Legend of the Snowman-Mancer 11
Euri Lawrence
“So… yeah… I’m sorry you drank my blood and went cuckoo,” Durin, now about the size of a football again, mumbled apologetically.
I patted his head reassuringly. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t his fault. He’d basically been an infant five hundred years ago, excited to make new friends. He genuinely hadn’t understood why the little humans were running away from him. He thought they were playing a game, and had accidentally caused a catastrophe that required the intervention of Barbatos and Dvalin.
With Dvalin back to his not-quite-jolly self, we sat around to chat. Given how reclusive the old lizard was, this would probably be the first and only chance Durin got to apologize for what happened five hundred years ago.
The story came out. Jean looked like she didn’t know whether she wanted to faint or scream. Dvalin looked positively done with this shit, like the past five hundred years had been a lie. Venti chuckled sheepishly. He seemed to find some humor in this, as expected of the laidback bard.
The abyss mage, captured by Eula for interrogation, remained silent. I wondered what he remembered about that time. Members of the Abyss Order, the faction, not to be confused with the actual space between worlds, were remnants of Khaenri’ah, an ancient, world-spanning civilization. Although, by this point, what each individual remembered since then was up for debate.
“So… We’re good now, right?” Lumine said. She looked the least phased by this. To be fair, she’d probably seen weirder in her many millennia of life. “The day is saved. The city’s at peace. I can start looking for my brother for real now?”
I looked at my sister in confusion. “Have you not told her?”
“Told me what? Wait, you’re an oracle or something. You’ve got to know where he is.”
“Kinda? I mean, I don’t know where per se because I’m not sure that where he’s at technically counts as a part of Teyvat.”
“H-Has he moved on without me?” Lumine asked, sounding genuinely hurt by the idea. “I… Five hundred years isn’t…”
“No, nothing like that. Aether’s his boss,” I said, waving at the Cryo abyss mage. “He’s the figure these guys call the Abyss Prince.”
“N-No way. He wouldn’t do that.”
“He would. He’s in a weird place right now. Let's call it his edgy, emo, goth phase.”
“No! He had his edgy, emo, goth phase two thousand years ago!”
“He did?”
“Yes! It was a huge pain in the ass! He even had a black dragon tattooed on his left arm and covered one eye with his bangs and everything!” Lumine complained like only a younger sister could. “He's not allowed to have another one!”
“That sounds hilarious. You’re going to have to tell me more about that.”
“Regardless, he has much to answer for,” Eula said firmly.
“Ehh, not really. He’s not evil or anything. He’s doing his best in his own way to prepare,” I told her, gesturing towards the sky. And more importantly, towards Celestia.
“Where? Where is my brother, Euri?” Lumine demanded. She lunged forward and grabbed me by the collar. “No jokes. No cryptic seer riddles. Where is he?”
“I can’t tell you that, not because I don’t want to, but because I really can’t,” I said softly. “Aether, many of the most powerful members of the Abyss Order, can generate portals all across Teyvat. He can be anywhere at any given moment.”
“Then… Then why hasn’t he come for me…?”
I watched as the tears pooled in those golden eyes. Really, no one meant as much to her as her brother, and the same was true in reverse. I reached up and clasped my hands gently over hers.
“You haven’t been abandoned, Lumine. He hasn’t forgotten about you,” I whispered reassuringly. I’d never been good at comforting crying women, but I hoped these were the words she needed to hear. “He still loves you dearly. He’s just… busy.”
“You… You know what he’s doing, don’t you?”
“No,” I said truthfully. I remembered canon fairly well, but the Abyss Twin was always a sporadically recurring character. I knew about the Loom of Fate, but… “I only know that he does care.”
“Great, I wake up after a five hundred year nap and my brother’s gone full emo again,” she muttered with a watery smile. “Can’t a girl get some shuteye?”
“Guess not. We may as well let the little guy go though.”
