Dav seemed just as stunned by the sudden growth of a monster from little more than pond scum as Sophia was, but they still reacted faster than the monster grew. Sophia couldn’t see it, but she was certain that Dav called on Eldritch Reinforcement at almost the same moment that she Imbued her knife. He then darted forward.

Sophia carefully aimed for the green monster’s eye; she was only going to get one free hit before the monster finished its transformation, so she needed to make it count.

Sophia’s Imbued blast hit the monster just before Dav did. It impacted exactly where she aimed and was absorbed by the monster’s shield without damaging its eye. Oddly, the shield seemed to turn dark and hazy where she hit it; that was an effect she hadn’t seen before. Was the Guide giving her some sort of bonus for hitting a sensitive location or was that a side effect of her Imbued attack that wasn’t obvious without hitting a shield?

Either way, she’d take it. Anything that made it harder for the monster to see Dav was a bonus.

Dav didn’t have the luxury of time to aim; by the time he reached the monster, it was already moving. He managed to slice its left upper arm as it came for him, but he stumbled when his sword was stopped cold by the creature’s shield, leaving only a thin score in its flesh that started to slowly ooze a green fluid.

Dav’s stumble earned him a backhanded smack from the arm he’d sliced, but he somehow managed to duck under the other arm and dodge a step backwards away from its attempted lunging bite. The slime monster seemed sturdy and strong but slow. While that would have been a great combination under other circumstances, it was less than ideal in the cramped confines of a rumble-strewn corridor, which Dav proved by tripping over a four-inch-high broken stone block and landing on his butt.

Sophia rushed forward and pushed another Infusion into her knife. She wasn’t going to be able to stand back against this creature and throw mana at it, but she might well need the reinforcement if she had to block instead of getting out of the way. She didn’t need to attack, which was good since she reached the monster before the imbued mana settled into the form she’d picked, larger than her knife but not quite as large as the sword she’d normally have preferred.

The monster’s arms snapped through the space above Dav, where he would have been if he hadn’t fallen, before Sophia was there to help. It followed up that useless grab with another lunging bite attack, aimed lower.

Sophia was there by then; her Imbued knife smashed into the spot where its nose should have been and stopped the monster short. Like Dav’s earlier slice, it was almost completely stopped by the shield but left a small, slowly leaking, injury behind. Sophia was forced back two steps from the force of the impact, but she managed to stay on her feet.

There was definitely something weird about the shields. It was clearly not penetrated, but it also didn’t completely stop the attack. Sophia was beginning to think that the Guide was deliberately allowing just enough damage through the shield to make it clear that you’d been hit without allowing you to be too badly hurt. That would explain the darkness, too; it was saying she’d hit the eye without leaving a permanent scar if the monster survived.

Even the mechanical monsters made sense. They hadn’t realized they were leaving damage behind because against the brass it meant only a small streak or gouge. It might not even do that if the bronze couldn’t take it, since the clockwork monsters didn’t have feedback in that area.

It felt almost more like a training tool than what Sophia would consider a real shield, but it seemed to be built into what the Guide did for everyone and everything.

Dav took advantage of the pause Sophia created in the monster’s motion to awkwardly roll to the side and get his sword aimed at the monster’s throat. He then convulsively leapt up from the ground, rather than standing, in a clear attempt to skewer the creature’s throat. He opened a larger puncture, but still clearly hadn’t broken the shield yet.

The monster roared. Cliff’s voice rang in the back of her head with triumph; it seemed like the roar itself was something he could collect and he was thrilled to have it. Sophia suspected she’d be thrilled as well, but this was so far from the time to think about it that it wasn’t even funny. She didn’t have time for humor.

Sophia tried to move, but for a split second she couldn’t. There was no obvious reason, but Sophia was certain it was something carried by the monster’s roar, some effect that it used on its prey. What she felt wasn’t quite fear; it was more like shock. Either way, she was stunned for just long enough that the goop monster raked its claws across her chest.

Well, almost raked her chest. This was Sophia’s first real experience with being hit herself with the Guide’s Shield, and it was weird. She could see that the claws should have hit her and should have kept going at least enough to jar her backwards even if they didn’t penetrate, but she didn’t feel that force. Instead, the claws lightly scraped her armor.

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The surprise delayed her enough that she was almost hit by the monster’s other claw. She swayed to the side, then lunged forward herself to try to finish off the monster before it hit her again. She wasn’t sure how many of those hits her shield would take, but she didn’t expect that it would be many and she definitely didn’t want to be hit by the thing’s meaty paws without the shield.

