Chapter 8: The Benevolent Lich
Normally, no undead would ever accept living humans into their domain. To most undead, humans were either food or test subjects—usually both.
Among all undead creatures, only the eccentric vampires had a penchant for falling in love with their meals. Naturally, this made them rather unpopular with the rest of the undead.
After all, it was hard to accept those who wanted to marry their dinner. "I respect your tastes, my friend, but please, stay several graveyards away from me," was usually how it went.
And as for the mortals who fell for vampires, they would either become vampires themselves, or be burned at the stake as a supposed "vampire" by other humans.
On this continent, interspecies romance almost never ended well.
And if even true love went that badly, how would ordinary power dynamics fare? Most such relationships ended with liches enslaving humans, or necromancers binding liches with soul pacts.
Ambrose, however, had no such intentions. Ever since he pioneered the field of engineered skeletons, his need for human bones had plummeted. His Mimetic Soul likewise completely replaced the uncontrollable nature of real human souls. He didn't have to raise humans like lab rats.
What he really needed was money.
Normally, no sane human would ever swear fealty to a lich. But Alkhemia was in the grip of its worst economic crisis in a century. A massive wave of freefolk had fled their lords' territories after another brutal round of tax hikes. Ambrose saw his chance and decided to collect a few humans of his own.