Zarlessa POV

Casting I made a corridor with 5 meter tall walls behind us and to either side leaving an opening in the direction we were already facing. Funneling the undead into a constant 1 v 2 against typhis as the frontliner. Typhis whipped into a frenzy of fists and kicks, creating space for himself with each flaming skeleton sent bowling balled into the crowd. Taking a knee after decapitating a skeleton with a head kick stone grew from his hand into a waist high boulder he then kicked forward down the frosty hallway. Knee capping tens of skeletons at once making them crawl towards us until the next wave of undead came crashing through the walkway stampeding over their fallen brethren crushing them under foot. After a spinning heel kick a skeleton landed a glancing slash onto his calf causing black boils to bubble from the thin cut. Slowing but not stopping his advance he was losing ground against the sea of movement. Thinking quickly I rushed past him sliding on my knees to create . Mist rose slowly from underfoot with skeletons slipping and falling. Spinning on my knees while still on the ice coated floor I cast to create spikes that stabbed through the remaining skeletons leaving cracked skulls or various other bones lifted into the air being held in place while on these spires. Eerie silence and a slight fog of mist coming up from the frozen environment was all that could be seen from within the walled corridor.

"Holy fuck" Typhis said while throwing himself onto the ground.

"Yeah I might have overdone it a bit..."

Walking past the icy battleground reminded me of a tiger trap from hell with all the corpse strewn around the ground, with the bones impaled on the spikes looking like a morbid display of some kind. Continuing into the room we approached two different doors, one with a golden trim outlining the frame of the door. A second with a red boars head on the door itself.

"Which of these leads to Jayce?" I asked while examining the boars head on the door

"I mean so far the bronze color has lead to nothing but undead, and undead are normally stronger the further under ground you are... And so far 'Jayce' hasn't exactly been uh... Lucky."

"Listen Typhoid... You actually kind of have a point..." Staring at the door with the boars head I slowly opened it with a loud creaking being released along with the hinges slowly turning in response.

"It's Typhis. Like tie and... Uh... Fis?"

"That's stupid"

"You're stupid!" Typhis yelled in response.

Sneaking a glance past the door itself revealed a glimmering red screen of magic, distorting the stone doorway to bend, pull, and push in shape and size. Past the barrier you could see shapes but those too changed with the shimmering magic not truly allowing one to look past it.

"What is this?" I asked bringing a finger up close but not committing enough to poke it

Grabbing the back of my dress and throwing me back wards the red screen reached out with tendrils throwing a net on top where I stood only moments ago. Slowly slinking back onto the screen itself the amorphous blob of tendrils became one with the screen again.

"Bronze door it is?" Typhis in disbelief of the cannibalistic red screen spoke aloud

"Bronze door it is..." I said grabbing onto his arm with shock brazenly displayed on my face.

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Jayce POV

Waking up to a cocoon of ice was not the preferred way to start my day, but regrettably I've woken up to worse. Using magic without a focusing point was immensely more draining, yet I managed to rest to fully regained core stats. Stretching my arms while yawning loudly I took a moment to think of my next move. This tunnel seemed to expand out in every direction, with the only clue as to where I was directionally being the stream of water. Unfortunately that was another thing about water Agatha would die before I forget,

'Water and doubts both seek out the lowest points they can reach, water will always lead to a way out if you head upstream, or the furthest depths if you follow it downstream. In the same way if you doubt yourself follow those doubts upstream and you can find out how to beat them by cutting off the source'

Basically the water has to come from somewhere on the surface, and it will travel until there is literally no way possible for it to get further down a slope. Doubts are very much the same as that in concept, doubts have to come from somewhere. Which means they can be stopped at the source whether that be insecurity about height, weight, strength, anything even if it can't be changed your perception about it can be overcome once you know where the doubt comes from.

Wiping my eyes with my ruined shirt, I really wish Agatha could come save me like she always does... Or did I guess. Tightening a fist then taking my first step I walked following the water upstream hoping for a way to get back to Zarlessa and the man-boy knight. Why is my luck so horrible?

Eventually the tunnel narrowed to where the ceiling was only a few meters overhead, entering deeper into the cavern a familiar metallic sound started echoing off the slicked walls of the cave. Light shone from further within the dark passageway, a humanoid sized gap let me slip through into the well lit room. Bricked furnace on the far wall had a rusted cast iron anvil directly across the room with a beaten up blacksmiths hammer laying ontop of it. A near perfect recreation of the crafting section of Grungil's shop was burrowed this far underground, in a dungeon? The main exception being all the ingots in the side room were the same deep bronze as... Oh shit.

Smiling ear to ear I ran further into the shop, seeing tanned leather in the back I grabbed as much as I could and carry. Crafting the leather into brown leather pants and a over coat with a hood that came down far enough to shade my eyes but not block my vison. Making as many pockets as I could, two on my calves, two on my thighs, and the normal pants pockets in front and back. The overcoat had two giant pockets that ran basically from neck to waist around my entire body. Finally, I fashioned together a massive sack with two leather strings to tighten the top instead of a flap like a backpack would have. Stripping off the ruined frill party shirt then cutting the shirt into multiple ribbons in case of injury I stuffed the worst case bandages into the pockets of my calves. Filling the rest of the pockets with any amount of [Dwafari Bronze] I could get my hands on, ending with around ten ingots of metals. Getting up to continue on my way I noticed the awkward angle of the ingots would poke and stab at me from inside the coat and rub painfully against my legs as I walked.

Dropping my sack and emptying my pockets I figured there must be a better way to do this... Then I got an amazing idea.

Melting down the bronze using the forge, I made three plates using almost six ingots altogether. It would have used less if the bronze had reacted the way it did back in Grungil's real shop, but for some reason it didn't respond the same way it did back then. Mistake after mistake was made when striking the white hot metal, the loss of material was devastating and the plates had thin dents here and there but the trade off was mastering the craft itself along with not having the time to chase perfection. Fitting the plates into the overcoat one was put to cover my back, with the other two to protect my sides and to act as another layer of armor over the top of my breastplate. Using the two more ingots I made a few lock picks and a hammer, in hindsight I should have made the hammer first instead of using the old rusted one just laying there but it was too late to go back now the inner armor was already made. Using the last of the ingots I made a great sword with just a simple leather wrap for the handle.

[Dwafari Great sword-fourth tier: A great sword made from ancient metals]

Seeing the light shine off the sword made me feel like a proud father, this must be what Agatha meant when she would see me do the technique she was teaching me correctly. Standing up and stretching my back a loud growl came from the main room of the copycat shop.