Archive of Our Own ^beta

The cultists lured him off the streets and into a carriage with the promise of candied fruit. Technoblade would have been offended at how gullible they thought he was– this form was small, not a baby – but he was too busy being surprised that they were taking kids from the central square in the first place. Sure, the town was lousy with workhouses and street urchins, and yeah, the war had flooded this half of the kingdom with refugees, but stealing children from in front of Church Prime? From the areas closest to the noble quarter, where kids ran around who might actually be missed? That was just bad planning. Techno had had a human form for maybe a day at this point, but even he knew that much.

He stuck the candied apple slice in his mouth, tasting for drugs beyond the cloying sweetness, and identified intoxicants and some sleep potions. The cultists clearly wanted him pliable. “Thanks, dude,” he said, chewing. “It gets hard being a sad displaced orphan on the streets, you know how it is. Never can be sure where your next meal’s coming from.”

His voice came out higher than he’d hoped, awkwardly pitchy. It probably sounded weird as heck combined with his mode of speech. Hopefully these guys weren’t too picky about their human sacrifices, or he’d be in some real trouble. 

“I understand completely,” De Caria said, putting a hand over her chest. Techno knew her instinctively, prayers dropping them into his memory like donated coins: Caterina de Caria, a minor noble. In public, she was an avid worshiper of the Flower Deity. In private, she was a devotee of the Blood God, sort of. Technically. In a sense. “I– if it wouldn’t be too much, I would like to extend my condolences for your loss. I know that most children in your situation have not been treated well by the world.”

“I dunno, I’m feeling pretty good about the world right now,” Techno said, pulling his legs up to his chest and getting mud all over the nice velvet cushions. Noobs shouldn’t have picked fancy carriage materials for stealing orphans, that was asking for trouble. “You’re gonna get me a nice job, right?”

“Very nice,” De Caria promised. The servant she’d left in the carriage let his face twitch, but showed no other expression; the other guy was driving and therefore not available for live reactions. The two dudes weren’t believers in anything but what they were getting paid, so Techno had no clue what he was supposed to call them. Eh, whatever, he’d figure it out. “Nothing like these workhouses you see these days, with the fleas and the– ugh, and the mess. So much crowding, it’s inhumane.”

“Yep.” Techno tried to remember what else children did to be annoying and came up blank. The servant offered him another candied fruit, a cherry this time, and he swallowed it down, noting the stronger taste. Right, so they wanted him asleep . Possibly he should’ve spent more time focusing on how much human children could metabolize before he’d switched out of being a boar. “Is that where we’re going right now?”

“Of course,” De Caria said soothingly. “We’ll get you all settled in, don’t you worry a bit.”

“‘Cause you haven’t asked for my name or anything, or what skills I have, or whether I have siblings,” Techno said. “What if I want to bring my brothers with me?”

“Older or younger?” the servant asked, which wasn’t even subtle.

“Uh, older? He’s a grown-up, he works at the printers’,” Techno said, widening his eyes. This was a lie: he’d technically been born with siblings, fellow piglets suckling from the same sow, but they weren’t all brothers. Some of them had been female, and also they were pigs. Techno had realized pretty fast that most pigs did not gain power from devotees’ prayers before they were a week old.  “I gotta tell him where I’m going, he’ll worry otherwise.”

“We’ll send him a message,” De Caria assured him. “You can write, can’t you? Or if you can’t write, you can dictate– that means saying your message out loud– and we can write it and send it for you. That way your brother will know you’re safe and sound.”

“Okay,” Techno acquiesced, and let himself go steadily quieter, staring out at the curtain covering the carriage window, keeping them hidden from prying eyes. He closed his eyes after a while, slowing his breathing, and stayed that way until the carriage pulled to a stop at what had to be miles out from the city. De Caria had the servant pick him up and carry him into a tunnel, down a long torchlit staircase engraved with symbols of the Blood God. 

