Chapter Text
Phil Watson
Hunter’s Log
25/09/XX
Techno’s here. He’s actually here, somehow. It almost doesn’t feel real.
The last twenty four hours don’t feel real.
Then again the past few weeks could’ve all been some kind of fever dream. It wouldn’t surprise me. It might actually be a relief, even.
If I could wake up and have it be a few weeks ago again, maybe I’d do some things a little differently.
The trap failed.
I don’t know what I was thinking. With barely any hunting supplies to work with I guess it makes sense I tried to use the cabin as the trap in itself, but I really didn’t know how to kill it. I couldn’t know whether fire would actually work. In some ways I’m glad I never got to find out, the woman whose cabin this is didn’t truly cross my mind, really.
It had felt like anything was worth it, it really had.
Trying to shut it in hadn’t even worked. I’d tried to force the door shut and it just slammed it into me like I was nothing, because of course it did. I don’t know enough about that thing to hunt it. How could I?
That’s how the cabin ended up such a mess. I’d had to duck back inside and tried to fight it with cover, but once again gunshots barely did a thing.
That was already something I’d tested. I literally had known better.
And even trying to light a match inside hadn’t worked once it caught up to me.
I thought I was dead.
Trying to put doors between me and it or hiding wasn’t doing anything other than buying me seconds. The bleeding was catching up. I don’t know why, in my mind, I thought the fight was still winnable.
The only saving grace was the gunshots.
I didn’t even see it leave. The floorboards had creaked and the wind had rushed past me and all at once the low drone in the air had lapsed into a cold silence. And I truly didn’t understand it.
Maybe I still don’t, not fully. By all accounts an animal, or a beast, probably would’ve gone in for the kill.
But it fled. It didn’t even take the meat.
And I don’t think I wanted to accept that.
I tried to get up. I think that’s when I realised just how bad it was, when the dizziness set in and the blood was staining the floor. The only thing that kept me inside the cabin was the fact that I didn’t want to bleed out.
Even now I can’t say what exactly it slashed me with, or how it was attacking. I would just see its shape shoot forward at me and then the pain would start.
Maybe writing ‘bleed out’ was a little dramatic. The cut didn’t end up being too bad, I just didn’t do myself any favours moving around and there isn’t much in the way of medical supplies around here. I didn’t pass out, I just needed to sleep.
I hadn’t expected Niki to wake me up.
And I thought she’d been freaked out by the blood, though when she’d dragged me off the sofa insisting I needed to come outside I still wasn’t awake enough to make sense of it.
And there he was.
On the ground.
And now I realise how fucking stupid I’ve been.
In that moment, between starting to move and making it to him, I knew if I’d killed my best friend I would never forgive myself. All this time and I didn’t find him. I didn’t look hard enough. I wasn’t even trying when the hunt took over above all else.
He’d been so cold. He’s always ran hot, that’s just how piglins are, and when that was gone I truly feared the worst.
But… he’s alive. In an awful state, but alive.
Niki had wanted to get him to town, even just to a local doctor, but even I knew that’s too far on foot for us both to carry him. We just had to get him inside and do the best we could here. (Niki is also so much stronger than she looks. I guess it makes sense for a baker, but still)
Neither of us are medical professionals but we did our best. There’s just a lot of random shallow cuts, maybe from the woods, that were better to disinfect just to be safe. The worst thing seems to be a head wound. It’s started to heal over though, meaning it at least must’ve happened days before he showed up.
He’s still just so… pale. His cheeks have started to go hollow. I haven’t seen him like this since we first met, and even then he’d at least been awake and trying to kill me.
Niki asked a lot of questions. I can’t say I told her everything. She seemed to accept the hunting accident excuse for my makeshift bandage, if nothing else.
I don’t think she’d have been so nice to me if she knew all of it.
Once Techno was as treated as he could be in that state, Niki had ran back to New Blackmotte to get some supplies and a doctor. She didn’t suggest the idea as much as she declared it and went out the door before I could say much else.
It had at least given me time to fix the cabin up enough to avoid too many awkward questions. I even cleaned up some of Techno’s things in his room, and then spotted all the leaves and twigs in his hair. The usual braid was loose as hell too, not to mention the parts of his hair that were tangled beyond belief.
I did get most of the leaves before the doctor showed up.
She was the one to find out Techno’s foot is probably broken. Which just raises even more questions.
Did he drag himself here? Did he run and something broke his foot right at the end there? Would I have heard it, had I tried harder to stay awake?
The doctor did what they could, wrapped everything and did a pretty great job on a splint. She did keep reminding us that an infirmary would probably be the better place for him to go, but I just don’t see how we’d move him. None of us own a horse. Even then the trip is almost two days away, and he’s in no fit state to go that far on horseback.
She gave some general advice, stuff about what to do when he wakes up. They even gave us some herbal remedies they swear by, and said they’d come back to check up on him. As far as doctors go… this ‘Cleo’ person isn’t half bad.
I’d tried to pay even some small amount but she wouldn’t take it. The perks of knowing Niki, they’d said.