“And why would we do that, Euri?” Jean asked pointedly. “Whatever can be said about her twin, that abyss mage is still a criminal in the eyes of Mondstadt.”
“How else is he going to pass on a message?”
“What message, human?” the abyss mage said cautiously. They all had this strange, raspy voice that made it hard to tell whether they were a man or woman. For all I knew, they didn’t have an orientation anymore.
I pulled Lumine into a hug. She melted softly into my side, happy for the affection. “Why, I should at least get big bro’s permission before I start flirting with his kid sis, ya know?”
I felt Lumine stiffen like wet laundry I’d accidentally left out in Dragonspine a few times. “W-What?”
“I know, I know. You’re a big girl and you can make your own decisions. But what can I say? I’m a gentleman like that.”
“You’re the furthest thing from a gentleman, brother,” Eula sniped.
“Lies and slander.”
Lumine chuckled, something between a laugh and a snort. “He’s going to kill you… Or think you’re hilarious. Probably both.”
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
“Are we really just going to let him go?” Jean asked.
“Dvalin didn’t eat him,” I pointed out. “And had he wanted to, there wasn’t a whole lot any of us could have done about it.”
“Still…”
“So long as the Abyss Order stays the hell out of Mondstadt?”
“Would her brother honor that?”
“Yes,” Lumine and I said at the same time. I continued. “Mondstadt doesn’t have a whole lot that’s worth his interest besides his sister here and she won’t be sticking around long.”
“I won’t? I mean… I did plan to meet the seven Archons, but if I know what Aether’s up to already…”
“You should still meet them. If nothing else, you want to learn more about the world, right?”
“I… I don’t know… I want to know what happened five hundred years ago.”
“That event is called the Cataclysm. It was a war that wracked all of Teyvat. I really don’t know more than that. Even if I did, would you want to hear it from me or experience the way the world has changed?”
She smiled softly. “I guess I’m the Traveler for a reason.”
“You’ll still be the Honorary Knight,” Jean said. “Mondstadt will be here if you ever need a familiar place to lay your head.”
“Euri will be going with her,” Eula pointed out. “Right?”
“Maybe, if she’ll have me,” I replied, bumping Lumine’s shoulder. “More likely, I think I might do my own thing sometimes. Our travels will probably overlap quite a bit but I might also vanish for a few weeks here and there.”
Lumine slumped back until she landed flat on the grass. She looked up at the clear sky with a tired sigh. “That might not be so bad. We can split Paimon’s food bill.”
“Hey, Paimon doesn’t eat that much,” the childlike pixie protested.
“I have to take on more commissions than most other adventurers just to keep up with you.”
I chuckled and pulled Durin into a hug. “Durin doesn’t need to eat so we clearly know who’s the better travel companion.”
“You take that back! Paimon tells Lumine all sorts of things about Teyvat!”
“I already know those things. Meanwhile, Durin is cute, can fly me places, and doesn’t cost mora to feed.”
“Y-You! Lumine! Tell that jerk Paimon’s the best!” she cried, stamping her little feet in the air.
“It’s not a contest,” Lumine said tiredly.
I laughed. It wasn’t very funny, but I laughed long and loud. Mondstadt was saved, but Teyvat had so many trials coming its way. Given the road ahead, a bit of levity was the least I could hope for.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Aether and the Abyss Order would back off, but that left the icy-hot bitch in the room: Signora. She caused so much trouble across Mondstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma.
A not insignificant part of me wanted to kill her, but killing her off might mean a shift in the Fatui’s plans. Was an uncertain future worth the satisfaction?
Yes, yes it was. Maybe not death per se, but at the very least, a bit of humiliation was on the table. I didn’t doubt that Signora knew about me by this point. Even if she didn’t know I had the Gnosis, I was a major war power in my own right now. If nothing else, she’d change her plans in the other two nations once she realized I’d started traveling as well.
