“Well? Can you understand me now? Or are you just another simpleton brought to my care hmm?”

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Something had been bothering Alyx about this strange little old woman since he had first laid eyes on her, more than the magic, or her surprising amount of strength, though he felt both factored into the feeling. It was...it was almost like dread? Or the instinctual fear prey has when looking at a predator, Something about this woman screamed at Alyx, that she was the most dangerously competent person he had ever met. Which...I mean how many little old ladies under five feet tall, do you meet in your life that makes you feel like you could be just utterly destroyed, and it wouldn’t even be a notable moment in their day? So when her magic seemed to be finished and Symphonia started speaking in a language he could understand Alyx was quick to reply.

“Ah, wow yes I can understand you, this has been a very strange day for me.”

Symphonia let out a snort and waddled over to an ornately carved walking chair, before settling down in it unceremoniously, motioning for Alyx to follow her, though no chair was presented to him to sit in.”

“It’s isn’t every day a human wanders into our forests and survives this long! You are only alive right now because of the rangers who found you, they believe your class might be worth investigating.”

“Oh...ok…” Alyx wasn’t really sure how to process that, not that the elven elder wasn’t being straight forward with him, but his upbringing was rather more peaceful, not that the modern world doesn’t have its share of problems, Alyx simply hadn’t ever faced anything quite like this. Alyx had seen trespassers will be shot signs before of course but he had never made the mistake of wandering onto said properties and then confronting the landowner.

“I’ll be upfront with you, Ma’am, I’m more than a little confused about how I got here myself. And I will happily tell you anything you want to know about my class. Not that I understand all that much about it, to begin with, but what I have is at your disposal.”

Simply put, Symphonia had expected a bit more resistance, more than willing and able to beat someone about the head with her walking stick. However, what the young man had said made the old woman quirk an eyebrow, how could he not know much about his own class? Clearly, the boy thought he had a secret worth keeping or some other such human nonsense. Ah to be young and think the world revolved around petty secrets.

“Lucky for you human, I don’t need to suss your class out of you through conversation, I am over two thousand years old! Do you think I don’t know how to read another person’s status? Now you just relent to the spell, and I’ll have a look at this special class of yours.”

Alyx wasn’t sure what he had been expecting but, it would save him a lot of time and possibly miscommunication if she could just read everything that he had seen for herself. So he nodded and stood still to wait.

No incantation or ritual to it this time, however, Symphonia merely flicked the fingers of her free hand and Alyx felt a tugging sensation on his mind, at first he resisted it of course until he saw the old woman scowling at him and realized that it was her spell. He was still hesitant of course, this felt a lot more like someone getting a peek at his brain than he was comfortable with, but it was this or death apparently.

Which for those of you who have never stared into the eyes of a tiny old woman and seen your own death, take Alyx’s word for it, it’s a humbling experience.

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Symphonia almost laughed when she read the humans status page. No, identify, no observation skills, not warrior abilities at all, neither offensive nor defensive. No spell casting of any kind, one...ONE active ability? Oh sure, it was a synergistic build, and yes it had not one, not two but three status buffs. Not to mention both stamina and health regeneration, oh yes the boy was no doubt able to endure some incredible things. His only saving grace would be his ability to shapeshift and the benefits those stat buffs would give him while shapeshifted, but even then… Symphonia considered the elven shapeshifting classes far superior to...to this ...this mistake.

“Boy, you’re a damned fool, oh I’ll grant you that it is impressive that you’ve managed to get three stat bonuses in a class, if you make it through your next couple of class evolutions you might even become a force to be reckoned with. Sadly, you’re a damned cripple. The fact you survived to get your first form at all is a miracle. Wandering out in a monster-infested forest to try and pick up a powerful monster to take the essence of, pure foolishness, by yourself no less, the height of idiocy.”

Symphonia brought her staff down on the human’s head, hard this time which had him cursing and backing away as she stood up, cracking her back as she did so.

“ you try to spread that class of yours to any of the elves in this village or any other and I’ll make you wish we had killed you, you hear me?”

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Alyx’s head hurt, and he was really getting tired of people hitting him. He wasn’t sure what he expected to be told about his class, but that his was worthless wasn’t exactly one of the thoughts that had occurred to him.

“Ma’am I can assure you, all I want to do is go home. I had about as much choice in getting this class as…” he had been about to make a pop culture reference be had to stop as he realized that it would be wasted here. “ as a fruit chooses to fall from a tree.”

The elder of the elves just gave him a skeptical look and waddled out of the house, giving him no choice but to follow or be left behind. Alyx was skeptical a lone human wandering through the village would make it very far.

Once he was outside of the home, he was able to take in the sight of the village itself for the first time, and in short? It was breathtaking, every building was sculpted out of a single massive tree, that was so well pruned they looked like oversized bonsai trees. They were of every conceivable species, as if able to simply ignore the conditions of the soil or the temperature rangers in which they normally thrived. Some were in bloom, while others had the multi-colored leaves of fall, others bore fruit and even some looked as though they were mid-winter with snow atop their empty branches.

As much as Alyx would have liked to sightsee he was lead down a sloping side path through the village, making due at googling the house and various buildings close by, even as he was forced to turn his attention back to the matters at hand, Alyx who'd always liked the idea of log cabins and tree houses, the more traditional house built in a tree kind found that he loved the look of this palce.

“So...why exactly am I crippled? I mean, the class doesn’t look all that bad to me, just like it has a focus on physical attributes and survival.”

That actually had the old woman cackling, holding onto her staff shaking with laughter as if her grip on her staff was the only thing holding her up she was laughing so hard. Eventually, she stopped and wiped a tear from her eye before looking back at him.

