Chapter Text
The Akasha Terminal sits snug around her ear, a faint tone ringing long through the canal. The bright teal glow is visible from the corner of her eye, bouncing off the plain white of her bedroom wall. She breathes in slowly. Numbers flick into view at the top left corner of her vision.
12:58
The house is quiet. It always is without him. He won’t visit until next Saturday, so this is a good way to pass what free time she has.
She brushes her bangs back over her head. She’ll be in there for a while. The last thing she wants is to wake up with oily hair.
12:59
Her hands fold to rest over her abdomen, and she lets her head sink into the pillow beneath her. She should invest in a softer blanket. What better way to relax one’s body and mind than with something soft and warm? If only it would purr.
The silence grows numb as she watches the steady numbers of the clock. When the last two digits flick to zeros, she sighs and slips her eyes closed.
“Link start.”
Darkness fades into vivid colors as pixels and streams push past her eyelids and into her mind. The virtual screens load in and out, syncing her senses with her avatar’s and starting up the game while her Akasha Terminal connects to the server. With her grey virtual hands, she logs into the floating box.
Use Beta-Test Data?
Yes.
Welcome, Lumine!
Oh, she forgot about that. She’ll have to change it once she’s in.
The world spirals into shades of blues and purples as she delves further into the new reality. She breathes in.
And she’s back.
The smooth flutes and lyres of Mondstadt flow with the breeze. It’s the first thing most notice when they log in. An excited chill skims over her as she glances down at her avatar. Her new hands are fit into a pair of gloves she had obtained from a low-level boss fight. They aren’t very effective as armor, but she had wanted to look nice on her last day in a quiet Teyvat.
Now it belongs to the rest of the world. Well, at least the nine thousand other people who managed to get their hands on the game.
She has spawned on the highest point of Mondstadt—Starsnatch Cliff. Here, she has a nice view of the ocean. It’s a memory locked firmly into her brain, never to be forgotten. He doesn’t like Virtual Reality games as much as she does—in fact, he’s hardly touched them—but she really would like to bring him here. If only for this.
She grins. It’s his loss. For now.
Lumine’s fingers trail down the empty air in one smooth, practiced motion, summoning a series of setting options. Going through her inventory, it would seem she retained some of her earnings from her past adventures through Teyvat, though nothing extaordinary. Most of her gear is gone, and even her character level has reverted back down to one.
Well, that irks her abit, but she supposes it’s only fair. At least with the knowledge she has, Lumine won’t need to start entirely from scratch.
Equipping the Dull Blade, Lumine sets off. It has been a few months. She has to get back into practice if she wants to live up to her title as ‘Beta-Tester.’ It would be pretty embarrassing if she were to fall to a hilichurl on her first day back.
Only a few minutes in, she can already see a handful of noticeable changes the developers have installed. The music is quieter, blending into the background with its subtlety. Her movements aren’t as stiff as they had been before, and her arms no longer bend through the pit of her elbows. And a lot more detail has been put into the visuals—better lighting, softer textures, and smoother physics.
The one thing that has not changed, however, is the Dendro Slime.
Without a Pyro Vision, these things are impossible. They burrow their dumb little heads into the earth and wait. Anemo is relatively useless in situations like this.
“Cowards,” Lumine hisses, stabbing through the ground between its leafy hat. Her assault does nothing to harm it, of course, but she likes to imagine it does.
“Need some help?” asks a cheery voice from her right. Lumine turns away from the planted creatures to see a starter longbow loosely drawn in the hands of a girl. Short red hair is tied back into low pigtails that lift with the wind.
Lumine’s eyes catch on the soft red glint of stone at her hip.
Well, that’s convenient.
“Please, be my guest.” Taking several steps back, she holds out her arms in invitation. The girl draws back her bowstring with an almost reckless certainty and lets loose a barrage of flaming arrows into the sky. They land within the thin bounds of the burst’s radius, but Lumine takes another step nonetheless.
With a sad wheeze, the cluster of Dendro Slimes shatters into shards of glass.
“Huh. That was easier than I thought it would be,” the girl notes, staring at her bow in awe. Then, her eyes widen as though she had been caught in the act of some crime. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean it like that. I’m new to this, is all. Not just the game, but VR in general…”
Lumine breathes out a laugh. “I understand. Thank you for the help.” She crouches down to gather the loot left behind. “These guys are a pain without fire to smoke them out. I’m very lucky to have run into you.”
“Oh! Alright then.” The girl’s grin returns. “Happy to help!”
