Rise of the Nightmare Crestmaster

Aldrich didn't find anything in the first two rooms so he knew it was hiding in the last remaining room. He stepped in calmly and looked in every nook and cranny but the husk was nowhere to be found.

Aldrich got back to the hallway and looked outside and an arrowhead missed him by a hair. Aldrich ducked down.

It actually went outside. The time he took looking for it in the empty rooms was enough for it to make it outside.

Aldrich thought about what he should do if he stayed here, he could hide and wait for the arrows it has to run out. If he charged after it, it would have an arrow aimed straight at the door.

Aldrich tried baiting the husk into wasting arrows but the cursed thing wasn't so easily fooled as he had imagined it to be. This husk had the patience to waste time.

Aldrich smiled despite himself, the husks were becoming harder to defeat. This only served to solidify his theory about the nightmare town changing.

Aldrich crawled down on the floor so the husk will continue to believe that he was still waiting there. Aldrich got up when he was far enough and sprinted to the opposite side of the hallway.

There he saw many broken windows but one of them faced to the back of the house. Aldrich looked down and estimated the distance. Far but doable.

Aldrich leapt off the window and landed on top of the outside wall. But what he didn't expect was that the wall started collapsing and he had to make another jump.

Aldrich rolled on the ground for a bit, coughing due to the dust and rubble. Aldrich looked around and wondered if the husk heard the collapse of the wall. After a while of looking around he guessed not.

After all the entire town was bussing with constant noise, howling and wailing. He decided to begin his counterattack.

Aldrich walked around the wall of the house and past the second corner and then stopped if he looked beyond the next corner he would see the archer keeping a close watch on the main door.

Aldrich grinned. Often time the solutions to difficult problems was not as complicated as it would first seem.

Aldrich walked slowly, carefully and sneaked behind the unsuspecting husk. By the time the husk felt something was not right it was already too late.

The green blood splattered over the ground and made a disgusting puddle. Aldrich went around looting the corpses and cleaning the house. Which has become a routine at this point.

While Aldrich was looting the last archer's body something unexpected happened. It started raining. Aldrich looked at the sky in astonishment.

The sky was just as clear and cloudless as always. But it was raining all the same. No, it wasn't. It was snowing? Something wasn't right.

It wasn't raindrops or snow that was falling it was glass shards, only they weren't real glass shards as they melted into water when they fell on anything.

Aldrich touched the water on his face, water that was glass just a moment ago. Suddenly he began hearing voices in his head. The voices were shouting, screaming and crying.

It was just like that time in the old ruin by Wakefield when the seal of Tindalor first appeared. But this time he didn't fall on his knees and lose consciousness.

Aldrich focused his mind and endured the pain tearing at his skull. Then he heard a voice in his head, it spoke very clearly.

"Hear me O'lost one. If you can hear my words then know that all is not lost, there is still hope for us. Come to the Pure chapel. There, everything will unravel."

'What was that? How?'

The voice came directly into his head. The Pure chapel? Where's that?

Suddenly an image was projected into his mind. He saw what he expected to be the chapel, a grand building surrounded by five towers rising to the sky. Statues of strange beings were seamlessly incorporated into the building.

Unlike anything in this world the chapel was unblemished, utterly pristine. It gave the impression that it was sinful to even expect it to be anything but perfect, even in this nightmarish world. what could be inside?

Then the vision moved, it was inside the chapel. But everything inside was blurred as if there was something covering his eyesight.

'Wait why did it show him the image just now when he thought about it?.... Coincidence? Impossible. This thing can read my mind?'

Aldrich quick abandoned the loot he was carrying and made his way back to the base, running all the way through. His injuries were severe so moving even one muscle hurt him like hell but right now he could careless.

If this thing could read his thoughts and inject voices and images into his mind then that was something he couldn't deal with right now.

He had Harvick's necklace of mind protection in the real world not here and wasn't sure if it would even work against something like that.

While running away he was bombarded with multiple visions. He saw a four armed giant with fire for a face or it's face was burning it was hard to tell which.

He saw huge floating rock with multiple eyes, large and small eyes protruding out of it at random. He saw a ceiling high marble pillar and a humanoid creature was strapped onto it with huge iron nails.

He saw a creepy dark passage filled with prison cells, within the cells were husks. The husks were wailing without end, from deep in the darkness a heavy thud of footsteps approached.

He saw a great mansion or was it a castle? It was huge structure manned by an army of husks. All deked in full plate armor. Their swords and armor shined in different lights from time to time.

The vision moved into the mansion, to a grand courtyard at the center there was a stone platform on which was a chained... something. He couldn't see before he heard an enraged roar.

Aldrich awakened by in the base, at some point he had collapsed on the ground unknowingly. Aldrich didn't remember arriving at the base or even how he returned.

He checked on himself and everything hurt. Clearly not much time had passed since he returned which was a good sign.

Name: Aldrich

Age: 15.5

Strength: 3+

Agility: 1+

Endurance: 2+

Vitality: 3+

Intelligence: 3+

Spirit (black): 3+

Essence: 18

Abilities: eyes of insight Lv.1

Condition: blood of ######

Aldrich Looked at his attributes panel and was glad to see the plus signs behind all the attributes. This most likely confirmed a theory he had.

The number of essence orbs he needed for every upgrade was double of the last upgrade. Right now only two of his attributes weren't at three.

Aldrich without hesitation used the orbs to upgrade endurance to three and agility to two. He had six orbs left after that and only agility was the only attribute that wasn't at level three.

Aldrich crawled to the seal of Tindalor and intended to return back to the real world. He had many things to sort out but he really didn't feel like it right now. He just wanted to have a good sleep.

———————————————————————

Aldrich looked at the familiar ceiling of his room and heard the waves as they crashed against the ship.

'Well that was a bit much for one night wasn't it?'

Aldrich returned to sleep without bothering to close the window.

The morning sun rays woke Aldrich up. He stretched and put his trousers back on. The maids brought the hot water and he bathed leisurely.

When it was time for breakfast he made his way to the special guests quarters. He was the first to arrive of his group.