------------------------
Hello again, I am proud to announce the third chapter is up. Not that much action in this one, but sometimes that's a good thing. Thanks goes out to those that have reviewed it this far, I hope more people follow in your footsteps.
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Chapter 3
Magus had indeed left to read a book, in fact he had read more than just one. Books sat in heaps throughout his study, pages flipping by quickly as a slight wind blew over those that lay open. Sitting in the middle of the book field was Magus, frantically flipping through a very large book title, "Healing Magic".
'Her Aura has a certain quality to it that I have felt before', thought Magus to himself as he put down his book and chucked it across the room in anger.
'Schala's was similar to this', continued Magus as he thought back to his youthful days in Zeal. He had seen the effects that emotional stress can put on someone firsthand. Soon after the Mammon Machine was built his sister came home every night with tears in her eyes and cried herself to sleep. Magus never asked why, he never knew what went on and couldn't possibly have understood at that age. Right after the construction of the Ocean Palace was announced Schala's condition went for the worse. Magus insisted that their mother had changed but Schala refused to believe it, her mother couldn't change. This announcement showed Schala the bitter truth, revealed to her that her mother was know longer the same person. That night she cried herself to sleep and the next day Magus had found her in her bed, talking in her sleep but unable to be woken.
'I wish she would have told me. I could have comforted her, listened to her'
Schala remained in that state for one year, all the mages of Zeal couldn't break whatever kept her in that state but they were able to keep her alive with rejuvenation magic. One day a mage, named Withel, finally returned home after a long hiatus spent with the Surface dwellers practicing healing magic and testing new spells on them. After hearing of Schala's condition he refereed to his notes where a similar case had been recorded, the patient had slipped into a sleep like state and couldn't be woken. He had named this condition "Coma", meaning 'Lost in the Mind', and contributed it too stress, particularly emotional stress, that a patient let build to a highly un-healthy level. Weaving the magics he had used to cure the surface dweller of the same condition, he explored Schala's mind helping her to deal with what she feared. He was perhaps the only one that ever knew what she actually thought, though he never told anyone what he found in her head.
'I know they must have written it down, they can't be that stupid', thought Magus as he cursed at the idiot who hadn't written it in the "Healing Magic" book. The smallest sound of a door creaking alerted Magus to his visitor that tip-toed their way into his study.
"What do you want", coldly said Magus.
"It wouldn't hurt you to be nice sometimes", responded Lucca as she realized that she had been discovered.
"Did you come to give me a lecture about my manners", said Magus irritated
"No, I came to see what you were doing"
"Reading a book"
Silence filled the room as Magus concentrated on finding the book that he hadn't read yet. Scanning the piles and heaps over and over again to make sure he hadn't missed anything.
"Where did you get these books from anyways, its not like the people in this time have a printing press", asked Lucca as she picked one up to read the title.
"None of your business", coldly responded Magus.
"You are impossible sometimes you know that", complained Lucca after just being told to mind her own business.
She remained there for a few minutes, milling over the books. They all pertained to magic, magic that was suppose to be have been lost with Zeal when it crashed. Examining the one she had picked up, the title read "Zeal's History", judging by the amount it weighed she decided that they must have written down almost everything in here.
"I suppose you won't leave till you either annoy me to death or I tell you.", sighed Magus, "I found them in the wreckage of the Black Bird after it crashed in the ocean"
"Seems Dalton had a thing for collecting books", continued Magus.
Just then Magus saw a shimmer that stuck out of the piles of books that lay around, like a beacon in a storm it lead Magus to the book he had been searching for. It was smaller than most of the books here and didn't even have a hard cover. In fact what was left of the cover was shredded and unreadable but on the inside its name was inscribed again on the first page, "The Records of Withel F. Lister". Magus reached out for the book with his mind and levitated it across the room to him.
"What are you looking for anyway", asked Lucca puzzled at Magus's sudden interest in the book.
"I have seen something similar to Marle's condition before, I am merely trying to find out how to cure it", said Magus as Lucca interrupted.
"So you were trying to help after all", said Lucca amazed at what Magus was doing for others.