Lumine’s eyes trail to the string of letters above her red hair. “Outrider?” she wonders aloud, and the girl chuckles.
“Yeah. It was hard coming up with a name, but it was better than ‘Traveler twelve-o’-nine.’”
“I suppose that’s true.” The shimmering orbs burst into sparks, the contents rolling into her inventory. She leaves the remaining two untouched in the grass. “I’ll leave the rest to you. Thanks again for the help.”
“What? Oh, no. I already took your EXP! You should take them,” Outrider urges, waving her now free hands out in rejection.
Lumine shakes her head. “They give so little of it, it won’t make much of a difference to me. Since you're newer, it’ll do you more good to grow out of the novice levels.” She picks her words carefully, not wanting to insult the girl or sound too arrogant. “As for the items…well, slime condensate is actually pretty useful. But it’s easy to get, so I don’t mind.”
“Well, sure, but…”
“It was your kill. Take them.” Lumine pushes past her reluctance. And with a strong look of discomfort, Outrider gives in with a short ‘thanks.’
“You seem to know your way around. With the slimes, at least.” Outrider notes, brushing a fingertip over the shining orbs.
“I would certainly hope so,” Lumine says, “it wouldn’t do me any favors if I ran head-first into an arena. It’s important to build up your character before taking on bosses.”
Outrider nods, skims through her inventory, humming, “What are all these duplicates?”
Lumine takes a curious step forward as she pulls out a green feather. “Artifacts? They make your weapons and armor stronger. Attacks, too.”
“There are so many.”
“Yeah, they give you a lot so you can upgrade them.”
Outrider’s lip wobbles. “You mean I need to level these up, too?”
Lumine nods, leaning over her thighs with an amused smile as Outrider’s pigtails sag. “I know it’s a lot to keep track of at first, but you’ll get the hang of it. Trust me, it’ll be second nature to you in no time.”
She gives a weak bob of her head before rising to her feet. With a quick shake of her head, determination shines bright in her green eyes. “Okay! I’ll just have to level up super fast so I won’t need to worry about it anymore.”
“That’s the spirit,” Lumine encourages. Though little does she know that the higher you rise, the harder it becomes to reach the top. “Alright. I’m heading to town, so I’ll see you around. Good luck on your first day.”
Outlander blinks. “Right, okay. Thanks a lot.” The thin sleeves of her blouse swish as she summons her longbow and begins her climb up the cliff. Lumine shifts to follow her with hesitant eyes,
“Um, I already cleared out all the mobs up there,” she says awkwardly, then adds, “...sorry.”
Outlander stops abruptly, her shoulders hitching. “O-Of course, you did! I figured as much.” She flips a pigtail over her shoulder. “I just wanted to scope out the land, y’know? See what I’m working with.”
Lumine nods. “Makes sense.”
Her green eyes find Lumine’s, uncertain and cautious. “Any recommendations on where to start?”
Shrugging, Lumine points vaguely northwest. “It’s a free world, so go wherever you please. But the monsters near Stormbearer Mountains are set at a higher level than almost anywhere else in Mondstadt.”
“Ah, so don’t go there. Got it.”
Lumine waves a dismissive hand. “Just keep some food on you, and you’ll be fine. If you get into any trouble, just teleport back into town.”
“You can teleport?” She gasps.
Strain gathers in Lumine’s eyes as she levels Outrider with a rather scrutinizing look. “Did you take the tutorial? Or maybe read the guidebook?”
Sheepishly, Outrider’s hand grazes the loose strands on her neck. “I kind of skipped past it?” A sigh escapes Lumine’s lips. “Not on purpose!” she rushes to explain. “I was skipping through the menu with all my presets and accidentally declined the beginner’s tutorial.”
Lumine frowned. “It’s still in the menu,” she says slowly, “so you can still take it.”
“It won’t take all my stuff?”
“What? No, of course not.”
Outrider’s cheeks flush pink. “Oh. I thought it was, like, a reset button. By the time I saw it, I had already opened a chest. The item looked really cool, and I didn’t want to lose it.”
Snorting, Lumine makes her way toward her. “Can I ask what it was?”
She nods eagerly and lifts the red gem from her waist. “This golden casing for my fire thing. It’s pretty convenient to hold onto it like this instead of pulling it out of my inventory every time I wanna use it. And even then, I need both my hands. To fight.”
Very convenient indeed.
“Well, rest assured, the tutorial won’t take your stuff. I promise.” She pauses. “Although you should probably get to a safe zone before you activate it. It’ll leave your body stationary while in effect.”
