I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 28 - Ends with an Explosion

"Calling this place a town is generous," Valerian noted as they walked through the wooded gate to take in the gathering of people within.

He wasn't wrong, but to Evangeline, it was amazing. It looked exactly like it did in the game but real and all around her. Since the village was built in a grotto in the forest, the wooden structures there had been built into the rock walls that emphasized the nature of both. The path went down into a slope, and along each side, a few feet back from the entrance, were a handful of temporary stalls scattered wherever the owners of those stalls felt was the best spot for them.

"Hail!" a man with rams' horns greeted, walking over as the small party entered. "My name is Tersel. Welcome, strangers." He set his hands on his hips and looked over each of them in turn as he spoke. "What brings you all here to our humble village?"

Evangeline automatically stepped forward as their spokesperson, and no one objected.

"Hail, my name is Evangeline. We're here to trade a few goods and seek aid," she said, the pre-written dialogue words coming to her as easily as if she could actually read them herself. It felt a bit strange, but she just went along with the scenario. She had done this part a dozen times before anyway.

"Yes, I note from your collars you ran afoul of those goblin bands that have been roaming these parts." He nodded toward hers, his eyes looking at it poignantly.

"That is the full sum of the story I'm afraid. We all seem to be linked together, I was hoping there would be a blacksmith here who could help us out of this predicament," she said.

"Hmm, unfortunately, I know for a fact that the blacksmith Harrowheart won't be able to remove those collars for you. A few others who escaped the goblin slavers have come through every so often, so it's not like we haven't tried."

Evangeline knew all that, but that wasn't the point anyway. "That's fine. We would still like to speak to her at least."

"Well, you'll find her down the way in the cavern there. Just keep following the main path around and you'll find her. Listen for the clanging and swearing." Tersel grinned, and Evangeline returned it. She knew the character they were about to meet.

"Well, he was friendly," Artmond said, glancing back as they moved on.

"You think everyone is friendly. You're like a puppy dog looking for pets," Sigismund muttered.

"What's wrong with that? Everyone loves puppy dogs," Artmond asked.

"He's right," Evangeline agreed, which earned her a sharp eye from Sigismund before she crossed her arms and looked away. "Don't worry it will be fine, she's a cinnamon roll."

Evangeline smiled as she spotted their next destination.

As they entered the cavern, before turning left to go deeper in to find the blacksmith, she stopped at a small stall where equipment, supplies, and a few weapons were laid out over a horseshoe shape of stone benches. In the center was a clean-shaven dwarf sitting on a stool as he took apart the spikes on a climbing kit, inspecting and repairing the used piece of equipment.

"Hello strangers," he greeted as they approached. "How can I serve you?"

"We have some equipment we've found that we would like to sell off," Evangeline answered.

With a gesture of her hand, she pulled up her inventory and ran her finger over the little boxes with the various items she intended to sell and they manifested in her hand inside a worn-out-looking travelers pack.

The dwarf trader didn't even blink when she did that; he simply set aside the climbing kit he had been cleaning and waited for her to pull out items from the pack, taking them only when she handed them over.

She knew it didn't matter what she produced for his inspection, he would buy everything, even the random rocks and bones that sometimes got accidentally picked up. Sure, they only got a copper each for those things, but it was a copper more than they had before. The only thing that was different was she didn't have a pair of screens to do this trade with. One by one, the party members repeated the process, and the trader kept a count of the amount he would pay for the items. There weren't very many. The best stuff that they had taken they kept for themselves to use, but soon enough, they had a small pouch of silver and copper coins, enough to get them some supply packs. It was a start.

While everyone else was unloading, Evangeline looked over his wares, making a mental list of the things she wanted to come back for when they had better funds. Especially a pair of gloves that would up her social interaction checks, which would be very helpful as their party's leader and spokesperson. They would be running around this village for the next couple of days, if they followed what she knew about the game, so there would be time to buy or trade or pickpocket...

That gave her pause.

Oh right, she remembered. Pickpocketing is a thing here. And there is an invisibility ring nearby that would make that easier.

She would just need to spend a Meta point to recall exactly where it was.

While she contemplated that plan, she glanced at the shopkeeper, and a pang of guilt cut through her. It was one thing when he had just been a digital representation of a trader, puppeted by the work of a voice and motion-capture actor. Then it didn't matter if she stole from anyone. The whole point of their existence was for her to have these things for her to use in the game, acquired by whatever means she chose. But it felt different now that she was looking at the flesh and blood man before her.

Did he have a life outside of her experience? If these people were in fact real, like if she were in another dimension where what she called a game was their reality, then if she stole from him, would she be ruining his life? Leaving him to starve? What if...?

"You're thinking too hard about it," Valerian whispered to her.

She blinked at the buzz of his voice in her ear. "What? About what?"

"I have no idea, but I can see you're thinking too hard about it."

Glancing around, she realized they had finished their sell-off. Artmond received his share of coppers, which he then promptly handed over to Sigismund.

"What's next?" he asked cheerfully.

That's when there was an explosion.

To be continued...

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