"Hrgh!" Nicaea didn't really scream, but he did make a sort of gurgling noise at the sudden sound. His eyes darted around before finally looking up, seeing...a cat-girl. There were so many retorts he wanted to make, but the situation was dumbfounding enough to silence him for the moment.

However, when he had heard the tree-hanger speak, he laughed a bit. "Dang, you're really going all-in on the 'cat girl' theme, aren't you?" Not that that was a bad thing; levity was a far better escape than spiraling into depression, which wasn't really an escape at all. "Anyway," he said, addressing the question as he honestly had no idea how to approach this situation at all, "Inverted death usually means, uh, botching a change or something like that. Like getting a cold shoulder and leaving your fiance at the altar, probably. 'Course, for me it just means zombies today."

Going into how drawing the Sun card would have changed his entire day's proceedings was most likely a fruitless task, or at the very least it would've dragged the conversation on in a weird direction. Instead, he asked, "So what brings you out here? I'm just here for the zombies and stuff."

"Are you this nimble in real life, or is that a class skill?" Nicaea asks in his driest tone of voice. "Regardless, I'm, uh, Nicaea." He coughs awkwardly. "Dunno why, but everyone's been introducing themselves with their screen names. Guess it's just how it goes. How about you?" There were, of course, a wealth of reasons why people were going about it in that way, but to Nicaea it did feel a little uncomfortable, since he was himself after all.

It seemed they'd be banding together to fight the zombies, so he initiated a party request real quick. "By the way, my class is Fortune Teller. I guess that explains a bit, right?" He didn't ask further, but instead waited to see what this stray cat would offer up. By the looks of it...perhaps a healer? Two supports...well, two support bot lanes had been done in League of L*gends, right? It would be fine.

Nicaea began to shuffle his cards, preparing to grant a buff before entering the dungeon. He also lamented not having a better weapon for the hundredth time in recent memory.

Nicaea nodded as he listened to... Wait, I didn't get an introduction back! Still, bombs were good. Much less healer-y than he'd been expecting from the outfit. "You got any healing potions you can throw?" he asked offhandedly. He took his deck into his hand, preparing to explain his own abilities, but...

"Ugh, I gotta wonder which intern they got to record that..." Even as he snarked, three rotten shamblers were already making their way across the front lawn. With a flick of the wrist, Nicaea sent a metal card flying across to the forehead of the closest one. A previous adventure had already improved his actual throwing skill as a person, but he had a striking suspicion that such things wouldn't really increase his damage output. Some more cards shot out from his hands to strike the other two zombies as he strafed to the left, trying to get them all moving the same way.

"I can't really deal that much damage, so I'll leave it to you one they're all together. Also what's your name, dangit!" Nicaea blabbered as he tried to stay away from the zombies, mindful of both their grasp and a potential incoming explosion.

"Zephy, huh? Actually, I think I'll probably just stick to Zephyrus." There was a solid reason for this: he couldn't stand it if someone began to call him Nikki. Or even worse, Nissy, as was phonetically appropriate. That would have just been horrifying. "In any case, a straightforward approach to life is for the best!"

Seeing a projectile come past him at the mobs, Nicaea ducked back a little, bracing himself for a fiery explosion or something. Instead, he coughed and flew back a little more when smoke came out. It didn't seem to be a smokescreen or anything, as the zombies continued to chase towards him. It had a bit of a sweet scent, though. Wait...sweet scent? "Hey, you didn't just increase my aggro or anything with that, did you?!"

A fortune teller wearing loose robes did not a tank make, so he began to weave back, not getting too close to Zephyrus. "Hey, what the heck was that? Also, do you have anything more...explode-y?" Beggars couldn't be choosers, but he felt that the situation warranted something with a little extra bang.

"Hey, couldn't you get back in that tree or whatever? I can't really lo-URGH" While he was chatting, one of the zombies had suddenly closed the distance and struck out, pixellating a bit of Nicaea's shoulder, prompting a quick rebuttal in the form of a metal card jammed through the skull. "Man, these things are stronger up close...but, uh, I think I'd like to keep my distance after all."

What the heck is this girl doing...? Nicaea found himself flummoxed by the choice in bomb ingredients. However, he reminded himself, his own class was not particularly. He also couldn't help but request, "Maybe some aloe? My skin's been feeling a little dry recently." Back in the real world, this had been a perfectly valid statement, but thankfully it didn't carry over into his in-game avatar. For now, at least. Some of the anime he'd watched had illustrated the sort of bizarre 'mind over matter' sort of thing that could happen in these settings.

Not that that matter was particularly important. Trying to focus on not getting hit again, Nicaea gave a quick thumbs-up of assent to Zephyrus's plan before returning his attention to the growing horde. Unfortunately, he didn't really have any special items stocked up for this sort of eventuality. He backed towards the tree carefully, moving slowly until he was about to be surrounded and then sprinting off to the side suddenly to avoid a disastrous end. His arms worked quickly to throw out cards at the enemies closest to him. Good thing these things have infinite ammo in games...

An opening in the crowd allowed Nicaea to dash straight back for a moment, which is when he saw the cauldron. "What the heck is that?! You make your bombs in a cauldron? You sure your class isn't witch or something?" Not that the moment was particularly appropriate for comments like that, but his adrenaline spike was causing him to be a little more hyper than usual.

"Class changing?!" This caught Nicaea's attention long enough for him to get clawed at again. "Ow, dammit!" His health was still high enough, as these were the 'weak but plentiful' sort of mob, but seeing one's health drop was a horrific feeling, like knowing that the date of your death would be a few years earlier than expected.

Still, he hoped dearly there was some way to enact a class change. Nicaea had pored over the Fortune Teller skill list and determined that there was simply no way to make a self-sustaining combat-viable build. While pure support was definitely his jam in regular MMOs, a game with one's life on the line required at least a modicum of tankiness or straight damage; debuffs wouldn't get you out of a zombie lair (for instance).

As soon as the 'fire in the hole' came in, Nicaea immediately began sprinting towards Zephyrus, albeit at an angle in case the perfumed potion purveyor pelted the payload at his person by accident. Even given the severity of the situation, he couldn't help but let a low groan escape his mouth when he saw the bomb fly through the air. That was, and there was no other way to put it, some Wile E. Coyote shit right there.

As a testament to the amount of work that the developers had put into the physics, the resulting explosion was more than enough to blow Nicaea down, causing a very strong burning sensation on his back. "Goddamn devs couldn't have left this shit out?!" he cried out, mostly muffled by the explosion. Eventually, after his brain worked out that the sounds had died down, he got up. Without even looking back, he simply said, "So you're an offense class then, right?"