Chapter Text
Aether blinked, looked at Paimon, looked at the Bird-Mask on the ground, and then looked back to Paimon.
Her shrill voice made him jump. “Well c’mon! Let’s go xxxxbones! Paimon didn’t do all this for nothing.”
All this. A rescue mission. For him.
‘Caring for someone could never be a mistake’
Aether jumped up to his feet, wobbled slightly, his knees still weak from being electrocuted.
“Whoa, be careful Aether, you look kinda xxxx, are you alri–oomph!”
Aether held Paimon tight against his chest, semi-collapsing on her, burying her face in his scarf.
Paimon pushed him away a bit and made a face. “Ugh, you’re too heavy! Get off!” She squirmed and kicked, so Aether released her, but then his knees gave out and he almost fell right on top of the Bird-Mask. “Whoa!” Paimon said, flying underneath his armpit to give him support. “Okay well…you can hang on a little…”
Some pieces were being put together in Aether’s head. “Paimon,” he said. “That big sound earlier?”
Paimon grinned. “Hehe yep, that was allllll Paimon.” From seemingly nowhere, she produced a small, strange object. It was spherical, maybe made of metal? And it was designed to look like a small round animal poking its head out of some kind of sack. It looked like a child’s toy. Aether couldn’t fathom what it would be used for.
Paimon noticed his confusion, and a mischievous light glistened in her eye. With all her strength (which was decidedly, not much), she hurled the object towards the main cavern, still full of people trying to stabilize the framing and searching for the explosion’s root cause. It bounced a couple of times–pretty high, actually–until it rounded the corner completely and Aether could no longer see it.
“Cover your ears,” Paimon said.
Seconds later, another explosion shook the caves, just the same as before. Aether tried to steady himself and Paimon against the door frame, the shock traveling up his knees and knocking his bones together. Chaos bloomed in the other section, though Aether couldn’t see in what way exactly. It sounded quite like a lot of people got blown up.
“Paimon,” Aether said, carefully, “Where did you get that?”
“Uhhh, Draff found them! You want some? Paimon has more,” Paimon said, and two more of the explosives appeared in each of her hands. She offered them to Aether as if they were some kind of delicious snack.
Explosives were such a stupid weapon to use in their situation. He wasn’t opposed to violence at this point, with the circumstances being what they were, but if they made one wrong move, they would all be buried alive. Aether went to express this. “No, I don’t ‘want some’, are you wrong in the he–” And in that moment, a Hilichurl person rounded the corner from the main room. They stopped suddenly, and stared at Aether and Paimon. Aether and Paimon stared back. Then the Hilichurl started pointing and shouting, and a whole squadron of people armed with all types of weapons came rushing in.
Not missing a beat, Aether grabbed the two explosives from Paimon’s hands and chucked them at the oncoming force.
The room shook so bad that Aether was almost knocked to the ground again, but Paimon, free-floating and unaffected by terrestrial instability, grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, towards some tunnel he had never been in before. Despite the ringing in his ears, Aether had just enough sense left to stop, turning towards the giant still on the opposite side of the room. He detached himself from Paimon and started scrambling in its direction.
“Where are you going?!” Paimon shouted.
Out of breath, Aether reached the still and placed his hand on the glass of the boiling chamber. Somewhere, in the mix of all that thick, purplish fluid, there was a person who needed his help. He couldn’t spot a figure, either similar to the fairy-like form or otherwise, but Callirhoe was definitely in here. In the middle of the chamber was a faint and fading splotch of pure blue elemental energy.
Aether reached out an arm behind him. “Paimon! My sword!” he called.
Paimon blinked at him. “Paimon thought you had it.”
“Why would I have it?”
“Paimon doesn’t know. It’s your sword.”
Aether grunted in frustration, “Fine, I’ll just–” he stopped short, not entirely sure what to do. The glass was too thick to break with bare hands, and he couldn’t risk injuring Callirhoe by using one of Paimon’s mystery bombs. Aether’s head was pounding, he could feel his adrenal glands working overtime just to grant him enough strength to move his beaten body. There had to be something he could do.
Out of the corner of his eye, Aether spotted a Hilichurl person that must have gotten their feet back under them fairly quickly after the explosion, because they were armed with a crossbow, arrow aimed, flaming, about to head straight for Aether.
