Finding Answers: Prologue
THE LOST LANDS
The Alps of Liden stood untrodden, their towering peaks piercing the heavens, unseen by mortal eyes. Seven mountains, each rising beyond the clouds converged, their summits swallowed by an eternal storm.
No man could ascend them, for the winds were no mere tempests but a force beyond the ordinary; chaotic, unrelenting, as though guarding a secret never meant to be found. Many had tried. None had returned.
Storms tore through the sky and were as unpredictable as a raging sea. It wasn't long before the authorities declared the mountain range forbidden, marking off-limits forever. They called it: The Lost Lands.
For centuries, no one dared brave the raging tempest of The Lost Lands. That was until Luke...
Luke was a man of adventure, driven by an insatiable thirst for the unknown. A researcher, an explorer, a dreamer, with a faith so reckless it bordered on madness.
He had spent years studying ancient and modern geography, searching for patterns in the lost maps of old. It was in these maps that he discovered something extraordinary; a passage through the mountains, evidence that The Lost Lands were not always impassable.
Authorities dismissed his theories, but Luke had never needed anyone's approval. He had his unshakable determination and an unwavering belief that it was his destiny to find what lay beyond those peaks.
And so, he set out, armed with knowledge gathered over years of study, like a man who had cracked the code to an unbeatable level in a game. But no study, no map, no preparation could have truly readied him for what awaited beyond the storm.
Luke emerged on the other side, battered but victorious, stepping into a world that had been hidden for eons of time. There, nestled between the peaks, was a city untouched by time, its people thriving in oblivion to the rest of the world. Their way of life unlike anything he had ever seen.
But his discovery had come at a cost. The journey had wrecked his body, leaving him broken and near death. He would have perished on those foreign streets if not for a young woman who found him just beyond of the outskirts of the city, gathering herbs.
Her name was Mary.
She took him into her home, nursed him back to health, and in time, they fell in love. Luke, the man who had spent his life chasing the unknown, had finally found something worth staying for. They built a home together, and soon after, Mary bore him a daughter.
They named her Ruth.
For a while, Luke was content. But the call of the world he had left behind never faded. He missed his family back home, the places he once knew, the adventure that had always burned in his veins. And though he loved his wife and daughter, a part of him always felt like a visitor in a land not his own.
So, with great sorrow, he made a decision.
He would return.
Mary did not try to stop him, she had known this day would come. She only prepared him the best she could, giving him the finest healing herbs she had.
With his past experiences and a renewed sense of purpose, Luke was sure he would survive.
But there was something he did not know.
Though a man could find the realm beyond the Lost Lands, no man could leave.
The last memory Ruth had of her father was of him walking up the Alps, disappearing into the mountains. She was just seven years old. She did not understand why he had to go, only that he had promised to come back.
But he never did.
Years passed, but Ruth never stopped looking toward the mountains, her eyes always drawn to the place where she had last seen him. The stories he had told her, the places he had seen, the things he had done, all his adventures; became the very fabric of her dreams.
10 Years Later
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