Lisbeth drew her sword with a slight flurry of her wrist revealing a long Falchion like blade. The blade was made from a white steel which seemed to have a slight aura of pink around it, obviously from the Mythril she had previously shown me . It was thin for a Falchion, which normally had a thickness to them to add to weight, but this was made up with the length and width of the blade, it was just over two arms length and the blade was wider than an outstretched hand. From this I could deduce that it was made for fast and hard sweeping strikes whilst still being usable as a defensive weapon. The cross-guard, styled like that of a European Greatsword and made from a dark iron, was curved inwards with metal fangs facing outwards towards the enemy, at each end of the cross-guard there was a lethal spike ready to attack anything that got too close. The hand grip was simply wrapped with bright red leather straps which covered whatever metal shaft that made up the main handle beneath the grip, below that was the pommel, a simple angular ball of solid iron.
She held it up with one hand quite confidently and seemingly without much effort, however by the length of both the blade and the handle I could see that in combat it was to be used with two hands. With a quick glance around the room I could see that there was a number of other Falchions in this style, she had obviously been practising and perfecting this sort of forging style for a while now. From sight alone I knew that the sword was formidable and would easily pass for a front line sword, however the fact that so many other Falchions were around me and considering her fiery determination to win this duel of sorts I began to worry that it may be better than my own creation.
"So how about we see your sword then, considering the fact that it's taken over 6 hours to forge it to your standards." Sky said in slight exasperated manner, although by her smile I could see that she wasn't being particularly serious. In reply I placed my right hand onto the ruby pommel and after a few seconds drew the blade and held it at its full extent, letting the blade catch in the light shining through the windows.
Lisbeth looked at the blade in a very unimpressed manner, she seemed to scrutinize every inch of the exposed blade, after a few seconds of this she looked up to me and said, "This. This, took you near on 7 hours to make. A general one handed longsword, literally, it looks like the sort of weapon we saw down in the 20th floors. You honestly think that it can beat my plus 40 reinforced Storm Cleaver." She boasted her arrogance without flaw or even a slight pause to think over what she was going to say.
"Hmm, looks can be very deceiving, especially considering the fact that you haven't even seen its stats up against your Storm Cleaver. For all we know my Phantom Breaker could easily be better in every way by over 20 points. That and in a real life situation I think most people would prefer to use a longsword like this than a Falchion which takes ages to even unlock its skills." I said in quick retaliation to defend both my dignity and my forge-work, however I must admit the overall forging and tweaking took much longer than it should have done.
"Well why don't you actually get round to some of your tests or trials, whatever you're calling them, and actually see which one is better? Rather than just standing here acting as if your lives depended on this." Sky said from behind Lisbeth with exasperation, she had obviously got bored of the two of us talking and wanted to see the swords in action, however at her last comment both me and Lisbeth turned on her and had mirrored looks of disapproval and her ignorance to how important something like this actually was.
After looking between the both of our expressions Sky gave out a sigh and walked off and towards the door, "Will never understand why in a game like this, a GAME, you're acting as if the person with the worse blade will be sent to gaming and real hell or something." She said rather loudly over her shoulder although at this point neither me or Lisbeth were paying much attention as we sheathed our swords and followed Sky over to the door.
Sky opened the door with a slight creak and the jingle of the bell hooked above the door. Outside it was still light but the sun had begun its decent towards the horizon covering the land in a pale golden light. The three of us walked down the few stairs to the path but instead of going over the bridge Lisbeth took lead and went the opposite direction into the deep forest which the river flowed into. I gave a questioning look to Sky but she just shrugged her shoulders and carried on following Lisbeth into the forest.
Although the forest had a dens canopy of dark green leaves the footpath we were following was unnaturally bright and the smooth stone path seemed completely out of place in such a natural area. However Lisbeth seemed to pay no attention to this and kept walking onwards with conviction, she seemingly knew where she was going and had obviously planned to take us to wherever she was going before hand.
After a few minutes of quite walking we arrived at a large clearing in the dense forest. The clearing was covered in light green grass, which had been unnaturally cut to a uniform length, and all around the circular area were a number of different weapon and armour stands, training dummies, large stacks of natural wood which laid next to a pile of splinters and a few thick wooden poles which had been visibly damaged by a number of blades. Although the clearing itself was void of any trees a light canopy of leaves, form the surrounding trees, sheltered the area whilst still letting in a large amount of light in the form of golden rays.
After entering Lisbeth walked to the centre, came to an abrupt stop and turned around to face us with her hands placed on her hips. "Welcome to my training area, bit basic and wooden but it does its job well enough. This is where we're going to test who has the better creation." She said proudly at the surprised and impressed looks that were on our faces. I had never seen something like this before in Aincrad and was interested to how she acquired the place as a whole and how she then moved on to equipping it with such gear.
"How did you come across a place like this, as I've been on most of the floors in this entire game and I've never seen somebody with a setup such as this one?" I voiced my curiosity as I began to walk around the training area. The wooden weapon racks were slightly bent, suggesting that they were in constant use to support a number of heavy objects, the two training dummies had a huge number of slices cut through their bound straw bodies, one even had a large section ripped out of its side, whilst the pile of small and large sticks had been stripped of their bark revealing the light colour of the wood below.
"As far as I know this place came with my forge when I bought it, took a few weeks to realise it existed, but after that it was just a simple question of going to the markets to buy whatever I wanted to place in here. Pretty impressive, huh?" She replied earnestly but with a slight smugness in her voice at the fact that she had something that two dedicated front line fighters had never seen before.
"Pretty impressive, 'specially as we haven't seen something like this before." Sky commented as she walked over to one of the ancient looking wooden chairs and plonking herself down in it. "So are we going to get to the trials or what, I mean we've literally been waiting a day or so for this and both of you seem content with trying to show off with words and possessions rather than blades and skill." She continued in a somewhat bored tone while she got herself comfortable in the chair, ready to watch the entertainment.