| Interrogation part 1 | ||
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Hidden at the base of the cliff is a small narrow passage way leading deep into the mountain. The path is only wide enough for one person to squeeze their way down the corridor. After what seems like hours you find the path widening until you discover yourself standing in a large area. The walls are somehow polished as if contsructed from some strange equipment. The ground seems to change here too. What was rocky, soil over solid stone is suddenly something seemingly tiled. In fact, tiles have been carved and polished from the floor itself! Onminous shadows and varrying shapes seems to stand out in the darkness, even with a lantern the room remains completly black leaving only your imagination to decide the surroundings. Upon inspection, a small dim light can be seen against the rear wall. The light, not bright enough to serve any logical purpose, seems to do nothing but draw attention to the swtich mounted in the wall beside it. You awaken in this strange dark room. Shadows seem to leap out at you from every angle. Suddenly the sound of footsteps can be heard approching. Should you struggle you'll soon find that you've been bound and gaged to the wall. Stepping before you this strange presence emits the audible sound of a blade being unsheathed. You can briefly see a flicker of light off a blade as it's weilder begins to toss it from hand to hand. "Just where do you come from, Munin? What's with all the questions?" Munin shakes her head clear, filing the 'how did i get HERE' question to the back of her mind for later. Her eyes contain a flash of fear, but moreso annoyance. "I could tell you... on 2 conditions...". The stranger ignores her comments and begins to pace back and forth, "You know, I've been thinking about this alot lately... something doesn't add up. You see I've been watching things for a long time now. I -know- when something isn't right. A few days ago something big showed up... something arrived and vanished again rather quickly. Then, maybe two nights ago, a fight broke out on Zenan Bridge... the energies that flowed from that spot where strangely familar... I tried to remember where, then it hits me..." Stompling closer to Munin the shadow speaks quietly with distaste, "The Kingdom of Zeal..." Stepping away for a second he lets this information sink in. "Now out of everyone in this world you've asked more questions about it than anyone. So it occurs to me that you know more than your letting on. What's the deal, Munin?" Munin raises an eyebrow, peering into the darkness, unable to make out her interrogator "I dont answer questions tied up like a prisoner, nor without knowing who i'm answering to. So enlighten me a bit, and maybe i'll be more friendly." The man growls slightly and impales the blade in the wall beside Munin's head. Reaching under his clothing he produces a glowing ring. In the bright green light cast off by it, Johnny's face is clearly visible, but the rest of the room is still nothing but odd garbled shadows. "Here! That explain anything to you? Are you from Zeal? Did you find a way to open the timegate? Tell me what you know! Where's Sammy?" Munin's expression relazes a bit "so it's you.....". She knows Johnny isn't entirely a threat to her. he ALSO already seems to know about Zeal, so that doesn't matter about being kept secret in any case "Yes, i am from Zeal.... but no, I haven't been able to open any timegates. My reason for questioning is to find out exactly what happened to Zeal after being sent here. What survived, what was destroyed, and what exactly happened to cause the end of an entire civilization that was at the top of the world one moment, and in the sea the next....". She smirks "You know about Zeal already, so no point in not telling you. However, the rest of those in this timeline are better off NOT knowing.....". Then she quirks an eye "Sammy? Who?" Johnny sighs.... guesturing as though he where pulling the knife out of the wall somehow from where he stands the dagger suddenly vanishes in a puff of shadow and appears in his hand. "Just taking a stab in the dark with that last one, sorry..." Turning his back to Munin he stares blankly into the darkness for a few moments, "If your from Zeal, how'd you get here, and when?" Munin says, "a timegate Lavos opened pulled me into this time, from the time of the undersea palace" Johnny turns just as she says this. From the glow of the ring hanging around his neck the dumbfounded look as this information hits him is extremly obvious. "Oh.... uh-huh.... that kinda explains alot..." Walking towards her he gives a slight appoligetic shrug, "So I take it you know nothing about what happened the other night, huh?" Munin raises an eyebrow "You mentioned a fight at the bridge. I did see someone there a few days ago. A girl, and a guy trying to sell us both something like he was the most desperate man in the era, but any fighting occured after i left". She raises an eyebrow "Mind cuttin me loose now? This isn't exactly comfortable." Johnny's eyes go wide a second and hurridly he leaps forward and begins to cut her free, "Sorry... I had to make sure..." After cutting the last of the ropes he twirls his dagger and resheaths it. "A guy, huh? Hmm... so I bet he didn't look familar to you, huh? Damnit... I think someone teleported... something was burned... and nothing is out of the ordinary. But that coldness.... it was like someone opened up the void." Eyeing Munin over a moment he shrugs briefly realising he doesn't have to be vuage about the Kingdom anymore. "I hadn't seen that since Dalton ran around trying to harrass people with his golems before Zeal fell. You might know, the big one... the one that seemed to blank out time for a second. The one that Gaspar warned people not to use..." Munin thinks for a moment, also not being too vague "The mammon machine, you mean?" Johnny blinks at the name and shakes his head, "No... I think that was destroyed... I mean the spell. Zero something... the one that they sealed in Northern Palace that no one was supposed to use." Not the sealed pyramid, but the palace where a 'great energy was sealed away'. "That's what got me all nervous about it. Like you said, this world is better off not knowing about that time... I'm just scared of things repeting themselves." oO(Before I find her anyways...) Munin nods "That's history, and humanities, ultimate doom.... forgetting the past, and repeating it in their ignorance...." Munin says, "As for the 'Zero something', i haven't heard of it. or ive forgotten it." Johnny gesures dramaticly with his arms to his sides, "I know it's something that repeats, but not -NOW-! Not yet! It's too important!! I can't let