"This is just so you two will leave me alone. As I was saying though this book should contain the spell", continued Magus.
Magus arose from the position he had been sitting in all day, snapping several joints, and started back down the stairs leaving Lucca to marvel at all the books. He reached the bottom and traveled over to where Marle was resting on his bed.
'This brings back memories that should remain buried, it all seems so similar', thought Magus to himself.
'Let's get this done, I shall not let the same thing happen to her that happened to my sister'
Placing the book on the table next to Marle, he placed his hand over her forehead and began the chanting that accompanied the spell.
"Esplori la mente, Scopra la causa, ripari il problema", chanted Magus with his eyes shut and all concentration on the task at hand.
-----------------------------
Blackness surrounded a lone figure huddled in the middle, or what looked to be the middle, of a never ending field of nothing. Tears traveled down from her face falling to the floor and disappearing forever.
'He told me to run, but…I should have been able to help him. I should have been there for him, why didn't he want my help…', whispered Marle to herself as she gripped her legs even tighter.
'What has he become, doesn't he want me any more?', Marle asked herself.
'What did I do wrong, wasn't I there for him'
"You did nothing wrong", came a voice from the darkness but a voice that Marle recognized.
"Blaming yourself is weak, accept what happened and get over it", snapped the voice again as the figure that the voice belonged to appeared next to Marle, leaning against nothing and something at the same time.
"How could it not have been me, I was supposed to be the one closet to him. I was suppose to help him, protect him, and….love him", retorted Marle as she lifted her head from her knees.
"I have seen what has happened in you memory, he is not the same person. He is corrupted much like my mother was", explained Magus his voice becoming less harsh than normal.
"Lavos is dead! It had to have been me", cried Marle.
Magus pushed himself off the apparent nothing he was leaning on and walked to stand in front of Marle. Leaning down he lifted Marle's chin up with his hand and looked her straight in the eyes, her tears now running down his arm. Looking into her tear soaked eyes he saw pain, betrayal, and failure.
'Why does this happen to good people', thought Magus to himself. Sure he didn't approve of the brats but Marle was always there to try and cheer everyone up, always helping even those she didn't know.
"It was not your fault, something else has happened to him", spoke Magus directly at her face in a matter-of-fact fashion.
"There are two sides within him, you have seen it yourself. Your Chrono is still alive, but there is another", continued Magus as Marle's tears slowly became just sniffing.
"Are…you sure", whimpered Marle as she tried to dry her eyes.
"Yes, now stand on your own two feat", he commanded and lead by example as he stood up and stared down at her.
She looked up at him with pleading eyes, asking him to lend her strength.
"The first step you must take on your own, now stand", order Magus as he refused to add to her weakness.
"Please….", begged Marle.
"I will not stand here and listen to you beg, you are stronger than this. Now get up before I leave you to wallow in your self pity", coldly said Magus as he gazed at her with his eyes.
"But what if…", started Marle as she was interrupted by Magus's harsh voice.
"STAND", he loudly commanded.
Marle looked up at him one more time, but all she received was an icy glare. Realizing that he wasn't going to help her no matter what she did, she unwrapped herself and sat freely in the darkness.
"Are you sure..", started Marle again and was again interrupted by Magus.
"Yes, you can do it so stand", less harshly commanded Magus.
Slowly she got up on her feat and stood up meeting Magus's glare. Quickly turning around, Magus walked to where a door had appeared.
"Let's go", he said, Marle running after him to catch up.
------------------------------------------------------
"Taban, Taban, Taban this would be so much easier if you would cooperate", chided the dark cloaked man that paced the room. The cloak also had a hood, a hood that covered much of the man's face and his long red hair.
The room was poorly lit by the small lantern the pacing man was carrying, casting only enough light to reveal himself and Taban. Taban was restrained to the wall by four chain cuffs, 2 for the hands and 2 for his feet. The air was filled with dust that stirred with each movement the two made, making it that much harder to breathe.
"Why must you be so stubborn, you could die from this you know", questioned the figure. It pulled a chair to the center of the room and sat in it to where the back of the chair was in front, and placed the lantern next to him.
