Maxwell "Black Hand" Kelly

"It's not a request, Little Man. And you seem to be failing to understand your situation. So, let me spell it out simply and make things perfectly clear. By hook or by crook, you're coming with me."
-Kelly, speaking to Leh'ct after restraining Silinrul
Maxwell "Black Hand" Kelly is a tiefling bounty hunter of deadly renown. While he does have a code of honor, he's known to take dubious bounties and cares little for what becomes of the people he brings in. His accent places him as from the eastern part of Nexus' central continent, though his exact origins are a mystery.

Welcome to Haven City Arc

When some of the poor people of Lowtown sold information to the Crows regarding Leh'ct's attempts to help their food problem, Marchioness Eve called in Kelly to find this person and bring them to her. Kelly questioned the locals and learned an alleged spirit had been visiting farms at night. Borrowing a few men from the Crows, he stationed lookouts until one of them spotted a figure dancing in a field and went to confront Leh'ct.
While Kelly tried to approach unseen, Leh'ct was able to detect his approach and lit up the area with a dancing lights spell. Realizing he'd been made, Kelly stood up and simply walked over. When Leh'ct said something in a language Kelly didn't understand and Silinrul, the Giant Wolf Spider started to move, he used an Iron Bands of Bilarro to restrain the giant wolf spider. He made it clear that one way or another, Leh'ct was coming with him, but tried for a non-violent approach by casting a suggestion spell on Leh'ct. It worked and he led the young drow, who for now believed they were friends, to Marchioness Eve's mansion.
Kelly tried and failed to convince Leh'ct to disarm and come through the front door. As Leh'ct snuck off somewhere, Kelly went inside to wait in the foyer. While waiting, he had a servant inform Eve he'd brought the little man. While Crow security monitored Leh'ct, Kelly waited until the little man's familiar came to collect him. He followed the spider familiar back to Leh'ct before leading him to Eve's office. Kelly stood behind Leh'ct silently (and blocking the door) as they talked, taking no action he wasn't paid to take even as Leh'ct used a plant growth spell to escape the mansion.

Journey Into the Underdark Arc

The Hunt Begins

After Leh'ct and his companions managed to slip by the Crows and out of Haven City, Marchioness Eve hired Kelly to track them down. She provided him with a ██████████ to make the job easier while Kelly himself contacted an old acquaintance, Vexacus "Vex" Boulter, and offered to split the bounty in exchange for her assistance. Eve also wanted a Crows representative along, resulting in Eldingar Toreros joining the two bounty hunters on their mission. After collecting supplies needed for the journey, they set out after the adventurers.

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 went ahead to spy on their targets in the settlement while Kelly and Eldingar 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, surprising him by putting a hand on his shoulder as he greeted him, "Hello there, Little Man." Leh'ct remained surprisingly calm, commenting that Kelly's skills seemed well suited for urban environments. At the young man's asking, Kelly informed him that he'd come looking for the Thaig Expedition on behalf of Marchioness Eve, who'd offered him five times his usual rate for their bounty. Kelly commented he'd never seen a bounty that big on someone as young as Leh'ct and sarcastically complimented him for being a record breaker. Leh'ct asked why Kelly was bothering to do this whole song and dance instead of simply ambushing him, to which the bounty hunter replied that just because he intended to bring the Little Man in didn't mean he didn't like him.
As he was saying this, Kelly's eyes flicked behind Leh'ct and the young druid saw a Sword Dancer coming around the corner. Unknown to him, this was Vex in disguise and all part of the bounty hunters' plan. 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 ██████████ no longer worked for them.
As she led Kelly away, he and Vex were 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, Kelly and his 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 discovered that one of the adventurers had become a target for waterkleddes. Familiar with this type of demon, Kelly made 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 Kelly'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 Kelly and his allies until Kelly dropped the invisibility spell he had concealing them. Kelly attacked first, opening with his most powerful spell and wracking most of the adventurers body with a painful infusion of necrotic energy. When one of the adventurers summoned a mass of darkness and hungering tentacles to blind, damage, and slow down the bounty hunters, Kelly quickly dispeled it. But before he could advance further on the adventurers, the surviving waterkledde caused a small cave-in when it ran into a landmine set by the adventurer Sunny that blocked the tunnel between him and his targets.
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 an explosive Vex was putting in place to clear the rubble 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. Kelly made a point of finishing off the injured adventurer who'd hampered them with the darkness magic via an eldritch blast to the head.
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.

