Well the Arcane arts could be fun

You step through the Sunset orange portal and feel a strange sensation overwhelm all your senses, as the shimmering material envelops you, as you fell the sensation of falling and yet somehow floating, you feel your body being crushed and yet feel as though you are being pulled apart at the same time, you loose all sense of direction and can't even tell up from down. You look down at yourself and can't see your body, you begin to panic and frantically look around, all around you is the orange glow that stretches as far as the eye can see. You feel your mind throb and pound worse than any morning after you've over indulged in the fermented drinks you snuck back home, your entire being is in turmoil and you fear that you are about to expire, before suddenly everything goes black.

You feel a cool breeze drift lazily past your cheeks, and the cold sensation of stone on your face, and body. The familiar sensation calms your brain, as you slowly get to your feet and take a look at your surroundings of the new world. There is a eerie blue glow providing some light to the otherwise dark room, there is some fine wooden floor beneath your feet, and a look around the room shows that it appears to be night as you step away from the portal, as you find yourself intact and in good shape, despite how it felt coming through the portal. The room housing the portal is long, and suprisingly empty, as you continue to walk through the dark room, your light footsteps the only sound that accompany your otherwise lonely passage through the room. You spy a door at the far end of the room, punctuated with a bright light, which is a stark contrast to Windows spilling moonlight into the rest of the long empty room.

You begin to wonder why the portal this end is in a grand gardens of a large house, as you reach out and push the door gently, as it silently swings out and the amber glow fills the room as you step into the next room. As you slowly step through you see a man in long strange robes sleeping in a comfy looking chair, as it slowly rocks back and forth by unseen ****. You see a series of large impressive books scattered across the table next to the slumbering man, and the walls are adorned with large tapestries of various strange and unrecognisable characters depicting events of Auroras history.

You walk towards one of the largest tapestries and see that it seems to actually be weaving itself in front of you, you watch as the various colored threads entwine in front of your eyes, leaving you mesmerized as the tapestry slowly grows. A low cough brings you out of your daze, and you turn around to see the man which was sleeping in his chair has woken up and is slowly getting to his feet. You notice a long and impressively long white beard stretches from the mans face, as he gets to his feet after what seems like a large amount of effort, he stretches his body, before finally turning and facing you.

"Ah a newcomer, you'll have to forgive me I wasn't expecting any newcomers, we get so few that choose to come to this portal when they step through, and these old bones need a lot of rest." The man says with a cheerful and strained voice, as he laughs a happy chuckle, his voice fitting for his apparent age.

"Hi there my name is Emma, and where exactly is here?" You ask as you turn and smile at the man as he slowly walks towards you.

"What a pretty name for such a pretty girl." The old man says as he waves his hand and you jump back as a large thick wooden stick flies across the room and into the mans hands. He chuckles at your surprise befor continuing. "This here is the grand Arcane College, or at least a part of it, like I said we get many prospective students but rarely do they know of us before stepping through, so it's rare for the portal to deposit them here." The man continues, as he gestures to a large set of wooden doors, as they slowly swing open, reveal a vast skyline of towers and stone buildings which leave you lost for words for a minute or two as the old man leads you out of the doors and down a large stone staircase.

"It's incredible, how did you manage to build all of this." You ask in wonder as each new area you eye is drawn to seems to reveal a new wonder of architecture, with impossible looking towers which should by all rights crumble under their own weight.

"My dear, this was all built by the same **** which brought you here, the same thing which you too shall one day weild providing you can put your mind to it." The old man says rather cryptically as you continue down the long staircase, in the dim moonlight glow.

"What **** might that be?" You ask as the stair case just ends at a flat platform, which stops in midair, and leaves you wondering how you will get down, as you turn to the old man his blue robes rustle in the wind, a wry smile appearing on his face beneath his large beard.

"Why magic my dear." The man says as he slams down his staff on the cold stone floor beneath your feet, and the stones begin to glow with a brilliant white light before a shaft of light stretches forth, between your platform and a tower across from you, which now your eye is draw to it, you spot a large set of doors which have nothing beneath them.

You watch in slight fear as you see the old man step toward the end of the platform, and fear that he is about to fall, before you see him walking on the white light cast between here and the tower. You watch in bemusement, before you slowly walk over to the edge your self, and gently lower a leg onto the platform to test to make sure that this isn't some sort of trick. Much to your own relief the light seems solid enough, and you follow the old man across the strange ethereal bridge. As you finally reach the door which the old man stop outside, before raising his staff and knocking at the door three times, before the impossibly large wooden doors slowly and seemingly effortlessly open, you could t even imagine the number of people it'd take to open the door.

