Chapter Text
Technoblade’s reputation as the blood god precedes him. Wherever he goes, there are always whispers of his name, rumors of his immortality or his wealth or his bloodied legacy. It has caused him a good deal of trouble, but it also made sure most people would leave him alone.
Most.
His companion had found him by a forge. He had stood by the anvil to sharpen his blade, paying no heed to the man who had entered with a kind of certainty in his shoulders, like he’s a hunting falcon locked onto a target. Then the stranger spoke.
“You’re not a god.”
It was not said derisively, nor challenging. It was a statement, a question almost, quizzical in nature. It was as if the stranger was asking why Techno toted around the title of the blood god, why he did not dissuade worship nor praise.
“It seems so.” Techno hummed, striking the edge of his blade with whetstone, “How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve met gods, mate,” the stranger had said, so certain that Techno might have questioned if he was mad, had he not believed in the deities himself. “You’re… small.”
Techno snorts, leaning back against the tabletop, “I can hardly stand without brushing the ceiling, friend. I would hardly call that short.”
“No, no, not short. Small. You walk like the world was not meant for you. You walk like the universe judges you.”
“And how do gods walk?”
“Like the stars were their stepping stones, nebulae their crown. Every step sang with ichor.”
“Poetic.” Techno sheathed his blade, grabbing his satchel from the furnace. “Well, you got it right. I’m no god, only a godkiller.”
The stranger bristled, then. Something flickered at the edges of Techno’s vision, something soft. There’s a challenge in his tone. “You cannot kill a god.”
Techno shouldered his bag, and looked his companion in the eyes. Crimson met starlit blue, “How did you think I earned my title?”
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The stranger followed him.
Techno did not feel particularly threatened. Not yet. He’s just a little bit annoyed. Peeved, if you will. The man follows him through the cobbled streets of the village, ‘round the fountain and down the corner. He kept far enough that it did not crowd his space, but near enough that Techno could feel those eyes burning holes into his back.
He makes his way through the marketplace, ducking and weaving around hanging roofs and swaying baskets, around wooden stalls and hawking vendors. Around him lingers the smell of fresh fish and vegetables, wet stone and dried spice. The noise is already giving him a migraine. He ignores the woman yelling about wares, staunchly looks away from the man with pomegranates in his hand.
A child approaches him, a basket of apples hung on boney arm.
He lingers a moment and hands off a gold coin, plucking up the freshest apple out of the bunch. The child beams, running off to his parents, who keep a protective hand on his shoulder. He tucks the apple into his satchel, moving again swiftly down.
Throughout it all, the eyes have not strayed.
This town was unremarkable, every bit the same as the last one he’s passed. He finds those to be his favorite. The unremarkable ones were always overlooked. In his line of work, that meant they were the safest.
Technoblade is a mercenary, who killed and hunted and slaughtered, in exchange for favors, coin, promises.
Sometimes he was bought with sacks spilling with gold, so heavy he’d buy two mules to carry his haul.
Other times, it’s bought by an apple from a street rat who’s lifted the bag of coins he’s hung by his hip.
He’s swung both sides of the morality spectrum. In the end, it boils down to how far he’s willing to go, and in which direction. Usually, it ends in the bloodier one.
This town was unremarkable, every bit the same as the last. There was one thing that set it apart, however.
It had a pest problem.
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An old contact of his had sent for him through a letter. Somehow, it made its way into his hands, despite his constant travelling. I need your help , it said, and I can offer nothing in return.
There is a monster that made its home in the coves of their forest. Every night, it comes out to feed, spindly legs hardly making a sound, snatching up townsfolk from the streets and from their beds. It sounds like something out of a wives’ tale. He arrived on horseback five days later.
Two days, they said, had passed since his friend was reported dead.
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“Do I have a name to call my new shadow?” Techno called out behind him, as he scouted the perimeter of the forest. The forest trees were thick, roots the width of his waist. Creeping vines hung above him, curling around the trunk like arms. He wondered how long they’ll be playing this game.
There was silence for a few moments, long enough for Techno to question if he had gone insane in the thicket of these trees. The man moved almost silently behind him, despite the leaves and grass littered around the two of them. If he had the motive, Techno was sure he would not hear the stranger until the tip of a blade touched the small of his back.
What a terrifying thought.
“Philza,” came the reply. It caught Techno off guard, and he barely caught himself from snagging his foot on a crawling end of a tree root.
Philza. A strange name. It felt ancient somehow, like when ancient text is transcribed into modern tongue.
