Mai'lo slowed to a stop when he saw Iris disarm and k ock several of the characters to the ground. The ones on the virtual dirt all had life bars in the red but they appeared to be NPCs? That didn't entirely track. He'd thought NPCs couldn't attack players like that. 

He shrugged it off a moment later as they fled, several leaving their weapons behind. Iris was left with two players that appeared to have helped her against the thugs. He wasn't sure entirely what'd happened but he straightened up, still keeping his hand near his sword just in case. 

"Alright, Iris?" He called out.

"I come in peace!" At the sound of the new voice Mai'lo reacted without thinking, spinning sharply to his right and drawing the massive sword in a single fluid motion. He thanked his foresight for putting a stupid number of points into his strength. He wouldn't be as awkward with the huge weapon as most people would automatically expect. 

"One of these days people are going to stop sneaking up on me, right?" He asked of no one in particular. "I'm really getting tired of jumping out of my pixels at every fecking turn." He straightened up, lowering his guard n slightly but he didn't return the sword to its sheathe, holding the weapon low and to his left where he could quickly bring it up in a devastating horizontal slash if need be.