Rise of the Nightmare Crestmaster

"Will it bloat like yours when I put things in it?" Aldrich had to ask, if that was the case then it was going to make taking it to battle out of the question.

"No, not at all. As I told you mine is a little special… and I might have put a little too much in it. Anyway take my word for it, if you ever face a problem with it I will reimburse you in full."

Well that didn't sound like a bad deal.

"So, how much do I have to pay to open your store's second level?"

"Two green orbs, but, since this is our first meeting I can sell it to you right now without that payment and with a very special discount."

Aldrich didn't have much expectations but he still asked, "so, how much?"

"Ten green orbs. Don't look at me, the original price was seventeen, I am giving you a great deal here."

"Whatever lets finish what we were doing with this beetle."

"Alright, now lastly we have the greedy frog potion," Uldin pointed at the frog potion, "this potion has the power to increase the amount of essence orbs that you cab get out of any creature for five minutes."

Aldrich's eyes widened, turns out these potions were too awesome, none of them was useless. The greedy frog potion was ridiculous.

"So, which one? Choose one to take home for free this one time." Uldin raised both hands into the sky dramatically.

Aldrich looked at the three potions and couldn't come to an easy conclusion, each one had a significant impact and could help out in crucial moments.

Aldrich looked at the expectant Uldin and smiled warmly, "why don't you choose for me? Choose whichever potion you think I would need the most."

Uldin stroked his white beard that looked weird to Aldrich with Uldin's blue skin.

"That's a sneaky request my new friend. Well, it's a request I'm willing to oblige."

After saying that Uldin took back all three potions in his bag and took out another potion, it was grey in color and unassuming.

Aldrich used his Eyes of Insight on it and before he could take a look at the potion's name he saw countless semi-transparent arms stretched towards him, hands flailing about. He took a step back and stopped using the Eyes of Insight.

Everything looked normal again. But Aldrich could swear he saw the source of the hands was that potion.

"This is called a Mind Calming agent. I believe you will need this one the most out of my potions for the time being."

Uldin then lowered the potion into the circular opening in the center of the clockwork beetle and there was a clicking sound as the contraption closed up on it's own, holding the flask firmly.

Aldrich took the beetle in his own hand and it crawled all over his body going under his armor and clothes it reached his back and then, mysteriously he no longer felt the beetle.

p He could feel that it was there but he didn't feel any discomfort at all as if it wasn't actually there. At the same time he could feel that he could command it to inject him with the agent with a thought.

Aldrich had a strange feeling, the reason he told Uldin to choose for him was because of Uldin's experience that dwarfed his own.

He believed that relying on those who were more experienced in certain areas was better than rushing on his own. But he did not expect that Uldin wouldn't choose any of the three.

Mind Calming agent? How was that better than the other three? Was Uldin messing with him? He really didn't know. But it was a gift so whatever.

He would be lying if he said that he wasn't concerned about the vision he just saw.

"So how much for these level one potions?"

"At least one green orb, some of them like the greedy frog potion is for one green and nintey red orbs."

"Don't tell me I have to pay the fee every time I want to buy something."

"It's just a one time payment to access the store levels."

"Alright I'm going to hunt some dogs. What will you do?"

"For the time being I will just be staying here to check up on my goodies if you want to buy something just use the seal to teleport here."

"Oh, yeah, you said the other Lost Ones laid siege to the Overseer's mansion" Aldrich stopped before leaving, "how did it go?"

Uldin mused before he replied in annoyance, "if they succeeded I would've long gone to Thelanis and Castamerphia."

Aldrich took off and went deeper into the Under-bridge area, the smell got worse, he saw many wooden shacks in terrible conditions.

There were many rusted pots and pans scattered around long wood crucifixes, the place was gloomy.

Aldrich looked at all this and didn't know what happened, he didn't see any husks here at all but people lived here so time ago, he marched on and he finally found some Skinned dogs. There were three of them.

Two were unremarkable but the last one was different, it was as tall as Aldrich and more than two meters long, most notable it had two heads and it's maw was full of a putrid-looking liquid.

Aldrich watched the group feasting on the remains of one of their own kind but he was unmoved. He decided to use this opportunity to sneak attack them.

He was far enough, he drew the string and fired on the big dog scoring a clean hit on one of it's monstrous heads. But the dog wasn't dead yet and charged at him, the dead head hanging down.

Barks drew the attention of it's three friends, looks like one was covered by a mess of barrels and wooden boxes and so he failed to notice it. Aldrich remained in place.

He nocked another arrow drew the string and waited until the big dog was close enough and fired. Without looking at the result he took off the bow and unsheathed his sword.

One of the smaller ones had already lunged at him from the side, Aldrich didn't have the time to dodge so he just punched it in the jaw causing several teeth to go flying in the air.

When it was still stunned he slit it's throat and killed the second one by using Light step to appear behind it and cut it in half. After which he staggered because he wasn't used to the skill yet.

The last one attempted to flee but Aldrich chased it down shortly after and disposed of it.

He was mildly taken back when each of the small dogs gave him four orbs, the big one gave him six. That was eighteen orbs, together with the orbs he got before meeting Uldin that was forty eight in one night.

That was good enough for today, he decided to get back to the base. Today he still had to see what this Fractured chapel was all about, the time was now.

Aldrich climbed back up and used the rooftops to travel again in relative safety, however he was suddenly hit by a powerful impact in his back causing Aldrich to lose balance while jumping from one roof to the other.

Luckily he managed to hang on to the edge of the roof, and with his strength it was easy to pull himself back up. After safely landing on the roof of the building he laid prone and checked his surroundings.

He felt his back, it was an arrow or a dart and if he wasn't wearing a half-plate armor it would have pierced through his back. Even then if he hadn't been lucky enough to grab on he would have fallen from three floors high.

Aldrich wasn't that confident in surviving that especially with his armor on. Above his head three more arrows passed by at once, so it was more than one archer or a really good one. The arrows were fast and powerful.

Aldrich waited until another batch of arrows were shot and then dashed away, he used a zigzagging pattern to make his escape.

Finally he was back to the base, he wiped off his sweat and breathed in, he was thirsty but he didn't have any water in here which might be a problem moving forward as he was spending more and more time in the nightmare realm.

Aldrich didn't wast anymore time he took his black sword instead of the regular short one and kneeled by the seal of Tindalor, he put his hand on it and focused.

Once again he felt a pull from three directions, one was back home, the second was to the Under-bridge area where Uldin was, the last was to what he assumed was the Fractured chapel.

He willed himself to follow the faint tugging and in the next moment he saw endless lights engulf him and in the next everything was over, he found himself under a red sky.

In front of him was an old trail that reminded him of the trails of Wakefield, it was old and messy with overgrown vines and thorns.