I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 22 - Temple Run Pt 2

Evangeline was glad she was right as her party scurried through the emptied ruined temple. The piles of dust of their slain foes, along with some bat corpses and rats that had been thrown in for good measure the day before, still lay where they had dropped. All the doors were open and the treasure boxes and cases were empty. At least, she was mostly sure in the semi-dark. She didn't have Darkness Vision since she had remained human when she crossed over, but she knew this dungeon so well. It had been worth it to burn a Meta point to not fall onto her face.

What her memory could not help with was finding the hidden door in the back wall. "Dammit! I know it's here," she muttered, running her hands over the stone surface. Her lack of Darkness Vision was giving her a distinct disadvantage in finding it.

"Evie! Wait! What's in there?" Sigismund called, the cleric lagging behind, exhausted from having burned out all her mana. It was the price of a partial rest, only recovering half of what you lost the day before.

"It's just ahead, in the final boss room!" Evangeline called.

"What are you looking for?" Valerian demanded, his eyes glowing red in the darkness. The sight of them made her flinch, but again, the darkness hid that... or so she thought until those red eyes narrowed at her reaction.

"I'm looking for a hidden door back here. I just can't..." She continued running her fingers over the wall to the sound of dice rolling. That's what I've been hearing, she realized. It was the game's random number generator deciding her ability to pass the skill with all her bonuses added. It represented itself in the game as the sound of dice rolling.

"Here," Valerian said, and the hidden door slid to the side into an even darker space.

Evangeline grinned then looked back at Sigismund and Artmond clinging together behind her. In the faint moonlight coming through the cracked ruined walls, she could see they were both exhausted.

"Where are your hit points at?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

Sigismund sneered indignantly at that personal question, but Artmond glanced over at his invisible-to-Evangeline stat board. "I got five left," he said.

"Crap you can't come in, just in case this goes south," Evangeline said, then looked to Sigismund.

"Three," she confessed reluctantly.

Evangeline turned to Valerian and his narrowly slitted eyes. "Fifteen," he said. Despite the wound he had taken in his shoulder, he was mostly at full health.

"And I'm at full," Evangeline shared. "So I think the best course of action would be for you two to stay by the door and don't engage in what happens next. That way we can still reach the altar."

"What altar?" Sigismund demanded, but Evangeline's mind was going a million miles a minute as she tried to solve their dilemma.

"Oh crap," she said, looking back to Valerian. "Sigismund, you're out of mana right?"

"Yes!" the other woman shouted.

"So you can't cast resistance against good or evil on him?" She pointed at Valerian, whose eyes got even slittier if that was possible.

"NO!" Sigismund shouted, her patience well and truly lost.

"Why does he need protection—" Artmond asked, but this time it was Evangeline who didn't let him finish.

"He's got the ability to see in the dark, so he's going to have to lead me to the altar in there, and then I can do the rest." Then she reached for the amulet currently hanging outside of Valerian's shirt, tucking it back in. "Make sure that is touching your skin, and then as soon as you get me to the altar, run back for the door. I have two Meta points left, so that's enough."

"Enough for what?" Valerian shouted, swatting her hand away from his person.

"To awaken the phoenix."

That made his glowing eyes blink rapidly.

"But there are no more phoenixes," Artmond said, this time no one disagreeing with him except Evangeline.

"There are, and they're in there. But it's going to put out a blast of holy fire when I release it, and I have enough hit points to take it." She left out the part that holy fire would do extra damage to Valerian without the resistance to a good shield to offset it. His amulet would halve the extra damage, but it was still a big risk. But she didn't dare say any of that. She knew she was freaking them out as it was. In the actual game, there was none of this conversation, no need to convince them of anything; she would just control them into doing what she needed, and they would execute that plan until the cut scene of the phoenix rising would take over.

This was all different, and it made Evangeline unsure. This all felt more real and the danger more immediate... and permanent.

But I can fix that if we just do this, she thought.

"Trust me," she said instead. She held her hand out to Valerian so that he could lead her.

Still, his read shards for eyes bore into her, making dangerous promises. She could feel the anger wafting off him, but still, she held firm. This was the only way through.

He took it and yanked hard, whipping her head back and forcing a yip out of her as they plunged into the dark. After that initial tug, Valerian slowed down to half speed, leading her through.

Despite not being able to see anything in the inky black, Evangeline did know what the space looked like. Stone pews lined the room on either side, many of them collapsed and broken. Statues watched silently from along the walls, and that was what had Valerian cautiously spooked ... since usually the necromancer and his forces would be hiding in there.

"It's okay," she assured. "It's just us here."

"Stop," he ordered halting them.

"What? What is it?" Evangeline said, alarmed, concerned that she might have been wrong.

"Step up," Valerian said, tapping his boot on one of the two steps up to the altar.

"Oh, right." 

To be continued...

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