Sitting up with a stretch Mia checked her status, “Health 102… mana 537…” she was still poisoned and hungry, but she wasn’t actively losing health and it was slowly regenerating. Her mana was also satisfactory for what she had planned next.
She saved, as much as she’d like to stay on her little platform she needed to find a more secure place than just this hallway near the entrance, ideally she needed to find food and… well… “also this… fish… thing…”
Looking over she looked past the wall of ice she had made earlier, just tall enough to stop a fish-type monster that was aggressively trying to get past it. The creature itself was just a small fish with severely sharp teeth. This one was not the only fish type monster to come down the hallway, but it was the only one that was persistent enough to stick around while she was resting.
She took out her knife, holding it up between her and the fish before nodding “Need a new one.” She then stabbed the knife into the ice sheet and opened up her status. “Out of all I have…sword and axe…” Using a dagger in this dungeon with fish monsters was already something she could tell she didn’t want to do, the water being knee length for her also didn’t help.
She needed something with more reach.
It was a shame not to use daggers, she really liked them and had gotten used to them but she really needed those stat increases… also, while she felt a bit mad admitting it, she needed more options.
“So, between the two!” she clapped her hands together, magic forming in her palms “First, sword.” She had used an axe before, and frankly she didn’t like it so she decided to put it off, so now she decided to try out what nearly all the soldiers she had seen use.
First, she created the hilt, neading the ice magic to her will and forming a handle bigger than the one used for the daggers. She found it simple to do so, feeling guided by an invisible force that was telling her what to do, the small details, even as she formed the blade the knowledge flowed through her as she mimicked what she had saw before.
She smoothed the blade out, sharpening its edges, and got a bit into it by imprinting a subtle pattern on the blade. “Mn, feels good.” She nodded to herself, satisfied with her work as she held the new sword above her “Daggers are easier… but looks nice.” She brought it down and traced a finger along the pattern she put in the blade.
It felt satisfying, and in chasing this feeling she placed the blade down and started working on the axe. Starting on the handle she shaped and molded her ice, making it long like the one she had used previously “Hrm, boring.” But just having a normal handle like this was…plain… so she morphed and twisted the ice and made it wrap around itself, creating a spiral pattern stretching the length of the axe.
Satisfied, she moved onto the blade, creating an axe head at the top “hm…” but with a fancy handle she’d needed something more… fitting… she didn’t want to change the shape of the axe head, so instead she did what she had done for the sword blade, decorating it with a simple pattern.
“Oh~~~” she had the two weapons laid side by side, admiring her work “Hm, maybe if I made the handle better, oh, maybe with another…no…” she wanted to improve it a bit more, but the angry splashing of the fish monster brought her out of it “right, forgot.” She stood up, stretching and basking in that feeling. She felt like she could get lost in that, as if something had awakened inside of her…or the blood loss was taking its toll.
Either way, time to check the two.
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She picked up the sword and gave it a few swings, and instantly felt dissatisfied “Bleee…” it just felt…*weighty*…. It was hard to explain but it was a lot different than with her daggers, she didn’t think it was a problem with the weapon itself, but rather her and what she had gotten used to.
Sighing, she readied her blade and faced the ice wall and willed it to lower. The fish moved away, startled by the magic but quickly circled around, and Mia charged, jumping into the water and taking aim, swinging her sword at it and with a splash quickly got thrown off balance by the sword catching the water “eh?”
The monster avoided the slowed down blade, circling around and leaping out of the water, its fangs spread wide ready to chomp down on her face-
Mia loaded.
“Hm…” She folded her arms, she was not expecting that. Not wasting anytime she made a new blade and went to the side of her platform without the wall and swung a few times at the water’s surface. “…heavy…” the water was catching blade and made it hard to cut through, this felt very wrong… “This won’t work.” The weapon was simply not suited for this.
She tossed the hastily made sword into the water and made an axe, giving it a few swings she frowned, not liking the weight it had. With a shrug she took a few swings at the water to see if she had the same problem and to her surprise she didn’t swinging down the blade it pierced the water, creating a large splash. But when she tried to move it back up, it took quite a bit of effort “haaaah….”
But then she perked up, dropping the axe and walking over to the sword, if slashes didn’t work then maybe… she jabbed at the water’s surface and her face lit up. She climbed back onto the platform, and lowered the ice wall, and just like before she jumped into the water and readied her weapon, jabbing at the fish when it got close.
And missed completely, the fish leaping out of the water and chomping down on Mia’s face.
One load later Mia was once again sitting down with her arms crossed “It was faster, but still missed.” She tilted her head back and forth “Better than the axe...” She made another quick sword and laid it out in front of her, trying to figure out what to do next.
“Too short?” If she had longer reach, then maybe she had more of a chance?
She reached out, using her magic to mold the sword, making the blade longer. She lifted it up, giving it a few experimental thrusts and nearly stumbled forward after a few thrusts, the balance for this was way off, it also didn’t feel like a sword anymore.
“Hrm. If I am just using the tip like this, do I need the rest of the blade?” she gripped the blade, and from the tip down she molded it into a rounded staff “like this?” she then gripped the pole and gave it a few thrusts forward, surprised at how it felt “even like this… if I shaped the blade like…” she shifted the blade tip, flaring it a bit and then swung the entire pole around “can do slashes, liking this.”
She smiled, and if she needed to she could make the pole longer or shorter using her magic. “Now testing.” She readied her makeshift weapon, lowering the ice wall and jumping into the water, she pulled her weapon back and thrust forward, missing the first time but quickly thrust again, and again, and again, the speed at which she was able to attack with this weapon brightened up her eyes, she was positively glowing when she finally able to pierce the fish.
She raised her weapon with the fish stuck at the end of it and smiled wide “Feels so much better!” she exclaimed, jumping back onto the platform she sat down, the weapon laid before her “only problem is missing…” she was able to attack at a larger range, and keep making attacks fast enough before the monster got to her, but she couldn’t figure out why she was missing, just not used to it yet?
“No, maybe…” she reached down, plucking the dead monster from the blade and then started her work, molding the top of her weapon and splitting the tip into three, increasing its reach at the end “Like this? No, further apart.” She modified it a bit more before standing up and giving it a few thrusts “Slightly slower, but...”
She loaded one last time and remade the weapon then lowered the wall, leaping into the water she aimed at the monster, and with one thrust the three bladed staff pierced the through the water and through the flesh of the monster. Mia pulled the weapon back, inspecting her kill, giving a light chuckle, she did not know what this weapon was called, but for this dungeon it would work.
“Hope it is a weapon… so I can get a skill…” She sighed, climbing back onto the platform and sitting down “first things first…” she rose the weapon high into the air, admiring her makeshift handy work.
“Gotta make it look nicer.”