Never Leave Your Monastery

The first book: a classic adventure about a talented but impetuous novice, Brother Jacob, who enters the realms of sword and sorcery. Thinking that he can find something more glorious than monastery life, young Brother Jacob has his brother-monks sell him to the traveling circus. Quickly finding his servitude unbearable, he manages to escape into the forbidden forest. After a hazardous introduction to real dungeoneers camping in the woods, he returns to the safety of his religious brothers, newly aware of the malevolent power: Whitehawk's kingdoms are under an evil spell, the work of the high druid, the Dire of Melancholy, enemy of all righteousness. The Friars of Whigg, a rival monastery, propose fighting the dark lord with ancient battle-magic: bring a troop of high-level wizards out from their tombs and use their devastating magic against his armies. But to invoke the power of Resurrection on the wizards of the ancient world would abuse the word of God. ​ As suspicion and fear engulf the monastery, Jacob is falsely accused of arcane summoning, and he is expelled. Joining up with a renegade band led by a brave but hot-headed amazon, he sets out into a world of sword and sorcery, a world at the brink of a new dawn of evil... But when the quest brings him into a contest of wits with the Dire of Melancholy himself, Jacob realizes that he could become the dupe by which all the world is deceived, and forfeit even his immortal soul.