After a few hours of work later Sky had made a simple band ring of gold with a small rose ruby encrusted within it, which she now wore on her left hand, and a silver chain necklace with a small emerald in the shape of a leaf connected to laced to the bottom of it using a thin gold lace, which hung from her neck.
I was surprised to find out that she had some skill in smithing and had a very steady hand which could cut gems precisely without visible flaws. She herself was very pleased with her work and was similarly surprised that she could create such things with only words of advice and help from me after a few demonstrations in which I showed her the basics and a few of the more advanced methods.
"So when do you intend to come work here for while, as you have some good skill and with some training could easily begin to create high level weapons or make some money off of the amazing jewelry which you seem to be able to make." I compliment her work with the implications that I would like to see more works from her.
"Whenever you want me to start I guess and it was surprisingly calming and the ring and necklace are beautiful." She answered in a content voice as she continued to admire her work. She then walked over to the glass cabinet and looked in awe at all of the pieces that were stored within it. "WOW, these are amazing Steven, how the hell do you make them , I mean it's not as if you did this sort of thing back in the real world."
"About a year of training and A LOT of paitience for when things go wrong and considering I've been close to throwing things across the room on some occasions when I've broken or ruined a piece late into it's creation." I inform her in a sincere voice trying to put across that these things don't happen overnight "Jewelry is one thing as it's easy to create with the help of the game's system and the fact that it has no level attatched to it helps. Whereas weapons take time to make even with the game's system, then every weapon has a level and stats which need to be high for it to be any use and finally you need a tonne more high level and rare materials to keep on top of your weapon demands. Not easy at this stage in the game, I can tell you that."
I then open up my inventory to bring out a rare metal which could be used in forging but instead I see the time and close it quickly. "Well it's just gone 11 O'clock, soooo we had better get things put away and get moving if we want to meet up with Andrew and Aurora on time." I comment prompting Sky to look at the time for herself with a slight shock at how fast the hours had gone. We then quickly put the equipment that was still lying around the forge back where they belonged and placed the spare metal on the metal shelves or, in the case of the filings and very small pieces, into the stone cups withing the fires.
Once we had finished cleaning up I doused the flames of the blast furnace and flames of the main furnace producing large clouds of white steam and leaving the room dark and void of much colour. We then left the forge through the heavy wooden door which I locked using the golden key as I did every night after finishing work.
"We were meeting them by the lakes weren't we?" I ask Sky.
"Yer, by the big lake near our house." She quickly confirmed.
"This way then." I say after thinking of the fastest route to our destination, straight through the middle of the forest until we reached a stone path which we would follow all the way to the banks of the lake where we would find and meet up with Andrew and Aurora.
The Sun now blazed high in the bright blue in its' full glory covering the whole floor with golden light and a warmth that warmed the cold water of the many shimmering lakes and rivers that forever flowed through the landscape of this floor. As we walked through the forest we quickly found out that since this morning it had come truly to life with hundreds of animals such as huge deer and rare pure white horses roaming for food and countless birds flying from tree to tree each with a different birdsong creating a symphony which the forest moved to.
It took a little while to arrive at the cobbled pathway, but once on it we walked passed a couple of other hikers who were following this trail and within a few minutes we came into sight of a large round lake with deep blue water which shimmered in the sunlight as it moved ever so slowly around creating small waves on the grassy banks and creating a lapping sound similar to the sea.
As we walked around the perimeter of the lake looking for a shaded spot close to the lake we spotted two figures, one in faint pink and the other in bright red, walking in our direction. As we kept walking one the one in the pink had obviously seen us and was waving madly at us and we could see the one in the red shaking his head slightly at his companion. As we moved closer, sure enough, it was Andrew and Aurora.
Aurora, who had been waving once she had seen us, wore a long faint pink dress embroided with images of pink flowers, had her silky brown hair loose down her back and wore simple pink shoes. Andrew a bit more reserved wore a bright red T-shirt and grey trousers along with leather boots, as usual his curly brown hair was in a complete mess.
