Private Tales A Reason for Everything

[Erren Serris]

The soft sounds of a child's laugh rang through the little house, ricocheting off of walls barren of paint or picture only to be stopped by the fogged windows from escaping out into the noisy, bustling streets of Elbion. It was cramped and cold, and the world outside these walls was hostile to him, but Elbion was Erren Serris' home. It always had been and always would be, even if those controlling it now turned up their noses at him.

At one point, he'd been revered here; Erren had been looked up to as a Maester of the College: A beacon of knowledge for all to admire and aspire to. For quite some time, Serris had been certain he'd found his calling in life, that happiness was a luxury he'd achieved at last. Questions nagged at him though, unanswered mysteries that taunted him day after day. All it took was one exposed thread to be found. and Erren pulled, unraveling the web of lies that had surrounded him for his entire life.

In doing so, he made Elbion his enemy.

Even the most well-regarded places in the world have secrets. With secrets come people who want to keep them quiet. It just so happened that said people were in a position to take away everything he'd ever worked for in his life. Well, almost everything. Some things were indeed forever.

"You're silly, Daddy."

The salt-and-pepper beard covering Erren's face moved as he grinned down at his son Zak. The boy sat cross-legged on his bed, mop of black hair handing down over his shoulders as he listened intently to the stories Erren told him of his latest adventure outside of Elbion, to the far lands of the Savannah and the trees of the Falwood.

"Oh am I? What would you have done against a bear, Zak?"

The child smugly brushed his hair out of his eyes with a grin and a gleam in his gaze. "I'd make him think I was bigger than him, duh! Use tree branches or... or big leaves!"

Zak beamed with pride, as Erren rested a hand in his son's hair. Moments with Zak were fleeting, uncommon. Serris wasn't ever allowed to stay at home for very long before being called away for work. Still, Zak was always waiting for him when he returned.

Even if it broke Erren's heart to leave him.

"I'll have to try that next time, then. When they ask me how I came up with such a great plan I'll be sure to tell them who the mastermind was. Now go clean up, Jessa will be here soon to stay with you for the rest of the week."

There were tears, complaints, and promises made that he knew he couldn't keep, but he needed to leave. Jessa would watch over him well; she was far more of a mother to the boy than he was a father. That guilt rested heavily on his heart as he pulled his hood up, ducking into the Elbion streets.

In truth, he wouldn't be wandering far on this newest assignment. The latest perceived threat to the city had been purported by the College to be not in some distant land weeks away even by carriage but within the academic bastion's very own walls. Rather than handle their own, the Foard decided to waste his time by forcing him to clean up their own messes, it seemed.

All he'd been given was a name, Aldrae. It was vaguely familiar on his tongue... Serris could have sworn he'd heard it somewhere before. Then again, having been at the College himself for much of his life, it wasn't unreasonable to think he might have heard it in passing. He dispelled the thought, and made haste back towards the looming College in the distance.

Aldrae

 

[Aldrae]

#313SKR: Dagger with ornamental hilt. Possible ritual implement or for decorative purpose. Filed in exhibit 81. The nib of the quill pen scratched across the parchment in a dull monotone broken only by brief pauses to drink from the inkwell sitting on a large desk. Its wielder - a young bespectacled woman with brown hair kept in an unruly bun - sighed from within her castle of paper.

The desk around her was piled on either side with stacks of papers and journals laid out on the oaken tabletop. Surrounding said landmark was a veritable wall of crates upon crates packed filled with various battered items nested in straw.

#314SKR: Assorted shards of pottery... the scratching resumed. It was an abrupt disturbance to the air's normally dusty stillness down here in the college's archaeological repository, and it was the only sound Aldrae had heard for hours besides the crisp rustle of paper and her own occasional outburst of thinking aloud.

She'd been cataloguing artifacts for a few days now, and her enthusiasm for the project (if it could have ever been called such) had quickly dwindled. What had at first seemed a simple task now stretched before her like an endless, banausic quagmire. Yet a job was a job, and it paid well enough to keep a roof over her head until some other errand could find her.

"I suppose someday they'll just name me the Maester of Tedious Duties," she chuckled bleakly to the antiques as she rose, walking to an enormous cabinet to file the archaeologists' notes in their proper place before depositing the artifacts on an empty shelf. Rows and rows of such shelves, some packed with objects and others yet empty, rose like perfectly-aligned hedges throughout the expansive chamber.