Again, the Outrider sags, her body briefly losing its energetic stature. “There are so many rules. How was I supposed to know that?”
“Well, if you had taken the tutorial-”
“The rules about the tutorial are hidden in the tutorial!”
“No, they’re in the guidebook.”
Outrider groans into her hands. Her cheeks are then met with a sudden slap from either palm, and the determination returns anew. “Okay! First, get back to town. I can do that.” Realization flashes over her green eyes, and Lumine bites back a sigh. “Hey, you’re headed there too, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Why don’t we go together? I’m supposed to be meeting up with some friends there anyway. They’re new to the game, too. Well, except for-” she pauses, eyes searching as though thinking of an excuse “-er, one of them. So, I’ll be out of your hair once we arrive.”
Lumine’s mind wanders to the ocean view. She had wanted to experience her first day back in Teyvat the same way she had on day one. But much has changed since then, and the quiet of a world released only to testers is long gone. She might as well get used to it.
“That works for me,” she agrees. “Let’s get going, then.”
The trek down Starsnatch Cliff is not so laborious as it is tedious. Hilichurlian camps litter the base of the cliff in groups of four or five, which wouldn’t be so bad if she were alone. But with Outrider behind her, she remains acutely aware of the arrows set loose in her direction.
Not that Outrider is a bad shot—quite the opposite, actually. One might think that that bow is a longtime companion of hers with the way she weilds it with such familiarity. Even still, the flames attached to her onslaughts are not so friendly. They dance wild and free over the tall grass and wooden shields of their enemies.
The latter turns out to be an advantage, as said shields disperse into twinkles of glass. This makes landing her strikes near-effortless.
The camps start to stretch out as the two pass the great tree of Windrise. The grand walls of the city make their way into view, settling bright in the distance.
“Wow,” Outrider breathes, her eyes fixed on the tree.
A softness curls its way onto Lumine’s lips. She remembers that feeling. “Pretty neat, huh?”
“It’s incredible.” Outrider reaches a hand into her line of sight, observing it before the great tree. “It’s hard to believe this isn’t real. It feels real. The wind, the sun. Even these clothes.”
Lumine nods. “Cyberlinking can do some amazing things. Tricks your brain into thinking it’s all really there when in reality we’re all at home in bed.”
“Like a dream.” Outrider stares off distantly, something hidden behind the wonder in her eyes. “I can’t imagine all this in real life.”
Lumine leans forward. “I mean, it’s not like this isn’t real. Everything you’re doing now is an experience you’ll remember once you wake up. And you can do some pretty cool stuff in this game.”
Outrider smiles. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It is a shame, though.” She glances down at her bow. “My real self can’t do any of this. Hilichurls and slimes. It’s beautiful, but way too scary.”
The rest of the path to the walls is uneventful. As the crowds come into view, Lumine begins to feel exhaustion creep under her skin. Normally, she wouldn’t mind these kinds of spaces, despite being the family introvert. But after a long afternoon with Outrider—as chatty as she is—Lumine can’t help feeling a little drained. And perhaps a tad more anxious than normal.
Instead of the cool greys of the alleyways between apartments, the two are met with quaint townhouses. Where there would be pavement, there is cobblestone. Where Lumine would see plaster, there is instead wood. Thick, rich, and bustling with life is Mondstadt, the city of freedom, decorated for the event of its public release.
The two strolled through the wide streets, glancing over at the NPC stalls. Food, ingredients, blacksmithing, alchemy. Bars. Then, the cathedral sat atop the height of the city, guarded by the tall, elegant statue of the Anemo God, the one who—within the game’s lore—raised Mondstadt into what it is today.
Lumine never really kept up with the story of Teyvat. She just wanted to fight slimeballs and furry monsters. And though she never made it past the eighth floor, Lumine was certain the game was building up to something intense. Unfortunately, she never got the chance to fight it with the time constraints of life outside the virtual world. Once her access to the server was cut alongside the other testers, she was left to wait among the rest of the world.
“Alright, this is it,” Lumine states the obvious, well inside the safe zone. “Do you need help finding the tutorial, or are you good?”
Outrider shakes her head, huffing, “No, I know where it is. Thanks for the help, uh…” Her eyes lift to the icon about Lumine’s head, scanning the name intently. “...Loo-mine?”
Lumine snorts, “A valiant effort, Outrider. I’ll see you around.”
