Chapter Text
There are many ways to start a story. The good ones usually come with a bang.
In my particular scenario, it comes with a pathetic sizzle and a whine.
Unsure whether the smell of burnt toast is due to my brain having a stroke or to the fact that I caught on fire during the long fall from the sky, I place my palms on the wet and biting surface. I manage to push the earth away from my body, the entire world a blur of whites, grays, and, optimistically, browns.
For someone who unexpectedly switched their career choice to become a meteor, I feel surprisingly... in one piece? Aching, yes, but existing body parts in place of burnt ashes are always a welcoming sight.
A hiss slips past my lips, followed by a moist hand flying to my throbbing temple. My thoughts send a series of inquiries to my brain, full of "what's," "how's," and "why's," but all I get in return is a metaphorical shrug of: "no idea, perhaps your life as a lone alcoholic in the mid-twenties had a quickly approaching deadline."
Well, according to the blunt throb in my entire body, I'm still alive. I blink a couple of times, chasing away the blurriness and trying to make the best of my surroundings.
Vision finally snaps into focus.
I'm half-embedded in a shallow impact pit, dirt, and stones shoved aside in a messy ring around me. Damp soil clings to my fingers, cold enough that my skin prickles like I just grabbed an ice pack straight from the freezer. A thin drizzle needles my face, mixing with the faint stink of smoke and… yep, a charred toast. Either cosmic re-entry toasted me, or someone very far away just ruined breakfast in spiritual sympathy.
Overhead, low clouds drift across a pale sky, the light dull and washed out. No familiar skyline, no blocks of flats, no tram wires. Trees tower around the clearing instead: tall trunks, dark bark slick with rain, leaves whispering in the wind. One trunk leans at a weird angle, snapped where I apparently body-checked it on the way down.
Everything aches in a full-body, overused-muscle way, like I sprinted up a mountain while carrying every bad life decision on my back. Yet nothing screams "broken" when I breathe. My clothes feel intact, and something small and hard tugs lightly at my left ear whenever I move my head.
Sound creeps in: birds arguing somewhere above, the soft patter of rain on leaves, the distant rush of water. Each inhale drags in cold, wet air that stings my lungs. Nearby, something bubbles and squelches, like a pot of soup left to boil over.
The noise gets closer.
At the edge of the crater, an orange blob hauls itself into view. Then another. Then a third. They wobble forward on invisible legs, gelatinous bodies pulsing with a warm, flickering glow inside, their worryingly cute eyes fixated on me. Each hop sends out a little splash of mud and steam.
My brain offers a single, very unhelpful line.
Those look suspiciously like Slimes.
One of them bunches up, that inner glow flaring brighter. The air in front of it distorts as heat builds. A compact fireball blasts toward me, bright and fast, a fist-sized chunk of instant cremation screaming straight for my face.
Heat washes over my skin—
—and goes out. Instantly. No impact, no burning, no smell of singed hair. The flame touches me and vanishes, as if someone snapped their fingers and deleted it from reality. A faint puff of warm air brushes my cheek, and the world is damp and cold again.
The orange blob stops bouncing. Its glow flickers erratically, as if confused. The other two bob in place, little living embers hesitating at the rim of my crater, reacting to something about me that they clearly don't understand.
I blink at them. They blink at me. The universal handshake of "what the hell is going on."
These types of creatures aren't something I'm used to seeing outside video games or visual novels (often adult-oriented). Therefore, it's safe to assume that if these blobs aren't Satan's infernal spawns sent here to torment me in my afterlife, I must be in a realistic dream.
"Hi," I blurt out, expecting speech comprehension from someone's forgotten strawberry jelly that reemerged from the fridge as a result of a house fire. "I'd appreciate it if you, uh, didn't try to fry me?"
The Slimes, ever the eloquent creatures, respond with a profound silence.
One of the smaller ones attempts to relocate me by bumping into me. Fully expecting my jeans to catch fire, I yelp. Stop. Realize that the new sizzling sound is coming from the small attacker. Its form shimmers uncertainly, the orange glow dimming noticeably as soon as it makes contact with me. Like an ember that someone just dumped a bucket of water on.
It bounces back with a splash and shoots me a look that almost makes me feel bad for it.
"It's fine," I raise my hands in a placating gesture. "I-I'll just... go. Now."
My shoes are already committing to the promise.
