Jirath seems a lot younger than Tarone when he first appears, though Tarone's reminiscence about their previous battles seems to belie that. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be judging Jirath from one line of dialogue?
I'm not really getting the sense of urgency I'd expect from a guy whose enemies are OMG INSIDE THE CASTLE, MAN. Tarone seems more annoyed at this whole stupid war for making him actually have to do something about it.
I also didn't get the indication that he was moving very quickly (though I suppose that would make sense) but he's wheezing by the time he makes it down the hall. Probably just saying that he IS running, even though he's old and out of breath and out of shape (or whatever) will probably do a fair bit to increase the urgency right there.
So you're wandering through the castle that's under attack by a mysterious force. Where the heck IS everyone?
What's in the storage room whose doors have been blown up? Apparently it's pretty strongly warded, which suggests that there's something important in there. Yet after the initial, "oh noes, who could have done this" Tarone moves right past it as if it's inconsequential.
Tarone moves into another rune with a bunch of complex runes that he doesn't recognize and notes that he can't feel any magic here. Is that normal for this room? Because he's so worried about his inability to sense magic and because he doesn't recognize the runes, I'm halfway to thinking that the runes were drawn by the enemy and that the inability to feel magic is a side effect of that. There's nothing that explicitly suggests that, though. By the same token, there's nothing suggesting that Tarone's seen this room or felt this effect in it before. If he lives in the castle, you'd think he would have.
Alright, so this part of the prologue wasn't bad, but it didn't quite have the tension that I think it should have. Mostly because it's hard to get tension out of a scene where a couple of dudes wander aimlessly around a tower--a tower which seems practically empty, by the way. (Which isn't to say that it can't be done.) I also didn't understand what was going on in terms of the attack, which made it hard to feel too worried about it.
I was much more with you on the second section of the prologue, the one with Aliese. That one had the tension that the first section lacked, as well as the added advantage of looking pretty cool (what with the read light and all). I think it would help you to make it clear earlier on that she's
from the castle; it ups the ante a bit if we know that this landmark building that is doing strange things is also her home. It will also make it clear instantly, when she wonders what her father will be doing now, that he's IN the castle.
I'm tempted to suggest that you make Aliese's section and her section alone the prologue. It's more comprehensible and certainly more tense. But I don't know how important the information in the first bit of the prologue is, and I certainly think that the first bit can be made to work. Basically, it's a question of ramping up the tension and helping us understand the stakes a little better. You would probably have an opportunity to do that, and up the ante a little bit, if you put some people other than Tarone and Jirath into that first section. THe castle is under attack, isn't it? Nobody really knows what's going on, but they know that the alarms are going off. How do they react? What are their speculations? That sort of thing.
I'd actually assumed that Aliese's father was Tarone, because he was the viewpoint character. The change that you suggested here might be enough,I would have to see it in action to answer that, I think.
By the way, there's a reason we don't debate D&D physics. Anyone who's been playing long enough knows that certain aspects of the D&D system are inherently broken.
That being said, it was entertaining for a geek like me to read. XP
I disagree with a couple of Chaos's line-level quibbles. The line referring to blindness was perfectly clear in context as far as I was concerned, and this line, "he gave no thought to whether he lived or died" etc, makes sense because it implies that Tarone thinks that eliminating the threat of this intruder is more important than his own life.