So if the story was bound to change no matter what I did, then… “I guess it’s time to slap a bitch…”
X
I didn’t immediately slap a bitch. There was just too much to do to get right to humiliating a Harbinger.
For starters, Dvalin had a lot of soul-searching to do. He and Venti flew off somewhere, presumably to catch up over a bottle of Diluc’s finest. I could tell Jean had more questions but for the moment, knowing that neither of the two dragons currently in Mondstadt had any interest in razing the city to the ground would have to suffice.
As for us, we had to go back to Mondstadt and get the city in order. I had it on good authority that a mysterious snowstorm had buried most of it in half a foot of snow. Truly, the weather in Teyvat could be such a capricious thing.
I took several minutes to recover and we were off on dragonback once more.
“I claim no responsibility for this,” I said as the city came into view. It was a winter wonderland. Even its towering walls looked noticeably shorter due to the piles of snow on the ground.
“Then who else is responsible, brother?” Eula asked pointedly.
“You, of course,” I replied brightly.
“Oh? Pray tell.”
“I gave you the Nuclear Football. As the bearer of the Nuclear Football, you hold sole decision-making authority over Operation: Snowpocalypse. Naturally, all consequences of such weighty decisions also fall upon your shoulders. Ask Lumine, she knows what that is.”
Said blonde shook her head vigorously. She grabbed Paimon and held her between us. “Nope. No way. Leave me out of all sibling squabbles.”
“But you recognized the importance of the football.”
“Don’t care. Not getting involved.”
“Guys?” Paimon interrupted. “Should we take care of the hilichurls in front of the city?”
Jean whirled around, eyeing me with disapproval. “Euri, was this the thing you had to warn them about?”
I glanced down. Sure enough, there was a sizable army of hilichurls outside. They’d set up wooden barricades and even had what looked like rudimentary siege engines. Really, they were just basic catapults and wooden platforms with rope ladders set aloft via Anemo slimes, but that was still quite impressive for hilichurls.
There were also a lot more of them than I remembered, probably because Genshin Impact’s developers didn’t have the graphics capacity to portray a proper siege. I remembered the Inazuma arc suffering from their hardware limitations as well.
By my quick guess, there had to be a thousand of the little hilichurls. Mitachurls armed with wooden tower shields and monstrously large axes acted as their vanguard. Behind them, samachurls wielding staves that crackled with Anemo, Dendro, and Hydro urged their troops onward.
The gates to the city had been closed already. This was what made Grandmaster Varka so confident in leaving the city with the bulk of our military power. Once the gate was closed, there simply was no easy way to conquer the city. If pressed, I knew for a fact that the city had enough food reserves to endure a siege for over a year.
I saw knights and volunteers manning the wall facing the bridge. They were heavily armed with enchanted longbows, blessed by the Church of Favonius with our patron god’s element. Clearly, someone had thought to take these out of storage and handed them out.
I remembered a few years back, Eula complained that Hertha, the logistics company captain, had been pushing for a “modernization” of the knights’ arsenal. There was a whole competition that I missed out on in which the best archers, like Amber, compared their longbows against rifles. Eula had been sour because she saw it as a pointless waste of time and resources.
And, to be fair, I didn’t entirely disagree. Riflemen were easier to train, but the reality of living in a magical world was that the exact shape of the weapon wasn’t as important as the magic of the wielder. I could take down a literal mecha with a stick in hand. So could plenty of other people. Amber’s rain of flaming arrows were far more deadly than any random soldier with a rifle would ever be.
Beyond that, it wasn’t as if knights stationed in Mondstadt needed better weapons. They were primarily peacekeepers and you didn’t typically need firearms to break up a bar fight. If anything, Fontaine and its street-legal mechas were the weirdos.
The end result was a partial implementation. Hertha got to commission some rifles. She handed them out to knights in more crime-heavy areas such as Dormman Port. Frederica Gunnhildr, captain of the seventh company and Jean and Barbara’s mother, had supported the distribution, favoring a combined arms approach to tackling smuggling in the area.