Techno recognized the symbols instinctively: the crown, the sword, the bell. Something in him strained toward them, wanting to settle into this well-maintained temple, this monument to his followers’ regard. His mortal body squirmed, whining a little with discomfort, and De Caria shushed him absently. 

Power seethed off the symbols and twined gleefully around his limbs, invisible to everyone but him. It coiled around De Caria and the other cultists they saw along the way, too, weeping out of whatever markings they had under their cloaks. Techno didn’t exactly welcome the connection– child sacrifice was not his preference– but if these guys wanted to sow the seeds of their own destruction, he was willing to let them. Never interrupt your enemy when they were making a mistake, was what he liked to say.

The servant placed him on a cold stone altar, inlaid with divots in the shape of the Blood God’s emblems and accented with gold. Techno kept his body limp, godhead lingering over his mortal shell like a hovering cloud of flies to watch, and watched them slice off his shirt, tuck his long pink hair away from his face. Hold him down so he wouldn’t struggle.

De Caria took the knife. She opened a thin cut from his collarbone to his abdomen, carving a blocky, double-sided crown into his flesh until his blood was seeping into those divots, dribbling into a drain at the altar’s base. His body registered pain, a stinging discomfort about a hundred times worse than the time his brother had bitten him on the tail; it flinched and whimpered, eyelids flickering in unconscious reaction, tears running down its cheeks. Techno had to pour more of himself into the brain to quell it, and then the baby human emotions hit : the same feeling as wanting to nuzzle into his mother’s belly but worse, anguished and terrified and confused , like a human mind couldn’t fathom why something would want to cause it pain. 

Okay, so he was definitely killing these people. That was good to know. De Caria had her servants put him in a simple white tunic to replace his shirt, smiling softly as the bloodstains soaked through like a total creep.

Techno drifted away to investigate the rest of the temple, looking for some kind of central chamber– it was better than sitting around getting prepared to be sacrificed to himself, which was honestly pretty boring– and got distracted trying to figure out why the Blood God was considered a war god, of all things. He’d always figured he was a god of working really hard to gain skills, or maybe a god of violence and revolution, like the whispered prayers from the workhouses had said. He hadn’t noticed the other prayers until the first sacrifice reached him, and then it’d been too late to save her. The little girl had been too far gone. 

Techno gave it a few minutes before he returned to his mortal body, and then he had to stifle a high, humanish squeal, something sticky and hot gumming up his eyes. He levered himself upright and forced his breathing slow, hating the cling of the tunic against his cuts, and someone said, “Scuse me, big man, are you awake? Are you cognizant of your surroundings?”

“Heh?” Techno asked, squinting. Human eyesight was bad in the dark, but he managed to make out another figure in the chamber, blond and bigger than him but probably not a mature adult. That was gonna make his whole using himself as bait plan a little more complicated than he’d been hoping.

“Are you aware of your location and shit?” the blond pressed. “‘Cause obviously we’re in a rather, ah, concerning position. A bit of a shit position, one might say, and please don’t ask me for details on those sorts of positions or I’ll have to report you to your mother.”

“You’re saying that to an orphan?” Techno mumbled. He tried to stand, surprised himself by stumbling; the blond caught him by the arm before he could fall over completely, which turned this into an incredibly embarrassing moment he planned to forget as soon as possible. “Rude. Insensitive.”

“You’ve got pink hair and you’re like five years old, you don’t get to experience manners,” the kid informed him. “I’m Tommy, by the way, I’ve been here for fucking days. Did you happen to see the way out?”

Techno shook his head mutely. His thoughts were weirdly muddled, trampled like rotting feed; he felt like he was floating, and sitting down made the floating feeling significantly worse. Possibly a mortal form was more fragile than he’d assumed. “There were stairs?”

“That’s good enough,” Tommy said. “We’ll figure this out, I have enough smarts for both of us. Sit with me, come on. Calm yourself.”