“Are you human, Philza?”
There was no answer, and a thicker silence than before followed.
And that had been that.
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The monster was large, for one. Eight bloodred eyes punctured into the hull of its flesh, thin claws jutting out from its back. It opens its maw, letting out a bloodcurdling scream.
Techno scoffs, and bares a grin at the rising chorus in his head. These were the moments he enjoyed the most. The voices hungered for blood, and Techno was about to lay out a feast.
He throws himself to the side as one of the jagged legs comes crashing down, breaking apart the ground that meets it. He rolls to a stop by a boulder, scrambling up and ducking behind a stone pillar. The monster thrashes around, a wail spilling from its slobbering lips.
He runs at the beast, feinting to the left before letting out a strangled yell when one of its talons catches him by the stomach, hurling him at the wall. It folds behind him with a thunderous crack, raining down debris and rockslide. Something pierced his side. He turns his shoulder experimentally, shaking out the buzzing in his arm.
He spits out a glob of blood and snarls.
Techno takes a running leap, winding back an arm and throwing out a thick rope tied to a hook, watching as it clings and wraps around the creature’s legs. With everything he has, he yanks on the rope, letting out a breathy laugh as the monster staggers, crashing down, sending dust cascading down around them.
It stares him in the eyes as he approaches, wild red twisting and spinning around, bloodshot. He walks slowly to the fallen beast, pursing his lips at the claws that struggle to maul his face off.
He scales the monster, an axe gripped in one hand. It struggles under him, keens and wails and howls as Techno plants his feet firmly on the rim of its outer shell, lining up the blade of his weapon to the soft crevice of its neck. It lets out one last scream before the axe comes swinging down, spraying with it blood and flesh.
Techno pants heavily, shaking his head with amusement as the voices clamor for more, greedily taking in the crimson that wets the soil.
“It would’ve been polite to lend me a hand, y’know,” He says, throwing back his head to look behind him.
“I thought you were going to die.” Philza says mildly, like they were discussing the weather.
Techno wipes the viscera off of his chin, flicking it away. He sheathes the axe, and uselessly wipes his bloody hands on a bloodier shirt.
“If there’s one thing from the stories that’s true, Philza, it’s this: Technoblade never dies.”
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The townsfolk thank him profusely. He pays his respect at his friend’s grave.
Philza isn’t here for this one. He is left alone as he pays the funeral rites. Overhead, a few obsidian feathered birds caw.
He turns to leave.
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“You should really get that wound checked out, mate.”
“Where did you—“ Techno shakes his head, stubbornly holding a hand over the hole in his side, feeling it sluggishly bleed out through his fingers, “Nevermind. I’ll find a doctor in the next town over.”
“Hm.” Philza cocks his head, keeping his hands folded behind him. Techno continues on out of spite.
He makes it a good few miles more before he blacks out.
When he comes to, the sky is turning a darkening shade of blue. A fire flickers to the side, with Philza nibbling on the crisped skin of a cooked cod.
He moves to sit up, wincing as it sends a sharp spike of pain around his midsection. His hand comes up to poke the clean linen wrapped around his waist, tightly secured around the wound. The voices were giving him a headache, torn between wanting to flee and wanting to fight.
Techno sighs, “Okay, what do you want from me.”
“Good evening.”
“You’ve been at my tail for the past few days, basically stalking me, and I’d like to know if this is some weird assassination attempt or if you’re bored or—”
“If I wanted you dead, I would have left you by the side of the road.”
“Well then, what do you want, because really if I wanted someone to follow me around I would’ve bought a dog at the shelter. At least then, maybe it wouldn’t just stand there while I get mauled to death.”
“I thought you never die?”
Techno waves his hand. “Semantics.”
Philza hums, taking another bite of the fish. He hands another one of them to Techno, who warily takes it. His stomach growls, betraying his hunger. Sighing, he digs in, loathing the fact that it tastes incredible to his starving body.
“Well, mate,” Philza pauses, contemplating. He leans back on his palms, eyes staring unseeingly into the clouds, “You claimed to have killed the blood god.”
“Yeah. Is this some weird vendetta thing? Were you guys buddies or something because listen, the guy was kind of an ass—”
“How did you do it?”
Techno blinks. “How’d I kill him?”
He nods.
Techno frowns, “It’s… complicated. I, uh, found one of his temples and fought hordes of his minions, until I was able to pluck the crown off his head and put it on mine. I stabbed his heart through with a sword.”
