Chapter Text
Memento mori - Remember that you have to die
Those were the words inscribed in my journal when I decided to take on that commission. It was supposed to be simple and clean, deal with the rifthounds that kept creeping up near Sal Terrae and the abyss rift that appeared there a month or so back, but now, my journal is gone and I'm again, all alone, in a place that I don't know. Paimon is… she's gone, I don’t have the slightest idea where she is, and the rift, the rift that brought me here has also vanished as fast as it appeared under my feet. Archons above, what will I do?
The cold air that blew through the abandoned building struck Aether's face with a force he wasn't expecting, cutting his thoughts short and bringing him back to the bleak reality he faced. The once revered traveler was now in a place where his powers were gone, his most trusted companion on the either side of that rift, or worse, stuck drifting in the abyss, his sword, clothes and bag remaining the only thing that kept him sane, along with the hope that he'll be back in Teyvat and that his friends were trying to get him out of where he was.
Am I really all alone here? He pondered as he descended downstairs from the 5th floor of a multi-story apartment building. Are there literally no other people in this, this place that I am in? He told himself as his heart raced at the thought that he might not come back, or worse, die here, all alone.
As he reached the first floor of the derelict building he noticed something through a crack in the wall, a set of 6 short buildings, not taller than a floor, with big metal gates as their doors, a place to wait out the impending night, and maybe find some supplies. His backpack had some food in it, a box of sweets from Fontaine bundled with a bottle of Fonta, some smoked meat he got from an adventurer and his canteen filled with water.
If I balance my supplies right I can make it, about a day or two before having to forage or hunt, if there's anything to hunt of course. Plus, I have some bandages I got from Bennett, a bit of mora left over from my earlier commissions… Wait, my mora didn't vanish. Everything else I had is gone, the gemstones I have been collecting as gifts for my friends, the slime secretions and condensate, the potions I got from Lisa, but not the mora? This is weird… He said as he got next to those buildings, passing by a sign that he couldn't understand, it simply saying: “ГСК-1”.
The buildings were short, his eyes didn't fool him when he first saw them, and the big metal doors had no locks leaving Aether with two options, to go inside, or stay outside and risk catching a cold. He didn't weigh the other choice as he drew his sword and opened the door expecting the worst. Just as he was about to let his guard down a beast lunged at him from the room he had just gone into. It was a rat of such a huge size that it would have baffled anyone from Teyvat. He swung his blade, trying to hit the rodent, which while bigger than any rat he had encountered before, was still small and nimble enough to dodge his attacks and try to counter them. The rodent tried to repeat its initial strike from the side, but this time Aether was ready, and with one good swing of his sword he split it in half, blood splattering onto his blade and clothes. He looked at the motionless body of the rodent that he had just killed, a sense of sadness brushing over him before he snapped back to reality. He had killed creatures before, people even, yet this time it felt different. The beings of Teyvat didn't die such gruesome deaths when struck down by a blow of a sword, they simply vanished into a mist of elemental particles gaining a new life in the world that was Teyvat, yet here their bodies remained the same, they didn't vanish.
Aether put his sword back in its sheath and began searching the place he had just entered, rummaging through boxes, seeing broken tools he hadn't seen before alongside pieces of paper with text written on them in a language that was alien to him. Sure, the one spoken in Teyvat wasn't his native one either, but he was proficient in it, having learned a lot just by traveling across the lands, yet this one was fundamentally different, with sharper letters and symbols he didn't know, at least the numbers stayed the same… He decided to switch his attention to another of those short buildings, one with a red door and a lock keeping it secure. Aether tried the lock, it wouldn't budge. He thought about striking it with his sword but that thought went away as simply as it came, it was simply stupid. Yet he recalled seeing a tool in a crate he searched through, one of the few ones that was still intact and not broken, a hacksaw with its blade coated in a layer of rust, it would have to do. The traveler began to cut away at the lock, his hands shaking as the rusted blade came closer and closer to snapping, and as he pulled the handle towards him one last time the lock yielded followed by the blade snapping in half. He unsheathed his blade once more and opened the door, slowly at first, then as he realised that no threat was present, he opened it fully before going in. The inside was dark and the stagnant air certainly didn't help with the atmosphere, but there was something else that Aether could feel, a sweet smell he was so familiar with, yet felt weirdly alien to him. As he went through the mostly untouched items that were stored on shelves and in boxes he found the source of it. A metal canister with a flame painted onto it. He gave it a good look, shaking it around only to be greeted by the sound of liquid sloshing inside and more of that sweet, intoxicating smell.
What if this liquid can burn… he thought to himself. His theory was not far-fetched, why else paint a flame onto a metal canister holding a liquid, but to warn someone about the fact that it can burn. He kept rummaging through the boxes that filled the back of the room until he found something, a simple glass bottle with a rubber cap. Aether went back to the canister, opened the metal cap and poured all of the clear liquid into the bottle, it filled up quickly, leaving the canister empty. The traveler looked content at his new found treasure. If I can find something to light this with, then maybe I am not so doomed. He thought. And as he gave the room one more look he spotted a small metal object on a workbench, a lighter. He was familiar with them since they were used by the people of Nod-Krai to light their cigarettes, at least the port workers did. The traveler flipped it open and it lit up, certainly it still worked, for him there was hope. He placed it in his bag alongside the bottle and some rags, and set out towards the main road, maybe he could find a way to get his bearings and try to understand where he was in this new world. When he reached it the road greeted him with a morbid image, skeletons on the ground, some covered in rags, some smaller than others, lots missing a good amount of their bones and a few of them had small holes in their skulls. Aether's eyes widened as he took in the sight, a feeling of despair and shock tearing through him as he fought with the truth. What happened here was beyond what I have ever seen… He uttered in a low, shaky tone, Not even the war in Natlan, with all its losses and the death and suffering came close to this amount of horror. He said, a deep sigh ending the sentence as he moved towards the center of town where he hoped he'd find at least a map of sorts in the town hall. He got to it just as the sun began to slowly move towards the horizon, it was getting late, he knew it. The town hall was in much better shape than the other buildings, he could sleep in it. And so he decided to do it. He opened the main door, sword in hand, ready to strike down anyone and anything that came close to him, but nothing did. The air was musty as if the building hadn't been aired out for weeks if not months, maybe even years, yet the hallways looked in decent shape, the decor on the walls still holding, and even a picture of a bald person with a mustache still remained hanging near the main entrance door. Aether followed the corridor towards an office, and as he cracked the door open to scan for enemies he realized that he'd found some kind of break room. There was a couch, a table with a fridge and a bookshelf. A bookshelf! His eyes lit up, even if he couldn't understand the language, maybe he could find a map like in Diluc's manor, or Jean's office. He looked out the window, the sun was still shining its rays through it, not for long, but still. So he began to search, anything of value, a map, a compass, anything, and just as the sun dipped below the horizon, its last rays vanishing, he found it, a map of the city and surrounding roads. It was tattered, and it missed the legend, but the lack of one didn't deter the traveler, after all, he didn't even speak the language it was written in. Yet he did make note of the name of what he posited was the town he was in, written in that same unknown language: Заполярный. With the find secured in his bag, he closed the curtains and locked the door from the inside before moving the table next to it. As he laid down on the couch, his eyes got heavy, he was tired, he felt weird, he'd spent his first night in this new world on a couch, and he couldn't have wished for more.
I don't know where I am in the grand scheme of things, I know I'm in some town with a weird name I can't read, I know I am not in Teyvat, and I know that the rats here are huge. But besides that, I know nothing, not what caused the deaths of the people I saw earlier, the poor people, the children…