Chapter Text

List of the Gods: 

Philza: God of death

Techno: Blood/War God

Wilbur: God of knowledge and the arts

Dream: God of betrayal/trickery/deceit/general treachery

Sapnap: God of hunting and destruction

George: God of hiding and secrets

Nikki: God of love and beauty

Tubbo: God of nature

Quackity: God of luck and lust

Tommy: God of bravery, youth, and freedom

Ranboo: God of the sea and weather

Y/N: God? of chaos life

…“I’m making a bomb that can kill gods , Y/N. Isn’t that wonderful?”...

No, Wil- 

You’re falling. The earth under you crumbles and finally gives way as you scramble to stay on your feet. You’re running… 

There’s a face that flashes through your head over and over like a war cry, half-forgotten. It’s a face that whispers blood to you.

“Don’t let him win. You have to go back.” The voice is raspy, like it’s being used for the first time in eons. It sounds familiar, you think to yourself. It fills you with an unfathomable sadness, for some reason. You’re not sure why.

The voice gets louder and louder as you fall through the void. It’s terrifying. Light years come and go like minutes as you float in stasis. You scream, but it doesn’t drown out the noise.

“You have to go back, Y/N.” 

You bolt out of bed with a scream. When you run a hand over your face, it comes away damp. Unfortunately, that’s pretty par for the course recently. What were you dreaming about? You hear the thump of Fundy’s hurried steps up the stairs, even though you don’t see him in the darkness. 

“Turn the light on?” Your voice is a little timid when you ask, but if he hears the tremble in it, he doesn’t mention it. A spark flies from his hand to the piles of half-melted candles that have merged into one massive monstrosity at your bedside, and his face is illuminated as they flicker to life. His ears are pressed flat against his head, his tail curled around his left leg. 

“I’m worried about you.” He says softly, going to sit on the edge of the bed. “The nightmares have happened since I found you-”

“Before.” You interject calmly. He rolls his eyes. 

“Ok, and my point still stands. You can’t get through a night without waking up in a cold sweat. You’re practically an insomniac! How you get by on that much sleep is astonishing-”

“I’m not tired.” You assert, swinging your legs out of bed. 

“I’m getting dressed, so I suggest you leave the room.” You say flatly. He looks like he wants to say something, but he just clomps down the stairs without another word.

The nagging feeling in your brain doesn’t go away, even as dawn sends the sun creeping over the horizon. There’s something you desperately need to remember. You’re running out of time. These have been your two immutable truths, and yet, you’re no closer to figuring out what it is you forgot in the first place. 

Fundy jokes about you having been some kind of noble, but that doesn’t feel right. You stare at your reflection in the mushroom soup, run your hands over your face in hopes the motion will somehow restore the identity you’ve lost. Nothing. 

You don’t have a name, so Fundy normally just says “hey you” when he wants to get your attention. No one else around, anyways. No point. You only notice him trying to get your attention when he’s repeated the phrase a third time. 

“We’re running low on food. I have business to attend to. Make a trip into town?” He asks, sliding over a small bag of copper pieces. “There’s a list in the chest by the door.” He says, rising from the table. “You can take my horse.” You nod, rising from the table. The soup remains untouched, and he frowns distastefully. 

“Not a fan?” He asks in a flat tone. Surely he isn’t surprised by this. You haven’t eaten much of anything since you woke up. The food tastes flat and unnatural, like it wasn’t meant to sustain you. You freeze up, not wanting to insult his cooking. Your hand goes to the back of your neck. “It’s uh- I’m just not hungry.” It’s the truth, but it’s clearly not a satisfying answer. He sighs. 

“You won’t eat meat, you won’t eat vegetables-” He mutters to himself as he walks through the kitchen and to the only room in the house you’re not supposed to enter.

Better now than later, you suppose. It’ll get dark if you put it off too much, and when mobs start spawning you’ll be forced to stay in town. Fundy always said he’d no idea how a human like you had survived that long in the forest by yourself. You told him you had no idea. That was the answer to almost every one of his barrage of questions. 

You look over the list. Wheat, carrots, potatoes, beetroot, chicken. Simple enough. You grab the bow that hangs in the frame over the chest, put a stack of arrows in your inventory. Just in case.

The path is not very big, and Fundy’s horse is decidedly unsuited for the environment, a huge, clunky beast that followed you absolutely everywhere when you went outside. Wirt seemed adamant about defending you at all costs, despite the fact that Wirt was a chronically lazy horse and wasn’t really adamant about anything. 

“C’mon, Wirt. We have to get going.” You say, tugging the lead in the general direction of town. Here, the trees are too low to ride him anyways, you’ll just end up scraping your head on the branches. 