Mud grips my soles like resentful hands as I angle toward the rim of the crater. Every movement sends a dull protest through my ribs and shoulders, the kind of ache that follows a serious fall and a terrible life choice. Breath turns white in the chilly air.
The nearest slime hops sideways to cut me off. Its core flares, a tiny sun in a bowl of orange jelly, then lurches at my leg.
Warmth brushes my jeans again.
And, once again, dies.
The flame inside the creature's body gutters. The glow shrinks to a feeble ember, skin going from orange to weak egg yolk. Steam hisses from its surface, as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water straight into its core.
My calf tingles with a pins-and-needles chill, as if the heat reversed course and turned into static. A crisp sensation that fades fast.
The drained slime gives a pitiful jiggle and flops backward, edges sagging. Its two companions recoil in unison. They bunch up, cores flaring bright again, then fire a pair of compact projectiles at my chest from a safe distance.
Twin sparks sizzle through the air.
They puff out like cheap birthday candles as soon as they touch me, reduced to a harmless brush of lukewarm air and a faint whiff of ash. That brief frostbite prickle runs through my skin again.
The orange blobs wobble violently, cores strobing, a silent panic in jelly form.
One emits a strangled blurp, bounces in place twice, until all three retreat in a frantic scramble. They leave a little trail of steaming droplets in the mud, launch themselves into a low bush at the clearing's edge, and vanish between dripping leaves.
Silence falls back over the crater, aside from rain pricking my hoodie and the distant rush of water. My pulse drums loud in my ears.
Something tugs sharply at my left earlobe, like a hook catching.
When my fingers brush the spot, they find a tiny hard shape hanging there: a faceted crystal, about the size of a large pea, cool and smooth. It gives a faint inner glow, icy blue and pink edges pulsing in a slow heartbeat.
Strange. I don't remember putting it on.
Beyond the lip of the crater, the world finally comes into full view.
A narrow dirt track cuts through the trees ahead, wheel ruts softened by water and age. Moss smothers rocks along the roadside, and pale flowers nod under the drizzle. Through a break in the canopy, far in the distance, a pale stone statue rises on a hill, arms lifted to the sky, a huge pair of wings curling behind it.
Wind funnels through the forest in a single sharp gust. Leaves rattle. Birds explode from branches in every direction. The hairs at the back of my neck stand up.
From somewhere off to the right comes a low, guttural yelp, followed by the thunk of wood hitting wood. Twigs snap. Something large and bipedal moves through the underbrush, closing in on the impact site.
A figure pushes between the trees and steps into the clearing.
Taller than me by a head, body wrapped in mismatched hides and rough cloth, a bone mask strapped to its face with crooked horns. A patchwork shield hangs from one arm, and in the other hand, it clutches a club studded with rocks. Wet fur and smoke cling to it like cheap cologne.
It halts at the edge of my crater, peering down at me. The creature lets out a confused grunt, tilts its head, and sniffs the air. The club lifts a little higher in its grip.
This is definitely a dream; I gaslight myself consecutively. Disappointingly, my racing chest muscle seems to disagree with that notion, pushing me to the verge of heart failure.
Between the thumps of my bloodstream and the roars of the creature, I manage a weak smile that pulls new pathways for sweat and other bodily fluids trailing down my cheeks.
Stay cool. Maybe this... monster... thing... will leave once it realizes the loser in front of it poses around as much danger as a stuffed capybara.
"I am t-truly, terribly sorry for, um, invading your... territory?" I try, raising hands in a placating gesture.
Slimes with cute eyes that tickled me warmly (still not sure what happened there) are on a different level from a gigantic mountain of fur with a whole trunk as its weapon.
With slow but firm enough movements, the mud under my shoes gives way, a wet slurp under each step. My thighs protest, ribs complain, the heart thunders like it wants to crawl up my throat and bail without me.
The reaction is mixed. The masked creature watches every centimeter I gain like a hawk eyeing an unfamiliar animal. When I move, it moves.
It drops into the edge of the crater with a heavy whump, dirt sliding under its hooves. Up close, it feels bigger: thick forearms braided with old scars, leather straps studded with bones, the reek of a cheap perfume sample I never asked for intensifying.
The monster pauses. The club hangs at an angle rather than cocked for an immediate skull-crunch. It tilts its head, mask horns skewing, and gives a confused, warbling sound from its chest.
Its attention drops to my raised, empty arms. To my soft, mud-splattered body. To the crater at my back.
An easy prey, it concludes.
