111. Noble Ladies?

The three ladies walked down the alley and felt it when several people stepped out behind them. There were three of them and took up the walking area so that if one wanted to exit the hall they would have to bump into one of them. They reached just past the halfway point when six more people stepped out in front of them. They quickly moved out of easy sight of the street and pulled out their weapons.

"Ladies, I hate to bother you but the three of you are going to have to come with us. You chose to leave your homes without an guards and that is just too tempting a target for us."

Lady Lyons smiled at him and they could all tell that it made him nervous. "You are apparently new in the capitol. I will give you one and only one chance to turn over a new leaf and walk away."

"Without any guards?"

Aureus and Shannon both stifled a laugh. "The guards are not really necessary for us. They are mostly there to handle any paperwork that might come up when an issue happens. Actually they do have a great purpose, they make sure that it is mostly a fair fight so we do not kill anyone that bothers us."

The male thugs all laughed. The lady that was part of the group felt that something was off and bowed her head towards them and walked away. She was not sure about this fight. It did not feel right. She was not sure why it felt right but her instincts were screaming at her to get out of the area.

"I know that you are only talking tough. Let's just drop the act and you ladies come along without any more trouble." His ego was enough to infuriate all three of them.

Lady Lyons glared at the man. "Fine if that is the way that you want to be then I will be more than happy to put you in your place." She took two steps forward and suddenly her body was covered in a light layer of scale armor and a thin bladed sword in her hand.

The thug that was in charge saw the change and realized that he may have underestimated the situation. He got ready for a fight. "Spread out and be ready." All of the thugs stopped laughing and realized that they may be in over their heads. Even the weakest among them could sense the power that he sword was radiating.

Shannon blew out a long whistle. "That is pretty impressive. I can feel her magic. I have never seen someone with that much magic fight with a sword."

"Oh yeah. Mom and I can both do it. It is a specialized training. We are known as spell swords. We are two of the last ones."

"Do you take students?"

"Are you interested?"

"More than I can put into words. I can fight with my fists or a sword no problem but the idea of sending lightning through a sword and into the enemies in front of me, well, it has a certain appeal. I never thought it was possible."

The two were talking like the people around them were a waste of their time and the three thugs that moved up from behind them took offense and were about to charge them. "Shannon would you like these or can I have them?"

"I would be rude to take them since you are showing me around and even introducing me to your seamstress." She gave the girl a sincere smile.

Aureus called out armor that was a close match to her mom's but the sword was a little heavier. The energy radiating off of her was a little different from the energy coming off of her mom. That was when Shannon realized that she was feeling the different elemental energies that the other was using.

Lady Lyons pulled her energy and used haste on herself and darted forward faster than any of the thugs could keep up with. Before any of them could mount any kind of attack she was standing in front of the leader of the group. She was not real interested in killing him so she pulled a lot of magic energy into her body and sent it out in a wave from where she was standing. The ground around her turned to ice and locked in the feet of every one that was in the alley with her.

Shannon felt the ice coming and concentrated on sending her magical energy to her feet to prevent herself from being restrained. Aureus was already coated in magic and the heat radiating from her was enough to help protect her. Shannon kept looking back and forth between the two of them, hoping to learn something about the job change that she was thinking about. They were mages who could use light armor and swords to channel their spells. If she had known about this class when she first started playing this would have been the class that she went for.

Shannon thought about it and realized that Novum had never told her about this class. That was when for the first time since she met up with Novum the system spoke to her.

[Host this class is what is called a prestige class. They are designed for elite players and it takes a lot of things to be able to use one of them. A person has to have the basic fighting knowledge as well as enough magic to be able to do it. This is possible for you but you must dedicate the next part of your life to training with a weapon and casting magic while wearing armor. This class would not have been available to you in your last life without a lot of work and research outside of normal game play.]

'So you are saying I did not know about his because I did not put in the work.'

[Shannon I am only providing you with information that is necessary for your to develop into the type of character that you would like to be. This has nothing to do with the past only the way that you would like to do things.]

'Sorry system. I guess that hit a nerve. Thank you for your information.'

Shannon thought back over her past games and realized that at one point Alan had told her about something like this but she had never stuck around long enough in any campaign for this to become a reality. She looked back and realized that she had not put in as much effort into the marriage as she always claimed that she did. But she also knew that it was to late and did not let the tears in her heart fall as she was trying to learn something.

The ice held the thugs in place a lot easier than she thought it would so she did not even bother with the sword and just held them there as she waited for the guards to show up and take them all into custody. She turned and saw that Shannon was trying to watch both her and Aureus and was looking back and forth trying to focus on everything.

Aureus burst forward and attacked the thugs directly. She was not an ice user like her mother so her attacks were a little more violent. She was not trying to kill any of them so she kept most of her power in check and simply attacked them all with the flat of her sword. It was harder to fight that way but it was worth it to not kill anyone. They were petty thugs but that did not mean that they all deserved death.

Shannon looked back and forth and realized that all of the thugs had been restrained without anyone dying. That was when she spotted the archer across the street from all of them with an arrow locked on the back of Lady Lyons, who had already dismissed her protective armor. Shannon reached out and grabbed the woman and put her body between her and the archer without any hesitation.

**********************

Novum felt the energy draw and ran towards it. When he got there he saw the ladies of the Lyons family taking care of the issue without any trouble. That was also when he spotted the archer and knew what was about to happen. He did not care about the petty thugs but he realized that this one was different. This one was a professional and was sent after someone. He was not sure of the target but he would not let anything happen to any of the ladies in that alley.

Novum summoned his armor was he was running as fast as he could possibly run towards the archer. He saw the man pull the bow into a full moon and take aim at the ladies. Novum could not tell which one of them he was aiming at but he did not care. He saw the muscles in the archers shoulder relax and knew that the arrow was about to be release. He also saw Shannon put herself between the lady and the archer.