percival "poor lil meow meow" de rolo iii (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whitestonelives) wrote2021-08-23 04:19 pm
whitestonelives) wrote2021-08-23 04:19 pm
Entry tags:
onscreen character history for linking purposes.
KRAGHAMMER ARC: The adventuring party of Vox Machina, on a mission to save their friend Allura Vysoren's halfling paladin ally Kima, venture into Kraghammer to save her from a duergar warcamp. Along the way, they ally with Clarota, a Mind Flayer, and discover that the duergar have allied with a colony of Mind Flayers who are under the control of a beholder named K'Varn. They kill K'Varn, take a magical item known as the Horn of Orcus from his corpse and save the Mind Flayers from enslavement, but the Mind Flayers, Clarota included, try to kill them. Percy shoots Clarota's head off before Clarota can kill the gnome bard Scanlan Shorthalt. They teleport out of Kraghammer and visit Allura to let her know what's happened (where she mentions meeting the Briarwoods), then drop in on the Council of Emon, led by Sovereign Uriel, to discuss what to do with the Horn. It's then decided they should go to Vasselheim, across the Ozmit Sea, so they can stash the horn in a temple consecrated to the Platinum Dragon so it can't do any more harm. After that meeting, Percy goes to speak with Uriel to learn more about the Briarwoods' visit. It's kind of a bad time for Percy.
VASSELHEIM ARC: Vox Machina go to Vasselheim to drop off the Horn of Orcus, and bid a sad temporary farewell to their gnome cleric Pike. They accidentally end up getting entangled with the guild known as the Slayer's Take after they accidentally kill-steal a hydra out from under the Take, and in order to avoid being prosecuted for poaching, must become members of the Take through a grueling trial, splitting the party in half to pursue two different bounties. Percy, along with Scanlan, half-elf ranger Vex'ahlia (and her bear son Trinket), and goliath barbarian Grog, have to go kill an adult white dragon. (Half-elf rogue Vax'ildan, half-elf druid Keyleth, and dragonborn sorcerer Tiberius have to go kill a demon known as a rakshasa and make it out fine.) Percy's group meet up with tiefling warlock Zahra Hydris and human wizard Lyra who will assist them in killing the white dragon, and set off to hunt it down. While they run into trouble along the way, they take care of it handily, and continue on to meet the white dragon, whose name is Rimefang. Near the end of the pitched battle, Percy goes down hard and is only saved by Zahra dealing the killing blow to Rimefang. They get back to the Take just a bit ahead of their friends with their bounty, and thus Vox Machina become fully-fledged members of the Slayer's Take. After their return to the guild, they make a detour to help Keyleth with the next leg of her druidic journey aka the Aramente, in the Fire Ashari's village of Pyrah. Afterward, Percy goes to look for ammunition supplies, and quickly finds the blackpowder merchant Victor, who is...very eccentric, to say the least, and the ore merchant Samson, who's not nearly as memorable. The party then teleports back to Emon and return to their keep known as Greyskull Keep, where Vax knocks out a fan named Kynan and tells him to git gud, and are greeted by Seeker Assum Emring, who invites them to dinner with the Briarwoods, celebrating the construction of a bridge between Tal'Dorei and Wildemount.
BRIARWOODS ARC: Percy Has A Slow Breakdown. I'm kidding but that's what it feels like. Percy reveals his history with the Briarwoods to the rest of the party prior to the dinner, and shows them the names on the barrels of his gun, the names of the coconspirators in the Briarwoods' coup that overthrew and massacred the de Rolos. He spends much of the week leading up to the meeting tinkering, and when pulled into plans for what to do for dinner, suggests they just watch the Briarwoods. Obviously things go absolutely off the rails, because Vax almost gets captured by the Briarwoods and Vox Machina does not take that kind of thing very well, and they get assistance from a tiefling wizard named Lillith, who's escaping from her sisters. Percy, who has been consistently quiet and level-headed up until this arc, screams at the Briarwoods, fucking tries to blow Lord Sylas Briarwood's head off and definitely shoots him in the arm. While the Briarwoods get away, Vox Machina manage to capture the Briarwoods' carriage driver, and Percy shoots the driver's fingers on one hand off, threatening to do the same to the other. He asks the man about his family and receives confirmation they're all dead, and knocks out the poor fellow. Then the hunter hired by Lillith's sister arrives, and Percy.......uh, loses it, basically, and shoots a huge hole in the guy's chest while screaming "YOUR SOUL IS FORFEIT" at him. He spends much of his time after that shut up in his workshop, and only comes out to hear the carriage driver tell the story of the night the Briarwoods overthrew the de Rolos and installed themselves in Whitestone.
A little later after that, Percy wakes up to an attack on the keep, while the rest of the party is out trying to restore their reputation as heroes. He, the guards, and Trinket take down some of the would-be assassins, and the rest of Vox Machina quickly arrive after that. The next morning, Percy shares his fears that he'll get the party killed should they go to face the Briarwoods, but the temptation of taking vengeance on the people who killed his family (and the demon in his soul) is too much for him to resist, and he decides to go face the Briarwoods anyway. (At some point in time between Emon and Whitestone Tiberius is called away from the party for other business, and ends up permanently leaving.) Vox Machina leaves Emon after a week, heading to Whitestone to confront the Briarwoods. When they get there, they find that the Briarwoods have turned Whitestone into damn near a ghost town, populated by the undead and scared townsfolk reluctant to leave their homes, and also that there are eight bodies hanging from the twisted husk of the Sun Tree: a bear and seven humanoid bodies made up to look like Vox Machina, a twisted message to the party that the Briarwoods know they're coming. As Vox Machina hides to process just what the hell is going on (and, in Keyleth's case, revive the Sun Tree), they end up sowing the seeds of rebellion in the population of Whitestone, and in the meantime start systematically taking out the names on Percy's gun barrels. In taking out the coconspirators, though, Percy slips further and further down the slippery slope as the influence of the demon in his soul increases over him, with Vox Machina doing their best to keep him on the straight and narrow. Then he finds out his sister Cassandra is still alive, and rescues her as the population of Whitestone rises up in rebellion against the Briarwoods.
Oh, and also, that Dr. Anna Ripley, his rival and the woman who tortured him, is still in Whitestone, she just got tossed into a jail cell because she tried to book it out of town. In pursuing the Briarwoods, Ripley manages to escape, and Percy lets her go, deciding that his revenge against the Briarwoods is far more important than ensuring that guns don't become widespread. Unfortunately, Cassandra then turns on the party, having spent five years in the Briarwoods' company being manipulated, and to Percy's horror, her name appears on a barrel on his gun. The gang go to confront the Briarwoods underneath Whitestone's castle, finding a ziggurat there and killing Lord Briarwood (and taking his magic sword Craven Edge), with Percy shooting off Lady Briarwood's arm instead of outright killing her, and they escape the ziggurat's anti-magic field. However, Percy, uh, loses it again, talking to the demon in his soul and arguing with it as it tries to force him to complete his revenge by killing Lady Briarwood and then Cassandra. Percy manages to throw the entity out of his soul and into reality, and there Vox Machina takes down the demon that's been influencing Percy's actions throughout the entire arc. However, to ensure that there's no more tie to it, Scanlan talks Percy into giving him one of his guns, the one with the names on its barrels, and then throws it into the acid pits. Percy, again, uh, loses it at him, but that's understandable because guns are fucking expensive to make, asshole. Vox Machina spends Winter's Crest in Whitestone, and then go back to Emon, where they also take down a traitor to Uriel and his council who was working with the Briarwoods to subvert Uriel's power.
Oh, and Percy gives Craven Edge to Grog. That won't come back to bite him. Hah.