"Welcome to the college my dear, I can show you no more, but I wish you well, and hope to see you around on your studies, but if you wish to see me, then ask for Asriah the Aged, I used to ditest that nickname but with the age comes the wisdom, and now I revel in it." The old man says with another smile before he bows and turns to leave.

"Thank you Asriah, I hope to see you around to." You says as you return the bow as the elderly man takes his leave as the doors begin to close leaving you in the grand hallways of this building, which is well lit with strange floating orbs of light of various colors. You are soon greeted by a pair of young elves with red hair and cute freckles, both grinning ear to ear.

"Welcome to the grand arcane college." The two elves say in unison they both sound very cheerful.

"Hi there my name is Emma , I guess I'm a new student, how do I go about learning about magic?" You ask with a smile as you suddenly realize you have absolutely no idea about how any of this works.

"Well welcome to the college Emma, firstly we would check you aptitude which we already did when we saw you with Asriah, so you should be able to use magic once you learn some that is." One of the elves says the one with freckles and if your not mistakes by the small protrusion in her robes, that this one would be a girl like yourself.

"So all we'd need from you is for you to sign this contract, that states that you'll share you findings with us, and that you'll also help out with tasks to cover the costs of your stay here, speaking of which you'll be staying in the same dormitory as us, as we are the other newest students." The second elf says this one has a less squeaky voice, and a lack of chest lumps leading you to believe that he must be a male elf, although nothing like any you've met before.

You look over to the large parchment with tiny writing all over it, and yet somehow you find yourself able to clearly read and understand it, it seems to just go into details about sharing your work, and the various jobs and roles you can be expected to do, and then a lengthy few paragraphs about various results of your breaking the contract. You look over to the two red headed elves and they hand you a quill as you smile at them, as they beam at you with smiles adorning their cute freckled faces, in their thick grey robes. You sign your name and pass back the parchment, and it folds itself over and over before there is nothing but a small thick piece that could sit in your hand, you slowly pick it up, and see that it now reads your full name, and has a small portrait of you, with the words Apprentice Arcanist written along the top.

"It's a really nice bit of magic isn't it." The female elf says as she points to the license in your hand. "Now if you care to follow us up to the dormitory as its still quite late, and I'm sure you have a lot of questions." The femal elf says as she leads you to a large set of stairs that lead up to the next floor.

"That's an understatement, by the way I should introduce myself since we'll be sharing a room as well as probably studying together. So my name is Emma and it's a pleasure to meet you both." You says with a smile as you stop on the stair case as you pass a large portrait of a man in fine robes and a very strange pointed hat.

"How rude of us, I'm terribly sorry. I am Elgin and this here is my sister Myra." Elgin says as he takes your hand and shakes it firmly, as he smiles at you.

"Pleased to meet you Emma." Myra says as she takes you other hand and shakes it energetically, as she giggles a girlish laugh, before turning back and leading on up the stairs, befor you reach a large open arch, and are led into a nice warm room, with and open fireplace on the far end wall with some nice soft looking chairs in front of the fire, as well as some very large four posted beds complete with a chest for storing belongings, and some curtains which can be draw between the beds for privacy.

"Well then Emma, it's been an eventful evening for you, and I'm sure you have many questions, so allow me to cast a little spell I've been working on which will help us stretch the time a bit, so we can discuss all you could want to know, so you can jump into the studies tomorrow." Elvin says as he takes a large dusty book from a table and then takes out a series of a set of chalks, while Myra takes out a set of candles and begins placing them in small circles that Elgin is drawing out, before drawing a larger circle around the smaller ones. Until a large series of paterns and shapes surround the a large chair that looks like someone made an arm chair the size of a bench, a clever idea you think to yourself, and wonder if anyone has ever built such furniture back in Drear.

Finally after Elgin finishes his chalk drawings, and Myra lights all the candles a faint blue glow appears around the chalk and a strange shimmer appears around the walls behind the circle of chalk. "We have until the candles burn out, and barley a second will have passed by, so come take a seat Emma, and we can talk." Myra says as she pats the empty space between her and Elgin in the cushioned bench armchair hybrid, which makes you think that you should ask what this furniture is called, but you dare say there will be many questions like this, as Aurora is already turning into an impressive and interesting world.