As you make your way down the path, the light fog making a home in your lungs, you feel strangely at ease. You can hear the far off hissing of spiders and the occasional groan from the dirt, but it doesn’t bother you. Apparently, the dead have been coming back for some time, no matter how old the corpse. Even bones were brought back sometimes. Fundy says it’s because of the gods. Fundy says a lot of things. 

A rustle in the trees snaps you out of your thoughts. Your hands reflexively go to your bow. What could it be?  If it was a spider, it’d be harmless enough, but a zombie or skeleton you’d need to kill now before it gained on you. Logic says you should fire the bow, but against all your instincts, you hold. 

It’s- a dog. You think, although frankly it looks more like a wolf, a hulking gray beast with a thick coat of fur and gleaming red eyes that immediately runs at you. You can’t find it in yourself to think any last words-

The dog-wolf barrels into you, panting and drooling on you before licking your face repeatedly. To your shock and surprise, a voice worms its way into your head: 

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh I found you! Hi! Hello! Hi! I finally found you! Thank goodness thank goodness safe, safe- you’re safe-” The voice is male, but fairly high pitched, although it could just be the excitement in the voice. For a moment, you look around, confused, thinking someone must have been looking for their dog, until the dog clambers off of you clumsily and wags its tail at a million miles a minute. 

“I found you! I found you and you’re safe and Techno will be so proud of me-” The name makes your guts clench. Techno. Why do you know that name? Why is it important? Why does this dog know you? The dog licks your face. 

“ Don’t cry, don’t cry! Apollo is here! Apollo has found you! Apollo will fix everything!” The dog says cheerily. 

“ Apollo…” You echo. “Um- do I know you?” You ask. The dog whines, and its tail falls between its legs. 

“ You don’t remember Apollo? This is bad, this is very very bad-” Apollo says hurriedly. “Not much time, we go now, right now, leaving this place-” The dog starts to tug on your sleeve in a random direction off the path. 

“Now hold on, Apollo.” You say as the dog starts to drag you with considerable strength. You hold onto the lead tightly, but your grip starts to falter. Wirt neighs dejectedly. 

“Now hold on, Apollo-” You mutter. The dog doesn’t let up as you dig your feet into the slippery, damp ground in vain. You had an errand to run. Fundy would be worried if you weren’t back in time. 

“Apollo. Drop it.” You command, and to your surprise, he listens. 

“Explain. Who sent you? Who do you think I am? Why are you here?” You ask.

Apollo tilts his head. “ Master sent me, obviously. You are my friend. And master’s friend. And I brink you back, and you free master, and you get rid of the evil men, then we play forever and ever and Apollo gets all the treats-.” He says, like it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Back where?” 

“ The realm of the gods.” He says, as if it were the most normal sentence in the world. 

“I don’t follow.” You say. 

Apollo makes a frustrated sounding whine at the back of his throat. “No time for silliness! We have to make it to the shrine by the solstice- ” 

“What shrine? Why the solstice? Why me? Who was I?”  

Apollo snorts and starts walking into the woods. “You will follow Apollo now, if you want your questions answered. Apollo will be a good dog. Apollo is taking you to the shrine.”

You frown. On one hand, Fundy will be worried if you don’t make it back. On the other hand- this strange talking dog is the only lead you have on your identity, and frankly ignoring this seems like a bad idea if you want to find out what happened to you. There’s a deeper part of you that trusts this dog, and you always go with your gut. So against your better judgement, you drop the lead and begin to follow the dog.

“Go home, Wirt. You know the way back from here.” You say, tucking the copper pieces into Wirt’s saddlebags and shooing the horse. The horse does not budge.

“C’mon, Wirt, please . Fundy’s gonna think I stole you! And his money. What if he finds more amnesiacs in the woods and they die because you refused to move, hm?” You ask. 

Apparently, moral arguments don’t work on horses, because Wirt just blinks at you and stands there. It probably doesn’t help that horses can’t understand English.

“Fine, then.” You sigh. “Come with us. But I’m not taking responsibility for you. If you come, you’re an escaped horse. A horse vagabond. An equestrian criminal. You’re telling Fundy, I hate you and your dumb ears. Is that what you want?”

Surprisingly, the horse gives no reaction to you insulting its master. Probably, once again, because horses do not speak English. Apollo barks. 

“ Come, Y/N! No time! No time! We must haste, haste to shrine fast. Bring big hoof beast. We’ll need it.” Apollo says, which you're unable to even begin to understand because at that moment the large gray wolf-dog begins dragging you rather messily through a bush. Wirt follows you in that usual languid pace, your flailing limbs acting as a pretty effective path clearer.

Despite the slow horse trailing behind, you and Apollo actually make good pace, with Wirt catching up to you when you rest for the night in a small clearing. The trees are only getting denser, and you’re shocked at how easily Wirt squeezes himself through gaps, considering he is a 1-ton horse. 

