Edit: Frontpage lol ftw. Dezling is gonna be steamed. >3 *screenshots it*

Okay, so I know most of our friends on the site already got wind of the Munkyezzle drama that happened awhile back, but look, I’m here now to make it worse! >3
Actually, I recently proposed to her character in game, and this fanfic is just what the title says, an attempt to weasel money outta Nexon to make it official.

@Indescane: No, I’m not posting this to embarrass you. I was going to write a blog on the whole engagement quest ordeal anyway, so this just kills two birds with one stone. I think you’ll find it’s not anywhere as mushy as you’d expect.. as it primarily focuses more on how much I care for you, in the form of what I was willing to do for you here, as opposed to grandstanding you and glorifying us as a couple.

@Everyone else: No, my real name is not Zeke, and Indescane isn’t really Alie, though she does use that nickname in real life. Zeke is my (currently unused) RP character, for those of you who didn’t know already. >>;

Without any further adieu, on with the show!

In the flickering twilight of the dimly lit Ant Tunnel, a thief in his late 2x raised a disapproving eyebrow, and glanced aside over the shoulder band of his blue sneak at a nearby warrior of obvious greater experience.
“Friend of yours?” he asked, shifting the slim Lionheart blade slung over his right arm.
“Absolutely not. I’ve never seen that git in my life before, and I hope I don’t again.” the thief grumbled, covering his face with a gloved palm to look the other way.
The ‘git’ they referred to was a fledgling archer still in his early armor, Green Hoodwear not giving him much protection from the surrounding beasties looking to pull him apart on the spot. A ways off from the two scrutinizing him above, he made company amongst a number of higher leveled players, but seemed to be getting in the way more than helping to actually kill the monsters. For once, he wasn’t being eff’seven’d for his level though, it was the conduct they took issue with this time. Looting, namely. Now, granted he wasn’t taking items anybody cared about, but it was still annoying (and unnerving) to have a ‘n00blet’ scramble past you underfoot to dive at your mesos or horn caps before they hit the ground.
“Hah! Got ‘em all! That’s the last one!” the archer called, striking a heroic pose with one final cap held victoriously aloft. Even then though, more zombies and irritated horned mushrooms were closing in around him, eager to avenge the fallen brethren he’d stolen those items from. “Oye, time to go!” was his response, and everyone in the general vicinity breathed a sigh of relief as he tugged a scroll from his bag and disappeared in a flash of light.

The player behind aforementioned n00blet’s screen was relieved too. Ant tunnel was no place for an archer at level 16, of all things. Guiding the little bugger back out of Sleepywood, and the dungeon thereafter, Zeke kicked back and thought instead as to why he was doing all this.
“Alie.” Or as MMOTales (the site on which he’d met her) better knew her, Indescane, affectionately dubbed Dez, Dezzle, Dezomaniac, and a whole slew of other ridiculous and entirely redundant nicknames. Strange, that. When “DaMunky89” (Zeke’s alias, mind you) had first come across her Maple Story fan fiction, he’d still thought she was a guy. (Awkward much.) Things were straightened out fairly quickly though, and times were good, they made fast friends, and our procrastinative protagonist was even inspired to start a fan work of his own. (Still in progress, mind you.)

Having handed in the caps to (yet another) Nana in Kerning City, ProShot89 smiled appreciatively for the gleaming ‘Proof of Love’ he was given in return.
“That’s three down, one to go.” he reminded himself as he set off across town, shuffling through the bulky rucksack before stowing it away.
The walk across Victoria was featureless and uneventful as usual, there was little interest in skipping the cab ride once you lost your beginner’s fear of pigs, but Zeke was stingy, and Pro needed his money for further questing, they agreed.
“I don’t see why I should have to walk the whole Zakum-cursed island anyway, Nana could’ve just given me the next quest before she flitted off for Ellinia.” the archer grumbled, “She’ll probably just want more items that’ll need to be looted anyway. I can’t handle any of the monsters you’re supposed to kill for this quest.”
“Oh shush,” Zeke muttered, tapping a few keys, “I’m doing all the brainwork here anyway, you’re just the minion.”
“Fair enough. But you’ll be the one finding me mesos for my next armor set after this little whim is over and done with.” he retorted, jumping over a giant orange mushroom.
“Meh, we’ll just have to get around to selling stuff later. No big. Hey look, you’re almost at Ellinia already!” Indeed, ProShot’s player was not mistaken, and he nodded in agreement as he passed under the high green canopies at the edge of the enchanted forest. The mage town wasn’t far off from there, and soon they stood before the flowery fairy again, fluttering back and fourth excitedly.
“There you are, you flighty little bugger! Just tell me my next quest now, would you?” there was a tone of irritation in his voice, but he didn’t want to scare her off again, that could mean running all over Victoria after her.
“Twenty soft feathers please!” was the squeaky reply.
“WHAT!?” Pro and Zeke shouted in unison, the archer jumping up and down irately, and the player steaming. The fairy drifted back, pushed though the air by the sheer force of the shout.
“How am I supposed to get my mitts on /any/ soft feathers? Never mind twenty!” ProShot demanded. Nana shook her head, composing herself, and the tinny voice was adamant;
“Rules are rules, I’m sorry, but no feathers, no Proof of Love.”
Walking out of the mage town furious yet disheartened, Pro asked his player instead;
“How do YOU think I’m going to get soft feathers?”
“Well,” Zeke sighed, having mulled over no alternatives, “It’s a semi-rare drop on monster too tough for you to handle, so the only way I can think of is-”
“No! Don’t you say it!” Pro attempted to interrupt.
“Freemarket.”
“Ugh. Freemarket. Well there isn’t anything else to be done, I suppose. Let’s go.”
Walking the last stretch across Henesys market, Pro was blind to the cheery colors of the shroom-topped houses and the bright green grass. This was business, and business in Freemarket would be no less than outright grueling.
“Hey, if I don’t come outta there alive, you tell Nairen I-” ProShot began.
“Oh please. Don’t be so dramatic. You’ll be fine, just try not to get trampled. I was hoping too, that it wouldn’t come to this. But, sometimes you’ve got to use the Freemarket! You won’t find certain items any other way!” Zeke urged, poking the archer forward with the mouse cursor.
“Ugh. Fine, fine. I’ll go get the cursed feathers.” he said, the screen going dark as Pro dove into the swirling blue teleportal.

