"That’s closer," Tess said when the service wall knocked again. Behind the sealed gate came three blows from Skarn’s pole, four active chain rattles, one half-link scrape from a downed length, and silence from the other.
Across Dane’s lid came a dry little fall of stone dust. Through a seam beside Tess came cold air and the weight of something armored bowing the wall toward them.
The borrowed shield shoved beneath Dane’s left base. Brant’s fresh right-hand wrap rasped on the rim; his splint knocked once against his ribs when he bent and then stayed there.
"Move the shield. I can lift him."
He raised Dane three inches.
The two free coppers jumped across Dane’s split tongue. His loose hinge pin scraped living tissue as Brant’s right shoulder buckled. The shield dumped Dane onto stone hard enough to shake the ownership nails.
Brant coughed through his returning breath. "Three inches. The wall wants half his width."
The wall knocked once more.
"Chest is too wide," Tess said from near the pillar. "That seam won’t give us his corners."
Carryable frame pressed behind Dane’s lock.
June’s black suitcase came with it. One wheel had cracked before their first anniversary; blue thread crossed a tear beside the zipper. Dane remembered kneeling on the bedroom floor while June sat on the lid to make it close.
"You folded the shirts like bricks," she had told him.
He had blamed the suitcase.
The remembered shape was lower, longer, narrow enough for a doorway, and built around straps instead of a room.
Brass tightened across Dane’s body. Every ownership nail warmed. The tag at his front pulled toward the sealed gate while the shape behind his lock pulled toward the cold seam.
Holt slid his frayed prayer cord along intact wood beside the torn left hinge. "The right handle gives us an anchor without finishing this split."
Vera came close enough for Dane’s mouth to find her heat, then stopped beyond the teeth.
"Dane. I need the right handle while your body changes." Her wand tapped the floor once. "Turn it out if you want the anchor. Keep it close if you don’t."
She waited.
The seam in the wall widened with a stone groan.
Dane drove pain through the broken root and into the right-handle bolts. Crude Drag gave him a fraction of tilt. He forced the loop outward while canting his lockplate away from Vera.
Her burned fingers entered the loop. The first tremor in them traveled through iron and stopped. She held from arm’s length; her wand stayed in the other hand.
"Right corner," Tess said. "The brass there lies."
Brant’s boot shifted over the surrendered tool roll.
"Folding saw," Tess continued. "Give it to him, not me. Cut until the metal squeals."
Rod-two pressure left the shielded hinge after Holt’s cord took the brace, then returned against the right band. Rod one’s cinch remained hot at Dane’s tag.
Something thin beneath the brass drew tight across Dane’s living wood. Black wax pushed from the seam and recognized the rod with a sting through every ownership nail.
"There," Ada said. "Two fingers below the corner."
Metal clicked over stone as Brant unrolled the tools with his right hand and found the folding saw by touch. His left remained splinted against his ribs.
"If this slips, nobody asks me to catch it," he said.
The saw’s first stroke peeled false brass from the corner. On the second, its teeth hit the black filament and sent a scream through Dane.
His tag slammed toward the floor while brass bands cinched through wood into flesh. The torn left hinge locked open; the right side folded inward and forced his weight across wounds that had never been meant to bend.
The service wall opened a finger’s width. Cold air brought lamp oil, wet leather, and breath from a mouth too hungry to stay quiet.
"Don’t stop on the filament. Keep cutting," Ada said.
Brant bore down. Warm blood soaked the fresh wrap on his right knuckles and slicked the saw handle.
Black wax climbed toward his fingers.
Vera snapped her wand once. Heat burned the wax off the blade, and the right handle never changed angle in her grip.
The carryable shape pulled harder.
Dane’s front corners moved inward. Iron bands followed, scraping channels through wood and the living layer beneath it. His broad body narrowed while the interior crushed down around everything he still carried.
Both free coppers rolled into his wounded tongue. The dirty copper burned below intake. Vera’s chalk-threaded fringe and the shattered token fragments bit at the crooked root. Deeper inside, Toma’s glove and scarf remnants, Nate’s brass charm, and Saint Rust’s knife vessel pressed into new, painful positions.
His mouth resisted the fold.
Two teeth dragged backward into bleeding sockets. A third caught in the forming inner seam, split the gum, and snapped sideways before settling. The damaged tongue stretched with the lengthening case and trapped itself beneath the new line of teeth.
Dane tried to scream. Reduced tongue response gave him a wet rattle inside closing wood.
Holt’s prayer cord bit deeper along the left hinge. The cracked sword at his belt knocked the cord once before he pinned it clear. Rod two held the right band away from Vera’s fingers, and the shield under Dane’s base stopped his narrowing weight from rolling into her hand.
