Critical Role: Vox Machina--Kith & Kin

Chapter 1

The spider crashed into the undergrowth with a dagger buried into one of its eyes, its claws still twitching and its jaw clicking. A large brown bear immediately leaped on top of it, his paws crushing the spider s legs, like branches that snapped underneath his weight.

Vex ahlia Vessar shuddered at the crunching sound. Ugh, gross. How about a cleaner kill next time, brother?

At least I brought one of them down, her brother Vax ildan shot back, his eyes on the two other spiders that were still circling them. Besides, who led us straight into their nest in the first place?

Trinket brought one of them down. Her bow fully drawn, Vex tracked one of the spiders with her arrow. Half-­elf twins, they d stumbled upon a nest, hidden away in the thicket, as they d crossed into Bramblewood Forest on their way to Westruun. The trail they d followed from the river to the city got swallowed up by the trees. Three spiders, concealed by the greens and browns around them, had scurried out of their burrow ­and attacked before they d been able to back away and change course. And you wanted to take a shortcut.

I m f***ing tired of trees, Vax said, like that was a better reason to walk into a spider s nest. He took a new dagger from his belt. And Trinket only helped.

That spider was still moving.

Twitching. It would have died eventually.

Because Trinket killed it.

Still on top of the spider, Trinket growled and looked around the narrow clearing in the woods for the other arachnids, ready to jump on another one if the need arose.

Vex breathed out and focused on her target. One of the spiders scuttled up a large tree ­dashing around the thorns that covered the bark, lending the forest its name ­and circled the trunk. Like the first, it was the size of a large dog or a wolf, its hairy legs at sharp angles and its eyes focused on the twins. The four smallest eyes tracked their every movement, while the larger eyes on top reflected

Marieke Nijkamp