“I’m calm,” Techno protested, but he found himself being maneuvered to sit down anyway. The blood on Tommy’s white tunic looked older than his, dried and crusted. His hair was greasy and knotted. “You can call me, uh, Techno. That’s what people call me.”

“That’s a dumb fucking name, but I’ll excuse it,” Tommy said companionably. “How old are you, Techno?”

“Dunno?” Techno ventured. He’d chosen a human form that looked young enough to be vulnerable to predators, and that was about as far as he’d gotten. He hadn’t had much interaction with humans outside of the farmers who’d kept his mother, and she’d broken out of the pen and run into the woods when he was small. Techno had had to wander back on his own to figure out what civilization was. “How old are you?”

“Twelve, but basically thirteen, really.”

“Less than that,” Techno said decisively. “Half that, because I’m half your size.”

“You could just be short,” Tommy said, “but either way that makes me your elder, and therefore a natural authority over you. You have to say yes, sir to me and follow my suggestions as law. Say yes, sir. ”

Techno wiped his eyes and sniffled, noting with confusion that his cheeks were still wet. His mortal form wanted to curl up and bawl like a newborn for some reason. He couldn’t force it to stop shivering. “No,” he said thickly. 

“Say yes, sir, Mr. Tommyinnit who will save my life, you are so good and brave!” Techno decided he hated that falsetto voice more than anything in life. “You need to say this to me, Techno. Otherwise I’ll lose heart and we’ll never escape.”

“We’re escaping?”

“‘Course we’re escaping, now that we’re allies and friends.” Tommy waggled his eyebrows. Techno blinked at him bemusedly. “At least, we will be if you say the sacred words.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Tommyinnit who will save my life, you are so good and brave,” Techno deadpanned. In his child’s voice, it came out with much less gravitas than he’d hoped. “I’m not saying that again. That’s– that’s all you get.”

“It’s good enough for a first try,” Tommy told him, and glanced at the door, mouth thinning. “Let’s sit by the other corner, it’s warmer there.”

Tommy chivvied Techno away from the door, directing him onto a threadbare blanket and flopping down beside him. Then he threw an arm over Techno’s shoulder, which was weird and uncalled for, but Techno allowed it. It improved his mortal form’s temperature, and anyway it stopped the shivering. Sort of reminded him of sleeping with his siblings, actually, before they’d all grown up. Before the prayers had gotten difficult to ignore. 

“Here’s the down-low,” Tommy said once they were situated. “These fuckers, they’re cultists, right? Worshiping that Blood God fucker who eats orphans and, and pisses on the poor and whatnot.”

“Wait, they’re saying what–”

“And when I tell them that they say how dare you say we cultist bastards piss on the poor, we’re just watering them with our bladders to be charitable, and I said that was stupid and they’re wronguns who cry at the sight of rough linen, and that’s how I got here,” Tommy continued. “But that’s not the only way they steal kids. They need us for their rituals, that’s why they– why they did that shit with the knives. I’ll bet they said they’d take you somewhere nice and warm, didn’t they? Somewhere you’d be fed and cared for?”

Techno nodded, vocal cords bizarrely blocked up. His mortal form’s hair fell into his face. 

“Right, well that was a fucking lie,” Tommy told him. “Never believe nobles when they tell you things, they’ll say they’re doing what’s good for you and then you’ll be stuck at a loom for six years getting paid shit and they’ll say you should be grateful. The streets, now, that’s where you’re free. You can do a lot of shit on the streets.”

Techno frowned. “Is that where you’re from?”

“Yep.” Tommy popped his p. “And it’s where I’m going after this, too. You can come with, if you like, now that we’re better acquainted.”

Techno shifted, wishing he’d thought more about how to heal his mortal form before he’d taken it. The bleeding had slowed, but the scabs loosened every time the tunic touched them, and the rise and fall of his lungs pulled on the cuts something awful. If that was the preparation for the sacrifice, he didn’t want to know what the actual ritual was. 

