The owl - The owl was built as an experiment. While the construction of Clock work messengers was a normal task for Leopold, this particular version has some unusual features. First, it was an experiment in increasing the work time of the creature. The owl, lasts long on a wind up than any of Leopold other constructs. Maximilian says that the mechanism actually somehow steal energy from magical planes to help drive the clockwork. He then goes into a long and confusing explanation which has you head spinning with word such ad planar noodles, void nodule, and multiversal inertia. You come to the conclusion the method is extremely complicated, expensive and requires a lot of magical might.
The second change to this messenger, is that it had the ability to store information. As with most messenger clockwork constructs the magic of the messenger spell allow it to figure out generally where it need to go using Celestial knowledge provided by the spell, but does not encompass all locations everywhere. If the activator can visualize the location, then the messenger can go there, however, if the activator has not been there, nor is the location a well known one, the messenger would not know where the locations is. The owl had the ability to store the locations of everyplace it had ever been. The method of doing this is using a well established method of the time. Memory crystals. At one time this magic/psionic/tech method of storing information was widely used. Mostly during the Time of Shadows as people used to light fires with any fuel they could find. These crystals were safe from that destruction, The owl stored images of places it had been in the crystal, but unfortunately the crystal is missing. It was removed form the owl purposefully. Even if it was still present, the devices for reading these crystals are rare, and the only known one is in the Fortress of Light.
Given however that the owl was on a perch, there is a good possibility that if found, the crystal may contain the information needed to find Leopold other workshops, as this owl was most likely used to carry information between them…
This does lead to several hypotheses.
One, Leopold did not work alone, as he would have no need to send messages to himself. He had assistants. What happened to them?
Second, the last person in the workshop left it intentionally and had the foresight to take the crystal with them, but leave the books and owl behind, which means they must have been in a hurry.
Maximillian's Discoveries.