Flask of Wondrous Physick

The two rode through the small forest and avoided the enemy encampment behind it. Once they passed it, Max returned to the road, passing by a certain demi human, who disguised himself as a small tree, asking for help.

"Oi! You there! Could you help us out cully?"

Which Max completely ignored, as he rode on. When he saw the bridge, which two small soldiers, a few Godrick soldiers and a mounted Kaiden Sellswords were guarding, he made a sharp turn to the left. He didn't want to fight them, as he had to preserve mana, for some enemies he might encounter later on. He then continued to ride near the edge, looking for a ruin, which could also act like a bridge. After a while, he found it and double jumped on top of it. Just when Max wanted to praise his stealth skills, four small soldiers, who were patrolling around the area saw them and went towards them. Max cursed and asked Melina:

"Looks like we got found. Do you mind giving me a hand?"

Melina looked at Max indifferently and denied his request. In response, Max just shrugged his shoulders as he didn't expect any different answer. He then pulled out his sword and accelerated Torrents speed. He held his sword pointed to the ground, like performing a heavy attack while riding Torrent in the game.

As the soldiers saw Max charge at them, they got into a defensive formation, but that didn't help much. Due to their small figures, they couldn't really touch Max with their swords, but instead two of them suffered critical damage. They screamed in pain. As Max saw the effectiveness of the attack he immediately turned around and went for another one. This time he attacked the other two, but he only managed to hit one as the other soldier jumped back. At this point the battle was basically over, however Max didn't want to risk anything as he went for a third heavy attack. He targeted the last soldier, who tried his best to avoid the sword by jumping away at the last moment, however he also soon screamed in pain. Max looked at the four of them on the ground, crying and some of them begging for mercy. A complicated expression could be seen on his face, but in was soon replaced by a cold gaze. Their pleas were useless, as Max ignored them and finished them off.

By now his armor had many blood stains on him. Max went on to loot their corpses, adding around 200 runes to his savings. In the distance a mounted Kaiden Sellsword could be seen approaching. Max panicked a little bit, because these mercenary's, can hit really hard. He quickly debated whether he should fight him while riding Torrent or on foot. In the end, he decided that he should fight him on foot, as he doesn't feel too comfortable fighting on Torrent with Melina behind him.

He took out his seal and started to charge Flame Sling. Once fully charged he threw it at the incoming enemy. However, it missed him, but instead hit the horse. Contrary to his expectation, the rider didn't fall from his horse, but instead charged even faster at him. Max began sweating heavily, seeing the incoming danger, he dodged to the left side and quickly casted Catch Flame. This time the horse was successfully caught on fire and consequently the Kaiden Sellsword fell. The horse ran away, unfortunately Max couldn't capitalize on the helplessness of the rider falling to the ground, as he was distracted for a few seconds by the burning horse. These seconds bought the rider enough time to get back on his feet.

The two of them had a small standoff, as they began circling around each other. Max charged another Flame Sling and threw it at him, but his opponent just sidestepped it easily without any problems.

It was then that Max noticed the difference in experience and strength between the mercenary and the normal Godrick soldiers he faced before. The atmosphere became really intense around them. The mercenary then powered up with his war scream and advanced towards Max. He knew that he had to kill Max quickly, before his mysterious hooded companion on the steed would join their battle. As Max was thinking about if he should summon the wolves to help him, he had no other choice but to put this idea to the side, because he saw the mercenary advance towards him. Max cast Catch Flame once the mercenary was close enough and jumped back and then began casting Flame sling immediately after. This time the fireball actually hit his opponent as he was momentarily blinded by the Catch Flame, however, the mercenary didn't even flinch as he continued with his attack. His pain resistance was on another level as his sturdiness caught Max off guard once more. Max saw the blade incoming and his only chance to ovoid this attack was to quickly quickstep to the side. So, he channeled some mana into his legs, successfully avoiding the attack, but like in the Roundtable he lost his balance and fell to the ground. The mercenary used this great opportunity to swing his sword once more, with the intention to completely kill Max.

However, this was the moment where Melina appeared behind him, and chose to intertwine in their battle. The Kaiden Sellsword didn't hear Melina approaching, because her steps didn't produce any sounds. The last thing he saw was a dagger sticking out of his chest. It penetrated his heart and with this ending his life.

Max stared in shook at the mercenary as he fell lifelessly to the ground. Melina came in front of him and extended her hand to help him up.

"Rise now, ye Tarnished."

Max gladly took her hand and thanked her. Melina nodded and got back on Torrent. After Max recovered from the shock, he collected 213 runes from the mercenary and furthermore took his curved Greatsword, the Dismounter and his helmet. Then they continued to ride towards the "bridge" where the Great Kenneth Haight could be normally found. However, he also wasn't there at the moment. It appears, that his knight hasn't gone mad yet, thought Max.

When they arrived at the graveyard, Max checked the corpse first and rejoiced as he found the silver cookbook, describing how to make sleep pots. Then he looted the other graves. He got 1 golden rune [6], three golden runes [1], one golden rune [2], two golden runes [4]. While Max was counting the runes he got, Melina on her part wondered about something suspicious. The tarnished seemed to expect to find the cookbook here. How did he know that it would definitely be here? Was it just a coincidence or perhaps something else?

Then, they made their way down and stealthily avoided attracting the attention of the lone giant and entered the third church of Marika. Once they were there, Max dismounted Torrent and noticed a site of grace, which he ignored, as he went straight for the Flask of Wondrous Physick. It was there and with it also came the Crimson Crystal Tear. Upon further inspection, Max found out that the amount of the tear is only enough for two uses. Max was satisfied and went to collect the Sacred Tear. It was actually very well hidden, but after a few minutes of searching Max managed to activate a mechanism to reveal the Sacred Tear to him.

Melina was once more dumbfounded, as she couldn't believe her eyes. She naturally knew the rarity of such a tear and was unable to believe that such an important item was hidden in such a public place. However, she couldn't continue wondering as Max gave her a Golden rune [6] and two Golden Runes [4], with the intention to turn it into strength. This amounted into 4 400 runes. Considering the amount, she advised Max that it would be better to do this in a safe place as a bigger backslash is to be expected. Therefore, they returned to the Roundtable. There Max greeted Brother Corhyn, Diallos and Master Hewg as they went to one of the chambers, downstairs besides the hall. During the strengthening process, the pain Max felt was bigger than ever before. Once it was over Max didn't want to stop as he gave Melina the rest of his Golden Runes, which is about 1400 runes. This left him with only around 400 normal runes.

Melina advised Max against undergoing the strengthening process again, as his spirit was already hurt. Max however didn't listen but urged her to do it. Melina sighed but did as she was told. Now the torture his spirit faced was even greater and Max gave his best to endure it as he grit his teeth. Afterwards, he fell unconscious and collapsed to the ground.