Chapter 834 834 The Lich’s Past (2)

Now that Marcus knew that the lich was bound to the area Marcus understood why he and his companions had been so desperate to keep him and Mrazivý from escaping.

As strong as the lich and the others were, if a truly powerful organizations like the adventurer's guild set their sights on wiping them out, they would be able to put up little resistance.

"What about the rest of you though, are all of you bound to this place?" Marcus asked.

"No, only Alyna and I are bound here. As a dread wraith Alyna is a type of ghost like you, but she is not able to freely move about. The others can leave the area if they want." The lich responded.

Nodding his head Marcus, looked at the phantom armor, skeleton champion, and zombie empress.

Of the three of them only the zombie empress Vira could pass as human. Since other than gray skin and red eyes she looked fairly normal. With the right magic items or even makeup and a set of contacts she could easily pass for human.

The others though would certainly not be welcomed in the outside world. Powerful undead were considered monsters of the most dangerous order, and Cassius the phantom armor and Soren the skeleton champion would be hunted if they left the safety of their hidden base.

Marcus only managed to get by himself since he was able to nearly perfectly disguise himself as a human. If the world at large knew he was a ghost, he would not be welcomed.

"Now we can talk about that alter. There is still much I need to tell you about what happened after I became a lich and a failed experiment." Daniel said.

"Yeah, I can gather that you managed to turn the tables on them at some point, since you are running the place now. Did you suddenly gain enough power to defeat them after becoming a lich?"

Marcus had assumed that the failure to bind Daniel properly to the magic item that was meant to control him had allowed him to finally take action with his new powers as a lich. But he was actually far from right.

"No at the time I was weakened terribly by having my soul spilt, and the transformation knocked me unconscious for several weeks. By the time I awoke again, precautions against my new form had been made. And even if that had not been, I was far from in the right mental state to fight back. Everything was still hopeless in my eyes."

After becoming a lich and deemed a failed experiment Daniel was all but forget about. The researchers on the island would still do experiments on him from time to time to try and figure out what went wrong, but they hardly needed a specialized undead operative that could only be used within the vicinity of their base.

"In those times I slipped further and further into madness, but eventually an opportunity came to me that helped me focus my mind to a new goal." Daniel said, looking towards Alyna.

She then explained that she ended up a failed experiment just like Daniel had.

Instead of trying to turn her into a lich, the goal had been to kill her with an ornate dagger that was popular with nobles at the time and have her posses it as a vengeful spirit. They could then tactically have the dagger end up in the possession of affluent individuals they wanted killed and Alyna who had become a powerful dread wraith would do the rest.

Of course in this situation they would have pretty much no control over her, but most ghosts with enough resentment to kill did not have any reason left in them to follow orders. Instead they would eild her power as more of a time bomb that they could sneak into their enemies homes.

"However, when they were in the middle of torturing me in order to break my mind and turn me into a wraith I frantically did all I could to prevent myself from going insane." Alyna said.

In a last desperate attempt she had sunk all of her skill points into a skill called madness resistance, and even when she was turned into a dread wraith she retained her sanity.

Nevertheless she had become a vengeful ghost but instead of being attached to the weapon that killed her as intended she became site bound instead.

"I was able to get away though since they simply thought they failed to turn me into a ghost. My new ethereal form allowed me to phase through walls and escape. But of course, I could not go far, and the sunlight now burned me." Alyna said with a downcast expression.

Unable to flee she instead looked for allies to fight back against those that had kidnapped and experimented on her.

"Even with the madness resistance I still felt a deep desire to get revenge on those that had killed and tortured me." Alyna said, bitterness in her voice.

Hearing his Marcus understood a bit more of the story and turned back towards the lich.

"So Alyna found you and you teamed up to take the place that had imprisoned and experimented on you down. I imagine you both rounded up the other people and managed to successfully fight back." Marcus said.

He could imagine that it would be practically impossible to contain a bunch of high level, pissed off undead if they worked together.

Yet his assumption was once again wrong.

Alyna and Daniel were never able to fully put their plan into motion.

They had been preparing for years to take out those that held them captive, making alliances among the other captives that were still sane, and preparing the best they could to strike back.

"In the end though, the organization's collapse had very little to do with us and we only managed to kill a few of the stragglers at the end."