Burning Arcanum

Prologue
Something odd was going on. That was all Gregory could think about. A mystery of seemingly epic proportions confounding even his spectacular mind. The only clues he had were the weird weather patterns and his inability to perform summonings of the fae. The latter of which was just strange and definitely not a fault of his since he was perfectly able to perform those summonings on prior occasions. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought that the fae courts were at war again. But they weren't, at least-
“...that Apprentice Laurens was getting ahead of herself. Hey. HEY! GREG!” Landis nearly shouted with an accompanying finger snap in Gregory's face. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, yes, yes. You were saying that Ms. Laurens was advancing too quickly in the Fourth Arcanum and becoming too confident,” Gregory replied with a sigh as he removed his reading glasses.
Landis snorted in response. “Not only that, she's been using her training to play tricks on the staff. That girl needs disciplining.”
As if this was anything new. Gwen Laurens, an exceptional first year apprentice of the Fourth Arcanum of magic, mind, has been playing tricks on her fellow students and the faculty ever since she first enrolled. What she needed wasn't discipline, but rather a challenge. But Gregory had already voiced his opinion to her supervisor who will no doubt take care of the situation.
So there was no need to talk about this any further. Gregory said as much to Landis and after some more pleasantries, he left Gregory to his own devices.
Finally, he was alone in the library, free to pursue the cause behind the strange weather patterns without interruptions. It was here, in the main library of the Somnium, that the world's greatest collection of arcane knowledge was stored.
Sitting in the dim confines between the enormous stacks of books was almost a religious experience for Gregory. Surrounded on all sides by the knowledge of humankind dating back to the start of written language, with the only source of light from a small oil lamp that barely penetrated the gloom of the countless eons. But even with all this knowledge at his fingertips, he was no closer to solving the mystery.
The Intricacies of the Fae Courts: An In-Depth Look, Myths and Legends Vol. 15, From Whence Came Magic, and other such tomes littered the desk before Gregory, but none offered the information that would illuminate the mystery. Well there were other more detailed sources of written information within the Somnium but those fell strictly under the prohibited section of the library. To access it would require permission from the head librarian who in turn would need to consult with the Council. In the past century, there has been only a handful of times when a wizard had been granted access to the prohibited section. So the chances of Gregory being allowed were slim to nil. Not exactly a surprise since those book in the wrong hands could spell disaster for the entire world.
There were other ways of getting information about the fae, like summoning one of them or actually going into their realms but that was potentially even more dangerous, not to the world but to the individual. So that was to be a last resort.
Before pursuing that course of action, it would probably be wise to eliminate all other possibilities that might also influence the weather on such a massive scale. If Gregory had asked the human authorities on weather, they would no doubt attribute it to climate change, the term global warming being thoroughly misleading, and to some small degree they might be correct. But the extremely selective nature of the incidents could not be so easily explained away.
The only option left was to seek outside help. There were few significant sources of supernatural information outside the jurisdiction of the Council, but those that did exist were hard to find not to mention not entirely legal. Thus seeking them out would be looked down upon for high-ranking wizards such as Gregory. Considering the impossibility of the alternatives, though, he had little choice.
Having decided upon what needs to be done, Gregory stacked the twenty-some books he managed to peruse on the corner of the desk, leaving them for the spectral librarians to reshelve. He started down the aisle between the enormous shelves, leaving the light of the oil lamp. Soon he was surrounded by the darkness with not a speck of light to be seen, not even the lamp he left behind. Until he passed another table when the lamp on that one spontaneously light up, then extinguished as he too left it behind. Yet even between the lights, he could still see clearly through the gloom as if an unseen full moon bathed the entire library in a shadowless glow. It was like this everywhere in the Somnium in the absence of light, much like one would expect from a place given the name dream. He could not help but contemplate just how this sourceless light was brought about, making for an interesting line of inquiry into the nature of the realm that the wizard headquarters occupied. Alas, there were more pressing concerns that needed his undivided attention.
So Gregory continued through the darkness, taking a right then a left then another left. After a few more minutes of walking through much the same atmosphere where he was researching, he finally arrived at a small clearing within the forest of bookshelves.
At the center of the dark polished wooden floor of the clearing was a large symbol of three concentric circles surrounding a pentagram. If one took a ruler to it, it would measure precisely two meters in diameter. At first glance, it might have seemed that the lines making up the symbol were indistinct as if faded with age. But upon closer inspection, one would realize that the lines were actually a form of script, the flowing script of the denizens of the Aether to be more precise, which was almost impossible for human eyes to read. Suffice it to say that the symbol served as a very secure gate to the main library allowing in only those qualified.
Gregory, being one of the qualified, stepped onto the center of the symbol, closed his eyes, muttered a single word, and was engulfed in a pillar of blinding white light that banished the gloom of the library for a brief second. When the light faded, he was gone.