CHROMA CONCLAVE ARC: Everything seems to be just fine, then Uriel makes an announcement stepping down from the role of Sovereign. Midway through the announcement, five goddamn dragons slam into the city at Mach Fuck You, killing Uriel in the process. Percy finds himself running with the rest of Vox Machina to safety to Greyskull Keep, once they realize that the dragons are way too fucking powerful for them, and they end up having to defend the keep from a white dragon before it flies off. After the battle, Grog takes a magic skull that can grant wishes from Percy's workshop, and suggests they use that wish against the dragons. Percy, however, figures out that the skull contains something very evil and possibly lying to them, and calls Vax and Vex to come help him. Vax goes to get Keyleth and Pike's help, and Grog confronts Percy over his unwillingness to use the skull's wish. Percy and Vex quickly try to play keepaway with the skull so Grog doesn't use it, but Grog manages to get a hold of the skull anyway. At the last minute, though, his resolve fails him when Pike gives him an absolutely disappointed look.
The gang later find out from Allura that the dragons are a group known as the Chroma Conclave, led by a red dragon called Thordak who was once sealed away years ago by Allura's old adventuring party. Vex and Vax find out Thordak was the dragon who killed their mother and destroyed their home village, while Keyleth finds out that he destroyed the Fire Ashari's village after that leg of her Aramente. Percy might be having kind of a terrible day, but the half-elves are having an even worse one, and it only gets worse from there: they go to check on their ally and friend (and Vax's sort-of ex) Gilmore, and find his shop wrecked and looters trying to pick through it. Vox Machina, uh, loses it, and straight-up destroy the looters, leaving one alive with a Dominate Person spell cast on him to tell him what they were up to. The looter gets knocked out and tied up for his troubles, and Vax finds the trapdoor that leads the party to where Uriel's family is sheltering with a heavily injured Gilmore, who Pike quickly heals. Percy sends the refugees sleeping in the Keep off to Whitestone, visiting briefly to talk to Cassandra about preparations, then returns to Emon and attempts to recruit the Clasp for help in establishing an infrastructure in Emon. That plan gets scuttled when the Clasp ask for help in establishing a foothold in Vasselheim, something quite a few party members object to, and they leave without a deal made with the Clasp. After sending their staff, Uriel's family, and Gilmore to Whitestone, the gang travel to Vasselheim, to ask the Slayer's Take for help in taking down the dragons.
They get that help, sort of, in the form of information that leads them to start collecting Vestiges of Divergence scattered all over Exandria. After they leave the guild's hall, Percy goes off with Vex to talk to Victor and pick up some more supplies, and finds out, to his horror that Ripley visited Victor and bought blackpowder from him. Vex talks Victor into keeping quiet about Percy should Ripley stop by again, which helps Percy a bit but not much, because his worst nightmare is coming true. Whoops. They later stop in to watch Grog fight a monk who, after the fight, tells them information about two of the Vestiges, offering the location of one of them and noting that the other is mysteriously missing. The Vestige they do know about, though, is called the Deathwalker's Ward, and is located in a sunken tomb to the west of Vasselheim. The party set out to go there, and it's fun! It's fine! It's great!
No it's not, because Percy, in a fit of impatience after a fight, accidentally triggers a magical trap laid over the coffin containing the Vestige that kills Vex, who was midway through checking the coffin for traps. Vax, uh, loses it, and screams, "take me instead, you raven bitch!" at the Raven Queen, the goddess of death, in a bid to revive his sister. Vex is successfully revived, but this incident screws up Percy's relationship to Vax for a time, significantly alters Vax's character trajectory and sets him on the path of becoming a paladin to the Raven Queen, and adds one more thing to the pile of regrets Percy already has going. He copes with this once they get back to Whitestone by tinkering, creating an explosive siege arrow for Vex. Vox Machina then sets a guard on Whitestone in the form of a fucking huge magic wolf, and Percy gives Vex the siege arrow and suggests that she pop Trinket into a magical necklace that essentially acts like a Pokeball. Then they travel to Pyrah, where they find a scar between planes where Thordak essentially busted out of his cage, and there seal the scar between the planes so it cannot spit out more monsters that could jeopardize the people of Exandria. Also Vex steals a broom from a guest star, which is slick and super cool, and Percy later builds a seat for her to attach to it, as well as a way to keep her from getting thrown off it.
The gang then head to Westruun to grab another Vestige, this one possessed by Grog's abusive uncle Kevdak, the leader of the Herd of Storms, now following one of the dragons of the Conclave, a black dragon known as Umbrasyl. I'd say Grog, uh, loses it a bit, but he is a barbarian, that's sort of his job. He does, however, drive his magic cursed sword into a man that follows his uncle's herd, horrifying the party when the sword sucks up the dude's blood and incidentally making Percy really regret giving Grog Craven Edge. The gang do recon on the city, and figure out that the Herd of Storms is currently too much for them to handle at the moment, so Grog proposes they go find another source of information in the Frostwealds. Vox Machina packs up and heads there, detouring a bit to help refugees from Westruun out, and find a ruin with scattered stone statues and a basilisk. They kill the basilisk and manage to revive one of the stone statues, although the guy is sans an arm now, and then venture further into the Frostwealds where they find, first, a camp full of orcs torturing prisoners (they fuck up the camp and free the prisoners), and then the androsphinx they're looking for. After a somewhat grueling puzzle-fight thing, they earn the androsphinx's respect by figuring out his name, with Percy being the one who calls out Kamaljiori like he's the princess in the Rumplestiltskin story. Kamaljiori gives them one of the Vestiges, a sword known as Mythcarver, and informs them where they can find other Vestiges, confirming Grog's suspicions that Kevdak has a Vestige. They then go back to Westruun!
No, they don't, because Craven Edge steals Grog's soul before they can get there. Vox Machina, uh, loses it, with Percy in particular throwing down with Craven Edge during the resurrection ritual, unintimidated by the sword's dark power and throwing off a little darkness of his own. The ritual then succeeds, with Grog coming back to life, and the gang yell at each other because it turns out there were like, two people out of all of them who didn't know the sword was fucking evil, and neither of them was Percy. They then end up convincing Grog to please for the love of fucking god part with the cursed sword, and once he reluctantly agrees, banish the sword into a different plane. Percy suggests the Nine Hells and is quickly shot down about it, with Keyleth telling him that while he's clever, he isn't always right, and he has a habit of pushing problems onto other people. You tell him, girl. Pike quickly severs the connection Grog has made with the sword, and then they shove it into a deserted plane somewhere in fuck knows where. Percy and Vex later go off in the mansion by themselves to tinker with Vex's new broom. And then the gang head back to Westruun. There, they deal with Kevdak, with Grog first calling for a trial by combat and then calling the gang in to fuck shit right the hell up, and then dealing the final blow to Kevdak himself, cutting him in half right down the middle. The gang then get the Herd to stand down, and manage to get help for taking out the dragon. They make plans for taking Umbrasyl out when the dragon comes by to pick up treasure, with Percy enlisting help to build a dragon equivalent of a bear trap and exhausting himself in the process of building it, and the plan goes great!
Well. Right up until it doesn't. While the trap goes off perfectly, the dragon manages to break free, and also Vax and Scanlan teleported inside it. When it flies off, it not only takes them with it, but also Grog, who is attached to it by a Chain of Returning. The gang manage to get Vax and Scanlan out of that pickle and meet up with an old goliath scout named Shale, who joins up with them to kill Umbrasyl. The gang manage the feat, although they very nearly die in the process, Percy and Trinket in particular. They harvest the dragon's organs and other useful bits, looting some of the treasure, and then leave the cave the next day after a cannonball contest in Scanlan's Magnificent Mansion (that Percy wins by filling a kettle with raw sodium and then jumping into a pool, the man is in his early 20s). Before they leave, though, they carve a message into the cave walls with their crest: ONE DOWN. This is Percy's idea, btw.
They then head back to Vasselheim, where Percy once again has to deal with Victor. He goes off to do some forging for Victor, who lost the fingers of his right hand to an experiment with blackpowder, and gives it to him in exchange for information about Ripley, who apparently dropped by once to buy up some more blackpowder. Then Percy goes off to speak to the Raven Queen himself after Vax, hoping that she can help them with fixing what has been broken in the world and perhaps with fixing him, only for the Raven Queen to break his faith in the idea of gods as benevolent beings. She tells him, when he asks if Orthax broke him or if he was chosen because he was broken, that he was always broken and therefore easy prey. When he asks if it can be fixed, she tells him that only his deeds may determine that, and he skirts a line between salvation and damnation. When he asks if she can help, she offers an unhelpful (in his view) response about having already helped. When he asks if there is somewhere he can look for healing, her response is to tell him that everything comes already broken. None of this helps Percy, who is having kind of a crisis about the fact that he unleashed guns on Exandria and has made a shitload of mistakes after that, and he comes out of it not quite okay. After that, the gang go back to Whitestone, which is raising defenses just in case a dragon tries to attack them. Percy takes Vex on a walk around the town and offers to build a shrine to the Raven Queen out of an unused crypt, to keep Vax around. Everything seems just fine.