Taban sat still for a few moments, moaning from all the bruises caused earlier by the guards that brought him in. He had put up a good fight, but their numbers had overwhelmed him. Centering his glare on the figure he spat at its feat and then turned his head back to look to his left.
"That wasn't a very smart thing to do", scolded the figure.
"Now we have to get a third party involved", it continued as he motioned towards his left.
A soldier came carrying a light brown haired female, her age to be around Taban's and she was dressed in a pink cooking apron. She had several bruise marks on her face and her clothes and apron were torn in several places.
"Don't make her suffer for your stubbornness"
Taban turned his head to see his lovely wife, beaten and battered and gagged, and then turned his head towards the figure. How could he do this, he had placed trust in him. What happened to the person he knew that went in the portal after Marle even though he barely knew her.
"You…you son of a bitch", cursed Taban.
The figure removed himself from the chair and walked over to where Lara, Taban's wife, was being held. Turning to Taban he said, "That's not the way to talk to your king", as he punched Lara in the gut ,producing a muffled scream from Lara, and then turned back to look at the shock in Taban's face.
"You..you", started Taban but was interrupted.
"You might want to chose your words carefully this time", reminded the king.
Taban looked in her eyes, eyes filled with dread, eyes that were scared. Could he live with himself if something he did caused her pain, maybe even death. No, he wouldn't let her suffer, he would not be the cause of his own wife's death.
"Leave….leave Lara alone and I'll do it", said Taban barely loud enough for the king to hear.
"That's more like it, things can be so much easier when you cooperate", reminded the king to Taban.
"He turned to the soldier at his left, "Go unlock his restraints"
"Yes Mi'lord", said soldier as he sat Lara down on the chair and went to unlock the restraints that the king had placed on Taban.
"Bring him to me once he's cleaned up", ordered the King as he turned his back on the scene and walked away.
The other him had been watching through his eyes, trying in vain to stop what was happening, to break free of the control that had been placed on his body. It was like being at a movie, you want to stop what is happening on screen but no matter how hard you try it's beyond your control.
'I'm sorry, everyone'
Hello again, I am proud to announce the third chapter is up. Not that much action in this one, but sometimes that's a good thing. Thanks goes out to those that have reviewed it this far, I hope more people follow in your footsteps.
-------------
Chapter 3
Magus had indeed left to read a book, in fact he had read more than just one. Books sat in heaps throughout his study, pages flipping by quickly as a slight wind blew over those that lay open. Sitting in the middle of the book field was Magus, frantically flipping through a very large book title, "Healing Magic".
'Her Aura has a certain quality to it that I have felt before', thought Magus to himself as he put down his book and chucked it across the room in anger.
'Schala's was similar to this', continued Magus as he thought back to his youthful days in Zeal. He had seen the effects that emotional stress can put on someone firsthand. Soon after the Mammon Machine was built his sister came home every night with tears in her eyes and cried herself to sleep. Magus never asked why, he never knew what went on and couldn't possibly have understood at that age. Right after the construction of the Ocean Palace was announced Schala's condition went for the worse. Magus insisted that their mother had changed but Schala refused to believe it, her mother couldn't change. This announcement showed Schala the bitter truth, revealed to her that her mother was know longer the same person. That night she cried herself to sleep and the next day Magus had found her in her bed, talking in her sleep but unable to be woken.
'I wish she would have told me. I could have comforted her, listened to her'
Schala remained in that state for one year, all the mages of Zeal couldn't break whatever kept her in that state but they were able to keep her alive with rejuvenation magic. One day a mage, named Withel, finally returned home after a long hiatus spent with the Surface dwellers practicing healing magic and testing new spells on them. After hearing of Schala's condition he refereed to his notes where a similar case had been recorded, the patient had slipped into a sleep like state and couldn't be woken. He had named this condition "Coma", meaning 'Lost in the Mind', and contributed it too stress, particularly emotional stress, that a patient let build to a highly un-healthy level. Weaving the magics he had used to cure the surface dweller of the same condition, he explored Schala's mind helping her to deal with what she feared. He was perhaps the only one that ever knew what she actually thought, though he never told anyone what he found in her head.
