An Owl's Rise

Upon being addressed Evelyn pulled her head up from her bowl and looked intently towards the woman named Lucia.

She wanted to try and feel out what her intentions were, but her face was completely neutral.

'I suppose I should be a bit courteous. She likely did save my life, and while she might still have some malicious intent, all I can do is go along with her for now.'

Evelyn having resolved herself created a thin strand of magical energy and extended it towards Lucia so they could communicate.

With a nod her host accepted the thread of magical energy and Evelyn began sending her thoughts over.

"To begin with, I would like to thank you for helping me out. I was a precarious position and had barely gotten away from my attackers. Without your help I would probably be dead. And as for my name, you may call me Evelyn."

With their introductions now finished, Lucia smiled and began asking Evelyn some questions.

"Would you explain to me what you are doing down here, and how you ended up so beat up and poisoned?" Lucia asked.

"Yes, I guess I owe you at least that much." Evelyn said while nodding her head.

She then went over that she had come to the gorge to collect materials and ended up getting involved in a massive brawl of beasts.

Yet the battle soon became even crazier when a group of humans arrived.

"And that is how I ended up falling into the river. I went unconscious afterwards, so the next thing I knew, I was here in your home."

"I see. You must be quite lucky to have gotten through that, but also very stupid to come here in the first place. This gorge is not a place for low tier awaken beasts to wander into, and the bottom of it is certainly not somewhere you should have ever ventured. You could have easily attracted far stronger than low tier tyrant rank beasts and a group of humans if you were in the wrong place." Lucia said with an exasperated sigh. "Now I know why you are here and ended up like that. If you would like to ask any questions of me, you can now."

"Um then would you mind telling me what happened after you found me?"

"Sure, that is no problem. When I came across you an alligator at the high tier of the fiend beast rank was about to eat you. But I killed it since I was out looking for ingredients for dinner. I thought about using you as well since I so rarely have the chance to eat bird meat. But you have an identification cuff from the Roost, so I brought you to my home instead to heal you and let you recover."

Hearing that her host was thinking about eating her, Evelyn shuddered.

'I guess I have the Roost to thank for me not being dead right now.' Evelyn thought as she glanced at her identification cuff.

However, this brought up a few more questions for Evelyn.

"Why does being apart of the Roost make you willing to help me? Oh, and I had a storage cuff and two rings. Where are they now?"

As Evelyn asked her first question, Lucia leaned back in her chair and her expression darkened as she remembered an unpliant memory.

"A long time ago I had a friend that was apart of the Roost. We were in a group of mixed races that you would not expect to see often. It is because of their goodwill towards me in the past that I am helping you out today. Unfortunately, they along with all my friends died when Astabala fell."

Seeing the pain on Lucia's face Evelyn felt a sort of connection.

They had both lost everything before and she was certain that they were kindred spirits that had gone through similar suffering.

But another thing she had said also caught Evelyn's attention.

She remembered reading about Astabala in the atlas that Mason had left her. It was apparently a place where beasts and humans of all types had congregated and lived freely together. It was somewhere she had contemplated going towards before she stumbled across the Roost.

But she had later learned when Melisandre showed her a more up to date map that the once proud city state had been blown off the continent, and all that remained was a crater that had become part of the ocean.

"So, you were from the free city. I do not know much about it other than that it was destroyed at some point. Would you mind telling me about it?" Evelyn asked with a curious expression.

"If you want to find out more about it, I am sure that you can easily collect information at the Roost. I do not wish to speak of it. And anyway, you should worry more about the present rather than the past. Did you not want to know where your storage items were?" Lucia said, expertly changing the subject.

And Evelyn took the bait hook line and sinker and forget about Astabala when her storage rings and cuff were brought up

"That is right. Do you have them? I had all my gathered materials and some other valuable items stored within them."

"Yes, there certainly were some rather rare items for a low tier awakened beast to have. Some of them even interested me. And as I am sure you must realize; it is hard to get storage items down here. So, I think that my keeping them should suffice as payment for saving your life." Lucia said with a smirk.