Granted, he knew some stuff about the ritual. He’d been getting its results since De Caria had started on them a couple years ago: sobbing bedraggled spirits materializing at the side of the pig pen, bloodied and torn to pieces and roiling like disturbed water. They’d been as little as the farmers’ daughters, each and every one of them, and every one of them had stared at him bewildered when he met their eyes. 

But you’re so cute, the first had said. You can’t be the Blood God, you’re just a little piggy! 

He’d toddled out of his mother’s nest to snuffle at her, let her fondle his ears and bap his snout until she dissolved. He hadn’t known what the visitations meant yet, why he’d gone from an idea that comforted the downtrodden masses to an incarnated deity. He hadn’t realized what the kids being sacrificed had given him.

By the fifth, who’d come to him rooting in the woods for mushrooms, he’d started to. 

“We’ll get out of here,” Tommy said confidently. He smelled like fear sweat and old blood, incipient infection lingering behind it like a thief in an alleyway. “I’ve been working at the hinges, they put them on the inside of the door like morons. You came at just the right time.”

The chamber smelled like other children, too, though Tommy hadn’t mentioned any and there weren't any signs of other people in the room. “Is there anyone else here?” Techno asked, and Tommy flinched, a shudder running through him. “Like us, I mean. Not– not adult humans.”

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” Tommy said again, avoiding his gaze, and bundled Techno onto the blanket again, wrapped it around his aggravatingly short legs. 

True to his word, Tommy started tinkering with the door hinges as soon as he ascertained whether the guards were listening. He asked Techno to listen with him, so Techno glanced around with his greater consciousness and reported that no, the guards weren’t paying attention– they were too busy dreaming of being violently dismembered, because being the nascent god of these cultists had some benefits– and then he grabbed a piece of flint he’d hidden under his tongue and chipped away at the stone around where the hinges were nailed into the wall, scraping for almost two hours before he had to give up and shake out his hands. 

There was a pretty good dent around the first hinge, slightly less of one around the lower one. “You did all this?” Techno asked, impressed, and Tommy’s confident expression shattered, lightened to nonchalance a second later.

“Pretty much. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was a group effort, but mostly it’s me. I’m the hinge master, I have the requisite abilities. Keep going while I rest a bit, okay? You can do it, it’s just scratching.”

Techno nodded and picked up the flint, working at the stone around the iron nails. He could taste the iron, feel its kinship with the blood in Tommy’s veins and his own. If he concentrated, he could even look into its makeup, the deep patterns humans usually weren’t able to see– or, hey, he could nudge it just a bit–

The nail shot out of the hinge and bounced off the opposite wall. Tommy yelped and threw himself to the side, staring at it wide-eyed, and Techno also stared, because he hadn’t exactly expected that to happen. Having a body was one thing, but throwing nails around was another. He had the vague feeling that he’d done something improper, like he should’ve waited for Tommy to pray for that to happen first. 

“Good angle?” he tried. He hadn’t considered the possibility of affecting things that weren’t directly tied to his worshipers’ bodies and minds. Maybe he could nudge Tommy’s white blood cells into fighting off that infection, too. 

“Can you do that again?” Tommy demanded, bustling closer, but Techno couldn’t, actually. He tried, but the understanding– the cloud of the rest of him – refused to come. It was like he was trying to pour out water through a hole made by a needle, and the most it was willing to do was trickle uselessly sideways. 

They were able to pull the hinge loose, though, and then there were only two more to mess with before the door could be yanked out of the doorway. That was progress.

Not enough progress, when it came down to it. Time ticked by in increments, and Techno’s mortal body felt worse with each one. First his eyelids insisted on closing, propelling him into visions of battlefields and starving families and the fifth sacrifice saying, you can’t let them do this in your name– I prayed to you, I prayed, and they killed me and said it was for you and it can’t be, you’re supposed to be better, and then he woke up with a raspy throat and a persistent unwell feeling, the crabby urge to sob and kick at Tommy until he stopped rambling and brought food and water. 

