Rory was a little bit impressed by the appearance of the inside of the cave. Noelle mentioned it looked like a buried city, and that's when he realized that… she was right. ”Oh wow, yeah actually. I wonder if it was a real city, or all just made up by the system…” He ran his hand over part of the cave wall, mentally noting the difference between the different sections of it. Some of the cave looked more natural, while with others, it was clear it had been something else at some point in history. Now it was just ruins in a random cave.

A cave with a prompt. As the duo followed the path forward, Rory thought aloud. ”Well, clearly there must be something of note in here if we got a prompt about it…” Rory put his hands behind his head. Whatever was here, his abilities were all off cooldown now, and the buff on Noelle was insane… in theory, getting through whatever was waiting wouldn’t be a problem at all.

In theory.

Noelle

Once the trade window opened, Rory's eyes gleamed. He wasted no time adding his claws to the trade, and having the items transfereed momentarily afterwards. With the box finally in his hands, he turned it in his hand, examining it with a hand to his chin.

The box' description made it... well, REALLY scary! He could see now why Dee Dee here wanted to get rid of her own doll. Rory didn't have an issue with that; in the future, he would be using this box a lot, he imagined, but there was no need to keep one of its dolls for Dee Dee!

He opened the door to the box, cringing as a tiny doll made of twines hovered out from its abyss. It was a really simple thing, but he could see how it was meant to resemble the woman. "Huh, that's interesting... Well, anyways, there ya go! Have at it, I suppose..." Rory didn't really know HOW Dee Dee was going to destroy the doll, but based on the box's description, he didn't imagine it would be too difficult of a task.

deedee

Rory's eyes widened when he saw Dee Dee's box. "C-cursed? Wait, it drains luck?!" He took a step back; if this thing was a negative luck box, then he wanted to be nowhere near it! Luck was the best way to get... well, anything!

He almost turned to leave on the spot and apologize to the girl, but then a thought hit him. If this thing was a debuff... "Ohohoho, Dee Dee!" A wicked grin crossed the man's face. If this luck thing was debuff, he could flip it around and make his luck even higher! Cursed?! More like, THE MOST AMAZINGEST ITEM EVER!

"I think that's a wonderful idea, I'll happily destroy any dolls inside for it. Cursed, bah; it is what it is! Of course I'd be glad to help out that friend of yours by trading these claws for it!" Rory moved as though he had a super-speed buff has he unequipped the claws and offered them to the woman. He didnt know much else about the box, sure, but the claws were pretty useless to him, and what he DID know meant the box was something he NEEDED!

deedee

Though his shield poofed, thankfully Noelle was there to suck up the rest of the bird’s attacks. ”Damn birds came outta nowhere… and now there’s dogs too?!” Noelle was quick to start taking them out, so with a flick of his wrist, Rory summoned a set of 4 cards so that he could do the same. He tossed his first card at a wolf that was making a rush attack. The damage from the card barely did anything, but after the wolf took a few more steps it fell to the ground, defeated.

Rory was briefly confused, before he realized what had happened: the monster had already been hurt by Noelle, so when his card gave the wolf a debuff, the damage he pulsed out to it was enough to finish it off! ”Lucky us! Now- woah!” Instead of a ranged attack, the two airborne monsters dove at the duo together, their feet bound together to give them a bigger threat range. They spun through the air before leveling out and rocketing towards them like a fighter jet. It kind of reminded Rory of one of those Star Wars ships, but he couldn’t worry about that right now! He threw another two cards at the incoming birds,to surprisingly good effect.

The first card he threw broke the defense of the bird-monster he hit, [stunning] and knocking it from the air. Since it was attached to the other one, it dragged its ally with it to the ground! As it tried to stand, Rory’s card slammed into it, lowering the monster’s [DEF]. It screeched and flapped its wings as it darted for the man, but he simply stood there and laughed maniacally as it did so. WHAT’S THE MATTER, CAN’T HANDLE IT? YOU’RE JUST A BIG FAT CHICKEN, BWAK BUCKAWK!” The monster had its mouth open, ready to take a bite from the man, when it too suddenly dropped dead… much in the same manner as the wolf before it. ”MWAHAHA! Y’know, this heal/damage pulse on buffs is pretty handy, huh?”

Rory turned to see Noelle up against a wolf that her attacks seemed less effective against than the others. Did that mean it was a Gift monster? If that were the case… The man had one card left in his hands, the Spades. This was one of his stronger cards, so he had confidence in its ability already, but if this final monster was a GIFT, that meant Rory’s MELODY abilities would be even more effective! ”Take this!” Slinging his final card at the wolf, Rory wasn’t surprised to see it go down from the attack. Even so, he put his hands on his cheeks and opened his mouth to very obviously feign surprise.

