There's this town with two blacksmiths - one, a swordsmaker and the other, a shield maker. The swordsmaker's swords can slice through anything as a rule and the other guy's shields cannot be destroyed. Now they get cut up with each other for some reason and pit their wares against each other. What do you expect happens?

The phrase "as a rule" typically denotes something which happens most of the time, but not necessarily all of the time.

The quest states that the perfect swords cut through anything "as a  rule", which, to me, means that they cut throught almost everything.

However, there is no such clause associated with the shields, so I conclude that the shileds are capable of resisting the swords' cuts.

Posted by Erik O. on 2004-06-14 13:09:27