Uncover the lost years of Critical Role’s unrelentingly upbeat undead spellcaster in this original prequel novel to Laudna’s adventures with Bells Hells. For as long as she can remember, Laudna has had a friend. A mentor. A little voice whispering in her cropped ear, promising that, no matter how monstrous she becomes or how far she wanders, there will always be someone to guide her. And so, Laudna is content. But the thought of more —of life, of love, of the magic stirring in her still veins—is unrelenting in its familiarity. More is the dream of the young girl trapped behind the bloodstained walls of Whitestone, and the nightmare of the woman who now stalks the woods outside them. More, Laudna’s little voice reminds her, is dangerous. From Tal’Dorei to Marquet, the world is infested with heroes destined to rid their kingdoms of creatures like Laudna. The little voice is right, she knows. But still, she thinks of more . And when she reaches for that dream, what reaches back will change everything. Written by USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, Critical Role: Bells Hells—What Doesn’t Break delves into the unexplored years before Laudna joined up with the crew of Bells Hells, chronicling her departure from Whitestone and her solo adventures on the road to Jrusar. Cassandra Khaw is the author of USA Today bestseller Nothing but Blackened Teeth and Bram Stoker Award winner Breakable Things. Their other works include British Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist Hammers on Bone, The Salt Grows Heavy, and The Dead Take the A Train, co-written with New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey. Khaw’s work can also be found on Tordotcom and in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy . Founded by veteran voice actors Matthew Mercer, Ashley Johnson, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, Laura Bailey, and Liam O’Brien, Critical Role has grown from a weekly improv storytelling campaign set in an ever-evolving world to a media company centered on connecting with communities in new and meaningful ways, including fiction ( Critical Role: Vox Machina—Kith & Kin ) and nonfiction ( The World of Critical Role ) books on the New York Times bestseller list, comic books ( Vox Machina Origins, Tales of Exandria ), graphic novels (The Mighty Nein Origins series), collectibles, tabletop and role playing games, podcasts, live events, and a critically acclaimed animated series, The Legend of Vox Machina . Chapter 1 It woke not in pain, per se, but in considerable discomfort, as its body weight was supported entirely by a noose around its throat. This was its first revelation. The next was that it was suspended by said noose from the boughs of a colossal tree. The third, and perhaps the most important, epiphany was that it was surrounded by corpses, some fresher than others. Something about the sight of those bodies, bluish-purple skin tinted green in the last light of a dying day, brought it tremendous solace. No, it thought to itself, even as it processed the fact that it was a thinking entity, capable of rationalization, even something as dangerous as imagination. It wasn’t the dangling cadavers that comforted it but the knowledge that something—it wasn’t entirely sure what exactly—was missing from that rotting tableau. That was why she— She? That sounded correct. She seemed an accurate summation of that aspect of her identity, but of course that impression could be revised later. It—she had only just arrived upon the knowledge that gender was even an applicable variable, after all. More discoveries surely awaited. Like her name. Surely, she had a name once. Just as surely as the continued knowledge of it was waiting for her in the derelict and still-unexplored corners of her mind, of which she suspected there were many. An entire warren of memories to excavate until she could recover her essence, whatever it was that once made her singularly her, from the lightless nothing. Right now, she wasn’t so much a person as an agglomeration of parts: bones, sluggishly circulating fluids, fractured cartilage, a mouth and its bitten tongue, a neck bruised to numbness, ears that ached in time with her lethargic heartbeat but only along their very tips. These were all indispensable constituents of a physical body, but without the context of answers to very specific questions, they were just cold meat and puddling humors. As her awareness of the noose grew further pronounced, she decided what she really wanted was someone to tell her why she’d been hung— She began to weep. This surprised her. Though she couldn’t articulate a reason for this, a part of her, some dim and remote hemisphere of her revivifying brain not yet on speaking terms with language, had expected something more primordial than the brokenhearted sobs wracking her: a scream, yes, that word seemed right, something louder, something lik
