Work Text:
If he had lived a better life, this would be about the time when Clitopho would think to himself, ‘it’s okay. I lived a good life.’ Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. He would still want to live regardless, probably even more so if said life was more nicely put together up to this point. But actually, it was fine, because there was no need for morbid thoughts like that. They were fine. No, really, they would be fine.
“Ugh, stay back!” Lady Keqing ordered them following her argumentative discussion with Jinwu, in which case Jinwu reluctantly sighed and stepped back, as if already anticipating that this wouldn’t work.
Keqing used her Vision to unleash this Electro marker thing onto the wall of loose rocks, making it burst with a slash of her sword. It was an impressive burst, too! Very flashy. Almost lit up the whole clearing for a second. Except all it did was move the rocks around a little and make a few more fall.
“Sorry, Lady Keqing,” Jinwu told her with a shrug. “I tried to tell you; it’s not going to work. We’re not getting out that way again without some kind of explosive.”
“Right, and that would be his job,” Keqing recalled with a pointed and suspicious look back at Clitopho. (As if he ever did anything to her!)
“Which I cannot do without the right materials,” Clitopho reminded them, just so they were clear on the matter. “No explosives, no explosions. That is, sadly, how this works.”
“I thought you said you knew alchemy?” Keqing probed, her gaze sharp as a knife. “Can you not make use of the minerals in this cave for anything?”
“With what? Everything around here is just rocks!”
“Hmph, are you not an expert in this?”
“Well, y-yeah!” Clitopho was, admittedly, not all that sure of that statement in this moment right now.
“It’s alright, Lady Keqing,” Jinwu stepped in. “I can vouch for his skills.”
Keqing let out a long sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Yes, I understand. My apologies for the rudeness. I was just a little surprised, visiting your camp, to find someone not on the roster. Naturally, I would be inclined to question his qualifications, as well as his background.”
“We met him along the way, and you don’t have to worry about his background,” Jinwu explained yet again, telling the truth while conveniently omitting a slew of details. Clitopho was…kind of grateful, actually. He owed her one.
Still, they didn’t make him any less nervous about being stuck in a cave-in with the Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing herself. With their Chasm mapping well underway and the Chasm itself deemed moderately not-as-much-of-a-death-trap-as-it-once-was, Keqing took it on herself to visit the underground camp in person. Clitopho at least was still quite surprised that she would come in person and not just send a few representatives, and he was even more surprised when she requested that they show her around. And so, they did. Jinwu and Clitopho were the ones to accompany her, and the tour would have gone splendidly if it wasn’t for that damned earthquake. And also if it wasn’t for Keqing’s insistence on going deep into the mines where they might end up in a narrow tunnel that would most assuredly leave them trapped in the case of said earthquake.
It only lasted a few seconds, and they were all uninjured—in part due to Jinwu’s quick thinking in pulling them both under a stable ceiling. Her twenty plus years of experience weren’t for nothing; that was for sure. She knew how to read a cave pretty damn well.
Keqing appeared unconvinced, but she seemed to decide to drop the matter anyways. “Very well. Just remember in the future, that, in adventuring, it’s always imperative to be prepared.”
“Hey, what do you think? It’s not like I have limitless inventory space existing in some bottomless subspace attached to my person, or anything crazy like that! I can’t just carry around all of my explosives everywhere!” True, maybe he could have brought a small stick of dynamite or something, but still. “Besides, if we did have that option, we hardly have even room in this place to do it safely!”
“That is true,” Jinwu affirmed, taking a glance back at the other end of their small clearing, where they had their other problem. Corrupted mud glowed eerily in their lamplight, where it appeared to ooze slowly from a crack in the wall. It turned that side of the tunnel into a definite no-touching zone, which was an issue, especially if it kept flowing like that while they were stuck here, although the fact didn’t exactly fill Clitopho with horror or anything like that. He was far too used to the sight of that stuff. It was just hazards of Chasm living, at this point. Was it creepy that he didn’t know where it came from or how exactly it got here? Yes, but figuring that out was very solidly not his job. He’ll leave those mysteries for Khedive and his Akademiya smarts to wrap his head around.
“We should start searching for an exit,” Jinwu told them, a fair point since the pitch-black darkness left much of the accessible tunnel walls unseen, since the lamp powered by the lumenstone only lit up this place so far. “If we can’t find it, we wait. The others know where we were going; they’ll make their way here soon enough if we don’t return.”