“But-” Outrider sighs, dejected. She swipes her fingers through the air, and Lumine takes that as her cue to leave. But before she can make it two steps, a confused sound escapes Outlander’s throat. “Um, hey. The logout button isn’t somewhere in the tutorial, too, is it?”
Lumine squints her eyes at the girl, baffled. “Seriously?”
“Well, I’m sorry. The game shouldn’t be this confusing.”
“It really shouldn’t,” Lumine breathes, exasperated. Her fingers glide through the air and scroll through the menu. “How have you made it this long without-” Her eyes stare down at the blank tab. The white stares back, unmoving. “What?”
“Yeah, I thought it was there, too,” Outrider ponders. “Do you think they moved it somewhere?”
Frown deepening, Lumine shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe it’s bugged. With so many players active, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few glitches here and there.”
But the logout button? How could the developers allow for such an integral part of the game to be corrupted? Logging out should never be an issue. In fact, it’s the most basic feature in the game. There are even set commands one can enter without even touching the menu in case of loading errors.
“Hang on, let me try…” Lumine snaps both index fingers simultaneously, waiting for the command to take effect. She tries again. And again. And-
Oh, this isn’t good. She has work in the morning. If this goes on for too long, who knows how much sleep she’ll lose? She can not be late again.
“Hopefully, they patch it soon. Not that I’m ready yet, but I’d quite like to have the option to leave,” Outrider laughs, an unnerved lilt at its end.
“I second that,” Lumine murmurs.
“Oh! It’s already evening. My friends should be arriving right about now.” Outrider clasps her hands together. “If you’d like, I could introduce you. They’re really cool.”
Lumine offers a slightly forced smile. If they’re anything like Outrider, she’d be dead by midnight. “Thank you for the offer, but I should really get going. I want to trade in some sigils and upgrade my sword.”
Outrider tilts her head. “Sigils?”
Lumine covers her eyes. “Just…play the tutorial.”
Outrider grins. “Okay. Thanks again! I learned a lot today.”
After finally parting ways, Lumine walks down the busy streets. Her eyes skip over stall owners, finding their place on the faces of her fellow players. No, it isn’t just her. The air is alight with uncertainty, a nervous energy spread with the terribly slow wind. She turns a corner into a well-lit alleyway. With her menu back in view, Lumine scrolls down to the help option in her settings bar. The small wrench icon flashes blue when she presses it.
Others must have reported the bug by now. With so many reports, it will be hard to miss. She’ll be out of here in no time.
So, after crafting a short message to the game master, Lumine closes the tab and dismisses her menu. She won’t really need to worry for another two or three hours, so she might as well finish off her day here. Now then, the alchemy table-
Hands rush to her ears with the shock of the town bell ringing. An event? Right, the welcoming ceremony. Most players will probably encounter their first in-game cutscene soon.
Well, she supposes her chores can wait. She doesn’t want to get interrupted in the midst of crafting. That’s what the warning bell is for anyway.
Soon, the town begins to glow. A shining light envelopes each player one by one. Seconds after it creeps into Lumine’s skin, she is greeted with the loading screen for a brief two seconds before waking in the plaza.
Staring into the dusk, she waits. A soft glow rises in the distance, forming a large figure adorned in long blue robes. A curious hush falls over the city.
“Welcome, travelers. I am the Tsaritsa, the creator of this world.” Her large hands meet to cup the air, perfectly mirroring the statue of the Anemo God. “I am certain that many of you have noticed the absence of the logout button. Let me assure you that this is not a defect in the game.”
Lumine straightens. Is this…a part of the lore? The ‘Traveler’ is prohibited from leaving Teyvat? She distantly recalls something like that being mentioned on the back of the cover. The ‘Traveler’ is basically an alien who jumps between worlds, never staying for too long.
During the Beta-Test, there was a cutscene similar enough to this. A tall woman with long white hair trapped the players inside black and red cubes. When they woke, five hundred or so years had passed, and the ‘Traveler’ was assigned their first quest of many on the road to escaping the bounds of Teyvat.
Did they replace that lady with the Tsaritsa for dramatic effect? A sort of congratulations for being the first ten thousand people to have received a copy of Teyvat Online? It’s a bold decision to completely deactivate the logout button for an event. Immersion aside, it’s a little overkill, if you ask Lumine.
“This is how Teyvat Online was always designed to be. You cannot log yourself out of this world. And no one from the outside will be able to shut down or remove the Akasha Terminal from your ear.” Lumine’s brows set heavily over her eyes. The script could use a little work if her goal is to immerse the player in the game. Why mention the Terminals? “If anyone attempts to do so, a transmitter inside the Terminal will discharge an electromagnetic signal into your skull, destroying your brain and ending your life.”
