#npc of all time hopefully she can catch a break sometime in our campaign

[secretagentdragon]

ireenaposting again

[cinaed]

Critical Role Thoughts

So to distract myself from current events, I started watching Critical Role. It was one of those shows where like three eps in I was like "Eh, this is fun, but I don't know it's engaging enough to keep watching" and now it's a month later and I've marathoned up to episode 48.

The show has made me laugh harder than any other canon in a while, but it's also got some amazing character development and emotional arcs, and I look forward to eventually catching up on the whole thing.

....also I sort of want to write a fic about a librarian who's a cleric of Oghma has been trying to set up a public library that hires Vox Machina to track down a stolen book from her collection, and shenanigans ensue. Mostly because Vex would cry over the terrible business model (what do you mean you let people borrow books and they DON'T PAY YOU?) and Grog would be very confused over this much fuss over a book. It doesn't even have any pictures!

So! Rambling thoughts on Critical Role up to ep 48 behind the cut.

I love everyone in this misfit family. Scanlan took a while to grow on me because I'm not a fan of poop jokes, but he's had such good character development with the Kaylee thing! Also his friendship with Grog is wonderful! I also love all of his songs, and feel like he needs to do more limericks, though I wouldn't mind Vex doing a few as well. And I hope they never let him live down that he flirted with his own daughter, haha.

It's amazing to me that Vex and Vax aren't played by real twins, because they interact so perfectly. I'm a twin myself and yeah, we talk to each other pretty much exactly like that. Also I love Vex and her greed, like, it shouldn't be so charming, but it is! My heart was in my throat when she died and they resurrected her. Also Trinket is great. I love him. Vax is a disaster, but I love him anyway, and am very worried about this whole Champion thing. Also I loved his thing with Gilmore and am a little sad that that seems to be over, even though I also enjoy Vax/Keyleth a lot as weirdos who deserve each other.

Keyleth tries so hard and is the least charismatic princess I've seen, but she's so great! I love how new she is the world (her betting on Grog during the Crucible fights was a thing of joy, and her occasional getting drunk on like one or two glasses were some of the best scenes), and how she tries to be the moral center of the group even if sometimes she goes a bit too far and comes off as sanctimonious. She's doing her best!

Grog! Man, honestly Grog makes me laugh the most? That time when he was bartering and Vex was off in the background going "I sense someone is losing a shitload of our money!!!" was beautiful. And we're getting into his backstory in the show, so I'm getting a bit emotional over him. Life in the herd sounds AWFUL, and I love that he's a Goliath with a heart. His plaintive "I wish Pike were here" broke my heart. But also can Scanlan and Pike please get that sword away from him? It's bad. Grog, it gave you a dream about killing Pike! THROW IT AWAY.

Percy! Percy, Percy, Percy. Does he make more or less terrible decisions than Vax? It's hard to say, honestly -- on the one hand you have his deal with the smoke demon, giving a cursed sword to Grog, and getting Vex temporarily killed, but on the other Vax pissed off the blackmarket gang in Emon and also seems to have sold his soul to a goddess, soooo -- but I do enjoy Percy a lot. And I sense he and Vex are going to be a thing, which pleases me. I really love their dynamic together! ...though I also started the show shipping Keyleth and Percy, whoops, but I guess they're meant as more siblings, the brother Keyleth never had and a sister for the one Percy thought he'd lost. I really enjoy his relationship with Cassandra and hope they get more interactions soon.

Pike! I am happy that Ashley Johnson is such a success on Blindspot, but I also long for whenever she gets a break from the show, because I love Pike's interactions with the group. She and Grog have such an amazing friendship, and I also enjoy her rebuttals of Scanlan. Also she kicks major ass.

How is Matt Mercer so amazing? How does he keep track of all the NPCs and their various accents?? My favorite is definitely Gilmore, but runner ups include Sherry, Victor the gunpowder merchant, Allura, and Kima. And Jarrett! I love how everyone is a little bit into Gilmore and Jarrett, and who wouldn't be, they're both super dreamy.

...I can't believe Emon got destroyed! And Westruun! And Keyleth's fire Ashari family! When Matt starts a new campaign, it's no holds barred, apparently. Like, Jesus, that was a rough couple of episodes. I legitimately teared up when they found Gilmore and Vax cradled him in his arms and Gilmore did the whole "Ah, I hoped your face would be the first thing I'd see after I died!" GILMORE FOUGHT A DRAGON FOR VOX MACHINA, YOU GUYS. WHAT A GUY.

And now it's time to watch Vox Machina try to grab more vestiges (hopefully with less fatal attempts) and Grog have to deal with his awful uncle. Uh, good thing I have the weekend off, because I am just sitting here watching like 10 hours straight of this show....

