Chapter Text
The Bronze Oak is a small but well-built tavern, housing all the weary travelers that peel off the main road that begins in the port town that sits just to the east. It’s cheaper than an inn near the docks—if one can manage to make the trek to the small hamlet it is located in before night falls. The local lord’s castle is only an hours’ ride away, making it a popular stop for the more sociable visiting nobles.
The tavern is kept to pristine cleanliness by its owner, a middle-aged villager named Natty, who rules their little wooden domain with an iron fist and sharp eyes. Phil’s watched them break up more than a few fights, hauling quarrelers twice their size out the swinging door and slamming it shut behind them.
Natty does not tolerate riffraff.
They also do not tolerate dirt, dust, off-key bards, cheating poorly at cards, shed feathers, or Phil’s little flock of crows that are just a bit too smart to be normal birds—Chat, he calls them—sleeping indoors. They’re relegated to the stables, despite his many halfhearted protests.
Poor horses—they don't deserve to bunk with Chat.
Unlike some people, who could definitely use a humbling night or two in the hay.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to find him?” The man asks, leaning across the table and way into Phil’s space.
As the baron of the local fief, this man is perhaps a bit too used to a lack of personal space from his underlings.
(Whom Phil is not one of, thank you very much. He’s too old and too rich for that bullshit.)
“It’s a bit hard to miss a piglin brute tearing through village libraries, mate,” Phil answers, suppressing a frustrated flick of his ears. “In the five hundred-odd years I’ve been doing this, I’m yet to fail one task I’ve been adequately paid to do.”
And, he adds internally, you’re paying me an awful lot if you’re truly this doubtful of my abilities.
“Well, if you’re certain…” the man says. “I suppose you’ll be on your way?”
Are we seriously doing this shit again? You’d think they’d learn after I killed the first few.
Phil allows a small bit of his irritation to show. “You know my rules. Half of the bounty down at the start.”
The baron sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. His crown, which has the largest emerald Phil has ever seen front-and-center, slides just a bit down his forehead. “Angel, surely you can make an exception-”
“No exceptions. Half down. I’m sure Natty will have no problem letting us use their ender chest, so everything will be secure?” He raises his voice, glancing over at Natty, who is wiping down the bar of the tavern.
They pause, catching his eye, and give him a grin. “No problem at all. Give the boy his money, Lewis!” they cackle, jerking their thumb towards an ancient (but still perfectly functional) ender chest—a once-common staple of businesses that’s become a rarity over the past few centuries, due to the fall of the Nether. “S’open whenever you’re both ready.”
“Thank you very much, Natty,” Phil replies, letting a small yet genuine smile creep across his face. He doesn’t truly get attached to mortal folk anymore—there’s really no point, they all die so quickly—but if he did, Natty would be someone he respects. Their tavern has made a decent base of operations over the past few months, and they’ve never been bothered by any of his quirks.
They flash him a Look, one that says ‘you’ll be tipping me good for that,’ and then return to their cleaning.
(Maybe he does respect her. Just a little bit.)
“So, Baron,” Phil says, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers as he leans forward, grin turning sharp and predatory. “About my money…”
*
Roughly an hour later and several thousand gold richer, Phil finds himself in the familiar position of having his whole life slung over his shoulder, telling the only person he’s known for longer than a week goodbye, and venturing off into the world on nothing but a hunch and a few rumors.
(“Be careful,” Natty had said when he told them which direction he was taking. “I’ve heard there’s a plague brewing down south. The bard that came by a week ago said it turned every place it struck to a ghost town, not even leaving flies for the corpses.”
“Aw, don’t worry mx’am,” he’d replied, tipping his hat to them. “I’ve lived much too long for a common cold to take me out.”)
His cane taps out a familiar rhythm as he trods across the cobblestones. Southeast is the only clue he’s been given, aside from a vague description of this so-called “The Blade”, but he’s done more with less, and the only place he has to be right now is at the beginning.
He waits until he’s outside the small town to take off—it’s only polite, really. Getting a hundred and fifty or so pounds of flesh and metal into the air is hardly a quiet endeavor.
Chat flutters around him as he spreads his wings and begins to shake them out. Phil never bothers counting the crows—there’s always one perched on his shoulder or cane, and the others come and go as they please.
“Are you little bastards excited?”
CAW! One screeches directly in his ear.
Phil takes that to mean “yes Philza, we’re very excited. We’ve missed flying with you, and we’re one hundred percent ready to be on our best behavior while you hunt down and kill someone.”
… if he’s being honest it probably means “when’s dinner?” but he decided long ago that little victories are the way to go with Chat.
“Behave,” he says sternly, tapping the crow’s beak. “Or I’m crafting another belt. I know you feathered fucks are the reason my last one vanished.”
The Chatter looks at him like he just pissed on its mother’s grave.
