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Phil was placing podzol when the first crow found him. There was a clink of metal to his right and a bird cawed up at him. “What’ve you got there?” Phil turned to look, dusting his hands clear of dirt.
A crow bobbed excitedly at him, then bent to peck at a shiny bit of metal near Phil’s feet.
“Did you bring me this?”
The crow cawed again, hopping in a small circle.
Phil picked up the item, a small shard of gold in the shape of a leaf with little saw-tooth edges. Clearly not natural, and cool to the touch. “Thank you for the bitties,” he said, looking at the crow with raised eyebrows. Where the little bird had found this was an open question, but the crows tended to dig up all sorts of weird things and bring them to him. At least it wasn’t a gunpowder-encrusted spool of string, like last time. The crow cawed triumphantly one more time and soared away. “Absolutely not gonna get fuckin’ distracted this time,” Phil said to himself, turning back to his terrain. He hefted another roll of sod into place and snapped the magic-infused web that was holding it together.
The sun broke through the clouds and gleamed off of Brian, off to his left, who chose that moment to clear his throat and start making a gurgling, drowning noise.
“Skip!” Phil yelled, grabbing for the button between Brian’s metal wings. “I’m just gonna skip it, motherfucker!” He found it and skipped through the momentary curse that had taken over the mechanical crow. Silence fell for a second.
“You alright there?” Phil asked Brian. He checked him for signs of malfunctioning, but Brian appeared as functional as he ever was, which admittedly was remarkably functional for a probably-cursed piece of machinery Phil couldn’t quite remember how he’d built. He’d been awake for a lot of days when he looked up from the enchanting table and found himself holding a life-size metal crow with a magical voicebox. Brian’s little emerald eyes glinted.
One of the crows, nearby, bounced closer and pecked at a dandelion.
“Alright, back to work,” Phil said to himself, returning to the podzol.
Another crow landed on his shoulder and pecked at his ear.
“Jesus Christ,” Phil said, recoiling from the crow.
The crow cawed in his ear, much too close.
“I hear ya!” Phil said, grabbing the crow and holding it out in front of him. “What the fuck do you want?”
The crow dropped a shiny bit of something at Phil’s feet and then stared soulfully at him.
“Another leaf?” Phil said, putting the crow down and picking up the leaf. This one had a bit of stem attached. He looked at the crow. The crow puffed out his feathers, doubling in size in Phil’s hands.
“Thanks,” Phil said dryly. “Not gonna ask where you’re fuckin’ gettin’ these.”
The crow pecked at his shoe and then flew off to sit in a tree (and then immediately get into a fight with another crow). Brian made a coughing noise.
“Shut,” Phil said warningly to Brian.
Brian twitched a little and then marched in a circle, as quietly as a mechanical crow can.
“Alright, podzol,” Phil said, kneeling down by the enchanted sod. He rolled it out about two feet, before a crow landed directly between his hands, dropped a shiny bit of metal, and cawed in his face.
“Jesus motherfucker,” Phil said, recoiling and clapping his hands over his ears. The crow circled his head, cawing loudly. “I hear you, I hear you!” Phil said, picking up the metal. “I got it!”
The crow landed on his shoulder and nibbled at his hair while Phil turned the metal over in his hands. This was a little gold flower bud. Looked like a rose bud. Phil looked at the crow on his shoulder, gently skritching behind its head. “Do you want me to ask, then? Where you’re gettin’ these?”
The crow turned and nibbled his hair again.
Phil turned to address the crows sitting in the spruce tree, watching him. “You lot gonna show me where you’re getting this?”
The crows took off from the tree in a great flock, yelling for the pure joy of yelling. They rose up into the air, then poured south. Phil primed a rocket and soared upwards and after them.
The afternoon light cut through the clouds again as Phil flew over spawn, weaving between the hovering islands that still hung in space amid the ripples of Rose’s magic. Gods had fought here, and the impact was oh-so-visible on the landscape. He passed close by the wave of floating water and had to shrug off the sense of pins and needles, as ever, as the magic tried to forcibly wake him up.
“I’m up, I’m up,” he muttered, shaking out his free arm as he flew.
The magic threads filling him with restless energy tightened, and then released as he traveled further away from the epicentre of the goddess of life’s magic impact crater.
