I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me

Chapter 4 - Goblins Go Boom

Half the room fell to the ground moments after the explosion. Several others ran screaming. Fire erupted from the walls, and goblins poured through the front opening that they made where the door had been. Evangeline didn't focus on any of it. She dove instead for the bag of gold and snatched it up.

"Do you wish to add this to your inventory?" a disembodied voice said. A disembodied voice that sounded exactly like her own.

"No, send to my camp inventory!" she said, and to her relief, the gold disappeared. Okay, so maybe this part is like the game, where once items were sent to her camp, they were safe from pickpocketing and other shenanigans.

I just need to survive the next few minutes, she thought as she pulled the +1 dagger from its sheath.

That's when it dawned on her... she didn't actually know how to fight. Her characters knew how to fight. They had been pre-programmed with those abilities, but she was a living, breathing person whose muscles got "programmed" with repetition and weight training and hours of practice.

"Oh crap," she said as a goblin sighted her and charged.

It took a swing at her with a very wicked-looking weapon. It looked like a homemade attempt at a morning star with nails roughly hammered into it.

And she parried it!

It wasn't perfect. Even to her untrained eyes, it was rather clumsy, but the goblin was surprised and overextended. She turned the knife in her hand and jabbed it into the goblin's exposed neck. Blood spurted out, and the goblin keeled over.

Holy shit! Evangeline thought, her eyes going wide. Did I just kill someone?

And that was all the time she was going to get to dwell on that thought as another goblin came to take its place.

This time she ducked under the swing of its rough spear, basically a stick with a sharpened point. She stabbed up with the knife, and that goblin went down too. That time she noticed a musical three-note chime when she succeeded, similar to the one she heard when she earned experience.

A small smile creased her face. This is just like the game, she told herself, believing it more and more with each repetition. It's just like the game!

And just like that, it became fun.

Evangeline skimmed the room, looking for the best targets for her class's skill set, which was of course sneak strike. She stepped up to the nearest person, a clearly Level 1 Wizard trying to blast the goblin in front of them with a cold arrow, an obviously long-range weapon. Being so close, it took too many penalties to be of much use. But since the wizard was so close, it put her target exactly where she wanted him. With a little skip, she came down from above and drove her knife into the goblin's exposed back where its shoulders met its neck.

The goblin crumpled at her feet, and she got the rewarding jingle again. She felt more confident.

"Next time, use a thunderclap," she said to the trembling wizard she had just rescued. "It would have blasted your opponent away from you."

The wizard shook so hard that he couldn't say anything in return, but she just flashed him a wink and turned to rescue the innkeeper, who was making a valiant effort with a kitchen knife, taking various stabs at the pair of goblins taking turns to strike him. He'd be dead in a few more passes at that rate. Evangeline stepped in and applied a sneak strike twice in good order, using the flanking position with the innkeeper to add extra damage.

"Get out of here! Run!" she shouted at the innkeeper, who was too winded to argue. He only wiped his sweat and the goblin blood from his forehead and nodded before turning to leave out through his kitchen door behind the bar.

And then a familiar "Ha ha!" caught her attention. Turning about, she saw him. Valerian flashed some grandiose moves, using more effort than needed to dispatch the goblins in front of him and enjoying every move.

And of course, he didn't see a very large goblin coming up behind him.

Moving up, Evangeline flanked the vile creature, who smelled worse than the rest had, and did her own attack.

Her hit struck and the goblin staggered, but this one did not go down. Valerian had moved away at that moment which gave the goblin a split second to see her before she could land the strike for more effective damage.

Instead, it spun around and smiled at her, its teeth already stained red with blood.

Oh crap!

She tried to regroup and take another stab, but this time he blocked her, his pommel hitting her wrist so hard she almost dropped the knife. Her eyes went wide as the point of his wicked broken sword, wavered near her eyes. Pulling her head back, she tried to back away, but that also was the wrong move because he used the opening to start his swing toward her.

The sword hit her arm as she brought it up to defend, and she screeched as it sliced across.

Shouldn't it have cut my arm off? she vaguely thought. But she couldn't tell whether she was in pain or not. By instinct, she grabbed for her arm, the momentum from the swing forcing her to stumble back, landing her on a knee. Thatpain she did feel as the hard floor sent shocks up her thigh.

With a very nasty, satisfied smile, the goblin lifted his sword high overhead to bring it down.

Then a blade tip appeared poking out of his chest before he could.

The expression on his face was one of comical surprise.

The blade tip disappeared again.

The goblin's arms dropped to his side.

Sauntering around, her rogue vampire smirked down at her as he flipped his knife in his hand. He was showing off.

"Well, I guess you owe me a blood debt now, little one," he said as he looked down his nose at her.

Special Power: Meta Knowledge—activate

Then before he could react, the goblin attempted one last attack on its killer and tried to plunge its sword through him.

Only Evangeline could move faster than that and pushed the blade down to drive into the wood while she stuck her knife through its head.

"And now that makes us even," she said as the goblin fell.

To be continued...

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