Zeke got up to clomp down the stairs, raiding the kitchen as the dreaded Freemarket loaded, and he thought on what his archer had said. Nairen, Alie’s in-game counterpart, and the fiancé to be, if this half-baked and ramshackle plan found its way to eventual completion. After they’d first met, he had sent Indescane an PM on the site, regarding two readers she’d referred to his fan writings, (titled ‘Lol, am I the charity case?’, if he remembered correctly) and what took off was a whirlwind of inane philosophy, life outlook, and occasional mutual disgust with the world in general. He fell in love at once with her insane personality, and quirky attitude… but therein was the problem. Neither of them supported online relationships at all, and as these things go, Alie was of course on the other side of the world.

ProShot coughed hoarsely, and raised his voice to shout again.
“Buying soft feathers! Somebody?! C’MON!” he cursed under his breath, elbowing back all too close neighbors as the crowd crushed in around him, shouting insensible nonsense and generally getting a whole lot of nothing done. It had been nearly two hours since the crippling lag and deafening spam had first hit him, and the little archer couldn’t take it anymore; “Blind and weakness on stupid spammers! I’m out of here!” he roared angrily, and dove back out through the teleportal. “Zeke! There’s got to be another way to do this! Everyone is buying feathers and they all have more money than me!”
“Argh.. well that certainly didn’t work.” the player said, exasperated, “Hang on, I’ll just check the minimum level monster that drops soft feathers.” ProShot could feel the presence leave as Zeke tabbed out to look up feathers, and slumped exhaustedly on a nearby bench. “Roloducks.” was the response, when he returned suddenly.
“Say what?” Pro wondered aloud, sitting up.
“Roloducks in Ludibrium. They’re the lowest level that drops soft feather.”
“Ducks? That doesn’t sound too bad!” the archer responded optimistically.
“They’re level thirty four.”
“Oh.”
Nearly half an hour later, ProShot scrambled off the docking ramps into the block town of Ludibrium, in hopes of perhaps killing a duck or two, but there seemed to be little to no hope of obtaining (not one, but) twenty soft feathers.
“Alright. Maybe you can kill them. Your accuracy is high, I bet you can do ten damage at least, you’ll just need a lot of arrows!”
“That’s the spirit.” ProShot said sarcastically. Their grand goal of a simple engagement ring was looking less and less realistic.
“Hey, wait.. what’s that?” A familiar sprite tumbled by, Nana again, carried on a gust of wind. “Ugh. Her again. Go see if you can reason with her, Pro.” The archer didn’t need any more telling, and scrambled over the bright plastic terrain to catch up with the wisp as she arced over the grand clock at the center of the massive toy town.
“Nana! Wait up! We need to talk about this quest!” he shouted, as the fairy turned to scrutinize him.
“What about it?” Nana questioned in that tinny little voice, “Twenty feathers too tough for you?” she mocked.
“Well actually, I came here from Vic to get them, but was hoping perhaps you’d reconsider.” The fairy laughed like a half broke wind chime, and fluttered side to side in that oh-so-annoying manner before answering.
“Hm… I suppose since you came all the way here, that proves your love better than a handful of silly feathers, no?” she smiled devilishly, “But it still doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. Get me teddy cotton instead, and you can have the last proof.” The fairy pointed downwards to the entrance of the toy factory below.
“Ugh. Fine, I’ll be back in ten.” Pro grumbled… still fuming for the inconvenience, and the wasted time in the Freemarket, but relieved that the exponentially more impossible feather quest had been recalled.
“You mean to tell me we sat in Freemarket for no reason!?” Zeke gargled in rage as the archer jumped down from the giant clock perch.
“Hey, what’re you complaining for? At least you weren’t being ELBOWED the entire time.”
Soon enough ProShot stowed the final Proof in his pack with visible relief, and dashed off to catch the first of two ships back to Victoria.
“What do you mean you want MORE materials! I just spent the last three days gathering Proofs!” The withered old man frowned as the agitated archer bounced about in rage.
“Yes. And they do just that youngling, they prove your love. No more. I still need the goods to craft your band.” he said, eyeing the boy quizzically.
“Come now,” Zeke related irritated, tapping keys furiously, “Can’t you just make it OUT OF the Proofs? I thought it was some magic mumbo jumbo.”
“No, can’t do that son. I’m not MacGyver, and you’re not getting a ring without the materials. Off with you.” Moony replied conclusively, and turned away to close the conversation.
“Hmph. Silver and diamond then, that’s IT, right Zeke?” Pro reconfirmed, back in Henesys.
“Yup, and check your pockets, the good news is I suspect we have the silver already.”
“Ah, bingo!” Pro mused, removing a handful of ores from his rucksack, “We’re all good. Now what about that diamond?”
“We’re going to have to go back to-”
“NO! NEVER! You can’t MAKE ME!” ProShot cut him off at once, diving for a nearby tree to wrap his hands around the trunk defensively. “Never again!”
“Gack, calm down ProShot! I’ve got connections for this one, it won’t due to just have you yelling yourself hoarse all over again.” the archer didn’t seem too much assured, so Zeke continued, “Besides, I CAN make you, it’s called the arrow keys. Now get over to Freemarket while I check up with my contacts.”
“Fine, whatever.” the archer grumbled, heading off to the marketplace.
“Oh, strike that Pro, money first.”
“What?”
“I’ve got a mage friend on the inside, she gets diamonds training on kitties, but it’s going to cost us, Amoria drove the prices way up.” the player explained.
“Just how much money are we going to need?”
“80k.”
“Rawrgh.” (Shockhorror was ProShot’s jerk impulse reaction.)
“Exactly.”
“Looting?”
“Yes.”