The mortal body wanted to be held. It wanted to drink cool liquids and bite into hot food, or possibly truffles– Techno loved truffles, you couldn’t go wrong with a good truffle– and sleep somewhere warm and safe with someone carding fingers through its hair. It wanted to run around and throw rocks. It wanted to bawl, like that would summon someone to show up and fulfill those needs, and Techno kept having to preempt it. He wanted to stay on task. He’d always been able to stay on task as an adult boar, except for all the times he’d gotten distracted by interesting smells. 

“You don’t have to throw a tantrum,” Tommy told him on what must have been the second day, sounding a little panicked. “Here, d’you want me to tell you a story? It’s not something you’re supposed to say to children, but I think it’s fine, you’re old enough.”

“Shut up,” Techno said on principle, scratching at the hinge. This was stupid. He was being stupid. His whole plan was to get into the sacrificial chamber, so he’d know exactly who was involved and be in the seat of his own power when he had to deal with it, but instead he was sitting here sniffling over water. Cringe. Lame. If his other sacrifices could see him now, they would point and laugh and it would feel bad and he hated it, and also he hated all things. Hating all things was a reasoned position. “If I wanted a story, I’d make one up and tell it to myself and it would be better than yours.”

“Fuck you, bitch, it would not ,” Tommy said. “Mine has werewolves in it.”

“Well, that’s dumb, because werewolves aren’t real.”

“Stop calling things dumb. You’re basically an adult, so you’re old enough to say bitch. Repeat after me, Techno.”

“I’m not saying that, what if it makes people stop liking me?” Techno protested, fully aware of both the ridiculousness of what he was saying and the whine in his voice and unable to stop either of them. After this problem was dealt with, he was going to go back to being a boar and swear off a human form forever. It just plain wasn’t worth it. “I’m approachable. I don’t eat children.”

“I might,” Tommy said, grinning at him. Techno glowered. 

They worked another hinge loose, Techno drawing from the temple to wiggle the nails until he could believably let Tommy yank them free, and were halfway through the third when Tommy swore and yanked him back. Techno yelped, squirming around to kick him, but Tommy bundled him into the corner before he could do more than stomp his foot. “Shut the fuck up, I’m helping you!”

Some of his followers stood on the other side of the door, reeking of his own godly power. Techno fell quiet, measuring the distance between him and Tommy and the speed of the cultists’ heartbeats, how simple it’d be to halt coagulation entirely or hemorrhage something in their brains— they’d dedicated their blood to him, like morons who’d never actually met this god they professed devotion to— and the door creaked open, wobbling on its damaged hinges. 

Crap. Techno opened his mouth, preparing to say something outrageously distracting, and Tommy said brightly, “Hello there, gentlemen. It’s a fine evening for ritual murder, innit? That’s what I always say about nights like these, that they’re missing ritual bloodshed. Your mothers all agree with me when I say these things.”

“That one,” one of the cultists said, longsuffering, and others flowed into the room with their weapons drawn. Tommy shot a look at Techno and didn’t resist, just let the cultists grab him by the arms– which, being the opposite of the point of this venture, was clearly not allowed to continue. Techno was halfway through learning how to poke Tommy’s blood cells into greater efficiency. The cultists couldn’t sacrifice him now. If they sacrificed Tommy, he’d come back as a terrified spirit and Techno would have to look him in the eye, he’d have to admit he hadn’t been good enough to stop the cultists before the orphan murder thing– heck, he’d have to admit he’d been drawing power from it–

“Very nice women, your mothers,” Tommy continued loudly. Techno made his mortal body hug itself, breathing too fast to be useful. “I’d say more, but as a helpless child I think you would interpret that in an unnecessarily sexual manner and traumatize my innocent ears. Have you considered going and fucking yourselves, by the way?”