Rain struck an Earth street that was not there. The service-wall seam whitened into a crosswalk line, and the hot tag became the receipt in his fist. June stood beyond both of them, hand slipping from reach, while the travel shape lunged toward the old promise that luggage could go where a chest had to wait.
"Dane Rook," Vera said through the handle. "Stay on this iron."
Prayer cord pulled at the opposite wound.
"Left hinge is here," Holt said. His voice broke on the strain. "You are tearing it, so come back and help."
Rod one rang against the tag.
"The wall is on your right," Ada said. "Give it the long side."
Brant lost the saw for half a stroke, caught it, and swore at his wrapped hand without sparing breath for an audience.
Tess spoke from the cold seam. "The narrow turn is ahead. Pull toward my voice."
Their voices arrived from handle, hinge, tag, saw, and cold stone.
Dane forced the new body toward the cold air.
His sides lengthened. Leather straps punched through cracked wood and rooted in flesh with blunt tearing pops. Iron grew over the new corners, each piece locking down like a nail driven from inside him. His lid stretched into a long flap. The lock ground forward beneath the jewel route while fewer teeth crowded the inner seam.
The ownership filament tore.
Black wax flooded the cut. Pain broke across the damaged Party Link: Tess cried out through the bound ankle, Brant’s right hand slipped wetly on the saw, and one of Holt’s remaining knots snapped against Dane’s hinge. Rod three struck the threatening groove as Ada shifted weight to keep the opening narrow.
Vera kept the handle until the metal stopped lengthening beneath her fingers, then eased her pull.
"Dane?"
He tightened the farther strap a finger’s width away from his mouth.
Her hand left the loop.
/==[ Brackenvault Shape Audit ]==\
| Existing Asset: F-Rank Dungeon Mimic Chest
| Requested Use: Party Transport
| Mercy Record: Cited Without Permission
| Form Pressure: Travel Trunk
| Ownership Thread: Cut / Bleeding
\==[ Temporary Shape Achieved ]==/
The new body lay lower and longer on the outer-drain stone. Straps ran from fresh wounds along both sides. Iron guarded the corners; the delayed flap hid teeth and a tongue that no longer fit.
Dane hated that his first shape in another world was luggage. One laugh escaped Vera through the link and cut itself short.
"Sorry," she said. "That was very clear."
Armor struck the service wall. The gap opened another handspan, and a hooked shaft entered with it. Metal scraped left, found Holt’s prayer cord, and pulled.
"Get him off the floor before that hook returns," Ada said.
Brant caught the left strap with his wounded right hand while the shield supported Dane’s lower end. Holt threaded prayer cord through the opposite strap. Ada laid rod two across the new frame as a brace and kept bent rod three against the widening gap.
They lifted.
Dane cleared the floor by half a foot. The long body rocked until the coppers, deep keepsakes, and ruined tongue shifted together inside him.
The hook jerked Holt’s line toward the wall.
Dane pulled one strap around the prayer cord. The movement was smaller than a handspan and belonged to this shape alone. It saved the cord, but the leather root tore wider under his side.
The hook withdrew with a strip of bloody leather.
Holt kept the line. Brant turned the shield under Dane’s lower end, and the narrower frame fit sideways through the arch. A second armored impact drove through the opening and rang along rod three behind them.
Three dry scratches sounded along the service seam.
"Recovery marks," Tess said. A single leather scrape interrupted her next step. "Front pressure comes through that gap. Laundry turn is beyond the arch. Carry him sideways when the water gets loud."
The glass cutter clicked out of the rolled tools. Vera fixed it into a rear loop of Tess’s belt, beyond her injured hands.
"You name the glass," Vera said. "Someone else draws the cutter."
Tess drew breath. The next hook hit rod three before she spoke.
They moved.
Each carrying step rolled pressure through Dane’s straps, shield, and Holt’s cord. Falling water grew ahead. Behind them came iron on stone, hook oil, armor breath, and four active chains answering farther back through the sealed route.
Brant’s right hand weakened. Holt changed prayer knots. Ada called the narrow turns by echo; Tess named false wall marks, and Ada confirmed each before the carriers turned.
Dane tightened the uninjured strap once toward the water; the party corrected their angle and kept him off the floor. Brackenvault found him moving and opened a notice across his cognition.
/==[ Unauthorized Asset Modification ]==\
| Asset: Dane Rook
| Registered Body: Dungeon Mimic Chest
| Current Body: Travel Trunk / Unlicensed
| Responsible Parties: Linked Adventurers
| Inspector Grib: Notified
\==[ Recovery Claim Escalated ]==/
Orange heat drove through the tag at Dane’s front. The word Notified burned longest.