[shinytalent903-blog]

The Introduction of Addison West.

My DM invites me into the party, gives me a brief rundown of the world and such, and I come up with a character. I have a great love of writing, even if I am not that great at it, so I wrote a brief introduction to send to me DM.

They really enjoyed it, and they even used the NPC that I introduced as a main NPC in our campaign. I hope that someone else reads it and likes it too.

*****

Target: Addison Eleanor West.

Payment: 500,000 credits upon proof of completion.

*********************************************

Addison West loves The Luxe. This multi-level club in the silver district is wall to wall bodies, no matter the night, their VIP area is always open to her, and possibly the best of all she went to school with Alexis (DJ LX Sm00th) and he constantly kept her favourite tracks in reserve.

Tonight with a week until the Centennial Celebration the place is quiet. Addison can normally lounge in VIP and not see the bar for the crush of people, now everyone passing by can make eye contact and smile hopefully.

Addison taps violet nails on a glass filled with a lavender drink, a subtle signal to Matteo that she would love another.

Matteo gives her a look before puffing out his barrel chest and heading to the bar. Matteo is an old school body guard, been with her family since before she was born, and he could still snap a guy in half for looking at her the wrong way. Still sometimes Addison forgets that there are streaks of silver in his well oiled black hair.

Matteo likes to remind Addison that he is not an errand boy, that the West Corporation hires interns to fetch and carry for her. Addison always fires back with a reminder that an intern won't take a bullet for her.

The VIP area is empty save for her and while normally this is the time of the evening that Addison would start inviting people over, tonight something feels different. When Matteo brings her a fresh drink she thanks him with a smile, despite her mother's belief that Addison disrespects the West Family staff Addison has great respect for Matteo.

Like right now, Alexis is taking a break between sets and he is bee lining toward her. Matteo knows without her having to say a word to stand in front of the entrance and stare Alexei down like the immovable brick wall he is.

“Addi, love, call off your dog and let me come say hello?”

“Don't call me that. Matteo answers to mother, he is deaf to me. Isn't that right Matteo?”

Matteo grunts and continues his dead stare.

“Fine, fine, but you owe me a date Miss West.”

Matteo snorts, and Addison gives her camera ready smile. “IM me the details Lex.” she says before blowing him a kiss.

Soothed Alexis leaves and misses Addison rolling her eyes at her bodyguard as Matteo gives her the signal. The reason that Luxe holds her interest is that there is an almost nightly card game and finally, finally a seat was free at the table.

*

Lucien Spires took the job because Mallory West didn't give him room to say no. Lucien had no interest in killing some girl, but the amount of zeroes on that cheque were very convincing.

Taking a passing look in the glass as he exits the room he catches sight of the charcoal suit, the red tie, and the polish on his shoes and smirks. Green eyes stare back at him.

If Mrs West really wants to plan a funeral so close to the Centennial that's not his problem.

The Luxe has barely opened it's doors and Lucien has a seat at the table, he has to wait for the target to arrive, and then gain her seat at the table. The hosts like to keep her waiting, and for some reason the target doesn't seem to mind.

When the asset finally breezes in, smile fixed in place, she jokes about a table full of new faces to take credits from. It falls flat, and yet the target just fixes a feline smile to her darkened purple lips and picks up her hand.

*****

"She recently fixated on the colour purple. She will do this, you understand? Chase a particular interest only to give it up once it's been bled dry. I believe it has to do with her father's penchant for spoiling her."

"Ma'am, I don't know why that's relevant."

"Hmm?" Mallory West raises a perfect eyebrow at Lucien "Well I hope you would use the information provided to accurately identify your target."

"Ma'am, no offence, but everyone on Starbright knows your daughter, even with her recent hairstyle choice."

Of course only the impossibly rich could be this impossibly ignorant. Addison’s face had been all over the feeds when she dyed her blonde tresses a soft lavender, and shaved one side of her head.

Mallory West flinches, her children were clearly crafted in her image, and Addison is the one that constantly shifts and changes to not reflect her mother, but herself.

*

Addison was three hundred up overall, but this hand was not her hand. Worse still Matteo kept pacing in her peripheral vision throwing off her concentration. When she finally folds with a curse, tossing her cards on the table there's a moment when Addison doesn't understand why her cards hitting the table sounded like a gunshot.

The other woman at the table doesn't pause, she draws a las pistol from the small of her back and fires at the set of jowls that originally fired at Matteo.

"She's my contract, best back off old man."

Addison has grown up around guns. Matteo insisted on teaching her how to shoot, and Addison is awful at it but she understands gun fire, is familiar enough not to panic.