“ Sleep? It is cold. Y/N build fire, Apollo will get a tasty bird for dinner!” Before you can respond, the dog bounds into the woods. Y/N. Every time you heard it, thinkgs got a little fuzzier. Every time you tried to think of the syllables, they drifted out of your reach. What was that word... The last slivers of pink dip below the horizon. It’s getting dark. You’ve never been out this late before. Fundy says before the dead returned, people would camp in this forest all the time, using poultices to ward off spiders during their active phase. But these woods are dangerous now, especially without Apollo. You start collecting some dead branches as firewood. Your throat is parched.

You listen hard, and you can hear a river nearby. You thank the gods for your good luck as you make your way to the river by ear, making sure to mark a tree or two with the tip of your arrow as you pass for good measure. 

The stream water is cool and inviting as you use it to splash your face. Suddenly, a hand lurches up from the depths and pulls you in. 

You scream, but your throat just fills with water as you cough and sputter, struggling to get to the surface. The rotting flesh burns your skin to touch as it locks you in a tight embrace. You use all your strength to finally break the surface, but the thing clings onto you as you drag yourself out of the water gasping for breath. You shove it away, but its decomposing fingers are locked around your ankle. You scream again, this time in sheer agony. So this is how you’re going to die. And you were so close to finding out the truth- 

Thunk. The arrow goes straight through the drowned’s skull, killing it instantly. You scramble out of the thing’s grip as you catch your breath. Fundy looks irate.

“I take you in, give you a place to stay, and you steal my horse ? What kind of person steals a horse! You’re lucky I saved you, you know. Half a mind to just let you die there-” You’ve never been more relieved to see the fox hybrid. 

“Fundy! Thank goodness. Look, I promise I didn’t steal your horse.” Wirt clops up behind you. Fundy looks unimpressed. 

“I mean- he just followed me! I tried to send him back, but there was this dog, and-” You stumble over your words. You must sound like a loon.

“What? It told you to take my horse and go get yourself killed in the middle of the woods?” Fundy mocked, not realizing he was surprisingly on point.

“Well, yes!” You reply. “His name is Apollo.”

Fundy pauses, his furrowed eyebrows raising in surprise. “You said- Apollo?” He asks, squinting at you. “What did this dog look like?” 

You shrug. “Uh- huge, gray, kinda wolfy, big red eyes, kinda like a spider, honestly-” Fundy’s eyes widen. 

“The hound of the blood god.” He says quietly. “No one’s prayed to him in centuries! I don't know too much about him. Tubbo is my patron, the patron of most hybrids, but I remember my grandfather telling me the stories.”

“The- blood god?” You ask. “Look, Fundy, I’m really sorry about your horse. I just- this dog knows who I am! Or seems to, anyways. It’s kind of complicated, and I don’t really- I couldn’t miss the opportunity. We need to get to some kind of shrine by the solstice, apparently.”

Fundy looks pensive for a moment before plucking the arrow out of the drowned and putting it back in its quiver. “Ok.” He says. 

“Ok?” 

“I’ll help you, I guess. If you’re not lying to me, but that's basically impossible. Even though you stole my horse. And my money. And you didn’t bother coming back to say goodbye.” He adds for good measure. 

“Thanks.” You say. The wind is finally starting to get through your soaked layers of clothing, and you shiver. “Uh, can we get a fire going?”

Apollo returns a few minutes later, carrying a large rabbit. “ Not bird, but close enough. ” He remarks as he lays the kill down at your feet. He sniffs the air, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end when he sees Fundy. “ This friend? ” He asks. 

“Yes, Apollo. He’s gonna help. It’s fine.” You say. Apollo cautiously approaches Fundy, sniffing him cautiously. 

“ Ok. This one not a spy. I can tell.” He says. Fundy looks a little shocked by Apollo’s appearance still. 

“So- you can hear him talk, right?” You ask. 

Fundy shakes his head. “Uh- no. But I’ve never seen a wolf that big before, so- I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I believe you.” 

The night is cool, and your damp clothes finally dry out next to the heat of the fire. You’re still not that hungry, but Fundy forces you to have some, and your stomach is full as you look up at the cool night air, Apollo acting as a warm, furry pillow for you. Wirt is- doing whatever weird stand-sleeping thing horses do, and Fundy’s made himself comfortable under the nearest tree, digging out a little space near the roots. 

You make good time, with Fundy there. According to him, the shrine is only three days travel from here, but the solstice is in two. You don’t get a lot of sleep the second night, with Fundy and you taking turns riding Wirt, keeping low to avoid the branches. Apollo is a machine that never seems to get tired or slow down, no matter how much he walks. At your current pace, you’ll make it. 

