Crit Tales

Vex's Vex

Upon meeting a destitute merchant on a forested road away from Emon, Vex'ahlia orders Vox Machina to halt their quest to shop for necessities. What could possibly go wrong?

Soft winds blew across the tall trees of the thick forest rooted a week's journey from the grand kingdom of Emon. Magpies chattered incessantly as they roosted upon the centuries old trees which ran parallel to a heavily trampled dirt road. A calm silence rested upon the land and several magpies used the peace to glide across the road, their eyes darting around in search of food and anything shiny to stock in their nests. The flock slowly dispersed as each bird found something that caught their attention but one of the few remaining magpies spied a gleam of reflected sunlight and dove downwards to investigate. As it reached its goal the near blinding light quickly passed and soon the magpie found itself staring at its own reflection upon a carved iron blade. It quickly squawked in fright and flew into a nearby tree for refuge, only to fly away as the entire tree began to shake like a metronome. A dull rhythmic thud soon began to resonate coupled with the sound of rustling leaves and falling branches.

"Oh make it stop! Please make it stop!" Grog muttered loudly to himself as he continued to smack his bald head against the trunk of the nearest tree. The heavy and heavily tattooed Goliath kept his self-inflicted head trauma going as the rest of Vox Machina were situated not too far away along the path. There was no apparent danger present yet Grog could not help but continue to bash his head as he ground his teeth in pain.

"Grog!" Tiberius called out a few yards ahead. The Dragonborn let out a small puff of soot from his nostrils as he tried to return to his reading. "Please keep your voice down. Can't you see we are concentrating here?" Tiberius motioned towards the two fellow party members in front of him, their positions creating a triangle atop the roadside grass with their knees nearly touching each other. To his right was Keyleth, adorned in her personal leather armor and headdress and currently sitting cross legged, her hands up in the air cupping loose spheres of bright green energy with some emanating from her closed eyes. Half melted sticks of incense by her feet trickled tiny wisps of calming smoke around her. A melodic hum escaped her sealed lips as she meditated. To his left was the ever calm and bespectacled Percy who was busy cleaning Bad News underneath the light of the midday sun. The only noise he made was either the occasional grunt of frustration or the tapping of his fingernails against metal.

Tiberius himself was sitting with a large open arcane tome on his lap. Seeing that his complaint did little to quiet Grog, he grumbled and took out a small vial of water from robes and quenched his thirst with a hearty gulp, the water pouring out almost endlessly. "Now where was I?" Tiberius muttered to himself, though his eyes never reached his tome. "Ah yes!" His own spectacles met with Percy's. "Now Percy," The man gave an almost mechanized grunt of acknowledgement of his friend's posh accent. His hands and eyes never departed from his weapon. "I was thinking about all those arrows you've been fashioning up for Vex in the past few days and I had a brilliant idea-no a revelation of sorts! Now do you think that it would be possible to trap a spell inside an arrow? Wait not what Vex does where she enchants an arrow right before she shoots it mind you, I mean trapping a separate spell inside an arrow, or somewhere on it if you like or because of uh, mechanical limitations should they arise during your experiments, so that when she shoots say a lightening," his vocalized string of thought grew silent as he kept thinking to himself. He quickly turned to Keyleth to ask, "I'm sorry to bother you your highness but I was just talking to Percy here about the possibility of a double spell infused arrow of sorts and it just occurred to me that is there perhaps some sort of natural and magical material we can find that-"

Against Tiberius's seemingly never ending speech both Keyleth and Percy simultaneously let out a sigh of extreme annoyance. Their sorcerer friend had been going on for what felt like hours already and the two had long since stopped trying to silence him. The idea of getting Scanlan to simply cast Silence on Tiberius was a viable escape plan but the gnome was currently ahead of them on the other side of the road busy pursuing the love of his life.