5 It's Called Speedrunning...(pt.1)

"Morning, Archer and Lancer."

"Good morning, Lumine."

"Mornin'."

"Hi travelers! I'm Paimon, Lumine's guide while she travels around Teyvat!"

"And my emergency food", Lumine muttered, earning a glare and two chuckles.

"Hello Paimon. I'm Archer."

"And I'm Lancer although I'm sure the missy told you about us."

"Yea!"

"So what's the plan for today, Lumine? Yesterday's big wolf boss was pretty fun although I did feel kind of bad beating him up."

"Really? Just so you know, I fight him every week for rewards and stuff. Remember the flower you noticed that grew suddenly? That's where the rewards come from although I can only claim them once."

Frowning, Cú asked, "You fight him every week?"

"Ignore him", Archer said bluntly, "he's got a thing with dogs and related. Back home, he had the title 'Hound of Culain'."

"Yea, yea insult me about it and all."

"Anyway", Lumine cut in, eager to set off to their next destination, "Let's fight another boss today! Or a couple bosses!"

"Oh? What's next? A cat? A horse? A bull?"

"Uh, interesting guesses, but it's a dragon. And if Andrius, the wolf from yesterday, is the Wind of the North, the dragon, named Dvalin, is the Wind of East", Paimon exclaimed.

"Oh, so an easy boss", Cú mused.

"Not quite. This one doesn't take damage until you stun him", Lumine said.

As the four teleported to Dvalin's temple, Lumine began to explain something.

"So the thing with the next two bosses is that you are going to be fighting in my memories. In other words, you can still try to solo him, but we'll have to travel back and forth from the real world twice in order to let both of you solo.

"Well, are there any other plans for today?"

"Well, we were thinking of taking you two to Liyue!", Paimon said.

"Then we'll do this boss together."

"Hold on you two. You two can fight together, but you can't be on the field at the same time. I don't know why, but the world just won't allow it."

"Fine. So we have to chain our attacks huh. Annoying~."

"Yes. Oh and Lumine?"

"Yes, Archer?"

"You said superconduct lowers the opponents physical damage resistance right?"

"Yup. Why?...wait, don't tell me you have weapons that deal ice and electric damage or something."

"I do."

"WTF. That means you could have beat Andrius even faster yesterday!"

"I know."

"Why didn't you??!"

"You looked like you were going to mentally burst."

"Wha-."

"Okay okay Lumine", Paimon interrupted, "You can get mad at them later. Paimon wants to see them fight!"

"Fine, fine. Alright, just stand in the blue circle as I get this fight started."

As the two stood awkwardly in the center of the blue circle, Lumine began muttering something.

"Okay you two! Fights all ready. Let's go!"

Suddenly, the world seemed to tilt and blur as the four entered into the boss fight.

This feels like rayshifting, Emiya projected.

Yeah, it kinda does, Cú replied.

And then, the world was back in focus.

Standing on a broken platform, Cú and Emiya looked around.

"Okay quick rundown before Dvalin shows up. He's got a couple different attacks that you two can figure out. However, one attack will infuse a couple platforms with anemo energy which will deal damage to you. Just fly over to a different platform and-"

"Uh, we can't fly?", Cú cut in.

"Amber never gave you a windglider?"

"No?"

"Well I am not giving you mine. Just know that in order to evade the DoT from the environment, you have to cross the platforms."

"Alright. Hey Archer, did you choose your burst yet?"

"I chose Projection. And you?"

"I stuck with the same one as last time, Pierce."

"And if the boss is flying?"

"Well I sure hope not. Anyway, you want to go out on the field first since you have ranged?

"Sure."

"Alright."

Just as Cú disappeared into the backline subspace where Lumine had gone, the dragon appeared.

Roaring, the dragon hovered over the platform and began attacking.

"It's ranged Cú."

I can see bastard. Rank E luck is seriously kicking my face.

"Yup."

As Emiya fired a quick sucession of arrows, he noticed a light gray gauge right under the red health bar lowering.

"Is that the stun bar or whatever?"

Yep, Lumine said in Emiya's head, Just bring that all the way down and Dvalin will be stunned allowing close combat damage.

"Alright."

After stunning Dvalin and letting Cú do some damage, Dvalin slowly rose back up.

"Dammnit!", Cú yelled as he jumped back into the subspace letting Archer take the field again.

I was so close to killing him!

"Yea, yea. What's that?"

Suddenly, Dvalin let forth a wild cry and a burst of energy hit Emiya's platform.

That's the infusion, Lumine said, Good luck getting off that platform.

"No problem", Emiya said, proceeding to jump across the chasm to another platform and then again until he reached a normal platform.

What.

Emiya and Cú could almost hear Lumine's jaw hit the subspace floor.

