1Our story begins in a modest stone castle far away from where most eyes can see. A crumbling wooden drawbridge remains constantly raised to prevent unwanted visitors, and each of the four tall corner towers is guarded by seemingly lifeless stone gargoyles, which nevertheless appear to be gazing intently in any direction where danger could emerge from. A single red flag with a white, sparkling wand fluttered in the high wind on the north-east tower, and seemingly impossible magical neon letters flashed above the drawbridge, reading "Jacob the Mage; Expert in highly ill-advised magical experiments."
Jacob, as you can imagine, was not renowned for his advertising skills.
Lightning flashed across the sky before the castle, followed by an ominous thunderclap. Not that this castle needed omens, for something strange was a regular occurrence.
Jacob swept through his laboratory, red cloak drifting behind him as though it was trying to fly away. This, evidently, is a cloak with sense. Regular items in the vicinity of regular magical practises have a tendency to be influenced by such magic. Jacob gripped a small, pretty faerie in his fist. It held a forlorn expression for its merry dance had been interrupted, and its wings were crumpled up in Jacob's hand.
Jacob reached a workbench, which was highly punctuated by a series of burn- marks covering its surface. The faerie gulped. Jacob gently stuffed the faerie into a beaker, and put the cork on. The faerie struggled to push the cork out, then tried to sprinkle dust on the cork, but all the dust fell to the bottom of the tube. Eventually the faerie slumped to the bottom of the glass prison, breathing heavily.
Jacob pressed his nose to the glass and whispered in a comical voice, "I wouldn't try that again, pretty faerie, the heavy breathing is already depleting your flimsy supply of oxygen." The faerie's face turned white.
Jacob sprinkled a powder into the mixture he was brewing in a small beaker, and a cloud of yellow smoke rose as the solution sizzled. Jacob smiled with satisfaction, and pulled the cork off the faerie's beaker. He pushed his thumb onto the faerie's head to keep it from escaping, and poured the solution on top of the faerie. It screamed for a few moments, then fell silent, and lifelessly floated in the mixture.
Jacob removed a staff from beneath his cloak, and touched the tip of it to the glass. He began to chant, and the room began to fall dark, and all the other concoctions in the room stopped hissing, sizzling and popping, all the snakes with two heads stopped hissing, and all the pickled animals somehow closed their eyelids from beyond the grave.
"Gods of magic and those against logic, work with me so we may create, a fae that is greater than great!"
Blue, red and yellow sparks of magic shot from the staff, before joining in a beautiful stream that enveloped the glass. Through the half-transparent stream Jacob watched as the faerie's body twisted, jerked and writhed. Then everything stopped.
Jacob gazed intently at the glass. The solution was all used up, and the faerie remained limp, the body now smoking lightly. Jacob sighed.
"No luck, boss?" came a dull, lazy voice from behind Jacob. He turned around to see his five-foot, hunched servant with green skin and purple hair, Frankie staring at him, dressed immaculately in a butler's uniform.
"Alas, my faithful friend, I have failed again. My hopes of creating an intelligent faerie have failed again. This is almost as humiliating as the time I was caught charming the trunk of an elephant to go up my. okay, nowhere near as humiliating, but humiliating none the less."
Jacob strode over to Frankie, walking past a shelf piled high with other dead faerie's in jars, each wearing a varying expression of agony. He placed both his hands on Frankie's shoulders, and looked eighteen inches down to meet his servant's eyes.
"Frankie, you will always be my greatest creation," said Jacob fondly.
"Thanks boss," replied Frankie, grinning stupidly. "Er. boss, what's a creation?"
Jacob sighed, and patted Frankie on the head, "Alas, I never was skilled at making intelligence. Come, we have work to do in the hamster/giraffe crossbreeding pen."
Jacob strode out, Frankie following as soon as he'd blown all the candles out. The room fell silent.
In the glass beaker, the faerie's wing twitched slightly. Then its arms moved, and it pushed itself upright and fell back against the glass, eyes closed. It opened its eyes, and they glowed bright red. Its eyebrows twitched, and suddenly, one by one, the eyes of the faerie's that had been seemingly dead began to glow bright red, and soon the room was lit by a hundred pairs of glowing, sinister red eyes.
The faerie in the jar on the bench-top soon realised that Jacob the Mage had succeeded in enhancing its brain. And she was Queen of the Hive.