She plucked another item out of its crate and inspected it. This one looked quite different than the other artifacts she'd seen so far - almost like it had come from somewhere else entirely. Oddly, a very modern velvet-lined box lay within the straw. Opening this box, she found a metal disk roughly the diameter of a dinner plate, subtly eight-sided instead of round, and with some sort of runework etched around its periphery. It was light for its thickness and apparent make - not that Aldrae knew anything about metallurgy.

"What a wierd thing you are," she muttered as she set it on the desk and dipped the quill to begin logging it. She paused midway through her entry with a disgruntled expression once she realized that the notes she'd been given did not match the item in front of her. She thumbed through the rest of the journal, growing more aggravated the further she went without finding any mention of the artifact.

She groaned at the thought of searching through the remaining journals for the misplaced entry. Checking the crate again, she found that there was no writing or symbol on it denoting that it had come from the same site as the others - or any site, for that matter.

A mixed up delivery, she presumed as she reached over to take the object back to its crate.

But her hand froze mid-reach when she glimpsed something in the smooth metal surface. She blinked and did a double-take, but it had been no trick of her bored mind: trapped within the octagonal ring of runes was the simulacrum of a storm, a moving picture complete with the billowing of dark clouds and flashes of lightning. A scrying device, perhaps?

She picked up the disk to get a better look at the image. The metal was cool to the touch, but somehow lent Aldrae sensations that she couldn't explain; the smell of rain, the booming vibration of distant thunder, the caress of wind on her face. And there was something deeper still - as if the force, the presence of all storms was in the room with her.

Captivated, Aldrae couldn't look away from the object and the ring of runes that burned themselves into the back of her brain. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, as they had done one stormy day years ago. She felt the surge of power, greater than what any wizard had at their command, more than her mortal form could ever hope to contain. The blinding flash of white, the deafening rending of the very air around her.

The disk buzzed and flashed as a jolt of electricity arced through Aldrae's hand and over its surface. The image vanished from its gleaming center, replaced with a vast array of energy more felt than seen. Aldrae couldn't be sure whether it was but a splinter of a moment or some other eternity as she floated trough it all, lost in some timeless sphere before being deposited back in the dusty room like a grain of sand being cast on a beach by a wave.

Aldrae groaned as her senses gradually returned. She saw a blur of motion as the disk wobbled on the floor nearby like a coin rattling to a stop after being tossed. It was a feeling she could relate to. What truly caught her attention, however, was the ring of grey metal coiled around her left wrist, a line of runes etched along its length.

This does not bode well, she thought, yet unaware of the eruption of chaos that had caught the rest of the college by surprise.

---

Meanwhile, Maester Ghabin was hounding his hapless apprentice over a lost shipment that he had expected that very morning. Despite her assurances that she would get to the bottom of the problem at once and discipline the delivery boy for the mix-up, he seemed at his very wits' end.

"This isn't just some old mystical knick-knack!" he about wailed as he threw the statue that had been occupying the crate back into the straw. "It's potentially very dangerous in the wrong hands!"

The apprentice, Averen, ground her teeth a bit before venturing, "What is so dangerous about it that I need to 'get an expert'?"

Ghabin blinked at her as if to dispel his fury, but it didn't work. He tossed his hands up in apparent defeat and cursed at the ceiling. "I don't know, exactly, and that's what worries me!"

Averen shrugged at the mysterious response, knowing that she wasn't going to get any more out of him in this state. Nothing that he would be willing to tell a meager apprentice, anyway.

Ghabin opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped short when the lights around them flared and sputtered. The magelights, maintained by the collective power of a team of summoners, were usually extremely dependable. Something was interfering with them, though Averen had no guesses as to what it could be.

After a moment, the lights wavered and failed completely. A few exclamations and screams drifted through the open door from elsewhere in the college.

"Blast it!" Ghabin muttered in the dark chamber. Averen attempted to summon a light herself, but found somehow that the room seemed almost darker for it. "BLAST IT!" she heard Ghabin roar after a loud crack of him tripping over something. Finally, he managed to fumble with the curtains and open the window to the warm afternoon light outside. Averen blinked in horror and recoiled from the dark orb that hovered over her hand, its edges seeming to gnaw hungrily at the diffused rays of sunlight.