He ducked just in time. The arrow pierced the chamber behind him and stuck in the glass, cracks spider-webbing out from the impact. Aether examined it, then turned towards the Hilichurl person, who was looking extremely panicked at having damaged the still. Then, he gripped the arrow with both hands and pulled.
It came loose with a pop , and a small stream of liquid jetted out the crack. And then all at once, the cracked glass gave out, and the contents poured out and onto the ground. Aether tried to dodge, remembering the chemical burns, but he wasn’t quite fast enough in his current state, and his entire left leg was drenched in foul-smelling liquid. He winced, anticipating the sting, but none came. It felt just as cool and gentle as fresh spring water.
And then Aether watched as the growing pool of liquid diverted from gravity’s outlined path, rose up in a wave above his head, shot forwards and splashed down on his enemies. The strange neutralizing benevolence shown towards Aether was not extended to the Masks. Red rained down, hard, hissing as it hit its target, cloth and metal and skin corroding at an alarming rate. Wooden and elemental shields alike provided no cover from the storm.
There was a tug on Aether’s scarf. Paimon had caught up to him. “Paimon doesn’t really understand what just happened, but it’s time! To! Go! Now!” she said, emphasizing each word with another pull. Aether shook his thoughts away and went with her. She was right, after all. The explosions from the bombs earlier seemed to have set off some sort of chain collapse situation, and they probably didn’t have long before the entire cave system was buried under rubble. Huge chunks of rock detached from the ceiling and crumbled, snapping support frames and blocking off exits. Soon, there would be no way out at all.
Paimon led Aether down a tunnel, different from any of the ones they had taken before, but she seemed to know where she was going. Every bit of Aether ached and stung, and he could barely keep pace with the fairy. Twice, he had to stop to cough cave dust out of his lungs, and twice, he and Paimon were almost squished to death by falling boulders, but finally, they emerged in an area that was familiar to Aether. They seemed to have looped back around at some point, and were now standing in the place that Aether and Paimon had separated before, the sunlight shining in from above.
Aether realized where they were quickly, and anxiety struck him through the heart. Had she forgotten?
“Paimon,” he said. “I can’t climb up, and I’m not small enough to fit through–”
“HEAVE, HO!” shouted voices from above. Aether heard people, several people, struggling with something, then came the low growl of rock against rock, and the patch of dim sunlight grew brighter and wider.
Aether looked up to see several familiar faces.
“They’re here!” shouted Draff. “Lower the ropes!”
And Paimon had to pull him out of the way yet again, as Aether was stunned speechless at the sight of a netted rope ladder cascading down the side of the opening. It hit the floor with a thunk and kicked up a whole bunch more dust.
Draff’s face disappeared from view, but Aether heard him ask, to someone else on the surface, “Secure?”, and a thumbs-up appeared in the opening, silhouetted in the sunlight.
Paimon took the cue and held on fast to the rope ladder, motioning for Aether to do the same. It struck him, as the villagers of Springvale worked in tandem to pull them up, that Paimon could have easily flown up herself, but it really didn’t seem like the time to bring something like that up.
“Xxx your back into it!”
“Quickly, quickly!”
“Ah! It’s xxxxxxx my hands!”
“No xxxx meat for xxxxxxx lets go!”
The shouts of the villagers were fuzzy in Aether’s ears. He gripped the rope bridge so hard that his fingernails dug into his skin, but he only felt the pressure of it, and not the pain. Paimon just said something to him. Was it a question? Aether didn’t have the brain capacity to translate any more.
He watched as the cave floor crept further and further away, 5 meters, then 10, then 15, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a tall figure clouded in darkness, with broad, sharp shoulders and a spiked halo. Then, in a dim purple flash, the figure disappeared.
Several hands reached out to grab him then–by the scarf, the shirt, the armpits–and they hauled him over the edge of the opening, into full daylight. The brightness stung Aether’s eyes. Someone shouted something. He was vaguely aware of being carried somewhere. And then a loud boom resounded throughout the valley.
The next time Aether opened his eyes, he was back in bed at Draff’s house, and a cup of coffee that had long gone cool was sitting on the table at his bedside.