'I know they must have written it down, they can't be that stupid', thought Magus as he cursed at the idiot who hadn't written it in the "Healing Magic" book. The smallest sound of a door creaking alerted Magus to his visitor that tip-toed their way into his study.
"What do you want", coldly said Magus.
"It wouldn't hurt you to be nice sometimes", responded Lucca as she realized that she had been discovered.
"Did you come to give me a lecture about my manners", said Magus irritated
"No, I came to see what you were doing"
"Reading a book"
Silence filled the room as Magus concentrated on finding the book that he hadn't read yet. Scanning the piles and heaps over and over again to make sure he hadn't missed anything.
"Where did you get these books from anyways, its not like the people in this time have a printing press", asked Lucca as she picked one up to read the title.
"None of your business", coldly responded Magus.
"You are impossible sometimes you know that", complained Lucca after just being told to mind her own business.
She remained there for a few minutes, milling over the books. They all pertained to magic, magic that was suppose to be have been lost with Zeal when it crashed. Examining the one she had picked up, the title read "Zeal's History", judging by the amount it weighed she decided that they must have written down almost everything in here.
"I suppose you won't leave till you either annoy me to death or I tell you.", sighed Magus, "I found them in the wreckage of the Black Bird after it crashed in the ocean"
"Seems Dalton had a thing for collecting books", continued Magus.
Just then Magus saw a shimmer that stuck out of the piles of books that lay around, like a beacon in a storm it lead Magus to the book he had been searching for. It was smaller than most of the books here and didn't even have a hard cover. In fact what was left of the cover was shredded and unreadable but on the inside its name was inscribed again on the first page, "The Records of Withel F. Lister". Magus reached out for the book with his mind and levitated it across the room to him.
"What are you looking for anyway", asked Lucca puzzled at Magus's sudden interest in the book.
"I have seen something similar to Marle's condition before, I am merely trying to find out how to cure it", said Magus as Lucca interrupted.
"So you were trying to help after all", said Lucca amazed at what Magus was doing for others.
"This is just so you two will leave me alone. As I was saying though this book should contain the spell", continued Magus.
Magus arose from the position he had been sitting in all day, snapping several joints, and started back down the stairs leaving Lucca to marvel at all the books. He reached the bottom and traveled over to where Marle was resting on his bed.
'This brings back memories that should remain buried, it all seems so similar', thought Magus to himself.
'Let's get this done, I shall not let the same thing happen to her that happened to my sister'
Placing the book on the table next to Marle, he placed his hand over her forehead and began the chanting that accompanied the spell.
"Esplori la mente, Scopra la causa, ripari il problema", chanted Magus with his eyes shut and all concentration on the task at hand.
-----------------------------
Blackness surrounded a lone figure huddled in the middle, or what looked to be the middle, of a never ending field of nothing. Tears traveled down from her face falling to the floor and disappearing forever.
'He told me to run, but…I should have been able to help him. I should have been there for him, why didn't he want my help…', whispered Marle to herself as she gripped her legs even tighter.
'What has he become, doesn't he want me any more?', Marle asked herself.
'What did I do wrong, wasn't I there for him'
"You did nothing wrong", came a voice from the darkness but a voice that Marle recognized.
"Blaming yourself is weak, accept what happened and get over it", snapped the voice again as the figure that the voice belonged to appeared next to Marle, leaning against nothing and something at the same time.
"How could it not have been me, I was supposed to be the one closet to him. I was suppose to help him, protect him, and….love him", retorted Marle as she lifted her head from her knees.
"I have seen what has happened in you memory, he is not the same person. He is corrupted much like my mother was", explained Magus his voice becoming less harsh than normal.
"Lavos is dead! It had to have been me", cried Marle.
Magus pushed himself off the apparent nothing he was leaning on and walked to stand in front of Marle. Leaning down he lifted Marle's chin up with his hand and looked her straight in the eyes, her tears now running down his arm. Looking into her tear soaked eyes he saw pain, betrayal, and failure.
'Why does this happen to good people', thought Magus to himself. Sure he didn't approve of the brats but Marle was always there to try and cheer everyone up, always helping even those she didn't know.
