An Owl's Rise

'I mean, what are the chanced this rare defect happened and only affected me.' Evelyn thought while following Deshal back to where the lower ranking owls were setting up.

They were going to be spending a few days in this location with the other high-ranking owls before the two groups would go their separate ways.

When she got back to the expedition team she was a part of, the snowy owl was the first to fly up to her, obviously distraught.

He quickly tried extending a thread of magical energy towards Evelyn, but she sidestepped it and started heading over to her squad that was approaching.

She did not really care for the snowy owl, and rather wanted to speak with the members of her squad first.

To start their leader Adolophine created a connection between them.

"I am glad that you made it back to us. When we arrived and you were not here, it was quite disconcerting. In fact, one owl even had to be restrained since he was so caught up in trying to find you." She said while nodding her head towards the snowy owl.

Swiftly after Adolophine, the other members of her squad connected to her, and everyone started asking questions.

Seeing this as his chance the snowy owl did the same, and this time she allowed it since it would have been more of a pain to block him again.

"From what the commander of the other expedition said it seems I just got unlucky. I got caught up in some sort of rare distortion that pulled me out of the warp gate." Evelyn said to answer their questions.

Eventually their conversation began to wind down and they went out hunting for dinner as a squad.

Soon enough they had caught enough prey for their meals, and all began eating.

"Oh, you are going to be using alchemy to cook!" Adolophine said when she saw Evelyn putting her catch into her caldron.

She had never expected anyone to try cooking out in the middle of the wilds where resources were scarce, and time was precious.

However, Evelyn was already pretty used to eating her food this way now. And while she had no problem with raw food, she preferred it to be cooked.

Anyway, what she was currently making would give her a slight boost in stamina and magical energy replenishment for around next twelve hours, so she figured it was worth it since they were relatively safe anyway.

Just like that the first day of the expedition came to an end. With the watch was taken and the other owls going to sleep.

As the sun was just beginning to set the enter expedition force was awakened and began preparing to go off and explore the surrounding areas.

Right now they were located in a subtropical area that was not high in magical energy, but to the west there were areas suitable for fiend beasts and to the northeast was a place suitable for awakened rank beasts.

This is why both expeditions had started here. As the leaders of the Roost when first mapping the perimeter of the continent had figured it would be a good place for the expedition to start.

Going with her squad, Evelyn flew in a V formation with them. Having her position being at the very back of the right side.

Currently they were on the lookout for valuable magical plants and landmarks that they could mark down.

"Oh, looks like we are getting near a river. Pull up a bit high just in case any aquatic beasts get sight of us." Adolophine said through the six-way connection they had.

Doing as she said, they all raised their altitude and soon they were flying over a tributary that flowed into a much larger river.

'Wow!' Was all Evelyn could think when the main body of the river came into view.

It was by far the largest she had ever seen in person, in either of her lives. And it remained her of photos she had seen of the Amazon River.

"Careful not to fly directly over the main river. No telling what we might attract if we do that." Adolophine said while sticking close to the bank and flying through the smaller streams feeding into the river.

They continued searching the area for around another half hour when one of the members of the squad spotted something.

"I have eyes on some soothing lilies." Hawise, the owl that specialized in nature magic said.

Quickly their entire squad moved in on her location and landed in the trees near the place the soothing lilies were growing.

They had found their home in a part of the stream's bank that had collapsed and made a area where the water flow was pretty slow.

"Looks like eight of them. Let us mark down the general location on the map where we found them and catalog them as a species that grows here as well." Adolophine said, giving out her orders.

Once Osten who was in charge of the map, and Rehni who had a catalog of known magical plants began writing things down, Adolophine asked Evelyn to retrieve one of the lilies.

Yet something about this seemed off to Evelyn, and she did immediately go down.

'Shouldn't there normally be some beast guarding these. I know not all magical plants have something watching over them, but it is more common to find someone else having already staked their claim. But I do not see anything else around.' Evelyn thought.

Of course, she voiced her concerns, but Adolophine said she did not sense anything, and that it was just likely these lilies did not have a keeper or perhaps they were away at the moment.

Unable to simply disobey orders any further, Evelyn flew down towards the soothing lilies with her guard all the way up, and only after she had downed a fortification potion.

But as she got closer all of the lilies began to shift and she watched with wide eyes as coming up out of the water was a large form that had been hiding under the mud.

As it came towards Evelyn who had already been anticipating some sort of attack, she surrounded herself in a wind barrier while lowering her gravity in order to quickly fly back up.

Unfortunately, she was not quite fast enough to escape getting attacked, and a webbed foot with sharp claws protruding out hit her.

Luckily her barrier of wind and the armor she had made sure to wear protected her, and instead of being impaled by claws she was knocked upwards.

And it was a good thing she had not been cut by its claws as a viscous venom was flowing off of them.

When she managed to right herself, she saw the creature that had attacked her, and looked down in shock at what it was.

'A platypus!