“Please, for the love of the throne, shut up before we gag you,” the cultist said. “You, other kid, step back and stay there. There’s candy in it for you if you behave.”

“Where are you taking him?” Techno managed, widening his eyes. He sounded like a scared baby human, which was definitely one hundred percent an act. He was a god, and also usually a huge boar with amazingly murderous tusks. Fear didn’t factor into the equation. “Is he getting a totally legitimate job?”

“Yes, he is, and you will, too, if you behave,” the cultist said dismissively. 

Tommy yanked himself free of the others’ holds and glared at them, rubbing his arms. “Right, sure, we’re fucking behaving,” he said. “The fact that we’ve been cut up and held against our wills is irrelevant to us, isn’t it, we’re fine.”

“Can I come instead of Tommy?” Techno asked. “I, uh, I don’t feel good. I’m really thirsty.”

The cultists exchanged glances, probably wondering whether a sacrifice would work if the kid died of his injuries first. “We can bring you water.”

“It won’t stop bleeding,” Techno complained, pushing willpower at his cuts until they soaked back through his tunic, making the fresh red stains more obvious. “Do you have to take Tommy? I’m a better worker, people always say that.”

“Techno, shut up,” Tommy snapped, but the cultists were frowning, staring at his bloody clothes like they posed a legitimate problem. “He’s lying, king, he wasn’t bleeding till just now. Just overexcited, you’ll see.”

The cultists conferred over Tommy’s increasingly furious objections. “I guess we shouldn’t risk it,” the same long-suffering one said, pinching his brow, and the others shoved Tommy back into the cell, drawing swords to hold him there. “Come along, kid, we don’t have all day.”

Techno stepped up to the cultist and took his hand, mortal body determinedly shivering despite his best efforts, and Tommy shouted, lunging forward, “You fucking cowards, you pathetic bastards, don’t take a little fucking kid, how dare you, I’ll rip you limb from fucking limb– Techno, Techno just run, just fucking run–”

The cultists yanked him out and slammed the door, locking it behind them and muffling Tommy’s screaming. Techno relaxed a bit– they hadn’t noticed how loose the hinges were, so in a couple hours Tommy could probably break out even if this didn’t work– and the cultist pulled him down the hall, walking so fast that Techno had to stumble to keep up. He left a trail of blood droplets on the floor.

It was a long walk. Pressure built under Techno’s skin as they went deeper into the underground temple, a pleasant welcoming purr that said you’re home you’re here this is yours, and with it came a coppery stench, old stains crusting the walls, carved effigies of boar-headed gods towering in alcoves along the way. He could feel the buildup to the ritual like the tremors before an earthquake, all the preparations the cultists had made for their tidy little slaughter: the animal deaths, the painted symbols, the prostrations and hymns. They had built up to a critical mass, a promise that would have to be sealed with a death if they didn’t want it to rebound on them. A bridge awaiting a keystone.

Most gods accepted stuff like flowers and flammable materials and gave their followers health and small boons in return. It was just Techno’s luck that he apparently accepted extreme violence in return for long lives and the accumulation of wealth, instead. Why couldn’t these nobles have stuck to small amounts of blood like his followers in the workhouses, who asked for healing and righteous vengeance? Why did they have to be the ones to incarnate him properly? And why did they have to make it weird?

The passage ended in a huge rounded chamber, lit by braziers with a yawning, stinking pit in the center. Techno froze up when he saw it, digging in his heels until the cultist sighed and lifted him off his feet. The pit was a bonepile a hundred bodies deep, rotted skeletons clawing up from where they’d been driven and murdered, scratches scored in the rock and gallons of blood poured down the sides, and it felt like him. 

