Friends in a Foreign Land

Khatar taught elven philosophy and culture to these world transplants in the mornings and some form of elven martial art in the afternoons. After a month of this, he pronounced that it was up to them to take what they had learned and make it a part of them. By this point, none of them were sleeping normally at night, but rather meditating for a few hours as natural born elves do. Khatar urged them to use that meditation time to focus on these lessons.

Now that they no longer needed sleep, the first few hours of darkness each night was spent running missions with The Hand, mostly focusing on gathering intel at first.

A few weeks of their classroom training focused on a general history of the world and the magic running it. This included lessons on how the ALMS system worked and, more importantly, how classes were obtained and evolved.

"So you’re saying I won’t have to stay as a fighter? Because I don’t like fighting, I tried to tell Nitana that, but she insisted. Kept saying I have the heart of a fighter." Alexis blurted out during class one day.

Aien paused her lesson, surprised at the outburst. "Goddess Nitana," Aien started, stressing the title, "surely has her reasons. I heard you mention this before, some weeks back during weapons training, but I think you may be misunderstanding the title of your class."

"What’s to misunderstand?" Alexis replied, refusing to be placated. "I don’t like to fight. I wish everyone would just get along."

"During the fight with the cultists, I’m told that not only did you fight, but you managed to slay several people." Aien said before asking, "If you are so against fighting, why did you not just stay seated and let the others fight?"

"When they first came through the door, mom was fighting someone and didn’t see them coming. I had to protect her."

"So you prefer peace but will do what it takes to keep your family and friends safe. Correct?"

"Well, yeah. I guess so."

"It is as I thought. Now, let me tell you about your class. It is called fighter not because the people there love to fight. People who love to fight come in just about every class. Fighters are simply the catch all class of people who hold the line. Fighters are the people who take the damage to protect their comrades. You wear the heaviest of armors so that you can withstand the most damage. You are the party’s first line of physical defense. And, in the moment when your choice was the difference between life and death, you did exactly what you were supposed to do. Without training. Without anyone having to tell you. You automatically interposed yourself between the enemy and your mom. No, young one, I do not think Goddess Nitana was wrong in your class choice. Furthermore, as you level and your class evolves, I expect that you won’t be tempted to specialize in dueling or tactics. I doubt you’ll seek to become a knight. No, I bet you will choose more skills to further help you protect others."

Seeing Alexis sitting there processing everything, Regina got up and walked over to her, draping her arm over Alexis's shoulders, "She’s right, Alexis. You’ve always protected those you love. Your dad shared a story with me years ago about a time when he was trying to saddle a horse and how it started bucking and trying to kick him. He said you immediately jumped in front of your little sister to protect her. Your first thought was to keep Willow safe. And then when Willow got burned that time, I heard you stood in front of her with a sheet trying to protect her modesty when the paramedics arrived. Protecting those you love is a part of who you are."

Alexis just nodded for a moment and then stood, "If you’ll excuse me, I need to go pray. I believe I owe Goddess Nitana an apology."

After Alexis left the room, Mira spoke up, "Can you help me better understand my class as well? I’m a cleric, which I thought meant I’m supposed to heal people. But I was given the same armor and weapon as Alexis. And I don’t think I killed anyone during the fight with the cultists. I just swung my sword around and pushed people with my shield. I hate hurting people."

"That’s an understatement," Ramiro added, "she’s let people take advantage of her all of her life just to keep from hurting their feelings."

"Clerics come in many different flavors and can evolve into many classes just like anyone else. The armor you were given was to keep you safe, but there’s no rule saying you have to wear it. Typically people go into battle wearing the heaviest armor they can that doesn’t interfere with what they do. Eric, for example, wouldn’t wear heavy armor because it’d make climbing trees and stalking rather difficult. More important than your armor is where do you want to stand during a fight? One of the things that you will be trained on will be battle formations. Alexis will be upfront to protect the party. Eric will be in the rear or flanking the party with his bow, trying to stop foes before they reach Alexis. Ramiro will likely be sneaking around the outside edges of the enemy’s formation, attacking foes when they aren’t looking. You and Regina both have options. Do you want to be in the front attacking and trying to hold the charge or in the middle casting spells?"

"Oh, I’m going to be right up front next to Alexis," Regina said with a vicious grin.

"I don’t want to be in the front, I don’t think. But I don’t want to kill anyone with spells either." Mira added

"Again, no one said you have to cast spells to kill people. The primary purpose of your class is to heal. You keep an eye on the rest of the group and heal them when they’re injured. That’s your base responsibility. From there, you could cast spells to confuse the enemy or put them to sleep. Or you could take some classes on tactics and strategy, learn to read a battle and, in time, be able to not only direct the actions of your team but also guide your enemies into doing what you want, such as casting spells like [Flame Wall] to keep the enemy from surrounding your group and funnel them directly into Regina."