Oh, right! That. Yes, rescue really wouldn’t be that hard to come by after all, now would it? What did they have to worry about? Granted, the others would still have to find a way through that rock wall without killing everyone inside, which would be a bit tricky, especially since the other members in question were Khedive and Taliesin and this issue fell into literally neither of their expertise’s. Maybe they would fetch Muning for help? Anyways, at least they wouldn’t have to go searching the whole Chasm top to bottom like they would whenever Zhiqiong ran off.
Zhiqiong… With that thought in his head, Clitopho couldn’t help but think about her while searching the wall for unseen crevices like Jinwu said to do. He missed her. Maybe it was a little odd for him to do so, since he didn’t know her for all that long, but it was long enough that her absence made the team feel incomplete. She may have been super difficult to get along with back at the beginning, but she was kind of cool after a while (and after the Traveler maybe sort of yelled at both of them to get along), and she even talked about him in her letter she left them! Granted, his part of the letter was technically mostly her listing out his faults, even on things she hadn’t talked about before (his “lack of hygiene awareness”? What was that about?), but she also apologized! Honestly though, just being included in the ‘goodbye’ letter felt…nice, actually. It made Clitopho feel like he was one of them, part of the squad, member of the five-man band! Just like those adventure stories he used to read when he was a kid back in Mondstadt. Seriously, they fit the adventure squad look so well—Jinwu was the leader, Khedive was the smart one, Taliesin was emotional support, Zhiqiong was the bold and daring strong person, and Clitopho was the cool edgy street-smart bad boy! It was perfect!
But now…Clitopho just hoped that Zhiqiong was okay, wherever she was, and still, well, alive. He hoped he’d get a chance to see her again someday.
“Got something,” Jinwu announced, catching Clitopho’s attention quite quickly and filling him with hope, but not too much hope, because she didn’t sound super excited or anything. Not that she really sounded that excited about things a lot, as a general rule…
“What is it?” Keqing asked with resolution, as if awaiting battle plans or something.
“There’s a crevice.” Jinwu sighed loudly, which meant there was probably bad news in there somewhere. “It’s a little small; it would be difficult to squeeze through, but not impossible. However, the other problem is that I see traces of Dark Mud in there. It would be impossible to travel through without making some contact with it.”
“So there’s even more of it…” Keqing mused with a glare sent back towards that mud still seeping through the crack in the wall. She shook her head. “If it wasn’t clear already from our previous conversation, I would like the study of this ‘mud’ to take top priority for the Chasm Exploration Team, as opposed to the exploration of the further reaches of the Chasm landscape. I’ve already received a detailed report on the Nail from another source, as well—we can stay clear of it in further mining endeavors, but as long as this mud is here, a mining operation of any scale would be out of the question. It’s far too hazardous.”
“Whelp, you’re not wrong,” Clitopho agreed as he took a look through the crevice himself and shuddered a little at the thought of going in. “It is quite annoying—not instantly lethal or anything like that, but definitely annoying.”
“So is it possible to investigate this passageway, then?” Keqing questioned. “Since the effects of the mud can be endured?”
“Yeah…?” Clitopho agreed with eyebrows raised in great suspicion. “But it would not be a good idea. Definitely bad for your health. This is still literal poison. I mean, I’m not going in there, and I doubt Jinwu would fit in there all that great, sooooooo…guess we’ll just have to wait for rescue!” he decided with a clap of his hands for finality.
“Ugh, fine.” Lady Keqing rolled her eyes. “I’ll go in there myself.”
“WHAT!?” Clitopho balked. “You!?”
“Are you saying that I can’t handle it, Mr. ‘demolitions expert’?”
“N-No! I mean, yes! No offense, of course! I just mean, you’re a politician! This is outside your job description! You’re the Yuheng! If you die on our watch, the Milleleth will have our heads!”
“Clitopho!’ Keqing barked with a glare, using his name for maybe the first time. “Do you really believe Liyue’s justice system to be so barbaric!?”
“S-Sorry, what I meant to say is…we genuinely care about your health and safety, Ms. Yuheng!”
“Put down the shovel, Clitopho,” Jinwu muttered towards him under her breath, then speaking up with, “What we mean to say is that we recognize it to be our duty to take the lead into danger and keep you safe, Lady Keqing. So, don’t worry; I’ll investigate it myself. Believe me, I’ve dealt with plenty of tight fits before.”
“N-No, Jinwu…” Clitopho spoke up, although he did not look forward to what he was about to say. “I’ll do it. I’m smaller, and also, with the mud being an issue…well, we need you in one piece the most, I think. So yeah, I’ll investigate.”