The morning of the third day dawns, and if you squint through the thicket you can see a simple stone building, overgrown with ivy and weathered from years of disuse. Apollo wags his tail excitedly. “ Yes! We made it! Quickly now .” 

As you approach the shrine, the details come into focus. It’s a small building, simple, stacked stones that smell of earth and dust and salt. There’s a metallic tang in your mouth as you approach this place, a momentary jolt at the back of your psyche. You tear the ivy off the mantle, seeing an inscription etched deep into the stone a very, very long time ago.

It reads:

“ Blood for the blood god. ”

Chapter Text

Apollo barks enthusiastically as you reach the small stone shrine. “ Yes! Apollo did it, Apollo is the best boy, master will be happy. ” His tail is going so fast that the wind generated from it is enough to cool your sweat-drenched brow.

You pet the large dog a little to get him to calm down. “So uh- what now, Apollo?” 

Apollo sits and pants, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. For the first time, he seems to be resting. “ Big red moon tonight. Special moon. We must offer. Apollo will show you. ” The dog pads through the archway into the stone room, and Fundy follows you cautiously, his eyes still scanning the trees. 

“I’ve never been this far out of my territory before. I don’t like it. And I don’t like this place, either. Bad news.” He mutters under his breath just loud enough for you to hear. 

It takes your eyes a second to adjust to the dim interior of the room. The air is thicker, denser, and it clings to your lungs, to the inside of your throat. There’s no carvings, no furnishings, only a simple stone slab, carved out to form a bowl. Apollo’s eyes glow a deep red, casting a little bit of light into the darkened room. The inside of it is completely red with what you can only assume must be dried blood. Hadn’t this place fallen into disuse centuries ago? Maybe Fundy was wrong. Or maybe, so much blood had been spilled into the little stone slab that it would never be gray again. 

“ We put big hoof beast in shrine, when big red moon is out. Moon covers sun, we give blood, master is happy.” Apollo says. You shake your head, eyes still glued to the slab. 

“We’re not killing Wirt.” You say immediately. “Can’t you find another rabbit or something?” 

Apollo sits next to the slab and snorts as if that were the most ridiculous idea in the world. “ Nonsense. Rabbit is nothing. Rabbit not even buy you a minute.” He says. 

“Buy?” You respond. 

Fundy taps your shoulder impatiently. “What is it saying?” You hold up a hand to hush Fundy. 

“What do you mean, buy?” You ask. 

Apollo does a little circle before sitting back down. “ More blood, better blood, more time. Man-fox would make a decent sacrifice. Not much blood, but old blood. Strong blood.” You groaned. Why was everything so complicated? 

Apollo runs his forehead into your knee to try and bolster your spirits. “ Apollo would do it, but Apollo does not have blood anymore. ” That’s a sentiment

“What about my blood?” You ask. Fundy’s face drains of color, his tail puffing up.

“Hey,  wait-Blood? Hold on now, this isn’t some kind of trap, is it? I don’t trust this-”

Apollo whines impatient and spins in a circle. “ Apollo promised master no harm would come to you. Apollo cannot risk it. If need be, Apollo will try and find moose or vagrant. Man blood is best.” 

You steel your resolve. “I’m doing it, Apollo. How much blood do we need?” 

Apollo whines. “More than you should give. After what was done to you.” Suddenly, there’s a sharp, shooting pain in your left wrist, and a splitting ache in your head. As soon as it starts, it ends, leaving you dizzy and disoriented. What were you-

Fundy sighs a deep, heaving sigh. “I don’t trust this business, but if you really trust this hound of the Blood God, and he hasn’t killed us yet, then I’ll help you. With a reasonable amount of blood in exchange for your continued menial labor after your- questing.” He mutters, still shaking slightly.  “But I still don’t like this place.” 

You nod. “I’ll give mine too. Will that be enough, Apollo?” 

Apollo whines. “No. But we have time. We will hunt what we can by sundown. Apollo will not make you kill this large, dumb beast.” “Meet Apollo here an hour before sunset.” Apollo walks out, darting under Wirt’s wide legs. If Wirt had understood Apollo’s telepathy, he didn’t show any signs of it. Just sort of stood there placidly, head half in the door, before starting to lick the reddish tint off the mossy stone walls.  

“Wirt- gross.” Fundy mutters, leading the horse outside. You follow. 

Fundy stands around awkwardly. “Where’d the uh- hound go?” 

“His name is Apollo, and he’s hunting for more- blood sacrifices, I guess.” You say with a swallow. Maybe this is a bad idea. By all logical accounts, you shouldn’t follow strange telepathic dogs into the wilderness to offer blood to ominous shrines at oddly specific points in the lunar cycle. But for some reason, you had a gut feeling that this was what you needed to do. 

