Chapter 2
From the moment that Percy saw Kashaw and Sarah plummet to their demise, he knew that something was wrong. It wasn't until much later, until it was already too late, that he realized that that alarming sensation was the beginning of Vox Machina's failure.
The first one to go was Pike, of course. It was as if he had written upon the sheets of destiny himself, if only he believed in such crap. The priestess went down, her last breath a silent sorry that everyone could hear. Only she wasn't just that, just a priestess or a healer. She was much more, but he couldn't afford to think about them like that, like more than a role in a plan that didn't work.
Next was Keyleth. THIS was the moment when the realization stroked deep in his chest. He should have told them to run, he should have died in her place, he should have been able to prevent it in any way possible. But he didn't, he kept fighting, holding to a foolish hope of a wish or a miracle that would end everything and save the world.
Right in that instance where his mind started expecting a solution without any cause was when his laughter filtered through into his mind. Vecna's voice resounded all over his head like the one he had heard so many times before Scanlan threw his gun.
"Oh, this is delightful, it is just so easy to pick the next one when you telegraph them so conveniently to me," Vecna said savouring every letter he pronounced, "Watch, oh please watch, for it is now the bard's turn."
With that Vecna pushed and pulled in an arcane battle that no one, not even Scanlan, had the rights to be. The soon to be god attacked him relentlessly ignoring all the rest while Scanlan did his best not to fall under his attacks. But his best was not enough, Grog's wasn't either.
In a flicker of the undead fingers the gnome got disintegrated with the huge goliath.
The gun was in the ground, the trembling too strong to even hold it. The gunslinger face was covered in tears and shadows as he, without even realizing it, glared to his wife. Vex looked back at him, at the same time that the demi-god placed his eyes upon her.
With but a glance she understood what was happening, she knew every little thing that was going on through his mind. She had always been able to do that. It was magic, one of the few kinds that he didn't hate. It was impossible for her to know that all he could hear was the maniacal cackle of his enemy tormenting him.
"This is not your fault, he will never win." Vex's mouth uttered in plain silence while Vecna's voice cluttered his brain.
"Such a foolish goodbye." He said and then she was gone. In a second there was nothing. That's how he remembered that moment, that's how his mind chose to do it.
"As a token of my appreciation," Vecna continued this time out loud, "I will allow you to continue living... Just for a little while. I have other matters to attend to."
Vax'ildan laid unconscious in the ground, unable to die, the barrier holding him in this world. It was just the two of them. A simple man and a newly risen god.
"Before i go, i grant you my thanks, i couldn't have done it so efficiently without you." Vecna said. "Consider this victory as much yours as it was mine."
He laughed an awful and lifeless laugh and teleported himself elsewhere.
Percy stood there, not a single motion in his muscles. Unable to think or to act, feeling numb and confused. And then he was home.
"Freddy!" The knocking on his door awoke him in a sudden pool of sweat and sheets.
He didn't remember having gone to his room or to sleep at all. Had he just collapsed from exhaustion after the battle? That wouldn't be very dignifying in front of his men but he wasn't quite sure how long had he been without sleeping.
"It's me, if you don't come out I will come in and it will not be pleasant for neither of us." Vax said, though his voice was muffled by the door in the way.
"I'm coming, i'm coming." Percy answered looking for his glasses.
He was still wearing the same garments that he had taken to battle. Whenever that had been. Had someone moved him here?
While arranging himself to look a little more presentable he did take the time to remorse in his nightmare. It had been decreasing slowly through the years the frequency with which he dreamed of these events. One would had thought that after twenty years or so it would have already banished, but no. And despite all logical thinking in the last few weeks the dream had come to him more and more. Was it because he was so close? He certainly didn't feel like he was.
He opened the door.
"Oh, hi Freddy, how you holding up?" Vax asked letting himself in the room.
"Please come in." Percy said then closed the door. "I… I'm alright, I think. Did I pass out where I was standing?"
"What? No, you gave orders to your men then garbled something about another something that you had to work on and went off to the castle." Vax answered with concern in his face. "Tried to stop you but you weren't listening. Looked for you for the last couple hours, thought you'd be in your workshop but no, only Tary down there, he didn't see you neither."
"Fascinating." Percy uttered. "I don't recall doing any of that."
"You are acting weird Freddy," Vax said, "and talking about weird, what the fuck was that back outside?"
"Beg your pardon?"
"You went all Rambo out there, what happened?" He asked scanning the room.
"I had it under control, there's nothing to worry about." Percy lied keeping a straight face.
"Look man, if you want to bullshit the others to keep them going even after this long that's fine, I'm all for it, but you know I can see through that." Vax answered really annoyed.
"It's…" Percy sighed. "I'm actually okay."
