Keravel's Travels (Book One?)

The beginning

Numanastia: a barren wasteland with few trees and fewer villages. There were no rivers, streams, or bodies of water anywhere on the surface. The land was pockmarked with long stretches of water beds of deep black rock that had dried up many thousand cycles before. Along the sides of these trenches and gullies, ancient trees still stood; leafless, lifeless, and grey.

The inhabitants of this land are unknown, as the most powerful of the Archmages had long ago erected a giant sphere of energy around the cluster of villages. This rippling barrier kept the largest of the terrors of the land of Numanastia from reaching the villages and decimating altogether the once great population, now less than 400 people, of Lornerani.

It is in this land that our story begins. In a small hut on the outer reaches of the cluster of villages, not far from the Spire of Doom, a place that terrified all but one villager.

The Spire is said to be haunted. Rumors speak of long dead spectersa and voices of lost souls. As no one was brave enough to go near the place, these rumors held as truth and were told of in spooky stories and hushed whispers. Kids who refused to obey were oft times told that the lost souls would come for them if they didn't do their chores or get to bed on time. Of all those alive, only one person had dared venture there. A young woman: Amoar.

Amoar was, among the villagers, considered odd. As a kid she did not shudder at the old stories of the Spire. Amoar, in fact, strained forward in rapt attention to the words of the teller. As Turns passed, she began planning a trip to the Spire. On her 12th Turning she packed a small bag and snuck out of her families hut...