Objective II, Phase II: Help The VIPs Recover

Agent Eleven found himself in a new area he found suitable for exploring further.

"(The trees seem to go out a little further than the others. Not like the path where the fog tries to guide you in a certain direction.)"

The agent immediately saw something that caught his eye. It was a large golden butterfly shedding lustrous, golden particles from its wings as it flew.

"(That definitely looks magical.)" Agent Eleven thought as he approached the creature. He got close to it to see how wary it was of humans. Surprisingly, it didn't seem to mind the agent's presence, even when his movements created turbulence that disrupted its flying.

The agent put his hand out under the butterfly, but it kept flying, seeming disinterested. It was flying through the thickets without stopping as the agent followed it, not wanting to harm it.

"(This thing may be more valuable alive, let's see if it will take some bait.)" The agent looked around for some flowers to pluck, but there seemed to only be various weeds and herbs. There were even berry bushes, but none of them had flowering petals.

Agent Eleven was stumped momentarily until he thought of the flowers he picked for Miri. He retrieved a flower from his briefcase and held it out toward the butterfly, hoping to get its attention. Seemingly drawn to the flower, the butterfly alters its course and flies toward the agent's hand.

"(Perfect.)" The agent thought as the butterfly nestled itself within the flower. Agent Eleven put the flower into the briefcase and sealed it once more.

"(I'm sure Miri will get a kick out of this. I should bring it to her now. I don't want to shake it up too much or forget about it.)"

Agent Eleven wanted to take a quick survey of the flora and abundant insects in this area before leaving and collected a few of the berries. He put one in his mouth to taste it and guess its use.

"(Bitter. Definitely poisonous. Possibly medicinal in small doses. I'll take a handful of these.)" The agent says, gathering the berries and putting them into a toolbelt pouch.

While maneuvering the branches of a bush, he saw small glints buried deep beneath the foliage.

The agent got closer to the object to see the main thing catching his eye was a silver cocoon and around it were many silver caterpillars chewing on the leaves of the inner branches.

"(I don't want to disturb the cocoon, but I'll take a couple of these caterpillars with me.)"

The agent reaches his hand into the bush and removes two of the silver caterpillars. He places them into the container with the flowers and golden butterfly and resets his briefcase.

Agent Eleven, feeling accomplished, made his way back toward the foggy forest, prepared to leave the alternate realm.

He went back through the forest unhindered and found himself back in the field as intended. He went on to follow the path into the lightly wooded area toward the leaf-etched door. He took a moment to look at the other flowers and plucked a variety of them.

"(These are bright, but they don't look half as valuable as the Dahl…magia? That's it, I think. Miri might like these.)"

He put the collected flowers into his briefcase's hidden compartment with the butterfly, caterpillars, and other flowers. He reset his briefcase and opened the door.

Upon re-entering the Forbidden Forest, he noticed the sun was beginning to set.

The agent thought to himself as he jogged back to the burrow, "(It's too late to try and set up a proper camp. May not be a good idea with these monsters roaming around, anyways. Seems like the burrow is the best option.)"

Upon reaching the burrow, Agent Eleven used his pistol to tap on the rock blocking off the entrance once more, "Miri! It's me."

He hears the muffled incantation once more as the rock disintegrates. When the agent drops down, Miri says excitedly, "You're back, Eleven! Oh wait-", she says, recasting the spell to seal off the entrance.

The agent puts his briefcase under the light that Miri conjured and said, "First off, I don't think these berries I found are suitable for eating. I figured you may know another use for them."

Agent Eleven puts a few of the berries on top of his briefcase so Miri can see them. "Hmm… these are Kinto Berries! They help the body regenerate from wounds faster in the right quantities. But an overdose can cause soreness and stiffness. Some people have had permanent chronic cases."

"(Sounds like these things can cause arthritis.)" Agent Eleven rubs his chin, "These seem very valuable, but the drawback definitely can't be ignored. It seems like this would help all of you out to a great degree, especially him." The agent says, looking at the younger man who has yet to awaken.

"Well luckily," Miri says confidently, "I'm quite the skilled apothecary, who can guess our weights and give us an accurate dosage!"

While Miri sat grinning ear to ear pleased with herself and gathering her apothecary tools. Agent Eleven thought to himself, "(She even knows weight has a factor in medicine absorption. Maybe these people aren't as backwater as I first believed. They seem to have some true understanding of science to some degree even though they rely on magic. Impressive.)"

The agent detached the pouch of berries from his belt, collected the stray berries, and gave them to Miri, "We'll see what you can do with these."