“We should do the same.” You say. Fundy reaches for his bow.

“You got a spare sword?” You ask. He gives you a look, but unclips the scabbard at his side and hands it to you. 

The steel feels comfortable and familiar in your hands. Maybe you were a warrior, you thought. 

“We should split up to cover more ground. Meet back here an hour before sunset.” You say. Fundy nods, and you split up, descending into the greenery. 

Believe it or not, it’s pretty hard to hunt in the forest with a sword. It’s even harder when you have a half-ton horse breathing heavily 3 steps behind you. So it’s no surprise that when you stumble your way back to the shrine hours later, you’re empty handed. 

Fundy has managed to catch a half-dozen hares, and leers at your empty hands before he sees Apollo dragging a massive moose to the clearing in front of the shrine. 

Apollo sniffs the air. “This will suffice.” 

You drag your motley array of animal corpses into the shrine, whose doorway seems to shift to accommodate the gargantuan antlers of the moose. You could’ve sworn it was smaller in here before-

“It is time. The blood.” Apollo urges. 

You slit the throat of the moose into the stone bowl. You can hear whispers of strange voices, and the forest is utterly and completely quiet. The trickling goes on much longer than it should, until what feels like every single drop of blood is wrenched out of the moose.

Next come the hares, one at a time. Much more blood comes out of them than you thought was possible. The voices get louder, an unintelligible hiss that clouds the air. 

“More.” Apollo commands, and you could swear his voice twists and distorts as the word enters your mind. You slit your palm with the sword, and the voices start screaming. It’s a cacophony of constant, biting, scraping, bleeding noise, and your head feels fuzzy as the blood is slowly sapped from your body. Before your knees start to buckle, you drag your hand away from the altar, and the flow of blood reluctantly stops. You feel nauseous and your head is spinning, you don’t even realize Apollo is licking your face until a few seconds later as you crumple to the ground. 

“Apollo told you you should not give blood. It is almost complete.” He says. You can feel the hum of something beyond you buzzing in the air. Something about it makes your nerves tingle. Another shooting pain in your left wrist, but you hardly notice it above the thump of your heartbeat that seems to echo around the room. 

“You didn’t tell me- Will it- will it kill him?” You stutter out. 

Apollo sits and tilts his head. “Perhaps. He strong, fox boy lives. The voices not easily appeased.”

This was the man who had taken you in for weeks, your only friend, if you could be called friends. Were you really willing to risk his life just for you to maybe find out what had happened?

You hand Fundy the sword. “Be careful. It’s got a little kick to it. Just pull away and you’ll be fine.” You say, wiping your palm on your pants. If he didn’t know what he was getting into now, whatever happened was his own fault. 

“O-ok.” Fundy says, wincing and looking away as he holds the sword up to his hand. He swallows. “Uh, can you-” 

You nod, running the blade along the underside of his palm. He winces, and his face relaxes for a moment before he starts screaming. You throw the sword to the ground, trying to pull him away from the center of the shrine, but his legs won’t move. Panic shoots through your spine and with one forceful push, you finally manage to get him away from the center. You quickly check his pulse and breathe a sigh of relief when you find it, a bit weak but stable. Apollo tugs at your sleeve. 

“It is time. Step into the blood. You will speak with him then.” Apollo says. The small pool of blood in front of you pulses with an otherworldly heartbeat. The whispers soften as the blood starts to boil. You step into the pool, and realize as you drop into the liquid like a stone that it’s impossibly deep. 

When you fall through the viscous liquid for what feels like minutes, you finally emerge on the other side, coughing, spluttering and damp. It’s in your eyes, it’s in your mouth, it plasters your clothes to you and makes you heavy as you stumble to your feet. Everything is impossibly flat and crimson, salt and iron and lifeblood pulsing in perfect time yet completely still. It makes your brain itch. 

There is a lone figure that stands quietly amongst the endless sea of red. He wears a gold crown and a red velvet coat. His hair is pink, like white wool someone had tried to scrub the blood out of. He looks tired, but relieved. 

“Y/N.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Realm of Blood

There’s a ringing in your ears when you hear that name again. There are scars across the man’s face as he starts to walk towards you, a litany of them, big and small, carving x’s and shapes into his face. Slowly, the figure gets bigger and bigger, farther than you’d initially guessed. The figure that looms over you is taller than any man you have ever seen, blood red eyes looking at you in what you somehow knew was awe and disbelief, despite the neutral expression on his face. 

“We don’t have much time.” He winces. Despite that, his tone is slow and even, methodical cadence interspersed with frequent glances over you. “Wilbur trapped me in my realm and is doing who knows what to the world of the gods with your power. We need to-” He stops. 

