Somnium Online

Lysander

"Boss, I'm not getting a response from anyone inside. What should we do sir?"

Lysander scratched his chin. This complicated things. The warehouse district was supposed to be virtually unmonitored. The AI were up to something.

"Proceed with caution. We're going in there, but get your weapons ready. We can't hold the hostages anywhere but else. Our safehouses are getting raided nightly."

The cloaked figures drew weapons, there were easily two dozen of them, each armed to the teeth.

Eric surveyed the scene from an opposing rooftop. It was tempting to just dive in and kill everyone, but that would cause a good deal of collateral damage, and there was no guarantee he could take out that many at once. At least not safely.

He wished he had his old coat with the knives. Then he could have cut them down easily.

"There's thirty of them," Brian said after a few seconds. "Most of them look like fighters, but they have five o roof so with magic."

Eric nodded. Despite his average combat abilities and lack of magic, Brian had a good eye for numbers.

Eric raised his hand over the edge of the rooftop, signaling to Alice and Alex.

The players assembled in front of the warehouse in a defensive formation, Eric thought they looked remarkably like a badly dressed SWAT team.

"Alright men, move in." The doors of the warehouse burst open as a stream of players flooded inside.

They stopped abruptly when they immediately spotted the corpses. Seven of them in total. Blood pooled on the floor, and trails of the stuff led up to the pile.

A woman stood on top of the pile, a katana in her hand.

"Hey, you the one who killed these guys?" Lysander called.

He woman nodded.

Lysander drew his sword. "Normally I'd offer you a job or something, but I really don't have time for this tonight."

At that, five players rushed at the woman on top of the pile, weapons drawn.

There was a gurgling sound, and suddenly water erupted from all sides, and engulfed the charging players, freezing solid on impact.

"Don't you know it's rude to attack women?" Called a voice from above.

Alex dropped down to ground level, and spikes shot up from below, utterly destroying the frozen players.

Lysander twirled his massive broadsword. It took both hands just to hold it up, but he moved it around with ease.

"Heh, this looks fun." He grinned. "You guys want a fight? Fine by me. But I'm a bit busy,  so pardon me for ending this quickly." Lysander rushed them, his sword whistling behind him

Which is when Lin appeared. She was fast. Really fast. Before he could react she had kicked out Lysander's knee and carved a gash up his right arm.

Then she slipped back into the shadows just as quickly as she had arrived.

"Son of a-" Lysander yelped. He rolled to the side, evading a spray of spikes. "Alright, that's it, everyone attack."

"How's he still standing?!" Brian exclaimed. "Lin scored a direct hit."

Eric smiled grimly. "He must just be that strong. I wouldn't be surprised if none of her attacks did serious damage."

"So when do we make our move?" Brian asked nervously.