Kirito put his hand on Excalibur's handle and prepared to use all his strength to pull it out of the ice. He couldn't fail now, not when they were so close to completing the quest.

He gathered his determination, and his mind flashed to the fights they'd fought here. This was it, the end of the quest. Everyone was trusting him to do this. He took a deep breath, and pulled with all of his resolution...

...and flew back as Excalibur provided no resistance at all. Everyone gasped as they were momentarily blinded by a bright white flash of light.

"Greetings! My legend began in the 12th century!"

When they finally blinked the spots out of their eyes, the group was left staring at a small drawf-like figure. It was completely white, had a white jacket and cane and a ridiculous (white) tophat. Not to mention the beak thing that was presumably supposed to be a nose, and the black beady eyes.

It wasn't wearing pants.

Kirito's mouth opened and closed several times, before he finally turned to his friends, bewildered.

"A bug of some kind, maybe?" Klein suggested hesitantly.

"Fools! I am the Holy Sword Exclalibur! You are a 'bug' compared to my greatness!" 'Excalibur' shouted in a booming voice, and Klein leaned back warily from the cane that was practically pressed in his face.

Kirito was tempted to ignore the thing's existence and spare himself a headache, but he looked back at it anyway.

"Umm.." Sinon began, confused, "Aren't you supposed to be called 'Excaliber' with an E? I heard the gamemaker did that to avoid copyright issues or something."

The rest of the group shrugged cluelessly, while Excalibur flat out ignored her.

"Do you want to hear my tale, the Tale of Me?! What am I saying, of course you do!"

"Uh, actually-"

"Fools!"

The ragtag group of players and one AI didn't know what to make of the situation.

"Why does it sound like he ends every sentence with an exclamation mark?"

Kirito sighed in annoyance. "Because he probably does."

"Tell me, what is the best 12th century legendary sword?!"

"Ooh! Ooh! I know that one!" Klein called exitedly, half a classroom away from waving his hand in the air like a kindergartene- nevermind, there he goes. "It's called Durendal."

A hand meeting a face could be heard around the previously completely silent room, and surprisingly, it wasn't somebody slapping the overexited puppy named BallsDeep69, also sometimes called Klein.

"It's awesome!" Klein protested at the dry looks.

"Fools! You do not deserve to answer that question!"

"But you asked-"

"Fools! My legend began in the 12th century!"

"Klein," Kiroto sighed, massaging his forehead in an attempt to quell the upcoming headache, "I'm pretty sure he wanted you to say 'Excalibur'."

"Aha! One who acknowledges my holy power of greatness! You shall have the honour of being the hero who wields me!"

"Wait what!" Kirito yelped in what he woud later swear was a deep, manly voice.

The creature threw a thick scroll in Kirito's direction.

"Complete these thousand quests of valor and win my companionship!"

"God no!"

"Fools!"

When the ruffled group met with Urd afterwards, she took one look at their faces and smiled sympathetically. "Ah, I see you have met Excalibur?"

"Yep." Asuna answered tiredly for the whole goup.

"And threw him into the endless abyss." Kirito added with a bit more cheer.