The large golden sun high up in the sky, not yet directly above me but close to it, covered the floor with a brilliant light and a soothing warmth found on only a few floors in Aincrad. However I disregarded the realistic beauty of the round sun high in the deep blue sky purely for the fact that it wasn't real, any of it, all of it was the creation of human hands at the screen of a computer, it was a fake beauty and nothing more in my mind.
I was in the large and spacious city of Lindas, situated on the 48th floor it was the floor's main city, holding its floor teleport gate and a huge number of NPC shops alongside a few player manned shops. The town was styled in the theme of an old European medieval city with a number of thatched roof houses, straight smooth cobble paths winding through the whole city, a large number of trees planted all around the city without much discretion and small waterways meandering through man made channel-ways which all ended up meeting in a large river which cut the walled city into two separate halves.
As I walked down the long stone roads, with Sky walking beside me, I cautiously looked at all of the buildings that we passed most were in the style of an Elizabethan building, dark wood beams making up a simple frame for the house out of a number of squares and rectangles with white wood walls to fill in the space. However to me these buildings weren't just any normal type of structures which could be found around Aincrad, to me their design and structure served as a painful reminder of the world that I had left behind me when I placed on the NerveGear nearly 2 whole years ago.
In the real world I was raised up and had lived in an area of the country which was still heavily influenced by its past yet looking towards the future for prosperity and a possible return to fame. A large number of buildings from eras long past still survived in a cared for and restored manner, houses, shops, churches and huge stone castles still survived in conditions as close to their original state as physically possible. Throughout the year many events and festivals took place commemorating and reminding us of the past and all the greatness which had come with it. After a lifetime being surrounded by this on a daily basis this town didn't serve as any sort of good memory or place where I could feel at home, it seemingly mocked me and constantly reminded me of all that I had left behind that I had held close to me.
It was not long before we had reached our destination, in the outskirts of the town there was a small building with two sections to it, the main section followed the general structure trend with a thatched roof, and dark wooden structure beams contrasted by the white walls. The second section was rather different, it was somewhat cylindrical with a tile roof which had a number of metal chimney pipes leading out from it, the whole building itself was made from a number of oddly shaped white and dark stones which somehow managed to create a smooth curved surface for the building. However one of its more unique features was the small stream which was flowing around the two buildings only stopped by the presence of a heavy water wheel which was lazily rotating with the current's flow.
It was Lisbeth's Smith shop, the place where she had set to be the battleground for our little forging duel to test who's skill and precision was better under the pressure of time and losing high stakes. I quickly flicked open my menu panel and saw that the time was 11:50 AM, we had managed to get here 10 minutes early, so instead of awkwardly waiting outside of the shop we walked over the sturdy rope bridge which connected the mainland to the land which her shop was upon and walked into the shop through a light and smooth wooden door.
Above us a small bell rang out as we opened the door to what seemed to be the shop part of this two building structure. In the centre of the room and along the sides there was glass display cabinets which held a variety of different items, although all the weapons that were in the cases were small and only a few pieces of chain armour had found its way into one of the cabinets. However hung up, by the use of strengthened peg like holds, upon all four of the white walls were numerous heavy weapons, great swords, Falchions, Spears, Halberds and Shields in all shapes and colours. At the back of the room there was a simple wooden counter which had a small inkwell, with a quill placed in it, and a large yellow cloth draped over the front.
I was instantly drawn to one of the cabinets up against the wall which contained a number of dark red and green daggers while Sky quickly moved over to inspect some of the great swords and long swords which were hooked up against the wall. By clicking a small white button hovering above each of the weapons I was able to open up a panel which showed each of their stats, what I quickly noticed was that the stats were much higher than anything that a normal smith could forge and most particularly that the speed stat on each of the blades seemed extremely high for what they were made out of and for how little they had been priced at. From this I quickly realised that she was no rookie smith vying for position in the market nor was she as un-rightfully arrogant as I had initially thought her to be.
"This is going to be fun." I said quietly to myself, comprehending how hard this competition may turn out to be compared to what I had initially thought it would be.
"Indeed it will be." I heard a very smug and cocky voice coming from the door behind me which led out to the other section of the building. I turned to see Lisbeth in the same gear that I had seen her in yesterday, although there was visibly a number of burn and soot patches which definitely hadn't been there before. "So come early to get your defeat over and done with then?" She asked mockingly.
"Came here early so that I can get home to frame my new items on the forge wall before it gets dark tonight." I returned with an equally patronizing and mocking tone, still not willing to back down on anything.
"Or the fact that he was up all night messing around with metals and so wants it over with so he can actually go to sleep." Sky managed to slip in a truthful comment which I outright ignored, although Lisbeth gave a short laugh knowing that through me ignoring the comment it must have been true.
"Well then." She moved her hands onto her hips. "Lets get this thing started and hope you don't fall asleep halfway into it, although I couldn't complain if that happens, I mean you've got to give the rookies a break every so often don't you." She continued in a patronising manner, with fake pity. I sent a silent glare her way, which she rebounded by giving a small smile before turning back around to the door and opening it. On the other side was a small outdoors walkway which connected the shop to the actual forge.
The forge itself was very simple, containing a large red brick furnace which had a blazing coal fuelled blaze at its base, a large black metal anvil in the centre of the room, two smooth grindstones which were connected up to the water wheel outside to make them spin, a few tool racks which held a number of different tools, form hammers to chisels, all that could be needed was there, and cupboards which most likely contained materials and moulds used within her work. It wasn't particularly much to look at and the room was still cool due to the clod stone walling taking a large amount of the heat from the furnace, but it seemed sufficient enough to do its job in an efficient manner.
Lisbeth walked over to the cupboards and swung the doors open revealing the spectrum of differently sized and coloured materials which she could use for her work. She leaned down and pulled out a massive bar of white metal which she seemed to be able to pick up with ease, suggesting that whatever it was, it was a light metal. "Mythril, but I'm sure if you're a master smith you would know that anyway." Lisbeth commented as she noticed me looking at the bar somewhat confused as to which metal I could take it down to just from appearance. She moved back over to the black iron anvil and placed the bar of mythril on it rather softly for a metal. "So you've seen what I'm using, what about you?"
I moved over to the other side of the anvil to her and started flicking through my inventory panel until I found the material which I was looking for. I clicked on it and grabbed hold of it with both of my hands as it materialised in the air, I quickly put my hands to the far ends to try and ease some of the strain on my arms from this extremely heavy and dark orange coloured metal bar, and placed it down with a thud on the anvil. From Lisbeth's completely confused, yet curious stare, I could see that she had never encountered this metal anywhere before.
"It's Vracrassium, a rare drop on the 67th floor by a Groundling Centurion. But of course any master smith would know about this metal wouldn't they." I revealed the metal with a smug face, throwing back her taunt and knowing that I had got her on this one.
With a somewhat annoyed look she took long necked metal tongs and picked up her bar of mythril with a practised ease. "So you have a fancy metal from the Front lines, but can you live up to the metal and beat me?" She asked in a way that made it clear that the time for talking was over and the time to get to work had begun.