"Best we enlighten the others to the circumstances before this gets any worse," Ghabin said with a shake of his head as he rifled through his desk for a candle and the mundane means to light it. The old mage had always been one for contingencies. He quickly placed the candle in a holder and gave it to the apprentice. Averen didn't need to know his pointed glance to know that we actually meant her, so she rushed out of the office to the nearest mail room, through the weirdness that the college had abruptly become.

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

It was unlike anything Erren had ever experienced.

He'd finished about half of his trip to the College when he'd felt the first signs of an odd happening; the cobble beneath his feet trembling in a strange rhythmic staccato, vibrating in sharp, detached beats as though the heart of the earth was thundering nervously. The busybodies and business folk that crammed the narrow roads of the market district all darted their heads this way and that like meerkats seeking the source of the threatening rumble.

None of them had to wait long-- From the looming College an unseen wave of magic erupted, pouring from the massive stone walls and bathing every street and building in the inner-city, like lava from the mouth of a volcano.

Erren felt the energy sizzling harmlessly against his skin. Those not of magical training would feel little but a brief tingling sensation, but Serris knew better: He'd once been a Maester, among the upper echelon of the Elbion College; He knew powerful magic when he felt it. The waves that now bathed the market were inert, but the potential within those ripples was immense.

Then came the panic.

Worried murmurs turned into frightened shouts aimless accusations. The vendors and shoppers turned themselves into headless chickens, scurrying about and either securing their belongings or fleeing without them. A second rumbling began; this one not of magic, but of hundreds of feet running across the roads at once.

"P-please! Everybody, remain calm! It's inert magic, it cannot harm you!"

Erren tried to speak up over the commotion, but it was a fool's task to be heard over such raucous calamity. Swearing under his breath, he quickly tucked his hand into his coat to retrieve the Compass, clicking open the golden, circular device in his palm. It was an ingenious little device, designed to point towards the most intense source of magic within a certain vicinity.

Except this time, he opened it to find the dial askew and unturning. Serris' trained eye could see the faintly glimmering remnants of whatever surge had erupted from The College still gleaming on the surface of the tool-- Whatever it was had fried his most important implement. Scowling, he closed and pocketed it.

For once, he didn't think he was going to need that trusty indicator to guide him to his goal. Pushing through the fleeing crowd around him, he rushed towards the College with a quickened step.

---

The situation at Elbion's esteemed haven for academia was even worse than the market. Unlike most city districts, much of the College and the buildings surrounding it relied heavily on the use of magic blended with technology: Magelights and self-lighting torches, security enchantments, chilling spells for refrigeration... He'd even heard whispers that some of the more secure prisons were testing out the use of arcane bindings for prisoners. Given what Erren saw before him as he ran across the courtyard, he prayed that hadn't come to fruition yet.

Everything was disabled, anything even remotely connected to magical energy had been rendered inoperable by whatever catastrophic event had occurred somewhere within the massive structure's own walls. Teacher and student alike rushed through the hallways in a panicked, albeit slightly more organized, fashion. No doubt they were attempting to save what work they could, salvaging projects and valuables left vulnerable by the magical wipeout.

Rather than attempt to navigate a veritable sea of moving bodies, Erren opted to circle around to the staff courtyard, separated and closed off to the general public and students. While private, it was a much longer trip to the classrooms and laboratories where much of the commotion would be centered. Indeed, the westmost yard was so empty that the gardens and unoccupied benches almost called for an involuntary nap in the solace of quiet amongst the turmoil being raked across the rest of the city.

No time, unfortunately. Making a quiet promise to lay among the flowers later, Erren slipped in through the staff entrance and made his way through the narrow, snaking hallways that ran along the walls of the College to the administration office. A quick look at the directory of staff and students was all that Serris needed to find what he was looking for, praising the organizational skills of whatever poor sap had been tasked to alphabetize every name currently involved with the College.

"Here she is..." He breathed, trailing a finger along the parchment bearing her name. "Aldrae. Currently assigned to the archaeological repository."

Whoever had sent him the tip that she had something she shouldn't have certainly cut it close with the timing. Erren only hoped that this Aldrae woman truly did have some answers for him.

And that he found her before somebody else did.

The repository wasn't far, just a few... dozen... flights of stairs. It wasn't far from Veliata's laboratory, and it wouldn't have shocked him if whatever had caused this arcane outage held its origins in that hidden section of the school. Quickly departing the office, Erren flew down the stairwells as swiftly as he could.

