Yes, I would! 

Then they can powers test!

Cooper seems to strongly favor solid, powerful blows, but can figure out pretty quickly if that's not working for them.

Jamie seems to tilt a bit towards subtlety, but he adapts fairly quickly. He wouldn’t really go for a blunt style all by his lonesome, but it seems to work pretty well for Cooper, and he has no pressing strategic objections. 

(He notices a bit of a mental hiccup over the name ‘Cooper’ - the name comes out a little dreamily. He isn’t surprised that he’s acquiring some sort of - emotional attachment - to the only person he’s ever met, and if emotional attachments really do improve magical potency, it might even be advantageous. But that would be a convenient lie, wouldn’t it, if you met someone brand new who had trouble distinguishing between true concepts and false ones, and you wanted to obtain their loyalty - he half-discards the possibility, but can’t help but keep it in the back of his mind - )

One particular attempt to stab at the air and make it hand over its valuables - clicks, in a way that others don’t. A little droplet of not-darkness squeezes itself out of the tip of the blade and drips down, dissipating a few feet above the floor.

That was anticlimactic, he comments.

Cooper's fine adjusting his style, too.

"Looks kinda cool, though," he says. "Maybe it does something when we hit a thing?"

I would be surprised if it didn’t. Any conveniently low-tier mooks nearby? 

"I cleared out the ones as I was coming in. They haven't been too bad so far. Heard they get worse near the center, though."

Do you want to go ahead and fight some more of them, and in doing so acquire knowledge about what we can do, and then practice, armed with that knowledge, or do you want to invert that order of operations and practice more now, without that knowledge, and then be better equipped for our first foray as a team?

"That's tough. I'm not sure how much practicing now helps? When we don't know what you're doing. Unless you can like feel what strikes are strongest? We could play hot-cold then."

I don’t think that’s something I’m best equipped to do in practice, rather than the field, if I can do it. Plan ‘find some monsters, stab them’ it is, then?

"Works for me."

And he'll start exploring. The weird stained glass effect remains faintly dizzying, like a hall of mirrors, and he gets lost pretty easily, but he's also never been a maze person and he's in good enough shape to just walk the whole thing if he has to.

Also it makes spotting the monsters hard.

Like that one, that suddenly stops being part of the landscape and charges him.

His inclination is 'stand his ground' but that doesn't fit as well so he dodges to the side, lets it get past, and lashes at its back.

Jamie - fits together his mental state, matches it to what it was when the droplet was produced, pushes -

The weird not-darkness that covers him spreads, rapidly, to cover the previously-a-part-of-the-landscape-monster, until it shares his distinction of being perfectly visible in every respect, and also, as is obvious to the eye, dark.

The monster shrieks and starts flailing around - completely unable to see.

It's very easy to stab after that, though Cooper has to keep moving to not get hit when it spins around.

The monster, in time, ceases moving.

I think that I like stabbing things! That was great... although being covered in monster is kind of disconcerting and I would like to stop that.

"I can imagine!" 

Luckily he brought a cleaning cloth; he can also suggest maybe ways Jamie could try using magic to clean himself off? Magical weapons usually seem like supernaturally clean.

Concentrating intently on being clean seems to work, well enough - he sort of sizzles, and the gook bubbles up and drips down as swiftly dissipating not-darkness.

How strange. Thank you! Should we go continue stabbing monsters, or should we try practicing more, with this added tactical information?

"Hm. I'm not sure also how 'practicing fake dodging blind monsters' balances off against 'me not getting tired,' I'm not sure how big this dunj is and dodging can use a lot of energy. I think on balance unless we start having trouble it might be best to conserve energy."

Right. People get tired. I might’ve gotten - overly enthusiastic, there, sorry.

"No worries. Remembering humans are squishy is hard enough when you are one."

I can only imagine. - and if we’re going into downtime, could I go back to being humanoid.

"If you want to? I'd hoped to keep moving right now, I don't want to leave the portal open unnecessarily, but definitely during breaks, and if it's important at any given time I can schedule a break then."

I think that I misinterpreted ‘conserve energy’, I was imagining ‘you’re asleep or eating, I’m standing watch’, not ‘we’re still moving’. I’m new at this, sorry. Carry on.

"It's cool! Walking doesn't take much energy, but fighting does, so it's more - use the amount of energy that accomplishes the task and not more, not 'use the minimal amount per time.'"

He does the telepathic equivalent of a nod.

Walk walk walk, oh look two monsters now - 

Cooper tries to work in some fancier footwork, but luckily they're easy to get behind like Jamie seems to like.

Benefit of fighting two: once blinded, they get in each other's way. They don't quite attack each other, but there's definitely flailing going on.

Tolerably elegant stabbing: occurs!

He experiences a degree of unadulterated glee which is mildly contextually inappropriate - not at the stabbing itself, per se, the actual experience of that is sort of sensorily gross, but the movement, the feeling of control, the sense of progress towards a greater goal, the hiss of the air against steel -