One day he came to me and I realised he had now received the Dark Kiss. That was the last time I saw him.

Driven by love I have been studying the nature of the undead and sought them where they live in hope of finding a trace of him.

Dungeon Deceit is one of these places. The place is reeking with greed, lies, violence and death and liches somehow plays an important part in this.

My first encounter with one of them terrified me. As I walked down a narrow corridor, focusing on where I put my feet I felt the unnerving presence of an undead creature behind me. I recognised it as such because of previous encounters with vampires and reanimated knights. I slowly turned around to eye it, it was surrounded by an aura so thick of pure evil that it seemed to have substance.

I swallowed hard as I approached it, driven by my burning hunger for knowledge, and greeted it. The blood froze to ice in my veins as it slowly turned around and returned my greeting with a mad laugh. It started moving towards me without another word, and fastened the grip of the twisted old staff in it's hands. I had not come unprepared, and I whipped out a quarterstaff with silver coating on it's striking points and entered a stance to show that I would not let it get near without a fight. The lich didn't wince, and with all the speed and power I could muster I hit the lich over the chest. I heard bones break, and felt a sickening stench as the silver seemed to burn the lich. In a fury it now striked me with it's staff with terrifying force. I lost my staff and stumbled backwards and I immediately reached out for the Source.

That is the last I remember to this day before I came to myself bleeding heavily from a nasty cut in my head. The lich lay still before me feet.

I tell this to show that learning about these creatures is neither an easy nor safe task.

After recovering, I was still intent on gathering knowledge. Upon hearing a similar laughter farther down the corridor, I got on my trembling feet to investigate. I approached the scene carefully. The lich was on it's knees bent over a slain warrior. The warrior's helmet was removed, so much I could make out, but not what the lich was doing. I watched and waited in horror, and at last the lich straightened and left the body.

When I reached the fallen warrior, my stomach turned inside out. His eyelids rested inside his eyepits, and I could make out every detail of his skull through his flesh. The lich had sucked every drop of liquid of him. Later I have realised that this is how they give flame to their powers. They need neither that nor food and water to stay present in the realm of the living, it only feeds their magic.

After that I have spent much time watching them, studying them and even talking to some of them. Even though their words alone does not make much sense, I have drawn knowledge from it.

Every lich has chosen themself to become what they are, and not only that but it is a process that takes dedication and long time to fulfil. It is beyond my understanding how someone born human can go through with this. But then, only people with no good in them can complete the conversion successfully, in lack of a better word.

Deceit attracts people who are driven by greed for wealth and power, and people who are willing to give up their souls in return for it. Some of them aren't evil, but are fooled by false promises of power. The powers are always tainted, and some of them doesn't realise until it's too late. For them I can find it in me to feel compassion for.

For liches I feel no compassion. In spite of my friend turning undead and me still loving him for what he were and what I hope still remains as part of him, I cannot. They were all pure evil before they became what they are, and they all deserve to be driven into the Dark to suffer in loneliness until the End and beyond.

In seeing and feeling the true nature of these creatures, I have been forever marked with invisible scars on my soul. Many nights I cry myself to sleep, ashamed of being made of the same as the ones who choose to become liches. Sometimes I think I will lose my sanity from knowing.

Oh, how I wish I could change things, and yet I realise what a dangerous wish that is.