In two strides, it closes the distance, the shield coming up between me and the forest. The crude plank surface fills half my vision, stained and chipped. The other half is a cracked-bone mask and a glimmer of eyes behind it, trying to decide whether I am food or trouble.
The club jabs forward without warning.
I try to step back, but my shoe sinks deeper in the slurry and my balance pitches. The blow glances off my shoulder instead of my face, a sideways impact that rattles my teeth and sends a hot line of pain down my arm.
For a second, sparkling static fills my vision.
I stagger but stay upright. Whatever martial art sessions I guilt-tripped myself into over the years pay a tiny dividend.
Something in my ear vibrates and emits a soft sigh. A faint, transparent box flickers into existence at the corner of my sight, like a HUD in a game.
STATUS
Health: 74% (-6%)
Condition: Bruised shoulder
Tip: Blunt objects hurt
I don't remember buying AR glasses.
The beast huffs again when its test strike doesn't get me floored. It gives my shoulder a short, baffled grunt, then raises the club higher this time, intent clear even through the crude mask. Rain runs down the wooden length, collects at the stone-studded end, and drips off in slow, steady drops as it starts to swing.
"Motherfu—!"
Whether the interrupted curse is directed at the monster or the author of the helpful tip is unclear even to me.
My neurons trade half-baked retorts for action. There's a squeak of shoes, followed by a temporary state of weightlessness, before the epic climax of wet thuds and mud splashing everywhere arrives. I feel how the chill ground pushes air out of my lungs, the axes rotating for a while until I finally stop rolling.
Thank you, Japan, for inventing souls-like games.
A glance to the side reveals a heavy piece of wood where I was standing mere seconds ago. I notice with relief that the club is all brown instead of red. At least, so far. Adrenaline shuts out the pain and pushes me back up, in time with the beast raising its weapon. It turns to strike again at the scrambling and squeaking worm beneath its feet.
"HEEELP!" I scream as soon as my lungs refill, my dirtied knees and hands fighting for purchase and distance.
This dream is turning into a nightmare rather fast.
My shout rips out of my throat and slams into the trees. For a heartbeat, nothing else answers.
The masked brute does.
It bellows, a raw, ugly sound that vibrates in my ribs, and lifts the club two-handed now. Mud drips from the stones embedded along its length. It looms over me, shoulders hunched, arms tensing for the downswing.
The world narrows to wet wood, dark sky, and the knowledge that my skull is about to be turned into a fondue set.
Wind hisses.
A pale teal arc slices in from my left, trailing leaves and rain with it. The air pops in my ears. Something solid connects with the Hilichurl's wrist.
Crack.
The club jerks off-course, slamming into the ground so close to my side that dirt sprays my face and neck. The brute staggers, roaring, one arm hanging funny.
I feel the gust that follows like a slap of cold air across my back. Threads of jade light scatter in all directions… and the ones that brush my shoulders wink out. No impact or sting. The breeze exists, the energy doesn't. My earring pulses sharply once and stops.
The monster lurches forward anyway, off-balance but still frighteningly large.
A figure with blonde hair and a white-and-gold outfit is already there.
He moves with that terrible, unfair grace I've only seen in trailers and speed-runs: one fluid step, sword drawn in a blur, point low. His expression is tight.
Steel bites into the monster's exposed side. The impact sends it wheeling away from me, hacking coughs tearing out from behind the bone mask. It tries to raise the shield, but the stranger pivots, drives a boot into its knee, and finishes the sequence with a sharp upward cut that opens its chest.
The enemy topples into the mud, limbs twitching once, twice, until it stills. Rain patters on dead fur.
"Whoa!" a small, high voice yelps above me. "Paimon knew that shout sounded bad!"
A round, floating… child? Sprite? Emergency food? She bobs into view near my head, little boots dangling, white hair flipping with each agitated bounce. Her big dark blue eyes dart from the corpse to me, widen even more, and she flutters closer, peering without any concept of personal space.
"You look like a boar cart ran over you," she blurts. "Are you still in one piece?"
The blond swordsman steps between me and the body out of habit more than need, then glances down at me. Rain slicks his bangs to his forehead. Up close, I catch details: golden eyes, travel-worn gloves, breathing a little harder than he shows.
He plants his sword tip in the ground, rests one hand lightly on the hilt, and studies me with a mix of concern and wary curiosity, like he's trying to decide if I'm another monster or someone he just rescued.
"Can you stand?" The flying fairy asks, buzzing around me like a persistent fly.