What?
She supposes the Akasha Terminals would be capable of that should the safety be disabled. The signals that enable full-diving function just like microwaves. In theory, for as gruesome as it is, they could do just as she described.
Lumine doesn’t understand. What kind of marketing tactic is this? Exposing the possible dangers of the Akasha Terminals for a brief moment of manufactured tension is…quite frankly stupid.
The low hum of nervous chatter fills the plaza, the players’ curiosity quickly souring into confusion.
“As I’m sure you know, the Akasha Terminal was built with a long-lasting internal battery. Worry not, the outside has already been made aware of the situation. Should they attempt to remove your Terminal or allow for your device to lose power, know that it was an intentional decision on their part.”
Oh, well, that’s reassuring.
“She’s not serious, right?” comes the murmurs amidst the crowd.
“Is this part of the tutorial?”
“It’s a bit much…”
A generally uncomfortable tension settles over the thick gathering. Ten thousand people crammed into the city of Mondstadt, every eye on the looming form of the Tsaritsa.
“Unfortunately, this has already occurred several times within the last hour. As a result, the game now holds two hundred and thirteen fewer players than when it began.” A slow globe of screens circles the city, large and plastered with bright colors and headlines.
An Unfortunate Incident
Akasha Terminal Malfunctions
200 Dead
Lumine’s blood goes cold, draining from her cheeks. Those are real news stations. Real reporters. Real people.
“Hey, c’mon, isn’t this going too far?” calls out one voice of many over the rising buzz of the crowd.
“Let us out!”
“I have school in the morning!”
The Tsaritsa pays no mind to their complaints, her voice rolling smoothly through the plaza. “It is imperative that you remember the following. There is no longer a method of reviving someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system forever, and the Akasha Terminal will simultaneously destroy your brain.”
No revival system.
Somehow, that is when it clicks.
There is no benefit to removing a feature like that. Players can’t use items during a cutscene. Disabling revival items for the event would be a short-lived shock when the players realize they can use them after the cutscene ends. But a permanent deletion of revival items would throw Teyvat Online’s players into outrage. No one would play it if every time they died, they would need to create a new account.
With an unsteady hand, Lumine pulls a sunsettia from her inventory, the option to consume it glaringly available.
This isn’t a cutscene.
“There is only one way for a player to escape now. Currently, you are all gathered on the first floor, the lowest level in Teyvat. After conquering the dungeon and defeating the boss, you will be allowed access to the next floor. Defeat the final boss on floor one hundred, and you will have cleared the game. Only then will you be permitted to leave Tyvat Online.”
Lumine stares up at her with wide eyes, the sunsettia slipping from her grasp. “You’re kidding,” she whispers.
A tall man beside her backs away. “We can’t clear all one hundred floors. With one life…even the Beta-Testers never made it that high!”
A shrill voice panics from far in the back, “How can we-!”
The Tsarits spreads her arms out wide. “And finally, I have placed a gift into the item storage of each player. It is indisposable until after use and will activate within the next three hours, regardless.”
Lumine can’t bring herself to look away until light flashes all throughout the plaza, screams of surprise and fear echoing within the walls of the city. Searching the crowd, she notes the new faces surrounding her. Entirely different people. It’s as if she had been teleported into the fray of an entirely different corner of the plaza.
But she hadn’t moved. Lumine hadn’t done anything.
“Anonymity is a tedious shield to peer behind. Know that your actions will indeed have consequences. This is a free world, so do as you please. But tread knowing that every act was committed by you alone, travelers.”
It dawns on her. The scan. There is a high-density signal device inside the Akasha Terminal. It can see what their faces look like. And the calibration scans she performed months ago, having her hands pat down her body. At the time, she had figured it was an easier way to adjust to the virtual world.
Gods, she should have known better! No other game required that kind of action from its players. They had scales and platforms built to adjust one’s height. Even then, the selected avatar should make up for it.
“This marks the official launch of Teyvat Online. Travelers, I wish you the best of luck.” The Tsaritsa’s form stretches into a dark fog, disappearing into the long sky. Silence settles over the plaza.
One long scream snaps through the tension, and panic takes over. Ten thousand people rush through Mondstadt, tripping over each other and pushing past NPCs. Some use teleport crystals, commanding they take them anywhere but here.
