The Death Dealer was somewhat dissatisfied with this weapon, being formed from her own flesh and blood, it was supposed to carry the same strength and resistance as she did, thus making it into a most glorious arm that could easily be said to be legendary as it increased in power as Maliah did, however, supreme materials could not solve the problem of a fragile mechanism.
When Maliah had created this blade after stumbling upon one in smith's shop, she had been rather pleased with the unconventional design of this parrying dagger, unlike a swordbreaker or any other types of main-gauche, it had a really nifty look, there were two types of them actually, one following the original design closely, the other, Maliah had slightly modified a bit.
As normally, the trident dagger would just unfold and that was it, you would be trapping and parrying with the blade unfolded into three, Maliah had just added a little thing to instead enclose the blades around the enemy's sword, thinking that it was cooler and more useful to really seize control of someone's weapon using her superior strength.
The normal design worked well enough, but her variation was clearly lacking as it had been broken.
The challenge here was that the materials used could only be sourced from Maliah herself, as any bits that weren't taken from the assassin's body would not grow in strength like the rest, which would inevitably lead to problems.
Although restricted in her energy usage, Maliah could still use it to do a few things, such as bend like boneless contortionist which could be carried over to the materials, having the means and bringing them together properly was a difficult affair however, as much as Loimos might be knowledgeable, proper smithing wasn't his greatest area of expertise, craftsmanship was mostly done via rot for him.
And the trident dagger was a rather challenging design in of itself.
Though, they only needed to improve the resistance of the mechanism and bring it to the same toughness as the rest despite all its moving parts.
To begin with, Loimos built some replicas using rot, even if the final product had to be forged conventionally, he could still experiment with designs using his regular method, watching the filthy decay just manifest out of thin air and take the appearance of steel without any way to tell them apart from the real thing was always an interesting sight to Maliah, even if the smell of putrefaction always got strong whenever he pulled his rot.
"Is it me or you got stinkier since last time?" she rubbed her nose.
"My smell stays constant, you have merely increased in power" he simply replied.
"Impossible, I haven't killed anything, I can't have grown that much more powerful since the last time I saw you" to make sure, she stepped closer to him.
"Mmh… That's weird…" focusing a bit, it did indeed seem like it was her who had suddenly improved faster than usual.
All that she had done special lately was lounge about at the beach, surely seeing some sunlight and dressing less wasn't conductive toward a heightening of the conversion rate of energy into physical prowess, that would be strange.
Thinking about the beach, she reached up to one of Loimos's shoulder.
"By the way, One told me that you designed that swimwear thing for me… It reminded me that you aren't actually a dull, oblivious corpse- So, I was wondering, when are you planning on giving that vampire what she wants? Wouldn't participating in some undeadling creation be valuable? You are the only one possessing that festering death force, after all" hoisting herself up to his level, it was actually a question worth asking as there was no reason for the unfeeling undead to mind such a thing.
"It could indeed bring about valuable undeads, however, it is impossible" he simply answered.
"Loimos… Would you care to elaborate? You are literally the one who came up with the idea" the assassin looked as he laid out multiple designs of trident dagger upon the table.
"The process of creation between two undeads might appear similar to that of the living at a glance, but that is merely because the act itself is often performed in a manner that is reminiscent of it due to many of those partaking either having once been living and doing as such, or some imagining that it is necessary" he began explaining.
"However, us undeads actually only need to meld our death force, a male undead and female undead merge their death through physical contact and will to procreate, leading to a bundle of death force to be placed within the female, the male gives the most death force initially, whilst the female insteads feeds hers into the bundle as she carries it"
"Which is similar to pregnancy in a way, and once that it done, the bundle is pulls itself out and forms itself into an undeadling"
"Huh, you don't actually have to bone one another? That's… Deeply disappointing for some reason… Though I still don't see where the problem is"
"It does not matter for others as they can not directly control their death force like I do, but upon the melding, neither of the two undeads would retain authority over any of the death they used up, that would also apply to me, and that would mean that my festering death would act like it normally would and simply devour all around itself, the other's death force and body included"
"Those taken apart by my death force are also not returned to The Graveyard" he added.
"Ah… That's… Unfortunate? And you can't just have your death force be weaker when you give some out?"
"Although it could prevent the other undead from being eaten away if they are powerful enough, the death force they placed within the bundle would be devoured without fail, festering death overpowers all other death force, as such, it is impossible for me to partake in undead creation"
"I see… I suppose I shouldn't say any of this to One?"
"You may do as you wish, no setback will ever deter her" the vampiress was much too insane to be demoralised anyways.
Maliah turned her attention to the dagger designs, only one remained on the table now, all others having disappeared as Loimos released his rot.
"Did you find a way?"
Telling her to test the one that was here, Loimos stepped to the side, toward an anvil.
Trying out the mechanisms durability, Loimos had mimicked a rather basic iron, to show that the contraption could hold up without being made from some incredible material or by being infused with countless enchantments and the likes.
"I don't know when my birthday is… But that is an excellent gift already- Now let's get to forging!"
Placing herself in between the anvil and Loimos.
"I need to know how to forge it, so guide me a bit, alright?" she said with a warped smile, the situation might have been a bit humorous considering that she was basically asking him to show her the proper movements to make, if not for the fact that Maliah was right up to the heart of the stench.
"You should think about finding a way to completely mask that scent of yours…"