I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 65 - Day Bleeds Into Nightfall

The clerics didn't even try to disarm them as the party was escorted to the middle of all the shouting. The din went down markedly as they passed, but did not cease entirely. It simply morphed into disgruntled murmuring.

Despite the myriad of peoples present, they all seemed to be focusing on a general central point where the three groups would converge. A rough circle had formed from their bodies with three figures standing in the middle.

It was to this space that the party was led. Each person in that space wore their "teams" respective colors, except the white robed figure was lined with gold, and the black robed figure lined with silver. As they got closer, Evangeline recognized the white robed woman was High Cleric Sageoru, though she would have guessed just from the robes alone. Beside her, the black robed figure was talking animatedly, a desperation to his gestures, while a tall, willowy woman in tan stood a few feet away, her arms and face crossed.

As they approached, the man in the black robe looked up, relief breaking over his face. "See? What'd I tell you? Here she is. She can explain." He stepped around High Cleric Sageoru, who turned. Her sober gaze met Evangeline's, and the rogue almost stopped in her tracks.

Worry and the beginnings of grief laid heavy on the woman, and Evangeline was certain that she already feared her son was dead.

"Harrowheart! Do you have it?" the High Cleric of Twilight demanded, his question coming out as a harsh hush, wary of hundreds of ears trying to listen.

"Yes, High Cleric," Harrowheart responded stiffly.

A second wave of relief washed over his face. "Thank Ashar's guiding hand through the darkness of this night," he said, even though it was sometime in the afternoon. Maybe the "night" in this scenario was a metaphorical one. The situation certainly seemed dark enough as it was.

"Oh, so we are innocent?" the druid said, her voice dripping with acidic sarcasm. This riled her crowd, who hooted and made jeering animal noises, which in turn riled up clerics, who started shouting.

The noise covered up Harrowheart's response, but Evangeline knew what she said anyway.

The High Cleric of Twilight's face fell as Harrowheart leaned in to speak to him, her eyes full of apology. He folded his hands back into the sleeves of his robe, taking a moment to think on what he had just learned. "Then it is the will of Ashar," he said, before gesturing to Harrowheart. "Please return the sacred statue to me."

Harrowheart nodded and gestured. The crowd went quieter again as necks strained to see as the orcess flicked through her personal, invisible character screens, to reach her inventory. Then, she taped the air and the worn, cracked statue reappeared. A gasp came from the clerics, though whether it was because of the state of the statue or the fact that it appeared at all, Evangeline couldn't say.

"There you see! You killed Ryder for nothing!" the druid spokeswoman screamed.

The cry for blood to be spilled skittered up Evangeline's spine, and she felt sick. Now it was clear that if she revealed what she hid in her inventory, all out war was all but guaranteed.

"What of my son?"

Oh crap.

High Cleric Sageoru stepped past her counterpart, her eyes having never left Evangeline's face.

All went quiet once more, all straining to hear the too soft words being exchanged.

"Please," the High Cleric of Dawn pleaded, her bottoms of her eyes slowly filling with tears. "Please tell me what happened to my son." She could barely get the words out, her voice was already breaking. Something she had read on Evangeline's face had revealed to her that her greatest fear was true.

Rogue Skill: Legerdemain. Succeeded.

Canceled.

"I am so sorry," Evangeline said, the lie she was about to tell swallowed back down.

"Please!" the older woman barked, the word cutting the air like a knife, turning the low murmur around them to utter, palpable silence.

"Is what this druid says is true? Is my son..."

Evangeline glanced at Valerian, who shook his head. So did Sigismund, who had Artmond's wrist locked in her grasp, ready to shield or run with him. Artmond, for his part, nodded gravely. Hagor's elk form stared at her somberly, his ears completely forward. He gave no counsel, only seemed to be waiting to hear what Evangeline would say or do.

Her own throat was squeezing tight, choking on all the words she thought to say, but were inadequate for this moment.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do! She thought desperately. The familiar freezing feeling had taken hold of her. The moment was dependent on her, and all she could do was just stand there!

It was why she loved the game so much. It had been easy to make decisions there because the stakes weren't so high. It was just a game.

This is my decision. Because this is my ... game, she realized. And the one thing she had learned from her various playthroughs was ... there were no wrong answers.

As if that was a cheat code that had unlocked her, Evangeline opened her menu, floating in the air before her and swiped to her inventory. She had the split second of sense to choose to "drop" the werewolf corpse out of it, instead of picking the barrel and all. This was already bad enough without this powerful woman knowing they had stuffed her beloved son in a barrel.

Everyone gasped as the werewolf-like form appeared on the ground at Evangeline's feet. He laid in exactly the same way he had when he died.

Now it was his mother who stared intensely at the form with an expression so raw and intense it was too hard to define it.

Evangeline let her hand drop to her side. "I am so sorry for your loss."