An Owl's Rise

After a week of absence Melisandre came back and she seemed to be quite haggard from whatever it had been she was doing.

Though when Evelyn asked her what she had been up to Melisandre just brushed it off and gave a vague explanation.

"Oh, nothing you need to worry about. Just some meeting with the other hall masters." Melisandre said while shrugging her shoulders. "More importantly, how has your practice been going? Have you been keeping at it?"

"Yes, I have been using up a large portion of my magical energy every day, but I have not made any progress or gleamed any insight. Am I perhaps doing something wrong? Is there no other way I could go about it that is better and faster?" Evelyn asked with a bit of desperation on her face.

She felt like a failure for not having made any progress, and the creeping fear that she might be abandoned for being defective was knocking in the back of her mind.

"Sorry, there is nothing else to do than to keep at it until you get it. Don't worry though, with time anyone can get the hang of it. All it takes is effort and perseverance."

Sadly, this is not what Evelyn wanted to hear, and she slumped over feeling like she would never get where she wanted.

"How long did it take you to learn?" Evelyn asked wanting at least someone to compare herself to.

At first Melisandre hesitated to answer, but she could see that Evelyn had slowly been slipping into despair and decided that it would be better to tell her than to not.

"Granted this was many years ago so I cannot give you an exact amount of time, but I remember it taking about a year." Melisandre said as she tapped on her temple and thought back to a long time ago.

"Oh, but it really can be different for everyone. It is something that us owls at the Roost practice for as long as it takes since gaining full control over your magical energy is necessary in turning your magic into spells without the need of incantations like the humans use. As long as you keep at it, I am sure one day it will just click like it does for everyone else." Melisandre said, trying to brighten Evelyn up.

'I see, it takes that long to figure it out. I suppose that my resolve was shallow thinking it was something that I could just do with a little hard work. It is as she said before; if it was easy than everyone would just do it.'

Luckily Melisandre's words had reached Evelyn and she felt a lot better now knowing that she was not a failure and that she just needed to keep at it, since even someone like Melisandre took a long time to achieve control.

Of course, this did come with another set of problems which Melisandre had been trying to avoid by not telling Evelyn exactly how long it took her. As now Evelyn had made it her goal to master control in under a year which was not something most would consider feasible.

"Now I have other things to speak to you about so let us move to lounge so that we may relax." Melisandre said as she began flying away.

Evelyn followed behind her and in around a minute they entered a large room that had tables, chairs, and cushions laid out around. And as quickly as she could Melisandre slumped over into one of the chairs in exhaustion.

Granted it was not physical exertion that had gotten to her, but mental fatigue from having to deal with so many meeting in such a short time span.

"Thank you." Melisandre said as Katrina brought her some tea.

It was almost weird to see a tear cup being carried by an owl, as Evelyn was still getting used to how human some of the things the owls did here were.

"Now in accordance with the deal that I made with Annelise I have gotten some good missions for you." Melisandre said as she took out a few blue tokens from her storage item.

Looking at them Evelyn wondered what they were and how they pertained to the missions that Melisandre was talking about.

"Normally you would have already been introduced to this system and been forced to take on some missions to earn your keep and acquire credits to live on, but I have been providing the necessities that you need. However, staying holed up in the Roost will stifle your progress, so I have arranged for some appropriate missions for you." Melisandre said as she slid the eight tokens towards Evelyn."

She then explained the mission hall where all manner of different jobs were posted. From cleaning up the areas of the Roost at the most basic and going out into the world and killing other creatures for their materials or even just revenge in some cases.

'I see, so this must be what she traded her friend for. Annelise must have some connection with this mission hall and set these aside for me.' Evelyn thought as she looked down at the tokens.

"Now you will not have to worry about doing anything to extreme, but there are a few hunting missions among these that will have you fighting other beasts." Melisandre said.

She beckoned for Evelyn to pick up one of the tokens and as she did the specifics of the mission it pertained to flooded into her mind.

It was similar as to how the Aethersphere worked, but the information was far less dense and easier to process.

"Now this is a surprise. Most get a splitting headache the first time they use one of these." Melisandre said.

She had been expecting Evelyn to wince in pain as she incurred a headache, but she was perfectly fine and showed no discomfort.

"You did obtain the contents of the mission, correct?" Melisandre asked, wondering if the token had malfunctioned.

"Yes, I did. I need to collect the core and fangs of a fiend beast called a venom bat. And the token also gave me approximate locations where I could find this beast. But I do not know the names of these places or where they are."

"Okay good, so it did work. And no need to worry about the areas, all of your missions can be completed in a single place. I made sure of that when they were gathered. I will tell you more about it later and show you a map, but for now learn the information from the rest of these tokens."

With Melisandre's promoting Evelyn let the information from all of the mission tokens flow inside her mind and she began sorting through them.

'Okay three hunting missions all of different fiend beasts, and five collection missions.'

Going through them Evelyn found that all of the collection missions pertained to basic alchemy materials, most of which she already had from the stocks Mason had left her.

Still, she figured that mentioning this would not prevent her from being sent on these missions, as Melisandre wanted her to get some valuable real-world experience.