And then the same fucking rakshasa that Vax killed a while back comes back from the dead to try to kill him right back. Percy, who sleeps with a small pistol under his pillow, quickly starts shooting, killing off the assassins the rakshasa brought before joining up with the rest of the gang right outside, where Vax and Scanlan are facing off against the rakshasa. Pike's spell kills the rakshasa this time, and the gang quickly go check on everyone else. Pike has to stay behind in Whitestone to keep an eye on things, but the gang have to go continue their Vestige hunt/dragon-killing rampage, and so Vox Machina, sans Pike, go to find the next Vestige in the Feywild, a bow called Fenthras. They meet a satyr named Garmelie in the Feywild, who charms Percy so he'll agree to help Garmelie out by stealing a couple things from the city of Syngorn, where Vex and Vax's elven father are from, and incidentally give the satyr his stolen book back. Percy is deeply peeved by this, but he thankfully does not, uh, lose it. He tells Vex this, and they have a conversation that turns to her mentioning her worry about going back to Syngorn, asking Percy if she looks like she comes from money. It's at this moment that Percy realizes that he might be a little bit in love with her, and he assures her that as someone who knows plenty of people with lots of money, she is much better than any of them, and promises to stay by her side while they're in Syngorn. When they get there, he lives up to that promise and much more, granting Vex a title of Baroness and therefore making her a noblewoman of Whitestone, showing up her shitty dad in the process. They then fulfill their bargain with Garmelie, with some trickery as revenge for how he charmed Percy to get the bargain, and talk with a leader of Syngorn to get help for tracking down a Vestige, getting information in response on the location. On the way there, led by Garmelie, they meet some sentient grass that gets pissy at them when Keyleth accidentally insults them, and it takes Percy flirting with grass (to his consternation) to mollify the grass.
Also on the way, they encounter a magical circle of dancers cursed to dance until they die, and a bunch of werewolves they try to convince to ally with them. The werewolves want them to first take out a village of pixies who have been petrifying them, and the gang reluctantly agree, wanting to know the entire story first. Percy is more than a little grumpy about this, especially when the pixies fuck around with his sleep, but Vox Machina honestly just tries not to destroy the pixies. And then the fairies petrify Grog. The gang, uh, lose it, and dispatch the pixies with great prejudice, with the werewolf's leader coming in to eat the last pixie. The gang end up with an ally in the werewolves, and continue on their journey, incidentally fighting a big-ass fey crocodile along the way, with Percy almost getting eaten. They get to the tree holding the Vestige and fight the corrupted archfey Saundor within it, with the archfey trying to get Vex to bargain with him for the bow. Vex turns him down hard, although the ensuing fight takes enough of a chunk out of everyone that she worries she should've taken the bargain. Instead, Percy and Keyleth assure her that she did the right thing, mocking Saundor to cheer her up. After they exit the tree, they find out that Garmelie is actually a disguised archfey named Artagan, who thought they were pretty fun and now wants to go see new sights. Once Artagan fucks off, the gang shift planes back into Whitestone. Unfortunately, the fuckery of the Feywild means Percy and Grog have no memory of the Feywild upon reappearing in Whitestone, which means Percy's moment of realization re: his feelings for Vex and also his titling her disappear from his memory. Scanlan fills in the blank with a memory of his own invention, which is, uh, not quite as touching to say the least. While they're in Whitestone, they find out that Draconia, Tiberius' home, has fallen to the Conclave. They also have to quickly hide from the white dragon Vorugal, breathing a sigh of relief once he passes them by. Once that's done, Pike, who stayed in Whitestone, restores Grog's memory of his time in the Feywild, and then restores Percy's memory as well. He thanks Pike and Keyleth for the help, and gently threatens Scanlan about it. He takes Vax to the shrine for the Raven Queen after that, and admits that he only really had it made for Vax in case he needs it. They talk about Vex and Percy titling her, and Percy tells Vax never to trust him and to keep an eye on him. So maybe the Queen had a point about Percy being really fucked up.
The gang then head to the ruins of Draconia, and speak to a group of dragonborn survivors who are currently in service to Vorugal. They convince the survivors to ally with them instead, and help them kill Vorugal. However, Percy notices Tiberius' corpse in the ruins of Draconia, and the gang end up mourning their lost friend, leaving him in the library amongst the books he once loved. Then, given time to get their shit together and find another Vestige, they go back to Whitestone to process what happened and get help for killing a dragon, specifically in finding a beast that can wear down a goddamn dragon. The gang then head to Ank'Harel in Marquet, and seek aid from J'mon Sa Ord, the ruler of Ank'Harel. After a brief stop where they get high and Percy in particular loses the ability to talk for a bit, the gang go to find the Vestige known as Cabal's Ruin, which is essentially a super fancy magic cloak. They buy themselves an appointment in the near future with the current owner, then go to meet J'mon Sa Ord, who turns out to be a large bronze dragon who can shift to human form. They give the gang a flute that can summon them for help, and then an emblem they can show people so they don't get into too much trouble in the city. Vox Machina then goes to their appointment, only to find that the owner of Cabal's Ruin was uhhhhh shot dead a bit ago. And as the only other gunslinger in the entire world was with them the whole time, the only suspect that remains? Anna Ripley. Who has apparently been spying on them through the gun that Percy took off her a while ago way back in the Briarwoods arc. Percy does not take this well, telling the gang later that he knew she was going to spread the knowledge out into the world but rated his revenge as much more important at the time, and now look, it's come back to bite them on the ass. He asks Vex in particular to destroy his work after his death, and the gang take an airship to her next location, Glintshore.
Vox Machina confront Anna Ripley and her henchmen on Glintshore, finding out that one of them is Kynan, apparently, and that Ripley sold designs for her guns off. Percy's worst fucking nightmare comes true, welp. The gang fight Ripley there on the beach, finding out during the fight that the demon who used to take up residence in Percy's soul has now gone over to Ripley, which is just fucking fantastic, great, thanks. Percy actually manages not to, uh, lose it, telling Ripley that he forgives her, but he cannot let her leave. Unfortunately Ripley kills him instead, which makes Vox Machina, uh, lose it. They flip their entire shit and kill her in maybe the most graphic manner possible, which is saying something, and then they grab Percy's body (and Kynan and the Vestige they came for, plus the bonus Vestige Whisper that Ripley was trying to also get to) and book it back to Whitestone at the first opportunity. Keyleth breaks Percy's connection to Orthax for good, and then Pike raises him from the dead, aided by Vex's heartfelt love confession to Percy. Percy takes a couple days off to rest from having been fuckin' dead, and then they hold a meeting with Seeker Assum, who has been in Whitestone helping them against the dragons for much of the time. It turns out Assum is actually Raishan, one of the Conclave, who has now turned against her ilk for reasons of her own. Also, Raishan helped bring Thordak through from the plane he was trapped in and incidentally got Pyrah fucking destroyed. Keyleth, uh, loses it, and Percy has to quickly get between them so she doesn't explode. Raishan tells them her reasons for joining and then turning against the Conclave, which essentially boil down to: she made a deal with Thordak to remove a curse from her body, but she realized he wasn't actually going to help her at all. The gang end up making a deal with Raishan, where if she helps them, they will not reveal her secret to their allies and they'll let her have free rein of Whitestone. Vox Machina then splits up into parts, to figure out what they're going to do next and how they're going to defeat Vorugal. They then end up deciding on a plan which entails summoning a goristro who happens to have swallowed another Vestige (a staff known as the Spire of Conflux) and then using that to weaken the dragon. In the meantime, Percy attunes to the pistol the gang looted from Ripley's corpse, and starts using that as his main pistol. He also brings up plans for establishing a firearms-using company to defend Whitestone.
