"Ok, we're close to their base now and the flanking team should be in position. Time to make some noise people." Asuna announced to the main attack group comprising of 30 of the 50 players on this raid, all of us had our weapons drawn and held a the ready. We were slowly marching through a narrow mountain valley as the sun was falling below the tall peaks of the surrounding rough red stoned mountains. We were slowly walking through the narrow corridor of hardened clay in a close column making sure our sides and rear were protected. Asuna, Kirito and Agil were at the front, I was in the second row with Sky and a Blood Knight next to me, while Andrew and the Rangers were part of the flanking group who were in position slightly behind the opening to the Laughing Coffin's base, on one of the more hidden mountain passes. So far all was going to plan.
The narrow corridor of a pass that we had been following began to open out into an unnatural flat and circular outcrop, seemingly cut straight through the mountain walls in a smooth unbending line. At the far end of outcrop there was a darkened cave entrance connected to the walls of the mountain pass, creating a dead end for all who didn't wish to venture within its depths. Above the cave entrance was a large plateau like area covered mostly by shadows, this is where we hoped that the ambush group was stationed and waiting.
We cautiously walked into the flat area out side the cave and formed into a circle in the centre of it, the outer row of the circle being shield bearers who locked into a seemingly impregnable wall of steel. I stood with Sky to my left facing directly towards the cave entrance, the supposed hideout of the famed player killing guild of Laughing Coffin. I looked up at the plateau hoping to see the ambush group, but no one was to be seen and nothing to suggest that anyone was or had been up there.
Asuna and Kirito moved out of the circle formation and side by side walked towards the cave opening, surprisingly calmly considering who we were trying to draw out of the mountain cave. The two stopped a few meters before the cave entrance and tried to see past the shadows, Asuna then raised her blade towards the cave entrance and was about to shout down into its dark and unknown tunnel.
However a moment after she had raised her blade 5 figures walked out from the shadows in a triangle formation, obviously their leader being at the front. Asuna lowered her blade slightly but started to build up a glow in preparation. As the figures moved slowly into the light we could see that they each wore long brown hooded robes which were visibly dirtied and ripped in a number of places. The leader carried a huge blood stained meat cleaver at his side, the man to his left carried a long thickly serrated knife while the rest carried huge blast iron great swords.
"The mighty Lightning Flash and The famed Black Swordsman, how very nice to meet you again and you brought some friends. Well, I'm sure we can find time in our busy schedules to show you around but I'm afraid you've come at a rather busy time for the guild and me. Right as we speak most of my members are cleaning out approximately 20 rather large pests which have recently taken up positions above our house. So unfortunately I'm going to have to cut this meeting short so that we can go and aid them in their task. It's showtime." He spoke with a deep voice in a calm and slightly sadistic manner, as he spoke all eyes turned to the plateau where the leader had just revealed that the ambush squad was now fighting off around 25 members of the Laughing Coffin's members.
At his final words the other four charged down at Asuna and Kirito with their weapons glowing dark red. "ATTACK!" Knight commander in front of me shouted the order to the attack squad before breaking the shield wall and running to support Asuna and Kirito. The rest of the Knights quickly followed with shields held firmly and swords beginning to glow, me and Sky looked at each other nodded and ran behind the Knights with our swords held high and glowing a faint blue.
The 30 of us reached our outnumbered enemy and began to fight in a flurry of blade on blade, blade on armour, 6 of us fighting 1 of them at a time. However even with our larger numbers we were only able to land glancing blows to their armour and our attacks where either met with their blade or the air that the player had just moved from. Me, Sky and 4 other soloers, an axeman a mace wielder and two spear-men, had surrounded the one with the wicked knife and were all being forced to jump and move around as the blade sliced and stabbed through the air faster than we could block and any chance we had to attack ended up in a near miss.
We were up against more than the normal AI monsters, it was almost impossible to predict his movements and I could see that he was quickly adapting to the variety of weapons we had placed up against him at once. I looked around and saw that everyone was having similar problems with these skilled fighters. Their leader was up against Asuna, Kirito, Agil and three fully armed Knights, he had taken no damage and was actually laughing at his opponents as he moved around madly, yet with scary precision, swinging his huge butchers knife at them.
After a few minutes of deadly fighting we heard heard shouts and the clash of metal coming from up on the ridge, a raging battle was being fought alongside our stalemate down here. Not long after we began to see that our ambush squad was getting rapidly pushed back towards the edge of the ridge by an outnumbering amount of cloaked fighters. They soon began to take a huge jump down the edge of the cliff ending in a mighty crash which brought them into yellow health as they smashed into the ground, kicking up clouds of dirt. The last two, Oliver and Andrew B were left with 25 attackers at once, the two of them turned and ran towards the edge.
Oliver jumped and plummeted down to the ground like the rest while Andrew B smashed down to the ground before he could make the jump. I could see a blade sticking out of his back as he laid face down on the ground, paralysed by a poison on the blade that was now wedged into his spine. One of the cloaked fighters walked up to his motionless body, raised the battle axe he was carrying and swung it down towards his exposed neckline.