Aldrae

 

[Aldrae]

There had always been stories - primarily amongst the college's student body and a handful of local drunks - about a group of mages of great power and ill intent, all bent on controlling Elbion's destiny from behind closed doors and dark curtains. Though most considered this talk of a secret society an intriguing but implausible conspiracy theory, the talk of a shadow council swiftly re-emerged when the magic throughout the college, and even into the city beyond, went haywire.

The few who could confirm any existence of a secret society were meeting at that moment in room 7a.

It had taken Averen a bit more time than usual to send a message off campus, and things were nearly settling by the time she slunk out of the campus's main mail room. The office itself was actually a highly complex system of couriers, magical implements and sending stones, all of which were still in such disarray that she couldn't be entirely sure if the council's message had gotten out at all. The second message she was to deliver was best done in person anyways.

Averen slipped into a wing of older classrooms that were still being rebuilt after a fire blasted through part of the building almost a year ago. Normally she'd be off assisting the maester with his research or teaching the younger students, but she was confident that Ghabin wouldn't miss her presence with this magical anomaly at large. Tucked across a tiny courtyard well away from the libraries, the laboratories and all of the college's points of interest, the building was quiet despite the surrounding chaos. Parts of the old bricks were still blackened by the touch of the blaze and the hallways were littered with bricks, wood planks and unfinished decor; the perfect place to hide in plain sight.

She'd had the foresight to trade her flickering candle out for an oil lamp. It was a welcome glow in this dark wing made even more abysmal by the lack of functional magelights. Her steps were heavy along the stone floor, but sure in their direction. She stepped over a line of rope cordoning off one hallway and made her way to a new door with no handle - only a plaque on its front with the number 7a.

The apprentice leisurely drew invisible swirls and patterns along the carved decorative troughs of the door and waited for its enchantment to respond to the sigil she'd made. Nothing happened, and a long moment she wondered if the anomaly had possibly disrupted the magic to open the door. After an uncomfortable silence, the door finally shifted and slid sideways to reveal a very renovated lounge beyond.

"As much as it entertains me to watch you fidget out there I've been told to expect you, so come in already," a familiar voice called to her in annoyance.

"I assume by that smug grin on your face that you have some inside knowledge about that mess outside.."

Averen's grin only widened more at the sarcastic comment aimed at her by her rival, a brilliantly maniacal young man named Hagan. "I believe I just might."

---

It took Aldrae a few minutes to understand why the room was so blurry and suddenly damp as she rose back to her feet, studying the strange metal band around her arm. The stone floor felt slick beneath her feet. Her glasses were all fogged up too; wiping them down with her shirt only smudged the water droplets around. Squinting into the obscured chamber, she realized that the entire basement was filled with a heavy fog, smearing the lamplight into a dull haze. The very air was still electric with magical energy.

She was apprehensive of touching the disc after her strange experience the first time, but she quickly realized after a few tugs on the band of runes that it was not slipping off so easily. It almost felt like it was connected directly to her skin.

This relic belonged to somebody, and thus somebody had to know how to fix it. There was not much she could do for the remaining artifacts without having a hydromancer remove the deteriorating influence of all this water. Alas for the journals!

With a sigh, she picked the disc up and tried to study it, though she couldn't make out anything in this patch of fog. She slowly found her way to the repository's heavy door and pulled it open to allow the cloud to escape. It was pitch black in the stairway beyond the doorway. Odd... she could have sworn the hallway was lit when she came down here.

She took up the oil lamp that had been on her desk to light her way up the stairs. A soft flutter echoed down the old corridor. It could have been one of Maester Garrenoth's homunculi assistants, or those pesky bats settling in the rafters again. Or, she joked to herself, one of said maester's horrific experiments had escaped the veritable fortress of protection spells that encased his entire laboratory.

She could personally attest that it was far more likely to have a storm in the basement.

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

At the very least, the cacophonous panic that had spread across the College seemed to slowly fizzle out around Erren as he made his way through the dreadfully dim halls and mazelike corridors. Serris doubted such peace would be found in the city itself, however; bringing any matter of order to the frightened and confused masses below would be a massive exercise in damage control, one that he thanked whatever Gods sat above him didn't fall on his shoulders.

He had enough on his plate tracking down the source of this enormous surge of magic, and though he had a name and a location, there was nothing to stop this 'Aldrae' from moving about the College, unless whatever she'd done to trigger this event had incapacitated her. Erren needed to be quick, which was difficult for a multitude of reasons.

