I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 17 - A Bone to Pick

While the skeleton attacked, Hagor moved to its other side into flank, tapping it with his new rod. (The pun was not lost on her.) From the stone, thorn-covered vines shot out to entrap the skeleton's legs. It staggered it, allowing it to only take one attack instead of its usual two. It used that attack, however, to score a hit on her shoulder on her unweaponed hand.

"Ow!" The blade hadn't cut through her gambeson, but she could tell it would bruise. She took the opportunity to make her own attack again, which once more landed and once more did very little to bother the skeleton.

"This is not good!" she shouted when she saw it.

"Hang on, Evangeline," Hagor shouted, moving to try to use the hilt of the rod to pommel strike the skeleton, but the skeleton did not care. It remained focused on Evangeline and now had both strikes at its disposal. Evangeline tried to disengage, but she had already attempted another strike, leaving her open. The first knife felt like fire cutting through the gambeson and into the flesh of her side. The second knife came for her face.

With a flash of overly bright light, a sword blade sliced through the skeleton's striking hand. The blade slid along Evangeline's face, leaving a small cut and very little damage.

At the same time, Hagor swung his rod like it was a baseball bat, taking the skeleton's head clean off. Thorny vines sprouted from the head to catch the stone wall, trapping it there like a swinging basket.

Evangeline looked up into Artmond's triumphant, if blood-covered, face. He grinned beautifully. "I did it!" he said, clearly as amazed as she was at what he had done.

"Good job, but the fight's not over yet!" Evangeline said, pushing past him to head to the open door another new skeleton was emerging from. There were two more right behind it.

Warmth washed over Evangeline as she went, along with a spray of sparkles dancing over her skin, erasing the scratches on her arms and presumably her face.

"Thanks!" she called to Sigismund, who didn't answer, turning to Artmond to cast another healing over him.

"Did you see what I did?" he asked her gleefully, completely ignoring the disapproving line of her mouth.

Just as Evangeline got to the doorway, she was swallowed up by darkness. A hand grabbed her, pulling her back a step so that her back slapped against the wall beside the doorway.

"Let them go past," Valerian hissed in her ear, his hand still holding her wrist. Evangeline complied as the skeletons stumbled through the doorway into the inky black. "Strike when I strike."

"But I can't see," she tried to argue.

"Strike!" he ordered, lifting his knife over his head and leaping into thieves-trick.

Evangeline could only do the same.

The blind strike worked. Her knife sank into the head of the stumbling skeleton, cutting a chunk of it away. Her next strike hit it firmly in the spine, and the whole thing crumbled to the ground into a pile of bones.

"Hells yeah!" she shouted in triumphant, only to be immediately undercut. "The other skel—!" she called out then was cut off as her back hit the ground, cutting off the rest of her air. Heavy metal boots tromped down on her, which was not something she thought could happen in the game as an attack, but it hurt just the same. She rolled, also something she couldn't do in the game, to get out from under its feet, with the small hope that she could knock it prone as well.

She felt more than saw someone leap over her. Valerian roared as he hit metal, crashing the skeleton to the ground beside her, and he repeatedly clanged his knife over and over again into the monster.

A few breaths later, the darkness blinding them dissipated, revealing the vampire rogue, kneeling over the shattered remains of the skeleton, still stabbing with his shouts of rage.

"Valerian! Val! You got it!" Evangeline shouted.

He whirled toward her, his usually calm reddish eyes glowing bright with the same sparks of red light the skeletons had.

"Oh, crap! He's possessed!" Evangeline shouted.

Then Valerian blinked, instantly coming back to himself. His shoulders dropped, and he lowered his knife. Then he stood up, shaking his head and clearing the light in his eyes.

"Is it ... over?" Artmond asked, already tired as he dragged his sword across the ground.

"For the moment, take a breath," Evangeline said, opening her menu to stare down at her stats. Only one Meta point left.

"So that's it? There is nothing else in these ruins?" Sigismund demanded. She looked as rough as Evangeline felt, smudges of black and at least two bruises decorating her face.

There it was again that same pressure. Foreknowledge.

"Evangeline?" Hagor asked, and she found the whole group was looking to her.

She blew out a breath. "Okay, I have one Meta point left, and yes, I do think there is something up ahead that we should know about, but..."

"Then do it already," Valerian pushed.

"If I lose this last Meta point, that will be it, I won't be able to help you all with whatever comes next. I mean, outside of ... you know ... stabby stabby." She demonstrated her meaning with her knife.

Her companions looked at each other, followed by nods. "Alright," Artmond said.

"Go ahead, Evangeline. We'll take care of you," Hagor agreed.

Encouraged, she nodded then spent her last point for the day.

"Oh. Right."

"What? What is it?" Sigismund asked.

"Well, uh... there's a necromancer up ahead. And he's a vampire."

To be continued...

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