“That’s it? That’s how you kill a god?”
“It varies,” Techno says. “Every god or demon attached itself to something, be it an entire flower field, or a weapon, or a person.”
He gestures at the flame, miming the dousing of the fire with imaginary water, “Kill the anchor, kill the god. Blood was proud, he anchored his soul to his armies and his heart. I managed to kill both.”
Philza paces, fingers tucked under his chin. “An anchor,” he mutters. “Of course.” He turns to Techno.
“Is there a way to know what the anchor is?”
Techno shrugs, “It’s usually what’s most cherished, and consequently most protected.”
Philza’s glare burns holes into the ground, shoes displacing the soils beneath his soles. “Most protected… what would… I can’t interfere.”
He turns to face Technoblade, and Techno feels a chill run down his spine at the look in the man’s eyes. It reminds him of the first time he saw him, like a hunting falcon who’s latched onto his prey.
“Godkiller,” Philza says, and in the firelight he almost looks inhuman, “—I need you to kill the god of dreams.”
There is a long, agonizing pause. For a moment, the forest is silent. His mind goes quiet. Techno turns the words over in his mind, sleep-addled brain refusing to cooperate.
Kill the god of dreams.
Philza wants him to hunt down and slay the dream god.
And then the voices explode in a chorus of excitement, fear, vehemence.
Techno lifts his hands, “Woah, slow down. What’s even in it for me?”
“A favor,” Philza says brusquely, ignoring his incredulence, “—from Death’s angel.”
Techno’s eyes widen.
“You’re…?”
Philza nods. Black wings spread out from either side of him, so dark it’s like they blend into the night sky. So wide they never seem to end. “I will grant you any wish, as long as it is within my capabilities. However, I am not able to lift a hand against my superiors.”
A blink and the wings disappear, leaving an afterimage of their splendor in the periphery of Techno’s vision.
He licks his lips, finding his mouth suddenly dry. “This is why you followed me? To hire me?”
Philza shrugs. “I wanted to see if you were as good as they say you were. A lot of stakes are riding on this. That monster you killed was one of his, albeit one of the weaker ones. You defeated it, which is better than I can say for most. Most just die trying.”
“Stakes? Like heavenly stakes?”
The Angel glares into the fire. “Personal stakes.”
“So your god, Death, doesn’t know?”
“She can’t know,” Philza says. “If I go under her name, there will be war. This is of my own volition, I will take any repercussions that follow. That’s why I need you.”
Now, see, Techno likes to think he can handle most things. He’s lived this long by sheer will alone. He knows his way around an axe, a sword, a spear, occasionally his bare fists. He’s shed more blood than the rivers that water the farmlands. He’s fought monsters capable of tearing his throat out in the space of a second. He fought them, and he lived. Technoblade is not a cowardly man.
But a war between the gods. That’s enough to make any mortal afraid. And Techno feels that mortal fear now, in the rapid beating of his heart.
“I don’t—” Techno begins. “What is so important that you would risk the end of the world?”
Philza’s eyes flicker, and for a moment, Techno thinks he sees a reflection in them, like a million different lights fractured into shards. They storm, cloudy, with the anger of death’s emissary.
“He took my sons. He took my boys.”
“Your sons—?”
“He lured them through dreams, promised them wonders beyond their wildest desires,” Philza snarls. “He took them, Technoblade, and I would let the world burn if it means my sons are returned home to me safely.”
Something pulls somewhere in the spaces of Techno’s chest, past his beating pulse, that feeling that comes whenever he’s about to do something very stupid. The voices are divided, wanting for retribution for the angel, for bloodshed, for Techno to run and save his own hide. But they quiet as Techno mulls this over, and it’s like a thousand burning eyes turn to him with a single question;
What will you choose?
“Do we have a deal?”
Philza doesn’t look like some angel here, cast in the fire’s glow, fury alight in his glare, standing over Techno with his hand outstretched. He looks like a father with people to lose. And as he meets Techno’s eyes, wild lapis blue stares right through him, making him feel...strange.
It’s a strange feeling. The kind that makes you want to bow your head, curl your shoulders, beg for atonement for what you can never absolve. That feeling that nags in the space of his chest and nudges him to make horrible decisions. Guilt, maybe. And Techno supposes that if he’s going to do something incredibly foolish, he might as well do so saving two kids. After all, between the two of them, he’s the one with nothing to lose.
He shakes the offered hand.
“We have a deal.”