Somnium Online

Hostages

The back of the cart was actually one giant cage, and inside the cage were... people.

"Lysander had said something about hostages but this is..."

The cage floor was lined with approximately a dozen children. Most appeared to be between eight and ten, but there were a few younger ones and two teenagers.

"What are you waiting for?" Lin asked, she climbed up to the cart and started looking for a door.

The children were all asleep, probably magic, Eric thought to himself.

Alice snapped into focus, she ran to the sink, and filled a glass of water and then splashed it onto the bars of the cage. Understanding immediately, Eric climbed up as well. Alice froze the bars, and Eric smashed them to pieces. Together, they got the sleeping children out of the cart and laid them out wherever they could on the furniture.

There were eleven kids total, Eric checked, all of them were definitely AI.

"This is insane. I knew players were bad, but this is sick." Brian muttered.

Lin and Eric started cooking, they didn't say much, just started absently making different foods. Anything they could think of really.

Alice set about making the kids comfortable, none of them had woken up yet, but the spell couldn't last forever, especially with the caster out of range.

Alex and Brian did their best to help, mostly just doing whatever Alic es needed.

They worked pretty well together, Eric had to admit. It had been less than two days and they could already pull out a complex plan on the fly. First impressions aside, he had a good team.

From what Eric had heard, whoever these players were they clearly had some sort of organized system. They fought together and took orders from a leader. This was an organization, and from what Eric had seen it was a big one.

"W-where are we?" One of the younger children, a small girl, mumbled weakly. Alice rushed over and immediately started calming her down.

"Shhh" Alice whispered. "We're the good guys, you're safe now."

The other children slowly woke up, most of them panicked at first, but slowly Alice (with some help from Brian and Alex,) managed to calm the children down and explain the situation to those old enough to understand it.

There weren't enough chairs at the table, to Eric and Lin just piled it high with food, and everyone ate on the floor in a blob. It was sort of like an indoor picnic.

Most of the children were terrified, and clearly, the trauma of their ordeal wouldn't go away easily, but Alex's jokes lightened the mood considerably, and soon he had a crowd of appreciative younger children surrounding him.

There was a lot of tension in the room, but it was slowly starting to fade.

Eric leaned against the far wall, observing, but letting Alice handle most of the kids, she was surprisingly good at it.

Alice approached him, with two of the younger children following her like baby ducklings.

"Eric, what are we going to do about sleeping arrangements tonight?" Alice asked. "They can't sleep down here, and we can't just throw them out."

"We've got more rooms than we know what to do with upstairs, right?" Eric asked. "Do whatever you see fit with them." Eric smiled.

"Will do, sir." Alice saluted. She turned and addressed the gathered kids. "Alright kids, tonight you'll be staying here, okay?" A few of the smaller kids clapped. Most of the older children were too busy eating to talk, but they heard the announcement all the same and the mood lifted considerably.