An Owl's Rise

'That is going to have to do.' Evelyn thought as she drained the blood out of the second capybara like beast she had caught.

She had wanted to get more but they were difficult beasts to catch and each one had given her the run around and struggled to the very end.

With their agility, awareness, healing ability, and earth affinity they were stupidly hard to catch and kill intact.

One of them had even smacked her in the face with a large rock and got away. Which was why she had given up on getting anymore materials from them.

'I already have more than enough to fulfill the mission from the first one, and I have slightly more than Melisandre wanted me to gather personally. I am tired and have other things to do then chase giant water rats around the lake and surrounding forest.'

The day was already in full swing at this point with the sun having risen over the horizon. Warming and lighting up the area.

For Evelyn this signaled that it was bedtime, and she quickly searched around for a decent place to sleep and made herself a temporary abode in a large tree hollow.

'There that should do. I will probably be safe for a good rest.'

After covering the entrance to the hollow with some branches Evelyn felt fairly safe and hoped that nothing would disturb her sleep.

Luckily, she managed to get through the day without incident and when she awoke it was already at the tail end of dawn with the last rays of light from the sun just fading out.

'Breakfast and then back to gathering.'

Heading out of the temporary home she had made; Evelyn found a nice area to cook up some more turtle meat and had herself a large meal to replenish her energy.

'Ah I have really gotten used to eating cooked food again. I do not know if the basic roasting I do makes it actually taste better, but it at least makes me feel better.'

Having filled her belly back up, Evelyn took to the sky and began flying towards the northern part of the Glowing Woods.

'There really is luminous moss all over the place.' Evelyn thought as she flew further from the lake.

She had figured that it would mostly be concentrated around that area with the higher moister in the air and ground, but the mass that gave these woods its name really was all over the place.

Of course, it was not very bright giving off illuminations similar to a nearly depleted glow stick, but it was still more than enough for Evelyn to see perfectly fine.

Within around three hours Evelyn made it to her destination what was a rocky area at the northern end of the forest.

Here the tress were a bit sparser, and it was slightly cooler and the humidity was far lesser than the rest of the woods.

'Looks like that is one of the entrances. Now I just wait until I catch one coming back or one that leaves belatedly.'

Parking herself in a tree a little way from the cave Evelyn waited for her quarry to appear.

Eventually one of the large bats with dark green nearly black fur appeared coming back to the cave, and in its mouth and feet it had some type of magically imbued fruit.

'Sorry but you I need your venom to make antidotes.' Evelyn thought as she swooped down.

The unsuspecting bat that was at the mid-tier of the fiend beast rank never saw her coming, and in an instant its neck was snapped, and its major veins and arteries were punctured.

It was dead before it even realized what happened and the fruits it had been carrying back home fell out of its limp feet and mouth.

'No, those are not really worth going after.' Evelyn thought as she watched the fruits fall.

She could tell from the amount of magical energy they were faintly giving off that they were not going to be worth much to her as she was now. So, she simply let them splatter into the ground.

With the first venom bat that was four feet long dead and limp in her talons, Evelyn returned to her nearby perch and began disassembling it while keeping watch on the cave.

'Crap!'

Unfortunately, while she was trying to take out the bat's venom gland it burst, and the necessary component she needed was now ruined.

This left her talons covered in the dark yellow liquid that was the bat's venom and with the main item she needed from it.

Sighing she stored the now mangled body of the bat into one of her storage amulets and waited for the next bat to arrive.

'Great, there have not been anymore coming this way.'

Over an hour had passed since she had spotted the first and only bat returning to this cave. and now Evelyn was starting to get frustrated.

She had ruined the first one's venom gland and now no more were showing up to allow her to redeem herself.

'I need to go into the cave to collect an ore called vendelrite anyway to make fortification potions.  Might as well see if I can find any fiend beast rank bats while I am at it.'

Flying towards the cave Evelyn kept a close eye out for any sort of threats, and when she was sure the coast was clear she flew inside.

'It smells awful!'

Nearly gagging at the pungent smell Evelyn felt like she wanted to cry with how bad it was.

Quickly she decided that she needed to do something about the smell since it was making her focus waver.

She swiftly took out one of the flowers from the soothing lily and pulled its petals apart and placed them over her nose.

This helped immensely as the flower had a pleasant scent that blocked out the smell of the bat's waste that was littered all over the cave.

Of course, this made it so she could not smell anything else, but scent was never an owl's best sense anyway, so she felt that it would be better than smelling the headache inducing stench.

'This is just another reason to learn to control my magical energy. If I had perfect control over the wind, I bet I could just blow the smell away somehow.'

With the smell problem temporarily dealt with Evelyn flew deeper into the cave, making sure to keep an eye out for the venom bats that called this place home.

'The moss even grows in here, that is a bit of a surprise. But I guess if I did not, even with as good as my eyes are I would not be able to see in the pitch-black darkness.'

Flying through the cave Evelyn kept her eyes out for the bats and the ore she was looking for.

'There is one.'

Finding another venom bat that was still hanging onto the ceiling of the cave Evelyn felt a smile creep onto her face since it was at the peak of the fiend beast rank.

However, it was injured which was why it had not left the cave and it seemed to still be sleeping to recover faster. Leaving it as the perfect target for Evelyn.