Down With The Gods

Exiting the connecting room, the team steps into the Jurassic World section of the museum. The vast, jungle-themed hall greets them with a scene of utter chaos: souls are battling an onslaught of dinosaurs, some fleeing from a ground-shaking T-rex, others riding the prehistoric beasts, while a few scramble to collect essence scattered across the hall. Despite the chaos, the museum's properties remain undamaged, much like the dojo – minus the bouncing part.

“This place is special. You can collect any essence you can find, if you can, that is,” Anish explains.

“These dinosaurs are the mimicking creatures?” Wyn asks.

“They’re called the mimic-i. Not sure what the ‘i’ is for.”

“Above! Look, the bread sticks!” Wyn exclaims, pointing to the ceiling.

“No, they’re stick breads,” Yu argues.

“I thought they were the thick flies,” Mira adds.

“I see CATOTO hasn’t updated his bestiary yet. They’re called the thicc sticks now,” Anish chimes in.

“Why in Hell is there even an option to rename creatures? Management can expect to hear my first complaint!” Wyn grumbles.

The thicc sticks aren’t usually indoor creatures. They anchor their nests, made from their own poop, to ceilings and need open space since they’re incredibly fast. Their numbers are limited because of their large size, and being confined to the museum ceilings hinders their survival rate. These swift flyers aren’t hostile unless provoked, but they do reward fifty essence upon defeat.

Along the walls, Mira spots her favorite creatures, the mona lizards. Interspersed among the dinosaurs and occasionally trampled by them are the rolly pollies: isopod-like creatures the size of tennis balls, with spikes running along their backs and sides. Unfortunately, these spikes curve toward their backs, making them vulnerable to larger creatures. Their backs display varied patterns and colors. Generally harmless and defensive, these earth creatures yield five essence each. Wyn has always had a soft spot for isopods – during the pandemic, he even considered keeping some as pets.

“Awww, they’re so cute,” Wyn says.

“Are you crazy? They’re like mini cockroaches. Brrr,” Yu says with a shiver.

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Yu,” Mira adds.

“So, are we collecting essence or fighting something?” Yu asks.

“You should be more concerned with the dinosaurs!” Anish warns.

The mimic-i, or mimic, is a bright blue, orb-like creature with a pulsating, water-based body. Its liquid form can mimic any inanimate object regardless of size. Once it takes on a shape, it uses an earth-type ability to coat itself in a layer of soil, hardening into a rock-like shell that mimics the appearance of the object it copies. Essentially, it’s water on the inside with a solid rock exterior. The inner layer of hardened soil is softened by water, granting it the mobility matching that of the mimicked object.

“So, it’s like a vase with water inside?” Wyn asks.

“Not quite. To kill it, we need to destroy the outer layer first. Then we need to chip away its liquid mass, like draining it with our attacks. They don’t regenerate fast enough, so we should be fine once we’ve inflicted enough damage.”

While the team discusses their approach to the museum section, a mona lizard sneakily flicks its tongue on Mira’s cheek. Now that she’s with her whole team, plus Anish, she’s mostly unafraid – well, maybe not.

“Wyn! Protect meee!”

Wyn lets loose a horizontal cyclone, sweeping the lizards from the walls and pushing them toward the back of the hall, catching one of the framed pictures in the attack.

“That’s a mimic,” Anish notes.

The lizards and a painting of a velociraptor on a unicycle wearing a top hat and a monocle while sipping tea begin fighting one another. Meanwhile, the group finds themselves randomly targeted by a dimorphodon mimic. Although with little space to maneuver and close to the connecting room, they decide to stand firm and fight.

Yu and Mira start by hurling elemental projectiles at the incoming bird, hitting its wings and chest, which pauses it midair. As they keep up the pressure, Wyn unleashes a charged rocky cyclone. His attack blows the creature back, but also catches a thicc stick in its path. Now facing two opponents, Wyn quickly splits the team. He and Mira will handle the mimic, while Yu and Anish take on the thicc stick.

Anish lifts himself and Yu on a gust of wind, as if anticipating the next move, while boosting the speed and force of Yu’s water projectiles. He instructs Yu to aim for the creature’s large, unblinking eyes. Despite its incredible aerial agility, a few attacks manage to strike the eyes. Angered but undeterred, the thicc stick dives at full speed. Having fought it before, Anish raises him and Yu just enough to dodge, though it clips both their feet, spinning them onto its back before they tumble to the side. The bug, however, slams into the wall, squishing its eyes on impact. Their fight ends faster than expected, and they hold off on collecting essence to watch Wyn and Mira in action.

Wyn and Mira step back, Mira aiming carefully so her attacks hit the mimic directly, while Wyn holds back his cyclones to avoid attracting unwanted attention in the confined space. Chunks of the creature’s rocky exterior have chipped away, exposing the blue, pulsing liquid within. The mimic ascends to dodge their attacks, then dives down, enveloped in a swirling sphere of water that makes it nearly impervious to projectiles. Wyn quickly launches a rocky cyclone, slowing it just enough for them to dodge. Mira signals Wyn to halt as she readies her whip. As the bird lands and lifts its head, she strikes it with the charged metal tip, creating a powerful explosion. Wyn immediately follows with a cyclone, drilling through the mimic and draining its blue liquid. When the cyclone dissipates, the mimic lies destroyed, its head, wings, and feet scattered across the floor.

