An Owl's Rise

'I suppose I should not have gotten my hopes up.'

Evelyn sighed now that it was clear that no one else was here. She had been really hoping to meet with any of the others and confirm that they were in good health.

"Sister, the board is here. And it looks like some of the others have been by." Aralee said excitedly, drawing Evelyn attention towards the simple message board.

It was just two fairly straight sticks with a flat piece of wood crudely tied between them.

On it were pierces of parchment that had been tacked on by whatever was on hand. With some of the parchment having fallen off and onto the floor.

'The idea was sound, but the execution was not great. Neither Aralee nor Bylur are crafters, so I guess it makes sense that their work is a bit shoddy.'

Looking up and down the very sad-looking message board Evelyn could not help but wish for something at least a bit better.

Still, before she even thought about making improvements reading the messages that had been left was the most important thing to do.

"It looks like Verrader and Rehni have been by since the last time I was here. They left details about their general locations within the maze and how they are doing." Aralee said, happily waving around the new sheets of parchment.

Evelyn made her way over and read the contents herself and was relieved that the others were doing fine.

There was also an important bit of information that Rehni had left behind.

In one of the terminals she had gotten access to their was an item that could be bought for three hundred tokens called a map enhancement. She did not have enough tokens at the time to buy it, and thus did not know exactly what it did, but the item would undoubtably help them out during their exploration of the maze.

"This is certainly good information. Now we know to save up our tokens and search for a terminal that has one of these items in it." Evelyn said.

She then turned to look at the message Verrader had left behind, but it was far less detailed than what Rehni had written.

Basically, he just said that he was fine and thanked everyone for the information they had left. Evidently when he had warped back to this floor, he had not yet procured a magic map for the maze.

Bylur had also been by and left a message updating his status within the maze. Apparently, he had found an area that was sealed a locked door he could not proceed through without some sort of key.

Once Evelyn had finished reading all of the messages that had been left behind, she wrote up her own and described how she had met up with Aralee within the maze.

"Now only Otis is unaccounted for. Though I am sure he is fine." Evelyn said after she posted her own message on the board.

Not hearing from him was a bit nerve racking since his status was completely unknown, but Evelyn had faith in him. Among them Otis was the strongest, being the only one of them at the tyrant rank.

With their goal on the first floor accomplished, Aralee headed over to the terminal in order to warp back to the second floor, but Evelyn stopped her.

"Before we go, I want to make the message board a bit more presentable and functional. At this rate it is only a matter of time until a message gets lost, or it becomes impossible to know the order in which things were posted."

Evelyn found the current state of things with the message board to be unacceptable. She could not stand to see how unorganized and ineffective it was. For the short term it would not be a problem, but it could take them several months to find each other within the maze and having an orderly message board would certainly help.

"I get what you are saying sister, but how would we go about doing so? This was the best that Bylur and I could put together on short notice."

"Yes, and I commend you for coming up with the idea and executing it. But it is best to leave things like these to professionals." Evelyn said, her head held high.

Aralee began looking at her with sparkling eyes, imagining Evelyn going out an easily creating a magnificent and easily organized message board for them to use.

Of course, Evelyn was no master craftsman either and instead suggested that they take some time to head back to the Roost and procure what they needed.

The sparkle in Aralee's eyes began to fade just as fast as it had arrived. Certainly, she and Bylur had thought about going to the Roost as well but had concluded that it was more pertinent to get the board up quickly and continue exploring the maze.

"I understand, and it think you made the right choice at the time. Now though, it will be best if we set things up properly. We already know that everyone other than Otis has found their way here, so it is only a matter of time before this message board is littered with pieces of parchment."

Evelyn, having decided on their next course of action, lead Aralee back to the Roost. Where they procured a professionally made message board along with a desk filled with parchment and metal tacks that would make it much easier to attach the messages without having to worry about them falling off.

There was also a drawer that would act as a file cabinet where old messages could be stored so that they were not mistaken for new ones.

It only took around two days to gather all of the supplies and when they returned, Evelyn and Aralee set up what looked like a well-organized home office within the crystal dome.

"Now it will be much easier for all of us to exchange information together." Evelyn said proudly.

Even Aralee, who thought that this would be a waste of time was impressed. Seeing what they had now versus the crude board she and Bylur had set up was like night and day. Looking at all of the advantages of what they had now made her realize just how poor what she and Bylur had made really was.

Quickly Evelyn took all of the pieces of parchment that had been posted on the old board and arranged them in order on the new one along with a couple of new messages explaining how to properly use the new set up.

"That ought to do it." Evelyn said happily.

"Yes, now we can get back to exploring the maze. This new message board will go to waste if we do not collect any worthwhile information to share." Aralee said, moving over to the terminal.

This time Evelyn did not stop her, though a part of her honestly did not ever want to go back into the maze after what had happened to her.

Nevertheless, it was not something she could avoid, and the light of a warp portal soon enveloped her and Aralee. Taking them back to the second floor, where the maze was waiting for them.