The Curious Tales of Vox Machina

Chapter 1

It was a cool, clear night, countless stars accompanying the moon were the only source of light for the village besides the guard's torches and the warm shine emanating from the tavern's windows. Roaring laughter from the small slit in the barely opened tavern door pulled envious looks from the poor sods who had to stand guard in the cold, secretly wishing for a chance to warm their souls with a belly full of mead.

Inside, the mood was of course distinctly better. Blood aboil for everyone, the mead and spiced wine was flowing freely.

"After concentrating for hours and hours on end, casting powerful spells just to keep Pike's soul from vanishing into the beyond and leaving them with her lifeless former shell, the freeing kiss from Scanlan and the subsequent first breath after her death brought tears to their eyes; even on the scales underneath Tiberius' eyes was a wet sheen to be seen, which for the jovial dragonborn basically amounted to a breakdown.

It was a very close call, too close for the liking of the group, especially Scanlan's, but in the end, all that mattered was that Pike had returned to the land of the living. Not only that, but the city of Emon was saved, too, as was the king's family, so it was only natural that the king presented himself extraordinarily thankful; after the obligatory parade that was held in honor of the brave saviors, the first time they took up the now famed name 'Vox Machina', he even had a keep built for those eight adventurers. Pike set forth on a quest of her own, building up strength and faith so she would never scare her friends like this again. Again, understandable, because dying reportedly sucks.

A short period of relative peace was granted to our heroes, but when one day, a close friend arrived at their keep with an urgent cry for help that would lead this merry band of misfits into the city of Kraghammer, a new adventure already awaited them; of course, almost as soon as they set out for this quest, peace was thrown out of the window, which proved to be not exactly healthy, but at least Grog was having the time of his life, again, and we got some pretty awesome stories out of it. That, however, is a story for another time, my friends," the bard finished with a flourish and bowed deep to his audience, earning rounds of applause from the people around him.

"You can't just leave us hanging there, lad," the bald tavern keeper's voice rumbled in his usual good-natured tone. "What happened in Kraghammer?"

The lanky figure in the colorful attire shook his head and laughed loudly and heartily. "Oh no, my friend. I'm not nearly drunk enough to touch that part of our heroes' journey with a ten-foot pole right now, and it has grown late. Too messy for such a nice evening, too. Another time. Maybe."

"Not drunk enough? Aye, not gonna stay that way for long in my establishment," the keep snorted and slammed another full tankard onto the table in front of the troubadour's nose which he had almost magically procured from under the bar.

Realizing that instead of the small crowd he had gathered along the way this evening, the whole tavern more or less stopped in their tracks and shifted all their attention to him (they were always game for a tale of epic battles), he gave the tavern keeper a stern glare for that, but the man who was glared at revealed a significantly incomplete toothy grin and shrugged his shoulders.

"Very well," he conceded with a drawn out, well practiced sigh, "but don't complain later if you can't hold in your dinner - for a dark secret reached out its evil tendrils from the undergrowth of the city, all the while commanding gruesome creatures to... ah, well, I should probably start from the beginning..."