Sophia’s knife stabbed towards the monster’s throat, but at the last minute she realized that it was trying to bite her arm and that it would succeed if she stabbed it. She lurched to the side instead, aborting the blow but keeping her arm unpunctured.

Dav wasn’t faring much better. He’d finally regained his feet, but somehow his sword was still on the ground. He tried to punch the monster, but despite the shield, his fist actually sank into the monster’s flesh as if it were mud. Sophia couldn’t quite believe the shield was gone, but maybe it didn’t stop anything that wasn’t going to harm the target?

Sophia was actually closer to Dav’s sword than he was, so she scooped it up. She turned to hand it back to him, then had a sudden thought: why was she only using Imbue Blade on her own weapon? There was nothing in the description that said she had to be the one to wield the charged weapon. She envisioned a weapon that was essentially the same size and shape as Dav’s blade but that had a far sharper edge, since it would be maintained by magic, then pushed mana into the blade. It snapped into place after taking only a fraction more mana than it took to fill her own far smaller knife.

Imbuing the blade was fast, but it still took longer than Sophia liked. Dav ran back several steps to stay ahead of the monster and Sophia followed him only a half-step behind. When the Imbue finally finished, Sophia reversed her hold on the sword and held the pommel out towards Dav. “Here. I’ve imbued it; see if that works better.”

“Thanks.” Dav snatched the blade from her hand, then whirled and sliced at the monster in a single motion. It was too soon and cut only the air in front of it instead of the green flesh.

Sophia positioned herself a few inches behind Dav and off to the side. If everything went the way she expected now, she ought to be able to - there!

The monster drove itself forward and Dav twisted out of the way. Sophia thought he didn’t quite manage to fully avoid the creature, but she didn’t have the spare attention to waste on being certain. She had to focus on her task, and her task was sinking her knife into the monster’s elbow. It wasn’t the blow she’d have gone for without the weirdness of the Guide’s shield, but she thought it might work well here; if the Guide disabled the monster’s elbow, it would be weak on that side.

Of course, normally she wouldn’t need to go for the elbow. Normally, she’d just kill the monster. It was too bad that wasn’t possible here. Maybe it would be possible if she was strong enough, but the shields almost seemed to be set up specifically to prevent a lot of the immediate kills she preferred and make fights more even.

It was annoying in some ways, but it might also have saved their bacon here; what she could manage with her normal Skills and what she could manage without them weren’t the same and she wasn’t certain she and Dav could handle the muck monster without them or the shields that had saved each of them at least once. As it was, they had to keep evading the monster; Sophia didn’t expect the shields to hold up to more than a blow or two, given how strong the monster was. She’d already taken one and Dav had just been hit the second time.

Sophia kept her focus on the monster rather than Dav. When it was finally close enough to the right position, she lunged forward and put everything behind it.

Sophia expected the monster’s shield to stop her. It didn’t; instead, her knife punched through it and penetrated the flesh that surrounded the monster’s elbow. It was only a fraction of an inch, but she thought she’d hit bone. She yanked on the knife, twisting it slightly to help free it, and when the knife popped free she was rewarded by a gush of oddly antiseptic-smelling fluid and a roar from the monster that seemed to carry pain instead of the earlier anger.

The monster tried to reach for Sophia, but its arm simply refused to move in that direction; it swung up at the shoulder but not out at the elbow. She must have hit something important; even better, she must have finally depleted the shield.

A glance down showed that she wasn’t the only one to have hit something important: Dav was still on the ground next to the wall the goo monster must have smacked him into. The entire left side of his face was purple, but it wasn’t the purple of a bruise; instead, the glowing purple that had appeared on his face after the trip through the Origin had spread down to his jawline. Dav simply lay there for a long moment.

Sophia had a moment of indecision: should she try to pull Dav away from the monster or just kill it before it did any more damage?

She hated it, but the answer had to be to kill it first. It was badly hurt but she didn’t think she could drag Dav faster than it could walk, much less faster than it could hurry. Sophia had just turned back to the monster when she saw motion in the corner of her eye: Dav was climbing back to his feet. Good. This would be a lot easier with two and that meant he probably wasn’t hurt too badly. “I’m going to try to work around to its damaged side, can you hold its attention?”

Dav’s only reply was with his sword, which licked out and opened a wound on the monster’s uninjured right arm. It was clear he hadn’t committed fully to the move; it was just enough of an injury to hurt, not to kill. It seemed to serve the purpose, at least, since it drew the monster’s attention back to Dav.