Driving the little adventurer on into the dungeon again, Zeke chuckled at how dire a situation it was, that an archer at Pro’s magnitude of n00ishness had resorted so many times to looting the players of acceptable levels to finish their quest.
“This would be SO much easier if BlastMage were here!” the player grouched, wishing his main man cleric were on the right server to propose to Nairen.
“What, no love for the newbie?” ProShot protested.
“Not when you’re this inefficient, sorry.” Zeke confessed, his thoughts turning to other things.
The biggest issue with his affection for Alie was the distance, but close behind that was their mutual hate for online relationships. To make things worse, he couldn’t even see whether the girl liked him that way at all, even if she was the exact kind of person he’d date in real life. “Just my luck really. Finally a good match, and she’s on another flipping continent.” That had all become moot point after a sketchy little dare over MSN, in which Indescane had to go about writing an extravagant confession of love to him, and post it up on MMOTales for the world to see. “Funny how that one turned out, too.” Because for the sake of maintaining his style, and often bluntly straightforward nature, the response he wrote for ‘that one’ really was a confession of love, and a thoroughly sincere one at that. (Not to mention explosive, it set their entire corner of the sight ablaze in a sudden flood of posts and comments.) “Sure, I could’ve just kept quiet, and told her later in a secluded Freemarket room, but where’s the fun in that!?”
In turn, Dezling finally broke down and confessed affection for him as well, (in the most sarcastic, and begrudging of manners, but she did) meaning that it all worked out just dandy save the thousands of miles between the two of them. “My luck again.”

Plucking a gleaming yellow coin from the ground as he tucked into a fast roll, ProShot grunted as a zombie mushroom crashed down onto the spot he’d just stood. It was cut down by his recent ally before it had the chance to pounce again.
“So, remind me why you’re down here, exactly?” the cleric queried, neatly refolding the red starlight robes over his exposed wand arm.
“Mesos. There’s an engagement quest to be finished, and I’m entirely broke. Go figure.” was the archer’s tactless response.
“Ah. Okay, how many more to go?”
“30k.”
“I see.” The cleric ventured further into the dungeon and Zeke prodded his little minion onward tirelessly in pursuit.
Not an hour later, ProShot finally missed a dodge, and was promptly trampled to death by ravenous drakes. Though he was dissatisfied not. By then he’d leveled up once, with a surge of energy and a happy squeak, and he now had nearly seventy eight thousand mesos to his name.
“C’mon Pro, we can cash the etc. items you looted in, and finish this already. At least now you can afford a diamond!” Zeke said cheerily, as he pressed the ‘revive’ button.

~Epilogue~
Not ten minutes later, Pro finally got his ring, and even leveled up on the experience gained. He promptly proposed the next time he, it, and Nairen were in the same place at once. She accepted of course, and added merely that he was a ‘deek’, as the very concept of online marriage was despicable.
“This is just like us in real life, somehow.” Zeke grumbled. “I’ve pledged to marry in both cases, but lack the money to do so in either scenario. Maybe Nexon will help me out?” he laughed to a friend on MSN.