Noelle

[Mission 2 - Functional Base]
- Strong Wing A: LVL 3 (Connection) MURDERED BY NOELLE
- Strong Wing B: LVL 13 (Connection) MURDERED BY RORY
- Strong Wing C: LVL 11 (Connection) MURDERED BY RORY
- Weeping Wolf A: LVL 2 (Gift) FINISHED OFF BY RORY
- Weeping Wolf B: LVL 7 (Shelter) MURDERED BY NOELLE
- Weeping Wolf C: LVL 10 (Dissection) FINISHED OFF BY RORY

"Redwoods? Iunno, I was thinking something more fantasy, or maybe a big jungle. Never really know, hmm…" Rory tried to ignore the stuffed thing Noelle was cuddling, but was glad for her that it seemed to be doing something to raise her mood. He tapped his fingers on his steering wheel, thinking about this race they were in now. His piss green mini cooper convertible had gone through a lot against Tank Man, and that was his first time taking it out in Motor City. Could it survive another encounter like that?

Pressing the button to lower the roof, Rory snapped his fingers toward Noelle to activate his CORE. It landed on a 1, causing him to wince and change it to a 2. Minor debuff, but at least she was getting some healing… As other cars started popping in to start this race, it was only a minute before the light started counting down. "Better hold on tight, next race about to start and I want the prize!"

Noelle

Rory listened as Noelle spoke, with a breathy laugh as she mentioned how her “class” was a mockery of herself. His was much the same, with things like “Tragiocomedy”, and THE BIGGEST LOSER- but in Rory’s case, kind of saw it as a funny thing. While it quite literally WAS laughing at him, he saw it more as laughing with him, a joke that he himself was in on. And hey, he had to admit… [Hermes Folly] could do some pretty neat things when he put his brain to it.

”Angels? I wouldn’t have guessed” he tossed the Bee Bomb in his hand. Funny how he had his bees and she had her halo. Another instance of Earth-chan being “cute”?

[Mission 2 - Functional Base]
-Strong Wing: LVL 3 Connection
-Strong Wing: LVL 13 Connection
-Strong Wing: LVL 11 Connection

Rory’s thoughts were caught off guard by screeches overhead. A group of dinosaur-birds swooped down from far overhead, and were now circling the duo. ”Aw hell, here we go!” Rory knew he needed to stick close to Noelle for her class to work, so he wasn’t planning on moving too far away. Three of the birds seemed to be focused on him, each with strange yellow patterning in their feathers. They all three screamed, sending blasts of air hurtling toward him that merged midair to create one big attack. He instinctively activated [Roulette Shield] in response, but with the debuff in effect on him, the attack smashed right through his shield.

”Woops!”

Noelle

”GO FOR IT!” Rory’s attack took out some parts of the tank and managed to pop its treads, but mr. TANK MAN was already firing shots off in retaliation. He had no problems grabbing the wheel from Noelle, though the car slowed noticeably when he did. Right, his SPD debuff had also been buffing her SPD! He focused on steering and couldn’t quite see what she was doing, but the double loud BOOMS he heard from both his mini cooper convertible and the tank told him that there was some kind of reflection going on. Go Noelle!

Glancing into the mirror, Rory had an idea of his own. He placed a hand to his [Novel of Self-Discovery] and created a clone of his piss-green mini cooper convertible a couple meters besides theirs. Using it as reference, it was like he was driving in third person!

Rory received a notification that his healing pulse to Noelle was giving him a chance to double a buff, so he used his [Loaded Dice] skill to guarantee its activation, and increase the effectiveness of his defense. Noelle did some damage to the tank, but that didn’t have to be the end of things either! He activated a new ability, this one for the first time: [Life’s Biggest Joke!]

This one had a lot of effects that could be really complicated really fast, but he kept it simple for now: Rory used the ability to cleanse the [-1 DEF/+1 SPD] on Noelle, which got flipped thanks to the skill, and moved onto himself for an extra [+1 DEF/-1 SPD]. It wasn’t helping them go faster while he held the wheel, but it did mean… ”KACHOW!”

After the [money shots] from the tank, they fired off a 3rd blast as well… one that Rory was now ready for. He snapped his free hand in the air, summoning the [Roulette Wheel] over their cars. Despite how slow he was at driving, his DEF was now A RANK, able to reflect up to that much damage right back at them. Just like Noelle before him, Rory shot the basic attack right back to TANK MAN. He didn’t know about the illusion the man was under, so with the extra illusion of Rory’s mini cooper convertible, TANK MAN wouldn’t see just ONE clone of his tank shooting back at him, but TWO!

Noelle

CAR STATS WHEN DRIVEN: Petite Cooper

[PWR: E (D Collision)] [DEF: C] [SPD: D] [MAG: A] [VIT: E] [WIL: B] [LUK: 0]
[Size: Medium][Damage Taken: None] [Refuel TImer: 1 Post]