Not the least of which was the aforementioned lack of magic; The College was notoriously labyrinthine, and had enacted the use of a navigational enchantment to counteract this: Normally, one could merely brush their hand along a wall within the corridors and see colored lines directing them to different destinations. It was a minor bit of illusion trickery, but it saved a lot of headaches. Without that enchantment, Serris had to rely on his memory of the layout, and that was about as fuzzy and dim as most of the school was without the mage lights to brighten his path.

That brought him to the second problem: The Repository was underground. When Erren had finally reached the winding staircase to the lower levels of the College, they were as black as a moonless night, with not even the dim glow of day to illuminate the way. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so concerned about Aldrae leaving, Erren himself would have struggled to find his way up out of this dark prison.

Standing atop the stairs, he let out a low sigh. "I certainly hope the lass has an explanation for this..." For her own good, he thought. Dealing with him was a far better alternative than being placed before the Foard and picked apart like a common criminal. Raising a hand, Serris snapped his fingers and a dim light glowed from the tip of his index. It wasn't much, but it allowed him sight enough to safely begin his descent. At least, until a billowing cloud of fog began to rise up around halfway down the second flight.

"What in the blazes...?" Erren muttered under his breath, his brow furrowing. It was as though the building itself wished to expel him from its depths, keeping hidden the source of its malady. The mage paused mid-step and quietly weighed his options. Perhaps it was time to put his particular area of expertise to good work. Extinguishing the light from his finger, he instead outstretched his arms to flatten his palms against the walls.

After a brief moment, a bright crackle of energy spread across the walls, and the mage lights suddenly flared back to life. At least, those in these lower passages. Restoring all of the arcane power that had been lost was far beyond Erren's ability. In reality, he hadn't done much to accomplish this much, he'd merely tilted the odds a bit.

Nevertheless, with the lower levels re-lit, Erren was able to descend into the fog unabated. The deeper he traveled, the thicker the air became. It felt similar to walking outside just before a storm came, that telltale pressure that rested on the hairs on the back of your neck. He'd nearly reached the repository before he saw a figure in the fog, a silhouette of what seemed a woman climbing up and out of the thickness that he delved into.

Stopping in his tracks, Erren raised a hand, ready to protect himself on the off-chance this turned sideways.

"Halt!" He called out, "State your name!"

Aldrae

 

[Aldrae]

Aldrae blinked at the intrusion of the bright magelights into the dim ambience of her lamp. She felt a sense of relief that the lighting had returned - relief that quickly scattered when an unexpected voice called out from above her, making her jump in fright. She hadn't been expecting anyone in this seldom-used stairway, and certainly not someone issuing commands. Did something happen outside of the repository?

"Aldrae Rilgatore. Maester Garrenoth hired me to catalogue some artifacts," she explained uncertainly, assuming that the questioner thought she shouldn't be down here. She glanced at the disc in her hand, gleaming in the dispersed glow cast by the magelights in the mist, and considered that it looked exactly like she was making off with an artifact - and leaving the repository in shambles in the process.

"This particular artifact had an unexpected problem."

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

Aldrae Rilgatore, in the flesh.

Perhaps when he'd been informed that someone within the College was in possession of a dangerous artifact that could jeopardize the entirety of Elbion's infrastructure, he pictured someone less demure and unassuming. This young woman couldn't have been much older than twenty, and If she hadn't announced herself as he'd requested, he'd be hard-pressed not to mistake her for a student, hiding in the bowels of the repository from the chaos above.

"Unexpected is certainly one way to describe it, Miss Rilgatore." Serris felt his brow creasing in bemusement, his gaze finishing its appraisal of Aldrae herself, and sliding down to the disk clutched in her hand, shimmering in the magelight, seeming to reflect it back even brighter. "Just shy of apocalyptic might be a more apropos describer, though."

Erren descended the stairs until he was in front of Aldrae, and he fought the rolling of his eyes at the mention of Garrenoth's name. Of course, the Maester was assigning wayward student-age youths to do work that he ought to be doing himself. The man had never shied away from taking a shortcut in his ascension to the position he now held. Now, he'd put an innocent woman in jeopardy as well.

Holding out his hand, he gestured for her to give him the disk.

"My name is Erren Serris. I am the Head of Disaster Investigation and Artifact retrieval. I must implore you hand me the disk before it shuts down the rest of the damned city with another one of those pulses."