Emiya winced, Lumine's loud mental voice filling his head as she screamed why's , how's, and random sentences.

Within the next couple of seconds, Dvalin was down again.

It didn't take Cú more than one hit to knock Dvalin out of the battle.

"Done."

As the four left the realm, Cú and Emiya came face-to-face with an angry Lumine and a bewildered Paimon.

"That was sooo fast! Paimon's never seen Dvalin take such a beating, even from Lumine!"

"Shut it Paimon. I'm still mad and I am not afraid to chuck you back to Mondstadt from here."

"Eek!"

"Well, whatever. I saw how crazy you two were yesterday and I still can't get over it today. Let's just go to Liyue."

"Sure."

Instead of teleporting all the way to Liyue, Lumine instead teleported them to right outside the harbor.

Overlooking the harbor from the mountain, Lumine began to introduce the city to the two, telling them of different notable citizens.

Lumine mentioned Venti, the current Archon of Mondstadt, and Zhongli, the now-retired Archon of Liyue.

"Gods huh. Are they a pain to deal with?"

"I think they're fine, but Venti's a little bit of a pain. He's a pretty big drinker."

"Oh ho, so that Diluc person wouldn't like him then?"

"Yup. He doesn't. Have you two met Diluc?"

"No, I overheard his name while Cú got himself drunk at the tavern in Mondstadt though."

"Oh."

After talking about Tartaglia and his shady connections and fighting prowess, Lumine realized something.

"Wait, Childe uses a bow and melee weapons like you, Archer. He switches between dual-wield short swords to a long lance."

"Huh. Hey Archer, you should fight him."

"Oh you will. Not the current him though, but the one from my dream."

"Nice!"

"....Can I just settle down in a kitchen?"

"Uh, I know someone who's family owns a restaurant. Good enough?"

"For this red guy? Yup!"

This lead to a discussion about Xiangling and eventually Xingqiu, Chongyun, and Xinyan.

"Xinyan sounds like Summer Nobu."

"Yeah, she does. Got that fiery beat and rock n' roll love too."

"Summer Nobu?"

"Paimon thinks that's a cool name! Paimon wishes she could meet them!"

"Yeah well, Summer Nobu would actually eat you Paimon. She's that kind of person."

"Oh never mind! Paimon wants to stay far, far away!"

"Don't crush her hopes like that Archer!"

"It's my job."

"Haha. Paimon, it's alright. Remember, they're from a different world."

"Oh, ok."

Then a small conversation about Ningguang.

"She's the opposite of Mona."

"More or less."

And then Keqing.

"Yandere. That's a definite yandere."

"Stop, stop. Don't through that term around casually."

"He's not wrong though?"

"Paimon! You are not helping my case!"(Archer)

And finally Qiqi...

"Zombie huh. We've fought enough undead to be tired of that."

"But Qiqi's a pretty great healer unit."

"And our healers range from a fox to an insane wizard to a kids story writer."

"Oh. No zombies on your side then?"

"Well, to be fair, everyone at Chaldea has already lived their real life. So maybe we're all zombies."

"That...you're not gonna eat Paimon's brain are you?"

"No. Brains taste yucky."

"Hmm. While there are some cooking styles that use a brain in them, I'd rather not make something like that."

"Archer."

"Yes?"

"That's disgusting."

"I'm not the one who made those recipes."

"....still disgusting."

and Beidou.

"So a badass female pirate who is secretly friends with an unknown government official."

"More or less."

"We've got a couple pirates back at Chaldea too."

"Yup. Anne and Mary, Drake, Teach, hell Columbus counts too."

"Do they swing a giant sword around?"

"Uh, Mary does. But she's like 158cm so-"

"That's how tall Beidou is."

"Oh. Well, Mary looks short because she's always hangin' around Anne who's 170 something."

"Wish I could have a couple extra cm. I'm stuck at 156."(Lumine)

"If it makes you feel better, this bastard was 167 cm once."

"Really?"

"Yup, he got a growth spurt after becoming a Servant and is now 187."

"....can we not go into the past?"

"Sorry, sorry, not really. It's just unfair about how much shorter you were before and now you're taller than me!"

That comment earned a glare as well as a short sword flying in Cú's direction.

*For the poor fellows(coughmecough) who live in the ONE COUNTRY that DOES NOT use the smart system:

156 - 5.1 feet

158 - 5.2 feet

170 - 5.6 feet

167 - 5.5 feet

187 - 6.1 feet

*

Note:

This chapter was originally supposed to be combined with the one labelled pt.2. However, I ended up writing it with a combined 2,500+ words while crunching some dialogue. So instead, I split it into two chapters.

Extras will be added at the bottom of pt.2(hopefully published tomorrow). The extras will include bits from both pt.1 and pt.2