I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 15 - The Eternal Debate

Evangeline slipped out the piece of armor from the box.

Knowledge: Armor and Weaponry

"It's a gambeson," she said recognizing it as she unfolded the piece so that she could see it better, the weight of it heavy on her fingers. The sleeves ended at what would be her elbow. "Light armor. Does not affect stealth checks." She turned it about in her hands. "Looks to be in good condition."

"Here, give me the lock pick set," Valerian ordered, holding his fingers out for it with a snap.

While she didn't care for the snap, she was too preoccupied with her find to comment. It was just easier to pass it to him and keep looking over her first piece of new armor.

He scurried over to start unlocking the chest on the other side.

"That would be a good piece for Artmond to wear," Sigismund said, coming up beside Evangeline, looking down her nose warningly.

"Well, that's not exactly fair," Artmond said, undercutting her immediately. "Evangeline found it. She should wear it."

Sigismund sighed a growl. "But you just got hurt and badly. You're the weakest of all of us here, with the least amount of hit points. If we don't get you some armor soon, I'm going to spend the majority of my healing ability, just keeping you alive."

Evangeline hesitated, mulling over Sigismund's logic. "She has a point," the rogue conceded.

"Yeah, but..." Artmond declared, unwilling to let it go. "The rogues are the ones that put themselves in danger first, trying to keep the rest of us safe. She should have the gambeson, and I promise to wait from now on until she says it's safe. It's not her fault that I was an idiot."

"Oh, here we go!" Valerian crowed triumphantly from the other side of the room. He held up a pair of gloves in one hand and a necklace in the other. "If I read this symbol correctly, the necklace grants five additional hit points."

"Give that here," Sigismund demanded, heading straight for it.

Immediately, Valerian tucked the necklace behind his back, standing to face down the tall woman, who definitely had a few inches on him.

Sigismund was not deterred. "That necklace bears the symbol of my order of the Divine Sun. As a member of that order, I demand that you relinquish it to me!"

"I found it first," Valerian responded with all the conviction of playground logic.

"You're stealing it from my orders offering box!" she shouted.

"Look around you, dear lady cleric. This place is a-band-ond," he said, emphasizing each syllable. "This isn't stealing. This is salvage."

"Okay, how about this," Evangeline said, standing up so she could slip on the gambeson. "There are going to be other things we find in this place that each one of us can use. How about this time, I keep the gambeson; Valerian, you give Sigismund—" He opened his mouth to object, but Evangeline held up a hand. "Aaaaand, you keep the gloves of unlocking." She pointed at them in his other hand. "Those will give you a bonus on your lockpicking skills."

He stopped all other objects to look down at the gloves. "They will?"

"Put them on and see," Evangeline said as she refocused her attention on slipping the leather straps on the gambeson into the buckles, loving how the dark blue color of the padded cloth looked.

Valerian released the amulet to Sigismund and did as he was told, slipping on the gloves with leather padding on the front and backs of his hands, but held in place by a stretchy cloth. The tips were fingerless and he flexed his hands once they were on, then gestured in the air, presumably looking at his stats table.

"Huh," he said as if he were surprised to find she was right.

"Look, we're going to have to share all the gear to get through this, so I think it would be best if it goes to the person who can utilize it the best, for all of our benefits, okay?" she continued.

"Yes, Mother," Valerian said, with a sardonic smile and his eyelids halfway down in a way that made his beautiful face look ugly.

Sigismund sniffed as well, her look saying, "Who the hell put you in charge?" but she had the grace to not say it, only flounced away.

Artmond's expression was apologetic and Hagor wouldn't look at her, becoming suddenly very interested in the new door at the end of the hall.

"This one doesn't seem to have a lock," he said, shrugging with a dry laugh. "Not that I would really know."

Evangeline took it as the invitation it was and came up beside him to look at herself.

"You're right, you know," he said to her softly as she ran her fingers around the frame looking for trap triggers. "I think we're going to have to figure out how to work together and you did nothing wrong pointing it out to everyone."

"You sure? I feel like I just came off all sanctimonious," Evangeline replied.

"Ha, maybe a little, but we're also all under a lot of stress right now. No one expected to be magically chain-ganged together like this." He slipped his fingers under his collar, lifting it up to illustrate his point. When he did so, a silky sliver of magic wafted between them then disappeared again.

Gazing into those warm brown-green eyes, Evangeline tried to remember why it was she never felt like romancing Hagor instead of Valerian. What wasn't attractive about his warmth and gentleness? Warmth wafted off his barrel-chested body, and he fingered the talisman around his neck.

Evangeline felt a pressure, that feeling that she could use her Meta Knowledge to answer the question and that it had something to do with that talisman.

But she turned away, shaking her head.

There were better uses for that skill than remembering something like that. She would have to just re-find out the normal way.

To be continued...

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