After a likely moment of hesitation, Erren looks over his shoulder, and then back to her.

"Look... If anybody else sees you with that thing, it's going to be bad news for you. Garrenoth has his share of enemies, and they find out some woman he's employed is the one who activated this artifact? They're going to use you like a tool in a game of politics."

His words were a means to an end, but they weren't untrue, either. Erren had little doubt they would have company in a matter of minutes.

"Let me help you, Aldrae."

Aldrae

 

[Aldrae]

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 of this strange object that she hadn't even begun to consider.

"Me? But-" she stammered, but quickly realized by the way he was glancing over his shoulder that this was not the best place to be holding this conversation.

"Yes, of course," she capitulated, handing over the disk. Even now she could feel the energy building up around it, though there was no telling when or if it would do something again. "Although shutting it down may prove to be a bit of a challenge..."

Sheepishly, she showed him the band of runes locked around her wrist.

Distant voices echoed from above. Aldrae couldn't tell if the speakers were coming down the stairs or merely on the floor above, but she didn't want to wait here to see if Erren's prediction was about to come true.

"Is there a better place for us to work on this problem? We could use the repository, but I'm afraid a bit of... weather has blown in down here."

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

Erren quickly, but carefully took the disc from her, turning it over in his hand and examining its glimmering surface with a thoughtful him, then taking the briefest glance at the runes seemingly stuck in place around her wrist. There would be time to examine both of these things later when they weren't in such a compromising position.

Voices were being carried down the stairway, and as far as Serris was concerned the only people who would be willing to come this far down under the circumstances were seeking the very thing Aldrae had just given him. Turning his head towards the sounds tumbling down the steps, he raises his hand and snaps his fingers, extinguishing the magelights once again, and causing the voices above to become startled shouts.

A delay, but little more. They needed to move somewhere safer, and quickly.

"Back into the repository. There's a place within where they won't find us." He turned back igniting a finger for light and ushering her back towards the stormy depths she'd emerged from. "Hurry now, before they hear us."

In truth, it wouldn't matter if whoever was descending saw Erren; He was only doing his job, after all. No, it was Aldrae he was concerned about. This young lady's life could not be irreparably damaged because of a Maester's laziness. Serris simply wouldn't allow it.

Aldrae

 

[Aldrae]

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 filled with forgotten and abandoned projects. Aldrae wasn't altogether sure how far the passages even went. She hadn't found the downtime to explore around, though she'd planned on it.

Pulling the door closed behind them, she wondered how much more trouble this artifact would cause. The cloud from before had dissipated, leaving the basement cool and humid. The entire level smelled of damp paper and wood, a reminder of the damage done here. Aldrae frowned at the thought. If Erren was right, and she received the blame for whatever destruction was wrought by this busted artifact, she might never get another job in Elbion. Then how would she even begin to pay for all of this?

"Tell me, what happened out there?" she asked in a low voice once they were away from the door, hoping that he could disarm her vivid imaginings of the town in ruins.

---

Averen cursed when the magelights along the stairway winked out unexpectedly. Of course, she was tracking down an object that made every damn thing in the college go on the fritz. It hadn't been easy sneaking through the campus with all the maesters trying to wrangle students and projects and irritated townsfolk, and the lights still weren't working right.

"That's inconvenient." Hagan's voice sounded almost amused from beside her. Tentatively, Averen called upon an orb of light and was relieved when it actually appeared as a bright mote this time instead of a ball of devouring darkness.

"At least our magic seems to be working properly again," she commented before turning her thoughts back to the task at hand.

"What makes you think this artifact is down here?"

Hagan had summoned a light of his own and was continuing down the steps at a measured pace, explaining in a bored tone, "You said that Ghabin had a shipment switched? That he had received some sort of statue instead of this object? Sounds like those old dusty artifact the archaeologists like to dig up. They send those here, normally. I'd wager if Ghabin got a statue, then the repository has his box."

That made sense. Unfortunately, Hagan often made sense, and he was unbearably arrogant about it.

He stopped at the door, his gaze shifting down to his feet. Averen saw what he was looking at, too: wet footprints.

"Someone's been here recently," she noted.

"Several someones," he corrected her, pointing out a larger partial print. He looked back at the door with a curious grin. "Hmm... I wonder if anyone's still home."