And so, he did. He threw off his coat first so that it wouldn’t get in the way. Clitopho held his breath and squeezed on through, fighting feelings of claustrophobia as he did so. He’s been getting used to the sometimes narrow confines of the cave’s passages, but that earthquake certainly didn’t do wonders for his mental state. He prayed silently to the archons that there wouldn’t be another one and that he wouldn’t otherwise die in the process. Although his already shaky faith was just as soon broken midway when he remembered that Rex Lapis was, in fact, dead, so he just went hometown nostalgia and prayed to Barbatos instead. Hey, anemo archon, remember me? Before I betrayed Mondstadt by becoming a Treasure Hoarder and all that? I’m not doing that anymore, so, uh, cut me some slack, maybe? Help me not get poisoned or crushed by the earth in this hole in the ground, eh? Whatever it took to make him feel better, he guessed.
However, he did actually make it through! To his supreme relief, the crevice opened up into a larger area. “HEY! I made it!” he shouted through to the other side. “There’s a clearing here!”
He did some investigating with the light of his small fragment of lumenstone. Unfortunately, he wasn’t finding a way out. It seemed like it used to be connected to the outside, but there was a freshly made wall through what might have once been an opening. His heart fell, but there were some traces of things here. It wasn’t just rocks and Dark Mud—he caught some remnants from what seemed to be a Pyro Slime or two, and also a…
“A FROG!” he shouted with exultation, almost scaring said frog with the outburst before he dove in and caught the little guy. He dove straight into yet another glop of toxic mud to do it, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t believe it. They were saved.
“Hey! Can you hear me?” he called through the crack. “I found a frog!”
“A what!?” he heard Keqing say.
“A frog! But no opening! But it doesn’t matter! The archons have blessed us! I’m coming back now!”
He squeezed back through the crack, the way back comparatively less scary than the way in. It wasn’t until after he got out through to the other side that he fully comprehended the corrupted mud that now coated his clothes and was smeared all over his skin. It produced this dull aching burning sensation where it touched that slowly amplified over time, so Clitopho hurried up and tried to shake it off. He could feel it quite distinctly drain his energy away with each passing second, but it was fine, because his adrenaline was doing a good job at making up the difference.
“You got that much on you from the passageway!?” Jinwu inspected him with a note of shock.
“No, actually, I think most of it came from that clearing on the other side. You see, I dive-bombed into a clump of it just a bit but that doesn’t matter because look! Frog!!” He held it out in front of him with pride.
“Okay.” Jinwu nodded. “Do you have anything else on you, then?”
“Yeah! In that same clearing, I got some condensate from a Pyro slime, still with the elemental signature!”
“Um, excuse me?” Keqing peered around them with an eyebrow raised. “What are you talking about?”
“We can make an explosion after all!”
“What?”
“Let me explain, let me explain! I got this frog, right? And an elemental essence, okay? So, boom! I can make essential oil. Now, sure, it wouldn’t be as potent as it would be if I had a flower stamen, but the slime’s remains will have to be good enough. I can make a flame essential oil, and that, my fair lady, is where you come in. What happens when you mix Pyro and Electro? You guessed it! Overload! Which makes a boom!” He motioned it with his hands. “Oh, right, did I mention I was an alchemist?”
Keqing stared at him for a moment, then shaking her head as if to clear it. “You didn’t, no. You say you can make an oil on the spot, then? Don’t you need a table?”
“Ehhhhhh…” Clitopho’s confidence faltered. He scratched his arms where the mud was, still feeling that strange burning from the spots of it still on him. “It takes a lot of energy and the result won’t be as stable or permanent, buutttttt, theoretically, if you draw the circle thingies, yeah? You can?”
“Are you up for it, then?” Jinwu questioned cautiously. “You’re looking pale. I can’t allow you to extend yourself—”
“It…it’s fine! I got this, really,” he told them, as well as himself. “I got this…just…give me a bit of time to etch it in the rock over here, alright?”
He got to it before he could talk himself out of it, feeling all too keenly both of their gazes on him as he worked. He was tense with Lady Keqing there, staring at him, judging him. Taking this job, he really hadn’t thought much about the possibility of coming into contact with the Qixing themselves, in person. He kept telling himself that this was normal and he was fine, but he still had a lot of instincts in him telling him to run far away from anyone connected to law enforcement or the government. It was fine, because he was good now. He wasn’t doing anything illegal. Still, he technically had a lot of crimes to his name. Jinwu and Muning were willing to look that over and give him a second chance, but that didn’t mean that, well, other people would.
Keqing was suspicious of his presence, so he had to prove himself to her. He also, perhaps more importantly, had to not let Jinwu down, not now that they were so close.
