Rise of the Nightmare Crestmaster

Aldrich returned to the Yellowsprings inn for breakfast. In his hand he was carefully holding a red stone that had strange patterns written on it, it was simply too smooth.

This was the Deadman's Remnant that he got from one of the Aberrant acolytes. He crushed it. The stone disappeared somewhere inside him.

He knew that was fine, in fact it was the best place to keep it. It wouldn't be funny if someone got their hands on it.

The Deadman's Remnant wouldn't activate unless he used his Eyes of Insight on it. But that was not a nice process. The last time he did that he almost died of dehydration.

Of course the current him was vastly different, but still Aldrich would rather do that in the nightmare realm where he had multiple lives and didn't fear death.

In the real world he very much feared death.

Back the inn, his treacherous friends and teammates were eating without him. They way they were eating also told him that they didn't even think about looking for him or waiting until he came back.

"O-oh, Aldrich," Cole was the first to notice him, "buddy, where have you been? I wanted to go look for you right away but—"

Aldrich sat down, "you guys should enjoy and eat, get your energy back."

"Really? You're not mad?" Hellen asked.

"What? Mad? No way, why would I be mad at you? You're not Crestmasters so it's fine, ah, I remember how Nathan and I saved your lives… and you two can still eat so carefreely."

"Ok stop throwing shade…" Frank said.

Aldrich's eyes gleamed for a moment, this is what he really wanted, "oh, yeah, we can't forget Frank he played a role in saving the day too."

"Oh, yeah," Cole echoed, "that was nuts! How'd you do that anyway? Is the sword a wondrous item?"

Aldrich wanted to bring this up since he was curious too, but he needed to bring it up organically so that Frank doesn't feel interrogated.

"Uh, It's a saber and I don't know?" Frank looked awkward, "It must be. Right?"

"Well, you sound as if you yourself don't know." Nathan concluded.

"Uh, I thought it was just a normal saber, It means something to me but I never thought it was that… special or anything."

"Where did you get it?" Aldrich asked.

"I got it as a gift from… my mentor, you could say.

"Oh, wow that's nice, he must've been someone strong, right?" Aldrich praised, "he taught you how wield that saber, he must be a well versed Crestmaster."

"No." Frank said with certainty in his voice, "he was not a Crestmaster, he was just a woodcutter. He, he just taught me a little to survive on my own."

'He wasn't a Crestmaster? That smells like bullshit to me.' Aldrich thought.

"Oh, is that so? Then he must've been a veteran." Hellen added.

"I don't know. I just know that he was a woodcutter living alone in a shed in the woods, he took me in." 𝒇𝒓eewe𝒃𝑛𝒐𝘃𝒆𝚕.co𝘮

"It must've been hard on you." Cole comforted.

So, Frank was an orphan like him, the war did that to too many people in Vorian. It wasn't an unusual story.

However Aldrich still didn't forget that saber injured a grade one monster when Frank was just an ordinary human. That was no mean feat.

"Guys, that's enough. Focus on eating we're returning to Voryhrm tomorrow or the day after, as soon as we get our compensation from the loot. Get ready. We're not taking the ancient land bridge."

Obviously there was something more to this but Aldrich recognized that Frank didn't want to share more.

"We're not? Why?" Nathan asked.

"Uh," Aldrich didn't think about that. Yes, it must look strange to the rest since to them nothing happened.

'Well the blind priestess did say that it was find as long as I got my necklace back'

"Ah, it's nothing, I misspoke. We are going through the ancient land bridge again."

"That's more like it!" Cole fist-pumped Frank.

"Yeah, it's fast that way. I don't want my father to worry." Emma said.

"I told you it was going to be fine." Frank replied.

Aldrich left the inn and headed to Huzon's house, he needed to check up on him and… see Irene.

He didn't get the chance to since he had to meet with lord Garon and then he had to deal with Cazmer's matters. But now he had time.

****

"I'm sorry, he ended up like this…" Aldrich apologized.

"It's fine," Irene said wiping the sweat on Huzon's forehead. "He insisted on going with you guys, it's not your fault."

"Here take this," Aldrich handed her a coin pouch, "this is your grandfather's inheritance."

"What?!" Irene exclaimed, after all the pouch had four gold coins, "grandfather had this?"

Of course Aldrich added two more on his own.

"When is your brother coming?" Aldrich asked.

"I don't know, he should be on the way but the roads are not as safe as they used to be."

Irene's brother had left to live in a nearby village for one reason or another, now that Huzon was injured Irene sent a letter to him.

Huzon's injuries were healed by Nathan and his mind was soothed, he just needed time to recover and couldn't do any heavy labour. 𝙛𝔯𝒆e𝔀e𝗯𝓷𝗼𝘃e𝚕.𝒄𝗼𝗺

"Hey, I know, why don't we go to the Umbra island?" Aldrich suggested.

"The island? But, it's dangerous, there are monsters and bandits too, it's not safe." Irene said worriedly.

"Didn't you say that you were going to show me around? Besides I'm a Crestmaster now. I want to see what kind of monster dares to show up. The two scholars seem to go there regularly, it's fine."

"Oh, yea… you are a Crestmaster now…"

To get to the island all one had to do is take a small boat and go to the eastern port. The island was extremely close to Ebrict, it was basically part of it.