He stirred, stretched, then stopped. A bandage on his torso restricted his movement, adhesive pinching the skin underneath. Carefully, Aether maneuvered himself into an upright position and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
Next to the coffee was a vase full of calla lilies and several pieces of paper with various words scrawled on them. Aether had to study them for a while before he was able to loosely grasp the contents of each letter, which contained, as far as he could tell, words of gratitude and various attempts at spelling his name. The phonemes seemed to be difficult for people to get across in written Mondstadtian. There was one letter, in a young child’s formulaic handwriting, that tried to spell his name five different ways. All of the attempts were eventually scribbled over, and the letter was addressed simply to what Aether translated as “The Traveler”. Yeah. That worked.
The door to the room creaked open, and a familiar face peeked through.
“Oh!” said Brook, “You’re up! Sorry, do you need a moment?”
Aether immediately shook his head, then realized that his entire torso was bare except for a few bandages. He awkwardly wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.
Brook stepped fully into the room and smiled at him. “It’s good to see you awake,” she said.
“How long was I sleeping?”
“All of yesterday and most of today. You’re just in time for dinner, if you’re hungry.”
Involuntarily, Aether’s mouth started to water. “Yes, please,” he said.
A few minutes later, Brook came back with a hot bowl of meat stew and a large glass of water. It burned the roof of his mouth to eat it, but Aether couldn’t help himself. When was the last time he ate? Three days ago? He wasn’t as hungry as he had been when he first woke up alone in the fields of Mondstadt, but he was pretty sure that for most people, that was a long time to go without eating.
Brook cleared the old coffee next to him and started to head back out the door, but at the threshold, she stopped. “By the way,” she said, and Aether looked up, his face still deep in the bowl of stew. “If you’re feeling up to it, after you’re done eating,” here, a joyful glint lit up her eyes, “you should check outside.”
He heard it just before he opened the door–the softest pitter-patter of rain.
All around the village, people were celebrating in their own ways. Children ran and jumped hard into puddles, adults chatted and laughed with each other, holding out big buckets to catch the rainfall. There was even someone singing and playing a small harp under a tree, a song to the water and the sky and the clouds. Everyone was somewhere in between damp and soaking, and nobody seemed much to mind.
Aether stepped out from underneath the overhang of Draff’s front door, and held out a hand to catch falling droplets. The air was clear and warm, and all around, it smelled sweet, as if the village grounds were blossoming with hundreds of invisible flowers. Droplets peppered Aether’s arms and shoulders and head, and for a moment it felt like the rain came down with a bit more intensity, but only in the spot where he was standing, as if he had his own personal rain cloud.
“Thank you, ” whispered someone to his left, so softly that he only barely heard it, but when he turned, there was no one there.
“Mr. Aether!” called another voice, further away. A young child (a boy he had met before, but the name, Aether had forgotten. Something with a P?) waved to him from across the way. Behind the boy was another child, staring at Aether blatantly, their jaw literally hanging open.
Aether smiled and waved back, and before he knew it, the boy and the wide-eyed child were rushing him, jumping up and down.
“Mr. Aether, can we see your vision?” asked the boy excitedly.
Aether cocked his head. Callirhoe had asserted something similar. They weren’t talking about his ability to see elemental traces, were they? How would he show them that? And how would they even know about it in the first place?
“See, I told you he didn’t have one,” said the wide-eyed child.
“But all the cool xxxxxx have one! Plus, I heard he went head to head with the leader of the xxxxx xxxxx and won ! So how could you do that without a vision?”
“My big brother is in the xxxxxx of xxxxxxxx. He doesn’t have a vision, and he catches bad guys all the time!”
“Sure, but not the leader of the xxxxxx xxxxx,” said the boy, rolling his eyes.
“Does too!”
“Nuh-uh!”
Aether was becoming increasingly confused about the necessity of his presence in this conversation. “Excuse me,” he said, and both kids looked up at him. “Do you know where my friend is?” Paimon was way better at navigating these kinds of situations.
“You mean the little white fairy girl?” asked the boy, and Aether nodded.
“She went out with Diona’s dad and all the hunters, I saw them leaving,” said the wide-eyed kid. “I don’t think they’re back yet.”
“Hey, we gotta show him the spring!”
“Oh, yeah, yeah! The spring!” And simultaneously, both of Aether’s hands were grabbed and he was being pulled towards the center of town.
“HEY! Careful! He’s still recovering!” called a voice from afar, and Aether spotted Brook underneath a pitched up tent, ladling out bowls of steaming stew from a large pot over coals. Her gaze was fierce, and she gripped the ladle like a bludgeon.