The gang go fight Vorugal. They pull Yenk into the fight, and the plan goes pretty fucking well! Percy manages to score enough shots on Vorugal to bring him down to the ground and keep him there. Shit hits the fan pretty quickly, though, and the gang find themselves fighting both Yenk and Vorugal, with Raishan coming in to assist them, with Grog getting the killing blow on Yenk and Vex getting the killing blow on Vorugal. Afterward, the gang take a breather in the Magnificent Mansion, which Percy uses mostly just to fix his guns because they broke in the fight. They also get their dead friend buried. Percy and Vex go take a walk in the forest, talking about forgiveness and Vestiges and how Percy's probably feeling after having fuckin' died, and Percy finally gets his shit together enough to kiss her right there. And then he walks away, promising that they'll talk later. The gang then heads back to Whitestone, where they meet up with their allies to plan for the big fight against Thordak, who has been chilling in Emon all this time. Percy checks in with Cassandra, and they talk too, with Percy apologizing for leaving her in Whitestone so often with all the burdens that entails. After that, Vox Machina holds a meeting with all their allies, and in the midst of the discussion, Percy stabs "Assum" three times with his sword, forcing Raishan to reveal herself. Which terrifies the absolute shit out of Cassandra. With that, the gang put a plan together with Raishan's help, deciding to stage their fight at Fort Daxio. But first: they need to get one last Vestige from the Fire Plane, so they fuck off with Pike in tow this time there, and get help from a very suspicious jeweler named Senokir so they can track down the Vestige, a set of armor known as the Plate of the Dawnmartyr. The gang secure the Vestige, and also incidentally free two aasimar boys who were enslaved in the Fire Plane. Senokir then asks them to scatter the ashes of his late wife in Vasselheim, which they readily agree to do (although Pike is a bit suspicious). The gang then plane shift back to Exandria and into Fort Daxio, right in the middle of a huge fight.
Vox Machina quickly rallies to save their allies, taking out multiple wyverns, lizardmen, and one elf who betrayed them to Thordak and Feebleminded Allura. The gang quickly bring her back to her senses, and they plan their assault on Emon and Thordak. They take a breather for the night and head on back to Whitestone, and Percy goes to talk to Vex. It's not the "later" talk he promised, but it's something he wanted to show her, and she then opens the door completely naked. The two of them spend the night together drinking a lot of booze, apparently, and almost definitely Getting Busy. The next day, Vox Machina and their allies assault Emon, with Vox Machina infiltrating the city through the tunnel system. They make it to the center of the city where Thordak's made his home, and there they fight him, with Vax dealing the final blow to Thordak and finally avenging his and Vex's mother. And then the gang and Raishan end up fighting each other over the corpse of Thordak, finding out that she has dragon eggs stashed away in the midst of the fight, with a couple people actually dying, only for Pike to bring them back quickly. Raishan gets away with the eggs and the corpse, and the gang take a rest in order to recuperate from all the fighting. In the meantime, they also loot Thordak's treasures, with Grog, of all people, finding a Deck of Many Things. The gang then limp back to Whitestone, where Cassandra greets them and Percy, who is covered in grime and blood, hugs her. And then Percy and Vex sneak off for special bath time alone, only for Vax to come in and Vex to have to hide underneath the water while Vax and Percy have a talk. After that, the gang go to confront Raishan in her lair. Both Percy and Scanlan die in the ensuing fight, where Keyleth Feebleminds Raishan and the human paladin Kerrek, who came along to help them, deals the killing blow to the green dragon. Percy's revived quickly, but the spell fails on Scanlan, whose body is carried back to Whitestone so the gang can resurrect him. Vex goes to get Scanlan's daughter Kaylie to help in the ritual, and the gang successfully resurrect Scanlan. While he's still unconscious, the gang go to Vasselheim to fulfill their end of the bargain with Senokir, with Grog making a detour to fight in the Proving Grounds, and then return to Whitestone, where they're around just in time for Scanlan to wake up.
Unfortunately, he wakes up thoroughly pissed at them, because while he was comatose they decided to play a bit of a prank on him. And also, they dragged his daughter into the ritual. He, uh, loses it, screaming at them that they don't give a shit about him, only the things he can do, and they yell right back at him. Percy, in particular, yells at him when he brings up Kaylie, telling him that he can't make promises he can't keep to her and that he ought to "be a man" and more of a father to his daughter, before storming out. After that mess, he and the rest of the gang, minus Scanlan who's fucked off with his daughter, go drinking.
TARYON ARC: The next day, hungover as hell, the gang go to Marquet to fulfill another promise. There, they meet a man named Taryon Darrington, a human artificer with an automaton buddy named Doty, hailing them so he can hire them on. Vox Machina almost universally dislikes him, with Percy in particular being a bit hypocritical in finding him kind of an arrogant little shit. He is slightly reassured that Tary isn't smarter than he is when he looks at Doty, noting that the automaton is made out of a combination of engineering and enchantment. The gang then take him to Whitestone, and there they basically haze this poor little fucker until he's crying and admitting to his daddy issues. Vex and Vax feel incredibly bad for him, and Percy's not long in following, taking him to go drinking and learning about Tary's family issues. In turn, he offers to show Tary his library and shows him how his rifle Bad News works, and they proceed to have the nerdiest time. The next day, he tours Tary around his workshop, and the two of them have an even nerdier time.
The gang then go to the Water Ashari, so Keyleth can complete her Aramente, taking a ship to get there. They encounter pirates, and Tary gets his very first kill. They get to Vesrah, home of the Water Ashari, and there find out that Keyleth's mom, in attempting her aramente, went missing during the test against the kraken that guards the Water Plane, and all they found of her was her leg. (She's fine, she shows up in the next campaign.) The gang rest up, then go collect lodestones and end up having to fight the kraken in order to escape it. Vax dies during the fight, and is plane-shifted out with Vex, and Percy, Grog and Tary bolt for the rift, with Percy charming Grog into going back to get Tary. They get Pike's astral form to come help resurrect Vax, and Vax successfully comes back. Keyleth thus completes her Aramente, and gains the power to shapeshift into powerful creatures like dragons. The gang head back to Emon and Greyskull Keep, and decide that their next mission is finding the rakshasa who tried to kill Vax a while back and killing him in his home plane before he can revive. They prepare as best as they can, with Percy doing a shitton of research, and then go to see Keyleth crowned as the new head of the Air Ashari, where in her speech, she names all the members of Vox Machina who have helped her this far. Percy she calls her balance, with his intelligence and his sensibility. After the coronation, the gang talk about what they're going to do now that the dragons are dead, after this mission, and Percy speaks of his plans to go back to Whitestone and revive it. He also explains Vex's responsibilities as a Baroness and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.
And then Vox Machina goes to hell. They disguise themselves as tieflings and quickly find a place to stay, and Keyleth, Tary and Percy end up eating souls, Keyleth and Tary by accident and Percy not really by accident. Apparently the feeling he gets is similar to when he used to kill people with the magic gun that Scanlan threw into an acid pit, something he's not comfy with. With the gang's blessing, Percy makes a contract with a devil known as Ipkesh, to get them into where the rakshasa is slowly reforming. First, Vox Machina has to kill a devil higher up in the hierarchy, though, which they do, in the process freeing a dwarf blood hunter named Tova. The gang, with Ipkesh's friends' help, find the rakshasa while he's reforming and kill him, but bring down a shitton of devils on their asses and have to plane shift out of there, with Tova willingly remaining in the hells so she can find her friends. They also, unfortunately, have to leave Doty behind, something that breaks Tary's heart. Percy offers to help him rebuild Doty, and the gang proceed to go get drunk. There, during a flirting contest, Tary comes out of the closet to the rest of the gang, and the gang order him like a shitton of drinks. Tary does try sex with a woman, but it's definitely not for him, he is very gay. Afterward, Vex completes the Grey Hunt, coming back to the castle with the hand of a grey render and officially becoming a member of the Council of Whitestone, and also exalting Fenthras. Whoo.