"Yeah." I stand up, wincing at the protesting muscles. One hand flies to my shoulder, pressing at the wet texture of my hoodie. The rain leaves smudges of brown on me, a stench of iron and earth clinging to me like a second skin. "I think."
Everything feels too realistic to be a dream, as signified by the echoing clattering around me and the shaking of the ground beneath me.
No, wait. That might be on my teeth and legs.
The floating white shape flies a little closer, looking too worried to be classified as an oversized, deadly mosquito.
"You're a," I pause when I look for the right word, "fairy?" Nothing will surprise me anymore today.
"Hey! Firstly, rude," she huffs, hands flying to her hips. "Paimon is Paimon, thank you very much."
"Oh. Apologies."
The indignation comes with full-body flailing. She still doesn't move away from my face.
"Paimon's never heard of this 'fairy' thing, but it sounds like you're making Paimon shorter on purpose!"
"I assure you, size matters little to me. And thank you." My last words are for the mysterious man sheathing his weapon.
Paimon's normal-sized companion lets a short breath escape through his nose that might be a laugh he's pretending isn't there. He wipes his sword clean on the dead monster's ragged fur, slides the blade back into its sheath, then steps closer, boots sinking a little into the wet ground.
"You can call me Traveler," he says quietly. The voice is calm, even if the muscles in his forearm still look ready to move. "And Paimon is Paimon, like she said. We're… well, travelers."
Paimon brightens at being introduced, immediately forgetting the fairy blooper. She does a twirl in midair as if to show off.
"Yup! We go around helping people, fighting monsters, looking for Traveler's sister… and trying very hard not to get flattened by things falling out of the sky," she adds, eyeing the crater, then me.
My brain tries to wrap itself around the situation, but it seems covered in slippery oil. I shake my head in hopes of silencing internal questions with no logical explanations.
"It's… nice to meet you, Traveler and Paimon," I try instead, stretching out my hand towards the blonde man.
As soon as I notice its black state, I pull it back awkwardly, shoving it into the wet pocket of my ruined clothes.
"I guess I'm lucky you got to help people, fight monsters, and look for your sister at this exact time, at this exact," a stretch of silence of the forest listening in on me, "location."
I blink, my feet carefully taking me further away from the monstrous body my savior dispatched with ease.
"Do you happen to know the, ah, name of the exact location in question?"
"We're on the edge of Mondstadt's territory," Traveler says. His voice stays even, low enough that the rain almost swallows it. He lifts his chin toward the distant hill. "Near Starfell Lake. That's one of the Statues of the Anemo Archon."
The winged figure I spotted earlier feels bigger now that it has a name, as if the world just zoomed out a notch.
As the word settles in my ears, something flickers at the edge of my vision. A translucent pane slides into place, hovering obediently a few centimeters away from my retina.
REGION DISCOVERED
Mondstadt: Starfell Valley
Gentle winds, frequent Hilichurl patrols
Tip: Stay alert
The box fades before I finish a blink, leaving a ghost impression and a throbbing pulse from the crystal in my ear.
Paimon follows my gaze to the hill, then back to the crater. Her brows knit.
"Starfell Valley is right," she mutters, spinning once in the air. "Something definitely dropped out of the sky. Trees were shaking, the wind went strange, even the Slimes ran away! Paimon thought it was a ruin guard waking up again, not a person in… uh…" she squints at my fit, "…whatever that style is."
Her eyes linger on my soaked clothes and the smear on my shoulder. Concern wins over snark. She drifts nearer, little gloved fingers hovering awkwardly, like she wants to poke my bruise but restrains herself.
"That thing hit pretty hard," she says, nodding at the corpse. "You took a glancing blow, and you're still upright. Are you used to fighting? Or just really, really stubborn?"
The Traveler's attention keeps slipping to my left ear. His brows draw together a fraction.
"That accessory," he says, gaze sharpening. "I've seen gems react to elemental energy, but when I used Anemo just now…" He trails off, searching my face for any hints of understanding about what he's talking about. He finds none. "It didn't touch you. The power just… disappeared."
The unknown names and definitions create an even bigger puddle in my brain, causing all my neurons to slip and slide around like a bunch of newbie ice-skaters forced to practice during a blizzard.
"That's— You mean, your amazing wind trick?" I connect quickly, pointing at the sword at the Traveler's side. "I suppose it did."
So they call magic 'elemental energy' in this world, huh?