“You’re confused?” He asks. Your head is buzzing, and the ghost of that piercing, violent pain starts to rear up in your skull, making your vision swim. You shouldn’t be here, your organs cry out as they lurch. You fall to your knees, bracing with your hands against the uniform wall of blood. You look up at the god before you, ignoring the shaking in your hands. The longer you look at him, the more the fear spikes in your brain, like you’re looking at something you weren’t supposed to see. You know this… man, this thing, this god could raze you into nothing in an instant. 

“...Who are you?” You manage to squeak out. His eyes widen and for a moment, his face goes into a genuine expression of shock. Then, the very edges of his mouth dip down, and his brows drop in tandem with your stomach.

“You’re not joking, are you?” He says, kneeling down next to you in the ocean of blood. He still towers over you, but the dizziness is subsiding, and you get to your feet. You nod. He pauses for a long time, studying your face. 

“I expected a lot from Wilbur. But this? I never thought he would do something like this.” He said quietly. He turned around.

“My name is Technoblade. We’re both in danger from the same god, Wilbur, the god of knowledge. You need to free me from this place so I can help you fix things. He’s had 3 or 4 centuries to do what he pleases and it won’t be easy to take him down.”

“Who was I?” You ask tentatively. His shoulders stiffen. 

“That’s not important right now. You need to get me out of here.” He says. 

“And how do I get you out of here?” You ask. 

“You need to find a mortal before the blood moon sets and bring them to the shrine. And then slit their throat so I can inhabit their body. Pretty simple.” He says. You freeze. 

“What you’re describing is kidnapping and murder.” You say. 

At that, Technoblade laughs dryly. “And?”

“... Fundy told me that stuff was bad.” You reply.

“Who is- never mind. Just do it, ok? If you care so much about ‘human life’, Wil’s probably gonna kill more people than he saves. If he hasn’t already. Well, he probably has already, but he’s the bad guy here.” He shrugs. “Eh, the worse guy.” He corrects himself. Frankly, you’re not sold on the blood god being the one in the right here, but it’s the only lead you have on your identity, and selfishly, you want to follow it. For some reason completely unbeknownst to you, you trust him completely. 

“I- ok.” You say. Technoblade taps his foot. 

“We had more time than I thought, I guess. I didn’t need to be so succinct. I’m not good with time after 4 centuries in here. I would say I went crazy- heh, that’s funny. Crazy. I was already-” He looks over his shoulder and freezes. 

And suddenly, before you cant react or process anything that’s happening, you’re pulled into a stiff but tight hug. His body is warm, but even though your head is pressed against his chest you can’t hear a heartbeat or a pulse. And yet, the floor of blood beneath your feet pulses in beats, like your own. 

“I missed you.” He says, and you get the feeling it’s more to himself than you. 

The world starts to wobble as the pulse of the blood beneath you gets louder and louder. He stops hugging you when you start shaking. 

“I- sorry. I shouldn’t uh- Just- remember the offering.” He says flatly as your feet start to sink into the blood. 

“Technoblade?” You ask, fear creeping into your voice. 

“It’s ok. It’s how mortals get back from an audience. You’ll probably be fine.” He says dismissively. 

“Probably?” You question as the seal breaks and your head plunges beneath the surface. 

You can’t see, you can’t hear, you can’t feel, everything is blood. It coats your clothes and your skin and the inside of your mouth, leeches into your lungs as you choke and sputter. You can feel the blood inside of you struggling to get out, pulsing and writhing in time to the ocean that flooded around you and over you and through you-

Air. Air that leaves you coughing and retching as you claw your way up from the pool of blood in the middle of the altar. You made it. You survived. Fundy looks at you in shock and horror. Apollo wags his tail and licks the blood off your face. Wirt just sort of stares blankly at you because Wirt is a horse and doesn’t understand blood sacrifices. 

“So um, tiny errand to run.” You say after you pull yourself to the stone floor and collapse on your back. The shrine is still humming with a sound you don’t like. 

“We gotta kill a guy. Here. Tonight.” You say. You expect Fundy to be appalled, disgusted, and give you a long lecture on morality while he drags you home. 

Instead, he nods. “I know just the guy.”

Chapter Text

You smell the place you’re headed to before you see it. The overwhelming stench of sin and cheap booze wafts from the rotting mansion slowly being encroached on by the forest’s edge. 

“So who is this guy?” You ask, Wirt looming in an equine manner behind you while Apollo wrinkles his snout in disgust. 

“Apollo will wait here. Master doesn’t like alcohol. Dilutes blood. Yucky taste.” Apollo says disdainfully. You relay the message to Fundy, who laughs. 

“Well, let’s just say this guy is a real connoisseur of vices. We go back a while, I used to work for him. And trust me, there’s nothing we can do to him that he hasn’t done already to himself, or worse. Man drunk himself half to death. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we storm in there and he’s already dead.” Fundy grumbles as you approach the sagging mansion. 