Vox Machina then splits for the time being, with Percy staying in Whitestone with Vex. In the year that passes, Vex opens a bakery with Tary, Keyleth and Pike. He also hires Tary on to be an assistant in his workshop, and gets him to forge new glasses for him after Percy fails miserably at them. He gets an automatic system for making shot and powder going for the castle, trains the Riflemen of Whitestone for protecting the castle and the de Rolo family, starts the process of modernizing Whitestone (and going full steampunk with it), and upgrades several inventions as well. Also, he and Vex elope, unbeknownst to everyone else.
It's during that year that his canon point is set.
VASSELHEIM ARC: Vox Machina go to Vasselheim to drop off the Horn of Orcus, and bid a sad temporary farewell to their gnome cleric Pike. They accidentally end up getting entangled with the guild known as the Slayer's Take after they accidentally kill-steal a hydra out from under the Take, and in order to avoid being prosecuted for poaching, must become members of the Take through a grueling trial, splitting the party in half to pursue two different bounties. Percy, along with Scanlan, half-elf ranger Vex'ahlia (and her bear son Trinket), and goliath barbarian Grog, have to go kill an adult white dragon. (Half-elf rogue Vax'ildan, half-elf druid Keyleth, and dragonborn sorcerer Tiberius have to go kill a demon known as a rakshasa and make it out fine.) Percy's group meet up with tiefling warlock Zahra Hydris and human wizard Lyra who will assist them in killing the white dragon, and set off to hunt it down. While they run into trouble along the way, they take care of it handily, and continue on to meet the white dragon, whose name is Rimefang. Near the end of the pitched battle, Percy goes down hard and is only saved by Zahra dealing the killing blow to Rimefang. They get back to the Take just a bit ahead of their friends with their bounty, and thus Vox Machina become fully-fledged members of the Slayer's Take. After their return to the guild, they make a detour to help Keyleth with the next leg of her druidic journey aka the Aramente, in the Fire Ashari's village of Pyrah. Afterward, Percy goes to look for ammunition supplies, and quickly finds the blackpowder merchant Victor, who is...very eccentric, to say the least, and the ore merchant Samson, who's not nearly as memorable. The party then teleports back to Emon and return to their keep known as Greyskull Keep, where Vax knocks out a fan named Kynan and tells him to git gud, and are greeted by Seeker Assum Emring, who invites them to dinner with the Briarwoods, celebrating the construction of a bridge between Tal'Dorei and Wildemount.
BRIARWOODS ARC: Percy Has A Slow Breakdown. I'm kidding but that's what it feels like. Percy reveals his history with the Briarwoods to the rest of the party prior to the dinner, and shows them the names on the barrels of his gun, the names of the coconspirators in the Briarwoods' coup that overthrew and massacred the de Rolos. He spends much of the week leading up to the meeting tinkering, and when pulled into plans for what to do for dinner, suggests they just watch the Briarwoods. Obviously things go absolutely off the rails, because Vax almost gets captured by the Briarwoods and Vox Machina does not take that kind of thing very well, and they get assistance from a tiefling wizard named Lillith, who's escaping from her sisters. Percy, who has been consistently quiet and level-headed up until this arc, screams at the Briarwoods, fucking tries to blow Lord Sylas Briarwood's head off and definitely shoots him in the arm. While the Briarwoods get away, Vox Machina manage to capture the Briarwoods' carriage driver, and Percy shoots the driver's fingers on one hand off, threatening to do the same to the other. He asks the man about his family and receives confirmation they're all dead, and knocks out the poor fellow. Then the hunter hired by Lillith's sister arrives, and Percy.......uh, loses it, basically, and shoots a huge hole in the guy's chest while screaming "YOUR SOUL IS FORFEIT" at him. He spends much of his time after that shut up in his workshop, and only comes out to hear the carriage driver tell the story of the night the Briarwoods overthrew the de Rolos and installed themselves in Whitestone.
A little later after that, Percy wakes up to an attack on the keep, while the rest of the party is out trying to restore their reputation as heroes. He, the guards, and Trinket take down some of the would-be assassins, and the rest of Vox Machina quickly arrive after that. The next morning, Percy shares his fears that he'll get the party killed should they go to face the Briarwoods, but the temptation of taking vengeance on the people who killed his family (and the demon in his soul) is too much for him to resist, and he decides to go face the Briarwoods anyway. (At some point in time between Emon and Whitestone Tiberius is called away from the party for other business, and ends up permanently leaving.) Vox Machina leaves Emon after a week, heading to Whitestone to confront the Briarwoods. When they get there, they find that the Briarwoods have turned Whitestone into damn near a ghost town, populated by the undead and scared townsfolk reluctant to leave their homes, and also that there are eight bodies hanging from the twisted husk of the Sun Tree: a bear and seven humanoid bodies made up to look like Vox Machina, a twisted message to the party that the Briarwoods know they're coming. As Vox Machina hides to process just what the hell is going on (and, in Keyleth's case, revive the Sun Tree), they end up sowing the seeds of rebellion in the population of Whitestone, and in the meantime start systematically taking out the names on Percy's gun barrels. In taking out the coconspirators, though, Percy slips further and further down the slippery slope as the influence of the demon in his soul increases over him, with Vox Machina doing their best to keep him on the straight and narrow. Then he finds out his sister Cassandra is still alive, and rescues her as the population of Whitestone rises up in rebellion against the Briarwoods.
Oh, and also, that Dr. Anna Ripley, his rival and the woman who tortured him, is still in Whitestone, she just got tossed into a jail cell because she tried to book it out of town. In pursuing the Briarwoods, Ripley manages to escape, and Percy lets her go, deciding that his revenge against the Briarwoods is far more important than ensuring that guns don't become widespread. Unfortunately, Cassandra then turns on the party, having spent five years in the Briarwoods' company being manipulated, and to Percy's horror, her name appears on a barrel on his gun. The gang go to confront the Briarwoods underneath Whitestone's castle, finding a ziggurat there and killing Lord Briarwood (and taking his magic sword Craven Edge), with Percy shooting off Lady Briarwood's arm instead of outright killing her, and they escape the ziggurat's anti-magic field. However, Percy, uh, loses it again, talking to the demon in his soul and arguing with it as it tries to force him to complete his revenge by killing Lady Briarwood and then Cassandra. Percy manages to throw the entity out of his soul and into reality, and there Vox Machina takes down the demon that's been influencing Percy's actions throughout the entire arc. However, to ensure that there's no more tie to it, Scanlan talks Percy into giving him one of his guns, the one with the names on its barrels, and then throws it into the acid pits. Percy, again, uh, loses it at him, but that's understandable because guns are fucking expensive to make, asshole. Vox Machina spends Winter's Crest in Whitestone, and then go back to Emon, where they also take down a traitor to Uriel and his council who was working with the Briarwoods to subvert Uriel's power.
Oh, and Percy gives Craven Edge to Grog. That won't come back to bite him. Hah.
CHROMA CONCLAVE ARC: Everything seems to be just fine, then Uriel makes an announcement stepping down from the role of Sovereign. Midway through the announcement, five goddamn dragons slam into the city at Mach Fuck You, killing Uriel in the process. Percy finds himself running with the rest of Vox Machina to safety to Greyskull Keep, once they realize that the dragons are way too fucking powerful for them, and they end up having to defend the keep from a white dragon before it flies off. After the battle, Grog takes a magic skull that can grant wishes from Percy's workshop, and suggests they use that wish against the dragons. Percy, however, figures out that the skull contains something very evil and possibly lying to them, and calls Vax and Vex to come help him. Vax goes to get Keyleth and Pike's help, and Grog confronts Percy over his unwillingness to use the skull's wish. Percy and Vex quickly try to play keepaway with the skull so Grog doesn't use it, but Grog manages to get a hold of the skull anyway. At the last minute, though, his resolve fails him when Pike gives him an absolutely disappointed look.
