An Owl's Rise

"Gah! Just wait a minute! I'm in the middle of something!" Bazo yelled in response.

With her keen hearing Evelyn picked up Bazo mumbling several expletives and general grumblings about his work being interrupted.

Lizlul heard this as well and could not help but frown. It true that they had dropped by without an appointment, but they were currently dealing with an incursion, and she had been sent here by the fortress' leader with an important mission.

For several minutes Evelyn and Lizlul waited for Bazo to finish, with only the occasional sound of glass breaking and more curses being uttered to keep them abreast of Bazo's progress.

Eventually the armored and sealed doors opened up and a foul smell along with a dubiously colored gas leaked out.

Lizlul scrunched up her face and held a hand over her face, but Evelyn was already used to things like this since she was an alchemist as well.

With only his head barely peeking out of the door, Bazo looked at Lizlul and Evelyn with a clearly annoyed expression.

The man that was this fortresses' alchemist had long brownish green hair and droopy orange eyes.

"Now, what is it that you want? I am busy making several batches of healing potions, fire resistance salves, and smoke cleansing pills. This interruption is going to put my way behind." Bazo said with an irritated tone.

"We're all busy right now, so suck it up." Lizlul said, not appreciating Bazo's attitude.

"This here is Evelyn, and she has a couple of unknown alchemical items in her possession and has made a deal to trade some samples and the recipes to us. Yulbok wants you to look them over and begin producing them as soon as possible. I've seen them in action so I can attest to their effectiveness."

After Lizlul introduced her, Evelyn nodded towards Bazo and took out a sample of both the aqueous foam and the flame-retardant salts. She could tell he was not a patient person and figured it would be best just to hand over the items before being asked.

And as she suspected, Bazo hastily reached out and yanked the two bottles away from Evelyn and began intently examining their contents. It seemed that he did not care much about the extra work that had just been thrust upon him and instead was far more interested in the unfamiliar alchemical items.

"Oh! These both are unusual. I don't think I have ever seen anything like them before." Bazo said before rushing back into his lab without paying Evelyn or Lizlul any mind.

"That idiot. He doesn't even have the recipes yet." Lizlul groaned before stomping after Bazo.

Evelyn followed behind her and curiously glanced around Bazo's alchemy lab. Since the attack on the Roost, she had not had access to a proper facility and had been relying on the portable equipment she had in her storage items whenever she created anything. It had not been too much of an issue as of yet, but sooner or later she was going to need to upgrade.

'They've got some pretty good stuff here. Maybe I can negotiate for some surplus equipment later. I'm starting to run low on bottles to store things in and my cauldron is starting to get worn down.' Evelyn thought while inspecting the items in Bazo's lab.

When she had satisfied her curiosity, she turned to see Bazo trying to wave Lizlul away as he studied the aqueous foam and flame retardant-salts she had given him.

It was not until Lizlul yanked the two containers away from Bazo that she was finally able to get his attention.

"Hey! Give those back!"

Bazo, angry that the two unfamiliar alchemical creations had been pulled away from him turned and tried to grab them back from Lizlul.

"Would you calm down for just a moment and listen. Along with the samples Evelyn had the recipes for these as well. There is no need to go through the trouble of analyzing the ingredients necessary to reverse engineering it when we already have the creator with us."

Hearing this, Bazo ceased attempting to take the aqueous foam and flame retardant-salts samples back from Lizlul. Instead, he turned towards Evelyn like a predator that had just locked onto its next target.

In a blur, he appeared in front of Evelyn and began bombarding her with questions.

"Are you really the one that came up with these? What was your process like? Could you show me that ingredient list? Oh, do you think that there might be other items that could be used to enhance them or change them in a fundamental way? Do you perhaps have any other unusual alchemical creations?"

As much as Evelyn enjoyed alchemy, she could not help but find Bazo's fervor to be too abrasive.

In order to distract him, she quickly took out the recipe list along with creation instructions for both the aqueous foam and flame-retardant salts and tossed them towards Bazo.

He excitedly grabbed the sheets of paper out of the air and Evelyn took this chance to back away.

"Hm, most of these items are easy enough to obtain. It should not be too difficult to make large qualities of both of these once I have the necessary ingredients." Bazo said, his interest having shifted to the lists Evelyn had given him.

While he was preoccupied, Evelyn and Lizlul slipped out of the lab now that their objective had been accomplished.

"Is he always like that?" Evelyn asked once they were a good distance away from Bazo.

"No, that is about as bad as he gets. When things are calm, he has more time to conduct experiments, and sleep, he is not quite as brash. But during emergencies when he has to deal with a lot of rush, orders he gets like that. I'm sure once the current crisis has passed, eh will be more palatable to interact with." Lizlul explained.

Nodding her head, Evelyn thanked Lizlul for the information and internally let out a sigh of relief. She was almost certain that she would need to speak with Bazo again if she wanted to acquire some new alchemical equipment.

Now that they had completed their main task, Lizlul brought Evelyn to the fortress' barracks and showed her the room that she would be using while she was here.

"It's not much, but it will give you a safe place to sleep. Locations where you can rest peacefully out in the Inferno Field are in low supply so I am sure you must be tired. Feel free to come and get some rest after I finish showing you around."

After showing Evelyn her room, Lizlul took her around the fortress and showed her each facility that she would have access to. Of course, there were many areas that were off-limits to her since she was only a guest and not a member of the Inferno Field Ranger.

Eventually they came to the mess hall where around two dozen tortoises were eating.

Some of them were in their normal beast forms, while others were in their humanoid forms. However, one thing that they all shared was that they turned their attention towards Evelyn the moment that she walked into the room.

'Looks like they are sizing me up.' Evelyn thought as she felt several pairs of eyes on her.

Naturally she was likewise appraising all of the tortoises here.

Some of them were hiding their magical energy so that she could not get a precise read on them, but she was certain that every single one of them was a tyrant beast. It did not appear that even a single awakened beast was stationed in this fortress, only adding another reason why Evelyn was garnering so much attention.

Thankfully no one approached and questioned why she was here. The information about the guest Lizlul had brought and Yulbok had approved of had already spread to pretty much everyone.

Nevertheless, Evelyn noticed that she was receiving plenty of pitying looks. Likely these individuals knew she had agreed to fight on the frontlines against the fire elementals and thought that she would end up getting herself killed.

'At least none of them are showing me any contempt. I don't want to deal with hat type right now.' Evelyn thought as she got some food with Lizlul.

The two of them ate in silence for a few minutes until an alarm started blaring.

Immediately the well-trained Inferno Field Rangers hastily left their food where it was and orderly exited the mess hall.

Evelyn was the only one to react belatedly and watched Lizlul rush out with her fellow Rangers and leave her alone.

Thankfully, Lizlul swiftly realized that she had left Evelyn behind and came back to explain what was going on.

"A wave of enemies is coming in this direction. And a big one at that from the type of alarm that is being used. It looks like you are going to get a chance to rackup some achievements right now."