Chapter Text
When Sandrone woke, the first thing she realised was that she was lying on one of the couches in the Curatorium of Secrets.
The second thing she realised was that she was very much alive—well, ‘alive’ being a relative term, as far as puppets went. She sat up with a groan and quickly ran through her self-diagnostics.
Severe damage to core…?
It didn’t make any sense. The blow Dottore had dealt her should have been fatal, should have damaged her core far beyond repair and shut her down for good. How was she…here?
Several sleeping figures were spread out across the other pieces of furniture, one of them snoring quietly. Sandrone's gaze swept across the darkened room, taking in her surroundings, and landed on—
“Pulonia!”
It lay sprawled on the floor of the Curatorium, unmoving, outer casing mangled in some parts with the circuits exposed. Whoever had moved it here had placed it delicately in the corner, out of the way, leaving any broken pieces of machinery laid out on the floor next to it. Sandrone rolled off the couch and almost landed face-first onto the floor in her haste to rush over.
“Activate! Wake up!” she commanded. Pulonia didn’t budge. She crouched over the giant machine and ran another diagnostic. As expected, the damage to it was irreparable.
“Wake up, you stupid robot!” she snapped, giving it a light kick to the chest, even though she knew it would achieve nothing. Pulonia remained unresponsive.
What about the world formula? she thought. Hat Guy’s core?
Sandrone quickly located the core, still safely protected within Pulonia, and rerouted most of her power to run a single scan.
“How many…living Moon Goddesses…are there in possession of the Trilunar Authority?”
Zero.
“No…”
They’d failed.
Columbina was…
Her friend was—
“Sandrone?” One of the sleeping figures stirred, and a pair of red crosses appeared in the near-darkness, glowing faintly. The lights in the Curatorium were switched on a moment later, revealing Arlecchino. From a nearby couch, Grandmaster Varka also stirred.
“Huh? What? I’m awake!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. His claymores were in his hands a moment later. “What’s going on?”
“Wha… Is it…morning…already…?” Jahoda was next to wake, followed by that alchemist from Mondstadt and his brother, as well as the Traveller’s floating pixie friend. The lot of them turned to see Sandrone and froze.
“What?” she demanded.
“You…died,” Arlecchino said carefully.
“Don’t look at me like that, I don’t know what happened either,” Sandrone said. “The damage to my core should have been fatal. I don’t know why it’s…” She trailed off.
There was an embedded message inside her core.
“Anyway, quit staring. I feel like I’m owed some answers, such as how the lot of you managed to fail at the last hurdle.” She crossed her arms. “All you had to do was bring down the real Frost Moon, and then we’d have Columbina back!”
“Dottore was much stronger than we anticipated,” Arlecchino said. “He sealed the false sky before we could establish a proper link to the Frost Moon and effectively locked us out. Put simply, he outplayed us. Mage Nicole was barely able to help myself and the Grandmaster escape before Dottore teleported to our location. I believe she is with the rest of the Hexenzirkel now, keeping Dottore’s energy fields from spreading out of Nod-Krai.”
“Must be pretty bad if those witches are involving themselves directly,” Sandrone muttered. “What about everyone else?”
“Captured, I would assume. Or dead,” Arlecchino said. “Miss Jahoda was kind enough to let us into the Curatorium to rest and regroup.”
Jahoda made a point of avoiding the Harbinger’s gaze when she looked over at the young woman.
“N-No! Don’t say they’re…” Paimon’s bottom lip wobbled. “The Traveller has to be alive! They can’t leave Paimon all by herself…they wouldn’t…”
“I’m sorry, Paimon, but we have to be realistic,” Arlecchino said. “Although I wager that our esteemed colleague wouldn’t let such ‘fine specimens’ go to waste.” The corners of her mouth curled into the briefest expression of disgust before she schooled her face into one of practiced neutrality.
“Then we launch a rescue operation, simple as that,” Varka said.
Sandrone extracted Hat Guy’s core from Pulonia and made a move to stand back up, only for her circuits to decide she’d done enough moving around for one evening and send her staggering, somewhat awkwardly, into the wall. Arlecchino moved to support her and help her towards the nearest couch.
“You need to rest and repair yourself,” the Knave said coolly. “I will return the core to Hat Guy. We can discuss strategy once you’re not on the brink of shutting down again.”
“Wait.” Sandrone tightened her grip on the core when Arlecchino went to grab it. “The formula…it’s completed, but my systems are too damaged to store the data, even if I had enough processing capacity. It has to stay in his core. Tell him…to keep it safe. It’s our only hope of bringing Columbina back.”
“I’ll let him know,” Arlecchino said.
“Well, the rest of us should get some more shut-eye.” Varka yawned. “Gonna be hard to strategise in the morning if we’re all falling asleep at the meeting table.”
The group gradually dispersed back to their respective sleeping areas, and Sandrone opened the embedded message in her core once the Curatorium had fallen quiet again.
The final gift…?
“But why?” she said softly. “Why give me this second chance, Alain?”
She couldn’t know. She hated that she couldn’t know.
She discovered a weight in her pocket as she got up to find her tools and spare components. Sandrone reached in and gingerly fished out a star-shaped gem, shimmering faintly with Cryo energy. This was…not a Vision.
Most of the information Sandrone knew about these artifacts came from Fatui intelligence, but there was no doubting what it was and whose it was. Fate had granted her a Stellar Lynchpin—and it was this tiny object resting in her palm that had kept her alive long enough for Alain’s ‘gift’ to activate.