You groan. “Wonderful.”

Fundy rings a bell loosely tacked to the doorframe with a rusty screw. The house creaks and shudders in return. 

One minute passes with no response. Fundy sighs and pushes on the door, which swings open limply to reveal a dark interior. The floorboards are rotting in places, and you have to step around them. Fundy walks up the creaky, structurally unsound staircase with almost catlike reflexes as you scramble up after him. He’s already to a door at the end of the hall. It’s clear this was a nice place, at one point. 

“Fundy.” A raspy, slurred voice barks out as you make your way down the half-collapsed hall. There’s something darker in Fundy’s eyes that you haven’t seen before. Malice? Hate? Bitterness? He steps into the room, and you follow him. It’s completely filled with bottles, the floor sagging under the weight of the glass. Some of these are unopened, in a pile next to the bed, where a sagging, disheveled man lay with a suit. 

“Finally here to put me down, are we?” The man you assume to be Schlatt says. “Brought a friend?” The man takes a puff of the cigar slowly burning on the ashtray that rests on the crooked nightstand next to the bed. His teeth are bright yellow and his eyes are an unnerving combination of sunken and bloodshot. Fundy makes a rumbling sound in the back of his throat, perched on a stack of bottles, eyes narrowed and his tail bristling. 

“Ha! Old dog can’t learn new tricks, can ya!” Schlatt says. “I knew you’d come back for me, one day. You wouldn’t kill your old pal Schlatty, would ya?” He briefly stops to cough loudly into his sleeve, some sort of suit, if you had to guess under the layers of dirt and grime. This place was an unusual combination of squalor and opulence, and the man inside was no different. You watched the interaction with crossed arms. Fundy didn’t really talk about- well, much of anything, to be honest. Nothing personal, anyways. He could lecture you for hours on the proper way to hang the laundry or the crop patterns he’d designed. He almost lost his head when you planted beetroot in the wheat section. But you’d always known him to be a pacifist. The man before you looked more wild than anything else. 

Fundy looks down at him with more venom in him than you’ve ever seen. “I’m holding back my avarice for the sake of a friend. The only reason I didn’t kill you ten years ago was because I wanted you to rot.” He spits. 

Schlatt doesn’t look threatened, or even surprised by this. He just shrugs. “I assume you’re telling me to go with you or die?” He says, jaundiced limbs clambering off the bed, sending a cascade of bottles clinking and crashing. 

“Pretty much.” You say, holding your sword up. “Follow us.” 

You’re half expecting the staircase to collapse under his wobbly, heavy-footed steps. He looks two steps from the grave, cigar dangling from his lips, lighting up the creases in his face. But somehow, he makes it down. The smell is horrible.

You put him on Wirt, because frankly you’re scared if he walks that far he’ll give out. It’s slow work to the shrine, because you have to keep chopping branches so they don’t hit him in the face, but you manage to make it back by sunset. Apollo looks displeased with your choice in sacrifice, but doesn’t complain, choosing to avoid the pungent odor by trailing behind the group. 

Schlatt is incessantly chatty, you notice, in a way that annoys you, and for some reason makes you nostalgic. Your wrist itches again, and your nails bite into your flesh, seeking an invisible object. 

“So um- what now?” Fundy asks when you enter the clearing, clearly still on edge. The shrine’s hum calms you, whispers sweet and serene, relaxing all your nerves. 

“I mean? Isn’t it obvious? We slit his throat into the altar thingy.” You say, but you’re not entirely sure.

Schlatt frowns. “Altar? Wait- are you- seriously? A human sacrifice? I thought you were gonna- ransom me or something!” He says. “I was the President-”

“Was.” Fundy says, shoving Schlatt towards the shrine. “Walk.”

Fundy looks uncomfortable as he holds the dagger, ,forcing Schlatt to his knees in front of the shrine. The smell of liquor and despair is drowned out by the tang of iron, in your nostrils, coating your lungs. 

“I’ll do it.” You say. Fundy looks unsure for a moment, but then hands you the dagger. Schlatt laughs. 

“Coward. I knew you wouldn’t do it.” He says. Fundy doesn’t respond. 

Apollo’s voice reaches out to you. “ It is time. Complete the ritual. Offer his blood to the master. ” 

For a brief moment, you wonder if this is the kind of person you are. Resurrecting an ancient blood god just to find out your role in all this by sacrificing an innocent. Then, you shrug and run the blade across Schlatt’s neck. He screams, and the voices scream, a battle cry resonating from the walls around you. Suddenly, the shrine looks much, much bigger on the inside. A crimson palace, a scarlet sea, the souls of dead warriors resting under your feet. Then, silence. Blood bubbles as Schlatt’s body slowly melts into one pool of bright red. The altar bubbles, and then boils. You can feel your bones vibrating. Then, a hand reaches up from the boiling blood, grasping onto the rock. Then, an arm, then, a figure, covered in blood, who immediately collapses. Apollo bounds into the shrine, glowing red eyes and wagging tail, licking the figure’s face until a bloody hand shoves the dog away. 