I should feel worse about that. I should, but Techno needs it too badly right now.
Niki also stayed awhile. She’d apparently only come up here to see how things were going and ask about that festival that’s happening in town soon. Apparently it’s to celebrate when the town was founded, or something.
A festival is the last thing on my mind right now. I couldn’t say it, but I somehow don’t think Niki thought I was all that excited about it either.
She only left some time in the evening. It was really, really quiet after that.
Even now, it’s still too quiet. It’s early morning and I’ve been sitting here, fixing Techno’s braid. It’s more or less how he likes it now. It’s kind of hard to get right when I’m not braiding it from the back, but I’m not exactly about to flip him over just for that.
I thought writing all this down would help but I don’t think it did.
Technoblade Protesilaus
Hunter’s Log
26/09/XX
Ok. Where do I even start.
Maybe with that I survived. I’m just that good. And I actually can’t believe this springy old matress is like heaven to lie on right now.
I guess if everythin hurts, anythin is a step up.
Phil’s here. When I woke up he was sleepin on a chair right next to my bed, mouth hangin open. I don’t think he knew how stupid he looked. What a sad fact that he may never know.
But yeah… he had a lot to say. And I’m glad he waited until after food first, because oh my god the soup he made. It was very hard to keep being mad. I didn’t even know the old man had it in him.
He’d even put some herb or other in it that made the head ache finally shut up, and my god. I could sleep for a week. I shouldn’t. But I could. Nobody could stop me.
I’m gettin distracted.
After food, he told me a lot about the past few weeks. As it turns out I was gone for 18 days. Which… I can’t even imagine in my brain.
Lookin back at what I wrote, that’s a lot of time I seem to have lost. I really have to try doing a better job of keepin an eye on it.
I don’t know how normal it is. My memory before the fall makes sense to me, but losin stuff after? Even more so like two weeks after I’d even hit my head in the first place?
I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m tired of thinkin at this point.
Phil said he looked. He also seemed scared to say he was huntin too. That he got carried away with it. That he just had to kill the thing in the woods.
I know I said as much in the logs. It’s just how Phil is, a hunter first if nothin else.
That’s what I’d been thinkin. I still don’t know all my feelins on it, but…
He really couldn’t keep it together when he said sorry.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him like that.
He knows the huntin went too far. Said that maybe the only time he’s done somethin right was when he chose to screw up his job and didn’t shoot me.
And I have to agree, I do enjoy not being shot.
But I don’t know. It’s hard to forgive, which is really annoyin. Maybe he can tell. It could just be a time thing.
It’s not like I’ve got much else but time at the moment.
It’s given me a chance to try and make sense of what happened towards the end.
I know I was way deeper in the cave. And I think somethin was down there with me.
The air was alive with energy, I remember it fet like my hair was standin on end. I tried to write about it before, but I really could see in what should’ve been total darkness. There was no light. My lantern was broken and the sun did not make it down there. It was like I came to myself down there and my eyes got used to it more than they ever should and everything I could see was faintly stained… purple.
Which made me feel sick to look at.
The main thing that sticks out is when I pulled the trigger. I didn’t even fire at anythin, I think I just convinced myself it was there and it was watchin and I was in danger.
Then the gun went off again and I realised it, I think.
I didn’t pull the trigger, it did.
I wasn’t me. Or at least, I didn’t feel like it. It was makin my body do things I didn’t ask it to and the more I tried to stop it the worse it got.
There were wispers. Somethin deep down, many voices, all sayin the same thing: DOWN.
It wasn’t a question. The more I tried to think about anythin else the worse the pressure got in my head, so loud and awful as it echoed again and again.
I felt myself fade out. It was stealin my free will and that is a crime and someone should have to pay for it.
The next thing I remember after that is eyes in the dark. Red, piercin eyes.
And then… we were out. There was real air in my lungs.
More than that, we were high.
Not that high. The other one. (Probably)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the tops of trees before then. I’m still not sure I did, for all I know my brain made up some crap and I got here a different way. But the creature was there. I felt it as much as I saw it.
All I have is one moment where I looked up and saw it in the moon light. The mystery brain damage creature that over all took my sticks, was very dramatic about the sun, and then randomly chose to get me out of the death hole.
It was holdin me. It has arms, I think. I know that now. I do not know how many, but. A huge day for my creature notes. I swear it said somethin, but it all just becomes so much static and noise when I focus on it.
I think... it was a name. Tim, or Tom, or...
Nah, it's gone. I don't know why I'm tryin.
But yeah, everythin else just kinda… slips away past that.
It took me here. It saved my life. Which is great, tho I can’t help but think that it could’ve helped me out at any point during the slow and painful process. Even still… I don’t know why Phil hates it so much.
Sure, the thing doesn’t make sense. Sure, it causes issues. But I do all that too and I’m here.
Sometimes you just relate with the weird little shadow guy in the woods. It happens.
And who knows, maybe there’s still time to convince Phil yet.
After I nap. For 1 billion years.