Chapter Text
The tavern door didn’t just open; it flew off its top hinge.
Cyno stood in the doorway of the Lambad’s Tavern, his eyes hidden beneath the shadow of his Jackal cowl.
Beside him stood Alhaitham, who was actively trying to dissolve into the wallpaper, and Kaveh, who was already holding a glass of wine and weeping about a structurally unsound pillar he had seen down the street.
"Hear me," Cyno boomed, the tavern falling dead silent. "What do you call a vision holder who refuses to drink with his comrades?"
"Please don’t," Alhaitham muttered, adjusting his noise-canceling headphones.
"An un-enlightened soul," Cyno declared.
From the darkest, most secluded corner of the tavern, a massive, indigo-painted sun hat tilted upward. Beneath it, two violet eyes flashed with enough murderous intent to slay a weekly boss.
Wanderer sneered, swirling a cup of bitter green tea. "Get out of my sight before I blow this entire establishment into the Avidya Forest."
"Oh, come on, Hat Guy!" Kaveh chimed in, suddenly sliding into the booth next to him and throwing an arm around his rigid shoulders.
"We’re celebrating! Cyno passed a budget report, Alhaitham didn’t talk back to the Akademiya board for a whole forty-eight hours, and I haven't filed for bankruptcy this week! You have to drink with us!"
"Touch me again and you lose the arm, architect," Wanderer hissed, his Anemo vision glowing dangerously.
Cyno slammed a massive wooden keg onto the table. "This is Death After Noon. A vintage from Mondstadt. It is said to test the mettle of even the strongest warriors. I dare you, Wanderer. Unless, of course, the great 'Hat Guy' is easily defeated by fermented grape juice."
Wanderer froze. His ego, a fragile and towering construct built on centuries of trauma and godhood complexes, violently seized. Defeated? By juice? "Give me the glass," Wanderer said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.
Ten minutes later, the Aggravate boys realized they had made a horrific, catastrophic mistake. Most people get sleepy when they are drunk. Some get flirty. Some, like Kaveh, become emotional wrecks.
Wanderer, being a five-hundred-year-old artificial puppet with the emotional maturity of a radioactive badger, did none of these things. He became a chaotic deity of absolute menace.
"You think you know lightning?!" Wanderer shrieked, now standing on top of the tavern table.
His beloved hat was on backward. He was pointing a trembling, accusatory finger at Cyno. "Your little purple wolf trick? Pathetic! I used to be the lightning! I was the Electro Archon's prototype! I am a god! You are a man in a dog costume!"
"Technically, it is a jackal—" Cyno started, genuinely fascinated.
"Silence, mortal!" Wanderer barked, taking another aggressive swig directly from the bottle. He staggered, his Anemo powers flaring up and lifting Kaveh’s expensive blueprints right out of his briefcase, scattering them into the tavern rafters. "My layouts! My structural integrity!" Kaveh wailed, dropping to his knees.
"Alhaitham!" Wanderer pointed his finger at the Grand Scribe next. "You. You think you're so smart with your books and your chest muscles. Look at me! I have the accumulated knowledge of the Irminsul tree and I deleted my own past! Can you delete your past, Alhaitham? Can you delete the time you wore mismatched shoes to the Akademiya?"
Alhaitham paused, looking up from his book. "How did you find out about that?"
"I know everything!" Wanderer cackled, a terrifying, unhinged sound that made the bartender hide under the counter. He leaped off the table, floating roughly six inches off the ground because his legs refused to coordinate properly. "I'm going to Mondstadt. Right now. I’m going to kick a bard."
"He's reaching critical mass," Cyno whispered, taking a defensive stance. "We need to neutralize the threat. Kaveh, grab his vision. It's the source of his power."
"I'm not touching him! He looks like he bites!" Kaveh shrieked.
"I do bite!" Wanderer confirmed, fiercely snapping his jaws in Kaveh's direction.
He then caught sight of his own reflection in a polished brass shield hanging on the wall. He stopped dead in his tracks. He approached the shield, squinting intensely.
"Who is this beautiful, tragic stranger?" Wanderer whispered, gently touching the brass. "Your eyes hold the sorrow of a thousand betrayals. Do you also hate your mother?"
Alhaitham sighed, closing his book with a snap. "We need the Dendro Archon. Now."
Before anyone could move, Wanderer grabbed the brass shield, ripped it off the wall, and hugged it to his chest. "No! You can't have him! He's my only friend! We're going to go overthrow the Akademiya again. Just me and... Mirror Me."
He spun around to face the trio, his eyes wide and completely unfocused. "You three. You have displeased the Everlasting Lord of Arcane Wisdom. Your punishment... is a terrible pun."
Cyno gasped, his eyes lighting up. "Wait, no, that's my—"
"What do you call an Akademiya student who fails their exam?" Wanderer yelled, swaying heavily.
"What?" Kaveh asked, terrified.
"An idiot!" Wanderer shouted, bursting into hysterical laughter at his own complete lack of a punchline. "They're just idiots! Haahahahaha!"
Suddenly, the tavern doors opened gracefully. A small, radish-like figure stepped inside, holding a tiny green umbrella.
Lesser Lord Kusanali took one look at the overturned tables, a weeping Kaveh, a thoroughly confused Cyno, a profoundly annoyed Alhaitham, and Wanderer, who was currently trying to feed a piece of pita bread to a wall sconce.
"Hat Guy," Nahida said, her voice dripping with the gentle, terrifying disappointment of a mother. "What did I say about consuming fermented beverages?"
Wanderer froze. He slowly turned around, the bread still hovering near the fire. His eyes welled with massive, dramatic tears.
"MOM!" Wanderer wailed, dropping the shield and sprinting toward her. He threw himself onto the floor, sliding the last two feet, and wrapped his arms around Nahida’s tiny ankles.
"The dog man made me do it! He said my hat was stupid! And the blond one cried on my shoes! Take me home, the world is cruel and full of betrayals!"
Nahida sighed, patting his backward hat gently. "My apologies, gentlemen. I will deduct the tavern damages from his weekly allowance."
With a flash of green light, Nahida used her Dendro powers to levitate a completely unconscious, snoring Wanderer into the air like a human balloon, floating him out into the Sumeru night. Inside the wrecked tavern, the Aggravate boys sat in stunned silence.
"Well," Cyno said, clearing his throat. "That was... a shocking development."
Alhaitham put his headphones back on. "Never again."