” Oh dear, you really don’t get it, do you? Bah humans! One thousand years pass and they stop educating you, I suppose you’ve all devolved into savages hmm? Alright, I will focus on combat since it is all you young people understand anyway. Skills like, oh say [power strike] increase the damage you deal. Skills like [block] stop you from being damaged, yes? Simple and easy to follow?”

Alyx hadn’t actually been expecting her to be so forthcoming but he nodded and raises an eyebrow thoughtfully.” Sure that makes sense”

Symphonia harrumphed and glowered at him. “Good, because I am dumbing it down so you can. The skills you build for the first nine levels determine your class, which often gives you complimentary or synergistic skills. As you level those skills can evolve and give access to other skills in a similar vein. Allowing someone who leveled to acquire more skills over time. You, in your youthful exuberance somehow managed to fill your first nine levels with passive abilities, strong ones admittedly, but you can’t train them, work with them, understand them! You have one active! ONE! FOOL BOY!”

Alyx took a step back as Symphonia looked so outraged by his class that he wondered if she was going to start foaming at the mouth, looking around instinctively for any kind of support he saw that the elves of the village had a tried and true tactic for when their village Elder became incensed like this. Every single one of them had their heads down and were hurrying away from her. And Alyxs lax attention was all Symphonia needed to wack him on the head with that stick again.

“Pay attention! I am explaining all of this instead of killing you for a reason!, Do not make me change my mind. Now where was I, yes yes, one active skill, [body modification] and you gained only one other skill when you got your class, luckily this skill might be your saving grace. If you can collect a variety of essences you will only be slightly behind everyone else of your level at least in terms of combat, there is no hope for you in any other field.”

Alyx could only wonder where this was leading, she had started off their conversation by explaining to him, that his possible usefulness to the village was the only thing keeping him alive. And he was starting to feel like all of this was the wind up for a sales pitch. One he wasn’t going to be able to turn down on pain of death.

Coming to a stop outside of one of the elven tree homes, this one looking like a cherry blossom tree, with dark back and branches that seemed to almost curl in on themselves. Symphonia knocked on the open doorway lightly with the top of her walking stick, before stepping to the side of the door and turning to look at Alyx.

“So in this, we will help each other, you will be allowed to live if you help our village with a task I deem too dangerous to waste elven lives on, and if you survive it you will have a new more powerful form. Either way, a threat to the village is handled for me.”

The smug and dangerous look in the old woman’s eyes was more than enough to tell Alyx that refusal was only an option if he wanted to try fighting the Elder...in the middle of her own village...yeah...Alyx might be brave and possibly stupid, but he wasn’t that dumb.

“Sure thing ma’am, that sounds like a great plan.” If you’ve ever seen the gritted teeth of a store clerk dealing with an absolutely terrible customer then you can imagine the customer service voice Alyx called upon at this moment to make himself seem friendly and open to the idea of risking his life even more. He still didn’t even know where he was! Or how he was going to get home, and honestly he could use a meal and a nap. Or hell even a fresh set of clothes, the fight with the owlbear had left him walking around in little more than rags not to mention being covered in his own dried blood, he hadn’t even considered what he must look like before now.

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Andrea and Julius had just sat down at Andrea’s kitchen table, two glasses of honeyed wine set out before them, along with bread and cheese, relaxing at the end of a long day when they both looked up to the knocking by the front door and the unmistakable sound of the Elder’s voice.

“Oh no.” They echoed each other and slowly stood, the thoughts of food and drink forgotten as the two made it to the front door to see a very frustrated and tired looking human, the very same one they had captured and brought back to the village in fact, and Symphonia next to him who looked very pleased with her self, which couldn’t be good news for anyone involved.

“Elder, welcome to my home, please may I invite you inside?” Andrea began, but Symphonia just waved her off.

“Yes yes enough pleasantries, it’s getting dark and I’d like to be in bed soon.” Alyx, Andrea, and Julius all looked around at that, it had to be at least two hours to sunset and as a nice bright afternoon, before snapping there gazes back to the Elder, the two elves had learned long ago not to let their attention wander when Symphonia was holding her walking stick, and Alyx had plenty of recent reminders not to forget so soon.

“Julius, Andrea, you two will escort this adventurer to the shrine of the waning moon tomorrow. He” She said, pointing to Alyx.” Is tasked with clearing out the den of monsters who have recently taken up residence there, I charge you with making sure he doesn’t attempt to escape his duties. Oh and stay well back from the den itself you two, your both promising upstarts and that place is dangerous!

“Is it too late to point out that I don’t even know how to shapeshift yet?” Alyx asked from behind the elder, stepping back out of walking stick range as she whirled on him with an evaluating gaze.

Symphonia clucked her teeth, she hadn’t known he didn’t know how to shapeshift.” Fine, take him to Leoric tomorrow, and then take him to the shrine once he’s figured it out! Oh and get this damn human some new pants! And a wash! He is revolting! Now the spirits are calling me, I must go!”

And with that, the little old elven woman walked out of Alyx’s life damn near as fast as she came into it.

Julius chuckled and shook his head, waiting to speak until Elder Symphonia was well out of earshot.” She ends every single conversation with the same damn excuse. Well human, do you have a name? I’m Julius and the one silently glaring at you is Andrea”

Uh, it’s Alyx...I’d say it’s nice to meet you but you know, extenuating circumstances and all that.”Alyx was able to recognize his two captors and was not at able pleased to be back in their oh so gentle care.

“Don’t suppose we could forgo tieing me up this time?” He asked without much hope. To which Andrea replied with a simple and curt.

“Nope.”