Griffin returned to the Potion Workshop.
The students had gone home. He walked through the dark, silent Workshop, feeling guilty and still unable to calm down.
The Skeleton King was right. Memories carried emotions, too. If old hatred could drive me mad, why couldn't an old friendship leave me with feelings?
Griffin had no intention of running away. So what could he do for his childhood friend?
He locked the door and headed for the Mushroom House.
At eight that evening, the Mushroom House was still brightly lit. Griffin found Dunbelly and asked him how prosthetic limbs were made.
"That thing would let him live like a normal person, but he can forget about fighting again." After hearing Griffin out, Dunbelly shook his head. "The materials aren't strong enough."
"Not even one?"
"Mithril conducts magic exceptionally well, but it's too soft. Steel is hard enough, but it conducts magic poorly. Other alloys are either too heavy, too light, or have both of those problems."
No matter how they improved it, they couldn't restore even half of an elite fighter's former strength.
Unless the gods returned, priests regained their powers, and a bishop used divine arts to restore their missing limbs.
"Maybe that isn't what they really want."
Dunbelly gave Griffin an idea. "They want to be whole again so they can return to the battlefield. What difference does it make whether they kill enemies with a Magic Musket or a Longsword?"
Griffin returned to the Mage Tower, deep in thought.
Word of Griffin's visit to Dunbelly reached Annan.
Strange as it was, Griffin seemed more human as a Lich than he had while alive.
As for whether the stories Griffin had told were true, false, or exaggerated... Annan didn't care, and neither did Griffin.
Griffin hadn't told them to