Despite splitting duties, the team divides the essence from both creatures evenly.

“We hardly did anything, and we won! All thanks to our dad-bod dude here!” Yu says.

“What are you implying? Look, there’s always a risk with unknown enemies. I’m doing my best to help,” Anish responds, glancing down at his paunch.

“Oooh! Is that a catnip tree?” Yu points to a tree partially hidden by jungle foliage on the other side of the hall.

“How does it even grow indoors?” Wyn asks.

“I’m not really sure. Sometimes, they just pop up in odd places.”

Intent on collecting pouches from the tree, Yu can’t resist, especially with his sights set on getting a guitar. Realizing there’s no stopping him, Wyn asks Anish to gather any rolly pollies they come across for added protection. They move carefully to avoid other souls, but soon a quetzalcoatlus mimic locks its gaze on them. After crushing the head of a distracted soul busy pulling a rolly polly off her thigh, the large bird approaches the team with an awkward gait. Seeing a large target, Wyn instructs Anish to launch three rolly pollies at the mimic, following up instantly with a fiery cyclone to boost their speed. Two manage to stick to the bird.

“Why can’t you do that with your chakrams?” Yu asks.

“Not sure it’ll work. I have another idea, though.”

Parts of the bird are exposed, and while it’s distracted, trying to shake off the rolly pollies, Wyn releases another cyclone – this time with his chakrams fused with Mira’s fire. The cyclone spins the weapons wildly, and one chakram flies straight through the bird’s exposed wing, while the other hits a rolly polly and bounces off.

“I always wondered if we could fuse someone else’s power into our weapons,” Wyn says.

“It worked!” Yu exclaims.

“This time, yes. The blades, though, didn’t fly straight inside the cyclone.”

“Aren’t chakrams supposed to be blades in every direction? They’re bound to hit something,” Anish points out.

The bird mimic flees the battle, giving Yu a chance to reach the catnip tree – a short tree, only about a meter tall, with six pouches. Yu offers three smaller pouches to Anish as a thank-you for the ride, but Anish, in turn, hands them to Mira with a warm smile.

“You take mine. Let’s make it easy to remember. Whatever you have, half of it is mine,” Yu tells Wyn.

The two pouches give Wyn a total of seven catnips. Oddly, he asks Mira for one of the smaller pouches she received from Anish, promising to return it, and tucks it into his shorts pocket.

“Now, can we ride a dinosaur?” Yu asks eagerly.

“That wouldn’t be wise. Riding it doesn’t magically make it tame.”

“Let’s try to collect as much essence as we can,” Wyn suggests.

Before they can start absorbing essence, the floor trembles. A group of souls comes sprinting their way, chased by a fast-approaching T-rex.

“Help us! Please, slow it down somehow! Quickly!” one of the souls cries out.

Unsure how best to help, Wyn, Yu, and Mira prepare a large fusion attack. Anish, fearing for the souls’ safety, sweeps them sideways with a gust of wind, pushing them out of the T-rex’s path. Now that the creature is within range, Wyn summons an ascending cyclone directly in front of the dinosaur, catching it in the whirlwind of rocks, fire, and water. Anish blows a continuous gust in front of the cyclone to slow the T-rex if it manages to break free.

The three fleeing souls take advantage, sneaking around to the back of the creature and unleashing their own attacks – one fires icicles, another lightning, and the third, vertical cyclones. The combined assault gives Wyn’s team the opportunity to bombard the T-rex from the front, with Wyn’s previous fusion attack having exposed vulnerable spots on its body. In moments, the T-rex is reduced to a cloud of essence dust.

“Thank you so much!” says the ice soul.

“There were actually two mimics in that T-rex,” the lightning soul reveals.

The larger the object the mimic-i transforms into, the thinner its rock layer, so mimics sometimes merge for added defense. They separate and revert to their original forms when feeding.

Wyn asks the cyclone soul if she knows how to control the jump. To his disappointment, she admits she’s still struggling with it despite her best efforts. But she and her teammates explain how ice and lightning attacks work. The soul with each power holds their arm out with the orb in front; the orb breaks into either a lightning strike or icicle, depending on the element. By keeping their arm extended, they can sustain the attack, though at reduced power. Ice, like earth, can create a pillar beneath the target, while lightning is one of the only types, along with cyclones, that can summon a strike from above the target.

“I can create a reverse ground attack at an enemy and not just around me?” Wyn asks.

“Not sure if I understand you correctly, but if by that you mean a descending cyclone from above the enemy, then yes. It’s sooo useful in stopping an enemy in its tracks when charged up,” the cyclone soul explains.

The three souls bid Wyn and his team farewell, tending to one injured member. Wyn, uneasy with the confined chaos of this section, suggests leaving the museum, but Mira insists on fighting a planet for the sake of novelty. Anish, curious about the Hellish planetarium, agrees. Together, they take a portal in the connecting room, entering the zero-gravity section, which proves to be no less chaotic than Jurassic World.