I don’t understand. I’ve never had any grandiose dreams or aspirations.
But it was no use thinking about it right now; the fact that she had a second chance also meant a second chance for Nod-Krai. It meant a second chance to see Columbina again, irritating as she was at times. For now, though, she could at least run a more detailed self-diagnosis and get started on repairs.
It took her most of the night and no shortage of the supplies she’d brought over from the Design Bureau, but she was eventually able to patch the major malfunctions in her system and get started on Pulonia. It wasn’t a perfect fix by any means, given how advanced Alain’s technology was, but at the very least, she had almost all of her functionality back.
“You’re looking a lot better this morning, Sandrone,” Arlecchino said, approaching her while she tinkered. “Repairs went well, I take it?”
“Hmph. It wasn’t that difficult,” Sandrone said, because she wasn’t about to admit that she spent over two hours stumped on how to fix the damage to her core. Even after all this time, Alain’s intellect far surpassed her own. “Pulonia, though… Well, clever as I am, I can’t hold a candle to Alain’s genius. It’ll take me a while before I can fully repair it. I’ll probably need more materials than I have available right now.”
The others soon rose as well, and they all gathered around the information board in the back office while Sandrone pulled everything down to pin up a map of Nod-Krai. Nefer was sure to be upset about them trashing her office if she were here, but she wasn’t here, and Sandrone decided she could make it up to the Curatorium boss later.
“Our first priority should be to launch a rescue operation for the Traveller, Lauma, Nefer, and Flins—if they are indeed alive,” she explained. “It won’t be easy. Dottore may not have the true Frost Moon marrow, but he can still wield the power of the Trilunar Authority. If we’re to infiltrate his laboratory, we’ll need a sufficient distraction to draw him away.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to make another attempt at bringing down the real Frost Moon?” Hat Guy asked, crossing his arms. “Not that I don’t want to rescue the others. It just seems to me that we’d have an easier time of fighting Dottore and rescuing our allies once we have Columbina on our side.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Sandrone said. “The Traveller’s connection with Columbina is absolutely necessary for our original plan to work, so I’m afraid rescuing them will need to take priority. Besides, Dottore has already proven that he’s far stronger than all of us combined. If he’s able to separate us like he did during our previous fight, none of us will stand a chance. As such, I need time to fix and upgrade Pulonia to put us on equal footing.”
“Tch. What’s your plan, then?” Hat Guy asked.
“You’ll need to split into two teams,” Sandrone explained. “Grandmaster Varka and Arlecchino will be our diversion. Your job, overtly, will be to attempt to re-establish a connection to the Frost Moon and pull it down—right here.” She pointed to a remote location north of Nasha Town. “Dottore will have no choice but to investigate. Jahoda, Albedo, and Durin will use the opportunity to infiltrate the energy field over the laboratory and find our allies.” She pointed again, this time to the laboratory in the far north of the map.
“And what about you and me?” Hat Guy asked.
“I’ll remain here to finish repairs on Pulonia,” Sandrone said. “I have the fight data from our previous encounter with Dottore. I need some time to analyse it so I can build in countermeasures. You’ll stay here to protect your core and the world formula. We can’t risk it falling into enemy hands.”
Hat Guy crossed his arms. “Can’t you just make me a false core? I’d have imagined it would be easy for someone with your intellect.”
“Hmph. Flattery won’t get you anywhere.” Sandrone turned away with a huff. “But…I suppose it could be done…”
“Good. Then I’ll join Arlecchino and Grandmaster Varka in distracting Dottore,” Hat Guy said.
“It’ll take me some time,” Sandrone said. “And I’ll need the rest of you to gather more materials for me. I’ve exhausted most of the supplies I brought over from the Design Bureau trying to repair myself.”
“Just leave us a list, and we can get started,” Albedo said. “I’m sure I can use alchemy to create any items that are too difficult to salvage.”
“I can put the expedition force onto resource gathering, too,” Varka added.
Arlecchino put a hand on her chin. “I suppose, in the meantime, Miss Jahoda and I will scout for a good entry point into Dottore’s research facility.”
“What? Me?” Jahoda’s eyes widened. “Are you sure…you don’t want someone…I dunno…more qualified…? I mean, I’m…uh…honoured to be working with a Harbinger and all…but I just think that…maybe…someone else could do a better job of scouting? I can gather materials instead. I’m great at that. Mhm.”
Arlecchino responded with a subtle raised eyebrow until Jahoda squirmed.
“Um. I’m happy to scout ahead with you, Lady Arlecchino. Let’s go! Right now if you like. Or whenever you want to leave. I’m right behind you.”
“Alright, well, let’s get to it, then,” Varka said. “We’ll reconvene back here in the evening.”
The six of them quickly dispersed, and Sandrone took over the office area to tinker with Pulonia. Hat Guy was quick to join her, picking up a spare drive shaft and using his Anemo powers to toss it repeatedly into the air. She tried to ignore him and focus on her work, but the soft whoosh every time he threw the component was beginning to get on her nerves.
“What do you want?” she finally snapped, putting down her tools with a little more force than necessary. Hat Guy tossed the drive shaft one more time, caught it, and looked at her.
“You’re normally the type of person to have backup plans, Sandrone,” he said. “But you seem to be hinging all your bets on this rescue mission. Surely you’re not worried about our companions?”
“What’s it to you?” Sandrone huffed.
“Just an observation.” Hat Guy put the drive shaft back down. “I’ll let you work in peace. Got some diagnostics to run anyway.”
He disappeared into the Curatorium’s back room before she could think to respond.