Vexacus "Vex" Boulter is a bounty hunter and old frenemy of
"Black Hand" Kelly. The pair have spent as much time competing for bounties as they have working together to bring them in, fostering a rivalry built on respect for each others skills. She is a skilled tracker who specializes in infiltration and catching her targets unaware. Vex is also much more comfortable is bringing in a bounty dead than the average bounty hunter, preferring to do jobs safely and easily rather than risk herself for the larger reward a live bounty can provide.
Journey Into the Underdark Arc
The Hunt Begins
When
"Black Hand" Kelly was contracted by
the Crows to kill the adventurers who had caused them trouble and left town, namely
Leh'ct and
Elycia Mirais, he contacted Vex and asked if she was interested in joining him. Vex, knowing how much
the Crows had to pay, wasted no time taking him up on the offer. Once their supplies were ready for the journey, the pair left along with
Crow representative
Eldingar Toreros to track their targets.
Misdirection at the Deep Spire
Though the bounty hunters' path was initially blocked by tunnels the Thaig Expedition had collapsed behind them, they were eventually able to find an alternate route and catch up while their targets stayed in the area near the
Deep Spire on the
Black Loch. Vex spied upon their targets during this time, taking several different humanoid forms to observe them as they went about their business in the settlement. Meanwhile,
"Black Hand" Kelly came up with a plan to allow them to better track their targets going forward.
Kelly discreetly followed
Leh'ct Arlathil while the young man was alone, talking with him briefly before Vex came around a corner disguised as a
Sword Dancer. She played the part of a suspicious guard and "arrested"
Kelly for accosting
Leh'ct. During this little act, she slipped a magical coin into
Leh'ct's shadow that would allow her to track him, giving the bounty hunters a second way to follow their targets if something happened to
Elycia and
Eldingar's Blod Stone no longer worked for them.
As she led
Kelly away, Vex was fully aware that
Leh'ct followed her to the space they'd rented. She knocked at the door (
Eldingar opening it from inside) and shoved
Kelly in. The minotaur then repeatedly hit a slab of meat they'd purchased to make the listening
Leh'ct believe
Kelly was being interrogated with a beating (
Kelly give fake grunts of pain to sell it). Once they were confident the young druid was gone, they used
Kelly's Figurine of Wondrous Power, Obsidian Steed to summon his nightmare and get to the Ethereal Plane & leave the
Deep Spire unseen.
Bounty Hunter Ambush
Through their various tracking methods, Vex and her allies became aware that their targets were somehow moving across the
Black Loch at incredible speeds. Far too quickly for the bounty hunters to be able to simply run them down. If they were going to catch their targets, they needed to bait a trap and let the adventurers come to them. As they were pondering a way to do this,
Kelly managed to discover that one of the adventurers had become a target for
waterkleddes. Familiar with this type of demon,
Kelly managed to make contact with some of them and offered to assist in their goal of killing
Elycia Mirais provided the bounty hunters could take some part of her body as proof of death. The
waterkleddes agreed to this and the bounty hunters prepared their ambushes, one for the adventurers and another for the
waterkleddes they fully expected to betray them once the job was done.
Continuing to spy within the
Deep Spire in various disguises, Vex heard about an elven warship from the surface that had gone down in the
Loch after someone or something attacked it. Knowing something of
Elycia's military history thanks to information provided by
Marchioness Eve, she figured their targets were likely to check it out. Vex informed the
waterkleddes of this and they made a plan for the demons to lure the adventurers to a cave not too far from the shipwreck where the bounty hunters would be waiting.
The plan worked quite well, from Vex's perspective. Only one of the two
waterkleddes survived long enough to get back to the bounty hunters and that one was heavily injured. The adventurers rushed in to finish it, not noticing Vex and her allies until
Kelly dropped the invisibility spell he had concealing them. Vex managed to hit several of the adventurers with an explosive tipped arrow, expressing disappointment that
K was not present as she did so. Soon after, she set another explosive to blow away a minor cave-in the surviving
waterkledde caused when it ran into a landmine set by the adventurer
Sunny.
Shortly thereafter, the
waterkledde killed
Sunny and set off his self-destruct mechanism on the farm side of the rocks. The blast blew away the rocks and set off Vex's explosive before the bounty hunters could retreat to a safe distance. With the warforged dead, they moved forward to finish the others but were unable to prevent
Elycia from fleeing with
Jake, though they did learn she had some magic that enabled her to move through walls. Just before the elven bard was able to run through solid rock with her unconscious ally, Vex managed to put an arrow in her arm.
Shortly thereafter,
Kelly used the sending stone provided by
Marchioness Eve to update her on
Sunny's death with the assurance the other adventurers would soon follow. The bounty hunters started to discuss what they'd learned about their targets abilities as they began to formulate their next plan.
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