“Down, Apollo.” The voice is familiar, but admittedly less intimidating without the echoing boom of the unending blood plains. And it seems- slurred? He’s probably disoriented. 

“I made it.” He says in disbelief. “I actually-” Then, he turns to you. 

“What kind of a sacrifice was that?!” He says. “The guy barely had any juice left in him, and I’m pretty sure that level of blood alcohol should be lethal . Let me tell you, I’ve lived a long time, and I have never seen someone so-” He shakes the blood off him, much to Fundy’s disgust, stretching. 

“So this is mortality.” He says, looking down at his hands. “I’d forgotten how it feels. Kinda lame, honestly.” 

“So um- what happened to the other guy?” You ask. “Like- obviously he’s dead, but-”

The blood god just waves his hand. “Not important. We need to stop Wilbur and get back your memories.” He says flatly. 

“Who is Wilbur?” You ask. You itch your wrist absentmindedly, the mild discomfort becoming a sharp spike of pain as you flinch. 

Technoblade frowns, grabbing your wrist to inspect it, but only succeeding in smearing it with blood. 

“Maybe we should get you a bath? And some clothes?” Fundy suggests politely. Technoblade grunts and emerges from the shrine. He’s not as tall as he was in the place you saw earlier, but he still has to duck before he can leave. He leaves a trail of bloody footprints behind him. 

“Weird guy.” Fundy mutters. “Weird, weird guy.” 

“So uh- Fundy. Are you- like- ok? Cause I dunno, you seemed pretty- I know you don’t like to talk about your past or anything, but-” You stumble over your words. Fundy’s tail immediately bristles, even though you can see he’s trying to stay unbothered.

“Yeah. Uh, dark time for me, honestly, he was- my boss. Bad boss. Let’s leave it at that. I got out of politics, got back to living in the wild. People are too unpredictable for me. Nature- that I can always rely on.” Fundy said.

“Right.” You say. 

When you emerge, blinking, into the sunlight, bloody footprints trudge in the direction of the nearby river. 

“I guess I’ll go find a sheep.” Fundy says, pulling a pair of shears out of his bag. “Make sure he doesn’t- bleed on anything he’s not supposed to.” You roll your eyes. 

“What, so I’m on babysitting duty? He can take care of himself, right? Blood god and all.” You say.

“This is the same guy who requested a live human sacrifice, so-” You sigh. 

“Yeah, yeah. You have a good point.”

You follow the footprints to the river. Technoblade’s entire body is submerged except his head, which barely peeks out over the rushing water. He’s completely still. No mass murdering happening here, you think, and trudge back to the clearing, where you notice there’s a bloody handprint on Wirt. You roll your eyes, walking back to the river. 

“You got blood on the horse.” You say. He doesn’t hear you. Or maybe he does hear you, and just didn’t respond. 

“You got blood on the horse,” You say a little louder. Nothing.

“YOU GOT BLOOD ON THE HORSE!” You yell. He blinks, head turning toward you. He mouths a word, but you can’t hear it. You roll your eyes and rummage through your bag to pull out a scrap of fabric, which you use to wash the blood off the horse. 

Wirt neighs appreciatively. You narrow your eyes at him.

Fundy comes back with the clothes, and you turn your back to protect Technoblade’s modesty. Not that you knew if gods had a sense of modesty. Maybe it was a case-by-case basis. 

“Not what I’m used to.” He says flatly. 

“It’s what we have.” Fundy snaps. Technoblade shrugs. 

“It will do until we loot the next orphanage.” He says. 

“We’re not looting any orphanages!” Fundy exclaims. 

“Fine. Barracks, then.” Technoblade counters. 

“No! No more weird evill bullshit! I’m putting my foot down! I have a limit to that sort of thing, and the limit is right here! I’m not crossing it! I may not be the most moral person, but I’m not a murderer.” He said. “Except for that one guy, and technically I was more of an accomplice than anything.” 

“Gee, thanks.” You say flatly. “What’s our goal?”

Technoblade frowns. “We will have to seek out information to defeat Wilbur in the only place that might possibly contain it: his own library.”

“Ok, and where is that?” You ask. Technoblade shrugs. “I’m no cartographer.”

“Great. So we know where we’re going, but we don’t know where it is or how to find it, and the information we’re looking for might not even be there?” You ask. 

“Pretty much.” Technoblade says. 

“Gods be with us.” Fundy mutters.