Vax was silent for a moment, trying to read him. Finally, he sighed too and sit on his bed.
"Look, I know it hurts you to see me because I'm so much like… Like... And that's why I've been coming and going, don't want to keep you in the past, but I do think that before giving up we should at least stick together."
He was quite like her, though in all the wrong and stupid ways. But that was okay with him, that way he could be sure he wouldn't forget her face. She continued living a little bit through him, they all did. It was not enough, but it was something to hold on to.
"You are quite annoying, do you know?" Percy said opening the door one more time.
"Well that does sound like the Percy I know."
"I may have been carried away, and I may have not really been sleeping the last couple weeks." The gunslinger lingered on the door. "I've been very busy with an old project, and I think I'm almost finished with it."
"How much sleep is *not really been sleeping*?" Vax asked with half a grin.
"Do the last couple of hours count?"
"Oh, not at all, they were barely more than one."
"Then I estimate around cero hours." Percy said feeling very tired again. "Come, I'll show you what we've been working on and you can get me some coffee in the way."
The rogue exited the room with the gunslinger behind and both of them directed themselves first to the kitchen and then to the new workshop that had been built in recent years below the castle.
"You've been having the dream again." Vax stated matter of factly while they were walking.
"The dream?" Percy asked.
"You know the one, I've dreamt about it too, recently." He continued. "I think, I think it may be a sign from her."
"If it is, I have no idea what it means, except maybe that she has found a new joy in reopening old wounds." Percy answered disguising his anger with sarcasm.
When the whole thing was over, he had gone to the Raven Queen's Temple and attempted to talk to her, to get some kind of help or answer, instead all he received was silence. In retrospective he should have expected no more than that, but desperate people do desperate things. And in that moment, even in this one, he was ready to even ask help from a god if it gave him what he wanted.
"I'm not sure to be honest." Vax said.
"What did you do while you were gone?" Percy asked trying to change the subject.
The grin in the half-elf's face came back a little wider.
"Looking and gathering people." He said. "Even in the apocalypse itself, there are still lots of people with great potential to change the world, maybe even in ways that we weren't able."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, I've found a really interesting group, they remind me a lot of us but they are still rough, with time they could be the next big thing, maybe even take the one-eyed fucker up in his throne on." Vax said.
"That sounds promising, we'll call it plan B." Percy answered.
"What's plan A?"
"I'm glad you finally asked."
Percy opened the door to the workshop with the most dramatic flair he could.
Inside hundreds of different metallic pieces laid thrown around in various tables that were displayed in a circle around what was the main event.
Inside the circle there was a machine like none Vax or any other living creature had seen. It was placed in the middle of a very intricate magical circle carved on the ground and it consisted in various bulbs and cables that crossed each other around a rustic seat with some sort of panel in front of it. Around it were five huge rings, the further the bigger, that did the ways of a strange ladder to the machine itself.
Tary appeared from behind the machine, half his face smeared with some kind of oily substance. His face was not the happiest, although seeing them two did bring a joyous smile on it.
"Doty, the towel!" He yelled to his back where his new iteration of his robet companion appeared, towel in hand. Doty cleaned Taryon's face then retrieved to the shadows once more as the blonde guy approached them. The new 5.0 version of Doty was taller and at the same time it resembled more the form of a human than a machine. He had a majestic moustache almost identical to Taryon's and Percy suspected there were hidden weapons along his chassis though his friend had never showed them to him. He was probably waiting for the right moment.
"It is nice to see you gentlemen." Taryon said as he reached them. "Have you come to accompany me in a nice dinner?"
"I think Freddy has other plans, though I could be wrong." Answered Vax studying the whole place.
"Actually, a good dinner sounds delightful." Percy answered just realizing how hungry he was.
Taryon's face lighted up.
"Oh! Yes, please, take me out of here!" He begged and instantly realized how he sounded. "I mean, is not that I don't enjoy working here with you Percy, is just that you haven't been here for some days now and Doty is not exactly a great chatter, though he is a rather exquisite listener."
"I'm terribly sorry, we were just attacked by another raid party and before that I was bussy preparing the defences and keeping everything from falling on top of ourselves." Percy answered.
"I thought your sister took care of that." Vax said from far away while toying with one of the strange pieces in one of the tables.
"She did but has fallen ill off recent and I've taken over temporary so she can rest and recover."
"You don't need to worry, I entertained myself teaching Doty some new words. She is now able to pronounce *Little elf boy* without almost any stutter, though she keeps having problems with the L." Taryon said looking back to his servant. "I do need to talk to you about an important matter."
"What is it?" Percy asked.
Taryon looked around the place placing his eyes upon the half-elf. He then conspicuously grabbed the gunslinger by the arm and moved him to the hallway.