"There were these… Slimes here earlier, too," I remember, wrinkling my nose. "They sent fireballs at me and even bounced menacingly, but nothing happened. My clothes aren't even burned that much. Though—" What was once my favorite hoodie is now brown. The perfect color to represent my situation. "—I suppose worse things have happened since then."
My eyebrows furrow together neatly, but the surrounding world stubbornly continues to exist, similarly to my growing headache. "To be fair, I'm a little confused. I don't remember how I got here exactly."
Traveler's eyes stay on me for a long second, then slide to the charred ring of earth and the broken tree I apparently punched out of the sky.
"So Pyro and Anemo both fizzled," he says, half to himself. "And you walked away from that crater with only bruises."
Rain beads on his lashes. He looks me over again, this time like I'm a problem he's trying to map out. Paimon, on the other hand, reacts like someone just flipped every panic switch in her head.
"You forgot how you ended up making that big hole?" She zips around me, checking the back of my head, my shoulder, my face. "Do you remember anything? Your name? Where did you come from? Mondstadt? Liyue? Inazuma? Snezhnaya? Paimon can list more if that helps!"
Before she finishes the list, something appears up near the center of my vision, like a notification fighting for screen space.
MIND STATUS
Memory: Partial
Recent events: Unindexed
Long-term identity: Stable
Hint: Head trauma plus sky impact may cause short-term gaps
My temple throbs in agreement.
The man notices my wince. "Losing parts of what happened before a fall like that isn't unusual. The part that worries me is everything else."
He lifts his left hand, palm outward. A faint swirl of teal pulls together above his skin, compressed wind forming a tiny, spiraling orb. Leaves twitch around me, responding to the shift in the air.
"I want to check something." His gaze meets mine, steady, cautious. "If you let this touch you, I can see whether what happened earlier wasn't a coincidence."
Paimon hovers closer to my shoulder, eyes shining with a mix of fear and curiosity. "Don't worry, he's good at this. Just a little breeze thingy! If it pops as the Hilichurl's attack did, then… uh, then you're even stranger than Paimon thought. In a good way!"
A small cough escapes her. "Probably."
I give a weak nod. There's no doubt these two wouldn't be so polite if they wanted to murder me in cold blood, right after saving me. Con me? Maybe. But it's not like I have anything of value on me.
Safe for my organs. I value my kidneys a lot.
"Sure," I mumble, stretching my darkened hand towards the magical source of elemental energy produced by the Traveler. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Or so they say."
The silent buzz above me intensifies, the curious blue eyes audibly jumping between the blonde man and me. The little vortex hovers over his palm, humming against my skin like a mosquito made of air and light. Droplets hang oddly in its pull, slowing as they fall.
He brings his hand closer.
The instant the spinning wisp grazes my fingers, the world hiccups.
The pressure vanishes. The cool sting of rain rushes back. There's a faint pop in my ears, like someone yanked a plug out of reality. The swirling light ceases. Without a scatter or a blowback, not even a breeze on my knuckles.
My crystal earring flares once, bright enough that the inside of my eyelid goes pink for a heartbeat.
Something overlays my vision:
SYSTEM NOTICE
An external wind-type source contacted the skin
Conversion result: 0%
Outcome: Energy annulled
Paimon yelps and flutters backward, hands over her mouth. "It blinked out again! Paimon didn't even feel a breeze this time!"
My savior's fingers stay frozen where the sphere used to be. His eyes, though, jump from my hand to the earring, then to my face.
"I didn't pull it back," he says, more to himself than to me. "It didn't disperse into the air either. It was cut off."
He closes his fist slowly, as if testing for any lingering flow through his body. Nothing, apparently, because his brow furrows.
Paimon edges close to me again, orbiting like a tiny, anxious moon. "You really are weird. In an interesting way! Slimes fizzle on you, wind tricks vanish, that gem shines like it's about to start talking…" Her nose wrinkles as she gets a fresh whiff of my newly acquired aroma. "Also, you smell like you lost a wrestling match with a swamp."
The ground feels colder now that the rush is ebbing. Shivers start to creep in beneath the lingering adrenaline; my damp clothes cling, heavy and chilly. The throbbing in my shoulder has settled into a steady pulse that argues with every breath.
Traveler notices the way I tense. The concern comes back into his eyes, pushing the analytical edge aside a little.
"There's a statue not far from here," he says, nodding toward the hill I saw earlier. "The Anemo Archon's form. The surrounding breeze helps with injuries and fatigue. If you let us walk with you there, you can rest, and I can see how it reacts to you and that… shard."