In any case, enchanted bows were why our archers could shoot further, with far more accuracy, than any other force in Teyvat, barring elite, “named” champions of course. And, since the ‘churls had to occupy the bridge to maintain their siege, even rank amateurs had little trouble hitting them.
They were being led by Amber the Outrider. The crackshot was happily sniping away at Anemo slimes, causing Pyro Swirls that sent the floating siege platforms into the lake. Occasionally, she’d toss a Baron Bunny onto the bridge below to help out her subordinates.
More men, in pairs, patrolled the rest of the city walls to make sure none of the hilichurls tried to climb from a different angle. These men were clad in full plate, marking them as fully qualified knights.
That was good, it meant someone competent had taken command and assigned rotations, probably Kaeya. As sketchy as the one-eyed man was, he was still a knight captain, with all that the title entailed. He was surprisingly reliable when it counted.
“It was,” I confirmed for Jean. “But you know, I really expected them to be done with this little invasion by now.”
“You call an army of over a thousand hilichurls ‘little?’”
“I mean… Yes? Look, Amber’s basically holding the sky on her own and we’ve got maybe sixty people on the walls keeping the bridge clear.”
“The mitachurls look like they’re going to make a big push,” Lumine pointed out. “They’ll try to use their shields to get closer.”
“The city has Diluc, Kaeya, Noelle, Lisa, Albedo, and Sucrose. Or, if all else fails, Klee,” I pointed out. “This isn’t a threat. Hell, I know for a fact that Aether has a far more threatening army than what’s below us.”
“Still, we should help.”
“You ladies have fun. I’ve used a ton of magic today supplying Durin. Holding Dvalin still wasn’t easy, you know,” I replied with a tired smile. I flopped onto my back and began to make a snow angel.
And, they did.
Lumine, Jean, and Eula leapt from Durin’s back. Anemo and Cryo swirled as they fell onto the bridge like avenging angels. My sister’s Lightfall Sword blended perfectly with Jean’s Dandelion Breeze, forming a localized hurricane, if said hurricane contained countless daggers of ice that shredded everything in sight.
Dodging a hurricane atop a stone bridge was fucking impossible. Those three landed near the far shore, clearing a visible area of empty space around them. Then, they began to push back towards the city, slashing their way through all opposition and pincering the sieging army against the city walls.
This was what war was really like in Teyvat. The truth was, the average soldier, be they knights or ‘churls, could do very little against the strongest champions of this world. Singular individuals could, and did, destroy armies or reshape landscapes. What I was seeing below was but a microcosm of history’s bloodiest conflicts.
Not all Vision-bearers were this strong, of course. Having access to elemental magic raised the ceiling in terms of potential power, but it didn’t strictly make someone a fighting savant. Jean, Eula, and Lumine were in the upper crust even among Vision-bearers though.
I heard cheers resound throughout the walls as more and more of them recognized the Dandelion Knight. She was a rallying presence for the city, proof-positive that everything would be alright soon.
Amber looked up and waved happily at me. Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she began to provide covering fire for her friends.
Someone had gotten the bright idea to open the gates so Mondstadt’s defenders could join in the melee. A flaming phoenix, Diluc’s signature attack, raged from the gates, giving the defenders room to exit onto the bridge proper.
It wouldn’t be long before the siege broke. Already, the hilichurl leadership was in shambles after Lumine yeeted a cluster of samachurls across the lake.
As for me, I steered Durin elsewhere. The gates were so noisy and I really wanted some shuteye after my magical exertions today.
Lisa’s library sounded like a good place. There was a comfy lounge chair in one nook. Or there had been the last time I was in town. If she threw it out, I was going to freeze her hair into a mohawk. Again.
Author’s Note
Not much to say. I recently figured out a direction I want to go in with this story so I’ll start dabbling again.