I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 78 - Hard Encounter

Despite their success against the initial wave of harpies, now nothing seemed to be going right. For one thing, Evangeline's specialized range attacks were useless with the harpies closing the distance, doing their flybys that negated her ranged advantage. It also didn't help that Evangeline couldn't seem to hit anything worth a damn. Even with so many targets, so thickly close together in the air, she missed twice for every hit. And the hits weren't very effective, causing more disgruntled feathers than debilitating wounds.

The rest of the party wasn't fairing much better. What little of them she could see.

Artmond and Sigismund kept trading turns protecting each other, Sigismund doing it more successfully than Artmond. At least, Sigismund hit more consistently. When Artmond did hit, he did more damage as he took his harpy targets down.

Hagor, meanwhile, had disappeared in the fighting. At least, elfish Hagor. There was a crow cawing around. Evangeline wondered if it was him.

As for Valerian, his go-to tactics in this fight were just as undermined as her own. He barely hit anything because he kept trying to withdraw and hide in order to get a sneak attack, only to be undermined by another harpy swooping into his range. Blood trickled down his forehead from one such attack, a blacker red than normal human. More blood, redder, painted around his mouth. He had been getting an extra attack along with his dual wielding knives.

As for the noble woman and her two coachmen, they were still fighting, or in the case of the injured one, cowering.

"We need to retreat!" Evangeline shouted just before a harpy performing their flyby move, wapped her hard in the face with its wing. That would definitely be a black eye later. Glancing at her HP total in the corner of her eye, it had already dropped down to a third. "We need to retreat!"

"How?" Valerian snapped, stabbing a harpy in the foot as it tried to wrap its claw-like foot around his arm to pick him up. It immediately let go.

Before Evangeline could answer, the noblewoman screamed. A harpy had managed to pull the same trick, more successfully, against the fallen coachman. Furious, the noblewoman swung her sword and fumbled it, not only missing the harpy, but flinging her weapon out of reach as well. Taking the opening, several harpies swarmed at her.

"Dammit!" Evangeline shouted, not taking her own advice to retreat, but risking an attack from her nearest assailant to re-aim her bow and fire at the writhing mass descending on her.

Synergy Skill: Reliable Sneak Strike.

To her surprise, her arrow shot hit. It scattered the harpies away from the noblewoman. At the same moment, Valerian took a massive leap up onto the carriage, bouncing off into the sky. He managed to grab the coachman and slash at the harpy's foot, severing it with the advantage their synergy skill gave them both.

They both fell landing on and then through the top of the carriage.

"Valerian!" Evangeline shouted, the distraction taking her attention away from defending the noblewoman. The pile of harpies renewed their attack, driving the poor woman to the ground and for a horrifying moment, Evangeline was sure she was done for. But then Harrowheart was there. Swinging her hammer like an overly large golf club, she splayed away several of the harpies at once. They screeched in fury and protest, but flitted away when a second and a third swing came at them. The noblewoman was curled up on her side at Harrowheart's feet, but she moved to look up, at least showing she was still alive.

Rogue Skill: Danger Sense. Fail.

Before Evangeline could feel anything akin to relief, the ground fell away from her.

Two harpies, one on each side, had grabbed her by the shoulders. Their talons dug in painfully through her gambion. She attempted to struggle, her bow still clasped in her hand, but they had too good a grip on her for her to move her arms to swing the weapon defensively.

Yet, before she could think, "this is bad," a force jerked her back down. The harpies held on, but screeched at being nearly yanked out of the sky. Flapping furiously, they tried to rise up again. All it did though, was put a painful strain on Evangeline's neck. The pressure on her collarbones was painful, and she grabbed at the collar. Looking down between her dangling feet, she saw her party mates struggling too. All of them were grasping at their collars and the force that bound them together swung them to below Evangeline, like baubles on the end of strings. Sigismund and Valerian, who had clearly survived his fall into the carriage, slammed back to back against each other, while Artmond only glanced off. Hagor, who apparently hadn't turned into a bird, ran toward the center, instead of letting his collar drag him there. The strange motions made all the harpies take flight for a moment, like startled birds.

As her party all came together, the pull on Evangeline was stronger and more solid. No matter how much the two harpies flapped, they couldn't bear the weight of all five of humanoids. Her party got their feet under them. Then in the distance she heard Sigismund shout, "Run!"

Oh crap, this is going to hurt, she understood more than thought.

Like being tugged under a wave, the flying trio were jerked down a good two feet by the outnumbering beings below. Down below, her companions had all run different directions, using the magical force they couldn't touch to force her down. It hadn't allowed them to go far, pulling them all up short.

Valerian stumbled.

"Keep pulling!" Sigismund shouted at him.

He snarled at her, but scrambled to his feet, to catch up with the others as they all worked to force a few more steps away from the center, fighting the collars binding magic.

Crying out in pain, Evangeline let go of her bow at last, letting it fall as she laced her own fingers through the metal of her collar. She would have a nice looking welt around her neck when this was over.

It was then Evangeline noticed Harrowheart below her, moving about as the orcess stared straight up. The observation was all the rogue had time for as the harpies decided "enough of this" and let go.

To be continued...

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