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Here’s the thing: you are not dumb, despite what your god may say.
Oh, you know full well that it’s a trap. Quackity’s posture is too loose, too much effort put into appearing unguarded and trustworthy. There’s a deep set hatred in his remaining eye that you would have to be blind to miss it.
Your god howls in the back of your mind, an endless chant reverberating through your skull. It’s centuries of practice that gives you the ability to tuck it away and forget it.
Briefly, you consider killing Quackity. He has no visible armor, no weapons. It would be trivially easy to stab him and leave his body to be covered by the snow.
But you have people to protect, now. Niki, Ranboo, and Phil laughing in front of the home you and Phil built, each with a shining emerald tucked away somewhere on their person. You see the way Quackity sneers down at them and how he laughs a mean, bitter laugh when you tell him it’s your birthday. You’ve seen enough people who have lost everything to the point that they lose themselves to grief in the ages you’ve been alive.
(You wonder if Quackity has anyone to grieve for him when he is dead. You wonder if he will die like a certain soot-stained and wild man - out with a bang with an empty grave, if there is a grave at all. You wonder about a lot of things in prison. There’s not much else to do.)
You smile at Quackity and pretend you are extending your honest trust, that you are lowering your walls and pretending that faith in someone is enough. Unfortunately for Quackity, the thing he will find behind your walls will be a swift strike through the heart. It may have taken the harshest of lessons, but in the end you have learned to be smarter with your trust.
He leaves with a careless wave and a confidence in his step. He looks at you like you are another card in his game. You don’t like it - it reminds you of the ancient colosseums that you once were in. Another reason to tear him down.
But first - preparation. You lock away the most valuable things in your ender chest and keep the riches that hopefully will be enough to distract the eye of a businessman in the chests scattered around your home. You do this in the dead of night when you are sure that everyone in the nearby chunks around you are asleep. It pays to be too paranoid.
The will is a precaution. You’ve written a few of these throughout your long, long life. Technoblade never dies, after all. But with all the things he’s found and kept on this world, it would be a bit of a waste to let others divvy up his possessions - or worse, loot them. Also, Phil would be upset.
You leave a few days later after giving your will to Phil. He’s worried. It’s easy to tell after all these years together. It’s even easier to feed him white lies to ease the furrow in his brow.
He wishes you farewell and a good luck, mate! and you march to the direction of the prison, wondering why it feels like you are walking to the execution stand to be killed under a falling anvil.
It pains you to keep up the pleasantries. The natural impassiveness of Sam’s creeper face is broken in the quick, paranoid looks he throws at you. All you can do is continue your naive facade and continue to chatter. Quackity is not the only one who knows how to disarm someone through words - only that you are better.
He tells you to put everything you have on you in the locker. You empty your pockets of fire rez and let them clatter loudly to the bottom of it, hoping it covers the sound of you transferring your armor to your ender chest.
The lava curtain falls with a splatter and for the first time in months you see Dream.
He doesn’t...look good. There’s dried blood splattered all over his body and new ropy scars scattered over his exposed arms. The way he scrambles to the netherite block wall is frankly a little sad.
(You ignore how the low simmer of fury rises when you see how his ragged prison garb hangs off of him. You ignore the shudder of horror and anger at the blatant disrespect for the right of living the universe grants to all. Ignore it. You have other things to do other than rage right now.)
“Techno no! ” Dream howls, utterly animalistic. “ No! ”
“No what?” you drawl, pointedly not looking at Sam.
He sputters. “Quackity - he - it’s a fucking trap!”
Of course it is. You’re expecting it, the click of a lever and the cold gaze of the Warden as the lava refills around you, but something in you still aches from the sting of the anticipated betrayal. When you get out of this you don’t think you’ll ever trust someone else again - Niki, Ranboo, and Phil are enough.
“You were my only way out of here,” Dream wails when the netherite blocks come down with a click. “You - you - I can’t believe you fucking fell for it! It’s all your fault and now Quackity’s going to come more because I bet he wants to torture you too and it’s all - your - fault! ” He punches you with limp, boney arms that do nothing but push you closer to the lava, which is less than ideal.
You bodily heave him a little bit towards the back of the box and note that he goes uncharacteristically limp when you do. His god is roaring for Quackity and Dream’s blood and it takes more effort than you would like to drown it out with the sound of the lava popping.
“This feels like a lot of projection here,” you say, and are immediately met with a look that could probably kill. Thankfully you’re well practiced with death glares. “Listen, it’s fine.”
The death glare turns incredulous. “Ha - HA! Fine? Fine? You - I should kill you. I could fucking throw you into the lava!” He laughs, high and croaky. “Or - or I could beat you to death like I did to Tommy! Oh, that would be funny, wouldn’t it? God - gods - no one has answered .”
You think that maybe Dream has lost his shit in here. “You? Kill me? You look like you can barely throw a potato.”
Dream screams something unintelligible and throws his head against the wall - or, would have if you had not dragged him away from the wall. Again, less than ideal.
When he’s stopped throwing his baby fit, you look him dead in the eyes through the cracked porcelain mask. “Listen,” you say. “Listen, I know it looks bad, Dream. I know it looks bad - but we are not out of options.”
He slaps you across the face, which shocks you long enough for Dream to continue talking. “I have been here for six months! Six fucking months! ‘We’re not out of options,’ fuck you, how? ”
“First off, rude,” you say. “Second off, maybe, like, you’re out of options because I have friends now.” You reach for the chest and find - oh, hell yes! - lots of mostly unused books and quills. This will expedite this immensely (and also greatly reduces the amount of social interaction you’re going to have to do). “Now, I need you to tell me everything you know about this prison. And, uh…” You look around the prison for dramatic effect. “It seems you have plenty of time to do so.”
A week ago, you had remembered a contract that asked you to infiltrate a government in order to take down the corrupt king from the inside. It was an awful number of months of pretending to worship the very ground the king stood on, but when you finally took off his head it was immensely cathartic - and it worked perfectly. Why not apply it to Pandora’s Vault?
So, yeah. You’re not dumb. You’re just pretty damn good at pretending to be all brawn and no brain. They call you a blade, but the best well-tempered blade must have the cleverest warrior to wield it.
You grin a bloodthirsty pantomime of a smile at Dream as your god begins to stir to life in your mind with a hunger that rivals your own. “Get to it, roommate.”