Chapter Text
Luccal sped through the rain-slick back allies of Goldcliff, throwing himself shoulder-first through the barred door to an illicit speakeasy. On any other day, he might have simply given the password but it was taking all his effort to keep himself on the material plane and he could no more spare the mental power to find it than he could remember the name of the men he barrelled passed as he rushed into the back room. Time was of the essence.
He was by no means a flighty man, goliaths rarely were, and enforcers even rarer so, yet the few seconds he spent in the darkness waiting for the emaciated elven figure to look up from its desk filled him with such profound dread he felt his soul shiver. He had spent the last of his gold and the last of his time to consult with this glorified librarian and the thought of the man wasting away before they even spoke was almost ironic enough to make him cackle. Almost.
“I take it from the fear in your heartbeat you are the man running from death”
The elven man spoke slowly, telegraphing a clear disinterest in the time constraints, literally eating at his guest, yet did so in a level tone, as if trying to calm a dog. It worked enough to convince Luccal to sit on one of the crates dotting the makeshift office. By the time Luccal had found the lantern on the floor in between them his heartbeat had even dropped to a non-lethal level, although it was more than a little late for that.
“Not running,” he said through panting breaths “retreating. I just need information.”
The gaunt man chuckled as he sorted through scrolls and tomes until he found a book that hummed softly as soon as he placed a hand on it.
“No darling, I’ve reviewed your case, what you need is mercy. You're running on borrowed magic and luck, and you're low on both.”
In the dull glow of the lantern light, the man’s smirk seemed to twist past his face and onto his shadow. If it were anyone else Luccal would have grabbed him by the throat before the first chuckle made it out, but he needed Vassinka. More importantly, he needed what Vassinka knew about the Seven Birds.
He was fragile looking and clearly undernourished, but the Librarian knew more about most people than they knew about themselves and it was that knowledge that would help him finish his deal.
“I really don't have time for retorts Vassinka,” he warned, “I’ve been dead for four hours and the Raven Queen set The Lover on me.”
That, it seemed, did elicit a sympathetic nod, although it quickly retreated back into that same cruel smirk.
“So you sign a deal with an Archdevil?”
Luccal’s stare barely had time to reach its thousandth yard before his compatriot sunk back into a shrill laughing fit.
“Oh come now, the last twelve people to pay for my services asked for the same thing as you, and they’d all taken the same pact.”
The most annoying thing about Vassinka was how stubbornly he refused to be wrong. The Archdevil Mammon had offered anyone who could slay one of the seven birds his protection from the Raven Queen. A shield from death. Now, whether he would, or even could, make good on this promise was truly irrelevant, because nobody who had tried yet had even remotely succeeded. Desperation was a hell of a drug.
“You’ll help me then?” The words escaped him before he had time to remove the hopeful tone attached to them and Luccal felt contempt filled his lungs as the smirk widened by what seemed to be a half foot, and stamped down the urge to snap the smug little beanpole before him. Maybe after he got what he needed, as a treat.
“You paid for my advice, my advice is to surrender while you’ve only got four hours to work off, but you clearly don’t want to hear that. You want me to tell you which of the Birds you’ve got a shot against don't you?”
A quick nod.
“I mean… none.” The same hollow cackle rang around the room. “Would you like some proof?"
The look on Luccal’s face said, quite clearly, that he would very much like proof that there was anyone in this plane he couldn’t break in half. With a small gesture, Vassinka beckoned him closer to the desk while he flipped, absentmindedly, through the heavy tome he had now laid on the cluttered desk.
“This is a Tome of Legend Lore. It’ll show me the greatest feats a target has achieved, and it’ll show you why you don’t stand a goddamn chance. I mean hell, we can go through them one at a time if you’d like. Who would we like to see first?”
A silence Luccal didn't have time to choke on filled the air before the words slid through his gritted teeth.
“The Lover.”
With a flourish that betrayed exactly how little he was taking this seriously, Vassinka spun through the pages until it landed on a glossy woodcut that looked suspiciously like Tom Arnold. He looked about as unthreatening as a man could without tear stains or grievous body wounds, blue jeans were hardly combat-ready material.
Luccal barely had time to adopt a confident smile before his jaw returned to the floor, as the woodcut began to move, showing scenes of violence so immense it seemed more comical than terrifying. The thought of fighting the man shown on these illustrations was infinitely grimmer than the thought of fighting Barry Bluejeans.
While it was unlikely anyone would call Luccal a genius without a tinge of sarcasm, he was hardly so stupid he hadn’t run through every second of the Voidfishes story already, but until now he had found in nearly impossible to reconcile the actions of the man with the doughy weirdo that his mind imagined doing them.
The book showed a hundred years of lichdom and necromancy, but barely a second of it registered in his mind when compared the last image it shifted into.
The reaper, the lich, the man who’s cold mind created the Animus Bell, stood over a cracked desk in a dank cave, lit only by the glow of a nearby tank of some green liquid. The caption below said simply “The Lowest Moment” and, although he couldn't read the shifting paragraphs below it, he felt like he just… knew what it meant to say to him.
The scene began to play.