Rise of the Nightmare Crestmaster

"You mean to say he killed himself there?" Frank asked with a shudder.

"The day he went there for the last time he told us to leave him be, that he wanted to be buried with the lighthouse. It was after years of knowing that it would never be used again."

Aldrich pondered on these words, it was hard to know what happened exactly but at least got some new information that might aid them.

"So what about the rumors then? A man went missing." Frank asked.

"I know these as well, the rumors about lights and bats and all that, they only started half a year ago. Before then the lighthouse was not the center of any rumors at all."

Aldrich narrowed his eyes, "you're saying that something happened then, to cause all these strange incidents?"

Huzon nodded gravely, "obviously, I heard that stuff but I dismissed them all before my daughter came home and now I can't help but think that something else must have happened."

Irene did say that to her it looked like her grandfather was trying to warn her about something. Aldrich was always wary about that.

After all, the ghost did not display much hostility, it even to took the initiative to reveal it's location to Aldrich back then.

But at this rate they might never know unless the ghost talked to them itself. However, communication for a low level ghost was extremely hard.

In fact if Irene didn't have a stronger than usual spirit and a direct blood relation it might not have been able to manifest in her dreams and communicate something.

"My father was a kind soul, I know it for certain he would never hurt anyone. That's why... I want to make a shameless request from you adventurers, please take me with you!"

Huzon looked into his eyes. Aldrich closed his eyes because he already felt troublesome things approaching, he wanted refuse flatly but he didn't.

First he could see it in his eyes that he was going to follow them anyway. Second, Aldrich guessed that they may need him to talk with the ghost, besides having his son with them might calm the ghost down.

"Father, no!" Irene suddenly shouted at her father, "I should go! Grandfather talked to me even though I was so far away, I'm better for the task."

"Girl! You only just recovered, if you go now it might cause worse harm!" Huzon reprimanded.

"Huzon, you know I can't take you..." Aldrich sighed, "officially, that is. Guild rules make a point of not involving civilians."

"Involved who? I am just going to clean the dusty lighthouse when I coincidentally bumped into you adventurers."

,m "Father, you can't!" Irene interrupted.

"This matter is finished, I'm sure the adventurers wouldn't want to take a little girl with them, right?" Huzon questioned.

"Yeah..." Aldrich answered as he evaded Irene's eyes. There was nothing he could do about it, for him he would rather Huzon take the risk rather than Irene.

"So it's settled, " Aldrich declared since no one had anything more to add, "tomorrow at noon we will meet at the entrance to the marblehead lighthouse."

Back at the Yellosprings inn, Aldrich and the others had dinner and decided that the morning would be used to prepare the equipment and so forth.

Aldrich went back to his room, meditated and went to sleep, when he opened his eyes he was back in the nightmare realm.

He had made some effort to explore the Underbridge area in the last few times and managed to get his second green orb and twelve red orbs.

It was a good haul, he noticed that the area here was mainly populated by the Skinned dogs. Some of them actually go out in to the surface to hunt Husks.

Aldrich looked for Uldin, the merchant of Leng but he was gone since last time, apparently he went scavenging for goods here and there to sell to Aldrich for insane prices.

But today Aldrich wasn't going hunting nor was he going to read the journal, today he was going to bring down the superior of the armored husk in the mysterious third floor.

Aldrich used the seal of Tindalor to travel back to the base, paying two red orbs in the process. It was annoying but he could only do this since he didn't want to be killed on the way by the army of Husks or shot down by them on the rooftops.

Aldrich was armed with his black great sword which was enhanced by the Cauldron in the Fractured chapel. And he was donning his finest half plate armor, which gave the perfect contrast between defense and flexibility.

Aldrich had hopes that the superior just died up there which will make his job much easier but he also knew that life sucked and he had to fight tooth and nail to get what he wanted.

He walked over the steps of the third floor's staircase beyond what he ever did before, a new mark.

He was surprised when he reached the end of the staircase because what awaited him was not a hallway with rooms in each side but one huge stone gate.

The stone gate looked nothing like the workmanship he expected of Voros, it looked crude, as if no one bothered to even polish it after getting it here.

It had old carvings of strange letters that was Quohen, it was something else mixed with many other symbols and signs.

Aldrich nocked on the gate but there was no answer, a pity. He pushed at one side of the gate with all his might for a minute or two when the door swung open.

No one was more shocked than Aldrich at that sight, he expected it to not budge at all. He thought that he must look for other clues and go on a journey to learn how to open it after putting in endless effort.

Aldrich walked in, he would be lying if he said that he wasn't nervous and a little squeamish. The scene beyond the door surprised him too.