“What?”
It squawks, turning away from him and preening its wing.
“You’re gonna have to get off, mate,” Phil teases, poking its side with his finger. “I’m almost done stretching.”
The crow gives him a dirty look that somehow manages to convey the words ‘old man,’ before hopping off his shoulder, joining the rest of Chat in circling above his head. Their black wings blot out the afternoon sun as they spiral above him, pulling up leaves in their wake.
Phil lets a smile, a real one, split his face. Chat always gets so excited when he starts traveling again.
Wind whips at his hair, tugging at his hat as he picks up his cane, folding it at the joints and slipping his cane sleeve over it, and at last tucking it securely in its pocket on his bag.
“Patience,” he scolds playfully. “There’s no need to tear up the forest, you little shits! Be nice to the local wildlife.”
A crow swoops down, swatting his face with its wings. Phil laughs, waving it away with one hand and holding onto the strap of his bag with the other.
“Alright, alright, you needy bastards—” He crouches, spreading his wings in preparation “—I’m coming!”
Phil leaps.
(The Universe holds Its breath.)
He brings the tips of his wings together in a powerful downstroke, shooting through the center of the crow vortex and rocketing upwards. The air grows rapidly colder, the calls of the crows grow distant, and for a moment, as he pierces the cloud layer, all is quiet.
It’s only Phil, the sky, and the trailing mist still curling around his ankles.
His wings drift, spreading out to catch the air like sails on a great ship, and he soars, dragging one hand idly through the puffy clouds below him.
The edge of wild, feral energy in his smile softens, becoming something more serene as he angles his wings, pivoting to put the late morning sun just to the left of him.
(The Universe exhales.)
A small, dark head breaches through the clouds, and a crow comes to fly just over Phil’s shoulder. A few more surface as well, and then more, until all of the visible sky is peppered with black dots.
“Alright Chat,” he calls to them. “You know the drill. First bird to find the jet stream gets their choice of treat the next time I’m at the market!”
The crows caw excitedly, peeling off in various directions.
(Beware, beware, the wind whispers to those who know how to listen.
Close your curtains, keep your children close, pray that one of the gods is near.
Pray and beware, for the Angel of Death is on the hunt for another forsaken soul.)
*
The sound of late fall cicadas chirping envelopes Phil as he circles towards the ground, flaring his wings to bleed off speed. His claws dig into the soft ground, the bandages he wraps his feet in rasping against the grass as his knees and ankles bend, taking the full impact of his landing. It’s a good one, but still, he lets out a quiet hiss.
Joints, especially his joints, are really not built for seven hundred or so years of landings. Hence, the cane.
He reaches back, feels around for a moment, and then, in one smooth motion, pulls his cane out of its resting place, pops off and puts away the cane sleeve, and snaps the cane open. Leaning on it, he folds his wings away, tucking them neatly under the bag on his back, and lifts one hand up.
A Chatter swoops out of the night, perching on his finger and rubbing its beak with its wing.
“Which direction did you all say the town was, again?”
It squawks at him and then jerks its head to the west.
Towards the very steep hills.
Instead of the nice, flat, easy path that lays behind him.
“Of course,” Phil says. “Thank you for nothing, you useless animal.”
The crow nips his finger.
Without an ounce of regret, Phil flings it into the growing darkness.
The town is decent, once he manages to actually get there. His aching knees had given out about halfway through his trek, and he’d been forced to spend the night outside.
It wasn’t bad, per se—it was quite nice actually, pleasantly cool, with an unmarred view of the stars—but still, Phil wants to spend as much time as possible sleeping in a bed, thank you very much.
The Chatter who won the jet stream competition remains perched on his shoulder, happily pecking at the overly expensive jerky he’d been pestered into buying it as he walks towards the church. In smaller towns like these, priests and librarians are often one and the same, and even if in this particular town they weren’t, the priest will likely have heard at least a rumor.
Over the years, Phil has found that there are perks to being the spiritual leader of a community, and gossip is definitely one of them.
Another part of his gathered experience with priests leads him to expect that an old, wizened villager with a long beard, a croaky voice, and wise eyes will open the door when he knocks.
Instead, he is greeted by a short, round opossum woman, with dark curly hair and a beaming smile. She meets his eyes, and begins bouncing on the balls of her clawed feet.
“Hello Angel~” She says, smoothing over the frizzy top of her hair with one hand (It puffs back up immediately after). “What brings you here?”
(Phil gets the distinct impression he is being flirted with.)
“I’m on business ma’am, I’m afraid,” he says. “Looking for a large piglin, possibly a brute, going by some variation of ‘Blade’. He might have been looking through older texts, especially those having to do with the Nether?”