So, because of this, Clitopho felt absolutely terrified once he started drawing the crafting pattern he needed. He was not, by any means, an expert alchemist. His lack of expertise was the exact reason why his life ended up in as much a mess as he made it. He tried to be a real alchemist, once. When he was little and had all his future ahead of him, he dreamed of being a great one. The only problem was that he just couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the talent to do anything meaningful, and nobody cared. “Why use alchemy to do that?” they said. “You could just fix it with glue and get the same result!” He wasn’t able to get far with it at all. He couldn’t learn through just dusty books alone. He wasn’t going to be anything but average, doomed to a life of alchemic mediocrity.
“Sorry, kid, but you’re on your own,” he told Timaeus that day, when the young teenager (though just about four years younger than him, actually) tried to ask him where he was going. “Just keep studying, I guess. Me? I’m going adventuring. I figure out something to do eventually, really! Don’t worry about me!”
He didn’t tell him that he already planned on joining the Treasure Hoarders. He was just so done with feeling stuck. In his mind, there was nothing left for him on the right side of the law. He figured it wasn’t so bad being with them, anyways. Their main thing was just finding treasure, right? Nothing wrong or illegal about that. The thievery was just a side gig for some. He didn’t have to do that if he wasn’t comfortable with it. He didn’t want to hurt people. But then…well, then he did. He did stuff, and people got hurt. He split off to do his own thing eventually, conning people into buying fake medicine, but it didn’t last, and somehow or another, he fell right back in with the Hoarders.
“Some nerve you have!” Erge spoke with barely restrained anger, dragging Clitopho’s bruised and battered form across the ground, then throwing him into the cage and locking it. “Abandoning your comrades, leaving them up there to rot, and if that wasn’t enough, you set the Weasel Thieves free! Anything else I should know about, traitor!?”
“Hehe, well…let’s not jump to conclusions…”
“Then what should I think!?”
What? What should he say? That he did, in fact, try to run? That their food supply was nonexistent and the weasels were starving, so he just let them go instead of bothering to keep struggling to find supplies? Stealing food from the surface was a dumb plan, anyways. That area was literally crawling with soldiers. They were going to get caught, and he didn’t want to be caught. He was just…tired. Maybe, he didn’t actually care at all anymore. Pathetic person he was, right?
“This is the last straw, Clitopho. Once I’m finished with you, you’re going to wish you were dead.”
If Clitopho was a smarter person, drawing this array wouldn’t be any issue at all. Unfortunately, he really wasn’t. Maybe, if he forced himself to be honest with himself, it really was all his fault, in the end. He didn’t have to live life like this. He could’ve found another way to avoid the mediocrity his youthful self always feared.
He would learn, though. His days as a potioneer did still teach him a thing or two, and so did his time in Mondstadt. Maybe, he could start to make an effort to learn some more alchemy, now that he was free to actually use it for good. Maybe he’ll even visit Mondstadt again sometime, once their expedition was done. He heard that due to some new hot shots in the Knights’ lab, alchemy was actually kind of popular again. Who knew? (He was very much jealous.)
However, today? Today, what he knew would be enough. Finally, he got the rune to glow, and he felt his excitement bubble up in him even as his body ached and his mind grew dizzy. He was ready. “Alright, here goes!”
In seconds, the potions were made. He divided them up into little bits. Tackling the wall in small charges would probably be best, anyways.
“Haha! Ha! I did it!” he laughed. Behold, the power of adrenaline! “I…I did it…really…”
And then, it went. All his energy, all his muscles keeping him up—they were gone all at once. He felt himself collapsing, but before he blacked out, he first felt someone catching him.
+++
“You idiot,” Jinwu told him again, placing a wet cloth on his head and force-feeding him something else. “Don’t you dare start picking up Zhiqiong’s bad habits with the mud.”
Clitopho breathed shakily, sinking his head down as far as the hard cot would let him, but laughter was still on the tip of his lips. He did it. The potion worked, or so he was told. Keqing really was able to do the thing and get them out of there. They made it back in time to meet up with Khedive and Taliesin looking for them, Jinwu carrying his unconscious form the whole way.
The other two were here with them now, relieved to find them but also seemingly stressed at Clitopho’s condition. Khedive was formulating some new medicine tailored for him right now, and Taliesin was taking a break in between the stories he had been telling, apparently in an effort to keep his mind off of the throbbing pain. He was reminded that it hurt much worse after the exposure than it did on first contact—or at least, so it was for normal people like him.
Pick up on Zhiqiong’s bad habits, huh? Clitopho could almost burst into laughter yet again. If they all knew how much of a coward he really was, they would see how ridiculous of a picture that truly was.
“Well then, you know?” he said with a mischievous grin. “I think I’ll take that as a compliment!”