Caine

Caine, also called the "Tortured One," is a the spirit of an alchemist who once lived in Skara Brae. The Avatar encounters him inUltima VII.

Description
After the mage Horance succumbed to his madness and subsequently transformed himself into a lich, the townsfolk of Skara Brae banded together in the hopes of defeating him. The local healer, Mordra, being wise in the ways of magic, deduced a spell by which they could remove the enchantment from which Horance drew his power. A potion, however, was needed for this ritual to work and Caine was charged with its creation, but by tragic circumstance Skara Brae's mayor, Forsythe, vastly misquoted Mordra's proportions for the potion's ingredients to the alchemist. The resulting mixture exploded in a fiery conflagration, consuming the whole of the island and killing all upon it.

Convinced forever afterward that it was his error which doomed the towne, Caine was beset with eternal torments of his own devising, believing himself to be continuously caught within the fires that destroyed Skara Brae. In this agonized state, the former alchemist achieved an absurd sort of enlightenment, realizing the futility of seeking answers from the questions that life and death posed. Years before the Avatar first met the doomed spirit, he would reveal this to the sage, Batlin, sparking the disturbed young man's descent into an existential nihilism which would eventually lead him into the service of the Guardian.

When the champion of virtue at last arrived to question the tormented Caine, however, the ghost refused to reveal the supposed "answers" to the questions which the Avatar sought at the request of the scholar, Alagner - demanding that the hero first redeem the city from the clutches of the lich. Tracing through the tragic missteps which lead to the original disaster, the Avatar was able to concoct the correct potion and wrest Horance from the grip of undeath, destroying his power and freeing the spirits of Skara Brae from his influence. Caine upheld his end of the bargain, and gave the hero his insights.

Even though Horance was no longer a lich, it still remained for the hero to destroy the Well of Souls which imprisoned so many of the island's dead - a feat which could only be accomplished by the sacrifice of one of the restless dead. Although the Avatar asked it of him, Caine could not bring himself to face oblivion, believing that his imagined crime required of him further suffering.

Trivia

 * Caine's real world counterpart is Ultima VII foley artist, Marc Schaefgen. Schaefgen also appears in Ultima VII Part Two as the ill-fated trapper, Fitch.