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

"Funny, I was coming down here to ask you the same thing about... all this." Erren gestured towards the flooded floor as he waded through the nearly ankle-high water that now rested stagnant in the entryway of the repository. Still, Serris didn't seem angry with her, more baffled by how one girl with the wrong artifact had accomplished such a chaotic effect.

Leading her down one of the many labyrinthine hallways, lined with tagged artifacts of all shapes and sizes, he finally answers her question. "The disc sent out a pulse of powerful magic. I can't say for certain the nature of it, but..." Serris paused, biting his bottom lip as he led her around a corner. "It was old magic, and mostly inert. Still, that even an inert blast of energy from that thing could neutralize every magical source from here to the Market District... I'd hate to see what it does when it's fully activated."

And he hated to think of who would want to use such a massive amount of power. Elbion was a respectable city, but no city was without its darker side, a fact Erren knew far too well. At the end of a particularly long hallway lined with narrow, dusty windows that looked only towards a windowless wall a few feet away, Erren turned off and through a heavy wooden door whose hinges screamed like a dying animal as it grated open, revealing a short, dimly-lit staircase leading even further down into a long, dusty and dim hall almost entirely devoid of light except for a single sputtering torch partway down one side that looked as if it would soon join its numerous neighbors in being completely burned out.

A visible layer of unbroken dust covered the marbled floor beneath them. Cobwebs hung so thickly in the air that it was almost like walking through smoke, and the Mage waved a hand in front of him to dispel some of them as he continued forward, the lone torch flickering in the wake of his passage as she stepped past the weathered old doors that lined either side of the hallway at regular intervals.

"There used to be an entire wing of offices down here, for the more niche positions. Believe it or not, we used to actually have a team for the repository, not just a Maester who peddles it onto anybody he can find." Erren did make his best effort to avoid letting the distaste in his voice show, but the sound of a door echoing behind them caused his head to turn, a swear finding his lips. "Come, we're nearly there."

Aldrae

 

[Aldrae]

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 something in a strange box was probably in it for good reason!

She turned her attention back to the hallways around them when Erren mentioned their previous use.

Believe it or not, we used to actually have a team for the repository, not just a Maester who peddles it onto anybody he can find."

"I'd like to think I'm not just anybody," she retorted, slightly on the defensive. "I've completed many different tasks, for Garrenoth and other Maesters, in many different disciplines. And I did study here..." she trailed off, losing her steam when she considered the end of that particular story.

She cleared her throat and decided to change the subject. "Anyways, I imagine the original team must have grown quite bored down here." She could attest that sorting artifacts was about the dullest work she'd ever done.

Looking out at the silent, unadorned walls spreading out from the light of torch and lamp into the surrounding dark, she momentarily felt a thrill of exploration. It struck her more like a lavishly-built dungeon than offices; just her imagination twisting reality into something more fantastical again, she mused. It was almost amazing that her mind could play such silly games when there was a very serious problem right in front of her.

Her breath caught in her throat as the distant creak of a door caught her attention as well. That was not her imagination.

"Come, we're nearly there."

"Right," she replied at almost a whisper, her previous curiosity about their destination now tempered with a more pressing dread of being pursued.

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

Erren stopped at the very end of the hallway, facing a stone brick wall. The dust on the walls and floor lay thick here, almost entirely obscuring what it covered, and matters were not aided by the near-total darkness; the dim light filtering down the hallway from the dying torch and the door at the top of the stairs was scarcely visible this far in. "I apologize, Miss Rilgatore." He offered gently as he reached out to wipe some of the dust from the old stone bricks. "It wasn't my intent to make you sound unqualified or to belittle your work. It's... been a long day so far."

His apology was momentarily interrupted by a cough, as he waved a hand in front of his face to further disperse the dust, muttering a curse under his breath. Shaking his head, he reached into his coat and withdrew a small, perfectly round disc crafted from solid silver and bordered by a thin band of pure gold, engraved with curiously angular patterns of interlocking runes that collectively formed a labyrinthine pattern around the disc.

A pattern that looked markedly similar to that of bricks on a stone wall ...

Erren lightly tapped the disc with one of his fingers, letting out a pure, crystalline ringing that echoed through the dusty old hall with incongruously brilliant clarity. A second time she tapped it, and as the chime sounded, a faint blue light began to gleam along the runes set into the disc, illuminating the darkness with a faint, unearthly glow.

