An Owl's Rise

With Evelyn held tightly in her arms, Aralee flew back down to the ground to search for their other companions.

Their opponent's final attack had been devastating, but it had not been directly aimed at any of them. He had merely used it in a bout of desperation to blow them all away.

Aralee had hardly taken much of a hit, but that was mostly likely because the man planned on retrieving and abducting her afterwards. He seemed to have some sort of obsession with obtaining a powerful beast that wielded the same type of magic as him.

'Come on. Where is everyone.' Aralee thought as she flew a few meters above the ground searching for any signs of Lucia, Rehni, or Bylur.

Eventually she saw a shift in the dirt not too far away and flew over to it. Hoping that it was one of her friends.

"I don't have much magical energy left, but I'll do what I can."

Waving her hand, Aralee created a small tornado above the area of moving soil and blew the mound away.

A few seconds later, she saw a large snout pop up out of the ground.

With a slight struggle, Lucia, still in her full wolf form, dragged herself out from the hole.

Her usually pristine white coat was marred by large patches of dirt and blood, and with a massive shake she blew most of it off.

"I'm so glad to see you. Are you okay, Lucia?" Aralee asked, a worried look on her face.

Before answering, Lucia's form began to shift and change, and she quickly went back into her more humanoid body so that it would be easier to converse and she would be less noticeable in case someone came by to investigate what had happened.

"I'll pull through. Just some minor injuries and a bit of exhaustion. But what about Evelyn? She does not seem to doing well."

Aralee glanced down at her unconscious sister in her arms. Currently she was stabilized and not moments away from death, but she had been in very rough shape before Aralee administered every powerful healing item in her possession.

"She is still not conscious, and I can't assess all the damage she's incurred. For now, though, she's breathing and doesn't seem to be getting worse. We should find the others quickly, and hopefully Bylur can give us a better assessment."

Lucia nodded her head and started carefully sniffing the air. She may not have had wings like her owl companions, but her sense of smell as a wolf was top-notch and she could locate those she was familiar with even if they were buried dozens of meters beneath the ground.

After about five minutes, they managed to find Rehni. She had not been as lucky as Evelyn, Lucia, and Aralee and ended up buried under a small mountain of rocks.

The initial impact had knocked her out, but fortunately she was still alive. A few healing and stamina restoration potions brought her back to consciousness.

Now the only one left to be located was Bylur, and the three of them began combing the area again for him.

When they finally came across him, he was not buried like the rest of them had been.

The immense blast had blown him away and he had crashed hard into a large tree several kilometers away.

He was currently in the process of using what little magical energy he had left to mend his broken wings and limbs but was struggling to do so.

"You three are godsends." Bylur said after he chugged his third healing potion.

Now that he was recovered to a point where he could move on his own, he immediately approached Evelyn and used his life magic to check the condition of her body.

Once he had finished, his lips twisted into a scowl, and it was obvious that something was wrong.

"Her body is still a bit banged up on the inside, but that is not the problem. Her soul is damaged, and I can already tell that it's beyond my ability to fix. She'll either need to put herself back together somehow, we'll need to find a healer far better than me, or commission an alchemist that can make a potent enough medicine."

Aralee, Lucia, and Rehni were distressed by this news, yet there was nothing they could do for right now. At the very least, if they kept her body healthy and administered proper treatments every day, she would not be at risk of dying for at least a little while. They had time to find a solution.

"We really should get out of here as fast as we can. A battle like the one we had will eventually attract attention now that it's over. I can assure you that the powers at be within the Usturg Federation will not ignore a disaster like this." Lucia said, looking back at the destruction to the landscape caused in the wake of their battle.

With a bit of urgency, the four of them, with Aralee still carrying Evelyn in her arms, turned in the direction of the Forest of Giants and moved as quickly as they could on a direct path.

After the commotion that they had caused, they needed somewhere to hide out. And there was no batter place that they could think of other than the Verdant Warlord's Domain.

"Does anyone else have the sense that we're forgetting something?" Rehni asked around twenty minutes into the journey.

At first the others all had blank looks on their faces, not recalling anything. All of them were here and they did not think anything important had been left behind.

Yet a few more moments of thinking jogged their memories. Nearly all at once their eyes went wide, and they said in unison, """"We forgot about Maeve!""""

The intensity of the battle had pushed the temporary companion that had been forced on them out of their minds. Maeve was still around the area somewhere in their wrecked carriage. Hopefully still alive and unconscious.