The Great Crestmaster

They were dressed in a mix between leather and plate armor, each had tower shield, a musket and a sword. They stood at attention like unbreakable spears.

The encampments at each level of the wall had canons, trebuchets, catapults and ballistas. In total the gate was manned by at least a few hundred men.

When they passed under the shadow of the gate, he noticed many portcullises lined into the roof of the wall. The gate itself was huge and allowed for hundreds of people to enter and exit easily without trouble.

If Ayemon didn't tell him that there are fifty such gates in Voryhrm then he would have assumed that this was the primary gate of the city.

The guards didn't stop the carriage from passing, in fact the gate was wide open. The carriage passed by the many, many buildings that littered the streets. The streets were all so wide twenty carriages could take the street without a problem.

What didn't surprise Aldrich was, of course, the high rise buildings and many colorful things. It was that all the buildings here were at least plastered with Ermitsal if not built with it.

The amount of wealth one had to have to do this was unimaginable for Aldrich. No wonder the guys made fun of Ado'merin. Were he to live here, he too would have made fun of it himself.

Ado'merin was like a tiny village compared to this mega city. It even smelled nice without any filth littering the streets. All the people in the streets wore respectable clothing.

"Are they preparing for war?" Aldrich asked.

"What are you talking about?" Questioned Caldera.

"The gate. The walls. They had hundreds of guards and all sorts of weapons."

"That's just the norm here. In fact, any large city has do at least this much after the age of dread. Every city has to have the walls of a fortress. Not to mention Voryhrm, one of the surviving cities that endured the attacks of Dreadlords for three hundred years and participated in the liberation war."

Aldrich could imagine the scene in his mind, where the hordes of dread charged against these walls and were broken time and time again. The citizens of the city lost all contact with the outside world but endured for three hundred years. Truly and epic for the ages to come.

"Is the heroes hall really here?" Aldrich had heard of it from Adera and ever since, he wanted to take a look on his own.

"Of course if you want to see it just go Old Voryhrm and—"

"Old Voryhrm? Aren't we in Voryhrm now?"

"Yes but this is technically the new Voryhrm. The old Voryhrm was actually the city that survived the dread age. Now it's one of the districts in the new city."

"So, the new city was built around it?"

"You can say that. But it was not planned or anything, as time went on more walls were added and it progressed into a mess. But eventually a large scale reorganization happen some sixty years ago and that's how the current Voryhrm came to be."

Looks like Caldera was very knowledgeable about the history of the city.

The carriage passed by street after street consecutively, the people walking around were all well clothed. The shops and markets were all grand and lively.

After a long while the carriage came to a stop. When they stepped out of the carriage they were faced with a huge and stylish metal gate. Beyond the gate six guards were starting at them.

When they got a clear look at them one of them darted to the magnificent mansion in the back and the rest quickly opened the gates.

Ayemon paid the carriage driver and the bag-boy took out the luggage.

"Hey wait a moment I'm not staying here, I'll see you guys later." Interjected Orven before his bag was lowered down.

The mansion door opened and a few servants and maids came running out frantically. The servants all lined up in two lines and Norge surprisingly stood with them at the forefront of the line. They bowed.

"We wish you a safe return, master!"

Aldrich followed Ayemon in silence. The servants took their luggage and the entered the mansion. However before he could go anywhere he was pulled away by a few maids.

The maids took him to a beautiful room, decorated with luxurious woodwork and carpets and paintings. The room was spacious but not too big.

The maids brought hot water and a change of clothes, they also took away his old boots. Along with the tub there was two small buckets.

They were put to the side of the tub as if they went together. They were filled with some white bricks, when he touched them he knew that they weren't bricks.

"What are those?" He asked one of the maids.

"This? The white soap is for the body, the brown is for the hair."

"I'm not sure how to use it..."

"You take it in your hand, add some water and rub it on your body.

"I see, thank you."

The maid left and Aldrich tried using the soaps, as she called them. This was the first time he had heard of such things. As he used the hair soap some of the bubbles got in his eye and it hurt viciously.

'Why didn't that made tell me about this?!'

Aldrich was angry even after he washed his eyes with water the pain hadn't subsided. After the bath he wore the clothes that the maids had prepared for him and combed his hair that admittedly looked much better now.

Aldrich looked in the mirror. His new clothes were a black trousers and vest over a white buttoned shirt. His hair had grown wildly a little from the sides, even after combining it it still had a wild air about it.

Aldrich looked at his new footwear, it was some king of light brown slippers that were soft to walk with.

Aldrich heard a knock on his door and opened it to find Norge waiting. Norge was as immaculate as ever his clothes didn't have a wrinkle and he stood straight and imposing.

He should have known that he was some kind of noble attendant. Aldrich decided to ask about it. But Norge spoke before he could.

"The master is waiting for you in the dining hall."

"Eh, fine. By the way are you his attendant?"

"I am the butler in charge of the manor's affairs. Sometimes when my master leaves for whatever reason I accompany him."

Aldrich and Norge talked as the walked and turned from one hallway to the next. The walls were decorated with candle stands and paintings.

The maids and servants were scurrying around in a hurry yet they only walked briskly.

Aldrich entered the dining hall and saw Ayemon sitting on a far chair. He was talking with a beautiful maid standing besides him. When they entered he looked at them and nodded.

"Lets have some lunch shall we? My chefs are renowned in Voryhrm let me tell you, there are actually some uneducated bastards that tried to steal them from me. Can you believe the gall of some people?"

Aldrich was nervous for a moment but when Ayemon started acting like normal he relaxed and took a seat to Ayemon's left.

The chair was as expected of this luxurious mansion. Right now luxury won't surprise him, if he found something that was not up to the standard of the rest of the mansion then he will get surprised.

The meal was served timely and very elegantly by the maids, red wine was poured in both of their cups. The rich aroma of the red wine stimulated his appetite and the grilled pork belly.

After the meal tea and honey cakes were served. Aldrich ate heartily and didn't spare anything. Ever since his attributes increased he was feeling more and more hungry, his appetite has had an explosive increase.

"So what do we do now? Should we go get that fake identity?" Aldrich asked after he was done with the food.

"No, now we wait. I'll send someone to city hall tomorrow. You don't have to do anything about that."

"Really don't they have to see my face at least? Or maybe ask some questions?"

"That sounds boring so no. What you have to think about is how you will deal with Adera."

"What do you mean? I'll just lie like you told me to not long ago."

"Yes, but that's not enough. Think on this. The fake identity we'll get you will be of a villager from some faraway northern hill. This is how everyone will know you. But she can expose that secret."

Thats true. The fake identity can only work on people who don't know who he really is, but as someone from Wakefield how will he convince Adera not to rat him out.

Besides, a fake identity was very suspicious. Even if Aldrich somehow convinced Adera to lie along with him, that alone was enough to put her on alert.

That was without even considering that Aldrich planned to hide the news of the Wakefield massacre from her.

"When will my fake identity be ready?"

"As early as tomorrow and if it was late then the day after. Then we'll register you in the ongoing semester."