The gang later find out from Allura that the dragons are a group known as the Chroma Conclave, led by a red dragon called Thordak who was once sealed away years ago by Allura's old adventuring party. Vex and Vax find out Thordak was the dragon who killed their mother and destroyed their home village, while Keyleth finds out that he destroyed the Fire Ashari's village after that leg of her Aramente. Percy might be having kind of a terrible day, but the half-elves are having an even worse one, and it only gets worse from there: they go to check on their ally and friend (and Vax's sort-of ex) Gilmore, and find his shop wrecked and looters trying to pick through it. Vox Machina, uh, loses it, and straight-up destroy the looters, leaving one alive with a Dominate Person spell cast on him to tell him what they were up to. The looter gets knocked out and tied up for his troubles, and Vax finds the trapdoor that leads the party to where Uriel's family is sheltering with a heavily injured Gilmore, who Pike quickly heals. Percy sends the refugees sleeping in the Keep off to Whitestone, visiting briefly to talk to Cassandra about preparations, then returns to Emon and attempts to recruit the Clasp for help in establishing an infrastructure in Emon. That plan gets scuttled when the Clasp ask for help in establishing a foothold in Vasselheim, something quite a few party members object to, and they leave without a deal made with the Clasp. After sending their staff, Uriel's family, and Gilmore to Whitestone, the gang travel to Vasselheim, to ask the Slayer's Take for help in taking down the dragons.
They get that help, sort of, in the form of information that leads them to start collecting Vestiges of Divergence scattered all over Exandria. After they leave the guild's hall, Percy goes off with Vex to talk to Victor and pick up some more supplies, and finds out, to his horror that Ripley visited Victor and bought blackpowder from him. Vex talks Victor into keeping quiet about Percy should Ripley stop by again, which helps Percy a bit but not much, because his worst nightmare is coming true. Whoops. They later stop in to watch Grog fight a monk who, after the fight, tells them information about two of the Vestiges, offering the location of one of them and noting that the other is mysteriously missing. The Vestige they do know about, though, is called the Deathwalker's Ward, and is located in a sunken tomb to the west of Vasselheim. The party set out to go there, and it's fun! It's fine! It's great!
No it's not, because Percy, in a fit of impatience after a fight, accidentally triggers a magical trap laid over the coffin containing the Vestige that kills Vex, who was midway through checking the coffin for traps. Vax, uh, loses it, and screams, "take me instead, you raven bitch!" at the Raven Queen, the goddess of death, in a bid to revive his sister. Vex is successfully revived, but this incident screws up Percy's relationship to Vax for a time, significantly alters Vax's character trajectory and sets him on the path of becoming a paladin to the Raven Queen, and adds one more thing to the pile of regrets Percy already has going. He copes with this once they get back to Whitestone by tinkering, creating an explosive siege arrow for Vex. Vox Machina then sets a guard on Whitestone in the form of a fucking huge magic wolf, and Percy gives Vex the siege arrow and suggests that she pop Trinket into a magical necklace that essentially acts like a Pokeball. Then they travel to Pyrah, where they find a scar between planes where Thordak essentially busted out of his cage, and there seal the scar between the planes so it cannot spit out more monsters that could jeopardize the people of Exandria. Also Vex steals a broom from a guest star, which is slick and super cool, and Percy later builds a seat for her to attach to it, as well as a way to keep her from getting thrown off it.
The gang then head to Westruun to grab another Vestige, this one possessed by Grog's abusive uncle Kevdak, the leader of the Herd of Storms, now following one of the dragons of the Conclave, a black dragon known as Umbrasyl. I'd say Grog, uh, loses it a bit, but he is a barbarian, that's sort of his job. He does, however, drive his magic cursed sword into a man that follows his uncle's herd, horrifying the party when the sword sucks up the dude's blood and incidentally making Percy really regret giving Grog Craven Edge. The gang do recon on the city, and figure out that the Herd of Storms is currently too much for them to handle at the moment, so Grog proposes they go find another source of information in the Frostwealds. Vox Machina packs up and heads there, detouring a bit to help refugees from Westruun out, and find a ruin with scattered stone statues and a basilisk. They kill the basilisk and manage to revive one of the stone statues, although the guy is sans an arm now, and then venture further into the Frostwealds where they find, first, a camp full of orcs torturing prisoners (they fuck up the camp and free the prisoners), and then the androsphinx they're looking for. After a somewhat grueling puzzle-fight thing, they earn the androsphinx's respect by figuring out his name, with Percy being the one who calls out Kamaljiori like he's the princess in the Rumplestiltskin story. Kamaljiori gives them one of the Vestiges, a sword known as Mythcarver, and informs them where they can find other Vestiges, confirming Grog's suspicions that Kevdak has a Vestige. They then go back to Westruun!
No, they don't, because Craven Edge steals Grog's soul before they can get there. Vox Machina, uh, loses it, with Percy in particular throwing down with Craven Edge during the resurrection ritual, unintimidated by the sword's dark power and throwing off a little darkness of his own. The ritual then succeeds, with Grog coming back to life, and the gang yell at each other because it turns out there were like, two people out of all of them who didn't know the sword was fucking evil, and neither of them was Percy. They then end up convincing Grog to please for the love of fucking god part with the cursed sword, and once he reluctantly agrees, banish the sword into a different plane. Percy suggests the Nine Hells and is quickly shot down about it, with Keyleth telling him that while he's clever, he isn't always right, and he has a habit of pushing problems onto other people. You tell him, girl. Pike quickly severs the connection Grog has made with the sword, and then they shove it into a deserted plane somewhere in fuck knows where. Percy and Vex later go off in the mansion by themselves to tinker with Vex's new broom. And then the gang head back to Westruun. There, they deal with Kevdak, with Grog first calling for a trial by combat and then calling the gang in to fuck shit right the hell up, and then dealing the final blow to Kevdak himself, cutting him in half right down the middle. The gang then get the Herd to stand down, and manage to get help for taking out the dragon. They make plans for taking Umbrasyl out when the dragon comes by to pick up treasure, with Percy enlisting help to build a dragon equivalent of a bear trap and exhausting himself in the process of building it, and the plan goes great!
Well. Right up until it doesn't. While the trap goes off perfectly, the dragon manages to break free, and also Vax and Scanlan teleported inside it. When it flies off, it not only takes them with it, but also Grog, who is attached to it by a Chain of Returning. The gang manage to get Vax and Scanlan out of that pickle and meet up with an old goliath scout named Shale, who joins up with them to kill Umbrasyl. The gang manage the feat, although they very nearly die in the process, Percy and Trinket in particular. They harvest the dragon's organs and other useful bits, looting some of the treasure, and then leave the cave the next day after a cannonball contest in Scanlan's Magnificent Mansion (that Percy wins by filling a kettle with raw sodium and then jumping into a pool, the man is in his early 20s). Before they leave, though, they carve a message into the cave walls with their crest: ONE DOWN. This is Percy's idea, btw.
They then head back to Vasselheim, where Percy once again has to deal with Victor. He goes off to do some forging for Victor, who lost the fingers of his right hand to an experiment with blackpowder, and gives it to him in exchange for information about Ripley, who apparently dropped by once to buy up some more blackpowder. Then Percy goes off to speak to the Raven Queen himself after Vax, hoping that she can help them with fixing what has been broken in the world and perhaps with fixing him, only for the Raven Queen to break his faith in the idea of gods as benevolent beings. She tells him, when he asks if Orthax broke him or if he was chosen because he was broken, that he was always broken and therefore easy prey. When he asks if it can be fixed, she tells him that only his deeds may determine that, and he skirts a line between salvation and damnation. When he asks if she can help, she offers an unhelpful (in his view) response about having already helped. When he asks if there is somewhere he can look for healing, her response is to tell him that everything comes already broken. None of this helps Percy, who is having kind of a crisis about the fact that he unleashed guns on Exandria and has made a shitload of mistakes after that, and he comes out of it not quite okay. After that, the gang go back to Whitestone, which is raising defenses just in case a dragon tries to attack them. Percy takes Vex on a walk around the town and offers to build a shrine to the Raven Queen out of an unused crypt, to keep Vax around. Everything seems just fine.