As we came together Aurora and Sky went to hug each other in greeting and I went in to give Andrew a one armed hug. As I hugged Andrew with one arm, I pulled out the small velvet box with my other arm and placed it into one of Andrew's hands before pulling away. Andrew quickly looked down at the box in slight confusion and then looked up at me with a hard stare as he hid the box in a pocket in his trousers. Aurora, after releasing Sky moved in to give me a hug and Sky went to give Andrew a hug.
"Haven't been on this floor for ages now, weather is much better than on our floor as well." Came the remark from Aurora who had a huge smile on her face and was looking into the clear sky above us, she was now holding hands with Andrew who stood next to her.
"Yer, this is a pretty good day for this floor, sometimes we can have huge thunderstorms which flood the lakes by quite a bit. So how have you two been as I haven't seen you properly for a few weeks now?" I say feigning ignorance to Andrew's visit a few days ago.
"It's been getting better since the battle and I've started to go back up to the front lines where we've nearly got through the 54th floor. Apart from that everything is back to normal really so it's all good I suppose." Aurora says quickly with a quick look at Andrew who nodded slowly in agreement.
"Well lets find a good spot to sit down and set up a picnic." Sky said to stop a conversation starting while we were all standing up facing each other somewhat awkwardly. We all agreed to this and we quickly looked around for a good spot before walking over to a grassy patch next to the bank of the river with a tree behind us shading the area we went and sat in. From here we could see all the way around the lake, at various points there were men sitting with fishing poles cast out into the deep waters and on occasion we all saw a large shadow move under the water, obviously the fishermen's ultimate catch, at the other side of the river stood a small wooden pier which was connected to a dirt path which led into the forest. Above us we could hear the wind slowly rustling through the trees and the occasional bird soared gracefully over the shimmering blue water. The sight was spectacular even for this floor of natural beauty.
As we all sat down in the shade Sky brought out a large wicker basket from her inventory and placed it on the ground between us, Andrew quickly lunged at it and opened it to reveal the piles of food which she had packed into it in the morning, obviously while I was still sleeping. This is how we spent the rest of the day, sitting under the tree eating food from the huge supply which seemed not to dwindle while talking about anything and everything that we thought of, ranging from funny encounters of our old lives and strange happenings in this world. We sat there laughing and talking, remembering the good times and trying to forget the bad that may have been in our lives.
As the sun began to fall most of the fishermen which had been sitting in chairs attempting to catch some fish had left and now only a few remained along with us who were now quietly sitting together against the tree looking at the horizon. The golden orange sun began to fall below the great horizon of trees ever so slowly plunging the floor into shadow. As it fell the sky around the sun turned many tones of orange and yellow creating a glowing aura of light around it reaching through to the heavens. It was a beautiful sight and looked soo much like the real thing that we had momentarily forgot that it was only an image projected into the sky.
After the sun had set I looked over to Aurora and Andrew to my right and saw that Andrew was down on his knees holding both of Aurora's hands with his own and looking right into her eyes. Both me and Sky noticed this and watched, but stayed silent. Aurora looked at Andrew in a confused and worried way.
"Aurora until I met you all this world didn't matter and all my time was put into finishing it, fighting an eternal struggle for freedom, although there were some good times it all fell back into simply fighting for survival, sanity and a crawl to avoid depression or grief and Steven isn't exactly the most supportive person when it comes to things like this. But then I met you out on that dungeon and things began to change, life began to brighten and I had started to care for you as more than just an ally in battle, I cared for you more than any one I had ever known. And back at the battle where you nearly died I was completely out of my mind with worry and guilt for dragging you into the troll fight, that's when I realised that I loved you. I hated to see anything bad happening to you, that's why I carried you back and stayed over you all that time, that's why I always try to protect you and that's why I no longer hate this world, because of you being here." He said slowly with true sincerity, he then took a deep breath as he took out the velvet box from his pocket and opened it. "Would you do me the utmost honour and pleasure of becoming my wife?"