"We should have some time..." He quietly mumbled, seeking to somewhat assuage her worry. "Whoever has followed us, I doubt they know of this chamber."

The silver disc gradually began to rotate within its golden ring; and as it did so, the wall in front of them slowly began to do so as well, matching the motion one for one. Nary a sound beyond the tolling rings but a faint grinding of polished stone against itself was audible as the dust-covered wall slowly spun into the ground, with bricks polished clean by their long immersion circling up to take the wall's place.

"The repository team weren't the only ones who used to work down here." Erren smiled back at Aldrae, knowingly. "But since you're having such an interesting day, I figure telling you a few more secrets won't hurt us."

After a long moment, the silver disc finally clicked to a halt, The wall itself, likewise, ground to a stop. Where once there had been but dusty stone bricks ahead, there now was a wall of polished stone, in whose center stood a silver-bound door of finest aged mahogany. Curiously, the door had no handle, but rather a single circular depression set into the center precisely the size of the disc that Erren now held.

Without hesitation, he stepped forward, pressing the disc into the depression, and at once the door swung soundlessly inwards with nary a squeak of its still-untarnished hinges, beams of genuine sunlight streaming through onto the dust-strewn floor beyond.

"You think that disc of yours is a tricky tool, wait until you see what they keep in here..."

Aldrae

 

[Aldrae]

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 taste of the extraordinary to this that appealed to her child-like wonder, and she tried not to gape as she stepped inside behind Erren.

From Erren's comment, she expected something exotic to be behind the door. A dragon's lair, an ancient library of forbidden tomes; - perhaps an arsenal of deadly weapons.

She held a breath as she followed him into the chamber behind.

Erren Serris

 

[Erren Serris]

In the chamber beyond the doorway was a wide landing, with a polished banister in front of it overlooking a lower level. To each side, the landing extended out into narrower platforms along the bases of the curved walls, which were lined floor-to-ceiling in bookcases filled to the brim with countless tomes and scrolls, interspersed with curious tools and figures and models and knickknacks of every imaginable shape and description, fashioned from everything from brass to crystal to gold to glass to silver to polished ivory.

Rune-engraved prisms and curiously-shaped skulls stood in company with compasses and astrolabes, fantastical statues of unknowable creatures sat next to bizarre diagrams and decanters filled with brightly-colored liquids, and coils of chain and rope shared space with alien insects suspended in amber and twisted knots of metal and glass that defied description. Clawlike silver sconces stretched forth from the shelves at regular intervals, bearing not torches, but cloudy crystal globes that upon the pair's arrival gleamed with soothing light, as pale blue flame sparked slowly to life within each.

Just ahead, the landing extended further forward, and to either side, a curved staircase spiraled down, leading to a circular floor adorned with an elaborate mosaic in countless brilliant shades of blue, white, silver, black, and gold, each in more varieties of the shade than might have elsewhere seemed possible. The mosaic featured an abstract spiral of twisting, coiled vines, elegantly circling out into a dark border from a starlike, brilliant shape in the center whose shape was somewhere between that of a stylized flower and a gemstone.

Arranged around the floor below were various small wooden tables and stands holding strange instruments and devices whose functions could only be guessed at. In the far back of that lower floor, between and beneath where the landing and bookshelves ended to either side, sat a fine mahogany desk engraved further with a swirling vine motif akin to that seen elsewhere in the room.

A thin veil of dust hung in the air over it all, though not nearly as much as what covered the repository they'd just come from. Most strikingly though, the room was enclosed not by stone, but rather by polished glass, crystal-clear, allowing for a gorgeous view out over the nearby ocean that lay just beyond the mountains on which the college stood and the city that lay beyond.

"I'd, ah... recommend not touching anything in here." He called behind him as he descended the stairs. The door behind them slid shut once more, all of the locks clicking neatly back into place. Even if their pursuers did find them, they would not be able to enter without considerable effort. "I couldn't tell you what most of these things do. The woman in charge of the Repository Department left it all behind when she was ousted not long ago."

As a direct message to him.

He thought those words but did not speak them. In some cruel twist of fate, Aldrae would likely not be involved in these artifacts if the College hadn't made an example out of Veliata for aiding him. Still, there was no time to mope about the past. Erren made his way toward the desk at the far end of the room, deftly running his palm across its surface to brush away the collected dust. "Now come, Aldrae. Tell me everything that happened. We have work to do."

Aldrae