Lumine sets off, pushing against the flow of terrified players. If all of that is true, she needs a head start. There is a limited number of resources scattered about Teyvat, and only plants, animals, and mobs respawn. Even then, she can’t afford to wait days for that to happen.
She won’t stay in the safe zone. It’s no better than a cage. The Tsaritsa will not trap her with fear.
She will get out. She has to.
Something falls onto her shoulder, dragging her momentum to a halt. A hand wrapped in beginner’s gloves. Lumine trails the arm up to the owner’s face and frowns. “Um, do you mind?” She awkwardly brushes the hand away.
“Er, sorry,” the girl apologizes, and oh. She knows that voice. Lumine’s eyes blink up at the name above her head.
“Outrider,” she says dully, “you look…”
“Different? Yeah.” Instead of those short red pigtails, her hair falls in long brown waves down her back. Her eyes, no longer green, glint a warm honey-brown. And gone is the milky white of her skin, instead replaced with a golden tan, a soft light reflecting the sun. “I’m glad I caught you.” Outrider breathes a shaky breath. “I was worried I wouldn’t recognize you in all the chaos.”
“I’m heading to a southern village in Springvale. It won’t have much, but if what she said is true, we’ll need to start foraging for materials as quickly as possible if we want to level up,” Lumine rambles, a nervous tremor in her throat. “It might not seem important right now, but with ten thousand people all on the same floor, we’ll miss out on a ton of vital loot if we don’t get to it first.”
“I-”
Lumine pulls out her near-vacant game map, bringing to light the entirety of Mondstadt. “If we go to Springvale now, we’ll have an easier time getting Mora and points. It would be pointless to try salvaging whatever is left of the city’s resources. I know all the dangerous paths and places we should avoid.”
She would wager that a lot of players are set to stick around the city for a while. They’re scared. Lumine doesn’t blame them. If she allows herself to linger, she is sure to develop a similar mindset.
Within the walls, she is safe. Someone else can clear the game.
“Thank you, but,” Outrider starts, fidgeting with her hands, “you know those friends I mentioned earlier…they’re still in the plaza. I can’t leave them there.”
Lumine searches her eyes. She seems set on this. Why wouldn’t she be? Of course, she should stay with her friends. There is strength in numbers. Outrider will be just fine.
“Right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”
“No! Please don’t be,” Outrider blurts. Her hands settle at her sides, her eyes fixed on Lumine’s shoes. “Actually, I was thinking that…well, you’ve played this before, right? It would be nice to have a veteran around?”
Lumine bites her lip.
“O-Or not! I just thought…” Outrider shakes her head. “No, never mind. I can’t ask that of you. We’ll be okay. My friends are pretty good at these kinds of games.”
“You’re a natural, Outrider,” Lumine assures, “you’ll catch on fast, I’m sure of it.”
She chuckles, “Better get started on that tutorial, then.” A moment passes with nothing but air between them. The game’s ambience has long since settled. Lumine isn’t sure when the music ended or when the city had become so quiet. “I’ll see you around, then.”
The loose waves of her hair swish as she turns back toward the plaza. Lumine should say something. She should-
‘My real self can’t do any of this.’
“Outrider,” she calls, trailing the eyes that return to hers. Lumine’s mouth opens and closes, searching for the right words. What can one say at a time like this? It could very well be the last time Lumine sees this girl. This stranger that she has only known for a few hours at most. But those eyes soften in ways all too human, and all she can say is, “You look better like this. Much cooler than your avatar.”
Outrider laughs. “Wish I could say the same! The next time we meet, I’ll let you know.”
And then, she’s gone, disappearing around the corner. Lumine toys with a loose strand of black hair at her shoulder. If she’s going to change, it will be on her own terms, not by some stupid countdown.
Scrolling through her inventory, she finds the Tsaritsa’s supposed ‘gift.’ A mirror.
How creative.
The small looking glass falls into her palm, and she gazes into it. The bright blue eyes of her avatar stare back at her, framed by dark bangs and a generous trail of freckles she had thought were cute. Her vision fades into white, and she is met with a familiar face.
It transfers well into the game, she’ll have to admit. Everything from her golden eyes to her long blonde hair—the exact length as her real hair. It even gets her teeth right.
For a brief moment, she sees him.
So weird.
Discarding the invasive item, Lumine makes her way to the east end of the city. People are more than likely to be flooding the southern gate, seeing as it’s the main entrance to Mondstadt.
She’s got this. It’s just like before. It’s just a game. She’s beaten this floor already. She can do it again. Easy.
She can do this. She’ll make it back home. She will see him again.