And then the same fucking rakshasa that Vax killed a while back comes back from the dead to try to kill him right back. Percy, who sleeps with a small pistol under his pillow, quickly starts shooting, killing off the assassins the rakshasa brought before joining up with the rest of the gang right outside, where Vax and Scanlan are facing off against the rakshasa. Pike's spell kills the rakshasa this time, and the gang quickly go check on everyone else. Pike has to stay behind in Whitestone to keep an eye on things, but the gang have to go continue their Vestige hunt/dragon-killing rampage, and so Vox Machina, sans Pike, go to find the next Vestige in the Feywild, a bow called Fenthras. They meet a satyr named Garmelie in the Feywild, who charms Percy so he'll agree to help Garmelie out by stealing a couple things from the city of Syngorn, where Vex and Vax's elven father are from, and incidentally give the satyr his stolen book back. Percy is deeply peeved by this, but he thankfully does not, uh, lose it. He tells Vex this, and they have a conversation that turns to her mentioning her worry about going back to Syngorn, asking Percy if she looks like she comes from money. It's at this moment that Percy realizes that he might be a little bit in love with her, and he assures her that as someone who knows plenty of people with lots of money, she is much better than any of them, and promises to stay by her side while they're in Syngorn. When they get there, he lives up to that promise and much more, granting Vex a title of Baroness and therefore making her a noblewoman of Whitestone, showing up her shitty dad in the process. They then fulfill their bargain with Garmelie, with some trickery as revenge for how he charmed Percy to get the bargain, and talk with a leader of Syngorn to get help for tracking down a Vestige, getting information in response on the location. On the way there, led by Garmelie, they meet some sentient grass that gets pissy at them when Keyleth accidentally insults them, and it takes Percy flirting with grass (to his consternation) to mollify the grass.
Also on the way, they encounter a magical circle of dancers cursed to dance until they die, and a bunch of werewolves they try to convince to ally with them. The werewolves want them to first take out a village of pixies who have been petrifying them, and the gang reluctantly agree, wanting to know the entire story first. Percy is more than a little grumpy about this, especially when the pixies fuck around with his sleep, but Vox Machina honestly just tries not to destroy the pixies. And then the fairies petrify Grog. The gang, uh, lose it, and dispatch the pixies with great prejudice, with the werewolf's leader coming in to eat the last pixie. The gang end up with an ally in the werewolves, and continue on their journey, incidentally fighting a big-ass fey crocodile along the way, with Percy almost getting eaten. They get to the tree holding the Vestige and fight the corrupted archfey Saundor within it, with the archfey trying to get Vex to bargain with him for the bow. Vex turns him down hard, although the ensuing fight takes enough of a chunk out of everyone that she worries she should've taken the bargain. Instead, Percy and Keyleth assure her that she did the right thing, mocking Saundor to cheer her up. After they exit the tree, they find out that Garmelie is actually a disguised archfey named Artagan, who thought they were pretty fun and now wants to go see new sights. Once Artagan fucks off, the gang shift planes back into Whitestone. Unfortunately, the fuckery of the Feywild means Percy and Grog have no memory of the Feywild upon reappearing in Whitestone, which means Percy's moment of realization re: his feelings for Vex and also his titling her disappear from his memory. Scanlan fills in the blank with a memory of his own invention, which is, uh, not quite as touching to say the least. While they're in Whitestone, they find out that Draconia, Tiberius' home, has fallen to the Conclave. They also have to quickly hide from the white dragon Vorugal, breathing a sigh of relief once he passes them by. Once that's done, Pike, who stayed in Whitestone, restores Grog's memory of his time in the Feywild, and then restores Percy's memory as well. He thanks Pike and Keyleth for the help, and gently threatens Scanlan about it. He takes Vax to the shrine for the Raven Queen after that, and admits that he only really had it made for Vax in case he needs it. They talk about Vex and Percy titling her, and Percy tells Vax never to trust him and to keep an eye on him. So maybe the Queen had a point about Percy being really fucked up.
The gang then head to the ruins of Draconia, and speak to a group of dragonborn survivors who are currently in service to Vorugal. They convince the survivors to ally with them instead, and help them kill Vorugal. However, Percy notices Tiberius' corpse in the ruins of Draconia, and the gang end up mourning their lost friend, leaving him in the library amongst the books he once loved. Then, given time to get their shit together and find another Vestige, they go back to Whitestone to process what happened and get help for killing a dragon, specifically in finding a beast that can wear down a goddamn dragon. The gang then head to Ank'Harel in Marquet, and seek aid from J'mon Sa Ord, the ruler of Ank'Harel. After a brief stop where they get high and Percy in particular loses the ability to talk for a bit, the gang go to find the Vestige known as Cabal's Ruin, which is essentially a super fancy magic cloak. They buy themselves an appointment in the near future with the current owner, then go to meet J'mon Sa Ord, who turns out to be a large bronze dragon who can shift to human form. They give the gang a flute that can summon them for help, and then an emblem they can show people so they don't get into too much trouble in the city. Vox Machina then goes to their appointment, only to find that the owner of Cabal's Ruin was uhhhhh shot dead a bit ago. And as the only other gunslinger in the entire world was with them the whole time, the only suspect that remains? Anna Ripley. Who has apparently been spying on them through the gun that Percy took off her a while ago way back in the Briarwoods arc. Percy does not take this well, telling the gang later that he knew she was going to spread the knowledge out into the world but rated his revenge as much more important at the time, and now look, it's come back to bite them on the ass. He asks Vex in particular to destroy his work after his death, and the gang take an airship to her next location, Glintshore.
Vox Machina confront Anna Ripley and her henchmen on Glintshore, finding out that one of them is Kynan, apparently, and that Ripley sold designs for her guns off. Percy's worst fucking nightmare comes true, welp. The gang fight Ripley there on the beach, finding out during the fight that the demon who used to take up residence in Percy's soul has now gone over to Ripley, which is just fucking fantastic, great, thanks. Percy actually manages not to, uh, lose it, telling Ripley that he forgives her, but he cannot let her leave. Unfortunately Ripley kills him instead, which makes Vox Machina, uh, lose it. They flip their entire shit and kill her in maybe the most graphic manner possible, which is saying something, and then they grab Percy's body (and Kynan and the Vestige they came for, plus the bonus Vestige Whisper that Ripley was trying to also get to) and book it back to Whitestone at the first opportunity. Keyleth breaks Percy's connection to Orthax for good, and then Pike raises him from the dead, aided by Vex's heartfelt love confession to Percy. Percy takes a couple days off to rest from having been fuckin' dead, and then they hold a meeting with Seeker Assum, who has been in Whitestone helping them against the dragons for much of the time. It turns out Assum is actually Raishan, one of the Conclave, who has now turned against her ilk for reasons of her own. Also, Raishan helped bring Thordak through from the plane he was trapped in and incidentally got Pyrah fucking destroyed. Keyleth, uh, loses it, and Percy has to quickly get between them so she doesn't explode. Raishan tells them her reasons for joining and then turning against the Conclave, which essentially boil down to: she made a deal with Thordak to remove a curse from her body, but she realized he wasn't actually going to help her at all. The gang end up making a deal with Raishan, where if she helps them, they will not reveal her secret to their allies and they'll let her have free rein of Whitestone. Vox Machina then splits up into parts, to figure out what they're going to do next and how they're going to defeat Vorugal. They then end up deciding on a plan which entails summoning a goristro who happens to have swallowed another Vestige (a staff known as the Spire of Conflux) and then using that to weaken the dragon. In the meantime, Percy attunes to the pistol the gang looted from Ripley's corpse, and starts using that as his main pistol. He also brings up plans for establishing a firearms-using company to defend Whitestone.
