Editing Alexander Springspell (section)

==Early life==
Dewhurst was a village in the East of Grirun, before it was destroyed during the great war, it had lush forest which turned amber during the autumn and the great mountains overlooked the village. It was private and well resourced, people were well-fed and poverty was next-to-nothing. 

His father, Harry Springspell and mother, Vidl Springspell, were both taken by the Conqueror Army in the conquest across Grirun. 

Upon the disappearance of his parents, he was escorted out of the village by the village-guard, who put him on a carriage with the other children to evacuate them out of the village.  They were taken to the Skinners Orphanage on the far West Side of Grirun, a few miles from Roktorp.

He remained at the Orphanage for 6 years, where he was raised mostly by the staff who came and went due to being volunteers. He made little friends in this time, most kids were traumatized beyond comprehension for their little brains.

Upon the age of 8, hooded men in black robes, engraved with undercommon and other unknown glowing patterns, arrived at the Orphanage. The group of 150 children who were residents at the Orphanage were brought before the hooded men. The staff ordered the children to remain still and in lines. The men handed pouches of gold coins to each of the staff members, who then turned around and left, leaving the remaining children alone with the hooded figures. The men would sit and meditate for 10 minutes before their eyes began to glow a dark-gold. They would move down the lines, each starting at one end then meeting in the middle. Pointing at each child, waiting for a moment, before moving onto the next. 2 out of 150 children were selected.

Alex, and another young boy known as Dimitri were picked and told to pack. The hooded men, who everyone referred to as ‘Collectors’, waited outside the orphanage at a black carriage. Dimitri and Alex climbed aboard the black carriage, pulled by two large black warhorses.

The boys sat in silence as they were being pulled along, the collectors seeming to communicate with hand signs to each other. After two hours, the carriage came to a stop, where the collectors handed down two sacks of food. Bread and cheese were laid out in front of the boys, along with cheap metal cutlery, and they ate. One of the collectors climbed into the carriage from the driver’s seat, dark hood overshadowing any facial features. A ringing built up in the air as a dark red energy began to emanate from his hand, which he waved in front of Dimitri, causing him to collapse, unconscious. Weariness started to overcome Alex as he went into a panic, picking the knife from the food up and ramming it into the chest of the hooded figure. Shocked by this sudden vigour, the collector fell out the door of the carriage, gasping loudly and rolling around on the floor of the wooded area they had stopped in. The other collector dismounted from the front of the carriage swiftly, with an unnatural speed, and as he approached his floored ally, Alex finally lost consciousness, falling into a deep sleep.

The boys awoke in a dark cave, the air above them beaming with the light of green fireflies; the blue flame of torches lining the walls and a strange turquois glow from hanging fungi of the ceiling of the large cavern. Large blue crystals stabbed through both the fungus and the darkness, emitting a radiant blue, enhancing the glow of the fungus. Bits of rope and structures were built around some of the clusters of crystals, which had been mined and cracked. Built into the walls of this large cavern were many structures, seeming to be houses, carved from roughly cut blue-rock bricks, criss-cross window frames sat in holes in the bricks, illuminated by the soft glow of orange flames. The structures spanned the surrounding walls of the cavern, curving around a large pit in the middle of the circular village, at each end of the village, large, rough watch towers sat, with men overlooking the village perched within them. The pit was illuminated by purple light but Alex could not see the contents the hole. Around the hole, a large metal frame was put in place to stop bypassers from falling in, even acting as a form of spectating point to view the contents of the pit. Alex and Dimitri lay at the bottom of the path leading up to the civic structures. A large magical wooden door, reinforced with metallic plate, sat behind Alex, and at the other end of the road, he could see large grand runic stairs leading up another large, detailed and engraved metal door, red runes pulsed on it every few seconds.
[[File:TheBlackTower.png|thumb|350x350px|The road to The Black Tower itself.]]