Death at Leh'ct's Hand

Due to being able to track Leh'ct and Elycia separately, the bounty hunters became aware when Leh'ct separated from the rest of the adventurers. Kelly went after the young drow while the rest of them stayed on the rest of the adventurers.
Using his Figurine of Wondrous Power, Obsidian Steed in nightmare form to traverse the Ethereal Plane, Kelly snuck up on Leh'ct and his new traveling companion, Karai, and shot Karai in the back with a trio of eldritch blasts. The magical beams pushed the medusa forward into a patch of brown mold. Leh'ct stared at the bounty hunter in horror, realizing they were very much cornered. He talked to stall, asking why a bounty hunter of Kelly's reknown would chase him all this way. Kelly claimed there was more than one bounty on him. Marchioness Eve still wanted him, but so did the Haven City Guard on a count of arson and three counts of manslaughter. A few of Eve's maids didn't make it out when Leh'ct set her mansion on fire. This shook Leh'ct deeply; he told Karai and Silinrul to flee while he held Kelly off. Both refused, opting to stand with the young drow against the tiefling instead.
Leh'ct summoned a group of ice mephits to assist and swarm Kelly with numbers. Though they did little to slow the bounty hunter down, they kept him busy long enough for Leh'ct to dispel the magic maintaining his nightmare's form and revert it back into a Figurine of Wondrous Power, Obsidian Steed. Though outnumbered 3-to-1, Kelly was just as capable as his opponents and unleashed the full force of an experienced warlock's magic. Karai used her mastery of stone magic to summon a pillar under Kelly and try to crush him against the ceiling. Kelly provided too nimble for her plan to work, but it did give Leh'ct some much needed cover from Kelly's magic.
Though the cover helped, it wasn't enough to turn the tide. Thinking quickly, Leh'ct used a spell to put the combatants in a massive cube of water to prevent Kelly from speaking the magic words his spells required. His magic rendered near-useless, the warlock switched from spell to blade and provided just as deadly with his sword. Cutting Kelly off from his magic finally evened the odds enough to transform the battle into one of attrition. Silinrul was soon forced to retreat after taking near-fatal injuries, leaving only Leh'ct and Karai to combat Kelly. Karai was soon injured badly as well, leaving Leh'ct alone. But just as Kelly went in for a killing stroke, his blood loss got the better of him and the bounty hunter collapsed.
Leh'ct stood above the bounty hunter, breathing heavily. He seemed hesitant to finish his hunter off while he had the chance. Karai had no such reservations and told the young drow that if he spared Kelly now, the bounty hunter would only come after them again. Kelly himself commented that that was true. He'd taken the job to bring Leh'ct in and would finish it unless something finished him first. Kelly ultimately rejected Leh'ct's desire to grant him mercy and encouraged the druid to "be a man" and finish him instead. Leh'ct did so with a single dagger thrust to Kelly's heart, ending the infamous bounty hunter's life.
After Leh'ct stripped the remains of anything valuable, Karai used her earth magic to make a hole in the solid stone floor, roll Kelly's body in, and reseal it. She stated it was more to make sure that Kelly could not be easily revived than anything else. And given that Kelly had shown himself to be a warlock, she pondered where his soul was now and whether the two of them had made an enemy of whoever or whatever his magical patron was.

Catchphrase
"By hook or by crook, you're coming with me."
Magic Items (taken by Leh'ct Arlathil)
+1 Light Crossbow
+1 Shortsword
+2 Studded Leather Armor
Figurine of Wondrous Power, Obsidian Steed
Iron Bands of Bilarro
Mask of the Pact Bearer