The gang go fight Vorugal. They pull Yenk into the fight, and the plan goes pretty fucking well! Percy manages to score enough shots on Vorugal to bring him down to the ground and keep him there. Shit hits the fan pretty quickly, though, and the gang find themselves fighting both Yenk and Vorugal, with Raishan coming in to assist them, with Grog getting the killing blow on Yenk and Vex getting the killing blow on Vorugal. Afterward, the gang take a breather in the Magnificent Mansion, which Percy uses mostly just to fix his guns because they broke in the fight. They also get their dead friend buried. Percy and Vex go take a walk in the forest, talking about forgiveness and Vestiges and how Percy's probably feeling after having fuckin' died, and Percy finally gets his shit together enough to kiss her right there. And then he walks away, promising that they'll talk later. The gang then heads back to Whitestone, where they meet up with their allies to plan for the big fight against Thordak, who has been chilling in Emon all this time. Percy checks in with Cassandra, and they talk too, with Percy apologizing for leaving her in Whitestone so often with all the burdens that entails. After that, Vox Machina holds a meeting with all their allies, and in the midst of the discussion, Percy stabs "Assum" three times with his sword, forcing Raishan to reveal herself. Which terrifies the absolute shit out of Cassandra. With that, the gang put a plan together with Raishan's help, deciding to stage their fight at Fort Daxio. But first: they need to get one last Vestige from the Fire Plane, so they fuck off with Pike in tow this time there, and get help from a very suspicious jeweler named Senokir so they can track down the Vestige, a set of armor known as the Plate of the Dawnmartyr. The gang secure the Vestige, and also incidentally free two aasimar boys who were enslaved in the Fire Plane. Senokir then asks them to scatter the ashes of his late wife in Vasselheim, which they readily agree to do (although Pike is a bit suspicious). The gang then plane shift back to Exandria and into Fort Daxio, right in the middle of a huge fight.
Vox Machina quickly rallies to save their allies, taking out multiple wyverns, lizardmen, and one elf who betrayed them to Thordak and Feebleminded Allura. The gang quickly bring her back to her senses, and they plan their assault on Emon and Thordak. They take a breather for the night and head on back to Whitestone, and Percy goes to talk to Vex. It's not the "later" talk he promised, but it's something he wanted to show her, and she then opens the door completely naked. The two of them spend the night together drinking a lot of booze, apparently, and almost definitely Getting Busy. The next day, Vox Machina and their allies assault Emon, with Vox Machina infiltrating the city through the tunnel system. They make it to the center of the city where Thordak's made his home, and there they fight him, with Vax dealing the final blow to Thordak and finally avenging his and Vex's mother. And then the gang and Raishan end up fighting each other over the corpse of Thordak, finding out that she has dragon eggs stashed away in the midst of the fight, with a couple people actually dying, only for Pike to bring them back quickly. Raishan gets away with the eggs and the corpse, and the gang take a rest in order to recuperate from all the fighting. In the meantime, they also loot Thordak's treasures, with Grog, of all people, finding a Deck of Many Things. The gang then limp back to Whitestone, where Cassandra greets them and Percy, who is covered in grime and blood, hugs her. And then Percy and Vex sneak off for special bath time alone, only for Vax to come in and Vex to have to hide underneath the water while Vax and Percy have a talk. After that, the gang go to confront Raishan in her lair. Both Percy and Scanlan die in the ensuing fight, where Keyleth Feebleminds Raishan and the human paladin Kerrek, who came along to help them, deals the killing blow to the green dragon. Percy's revived quickly, but the spell fails on Scanlan, whose body is carried back to Whitestone so the gang can resurrect him. Vex goes to get Scanlan's daughter Kaylie to help in the ritual, and the gang successfully resurrect Scanlan. While he's still unconscious, the gang go to Vasselheim to fulfill their end of the bargain with Senokir, with Grog making a detour to fight in the Proving Grounds, and then return to Whitestone, where they're around just in time for Scanlan to wake up.
Unfortunately, he wakes up thoroughly pissed at them, because while he was comatose they decided to play a bit of a prank on him. And also, they dragged his daughter into the ritual. He, uh, loses it, screaming at them that they don't give a shit about him, only the things he can do, and they yell right back at him. Percy, in particular, yells at him when he brings up Kaylie, telling him that he can't make promises he can't keep to her and that he ought to "be a man" and more of a father to his daughter, before storming out. After that mess, he and the rest of the gang, minus Scanlan who's fucked off with his daughter, go drinking.
TARYON ARC: The next day, hungover as hell, the gang go to Marquet to fulfill another promise. There, they meet a man named Taryon Darrington, a human artificer with an automaton buddy named Doty, hailing them so he can hire them on. Vox Machina almost universally dislikes him, with Percy in particular being a bit hypocritical in finding him kind of an arrogant little shit. He is slightly reassured that Tary isn't smarter than he is when he looks at Doty, noting that the automaton is made out of a combination of engineering and enchantment. The gang then take him to Whitestone, and there they basically haze this poor little fucker until he's crying and admitting to his daddy issues. Vex and Vax feel incredibly bad for him, and Percy's not long in following, taking him to go drinking and learning about Tary's family issues. In turn, he offers to show Tary his library and shows him how his rifle Bad News works, and they proceed to have the nerdiest time. The next day, he tours Tary around his workshop, and the two of them have an even nerdier time.
The gang then go to the Water Ashari, so Keyleth can complete her Aramente, taking a ship to get there. They encounter pirates, and Tary gets his very first kill. They get to Vesrah, home of the Water Ashari, and there find out that Keyleth's mom, in attempting her aramente, went missing during the test against the kraken that guards the Water Plane, and all they found of her was her leg. (She's fine, she shows up in the next campaign.) The gang rest up, then go collect lodestones and end up having to fight the kraken in order to escape it. Vax dies during the fight, and is plane-shifted out with Vex, and Percy, Grog and Tary bolt for the rift, with Percy charming Grog into going back to get Tary. They get Pike's astral form to come help resurrect Vax, and Vax successfully comes back. Keyleth thus completes her Aramente, and gains the power to shapeshift into powerful creatures like dragons. The gang head back to Emon and Greyskull Keep, and decide that their next mission is finding the rakshasa who tried to kill Vax a while back and killing him in his home plane before he can revive. They prepare as best as they can, with Percy doing a shitton of research, and then go to see Keyleth crowned as the new head of the Air Ashari, where in her speech, she names all the members of Vox Machina who have helped her this far. Percy she calls her balance, with his intelligence and his sensibility. After the coronation, the gang talk about what they're going to do now that the dragons are dead, after this mission, and Percy speaks of his plans to go back to Whitestone and revive it. He also explains Vex's responsibilities as a Baroness and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.
And then Vox Machina goes to hell. They disguise themselves as tieflings and quickly find a place to stay, and Keyleth, Tary and Percy end up eating souls, Keyleth and Tary by accident and Percy not really by accident. Apparently the feeling he gets is similar to when he used to kill people with the magic gun that Scanlan threw into an acid pit, something he's not comfy with. With the gang's blessing, Percy makes a contract with a devil known as Ipkesh, to get them into where the rakshasa is slowly reforming. First, Vox Machina has to kill a devil higher up in the hierarchy, though, which they do, in the process freeing a dwarf blood hunter named Tova. The gang, with Ipkesh's friends' help, find the rakshasa while he's reforming and kill him, but bring down a shitton of devils on their asses and have to plane shift out of there, with Tova willingly remaining in the hells so she can find her friends. They also, unfortunately, have to leave Doty behind, something that breaks Tary's heart. Percy offers to help him rebuild Doty, and the gang proceed to go get drunk. There, during a flirting contest, Tary comes out of the closet to the rest of the gang, and the gang order him like a shitton of drinks. Tary does try sex with a woman, but it's definitely not for him, he is very gay. Afterward, Vex completes the Grey Hunt, coming back to the castle with the hand of a grey render and officially becoming a member of the Council of Whitestone, and also exalting Fenthras. Whoo.
Vox Machina then splits for the time being, with Percy staying in Whitestone with Vex. In the year that passes, Vex opens a bakery with Tary, Keyleth and Pike. He also hires Tary on to be an assistant in his workshop, and gets him to forge new glasses for him after Percy fails miserably at them. He gets an automatic system for making shot and powder going for the castle, trains the Riflemen of Whitestone for protecting the castle and the de Rolo family, starts the process of modernizing Whitestone (and going full steampunk with it), and upgrades several inventions as well. Also, he and Vex elope, unbeknownst to everyone else.
It's during that year that his canon point is set.