Recent content by Aldrae

Relief washed over Aldrae's frayed nerves as they finally came to the office; so much so that she nearly melted into the chair when she was invited to sit. As small and cluttered as it was, right now it offered a sanctuary against the pandemonium outside. Of course, the danger of such a thing...

Aldrae had been brought up to be polite if nothing else, mostly because a polite bookseller tended to be more successful than a rude one. Even though she was certainly not trying to sell Erren any books, she still felt she should apologize for both the embarrassingly bad slap and the unexpected...

So far, Aldrae had been keeping her terror at bay by imagining all of this like a mystery novel she'd read in a cozy corner of the bookstore on rainy nights, complete with a cup of hot tea and fresh cookies. Now it had taken a darker turn, and the instinctual part of her brain was giving the...

The college corridor twisted into a truly surreal scene around Aldrae. The ceiling and walls shrunk soundlessly into tight tunnels. The lights faded away into a conscious sort of darkness that oozed nefarious intent. It was the labyrinth from her childhood nightmares, which meant...

She agreed that the strange item more than qualified. In fact, 'unusual' struck her as an understatement. At least his answer gave her a bit of reassurance after the recent chaos. Yet as Aldrae looked around at the dark hallways with its forsaken offices, she couldn't help but feel a nervous...

Once they were back in the public section of the college, Aldrae looked again at the strip of runes on her arm. This time it was more in awe than in horror as she wondered what sort of power could disrupt all of Elbion with apparently so little effort. And how did her otherworldly experience in...

Conjuring a small hand-held light of her own, Aldrae followed behind Erren in a daze of disbelief; the daze of someone whose very boring world had been flipped sideways unexpectedly. On the one hand, the situation reminded her of the adventures of Fiona Ostara, the heroine from her favorite...

Averen and Hagan had lost precious minutes fiddling with the unexpected portal disguised as a wall, though both were eager to see what lay beyond it. By dint of its very existence, a secret door always concealed something interesting. Considering the impressive meteorological mess in the...

Aldrae had been a witness to many a professor's rambling episodes of thinking aloud and knew better than to to try to interject. Instead she focused on the drawings placed on the desk. Although the runes around her arm swirled and changed themselves on their own mysterious whim, they definitely...

The room before them struck Aldrae as the opposite of having a hidden dungeon beneath one's manor. It was astounding to think this place was even vaguely connected to the rest of the repository. Shepherded by the countless hours she'd spent reading A. Dowlor's the Secret Door series, the term...

Aldrae watched the secret door's appearance in a silent curiosity that bordered on awe. She had spent enough time at the college to understand that there were many secrets tucked away within its storied walls, but she was also certain she'd witnessed only a fraction of them. There was still a...

"Oh, erm..." she started nervously, feeling the attention aimed at her as keenly as needles. "Yes, as you've already mentioned, my name is Aldrae. I'm twenty-four... or twenty-five now? Anyway, not important. I am a research assistant for this expedition. I can read and write and cast a few...

Aldrae walked quietly behind Erren, pondering how best to explain what had happened at the artifact's epicenter. She had decided to tell him all she remembered - which didn't amount to much. If anything, she was only going to demonstrate her own ignorance. What folly for her to not realize that...

She nodded and followed him back into the depths of the repository, using her lantern to guide her uncertain feet back down the steps. She didn't doubt there was a room that would make for a good hiding place; the entire basement past the repository area was a maze of old storerooms, often...

Aldrae was more stunned by Erren's revelation than suspicious of what he said. She felt herself go pale, wondering how bad things were outside of the relatively safe, if not abnormally damp, repository. Before she could gather her wits enough to ask, he went on to explain another sinister aspect...