An Owl's Rise

After her meeting upon her return with Melisandre, Anneli, and Katrina, Evelyn returned to her room and began preparing letters to send to Bylur and Rehni.

Naturally the two of them were quite worried about Evelyn, since the last time they saw her, she was on the verge of death from far exceeding her limits.

It had already been several months since then, and other than Melisandre updating them once that Evelyn was alive, they did not know what her current status was.

In fact, Evelyn had meant to send them both messages earlier, but got caught up in evolving and rebuilding her stash of materials for alchemy.

Still, she figured better late than never, and quickly wrote practically identical letters to them and sent them off to the addresses they had listed in the letters they sent to Melisandre.

The next day she was surprised to have received responses from both of them.

Each of their letters were filled with their relief that she had survived and congratulations on her successful evolution to the awakened rank.

At the end they both expressed their desire to meet with her and actually suggested the same place and time.

'I suppose that they must be in contact with each other and agreed on this meeting together beforehand. They want me to meet them at a place called the Emerald Landing in three days.'

Leaning back on the cushion she was sitting on Evelyn thought about what to do for a few minutes.

She was not sure where this place was or whether it was safe.

Generally, the Roost was not a dangerous place, but scuffles could happen even if they rarely led to deaths, since the punishment for killing another owl outside of a sanctioned match was exile at best and execution at worst.

'I trust both of them to a degree since they have already done a lot for me, but I should check up on the place first.' Evelyn thought.

With her goal set she flew over to the records hall and found the information on the establishment.

Thankfully it was not very expensive to access documents that pertained to public spaces in the Roost, and she found out that it was a mid-class restaurant that catered to low to high tier awaken beasts for the most part.

Once she had finished researching the place Evelyn felt comfortable meeting there and returned to her room and wrote up a response to both Bylur and Rehni.

'Still, if they are wanting for us to gather at a restaurant that serves those at the awakened rank, they must have both evolved as well. I suppose I was out for several months, so they had plenty of time to find and gather what they needed to evolve.'

With the letter grasped carefully in her beak, Evelyn made her way to what was essentially the Roost's post office and sent out the correspondence.

Now everything she needed to do in relation to her acquaintances was complete and she decided to use the next few days to finally get back to brewing.

Since her evolution to the awakened rank, she had not done any serious alchemy by herself and only learned a number of new brews from Melisandre.

'It has already been a while so I should review everything first.' Evelyn thought as she stood in front of her cauldron.

Taking the notebook she wrote the instructions and ingredients for each brew in, Evelyn went over the ones she was planning on making today, and when she had them memorized got started.

A brewing stick in her mouth Evelyn got to work on making potions, pills, and poisons.

When she had been out on her own, she noticed how easily she got overrun by larger numbers and knew she was going to need a way to counter being outnumbered in the future.

This was where the poisons Melisandre had taught her how to make came into effect.

A number of them turned into a toxic gas when exposed to the air and were perfect for creating a diversion when trying to get away.

If she had already made some before her trip into the Elmot Gorge, she could have simply deployed a jar of poison behind her to get rid of her pursuers instead of having to riskily use a large explosion that knocked her unconscious.

She also made sure to prioritize making a number of powerful antidotes, as it was poison that had nearly caused her to be captured and she wanted to have fail safes in the future. Especially on the off chance she accidentally poisoned herself or any allies.

For the next three days Evelyn brewed for most of the day until she was out of magical energy and her neck hurt from the repetitive motion of stirring the brewing stick that she held in her beak.

However, despite all the time she had spent on alchemy, she was still far from having made everything that she wanted to.

But despite her wanting to continue, she had a meeting to attend that she had already agreed to.

'I have all of the items that I made personally for myself and enhanced with the water from the magic spring. Just in case any sort of battle happens, I should be prepared.' Evelyn thought as she checked through her stock of items.

Satisfied in her preparations, Evelyn left Melisandre's mansion and flew away from the center of the Roost.

The restaurant where she was to be meeting Bylur and Rehni was deeper in the Roost in a part Evelyn had never been to.

For how long she had been a part of the organization, she really spent most of her time in only a few locations and was fairly well isolated from everyone else.

Of course, this was both due to her distrustful nature and as a precaution against anyone finding out about the heavenly flame and divine item that were attached to her body and soul.

'This looks like the place.' Evelyn thought as she floated above a certain tree that had a large sign hanging from the branches denoting it as the Emerald Landing.

Scanning the area, she looked to see how the seating was done and found that there were areas set up like nests with tables on them outside, but also that the tree was hollowed out and had room to eat inside as well.

'It does not look like they are outside. They must either be inside or have not arrived yet. Though I suppose it is also possible that I might not be able to recognize them after their evolutions.' Evelyn thought while looking around.

When she was certain that she would not find them outside, she entered the building and found a couple of owls waiting to act as servers.

All of them were at the low tier of the awakened rank and one of them quickly moved to greet Evelyn.

Brushing off the pleasantries, Evelyn got right down to business and asked about Rehni and Bylur.

"Ah yes, they are already here and waiting for you. Allow me to show you to where they are." The server said.

Soon she was led deeper into the tree that served as the building for the restaurant and tucked away in one of the corners was a table that sat Bylur and Rehni who despite having evolved were still easily recognizable to Evelyn.