Chapter XXV - Exemplary Beast

Marcus and Artox came to an unnatural clearing in the middle of the forest. The illusion gave of an extremely light view as fairies pranced around the field of flowers surrounding a gigantic tree that stood taller than mountains. It's branches reached through the clouds and the foliage of the tree was nowhere to be seen.

Leaves fell as if a light spring rain was falling from the clouds mysteriously disappearing before touching the ground.

The pair stood in amazement at the truly glorious landscape before them. Marcus always loved visiting the Fountain of Fairies, it was such a serene and beautiful place. In the future it would become one of the many wonders of Gaia that players would venture to visit just to see.

Marcus tapped Artox on the shoulder and took a step towards the massive tree. "Let's go"

Artox nodded and followed a step behind Marcus. Marcus had already invested in a full set of level 20 white armor from the NPCs in Vhul as he wouldn't waste the enchantments on anything better.

Marcus approached the grand tree as a door came into view nestled beneath the massive roots digging into the ground. Marcus knocked once, waited 3 seconds knocked four times, waited 5 seconds, knocked twice, and waited 3 seconds before knocking once and the door began to shine as the sounds of a magical lock clicking were heard before a loud think was heard as the door was unlocked.

Mystical energy began seeping out of the cracks between the door and it's frame as it slowly opened with a haunting creak as a larger fairy in a regal gown and lavish jewelry appeared floating in front of the boys.

<Queen Adjunct of the Fairies>

Level ???

???/??? HP

Marcus turned to Artox "whatever you do, whatever you may think, under no circumstances do you attack her…"

Artox turned to Marcus "is she a monster?" Marcus nodded.

"She may be an Exemplary Beast, but trust me when I say the cons far outweigh the pros…" He replied.

The fairy was annoyed and crossed her arms and sat in the air crossing her legs as she puffed her cheeks and glared at the duo "How rude! From my perspective you two are the monsters here, not I!"

Marcus bowed to the Fairy Queen "Apologies your highness, I was merely explaining your greatness in terms my companion would understand."

Artox nodded and bowed following Marcus' lead.

The Queen immediately became elated and began circling around the two quickly in an erratic motion unable to contain her happiness as she goaded them "Yes, my greatness has magnitudes you two would never understand, praise me! Praise me more!" She exclaimed.

Marcus began by complimenting her dress and jewelry and how she must be the prettiest and most powerful Queen Adjunct to the legendary Fairy King himself. He pulled out all the stops to butter her up.

He began to prostrate himself before the floating queen "Oh humble and magnificent Queen, we have come before you, as only you know the truth of these runes we have and only you are able to draw out their full power!" Marcus said as he opened his palm to reveal one of his many [Basic Catalyst Runes].

The Fairy lifted her index finger as her magic lifted the rune out of Marcus' hand and it floated towards her. She began inspecting it before laughing "Silly humans, this is useless for your bodies, if I attempted to transplant this inside you, you would surely explode!" She chided.

Marcus feigned ignorance "Ex…Explode your highness?"

The queen began laughing again at the duo "Of course, you would go BOOM!" She yelled and imitating a bomb exploding with her hands and flipping around and twirling in the air.

Marcus followed up "but… what about our items…?"

The queen looked at him sternly losing all jubilation and puffing her cheeks out in annoyance again "what are you talking about? Your items? What nonsense is this?"

Marcus rephrased his question "what if you embedded the runes into our equipment? Would they explode?"

The queen's mood was instantly ruined "I don't know, maybe…" she wanted to tease these visitors more and break all of their hopes and dreams before picking up the pieces the hero, but it was all ruined now.

"I'm bored now, you may leave." She coldly said before throwing the rune back to Marcus and turning her back to them slowly floating away.

'Now beg' she was thinking pretending to leave them.

"Oh wise and just Queen, we beg you to please reconsider and help us in our plight!" Artox had met women like this in his life and knew how to appease them as he began prostrating himself besides the dumbfounded Marcus.

The queen turned around with a wicked grin on her face as Marcus took queue from Artox and began doing the same "We will never be able to succeed in our quest without your magnanimous support!"

The giddiness in the Queen was restored as she happily chided the two and pranced around their bent forms. "Well I guess since you are asking soooo nicely, I should do something, come in. We shall see what can be done!"

Marcus sighed in relief. He was worried he wouldn't be able to get this done and was glad he brought along Artox.

"You two are the first humans to step foot in this territory in over 20,000 years, you should count yourself lucky." The Queen stated. "The last man was a king who was dying of a terrible illness and couldn't stand to watch his country be destroyed by infighting, so we provided him with some runes, wonder what happened to him? I'm still surprised he came before me" The Queen pondered. "Please provide the necessary runes, catalysts, and items and I'll enchant them for you."

Marcus took out the entire [Basic Squire Attire 9/9] set that required level 20 to equip, [Basic Squire Longsword] and [Basic Squire Shortsword], and lastly, the [Basic Unenhanced Jewelry 7/7] set, all were rank White. He pulled out 18 [Basic Scolar Runes] and the 24 [Basic Catalyst Runes] and handed them all to the Queen.

"You Slave-Driving ******!!!! What the **** do you think I am? A God-****** Charity???" The Queen was going on a tyrant rant calling Marcus everything under the Sun and bringing his mother into it to top it off!