Beyond Which Lies the Wind

10: Mountain Breeze

Using a teleport waypoint would've made the trek to the mountains far up north of the city much more convenient, but avoiding adventurer hotspots around the area was still a habit you couldn't break. The Stormbearer mountains were rife with dangerous monsters, but rich in ore reserves and most importantly, fewer travellers tended to roam around here. You headed to the deposit you remembered that hopefully would've re-formed under the influence of ley line energies by now. You knew way too much about rocks in Teyvat now after working for Wagner for this long and that pissed you off.

The sprawling patch of silvery ores and the dim blue glow of crystal chunks that dotted the bedrock did not disappoint. You unclipped your chisel and sledgehammer from your toolbelt, and got to work quickly, neatly cutting large chunks of the valuable minerals from the host rock and piling them into your bag. With the high yield you could attain now, Wagner would certainly be proud.

That didn't matter though, you reminded yourself icily. This was an arrangement of convenience. You answered to no one, and his praise (or lack thereof) meant nothing.

Once you'd collected as many ores as you could carry, you slung your heavy bag over your shoulder and secured your tools back to your belt. The trek back would take at least twice the time it took for you to get here, with the sloping downhill climb and the added weight on your shoulders. Sometimes you wished your stolen Vision had been Anemo, so you could fly along its warm breeze and effortlessly glide back to the city from these heights. But beggars couldn't be choosers, and thieves had even less of a say. And so began the careful downward climb with your own weight in ores carried on your back.

Avoiding hillichurl camps and areas where slimes roamed was the most time-consuming effort of the journey, as you took careful detours to keep from disturbing them. With only weapons on you that could split rocks and maybe Geo slimes if your aim was good enough, you doubted you could take out more than just single opponents, and you'd prefer not to engage in senseless combat in enemy territory. In addition, you didn't want to ruin your chisel, and have to have Wagner make you a new one as he grumbled about you taking his goodwill for granted.

As much as you were grateful to him, there was a sense of resentment that you gnawed at the back of your heart that you couldn't ignore. It made it easier if you thought about how as much as you were just using him, he was surely just using you. No one was kind in a world that was cruel if there was nothing to be gained from it.

(It was easier to justify that humans were cruel by nature.)

As you carefully made your way along the edge of the sloping cliff, balancing the extra weight on your back made your footing feel strange and unsteady. A loose rock sent you tumbling down unexpectedly, and you landed, unhurt but slightly winded, in a patch of tall grass. You struggled to your feet, and readjusted your backpack.

That was when you saw the pale green of wind infused with Anemo swirling slowly into the sky directly before you, between your location and your intended destination. For a moment, you panicked – an eye of the storm! – your weaponless Pyro attacks could do nothing against such a restless elemental if it sensed you. So much for thinking about Anemo powers; you'd stumbled upon the strength of its pure elemental energy itself, condensed and left to fester for your inconvenience. Fate's cruel joke in the land of the Anemo Archon himself.

But then you realized there was a figure standing in the middle of the vortex, the wind dispersing around them like the parting of the sea. Relief and curiosity flooded your heart when you realized it was very clearly the silhouette of a humanoid figure by the edge of the cluff, Anemo energies swirling around where they stood.

You edged closer, entranced by the dance of the wind. You didn't often see elemental powers at play outside of your own and the occasional slime. Anemo, while not being the direct opposite of Pyro, was still a vastly different power that harnessed the strength of the Mondstadt breeze as opposed to the destructive and fervent flames that you possessed. You weren't envious, exactly, but you were intrigued. The figure had their back to you, and the wind made it hard to make out any details. And then abruptly, the wind stopped in mid-air, and dissolved like droplets of morning mist.

"Who goes there?" came a high, clear voice, and you realized you'd been spotted from your position now that you'd come too close. You contemplated backing away, but someone with an Anemo Vision could catch up to you too easily, especially with you lugging around a huge bag of rocks that weighed you down.

It had been over three years since you'd considered yourself a bandit, but on most nights you still feared that Mondstadt had not forgotten about that. And as you hesitated, the figure approached in a gust of gentle wind, and as the dust cleared you could see...

...a tall, elegant figure with a sword in hand, pointed directly at your throat. Go to Chapter 18.

...the figure of a young man in peculiar clothes, reaching a hand out to you. Go to Chapter 19.