In an instant the table is on it's side and Addison is crouched on the sticky floor of a back room gambling den and wonder how in the constellations she got here.

*****

Well that's an interesting development. Lucien had been planning on making a move, just not something quite so bold.

The older gent at the table, he'd called himself Henry, had taken the guard out first. Smart, Matteo Delano was old school, and protective of his charge. He was also a legend in the underground boxing league, if you followed that sort of thing.

The woman (she didn't give a name so Lucien had been calling her Blondie) at the table had drawn Henry's attention, she had a laz pistol and knives for days. Good. Let them fight this out. Lucien would focus on- shit! Where did she go?

The burning sensation in his shoulder indicated that Blondie took exception to him trying to evac.

*****

Addison knows The Luxe's layout better than she knows the layout of her parent's penthouse. There is a service corridor, it leads to a set of stairs, and those stairs get you to an observation deck on the top level of the club.

Right now that's what Addison is focused on, get to the deck, be seen, and draw attention to herself.

There was a reason that those... what do you call someone trying to kill you? Criminals? Hitmen?

Assassins?

'Snap out of it West.' She gives herself a shake and starts pulling off her wine coloured heels in case she needs to run.

As she does Addison whispers "Call A."

There is a ringing in her ear “You've reached the messaging service of Armstrong West, if this is time sensitive please leave a message after the tone. Thank you.”

“A, dammit. If you're screening my calls I'm going to kill you.

********

Lucien chuckles, the first call of the night that Addison makes and it's a hurried call to her brother.

He wonders why she didn't call a security team, or even her father, odd that she would instead phone her brother.

“Listen bro, there's trouble. Matteo got shot, I'm on my way to you. I just gotta get out of here first.

I'm in the back corridor. A, please be careful. Stay put!”

Addison has no idea that this message isn't reaching her brother. Lucien rerouted all her calls to his own private line.

Lucien snakes his way out of the room, stepping over Blondie's unconscious form, leaving Harry bleeding out on the floor. There's a growing respect for this mark. Lucien looses his tie, and messes up his hair.

Hopefully he can sell this.

*****

Addison whips around glaring down the corridor, one shoe off and stumbling to wrench off the second. “Stay away from me.”

“Wait, please, what the hell,” and to really sell it Lucien winces with the pain in his shoulder. “what happened in there?”

Addison squints at him, and Lucien doesn’t know when he started referring to the mark by her name, but it doesn’t suit her.

“Well those two were plants, clearly something is going on.” Addison approaches, and angrily tears at the hem of her dress, it’s a deep shade of violet that off sets just how pale her tube engineered skin truly is. “Hold still.”

Lucien hisses for real this time as she wraps the wound.

“It won’t help for long, but it should be enough to get you out. On that note, we should move. Now.”

Addison heads for the stairs, and this should be the point where Lucien takes his snub nose from his ankle holster and puts one in the back of her head instead he finds himself asking

“How did you learn to do this?” He gestures to his shoulder.

They are halfway up the stairs before she answers “Matteo, my bodyguard, he taught me. He figured if I was going to go to these places that I needed some survival skills to back myself up.”

Lucien pauses on the stairs. “My name-”

“I don’t want to know. Just keep moving.”

“I know yours Miss West, it’s only proper that I give you my name in exchange.”

Addison just keeps climbing silently fuming, and yes being shot at kick starts ones adrenaline but Lucien had been expecting a whiny brat, one that went to pieces at the first sign of trouble, he hadn’t expected someone prepared to dress a wound, someone with a contingency plan.

“Listen when I get you out of this, then you can give me your name handsome, til then just accept my apology for getting you shot.”

“How do you know they were there for you?” Lucien is genuinely curious.

“I can buy one new face at that table, but three? No. Plus they took Matteo out first. Matteo was ex private military, an ex heavyweight boxer, and has been my shadow since I started school.

Everyone who knows my family knows I don’t leave my apartments without Matteo to watch out for me. Father’s orders.”

Lucien nods, clearly even Mallory West underestimates her daughter’s intellect.

“Okay, I’ll give you that.”

*********

Addison shoulders the door open and slips through, the crowd is really going now and all she can do is hope that there aren’t any more surprises waiting for her.

Mr Suit and Tie is following her, and she does feel bad that he got shot but she knows that getting worked up won’t help the situation.

“I called my brother, he’ll meet us somewhere safe. From there we can get you home.” Addison has been at card tables since she was 12, she got thrown out of her first school for running a less than legal card game and now she watches Suit and Tie’s face and something twists in her stomach.

Addison had just spent an hour with the man, and even when he’d been 500 credits in the hole he hadn’t broken a sweat. Now those vivid green eyes won’t meet her own cosmetically enhanced violet ones and she begins to wonder but decides to let things play out. Being a West meant knowing how to play the game.