"Yeah, Mira, send them my way," Regina added with a laugh.

"The point is, it’s up to you how you evolve and grow your skills, which will impact your options for evolving your class. The only obligation you have is to your party. Make sure they understand what role you will serve so that you can all work together."

"What if all I do is heal people? Can I just stand in the back and heal the others and nothing else? If I do that, how will my class evolve?"

"My dear, if all you focus on is healing, then, like anything, you will get progressively better at it, and in time you will be able to heal just about any wound. Eventually you would be able to regrow missing body parts. You could learn to heal mental trauma. With enough practice, not even death would be a barrier. You could pierce the veil and bring the soul back from the beyond. You could even reverse the aging process so that people could live as long as you’d like them to live. If all you wish to do is heal people, you could, in time, become the most dangerous person on a battlefield because who can stand against an army that won’t die?" Aien paused and took a breath before continuing, "But it won’t be an easy path. Going into a battle without any ability to defend yourself is risky and ill-advised. And it could take decades before you can resurrect the deceased. But it is a path. And it is a path that very few succeed on. But, with the boons your party have been given, you have advantages that none of them have."

"Being able to bring folks back from the dead would be awesome!" Eric said

"You should still probably learn a spell or two that would help keep you safe for now," Ramiro added with concern in his voice. "Maybe something like invisibility or teleport. Something that will let you hide if you need to."

"He has a point, Mira." Regina added, "We all know you don’t want to hurt folks, but there are spells that could protect you that don’t involve hurting people. Right, Aien?"

"Of course. There are spells that layer wards on top of people to protect them from physical or magical attacks. Spells that hide you or will move you away from danger. Like Alexis, Mira could choose to specialize in defensive magic and eventually gain access to spells that could shield an army or even a whole city from damage."

Mira thought on what she’d just heard for a moment and looked back to Aien, "Do I have to decide this now? How often do we get a chance to evolve our classes?"

"No dear, you do not have to decide this today or even this week." Aien said with a motherly smile, "As you grow and gain levels, the system will occasionally prompt you to see if you wish to specialize or change your class. It will usually happen after big experience gains. It’ll also happen whenever you reach a tier threshold which happens when you hit levels 26, 51, 76, and 101. The options presented will be based on the skills and spells you’ve been using, with more emphasis on your recent actions. You do not have to change your class, though. There will always be the option to stay as you are. But each class evolution will change things like which spells you learn automatically, which stats gain points automatically, and which evolutions are available later. You all are still very low-level, so now is the time to experiment. Try different weapons, armor, spells, and tactics. Figure out what works for you as an individual and as a group. I have heard you mention the other Migrant Spirits with whom you will be meeting up with. Be sure to pass this on to them as well. The more you experiment early on, the better it’ll be, as it will open the way to many potential classes."

Aien handled the interruptions gracefully but was clearly happy to return to her lesson plan. Once Alexis returned to the room, Aien went on to teach about how skills and spells could level up and even evolve into more powerful or useful versions of themselves.

"So my [Dome of Truth] spell would make someone do what, tell the truth twice?" Regina asked

With Elven patience, Aien ignored the attitude and answered, "With each level, something about it will improve. It may become harder to resist the urge to be truthful, cover a larger area, last longer, or take less mana to cast."

"Will that also apply to my runic magic?" questioned Alexis.

"Possibly. Your tattoos are… unique. Normally, runes are empowered when they are created and draw power from the world to sustain themselves. As such, the runes will stay at whatever level they are when they're created. For example, let's say I gave you a ring with a level 20 lightning rune on it. When you activate it, it will activate as a level 20 spell, even if your current level is much lower. This is why enchanted items are so valuable. Once you learn the required runes, you could create a [Ring of Healing] for each of your friends so that everyone could heal themselves without knowing the spell.

As your level in the relevant skills increases, the enchantments you create will increase in level and simpler runes will take less mana to complete. And the higher your skill when you create something, the more powerful it will be." Aien explained.

Alexis held out her arms showing the runes tattooed on her arms, "How do I know what level these are?"

With a smile, Aien replied, "Those were put on you by a goddess. We have no idea. In the tests you’ve done so far it appears that they are leveling with you rather than operating at the level they were created at. It is my belief that they don't have a level and that as you raise your runic lore skill level they will get stronger. Raising that skill will also enable you to identify the level of most runes you see, such as on jewelry or armor. But if my hunch is correct, it’s going to be a while before you’ll be able to see any sort of level on those tattoos.”