I'm at home scrolling short videos on my phone, when I came across a message from my best friend Emily, it said, 'could you take me with you next time?'
Ambiguous enough to not be suspicious but I knew exactly what she meant. She wanted to come to genshin impact with me!
I reply, 'sure come over today'
I check the time 4:24 she should be here in about ten or so minutes seeing how close her house was from mine. So I tidy up my room and get ready.
She arrives shortly after 4:36
"Welcome, welcome! Come in!" I tell her, she wipes her feet on the doormat and we head to my room.
"Ok I'll show you how I do it" I show her the dimensional travelers discord group realising a couple more people had joined the group.
I type, 'I'm ready to return to genshin impact and would like to take a friend with me' and the request was granted.
A portal opened up and a beginner's hunter's bow popped out. I give the bow to emily she laughs, "Oh wow how wonderful seems this system knew that I was super good at archery at camp!"
"come one lets head in." I grab my catalyst.
We head into the portal and pop out in mondstadt. Emily asks me which archon quest I was on and I tell her I just finished the Liyue archon quest."
I immediately take her to the statue of the seven but to our dismay she didn't get any powers when she touched the statue.
So, we head to mondstadt city to meet with the traveler, we head straight to diluc's inn.
We join the traveler to talking to charles the bartenter about the stranger that he got a commission about.
Emily is impressed, "Wow! It's really diluc's tavern! For real!"
Paimon starts for us, "Hey charles, have you seen a blonde stranger who wears an eyepatch around here by any chance?"
Charles replies, "That I have, he comes here every night - just to drink though. doesn't order anything else."
Charles continues, "If you're looking for that gentleman he ordered a new bottle of wine in advance yesterday, so he should be here today too. If you want to wait go to the second floor."
We head up to the second floor of the tavern and wait, the blonde stranger enters downstairs.
Paimon sees him, "he's really here? Let's go downstairs and have a look." so we head downstairs.
We sit down on the table he sat at and start talking to him.
Emily says to him excitedly, "Hi! we're adventurers with the adventurer's guild."
Seeing he didnt reply I add, "How do you do? Me and traveller are honarary knights of favonius."
Paimon seems annoyed as he didn't answer again, "Wow, he's got no intention of paying us any mind huh?"
Aether continues, "so I'm a traveler."
He finally speaks, "a traveler you say? Hmph. Why are you traveling?"
Aether adds, "I'm looking for my lost relative."
He turns to us, "Well thats as good a reason as any, sit down over there then." It's not a request as much as a command.
We sit down, he asks about paimon, "Hmm that little one beside you..." I quickly dismiss, "Emergency food." Paimon gets mad, "That's not true and you know it!"
The blonde guy keep talking, "My name's Dainsleif. I suppose you have some business with me?"
Emily talks so fast since she's really excited, "Well we were hoping to invite you on a adventure with us!"
He just agrees, "Sure" we're shocked, "Huh" So Dainsleif continues, "But I will require advanced payment. 500 mora and three answered questions. We'll settle the questions in a moment."
I nodd, "well here's 500 mora."
He thanks us, "Ah, thank you. Now, as for my questions. I'd like you to answer them here and now." He says to traveler in particular.
After answering his questions, in which we learned he knew all about the archons and what had happened in our previous adventures.
He then says something very cryptic to Aether, "As I thought... You really are similair to her."
"I'll take that 500 mora, as we agreed, you may now commission me."
We learn that the abyss order has reinfiltrated the temple of the falcon and head towards there.
Once we arrive dainsleif remarks, "This abandoned temple does bear some marks of the abyss"
We head inside, making our way through the temple we reach the end, Dainsleif tells us how he hates the abyss, we soon leave the temple and follow Dain.
Dain stops near a strange looking bonfire, "alright, let's go see if that abyss herald has stopped by here."
Paimon is confused, "But where do we begin? Hmm are you standing here because of these strange bonfires. Dain?"
He answers her, "Indeed. See that, floating above the flames? It's an abyssal spell."
"Knowing what I do of the order's habits, they've probably left similiar marks elsewhere. Let's have a look nearby."
We investigate a few more of the strange looking bonfires dain explains to us, "I've searched around these parts and found some signs myself."
"But they were left behind by abyss mages, and there were no deeper abyssal power to them."
"we should leave as well, there's one more place we can go. Let's get a move on then. I'll wait for you at Stormterror's Lair."
We head to stormterror's lair. Dain greets us there, 'I've heard about what happened to you during mondstadt's crises. When you came, this place was known as stormterror's lair."
"let's go see what the situation is at those light actuators."
We head deeper into the ruins, paimon sighs, "so in the end, we still find that abyss herald."
Dain notices a ruin guard's footprint in the ground.
Aether examines a dandelion and has a flashback of fighting the heavenly principles with his sibling. He says, "This dandelion reminds me of her"
Dain explains, "Prehaps that dandelion bears some sort of 'scent' that only you recognise."
"May you find your kin at the end of your journey, well then let us part ways here."
And so he leaves, and a few days later we head toward liyue.