Paimon perks up at that, bobbing in agreement. "Yeah! And maybe you remember more on the way. Like where you lived before crashing into the forest. Or if you always had that thing in your ear."
She squints at my face again. "You did say you don't remember how you fell. But do you remember where 'home' is at all? Any city name? Anyone waiting for you?"
That's a good set of questions. Grounded enough to calm my panicking neurons, acting like a bunch of spineless corporate rats that just learned firsthand why lying on their resumes might have been a bad idea in retrospect.
"Yeah," I remember. Faces pop into my memories, thankfully without any artificial UIs overlaid atop them. "My family, I guess? Perhaps they now have one less disappointment to worry about."
Clearly, my head trauma is more significant than I initially assumed, since my tongue ignores its direct commands.
Our newly formed party moves outside my crash landing site, stepping (or flying, depending on the person) out of the small mud crater. The Traveler, being the gentleman that he is, ensures I don't break my legs while descending a small slope leading through the thick of the forest to a small lake.
One brief look back reveals a scene telling a story that whatever fell from the sky might have been the cause of death of the furred corpse in a growing brownish-red puddle at its center.
I wonder. Will the locals start bringing reinforced umbrellas for their forest walks after seeing it?
"And I come from a big city. Though, given the fact my place doesn't have flying—" A pause as I feel a snap of cosmic eyes at me. "—Paimons, its name probably won't ring any bells to you. Does 'Earth' mean anything to you?"
Paimon's little boots swing as she tilts her head at you, trying to place the name you dropped.
"Earth? As in, the ground?"
"No, no. Earth with capital 'E'."
"Paimon never heard of that nation. Is it near Sumeru? Or one of those tiny islands people forget to draw on maps?"
Traveler doesn't even pretend it's just some obscure region. His gaze flicks sideways to me, thoughtful.
"Is that… from here?" His tone is careful. "From this world."
The word "world" lands heavily. I watch Paimon's eyes dart between the two of us, catching that extra weight without fully understanding it.
"Sorry, my navigation died on the way down from the sky," I grumble.
"We're in Teyvat." Traveler explains. "Is it known to the people from your Earth?"
The trail winds down. I allow it to answer in my stead.
Roots knot across the dirt, slick with rain. Traveler keeps just ahead, choosing where to place his feet first, pausing at the more treacherous spots. Whenever the slope steepens, his hand hovers close enough to grab if I slip, without quite touching.
The smell changes as I reach the bottom: less soil, more cold water, and wet stone. Through a break in the trees, the lake comes into view, quiet and glassy under the gray sky. Ripples shiver across its surface where drizzle falls, distorting a tall silhouette at the center.
The statue rises from a rocky island like a pale guardian in the middle of the water, wings spread wide, head bowed. Wisps of soft teal gather around its base, drifting upward in slow loops. The air nearby tastes different: cleaner, cooler, a sweet note under the damp.
Paimon spins to face the statue, shaking off the moment. "Anyway! This is one of Barbatos' statues. People come here to pray, make wishes, feel better, or just nap in the grass and pretend Hilichurls don't exist."
The blonde man steps to the edge of the bank, eyes on the winged figure. The breeze around him picks up, barely more than a caress on my cheek, tugging at the tips of his hair.
"When I first touched it," he says quietly, "it answered me. Gave me strength I couldn't draw on before." He glances back at me, gaze flicking once more to the star at my ear. "I'm wondering how it reacts to you. If the wind here keeps its shape, or falls apart like before."
Paimon nods vigorously. "The air around these things is super gentle and tingly. It helps with cuts and tiredness. If it works on you, you'll feel better. If it doesn't… Um, Paimon is sure it will!"
She drifts down to hover at about chest height, hands clasped as if watching a stage.
"You can get closer if you want," she adds, less pushy for once. "We won't force you. Falling out of the sky and then poking god-statues on the same day is a lot."
Rain taps on the lake, dimpling the reflected wings into a hundred broken feathers.
A shrug of "I'm just rolling with it somehow" is my answer as I approach the statue.
This towering, angelic depiction might be a god of these lands, and given Paimon's earlier offhand comment, my assumptions are most likely correct. I should get used to respecting invisible, higher beings, unless I want to run through the 'game over' screen.
"Barbatos, huh?" I mumble, more so to myself rather than to my new tutorial guides. A young smile welcomes me from underneath a carved alabaster hood. "Hello. Please don't smite me."
