Rise of the Nightmare Crestmaster

Aldrich threw down one of his throwing knives, the one he used to cut down Bodger to the now free bandit.

The bandit quickly lunged and grabbed the knife, at which point Aldrich stepped on his hand.

"Aghaa!"

"Look Frank, he has a weapon and he's free, can I kill him now?" Aldrich asked mockingly.

Frank frown and walked over, he unsheathed his saber and slit the man's throat open, he watched as the man went still.

But he was somber the whole time.

Aldrich felt that he acted out just now, he went a bit too far. But it was that look that annoyed him, the way Frank looked at the bandit as if he felt sorry for him.

Aldrich didn't like that. But this was not the time to fret over such things, time was of the essence. Besides so what if Frank wanted to feel sorry for the bandits? Let him be, as long as he killed them in the end.

"Guys, we found out that three demi-humans, Ravenfolk to be exact are actually behind the bandits."

The party displayed various emotions and reactions which he didn't really pay too much attention to, he just relayed the information they got until everyone settled down.

"Basically, nothing has changed, we still need to attack in an hour when all the bandits converge." Aldrich explained.

"But… demi-humans are tough, I heard that in adulthood some of them become at the peak of grade zero." Emma said.

"That's true, even if they're not tigermen or wolfmen, Ravenfolk can fly." Cole agreed.

"I can deal with the demi-human," Aldrich said.

"Are sure?" Nathan asked, "if you can't we can use this."

Nathan pulled out a small box out of his backpack, it was tightly shut and locked, after opening the lock he took out a hard ball of linen and tied with a small net of ropes.

"Some of you might have heard of it, it's called alchemical fire." Nathan said with a smug grin but no one reacted.

"Really? Well… it's commonly known as a—"

"A bomb." Cole cut Nathan off and the party went to an uproar, Aldrich had to admit that Nathan had surpassed his expectations.

"I heard these were expensive as hell, how did you get your hands on one?" Aldrich asked. It wasn't just expensive it was also not sold to just anyone.

"Well, Perks of being an acolyte of course, I snagged two at a discount heheh."

"Will it kill a demi-human for certain?" Emma asked.

"Unless it's a grade one then yes, it doesn't even have to be a direct hit, this darling will make it disappear in proper style."

"That's great, that gives us more options then, but still the first one will be dealt with by me, there's no need to use it like that but…"

"What you have something in mind?" Cole asked.

"Yeah, I think I do, but first tell me, do you have a deadly poison, Nathan?"

"I do, but if you're thinking of poisoning the bandits then forget it, the doze is not high enough and it's basically impossible to sneak it in."

"Fine, but how about some laxatives?"

"Eh, yes? I do have some on me, but you understand someone has to sneak it into the water or some food."

"That's a tall order." Helen remarked.

"Yeah, but I think Cole can do it. Isn't it about time for lunch about now?" Aldrich said.

"Eh? Me?" Cole asked back in surprise.

"Yeah, who else, you can sneak pretty well and being a halfling you have better vision than us, right?"

"Well, yeah," Cole scratched the back of his head, "I haven't really done something this big before…"

"Tell me if you don't want, we can do it another way. Think about it."

"If you can somehow do it, the fight would basically become a child's play." Aldrich said.

"A few drops of this and the effects will show in ten minutes," Nathan showed a brown bottle.

"I will do it." Cole said and took the bottle from Nathan.

"You sure? It's dangerous…" Frank asked.

"This line of work is dangerous but so be it, I don't mind a little thrill." Cole laughed.

In this moment he reminded Aldrich of Tarzin, he had that same daredevil energy about him.

"Hey, can I talk to you alone Cole?" Aldrich said.

"Yeah, sure."

Aldrich and Cole moved away from the party, and the rest looked over their equipment and cleaned up the two corpses.

"Aldrich, you don't have to worry about what happened with Frank, I thought you handled it very well. Different people have different ways of doing things, you're the leader so your word goes."

"Oh, thanks for saying that, I do admit I could have handled that better. But, that's not what I want to talk to you about."

Aldrich opened his own backpack and took out a white cloak and gave it to Cole.

"What's this? Feels nice to the touch but I assume that's not what you wanted to show me?"

"It's a cloak that can suppress your presence, it makes it so that when you wear it, your actions are more likely to be ignored. As long as you don't make any obvious mistakes grade zero beings will ignore you."

"You mean it's a wondrous item? It can make me invisible? But… I can't utilize my Ether yet."

"No, listen carefully, not invisible but harder to detect. It's not exactly a wondrous item, you don't need to supply it with Ether I already did that."

"But, this should be a grade one wondrous item how…"

"I'll explain later, for now just make use of it alright?"

"Fine, if this thing works as well as you say it does then this quest might as well be over. It's no wonder you managed to save my uncle's life."

This is why Aldrich felt that revealing the cloak to Cole was not a problem, he had a very good relationship with him and deeper connection through Tarzin.

There was another reason, he felt that Cole already possessed a natural talent for it, combined with the cloak and the results were bound to be even better.

Aldrich didn't want Cole to take this unnecessary risk without any hope or help, it was not good to put the whole party's expectations on him all of a sudden, the pressure could result in a terrible outcome.

So he decided to reveal one of his trump cards, it wasn't a big deal and it would make fighting eighteen men much easier.

After cleaning up and following the rout to the bandit's hideout they came upon a clearing of sorts, it was a makeshift 'fort' of dry wood and sticks.

They used the tall trees to hide in between the leaves and greenery, this height also allowed them to get a pretty decent look into the bandits hideout.

Which can only be called a hideous camp.

The wall was not even straight, it bent and twisted at places and in the northwestern edge it had fallen into the fort negating the point of a wall. The wall itself was not that high.

"Eww, what the hell is that?" Emma pointed at the center of the camp where a huge pig was gorging itself on shit mixed with human meat.

"It's a great boar variant, it would seem like it's their pet." Nathan analyzed.

"The smell is disgusting, how are they living in this filth and dare call themselves human?!" Frank remarked.

"They're cooking now, which is a good thing. This is really the best time we could have done this." Aldrich said.

"I disagree, the best time would have been at night, sneaking is easier in the cover of the night and most bandits would be tired." Nathan disagreed.

"Well, that's true," Aldrich nodded in acknowledgment, "these are not the most ideal circumstances but we will have to do with what we've got."

"By the way, what do you think the bandits are doing? Can I have the binoculars?" Emma asked.

Frank gave her his and explained at the same time, "most of them are frantically cleaning, probably in anticipation of the Ravenfolk demi-human."

There was one thing that they did not mention while it was in open they purposefully omitted it in their discussion. It was the large cell to the side.

The cell was more like a whole room full to the brim with filthy humans, halflings and dwarfs too, though they were in the minority. All of them looked miserable and lifeless, held in shackles nailed to the ground.

The whole cell was even dirtier than the rest of the camp.

Some of the prisoners were taken out to clean the camp and there were four bandits overseeing them. Some were sweeping and others were wiping.

"Do you have a clear shot? Isn't it too far from here?" Helen asked Aldrich.

Aldrich had the bomb in hand and was ready to throw it into the bonfire at the center of the camp, as soon as Cole returned he was going to throw it in.