The priest taps her lip, looking thoughtful and not remotely disappointed by his immediate rejection of her advances. “Now, Benji did say there was an awfully odd fellow near xyr books, not too long ago… I’ll tell you what I know of it, and then you can go ask xem.”
“I do appreciate it, Mother,” Phil says. “Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me.”
“Yes, yes, sharing my wisdom, yadda yadda—” She pulls the door open more, and gestures inside. “—come in! Come in! I’ve just made tea, and you certainly look like you need some caffeine. We can share a pot and talk.”
The tea is wonderful. It’s a blend Phil hasn’t had before, which has become rarer and rarer over the years.
The conversation is… interesting.
“Well, y’see, I didn’t actually see it go down, but when Miriam came to me about her daughter, Jenny—who is just the sweetest little girl, by the way—not quite eating as much as she should, she told me what she’d heard from Benji, who actually met the guy, and—“
In the two hours or so Phil spends listening, he learns a lot about the goings-on of this little town, and not a lot about his quarry.
At last, when he catches sight of how much time has passed on the ticking clock on the wall, he gathers his willpower and brings the priest’s monologue to a halt.
“And so the chickens got loose, which caused our fourteenth soup incident this decade—”
“Mother, as much as I would be delighted to hear about this soup incident,” Phil grabs his cane, leaning on it as he stands. “I really must be going. I’m on a bit of a tight schedule, what with the whole ‘dangerous criminal I’ve been paid a good deal of money to capture roaming the nearby countryside’ situation. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the library, so that I might talk to this ‘Benji’ fellow?”
(Truly, he would be happy to spend the day talking. Piper, as she’d introduced herself, was a bitingly clever storyteller, and Phil did always love a good gossip. But, alas, money is a wonderful motivator.)
“Certainly!” She smiles, and when Phil prods her, the directions she gives are short and to the point. She bids him goodbye, pressing a large pouch of the tea into his hands and shutting the door in his face when he tries to pay her.
Thankfully for Phil’s rapidly dwindling social battery, the librarian is not a person of many words.
“Piglin brute, interested in older texts?” Xe rubs xyr beard, frowning thoughtfully. “Yeah, I dunno ‘bout a piglin, but I know of a boar hybrid-lookin’ guy. He was very careful with them, clearly knew his way around handling delicate valuables like my collection. What’re you hunting this guy down for, again?”
“‘Fraid that’s a bit classified, mate,” Phil says apologetically, which really means I didn’t care to ask, I just saw the money and went for it. “Anything else you can tell me?”
“Well, you can certainly add thievery to the list,” Benji grouches. “One of my more valuable books turned up missing not long after he skipped town. Bastard was headed further south, last I saw. Good luck catching him, and if you happen to get a hold of a little gray book with gold writing on it, I’d be very happy to have it back.”
“Can I have a description of him?”
“Sure. He was… tall. Very tall. Taller than our blacksmith, and Genn’s a big guy. He wore a real thick red cloak, even though it’s way too warm for that kind of winter wear. He walked around like he owned the place, and had a real thick, deep voice, with a pretty heavy accent that I don’t recognize, but he never really said much? He was honestly pretty polite. Until he stole my invaluable one-of-a-kind book.”
“What book was it?”
“Recount of the Nether Withering in Netherwrit. Dunno why he wants it—I sure can’t read it, and there’s nobody here except Piper to translate, and even she couldn’t get much, but what she understood just looked like a copy of the usual legend written in another language.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah, that’s what most people I complained to said.”
“Well, um,” Phil says, deciding to make a quick exit. “Thank you for your time, and if I happen to come across that book, I’ll do my utmost to return it to you undamaged.”
“Thank you, Angel.”
“Certainly.”
The next few towns he visits offer nothing but the same story—that the Blade is a polite being of few words, dressed far too warm for the weather. There’s repeated confirmation of the reported interest in older texts, specifically related to the fall of the Nether.
He does learn a few interesting tidbits—namely that the Blade is not only physically intimidating, but also a skilled warrior. Phil had assumed, from the fortune offered for his capture, that he was good, but every tale of the Blade’s prowess makes him quietly reevaluate his opinion of the piglin.
(Yeah, a piglin. The guy matches the description word-for-word, despite the Nether having fallen centuries ago. Phil has no idea how he got here, in the cold southernmost edge of the second-largest kingdom around, but that’s a problem for Future Phil.
Maybe this will be interesting, after all. It’s been a long while since Phil truly had to fight.)
It’s not until the sixth town that something changes.
It’s the third time he’s rounded this corner, the third time he’s glanced through the library windows in the hopes of spotting something, before he bites the bullet and enters, despite all the rumors he’s gathered pointing to the Blade actually being here, in this town, in this library.
And it’s this time he catches a flash of unnatural pink, and the scent of sulfur drifting past on the breeze.
Phil grins, his eyes narrowing.
Found you, motherfucker.