I notice symbols at the base of the stone; weird little scratch marks forming repeating patterns. My vision glitches briefly, the letters glowing brightly until they snap and rearrange into different shapes entirely — these I can read.
"The world opens itself before those with noble hearts."
A glance back at my rescuers reveals only their anticipation. Figures. They haven't commented on my earlier HUD elements.
I return my attention to the statue and place my left palm on its pillar.
... And pull it back almost as quickly, with a sharp hiss through my teeth. As soon as the contact breaks, the chilly sting aimed directly at my soul vanishes completely, leaving nothing more than an unpleasant memory and an ugly frown on my face. Instinctively, I cup the zapped hand with my other one.
Paimon gasps behind me, while the Traveler stares in silence.
"Guess I'm not noble enough?" I try, turning to face the duo again. "Should have been a better person, I guess." The bitterness is tangible on my tongue. "Or, maybe it's because I'm not from Teyvat."
Judging by the blonde's eyebrows, something about what happened just now wasn't an expected outcome, despite the circumstances.
Paimon zips in front of me, hands clapped over her mouth, eyes round.
"That looked awful," she blurts. "The statue's breeze is supposed to feel all soft and tingly, like… like warm wind off a stew pot! Not like you just dunked your hand in snowmelt."
Traveler steps closer, gaze dropping to my palm. He doesn't grab it; instead, he angles himself so that the rain hits him, and not me, while he inspects it. The skin has gone a bit pale, goosebumps racing up my wrist. It feels fine now, but I remember that cold threading through bone.
"That shrine's blessing usually eases wounds," he says slowly. "It flowed through me when I first reached out to it. What happened to you was the opposite."
The breeze around the statue stirs, brushing over my cheek, through my hair. Wisps of teal swirl lazily above the lake… and when they drift near me, they lose color and unravel into plain, damp air — the world's softest bug zapper.
Something flickers across my vision again, tugging my attention whether I want it or not.
ANEMO NODE
Link attempt: FAILED
Reason: Entity classified → GI-Descender
Elemental exchange: 0 → 0
Archon access: Restricted
The box snaps out of existence before I manage to focus on it properly, leaving just the afterimage of "GI-Descender-7" floating in my thoughts like a migraine aura.
Paimon keeps circling, worry cranking her pitch higher. "You must have come from somewhere really far away. But even then, the statues don't typically harm people. Maybe they just… can't read you?"
"I came from very far away, too," Traveler says. "This land isn't where I started, either. Yet the wind here still answered when I asked." A pause, then, carefully: "Whatever you are… It's not the same as me."
The wind gusts once, stronger, as if in disagreement. For a heartbeat, the air thickens around everyone. Tiny green motes rise from the grass, spiral gently around Traveler's hand, then drift toward me. The instant they near my skin, they die, color bleeding out until they're just cold droplets again.
Paimon watches what happens and pulls a face. "Okay, that's super weird. The blessings peel off you like rain off oiled parchment. Even the dragon's miasma didn't do that."
Adorable. They have dragons, too.
Considering these variables now would only make things worse.
"It appears that I may be a Descender," I try, fishing for my companions' reactions. The term seems familiar to them. "Which, I suppose, checks out, given my recent, um, sudden descent." My eyes meet the Traveler's golden ones. "I don't suppose you happen to be the sixth Descender? Or, err, perhaps you know of the other five? Do the local deities also dislike them?"
That question stirs even more confusion than my apparent, game-breaking bug.
"You know that term?" Paimon's voice jumps half an octave. "Where did you hear it? That one book in Enkanomiya? Nahida? Dainsleif?"
The blond man goes very still. His shoulders tighten the way they did right before he cut down the Hilichurl, only this tension aims inward.
Before either of them says more, my vision jitters.
Something slides in from the corner of my sight, sharp and insistent, like a notification I never subscribed to.
IDENTITY FLAG
Class: GI-Descender [Cursed]
Designation: Seventh
Status: Unsynced, Unbound by Irminsul
Related Entities: First-Sixth [Critical]
Archon interference: Prohibited
Celestial correction protocols: Suspended
World integrity risk: Escalating
Tip: Descenders exhibit unstable authority over reality. Cross-contact likelihood: ↑
The panel flickers, glitches into a rain of pixels at the edge of my vision, and is gone. The afterimage of that red "Critical" clings behind my eyelids.
My head throbs in time with my pulse.
Traveler's mouth flattens into a thin line.
