I had scarcely finished speaking, and I already knew that these people would be of no help in dealing with their problem. Not that I could blame them - they were farmers, simple villagers. The most they had to deal with even out here would be some wild animals. Certainly nothing like a treant, which were rare beasts in the worst of cases. Flame, that meant I'd be dealing with it alone. Which meant, I would probably die a few times until I managed to figure out how to appropriately handle the blasted thing. And of course my pyromancies were still locked to me - blast and double blast, they would have been so useful here.

I was in the process of standing up when someone prodded my back. There wasn't any hostility in the poke, so it had caught me a bit off-guard. Strange, the villagers who were looking at me seemed afraid. My hand tightened on my chime as I slowly turned around to see what was causing this reaction - feathers?

I blinked and processed what I was looking at, and the faint tremor of unease faded a bit. I could see why the villagers looked afraid, the individual standing there was even stranger than I was, and most decidedly not human. It was Avin, the Kenku I had met while we were working to subdue the Quetzalcoatl guardian. He had managed to keep a calm head despite the chaos of that battle, and despite what I had originally thought would be nasty wounds for a living being. But then, he was loving on the same sense that I was, wasn't he?

It was a bit funny to run into him again, so soon after that fight. The four of us had gone out separate ways - I had been rather eager to get away from the man who reminded me of the Soul of Cinder that had cast judgement on me in particular. So I hadn't been expecting to see any of them for some time if ever again.

"Goodman Avin, a pleasure to see you again. Hmm." He was, from what I had seen, a skilled fighter. Moreover, his state allowed him to operate as a dreadfully effective frontline fighter - he could shrug off heavy wounds quickly. This might be just what I need to save these people. "It's a bit sudden, but would you help me in hunting a beast? These villagers are threatened by a treant in the nearby woods, and I intend to deal with it." The offer made the ball was in my acquaintance's court.