Vox Machina Book One: Nobodies to Heroes

Chapter 19: A Distraction gone... Wrong?

Thunder roars over the clouded skies as the guards stood to watch at the front gate, but the bard was pressed against the wall as he scoots along to the wagon. "What the fuck am I doing?" he questions himself.

Quickly hiding behind the wagon, "Ooh, I'm a master distractor. Ooh, I'm gonna burn his house down. Ugh. Moron!" he snaps at himself.

But Scanlan took a breath, "Whew. Okay, come on, come on, come on, you got this." he reaches into the bag and pulls out a flute. "No one ever suspects the Scan-man. Right? Right? Yeah, right." he mutters.

He takes a breath and plays a melody as it bounces from the walls of the homes as fades away, luckily the guards heard them. "What the hell is that noise?" the guard asks.

"Come on," he spoke as the guards hurried after the melody. Scanlan smirks to himself, placing his flute away, and hops to the wagon.

"Hoppin' walls like a cat."

He lost his footing at the top of the wall and fell over the side, "Oh! Ugh!" and fell smack against the ground.

Groaning to himself, propping himself up as he rubs his back, then sees a stack of hay in front of him.

"Totally meant to do that."

Seeing guards were all over the place, pulling himself to his feet and sneaking over towards the stack. "Scanlan's hand!" He whispers. Summoning the mage's hand and lifts the stack over towards the house and quietly sets it down.

Scanlan hurried towards the stack, kneeling in front of the stack, pulls out a pack of matches, and lit one.

"Gonna prove Vex wrong."

He goes to light the stack of hay, but it started to rain, soaking him, extinguishing the match, and soaking the stack of hay.

"Unless fucking rain came along."

Scanlan looks up and saw a window was open, humming the tune to himself.

Scrambling up the wall, he reaches for the window seal and pulls himself in as he stumbles inside, he exhales and crawls away stopping as he presses his hand against something.

But a foul stench caught his attention, and what he was touching, was soft and... kinda warm, he looks up and blinks in surprise.

It was Duke Vedmire himself.

In the bathroom.

On the shitter.

Looking right down at the Gnome, "Oh, shit." Scanlan mutters as the duke stood to his feet. "Oh shit," he said again, seeing a turd slip right into the toilet.

And he quickly scrambles back. "Tresspaer! It's one of them!" the duke cries out. Bursting through the doors as he ran, "Oh, shit, oh shit, oh, shit!" he cries, coming to a stop as the guards blocked both the front and back halls.

Vedmire steps out, his great sword in hand, pulling his pants back up and growls at the gnome. Who just takes off, Scanlan ran towards a door and locks it behind him.

"He went that way!"

"Though that door!"

"Move it, move it!"

Scanlan tugs at each door in the room and none seemed to budge "Locked. Locked." he snaps then pushes at one and it opens as he found a butch of guards playing a board game.

"Roll to see if he...Huh?" the guards stop in their motion and looks at the gnome that interrupted their session.

"Uh... hi," he said to them and quickly reaches into the bag, the guards stood to their feet. Scanlan grabs a hold of a potion, losing grip for a moment "Gentlemen, to your health." he informs them, as he pops the cork off.