Immediately, the pressure on Aether’s wrists relaxed, and he was able to stand up straight again. “Oops! Sorry,” said the boy.
“It’s alright,” said Aether, although he was honestly still stuck on Paimon going out with the hunters. Did they need someone to act as small and vulnerable-looking bait?
Nevertheless, he followed the three children to the spring at the center of town. Even from afar he could see the difference that the rain had already made, the surrounding vegetation now spry and full. Right near the edge, a few calla lilies bloomed, and Aether wondered if the ones by his bedside were from here.
“Old Finch! You’re all wet!” called the wide-eyed child, and indeed the old man was in his usual spot, uncovered despite the rain. His hunched-over figure turned to look at them as they approached.
“Haha, I guess I am!” said Old Finch with a smile. “And so are you!”
“Yeah but you’re old, and old people get sick and die. You should go inside.”
Old Finch chuckled again. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, and then he looked up towards the sky, letting the raindrops fall on his face. “I suppose I was just happy to see the rain again.”
“Mr. Aether, look here, see?! Look how much the water came back!” said the boy–Pepe, that was it–tugging once again on Aether’s wrist and pointing. Aether’s gaze followed Pepe’s finger, and he failed to stifle a small gasp.
The spring was half full of clear, sparkling water–a serious improvement from the last time he had seen it, and certainly enough to get excited about, but what Aether noticed was something he was sure the other people with him couldn’t detect.
From the center of the spring came the bright blue shine of pure elemental energy, its essence leaking into the spring water, merging with the rain. It didn’t present in a particular shape, but it was so clearly alive, thrumming, the beating heart of the spring.
So she managed to escape after Aether burst that tank open. That was good. But for now, at least, she still kept herself hidden from the villagers. Aether looked over at Old Finch, his face still directed at the sky. The wide-eyed child had wandered over to Old Finch’s side and started to tug on his shirt.
“C’mon uncle,” they said. “Mom will yell at me soon if we don’t go inside,” but Old Finch seemed to be lost in his moment, and he didn’t say anything. All he did was remove his hat from his head and hug it tightly to his chest.
The wide-eyed child was beginning to get annoyed. “Come on!” they said, tugging on his elbow now.
The scene caught Pepe’s attention. “Old Finch,” he said, letting go of Aether, “we have to go, it’s dinnertime and we still need to make a xxxxxxxx plate.”
Light returned to the old man’s eyes then. “Yes,” he said, nodding, “Yes, that’s right, now more than ever, I’d say…” His gaze lingered on the spring as Pepe moved to take his other hand, then quickly, Old Finch turned to Aether.
“I don’t know how you did it,” he said, “but thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
Aether smiled and nodded politely, and he watched as the two children and the old man walked each other down the lane.
When they were a reasonable distance away, Aether turned back to the spring, and was not surprised to see the small blue fairy-like form, leaning on the edge, wings folded, eye-sphere focused on the backs of the retreating figures.
“What is it about humanity,” said Callirhoe, “that makes them so willing to waste their short lives waiting?”
Aether wiped at his face. The rain had grown heavier. “I don’t know,” he said, “But is it up to us to decide if their waiting is a waste?”
They watched in silence, until the three figures could no longer be seen through the fog. Callirhoe still seemed to be lost in thought, so Aether decided to move the conversation forward himself.
“So…” he said. “You did all this?” Gesturing vaguely to the spring and the sky.
The question snapped Callirhoe out of it. “I’ve done what I can,” she said. “I’m still very weak, and it will take a long time for the corruption to run itself out of this village’s waters. I will stay and provide cleansing until Springvale is able to function on its own again.”
“And then…?”
“I will leave here, and not come back.”
Aether nodded. “I see. And the villagers?”
“They will live their lives oblivious to my existence, as they should have all along.”
And perhaps Aether would have left it there, if the longing in Callirhoe’s voice had not been so obvious, if her gaze was not still fixed on a figure that was no longer there. It may not be his place to guide the short lives of strangers, but who was he if not a meddler?
“I know I’m just some guy who doesn’t know anything about this,” he said, thinking of the look in Old Finch’s eyes when he thanked him, “but from what I’ve seen, even just the knowledge of your existence might be more important to them than you think.”
To that, Callirhoe had nothing to say, and so they waited and felt the rain, until Aether was aware of her presence retreating back into the spring.
