I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 6 - Then A Dragon Attacked (Because Of Course It Did)

"Valerian? Is he a friend of yours?" Hagor asked.

"What? Oh. No. Or rather... I guess... Not yet," she answered, realizing how awkward that sounded. "But we need him to get out of here."

"I don't really know what situation you think you are in, but we are not 'getting out' of here any time soon. We're clearly headed for the slave markets."

Evangeline wrinkled her nose. "Right, the slave market."

Special Power: Meta Knowledge—activate

"We don't want to go there."

"No one wants to go there, to be sure, but I need to go there," Hagor said cryptically.

Evangeline tried to think again. How did she get out of the situation before? It was getting harder and harder to even remember why she should know the answer to that.

"Do I have the thieves-trick skill?" she muttered to herself aloud. Thinking about wanting to check her character stats made the table of them appear before herself. "Oh, that's handy," she said as she realized what she had done.

"What is handy?" Hagor asked, observing her gaze.

"I do indeed have a percentage in thieves-trick, so that means I have a chance of..." somewhere she heard a rattle as she tried to wiggle in her rope bonds.

"Success!" she declared, as the ropes slipped off her bound hands. Rolling them around to loosen away the ache from sleeping on them bound up, she then set to work on undoing the ropes around her legs. "I'll do you next," she told Hagor.

"No need. You are not the only little mouse I have with me," Hagor said, pulling his own undone hands forward. Cupped within one palm was, in fact, a small white mouse with a black patch over one eye and her left haunch. "Thank you, my friend."

The little mouse chirped and scurried up Hagor's hairy arms to settle on one of his shoulders as he unwound the chewed-up ropes, then set to work on his own ankle restraints.

"Getting these ropes off is one thing, but the chain collars is another," Hagor said.

"It's alright," Evangeline said, "they don't seem to be linked together, at least as far as I can see."

Special Ability: Meta Knowledge—activate

Evangeline's eyes went wide. "Our biggest problem will be getting off the back of the wagon before the dragon attacks."

"Dragon?"

Just then a piercing roar ripped through the skies.

More people in the back with them woke up to that bone-rattling cry. Outside the goblins were panicking, understandably so, as an orange dragon streaked overhead, its massive wingspan casting down an equally massive shadow.

"We got to hurry!" Evangeline hissed.

"How did you know about the dragon?" Hagor asked.

"No time, not now. I will tell you later," she dismissed, feeling the impending urgency.

Kicking her feet free, she moved toward the back of the wagon, stepping around the other bodies and trying not to squash any small bits.

"Hey, you!" a voice hissed, leaning against the back. "Untie me!"

It was Valerian.

Relief washed down her back. "Okay," she said simply and knelt down to do just that.

"Really?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "You're going to do it just like that?"

"Yup, we need you," she said with complete confidence.

Again, she sensed that rattling sound just outside the edge of her hearing, but this time, the ropes wouldn't fall apart at her touch. "Oh crap," she said, realizing that it wasn't working.

"What is it?" Valerian demanded.

She didn't have time to answer. The wagon pitched sideways, and everything was a tumble of bodies and chaos. She spilled away, and since she had her hands free, she was able to save herself by acrobatically tumbling away. The sensation of doing so made her laugh. A tremor of thrill filled her being as she successfully did something that should have otherwise crushed her beneath the wagon. Her elation was truncated a moment later as she found herself staring up at the face of the orange dragon. Landing between its paws, she stared open-mouthed up at the gaping rows of sharp, wicked-looking teeth only a few feet above her.

"Take her!" one of the goblins shouted from the tree line where they huddled together with their weapons spiking out toward the great beast. "Our tribute to the Lord of the Mountain hisself. Take her."

The dragon looked up at the goblins. Then it charged, leaping away from Evangeline to pounce on the hoard.

The next moment, Hagor was there, pulling her up to her feet into a run.

"Why didn't she eat me?" Evangeline cried as she stumbled, and she would have gone down if Hagor hadn't helped her by keeping an arm around her waist.

"They caught her attention," Valerian shouted, appearing on the other side of her and stumbling along strangely, his fingers gripping onto the metal collar around his neck. It was like he was being dragged by the collar toward them.

"What are you doing?" Hagor asked, noting Valerian as he nearly tripped them as he crashed into them.

"I don't know!" Valerian shouted. "I'm trying to run that way. I want nothing to do with you people."

By then, they had all made it to the tree line. Other prisoners had scattered, screaming as they seemed to divide up into groups of three themselves.

"It must be something to do with the collars," Evangeline said, unable to shake the strange feeling that she should know that even as she said it, but her head was feeling fuzzier and fuzzier by the moment. Like she was forgetting some part of herself, and she really didn't want to lose it.

Panting for breath, their small group slowed down after running twenty or so feet into the woods. They could still hear the roaring and echoes of fighting behind them, but the uneven ground made going hard, even with Hagor's surefooted druidic help.

Then all three of them winced as a high-pitched sound cut through them all. Then the dragon appeared above them again, its mouth open. Evangeline realized it was shrieking so loud and at such a high frequency that they couldn't really hear it.

A moment later it abated, and the dragon was gone.

Evangeline sighed in relief.

"Stun attack," Hagor said, shaking his head. "I'm so glad we weren't the direct targets of that. The last thing I want is to start—"

And then Valerian turned beside his tree and threw up.

To be continued...

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