beautiful. She didn’t even have time to register that the thoughts were foreign before they drowned her own out completely - she was jewelry, she existed to make others beautiful. And she had a distinctly not beautiful person to make better.

“All dancer-class locked, though.” Carl muttered. “Kinda unfortunate - all these stamina and energy enchantments would be awesome. They’ll sell for a ton, though-” He paused, as the gem inlaid in the necklace began to glow.

Harriet was going to make her owner beautiful, whether they liked it or not! She summoned her will - enhanced by the enchantments covering her assorted pieces - and threw herself at Carl. His simple leather armor was magically thrown off as the jewelry affixed itself to Carl at every place it could find, molding itself to fit his shape. “What the hell!? Cursed gear?” he shouted, grasping at the jewelry and clothes that had forced itself upon him, but it was too late. The jewelry had already decided what shape would better fit it’s wearer.

The transformation started rapidly. Carl’s broad shoulders narrowed while his hips widened. He groaned as he felt his bones grind and shift, his proportions changing notably - he had no idea what was going on, but it probably wasn’t good. He expected something lethal - what he didn’t expect was how his chest seemed to be growing outwards, distinctly feminine breasts rapidly developing.

His figure continued to change, his butt and boobs growing while his waist narrowed. He couldn’t see himself, as there were no mirrors, but the feeling of his shifting body left no doubt that he was becoming a woman - one who could show off that jewelry well.

He watched in fascination as his skin darkened from pale peach to a deep exotic tan, the color covering his body rapidly and replacing his old tone. He felt his hair, a short brown buzz cut, grow out - and had to blow a few reddening locks from his face, giving him ample opportunity to notice it’s change of color. He wondered if his eyes had changed color, but didn’t have any evidence - and besides, his attention was taken from that line of thought as he felt something below the belt start to shrink, sucked into his body. Soon, there was no sign of his maleness remaining.

He was a woman now. But he wasn’t a dancer yet. There was more to go.

Carl’s heavy musculature smoothing out and fading away, leaving soft skin behind. And it wasn’t just his hard won muscles he was losing either. He was forgetting years of combat experience in as many seconds. For every specific swing and jab he kept hold of he lost ages of training in counters and defense. If he had the thought to spare for it, he’d wonder if the level on his adventurer card was dropping.

But the combat training wasn’t leaving nothing behind. It wasn’t just vanishing - it was being replaced. Replaced with knowledge of the dance. Footwork and pirouettes, knowing just what kinds of flashes and moves showed off her body the best and encouraged her protectors the most. And just as importantly, what got them ready to go for their… rewards, for a job well done. A dancer class adventurer’s job was to support their allies, on and off the battlefield…

He - no, she, licked her lips at the thought. With this new gear, Caroline felt she could go at it for hours and hours. And she most certainly planned to. It might have been a bit dumb of her to go on this adventure alone, but the reward had been well worth it.

Caroline sauntered out of the treasure room and up the stairs of the dungeon, thoughts on how she’d join a new party once she got back to town - one with plenty of sexy ladies and hunky men. Her jewelry, for it’s part, was absolutely delighted in how it’s owner had turned out, and confident that it’d be worn for a long time to come.