“Aether!!!” called a high, nasally voice that had Aether’s ears perking up the second he heard it. He looked around, and through the fog, could just barely see Paimon, waving both arms at him. “Look what we found!!” she said.
Aether picked himself up off the wet ground and met Paimon, Draff, Allan, and Jotun halfway. They were all drenched, muddy, and on the hunters’ hands, there were thick leather gloves coated slightly in polluted purple goop.
“Aether, look!” said Paimon again “Ta-da!” And when she gestured at Jotun, he could now see what she had been so excited about. Instead of his own hunting supplies, Jotun carried on his back a familiar sword and bag.
“We found them stuck in a big blob of gooey stuff,” said Paimon. “And we had to blow up a buncha rocks to get to them. Sorry if they’re kinda messed up.”
Jotun slung the items off his back and held them out to Aether, and yes, the blade was dinged and the bag was torn, and they were both slathered with a thin patina of gel-like goop, but being magical items, Aether assumed they held up much better than the other things down in the cave system.
Either way, he was delighted to see his stuff again. Despite their bedraggled state, Aether took them from Jotun carefully and held them close. “Thank you,” he said, meeting each one of the hunters’ gazes before settling distinctly on Paimon.
“Awww, it’s no big deal,” she said, tucking her arms behind her back. There was a hint of a blush on her cheeks and she seemed to be having some trouble holding Aether’s gaze.
“It’s really us who should be thanking you,” said Draff. “Who knew the xxxxx xxxxx had such a huge xxxxxxxxx going right underneath our feet. Couple more weeks of that and who knows what would’ve happened.”
And now it was Aether’s turn to be embarrassed. “I didn’t do all that much,” he said. Honestly, he had spent at least half of his time being captured. It was kind of humiliating.
“Now that’s a load of nonsense if I ever heard it! Quit playing humble, your fairy friend already told us everything.”
“Clean-up is gonna be such a pain,” remarked Jotun, “but at least it’s over now.”
“I’m glad we were able to help, at least at the end,” said Allan.
That reminded Aether of something. “Oh,” he said, “where did those….” he didn’t know the word, so he mimicked an explosion with his hands, “come from?”
Draff caught on quickly. “Oh, those. There’s a Knight of xxxxxxxxx that likes to hide them in stashes around these parts. They could be dangerous to people, so I always gather them up when I can.”
Aether squinted. “Why?”
Draff looked about to speak, then stopped himself, uncertain. “Mondstadt is the land of freedom, I guess.”
“Can we go inside already?” said Paimon. “Paimon’s glad about the rain too, but she still doesn’t wanna catch xxxxxxxxxxxx.”
And so Jotun and Allan went their separate ways, and Draff led Paimon and Aether back to his house.
“There’s fresh towels in the closet, xxxxxxxx of Brook,” said Draff, “and I’m brewing up a pot of hot coffee now, if either of you are interested.”
“Thanks Draff! Oooh Paimon can’t wait to get dry and warm!” and then, despite the promise of towels, Paimon proceeded to shake the water off herself like a dog right next to Aether.
Aether let out a yelp of surprise and jumped away. When he looked back, he caught a
glimpse of the sly smile on Paimon’s face. Well, two could play at that game. Aether slung his dripping bag over his shoulder, so it landed square on top of Paimon’s head.
“Hey!” she said, flailing about. The soggy fabric had drooped so it covered almost all of Paimon’s face, and she looked for all the world like she had a magical snake-skin bag for a head.
Aether laughed and laughed, so hard his chest hurt (more than it did already), as Paimon tore the bag off and threw it to the floor.
“Bleh!” she said. “Rude! And after all Paimon did to get it back!”
He tried, but Aether couldn’t stop himself from laughing, tears forming in his eyes. Eventually, Paimon broke too, and they both ended up collapsing to the floor, caught up in a fit of giggles.
It was “recommended” that Aether stay in Springvale to recover for the next three weeks. His internal injuries were quite bad, and apparently he had something called a ‘concussion’. This “recommendation” was quite strongly enforced by Brook, who had found an ally in Paimon, who was unfortunately available to “look after” Aether most hours of the day. If Aether was honest about it though, he knew he needed the rest. It just made him anxious to sit in bed all day, when he should be out searching for Lumine. He had put off the task enough already. He tried to make good use of the time, practicing his spoken and written Mondstadtian, reading up on Teyvat’s history and studying maps. A particular bit of history caught his attention one afternoon, and he asked Paimon about it.