"It's not that I don't trust Vax it's just that I don't really know how much you told him about our little project and I didn't want t...
"I was just about to tell him but please spit what's bothering you."
"We are missing one last part, we have the whole thingy done and ready but it lacks fuel and I sincerely have no clue what that could even be." Tary blurted suddenly almost panicking.
Percy put a hand on his shoulder to calm him although this just seemed to upset even more the artificer.
"I'll take care of that, in fact I'll take it from here, I know you have to go back to take care of your own brigade and your family." Percy said with a mix of sadness and happiness in his voice.
"You know what will make thi machine work?" Taryon replied pronouncing very slowly and strangely the name of the invention.
"It's one of the things that have kept me bussy." He answered.
"Well if the whole process until now proves something it won't be easy getting whatever you need now."
The both of them entered the room again where Vax was really hard trying not to appear to be listening to them while obviously listening.
"We are actually in the easiest part right now." Percy said optimistically. "Just designing the bloody machine took almost ten years. Gathering the metal components and giving them the right shape and balance and then getting the right spells was almost as difficult."
"Making a magic circle with the runes form time stop was genius of me, you are probably very glad you brought me in in your wild idea." Taryon added.
"I am." Percy smiled.
"I still wonder how did you even came up with the design." Taryon kept going.
He had asked before, he wouldn't get his answer now either. It was not important, old habits died hard.
"I guess I was just very lucky, I'm thankful, if there is any way I could repay you..."
"Just, just come back." Taryon said suddenly very saddened. "Save us all and come back. Go, save us all, comeback, and we'll have dinner, you owe me at least two for all of this."
"I'm not sure that's how this works." He replied.
"I know, but you understand."
"I will, I promise I'll set things straight, and then we will have a feast for the ages. We will all have." He said trying to contain his own emotions.
"That sounds great."
Taryon lingered for a minute, then he stretched his body and called Doty to accompany him upstairs where he would "take a bath and change into a more suitable suit before even thinking about dinner."
He remarked that he wouldn't return home just yet, he would at least stay until the machine was completed and ready to use.
Percy and Vax were finally alone in the workshop. The two looked at the machine with weary eyes.
"So, i'll pretend I didn't listen and ask, what is this?" Vax said stretching both his arms.
"It's a time machine." Percy answered using his formal tone. "Or at least it will be, once i get the last part."
"A time machine? As in time travel?" Vax asked perplexed.
"Yes."
"As in going back in time or is it just a really big and fancy... metal... thing that tells you the day and hour?"
"That's a clock or a sundial, I think there used to be one in the garden." Percy answered amused by the rogue. "No, I mean as in going back in time, and potentially forward."
Vax studied one more time the whole machine, the light of realization slowly dawning on his mind. Percy could tell just by seeing the subtle changes on his face how fast he pasted every part together.
His friend turned around getting almost in his face with a worried, angry and confused look.
"When you said you'd fix everything you meant this?" He asked almost fuming.
"This is exactly what I meant, I didn't tell you before because I was never sure we would even get to this point, much less even consider the possibility of the thing actually working." Percy defended himself.
"A time machine." Vax repeated.
Silence.
Percy had nothing else to say, his arguments had gone dry. This was the solution, the only one. Vax would either see it, or he wouldn't. Either way Percy would carry on with the next phase of the project.
They were quiet for a very long time. Percival felt his eyes asking him to close them, even if it was for only five minutes, but he refused sternly and angrily. He could sleep later, everything else could be done later.
Vax sighed.
"I don't know what to say." He began. "Why did you show me this? You probably imagined how I would react, how did this play out in that smart mind of yours?"
"Very similar to this, but I did had a much better speech." He answered.
"This is not moving on, you are still carrying all the weight of your past in your shoulders." Vax sat on the nearest table. "It will bury you, it is not meant to by carried for eternity, this is not sane."
"I will burden the weight of my failures and my past like I've been doing now for all my life no matter what. That is a truth I have accepted long ago, even before our last battle." Percy replied with a new-found anger inside of him. "But this," he pointed to the time machine, "this will allow me to bury the mistakes of everyone else, to save countless lives, to change everything and set it how it should have been."
Percy stayed standing though his legs shouted for a comfortable chair or whatever could do the trick.
"You know this is not how things should have gone, this is neither just nor fair, and I certainly do not accept this as the results of our hard work."
"And what do you need me to do?" Vax asked without any conviction but trusting his friend nonetheless.
Percy finally sat letting his body relax and shout at the soreness of his muscles.
"There is one last element I need for the machine to work properly."
"And that is?"
"The blood of a Temporal Drake." He answered through sheer willpower.
"What does that even mean?" Vax asked curiously once again.
"It means we are going hunting." Percy replied standing up once more.