"It was not your fault, something else has happened to him", spoke Magus directly at her face in a matter-of-fact fashion.
"There are two sides within him, you have seen it yourself. Your Chrono is still alive, but there is another", continued Magus as Marle's tears slowly became just sniffing.
"Are…you sure", whimpered Marle as she tried to dry her eyes.
"Yes, now stand on your own two feat", he commanded and lead by example as he stood up and stared down at her.
She looked up at him with pleading eyes, asking him to lend her strength.
"The first step you must take on your own, now stand", order Magus as he refused to add to her weakness.
"Please….", begged Marle.
"I will not stand here and listen to you beg, you are stronger than this. Now get up before I leave you to wallow in your self pity", coldly said Magus as he gazed at her with his eyes.
"But what if…", started Marle as she was interrupted by Magus's harsh voice.
"STAND", he loudly commanded.
Marle looked up at him one more time, but all she received was an icy glare. Realizing that he wasn't going to help her no matter what she did, she unwrapped herself and sat freely in the darkness.
"Are you sure..", started Marle again and was again interrupted by Magus.
"Yes, you can do it so stand", less harshly commanded Magus.
Slowly she got up on her feat and stood up meeting Magus's glare. Quickly turning around, Magus walked to where a door had appeared.
"Let's go", he said, Marle running after him to catch up.
------------------------------------------------------
"Taban, Taban, Taban this would be so much easier if you would cooperate", chided the dark cloaked man that paced the room. The cloak also had a hood, a hood that covered much of the man's face and his long red hair.
The room was poorly lit by the small lantern the pacing man was carrying, casting only enough light to reveal himself and Taban. Taban was restrained to the wall by four chain cuffs, 2 for the hands and 2 for his feet. The air was filled with dust that stirred with each movement the two made, making it that much harder to breathe.
"Why must you be so stubborn, you could die from this you know", questioned the figure. It pulled a chair to the center of the room and sat in it to where the back of the chair was in front, and placed the lantern next to him.
Taban sat still for a few moments, moaning from all the bruises caused earlier by the guards that brought him in. He had put up a good fight, but their numbers had overwhelmed him. Centering his glare on the figure he spat at its feat and then turned his head back to look to his left.
"That wasn't a very smart thing to do", scolded the figure.
"Now we have to get a third party involved", it continued as he motioned towards his left.
A soldier came carrying a light brown haired female, her age to be around Taban's and she was dressed in a pink cooking apron. She had several bruise marks on her face and her clothes and apron were torn in several places.
"Don't make her suffer for your stubbornness"
Taban turned his head to see his lovely wife, beaten and battered and gagged, and then turned his head towards the figure. How could he do this, he had placed trust in him. What happened to the person he knew that went in the portal after Marle even though he barely knew her.
"You…you son of a bitch", cursed Taban.
The figure removed himself from the chair and walked over to where Lara, Taban's wife, was being held. Turning to Taban he said, "That's not the way to talk to your king", as he punched Lara in the gut ,producing a muffled scream from Lara, and then turned back to look at the shock in Taban's face.
"You..you", started Taban but was interrupted.
"You might want to chose your words carefully this time", reminded the king.
Taban looked in her eyes, eyes filled with dread, eyes that were scared. Could he live with himself if something he did caused her pain, maybe even death. No, he wouldn't let her suffer, he would not be the cause of his own wife's death.
"Leave….leave Lara alone and I'll do it", said Taban barely loud enough for the king to hear.
"That's more like it, things can be so much easier when you cooperate", reminded the king to Taban.
"He turned to the soldier at his left, "Go unlock his restraints"
"Yes Mi'lord", said soldier as he sat Lara down on the chair and went to unlock the restraints that the king had placed on Taban.
"Bring him to me once he's cleaned up", ordered the King as he turned his back on the scene and walked away.
The other him had been watching through his eyes, trying in vain to stop what was happening, to break free of the control that had been placed on his body. It was like being at a movie, you want to stop what is happening on screen but no matter how hard you try it's beyond your control.
'I'm sorry, everyone'