"You called yourself one of us… an outsider capable of defying fate," he says. "Lord Kusanali told me the tree of this world refuses to catalog certain beings. That I'm counted as the fourth of them."
He shakes his head once.
"I've never heard of the sixth. Or any numbers above mine, only that there were others before me. A 'first' who disrupted fate, and more whose traces twisted things so badly that even Irminsul can't show them clearly."
Paimon chews her lip, then blurts, "The Dendro Archon said you came from beyond the firmament. Like a star that crashed here. But you…" She waves at my muddy, shivery self. "You act like you already know all that. And you said there are more? With… powers like yours?"
First yellow flag I raised. A few more, and they might burn me on a stake; admittedly, that would do for a pretty satisfying BBQ. The Hilichurls could join in as well.
"I'm not sure." Truths always work, especially as white lies. I shrug, looking up at Barbatos' frozen-in-time smile. "That's why I asked."
"You mentioned a 'Dendro Archon,'" I pick up almost instantly, observing flickers of teal energy catching some lone raindrops with them in the air. "Is it another god of yours? Like the Barbatos guy over here?" The Barbatos guy over here doesn't move by even an inch to confirm. A frown tugs at my lips. "Hm, I suppose I have some history classes to attend. Or, more so, religion classes?"
I turn back to the flying not-fairy and the blonde man. Their expressions tell me they're not on the "stab her in the back as soon as she turns: suspicion level yet, but they're reaching the "we should keep an eye on this strange, ugly creature" one.
"I'm tired," I admit with sagging shoulders. "If you're worried about me suddenly going around on a crazy, murderous rampage and destroying the world, I'll let you know that I lost that ambition about three failed job interviews for a villain position ago."
The wind coughs awkwardly.
"I should probably clarify that that was a joke. The villain part. I did... fail some job interviews, that part was true." A hand flies to the nape of my neck.
Paimon chokes on a breath.
"Don't say things like that while standing next to a god statue!" she hisses, glancing up at the stone wings as if they might fold down on you. "The winds are listening! Probably. Maybe. Anyway, bad idea."
The blond man's mouth twitches at the corner.
"People who joke about burning the world while shaking in wet clothes and asking for history lessons aren't usually the ones who do it," he says. "The ones I've seen break things the worst don't warn anyone first."
His eyes rest on me a moment longer, then he exhales, some edge leaving his shoulders.
"As for what you asked earlier," he continues, picking up the thread, "yes. The one we met in Sumeru is another of this land's ruling beings. She governs wisdom and plants. This one—" he nods up at Barbatos' stone form "—is the patron of this region and commands wind. Each major land has a patron like that."
Paimon bobs in eager agreement, latching onto the safer topic. "There are seven big ones! Anemo, Geo, Electro, Dendro, Hydro, Pyro, and Cryo. Each rules a nation. You've met the wind statue. The plant one is very short, smart, and likes stories about faraway places."
She pauses, squints at me. "You and she would probably get along. If she doesn't lock you in a room with books and nuts."
The attempt at humor lands a bit crooked; she's still watching the way I slump, the way my shoulders sag under the soaked fabric. I can feel water creeping down my spine in slow, cold rivers.
Traveler takes that in, too. His gaze runs over the bruised shoulder, the mud, and the way my fingers keep rubbing the back of my neck like I'm trying to hold myself together.
"You're worn out," he says. "And chilled. Mondstadt's city isn't far from here. High walls, food, dry rooms. We were headed there anyway. You can rest, and we can figure out what to tell the Knights about you after you've warmed up."
A glimmer slides across my sight, tidier than the earlier glitchy notices. This one actually looks like a UI designer tried.
QUEST UPDATED
• Reach the city of Mondstadt with the Traveler and Paimon
• Find shelter and basic supplies
Condition
Health: 72%
Energy: 56% ↓
Temperature: Low (14 °C, wet clothes)
Tip: Seek warmth, food, and rest
Paimon tracks my eyes as they skim empty air, totally oblivious to the floating panels. She edges closer, lowering her voice in what she thinks is a private aside, right near my ear.
"You look like you're about to keel over," she says. "Paimon votes for heading to the city, too. We can ask more questions later. And maybe find you something that doesn't smell like a wet Hilichurl."
The Traveler gives a small nod, decision made. "We'll talk more about those titles you used," he adds, "but not while you're shivering."
"A sound plan," I agree.
And sneeze.
That does an even better job at convincing them.