Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gel points to a handle set into the stone on the side of the forge itself.

"Go pump the bellows a few times, nice and slow, don't overdo it. I need the fire hot, I don't need it to melt the stone around it."

Gel took the vial and placed a drop of her blood on two of the metal ingots and took them to the forge, setting them into the coals with the tongs.

Gel pulled out a large hammer with one tapered end on the head, then took a few moments to watch the metal in the fire carefully. He grabbed one of the hunks of metal with the tongs and moved it away from the center of the coals, toward the cooler edge. He grabbed the other hunk and pulled it out of the fire and layed it on the anvil. He handed the tongs to Aonice..

"Here, just hold it steady, and flip it when I tell you."

He then picked up the hammer and began to rain even, accurate blows on the glowing chunk of metal.

Gel hammered the metal, stretching it out until it was half the thickness and twice the length it had been. He spun the hammer in his hand and tapped the middle of the length with the tapered end, putting a dent in it, then he had Aonice hold it over the edge of the anvil and bent the metal into a 90˚ angle. He then set that piece back into the fire to heat it back up and began the process with the other piece.

"Well it's pretty strenuous work in this stage, so I don't do more than about two hours a day of this part. After that there's the hilt, the handle, then the enchantments. All told it will be about three weeks."

Gel got the second piece of metal bent the same way and placed it back into the fire.

"You'll see in a moment... this is the tricky part. Hold that one like this."

Gel handed her the tongs with one of the glowing pieces of metal resting on the anvil, the bent end pointing up. Then he took the other piece in a second tongs, and rested it on top of the first, facing the opposite way, but right before he placed them together he spilled another drop from the vial where the two pieces would join. The blood sizzled and blackened quickly on the blazing hot metal. He struck the top one a couple of times with his hammer, then started to hit the bent end, folding it over the top of the second piece of metal, and pounding it together a couple of times.

"Flip it, and hold it steady."

He then proceeded to fold down the second piece and hammered it a couple more times for good measure before placing the now partially fused lump back in the fire.

"Well now that the pieces are together it's just a process of heating, folding, and repeating, at a certain point I will separate the metal into two pieces so I can make both blades. that will be several days from now at least, and I will also have to begin on carving the handle so it fits your grip, that kind of thing."

Gel spoke all of this as he pulled the metal out and began hammering again.

((The door opens when you knock, and you can tell that wherever this place is it's not in the hotel. Smoothly carved, well-lit stone stairs lead downward, and you can hear fire and the ringing of metal-on-metal))

Gel looks up from his work and places the cooling metal into a bucket of cold water.

"We have company..."

He heads out of the workshop to his entry area.