First appearance: S3E17, Season 3 Finale - Soot Mustam v Huey Leatherface · watch it on YouTube
Huey Leatherface (properly “Leatherfeather,” though he took a shine to the mistake) was an Owlin artificer who called himself “the best dang artificer in this side of Strixhaven.” He fought the twelve-year-old Goliath Soot Mustam in the Season 3 finale. He collected dog urine, stored his dinner under the couch and didn’t believe in rabies. He won the match, and the victory lasted about as long as it took the Grandmaster to let go of his hand.
Story
Huey arrived in the Void for S3E17, Season 3 Finale - Soot Mustam v Huey Leatherface and corrected The Arbiter at once. “Well, actually, partner, it’s Leatherfeather,” he said, before deciding the wrong name was “quite a fetching name” and keeping it. The arena was one of the Grandmaster’s treasure rooms, piled with mountains of gold and guarded by her pet dragon Lilac. Huey eyed the gold hungrily. Then Doug growled at him and peed on his shoe. Huey was not offended. He pulled off his glove, showing a scarred hand missing many of its feathers, and scooped up the dog pee bare-handed into a vial, explaining that gloves “contaminate the urine.”
The fight went badly for his face almost from the start. Soot flicked fire off his sword and flashed his abs, which unsettled Huey considerably. Huey answered with a vial “distinctly not dog piss” that burst the flames into a firework of blues, greens and purples. The blast blinded them both and knocked Huey’s forgotten goggles off his forehead. “Yeah, Leatherface is right,” he admitted. Two falling hamster balls bonked him on the head, and Soot’s flying squirrel Marymoo latched onto his face and started gnawing. With the Acolytes’ favor, he won his sight back by spitting into his salve-covered hands and rubbing his eyes, a treatment he called “a normal Sunday evening for me.” He teleported away with his Boots of the Winding Path, sped himself up, and shot the child with his blunderbuss, Old Bessie. Later he climbed a gold pile like a king and declined to pocket anything, mostly out of fear of Lilac: “I’m a better man than that.”
As the match grew stranger, Huey’s tactics got cleverer. He hurled a loose floor tile at Soot while a Golden Girl grandma held the boy in a hug, and followed up with his handaxe, a combination he named “the old float like a stone, sting like a hand axe.” Soot’s nearly lethal greatsword strike left him barely standing (“I’m up. Woo!”). Huey turned invisible, crept up to Gerald and tried to sell him Soot’s flaming Pegasus. Gerald grumbled, dragged the whole steed into the box, and tossed Huey an Amulet of Health in return. When Soot threw a Cube of Annihilation at him, Huey dodged it. He then tried to fling it back (“when life gives you lemons, you throw some lemonade”), but the Cube drifted toward him instead and plucked his feathers out one by one. Bald and hurting, he dangled off the edge of the arena and coaxed Lilac into drinking an experimental elixir. It made her fly faster and hotter, until the Arbiter’s gold golem melted into slag.
The end came from Soot himself. After roasting Huey’s face with holy fire, Soot tried to jump the Cube, fumbled, and stepped straight into it. The Grandmaster declared Huey the winner, and he offered a moment of real wisdom: “I see now that the circumstances of one’s birth is irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are. Well, time to party.” She flew him up into the sky, featherless and looking like “a roast chicken.” There Marymoo, still clinging to his face and grieving its master, clawed him with every ounce of rage it had. Startled, the Grandmaster let go. Huey wondered aloud whether he could shed his armor fast enough to fly, then fell forty feet and went splat. “You’re with the hamsters now,” said the Arbiter. The Grandmaster left through the portal with no champion except Marymoo.
Personality and Abilities
Huey was a folksy, unflappable bird who called everyone “partner” and found scientific promise in almost anything, including the idea of combining feces, fire and explosives (“I’m gonna have to try that when I get back to the lab”). He wore goggles on his forehead and kept forgetting they were there. His domestic life was alarming: no refrigerator (“I should invent one of those”), meals stored under the old couch, and a firm belief that rabies is “a lie that the government has told you.” When stressed, he said his own name out loud, a nervous tic he owned with “very little shame.”
In a fight, he relied on alchemy and gadgets. He threw potions “real good,” fired the enchanted blunderbuss Old Bessie, swung a handaxe, and slipped around the battlefield with his Boots of the Winding Path. He also drew on a toolkit of tinkerer’s magic: fireworks, flung objects, speed, invisibility and quick healing. Late in the match he wore Gerald’s Amulet of Health.
Relationships
- Soot Mustam: His twelve-year-old opponent, whose fumbled leap into the Cube of Annihilation handed Huey the win.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Declared him champion, then dropped him forty feet when Marymoo popped up.
- The Arbiter: Gave him the name “Leatherface” after seeing his picture.
- Doug the Pug: Peed on his shoe, which Huey bottled for later.
- The Box of Chaos: Gerald bought Soot’s Pegasus from him and paid in an Amulet of Health.
Memorable Quotes
- “Well, actually, partner, it’s Leatherfeather, but honestly, it’s quite a fetching name, so I might just make use of it.” (S3E17)
- “I typically take the glove off because it contaminates the urine. You could use this in quite a lot of concoctions.” (S3E17)
- “No, that is for later, and I thank you to remember that.” (S3E17)
- “Hey, hey bud, I’m in a real tough spot right now. This steed looks mighty tasty, you wanna buy it?” (S3E17)
- “When life gives you lemons, you throw some lemonade.” (S3E17)
- “I see now that the circumstances of one’s birth is irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are. Well, time to party.” (S3E17)