The crows were still going, heading south, to an area right at the edge of spawn. They landed by a crack in the earth and milled around in the grass, cawing.
Phil landed lightly by the edge of the crevice. “Is this it?”
Loud cawing from the crows greeted him.
“Alright, alright.” He lit a torch and approached the edge of the rift in the earth. “Let’s see what you found.”
Phil scooted down to the edge of the crack in the ground and stepped carefully inside, the crows following. The walls of this little ravine were crumbling earth. Showers of pebbles followed him as he paced his way down. It much wasn’t like a normal stone ravine, the plates of the earth pulled apart by magic tides. This was more as though something had forced itself up from underneath and the ground had split.
As though a normal ravine wasn’t bad enough. Phil placed down torches as he went and kept his hand on his sword.
As he rounded a corner a hiss echoed through the ravine, and Phil whirled, putting his shield up. Where was the creeper?
Brian was revealed in the torch light, beak still open to let out the mob sound.
“Motherfucker,” Phil lowered his shield, shaking his head. One of his crows started cawing from nearby in a way that sounded suspiciously like laughter. “And you, shut,” Phil snapped a hand at the crow.
The crow kept caw-laughing. Another crow pecked at its feet, and it slipped down the dirt slope of the ravine, tumbling head-over-tail.
“Deserved,” Phil told it. “Fuckin’ deserved. You lot did that to Brian on purpose.”
The crows shuffled around innocently. One of them swooped up from the darkness of the ravine, dropping another shiny bit of metal into his hands. A rose petal.
“Thanks for the gift,” Phil told the crow, pocketing the little bit of gold. “Really gettin’ concerned about where you’re findin’ all this stuff though. Any time you lot are all fixated on something, it never fuckin’ works out wel--” The edge of the torch light caught on something that gleamed, and Phil cut himself off.
The thing that had disturbed the earth was a ruined nether portal, snapped in half with a bar of obsidian lying on the ground. Around that bar of obsidian, and the gold-encrusted obsidian that still made up the frame, there were dozens, hundreds, of gold flowers.
Phil bent to touch one of them, then paused with his hand in the air. With the bloom still intact, he could feel the shreds of magic that clung to it. A crow scrambled up next to him and nipped a petal off the flower, dropping it in his hand.
“No!” Phil told it. “No, no touching.” He picked up the crow and moved it back. “These used to be wither roses, you shouldn’t be--” He stood up and tried to wave the crows out of the small cave. “Stay away from the fuckin’ roses, this is magic! Stop fuckin’ touching it!”
A crow swooped down to sit on his shoulder and made a sound like a hinge.
“I mean it!” Phil shooed a crow with his foot. “Move!”
The light from the torch caught on something on the ceiling, and Phil lifted the light to see better. The top of the small cave, bleeding down in little patches of precious stone, was pure white quartz.
Brian opened his mouth and said “OURNA OURNA OURNA OURNA OURNA.”
“Everybody fuckin’ out!” Phil ordered. He picked up brian and tucked him under his arm, bapping at the button to make him stop making noise. “We are not supposed to fuckin’ be here!” He took the handful of pieces of gold out of his pocket and dumped them back on the netherrack ground. “This is from the Blaze Empress to Rose, obviously, everybody fuckin’ out of the ravine! Go!”
There was a laugh that echoed through the ground, welling up around Phil and all the crows. “It’s fine,” a voice said.
“Sorry the crows messed up your gift!” Phil said to the air. A crow next to him opened its beak and he nudged it with his foot. “Shut.”
“They didn’t mean any harm,” the voice said. It sounded like she was smiling, and that her voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once, inescapable. “And you have been making spawn beautiful.”
“Yeah, y’know, I gotta get back to that,” Phil said, waving crows with him as he started up the little dirt ravine. “Lots of fuckin’ land to get through.”
There was another laugh in answer, the sound following as Phil emerged back out into the early dusk. A crow swooped up and dropped a dandelion into his hand.
“Alright,” Phil said, waving the flower at the crow. “Thanks for the gift. That’s more like it, no stealing from goddesses.” He took a deep breath. “I gotta get back to the podzol.”
Under his arm, Brian cleared his throat and then started making a gurgling noise. The crows yelled in delight. Phil primed a rocket and then took to the sky.