Stage 2-4: Babylon's Husk
The team materializes inside what appears to be a treasure room of a castle. There are four doors leading north, south, east and west, with chests in front of each.
"Are you sure that this is the right spot, Lord Zetta?" asks Steve. "I don't think that we've ever been teleported inside of a building before..."
"Hey!" Zetta groaned. "I'm not the one who programs that teleporter. We just happened to wind up in this spot by chance. Now, help me clean out this dump so that I can get my netherworld back!"
"Yes, sir!" everyone says.
Io emerges from the hut and approaches one of the chests, which rattles before he gets a chance to open it.
"D-did that thing just move?" he says.
The other three chests get up and start moving along with that one, but they hold their positions in front of the doors.
"That's weird...they're moving, but it's like they're...not moving, in a way."
"Who cares?" says Meredith. "They're mimics. These ones probably don't have a whole lot of good treasure in 'em anyway."
Meredith leaps out in front of Io and starts slicing up one of the mimics until it collapses. She looks down at her dagger and is surprised to see that it's still intact after using it to cut through hard metal. One of the doors opens, leading to a less heavily-guarded room. The team quickly disposes of the thieves and magicians in this room, but is unable to find any useful treasure.
"This place sucks," says Satan. "There's nothing but rocks and junk in here."
"Oh, well," says Nabiki. "Guess we have no choice but to trash the place. That way, people will think twice before searching for treasure here."
"I'm not sure I understand the logic in that," says Kashiwa.
The party continues to unlock the other doors using this method, but the result is the same - more enemies, and rooms full of rocks (and not very high quality ones). One of the mimics, still alive after a joint strike by Nabiki, Kashiwa and Caerbannog, marches toward the Sacred Tome, but is snuffed out by Astral's magic. Io decides to have some fun with his UFO by stealing a few items from the enemy, picking up a Power Belt and some Protein (a muscle item which increases maximum HP). The UFO works a lot better for him than the rapier, so he decides to use that as his primary weapon for a while.
Once Zetta decides that he's had enough of the place, they return to the castle to let Nabiki steal more of their money in exchange for better armor. Completing the level gives the party the ability to create Mimics. You probably wouldn't be able to tell from my first encounter with them, but mimics have the potential to gain high defense and magic resistance, which is offset by low HP (think golem units in Ogre Battle).
Stage 2-5: The Aged Babylon (looks like a random dungeon)
The next area appears to be another random dungeon, populated at the start by a few thieves and impatient Death Sabers (upgraded Cat Kids). Zetta surprises them by dropping the hut on one of the thieves, critically injuring it.
"Ha ha ha! How do you like that?" he says. The thief doesn't get much of a chance to respond before getting beaten up by Meredith.
Zetta scans the area and finds a spot to place one of his buildings, in order to scan for more enemies. However, in doing this, the whole party is struck by lightning!
"What happened? I...can't...move!"
The magical lightning has rendered the party (and only the party) unable to move due to paralysis, but they can still attack, as Graz demonstrates by nunchucking an enemy thief to death. A group of mages approaches from the south, taking advantage of the party's weakened state. Kashiwa casts Espoir on a few of the paralyzed party members, and then casts it on the Sacred Tome, which cures everyone. They're not sure who was responsible for the attack, but they vow to take out as many enemies as they can until they do. They rethink the plan when they see a batch of armed monsters closing in on them.
Graz and Goldie go down fighting, while Meredith (Fighter), Astral (Sorcerer) and Morrigan (Sorceress) transcend. During their transmigration, Astral and Morrigan swapped magic specialties. Astral now specializes in fire magic, and Morrigan now dabbles in wind magic.