Miri looks impressed, "That's quite a few. We'll have enough to treat ourselves and then some to sell to the adventurers in town. Good find, Eleven, as with everything else you've found."

Agent Eleven says to Miri, "Well that wasn't all I found, I found some special looking bugs. I wanted you to have a look."

The agent opens his special containment space to reveal the contents. Miri had begun smashing the berries into a paste when she turned to look at the agent's briefcase. The shock of what she saw made her throw the mortar and pestle into the air, hitting the ceiling of the burrow, and falling on top of her head.

"OU! Oouu… Where did you get those?! Those are no mere bugs! They are the Argnalo, the silver heirs!" Miri exclaimed with her eyes watering and rubbing her head.

"They were eating the leaves of the Kinto berry bushes," the agent explains, "I saw a silver cocoon nearby too, but it felt wrong to disturb it."

Miri yells at the agent eyes wide, "WHAT?! A cocoon?! Are you sure?! That could be a future golden monarch, the Aurnali!"

The agent has a sudden realization, "Oh, that's what this is?" The agent says as he moves some of the flowers.

Miri is looking in anticipation, waiting for the fabled creature to reveal itself when the agent says, "Hmm… this might not be good."

He removes the dahlmagia he used to lure the butterfly to see it is withered and the leaves curled into themselves, almost as if the flower were budding once more to signal decay.

"A withered dahlmagia?" Miri asks, confused and awaiting an explanation.

The agent moves one of the petals with his finger saying, "Well I used this to - oh!"

Miri crawled over to him curiously only for her eyes to light up in utter shock. Within the flower was a resting blue butterfly. It had streams of prismatic mana circulating through its wings and two large, blue and gold antennae that it cleaned proudly.

"The Blue Emperor! The Azunago! This is a find beyond legendary! It's a myth! It's a - it's a once in a lifetime - no once in a millennia!" Miri exclaims and begins ranting in her own language. The older man, being disturbed from his rest, rubbed his eyes and seemed to be inquiring about the commotion.

She begins to yell at him in their language, explaining the situation, but the man seems confused. She slaps the man and begins shaking him at his collar vigorously. The man stunned and still confused simply closes his eyes and listens to her screaming until she starts to go light headed and faints.

The man crawls over the unconscious woman to take the beast stone she dropped nearby, "I don't know what you found. But it was major. Miri was saying something about you performing some kind of heroic deed and discovering something that could change the world. I don't know anything about that Azunago thing. But protect it. It seems really important to her and possibly her people."

Agent Eleven looks to the unconscious Miri with lathered spittle at the corners of her mouth from the excessive yelling, "If her reaction is this intense, I'll just have to take your word for it."

The agent thinks about the beast stones he recovered in the dungeon and says, "Oh! I meant to ask Miri this but, uh… Yeah…" he says looking her unconsciously sprawled out across the ground.

He pulls the beast stones out of his toolbelt pouch, hands them to the older man, and begins to open the main compartment of the briefcase.

The man squints, "This one says 'jump' and the other says 'web'. In the Lingua Magia, it'll be 'sar-tar' and 'teh-lah'. They sound pretty useful. You would make a good adventurer. You have quite the good luck."

The agent retorts, "I'm not too sure it's luck, I think that dungeon I found is really just that special. What do you think of this?"

The agent pulls out the ziplock bag of blue, curled bark. The man lets out a hearty laugh, "That's Blue Zenomu! You don't know what you just did, my boy!"

The agent looking at the bag, asks half-concerned, "Did I perform some new unholy taboo?"

The man laughs again, "That depends, if you think making more gold than you can count is a sin, you might as well be the Demon Lord himself! I don't know where you keep finding all this stuff, but I wouldn't show a soul! If adventurers get a hold of a place like that, they'll strip it down and leave you with garbage!"

The man continued laughing, celebrating in his own language and tossing up the bag of spice giddily.

The agent thought to himself, "(It seems I really do need a guide. I need a native to help me identify everything and its worth along with its uses. These two seem to be knowledgeable and trustworthy for now. But first, they need to be close to a full recovery. Those Kinto Berries are a good start. I'll let Miri sleep and make the medicine in the morning. She must be exhausted.)"

He looks to Miri who now has a more relaxed look on her face and is slightly snoring, "(Yeah… I'll let her rest for now. I'll have her make the medicine in the morning.)"

The agent presses a button on his watch that makes the armor nanites from his suit gather in his hand. He spreads them out into a sheet and covers Miri with it. He adjusts more settings in his watch and when he presses the button, he can see what little tension left in Miri's body leaves as she reaches ultimate comfort.

The older man, seeing the agent take care of Miri, simply smiled and turned over hoping to get back to sleep himself.