Pig’s blood. Human blood. The blood of abandoned children, of sobbing struggling orphans, kids who were no one’s responsibility and who no one would miss, and it felt like Technoblade, like the sheer monstrous belief that had brought him into the world . This atrocity was an offering to the Blood God, an offering greater than his workhouse worshipers could ever bring themselves to give, an extravagant glut of power and strength that had cost these followers nothing at all. All the sacrifices had belonged to their victims.

He heard those victims whispering now, a war drum in his ears. They were frightened of him. They were goading him. They wanted to see these cultists bleed, and they sensed the rage coursing through him, the blind crimson fury overtaking him like a cavalry charge. If he’d been a boar still, he would have gored them to death. Now that he was sure he was a god, he’d have to settle for pulling this temple down around their heads instead. 

The cultists caught his limbs and hair, pressed him to his knees with his back facing the pit, and De Caria met him there. Techno half-expected her to question his reactions, ask why he wasn’t struggling away from the abattoir she’d built in his name, but she just regarded him with hot, wild satisfaction. Like he was an animal to slaughter, like all the other pigs who hadn’t escaped the farm with his mother. Like she was used to seeing little children too stunned with fear to scream. 

Her blade glistened. She touched the deathly sharp tip to Techno’s exposed throat, drawing a pinprick of blood that sang through Techno’s divine self like a struck bell, and said, “Thank you so much for your sacrifice, little one. You have no idea how much it means to me.”

Techno turned his unblinking stare to her. He would’ve driven his tusks into her femoral artery first, ripped up the muscle there so she couldn’t run. The trampling would’ve been at his leisure afterward, and then the flies– then the maggots and the beetles and the carrion crows, following in his footsteps. Then her blood anointing the black fertile soil.

De Caria hesitated before she started her prayer, drawing back like she saw the shadow of her god in him, a smidgen of Techno’s rage at her undeserved gifts. Then she got to work tracing patterns along Techno’s wrists and chin, starting up a prayer and the cultists chanted with her. Techno’s divinity strained at the bounds of his mortal form, reaching out to her like roots seeking water. 

Techno felt incandescent, impossible, berserk, the sacrifices screaming in his brain. His mortal body might’ve been crying from pain, but the Blade was ready to break loose and cause some chaos, the Blood God could feel that bridge being built, and once he was placed as the keystone he’d tear them to little pieces–

The Blood God was the only one who saw Tommy in the chamber entrance, because the rest of the cultists were facing the pit. Techno stared at him over De Caria’s shoulder, bewildered and more than a little freaked out, and Tommy grinned back, sharp as wire. He had the threadbare blanket in his hands, something heavy weighing down the middle. 

De Caria followed Techno’s gaze, turned and started to stand. Techno made the braziers flare, throwing up smoke and sending the cultists into disarray, prayers faltering mid-word– and Tommy rushed up and swung his blanket into De Caria’s skull with a loud, splitting crack.

The ritual shattered down the middle, power snapping back onto the cultists like an overextended rope. The braziers spilled over, fire escaping its bounds– some of the cultists crumbled, blood steaming out of their pores, the temple shaking apart– and Tommy grabbed Techno around the middle and booked it. 

Techno didn’t get the chance to react until they were far away from the main chamber, in one of the side passages where the carvings were half-finished. Tommy placed Techno on the floor, bracing him against the tremors. “Techno– it’s okay, it’s gonna be fucking great, but I need you to tell me where the fucking stairs are. You remember the stairs, right? 

“You broke the prayer,” Techno said blankly. He could feel the cultists’ souls burning out, the blood in their bodies rebelling against them, but he hadn’t been the one to do it. He was feeling the recoil too, a stinging sensation like a horde of upset ants. “You broke it, Tommy, it wasn’t done!”

“Listen to me,” Tommy said with a panicked smile. His grip tightened. “It’s just a game, innit? We fucked up their game, but now we’re playing our own. Take deep breaths with me, in and out, come on.”

