I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 13 - Rogue vs. Rogue

The door stood in the middle of the hill, a carved stone slab partially obscured by vines that didn't grow anywhere else on the hill. It couldn't have looked more like someone was trying to "hide" a door there. Still, her new companions took the approach to it seriously, with the others falling back without being told to, leaving the rogues to move forward.

Evangeline would have walked straight up to it, but Valerian threw out an arm to stop her, his eyes scanning the small grass-covered ramp of ground leading up. It took her a heartbeat to realize he was checking for traps.

"It's fine," she said, pushing past his hand to go the rest of the way up to the door.

The whole group behind her reacted, jumping at her cavalier approach, but she ignored them and turned the handle on the door.

"What in the hells are you doing?" Valerian hissed, snatching her hand away from the door faster than she registered that he had done it.

"There are no traps outside the shrine. We're fine. We just need to unlock the door and go in. I don't exactly want to wait twenty minutes out here for you to figure out I'm right." Then she realized something. "Oh crap. We don't have lockpicks yet, so we can't pick the door. How did I get it open bef—" Stopping herself before hearing what she had almost said.

"Hence why we should investigate," Valerian gritting his teeth. And granted he was making sense, but Evangeline was certain there were no traps.

Valerian didn't wait for her to figure out where her logic was going wrong. Instead, he turned back to the group. "Hey. Do any of you happen to carry larceny tools?"

That got everyone to start digging in their packs, looking for bits of wire or anything to possibly craft a set of larceny tools.

Evangeline ignored all of it and studied the door before her. With a thought, she summoned up her stat table. As before, the Meta Knowledge winked at her, tempting her to just take the easiest answer and spend another of her special skill points, but she ignored it this time.

It would be more fun to figure it out.

She studied the list of skills below her special ones. It was then that she realized a few of them had spouted branches since the last time she looked. Now, instead of just Thieves Skill, there was a little plus sign behind it that opened into several more lines of individual skills, such as pickpocketing, lockpicking, and larceny. All of them had fairly low numbers in them, too low to open this door even if she rolled well.

"How did I open you before?" she asked the door. Not surprisingly, or rather thankfully, it didn't answer.

She next studied the reliefs carved into the stone surface, the edges rubbed smooth and rounded by implied "time" and "rain." Then she heard the rattling sound and her Meta Knowledge: History activated.

Many of these ancient temples would seal their doors with a special sequence of impressions that when touched would unseal the door. You notice three such impressions here.

And the lighted circles highlighted on the door's surface.

"Okay, I think I can unlock the door with this," Valerian said, literally shoving Evangeline out of the way so that he could kneel before the door. While he settled himself before the door, to set up his lockpicks, Evangeline returned the favor. She hip-checked him, knocking him off his perched knee, and stuck her fingers and a thumb quickly into the three depressions.

Inside the door was a metallic click click click, and then the door shifted back.

Satisfied, Evangeline grinned down at Valerian, whose surprised face darkened at her success.

Then she did the cheekiest thing she could think of. She held up one finger and circled the other at him. "1-0," she said as she passed through the door.

"Oh well, that was easy!" Hagor said, unknowingly twisting the knife on Evangeline's win.

They all followed her in, Valerian bringing up the rear. Just inside the new space, what would have been a sort of foyer of the temple, they gathered to take the place in.

As far as epic halls went, it wasn't that grand. It had four pillars going down each side of an aisle with alcoves between each pillar on either side. Within those alcoves were destroyed statues of whatever gods used to be in residence there. Evangeline heard the rattle as her Meta Knowledge: Religions popped up, but her roll wasn't high enough to identify any of them. The others all marveled as well.

"Look at that. She was right! This is one of those old pantheon temples," Artmond said, giggling with delight.

"I don't recognize any of them though," Sigismund said, wrinkling her nose in consternation at that fact, but the fact that she wasn't making the roll either made Evangeline feel a little better. Because, clearly, if the cleric, whose Knowledge: Religions stats were higher, couldn't make it, none of them would.

"Oh wait, I think that is the Sky Lord!" Artmond cried, pointing at the nearest alcove, while stepping toward it.

"No! Wait!" both Valerian and Evangeline cried, reaching out too late to stop their companion from stepping on the trap plate right in front of him.

The room exploded with fire. Firebolts were shooting across the space back and forth as well as diagonally. Artmond took a direct hit to the chest with the first one, knocking him down and thankfully back amongst the rest of them.

Sigismund crouched immediately by his side, to pull him the rest of the way to safety in the foyer, while Hagor startled back against the wall behind them.

"I thought you said there weren't any traps!" Sigismund screeched.

"Outside the temple!" Evangeline cried, but it was hard to hear over the roaring fires.

Then, all at once, it stopped. The room was pitch black and smoking except for what light filtered in through the still-open door. Unsure of what happened, Evangeline looked to Valerian, who had reached around the corner.

He shot her back his shit-eating grin. "1-1."

To be continued...

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