“Paimon, what’s this word here?”
“Huh? Oh, ‘Archon’. They’re the gods that rule over Teyvat.”
“Like spiritually or politically?”
Paimon shrugged, “It depends on the archon.”
“And they each control a specific elemental energy?”
“Yeah, that’s right. But regular people can control elemental energy sometimes too, if they have what’s called a ‘vision’.”
Perhaps it was one of these ‘archons’ that had attacked and separated Aether and his sister.
Many conversations from his time in Teyvat began to make sense as Aether studied. In his books, quietly, he searched for evidence of that burning city–the one that he and Lumine watched from atop that hill–but information seemed to be sorely lacking. The only historical event that came close to describing the events that Aether witnessed was the destruction of an entire nation by the heavens, but, according to the book, that had happened over 500 years ago. The sinking pit in Aether’s stomach grew deeper, and he didn’t dare to read any further.
Slowly, the three weeks passed, and Aether was finally allowed to make preparations to continue on his journey. Needless to say, he was supplied with no shortage of food.
“You make sure to take care of yourself, you hear?” said Brook, sternly wagging a finger at him. “I don’t want to hear about any more heroics from you.”
And an honestly unhealthy amount of coffee and alcohol from Draff.
“Don’t go drinkin’ it all in one go, that’s how you end up like me haha. Hey wait, how old are you?”
And it went on like that as Aether made his final rounds around Springvale–a poem from Myweiss, a bottle of ‘holy water’ from Hopkins, a flower from Pepe and a storybook from Old Finch–until all was prepared and all goodbyes were said.
All goodbyes, except for one.
Aether and Paimon sat together by the road that led out of Springvale, Paimon kicking her legs, and Aether absentmindedly playing with a stack of rocks.
“So….” said Paimon, “you’re heading out now?”
“Guess so.”
“You’re really good at learning languages. Paimon doesn’t think you’ll have any trouble in Mondstadt.”
“Thanks, Paimon.”
“But if you do need help you can just send Paimon a letter. Or…well…nevermind, there are probably lots of people in the city you could ask.”
An awkward silence hung in the air that made Paimon squirm and fidget. Aether continued to stack rocks. It was strange, somebody must have stacked them here previously. Aether was just kind of adding to it
“You know…Paimon had a really fun time traveling with you. We made a pretty good team, don’t you think? It’s kinda like we’re a real adventuring team–we got to eat yummy food, blast away some bad guys, save the town–the only thing that would’ve made it a real adventure is if we found treasure at the end of it.”
“Paimon.”
“Hmm?”
“Will you come with me to Mondstadt?”
“YES!! Umm, wait, Paimon means…sure, why not?” But the ferocity of her first answer had made Aether jump, and he accidentally knocked over the entire stack of rocks. And then, literally out of thin air, right in front of the both of them, a huge wooden chest appeared. They both stopped and stared at it, stunned to silence.
“Uh, Paimon, is that yours?”
“Paimon thought it was yours.”
They looked at each other.
“You open it, Paimon’s too scared to.”
“You’re scared of a box?”
“If it’s a creepy, mysterious ghost box, then yes, Paimon is.”
“Is that even a real thing?”
“Well clearly! Wahhh!”
The chest, having gotten tired of waiting, decided to swing itself open of its own volition,
which was why Paimon screamed. Though, once its contents were visible, her mood took a drastic turn.
“Wooooaaaahhh,” she said, ogling the shining pile of gold coins. The glint of the sun bounced off the coins and reflected in Paimon’s eyes. She turned to Aether, a wide smile slowly spreading on her face. “Aether! It’s our adventure treasure!”
“We can’t take that. What if it belongs to someone?”
“Ohhhh, don’t be such a stick in the mud. We helped the town, and now the gods have blessed us with treasure. All’s well that ends well!”
“I thought it was a ‘creepy ghost box’.”
“Silly Aether, there’s no such thing! Now help Paimon carry this.”
Aether sighed and rolled his eyes. There was probably no use fighting it. And so reluctantly, but with a hidden smile, he helped Paimon scoop the chest’s contents into their bag, and the two set off, side by side, on their journey to Mondstadt.