I followed Val down the bare corridor, passing only a few other wooden doors since Andrew and Amy had left me, until we reached a thick sliding door at the end. Val flicked a lock and dragged the seemingly heavy, or at least stiff, door to the left. Beyond the door was a small planked veranda with smooth stone stairs leading into a large garden area. The light coloured veranda was being gently lit by the sun which was just peeking above the large tree line which surrounded the area. However Val had already jumped down the stone steps and was making his way down the grassy garden area.
At the far end of the garden space, hidden slightly by trees, was a building with a heavy, black slate roof and red brick walls. In some places the walls looked to have been burned and cracked at some points, with vines and moss growing at various places. "So is that the place I'll be staying?" I ask after looking at the somewhat derelict looking building for a few seconds.
"It looks much worse on the outside than it actually is. For some reason Lilith thought it would look nice to have a decaying outside of a building in the garden, I don't really understand either." At hearing my question Val slowed down and seemed to give his response with the usual enthusiasm that I'd come to expect from him. "Honestly I'm surprised you managed to make a deal so fast with Lilith, she's usually extremely stubborn and awkward," He continued, dropping the theatrical and over the top tone for a more serious one.
"Well I hardly know her, but she's giving me what I want and she's getting what she wants seemingly." I thought back to the conversation, which was more akin to a brawl, and wondered why she wanted to join our search. "Who is she to you anyway?" I ask, wanting to know how Val was on such good terms with a person as cold as Lilith seemed.
"Well in game she's supposed to be my wife and in reality we're in a relationship. She dragged me into this game as well, so she's in charge of the place, but I still have my privileges," He said this after a few seconds of consideration and once again returning to his enthusiastic and theatrical tone, "What about you, my deary? Have you got anyone who tugs the heart strings?"
At this only one name and one face came to mind that could answer his question. But along with it came what seemed like a lifetime's worth of pain and grief that I could feel as a physical pain in my chest. With these flood of thoughts I had to take a deep breath to hold myself together, but I didn't answer Val's question. He seemed to notice something change in my facial expression, or simply my deep breathing, and dropped his head and turned back around to meet the door of the old forge building.
"The door is locked with the password '12345'," He informed me of this with a much slower and quieter voice. He pressed the door handle, causing a white menu to pop up in front of him, he placed in the password and the door swung inwards to reveal the dark inside of the forge. "I'll leave you too it I suppose. If you need anything we'll be inside." At saying this he turned around, avoiding eye contact and walked at a much faster pace back to the shop building.
As I walked through the threshold of the door a number of gas lights turned on, giving light to the entire room. The sight of the room made me freeze in place. All I could do was stare at the room that looked almost identical to the forges of both Steven and Lisbeth. A large furnace at the far end of the room, a number of differently sized black iron anvils in the middle of the room, varied tools hanging from every wall and swords hanging from any free space on the cluttered walls. The man from the hospital had said that the data from Sword Art Online had been used in this game, but a shocking amount more had been used than I originally anticipated.
Trying to shut out the memories that were threatening to boil back up I walked over to the largest anvil and sat down on it. From there I opened my menu panel with a practised flick of my hand and went directly to my inventory in search for a sleeping bag or sleeping mats of some description. To the side of the anvils there was plenty of space for me to sleep if necessary, but I'd be more likely to simply log out.
As my inventory opened at the top there was the text "Inventory of Sky & Woods". Once again I tried to ignore this and started scrolling through the items. Most of the items were greyed out with "?" being the only indicator as to what they originally were supposed to be. However as I scrolled through I noticed that there was the occasional item which still had its name and could be selected. These were mainly ingredients however I did see a few pieces of armour and weaponry that I could still take out from my inventory.
One item specifically caught my eye, it was a sword that definitely shouldn't have been in my inventory, "Shadow Beam". Out of sheer morbid curiosity I clicked the item name in an attempt to summon the sword that I had watch be shattered in two. A sword that had proved effective above nearly all others. The sword that had failed its user in a time of great need.
However another panel to the left of the inventory popped open saying, "Error: Item already summoned at location 369 582". I had no idea how this could be, but considering the item was destroyed I decided that the game was giving the location of the boss battle with the Skull Reaper in Aincrad, not realising that that world no longer existed. My hand hovered over the closing sign for a few seconds, wondering whether it meant anything, wondering whether maybe the game wasn't glitching. But in the end I closed the panel and went back to my inventory.
The scrollbar for my inventory was reaching the end and I had yet to find anything to sleep in, presumably none had survived the transfer between games. As I reached the end of the inventory I found two surviving items directly at the bottom. Both of these items were named "Ring". I stared at the items in shock as far as I could remember there was never any items named like that within my inventory. So biting my lip I pressed on both of them.
In front of me two small glowing objects appeared in front of me. After a second the glow faded and I felt the two items drop into my lap. Moving the menu panels out of the way, I looked down at the two items that were gently reflecting the orange glow of the oil lamps. I stared at the two golden band rings in my lap. I went to pick one of them up and realised that my hands were shaking.
The ring that I picked up was heavy and cold in my hand as I raised it to eye level. In essence it was a simple gold ring with an inscription in the inner section. The inscription read "Not all those who wander are lost". I looked at the other ring and found that it also had an inscription on the inner band, "Mela en' coiamin", annoyingly in a language that I couldn't read.
Looking at the rings I realised that they were extremely similar to the ones Steven had made for Andrew, the ones Andrew had used to propose to Amy. These rings must have been made by Steven himself and he had hold of them on the day that he had died. Realising what these rings were for hit me like a brick wall and tears began to well up in my eyes. I looked at the rings, through a now blurred vision and placed the first ring back in my inventory. The second wring I placed on my left ring finger.
With tears now running down my face I quietly said, "Yes," As if hoping that somehow, somewhere he would hear me.