I just got invaded, and instead of fighting me, homeboy ran up to the merchant and sat there shooting at me with poison arrows. I couldn't do anything without hitting the merchant and aggroing him, which ended up happening and I lost obviously. Like seriously bro, I'm bad enough as is, you can beat me one on one, must you insist on roping the poor merchant into it as well?

Side question: does absolution return npcs to non murder mode?