Techno followed his breathing. It actually helped, which was more proof that humans were dumb and wild boars clearly superior. “Bruh, my ritual,” he sniffled. He could’ve gotten vengeance and power, it would’ve been perfect. “What the heck.”

“Fuck the ritual!” Tommy shrilled. The temple shook again, dust raining down on their heads. “You’re a big fucking man, you don’t need to get cut up, forget whatever that bitch told you– the stairs, come on, work with me here.”

Techno didn’t want to work with him. He’d been about to have a triumphant moment, and he would’ve had enough power to shift his form to something cooler, and he would’ve done as the sacrifices asked– and okay, maybe killing the cultists had been the main plan, but he was allowed to be upset about not doing it his way. His mortal form wanted it to have gone his way. It hated change, and now Tommy was changing everything, and his body hurt and he was tired–

“Left or right?” Tommy demanded, shaking him by the shoulders.

“Second left out of here,” Techno mumbled, wanting this whole adventure to be over, and Tommy yanked him up and ran before he could say anything else, scooping Techno into his arms when the mortal form’s legs decided to stop working halfway there. 

The pit was filling up, stone crumbling in to bury the bodies. Rubble had blocked some of the exits, the surviving cultists running to find alternate routes– Techno sensed it– but the knowledge faded as Tommy scrambled up the stairs. His awareness shrunk to his eyes and ears and nose, his clutching hands and nonsensical mortal emotions.

Open air. Techno tumbled to the ground, blinking at the dirt on his hands and his scuffed-up knees, and Tommy collapsed beside him, gasping for breath. The earth rumbled and settled, coughing up more dust from the imploded tunnel, and Techno’s sense of the temple cut off completely, his divinity settling back around him like a confused, depleted school of fish. Whatever power the sacrifices had afforded him was gone, only the scraps from the workhouse remaining. 

“Shit,” Tommy breathed, and barked out a laugh. “Holy fuck, that actually fucking worked, it really– are you okay, Techno? You haven’t been stabbed and shit?”

Techno tried to stop the pinprick on his neck from bleeding and failed. He flexed his fingers, firmly imagining them melding into a nice hoof, and nothing happened. “No,” he said belatedly. “I mean, I’m not stabbed? This is an okay amount of blood to lose.” He couldn’t change his shape at all. “What, uh, what about you?”

“I’m too powerful for serious wounds,” Tommy said. “You can walk, can’t you? We’re gonna need to walk.”

Okay, so this was bad, but it wasn’t impossibly bad. Techno’s ability to not be a human child would come back with time, probably. He just had to chill out and find some other worshipers who didn’t murder children, and he’d be golden. “I’m gonna have to go to the workhouses,” he said mournfully, thinking about how long he’d be stuck without his beautiful tusks. “I’m gonna have to walk on two legs.”

“No, you fucking aren’t, you’re sticking with me,” Tommy said, and caught Techno’s hand, tugged him to his feet. Techno kept holding his hand after he could stand on his own, for reasons he would totally figure out later. “Or– well, the legs thing is true, but workhouses can go shit themselves to death. You and me, Techno, we’re like brothers now, and that means I’ll look out for you.”

“You will?” 

“Absolutely,” Tommy told him. “We’re gonna hitch a ride to the city and we’ll scam the shit out of people, you’ll see. I’ll show you the way of things.”

The way of things should’ve involved Techno slaughtering his child-sacrificing cult and gaining the strength to help his revolutionary followers in the process. It shouldn’t have involved being rescued and coddled by a random human child, or being stranded and powerless in the middle of nowhere, but Techno was having a hard time minding. His mortal body had perked up in the sunshine, and Tommy was grinning down at him, bloodied and dauntless and promising stolen sweets: as far as most of Techno was concerned, that solved most of his problems right there. 

Finding a good mushroom or tuber would probably solve the rest of them. Techno rubbed his eyes with his free hand, mood lightening weirdly fast considering the situation, and decided to save his worries about finding his worshipers for when they reached the city.