"You're the one who always hated guns," says the other.

"Do you guys need help?"

She isn't quite sure how to properly phrase 'and would a sword be the sort of help you need?', so she... doesn't say that. Yet.

Punching a critter: "I appear to have stopped being able to effectively sword, and we didn't bring backup magical weapons - " they say, "Also other odd phenomena. This dunj has been doing some quite strange things. Help is greatly appreciated."

"If lack of a sword is your problem, I can help with that."

...and clatter.

Sword! They'll scoop her up before the Marian body can, and whirl, gripping her two-handed, to cut a swath through the kitten bugs. 

'Thank you!' they send. 'Did you just get this ability?'

Literally a minute ago. ...yeah, this is much more affective than a chair.

'It is! I got my weapon abilities from fist-fighting my way through a dunj, that was fun... Didn't run into someone to team up with, though, this is lucky.'

I wouldn't say that using a chair was a bad idea-- but there's something to be said for being edged. And teaming up is better than being a chair-wielding potential-sword.

...should I be worried about suddenly not being able to be a sword?

Swipe swipe.

'It was a very odd sync interaction of ours - we were starting to be able to share thoughts and memories and notions unusually well, and then the barrier between our minds stopped existing. As best as we can figure, we stopped counting as relevantly different for wielding, but we've been unable to test that hypothesis.'

...so not something that's likely to come up.

still, uh, sorry to hear that? it sounds unfortunate.

'We are not certain how we feel about it yet, but yes, that's the general attitude.'

Swing. For an ex-weapon they're skilled, martial training clear in their movements.

Louie is way less skilled at being a sword, and is basically sitting there, with no powers manifesting yet.

you got too good at being a weapon to be a weapon.  that's gotta sting.

'Kind of. I think I prefer wielding, though. Oh, hey, figuring out weapon-ing's hard when you start human, here's some of the tricks - '

And they'll send mental impressions of assorted actions associated with working with their wielder to the sword. 'What's your name, anyways? I'm Lianne.'

I'm Louie.

She takes the impressions, and tries to make them work -- and produce a crackle of electricity along the blade.

The electricity makes the sword even more effective at debugging! 

'Good name. Where did you enter from?'

That-a-way. From a mall. That's why I headed in. It was crowded enough that evacuation didn't quite work.

'Ouch. Crowds are the worst time to have a dunj pop up, yeah, I've worked emergency response enough... We'll want to move fast, then, get this portal closed - or at least moved, that's what happened when Marian and I got to, well, what I suspect was a portal stone, rather than the central one.'

this one had multiple entrances? jesus.

'Yeah. I've never seen one that does that, before.'

i mean, all the more reason to shut it down quick, before it terrorises some third place

'Definitely! Feel ready to move out?'

as ready as i'll ever be. swording seems like the sort of thing better picked up by doing than talking.

'Yeah. Let's get going.' They'll bounce the mental sensation of forming an attack, but will note it's different, and start leading the way down another tunnel.

They're accosted relatively soon by a small swarm of monsters.

Lianne is, at least, a good fighter.

Louie just-- let's her self be wielded. Lianne knows what she's doing, so Louie's gonna trust her.

Not taking any actions isn't super conducive to magic, even if Lianne's a skilled swordsperson. 

"Can you try coordinating attacks with me? This'll be easier with magic," Lianne sends after the wave's taken care of.