“Uh Miss West, shouldn’t we get a Sec team?” Addison shakes her head, chuckling quietly.

“Drop the Miss, eh? Just West will be fine.” Addison can’t decide if this guy is trouble, or if he is Mr Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

“Okay West, where to?”

They make it to the front entrance of Luxe before she hears the tell tale crackle of an energy rifle.

Addison hasn’t fired one, but she’s heard them before, and now she smells burning.

“We gotta move.” Addison feels herself shoved out the door and into a mostly deserted corridor.

The burning smell stays with them and as she hauls Suit and Tie toward a set of silver elevator doors.

When the doors seal shut Suit and Tie slumps against the wall and he has both hands pressing to a fresh burn on his side.

“Maybe they are after you handsome.” A grim smile through gritted teeth greets her, there’s a sheen of sweat on his pale face.

“Lucien. It’s Lucien Spires.”

“I thought I said to keep it to yourself until we were in the clear.”

“I know, but maybe there’s something else you should know West.” Addison already knows.

Dammit.

“So you wanna collect on me now, or wait till those doors open?”

“I was thinking I would let you go.”

“Sure, at least tell me what the pay cheque would have been? Please tell me that you weren’t going to take less than a mill” Studying the shifty look on Lucien’s face Addison shakes her head

“What? Did they short change you? Damn. My stocks alone are worth at least 800 thou in credits. I’m disappointed in you Spires.” He starts laughing, which turns to a hacking cough.

“500 thousand credits, upon proof of completion.”

“I’m deeply hurt, that’s my monthly bookie allowance.” The doors open and showing a surprising amount of care Addison hooks an arm around Lucien’s torso and lets him lean on her as they try to hustle.

“Let’s get you patched up while you decide once and for all whether to collect or not.”

Addison had done this more than once, flipped someone from a hater into a follower, and while she isn’t sure that having a hitman on the payroll will increase her portfolio she sure hopes it will deter anyone else from taking a shot.

There’s a red dot at her feet, and then two, and then five. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Okay Spires, when I say run, you gotta haul ass, got it?” Lucien grits his teeth and nods. Addison isn’t sure that her new hitman will make it but since he had been planning on killing her for far less than what she is worth Addison doesn’t know if she is too worried.

*****

There’s a blur of varying shades of purple that moves down the mostly steel corridor and Lucien is doing his best to stay upright, and follow. Shots erupt behind them, and everywhere feeds are talking about “an electrical accident at a local club” because of course the Sec Team is spinning the story away from station wide panic.

A door slides open and he almost misses her dive into the opening, before he is being pulled inside with her.

“Confession time West, I intercepted the call you made to your brother.” Addison is at a console and he isn’t sure what she’s doing. “Figured that’s what happened. Sending him something now.”

“Is that safe?” Lucien is slumped on the ground, the left half of him on fire.

“It is when it’s from my father’s terminal. Now let’s see about getting you a med kit.”

Soon enough painkillers are being stabbed into his right shoulder and the familiar floating feeling has kicked in. Lucien begins to fight sleep, but he can’t. The black is all encompassing and he finally gives in and lets it take him.

When his eyes drift open there’s a scrap of paper in his hand, and it has to be from Addison because paper is more precious than gold on this station, and nobody else would think to waste it. Sure enough the ink is a sparkly purple, it looks more like lipstick than pen.

“This isn’t over Spires. We’ll be in touch.” -West

**********

“Addi, are you sure you’re okay?” Armstrong is standing over her in his kitchen, trying to inspect his sister for any sign that she isn’t herself.

“Listen A, I told you, I’m fine. Grab the bread would you?" Hip bumping her twin out of her way as she opens the fridge and starts pulling out meat, cheese, lettuce, and a tomato.

“Sandwiches? Are you seriously eating at a time like this? SOMEONE TRIED TO HAVE YOU KILLED?”

“And I am a growing girl A, I gotta keep my strength up. What if my blood pressure drops right when I need to run for my life?” Her twin frowns as he hands her bread, and butter.

“I can’t believe Matteo’s gone.” In that one moment she cracks a little, her voice softens, and her chin wobbles.

“Addi, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” The West twins weren’t raised to be affectionate. They found out a few years ago that they were only twins because their parents thought it would be efficient to just raise them both at once.

That doesn’t stop her brother from awkwardly rubbing her back as she assembles a pair of towering sandwich monuments.

They stand opposite each other in Armstrong’s kitchen, leaning on opposite benches with their feet just touching. Her toes are painted plum and his are in a pair of slippers as they silently consume what look to be mouth watering sandwiches.