someone run around with something that could kill off everyone until I know she's safe!!" Sighing he shakes his head, "I ran into Gaspar a couple of times... I used to camp out on the cliff he went to meditate at. He told me about it. It's some spell that they sealed in a stone of some kind... it's supposed to open the void but cancel it out. Basicly you could use it to erase people from time, because it would restore anything that wasn't sucked into it. Fever... False... GRRAH!! Something-Zero. I never thought about it till the other night. It was about a day after something showed up out by the ol' fairground timegate." Suddenly his eyes widen and he looks at Munin almost in fear, "...uh, forget I said that last part. I don't know what I was babbling about." Munin raises an eyebrow "The timegate at the fairgrounds is still ACTIVE? and here i thought it, and most all the rest, were no longer in service with Lavos' demise..... unless it isn't really dead.... ? As for something showing up, i haven't a clue there, either. Although the guy at the bridge was definately new to town. I've never seen him around here before. <Insert spoken description of evil cale here>". Johnny shakes his head dramaticly, "No no.... there's no timegates open... I uh... was just getting my thoughts crossed is all." Rubbing the back of his head he sighs, "Besides... if you could find a way to open it, it wouldn't take you where you'd want to go... Zeal's gone already. There's almost nothing left of it..." Munin crosses her arms over her chest "Your turn to tell ME something. Specificly, what DID go on in Zeal? Lavos was awoken, i know, but the world is still here, and Zeal isn't. I really don't care if its dead or not. I just want answers as to what happened. All anyone else seems to know is that the current King did Lavos in." Johnny sighs nervously... "Let's just say I've seen alot from the cliff up there. Yeah, the King did have a hand in things, I know because I've watched them a few times. If you haven't guessed it I've been alive for pretty much all of this planet's history, so it's kinda ironic you ended up asking me about things. Him and that group of kids he got lost in time with showed up in Zeal trying to stop the Queen from waking the big guy up. I guess you know already she'd kinda flipped her lid there." As he speaks he makes his way over to the switch illiminated on the wall and hits it, brightening the room and revealing the impressive gallery of paintings and sculptures he'd done over the centuries. Stepping towards a painting of the unmistakable Kingdom of Zeal being torn apart from beams of light he sighs, "You see, they didn't stop it. Lavos woke up, the whole place went down, and almost everything sank into the sea atop Lavos taking the beast with it..." Munin's eyes get wide as she looks the room over "Impressive work. This is a historian's dream coem true. To say the queen 'flipped her lid' could be considered an understatement, with some of the work she had planned for the science division to work on. Guess absolute power really does coppupt absolutely.... fitting it was all destroyed itself, in a way...." She gives an unreadable sideways look to NNY "PLEASE tell me that idiot Dalton was one of those who DIDN'T survive..." Johnny cringes a bit... "Well...." Eyeing the room he tries to think of the best way to put it... "I missed a bit when everything sank. I know he was one of the only ones that didn't die, since the coward was hiding in that plane... the um... The Blackbird! Yeah!" Grining as the memory resurfaces he glances at Munin and frowns again, "Oh, but yeah, right... um the plane went down. I think Crono and them had a hand in it. I'm not sure what happened to Dalton after that. Someone said something about him getting sent to the void somehow. But that's pretty much it. There where alot of people unaccounted for after that. Some of the survivors set up villages with the Earthbounds and life went on. That was when they ordered that everyone had to stop using magic and I went into hiding again so no one would accuse me of using it." Munin aahh's, nodding "So the earthbound and the self-proclaimed 'enlightened' intermingled, interbred, and eventually their decendants are the ones in the world today.... hence most everyone having the capacity for magic somehow, just no access to it.... interesting...." Johnny nods slowly, "Yeah pretty much. That's why I never mentioned the name of the Kingdom when I talked to you. About the only ones with magic now are the Mystics, but since they're nothing but half-breeds that's not too surprising..." Munin hhmm's "the question is, how to prevent history from repeating, and still keep the past in the past and deceased" Munin says, "the ability to remove someone from time is not one to be used lightly. im wondering just what was released from that seal..... and why it was prompted to use that ability" Johnny shrugs and takes out his dagger again to twirl it off to his side, "Well, the King doesn't kill Lavos for a few more years. But since he's still here I'd assume that means that he -will- kill it. So I guess the big thing would be to make sure no one screws up the timeline until he -does- kill it." Begining to pace a bit he thinks on that, "I'd assume that if someone was using it they either came to screw things up, or to make sure someone else doesn't screw it up. I only know what happens before now, so I don't know what's supposed to happen or what isn't. But no one came after me for the fruit I planted so I'd guess it'd have to be something major..." Munin asks, "fruit?" Johnny eeep's and rubs the back of his neck, "Eh... heh... yeah... um... I kinda tried an experiment." Looking at Munin pleadingly he shrugs, "Well? I was home sick! I wasn't born here, you know! You have any idea how hard it is to go sixty seven million years without a cherry cola? Or an apple? I mean, come on... you've had them! Can you blaim me?" Munin rubs her sore eyes, giving Johnny a tired look "That long a lifespan is only known to be possible for Lavos and it's spawn... i'm going to get some sleep. When i wake up, since you know where i'm from, i want you to tell me where YOUR from, tell me what this fruit is, and because im a curious little bitch.... " with that she grins " ..... if your feeling up to it, maybe tell me who this 'Sammy' is, was, or will be". With that, she promptly passes out Johnny sweatdrops dramaticly as the girl seems to collapse before her. "I coulda gotten you a pillow...." Munin is out cold. appearently, either she's in shock a bit from learning her home in the past was, in fact, destroyed right good, shes more tired than she let on, or a bit of both. | |
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