Mondstadt, Snezhnayan Embassy.
Two Fatui agents were whispering in a corridor.
Mirror Maiden: "Lady Signora hasn't come out of her bedroom since she returned last night. Don't you think it's strange that she's still not up even though the sun's been high in the sky for hours?"
Cryo Cicin Mage: "You're right. Normally at this hour she'd already be handling affairs or leading us out to deal with enemies."
"Do you think it's because Grigor took the Anemo Archon's Gnosis and went back to Snezhnaya without authorization? Lady Signora must be furious."
"That idiot. Completely blinded by ambition. Even if he presents the Gnosis to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa and gets a reward out of it, so what? He might have the nerve to steal the glory, but I doubt he'll live long enough to enjoy it."
"Heh heh. Knowing Lady Signora's temperament, this kind of transgression tends to end badly. Not just for the person involved, but for everyone connected to them."
Creak.
Just then, Signora's door swung open.
The two agents snapped their mouths shut and turned to greet whoever was emerging.
They froze.
"What time is it?" Signora, dressed in a form-fitting white nightgown with her golden hair loose around her shoulders, looked at the two of them and asked in a perfectly calm voice.
"Uh... almost ten o'clock," the Mirror Maiden stammered.
"I see. Schedule the strategy meeting for this afternoon then."
Signora nodded, slipped on her shoes, and walked toward the bathroom without another word.
Mirror Maiden: "..."
Cryo Cicin Mage: "..."
A long silence.
"I was right," the Mirror Maiden said suddenly.
Cryo Cicin Mage: "Hmm?"
"Grigor is finished." The Mirror Maiden's voice was certain. "Him, his family, probably even his dog. None of them are going to come out of this intact."
Cryo Cicin Mage: "How do you figure that from just now?"
"Think about it. When have you ever seen Lady Signora appear before subordinates dressed like that?"
The Mirror Maiden's expression was grave: "It means only one thing. She is so consumed by rage that she has stopped caring about appearances entirely. All that is occupying her mind right now is exactly how Grigor is going to pay for what he did."
Cryo Cicin Mage: "Laura, I really do think you understand Lady Signora better than anyone."
---
After lunch, the Fatui officers gathered in the meeting room.
Everyone sat straight and attentive.
Eventually, Lady Signora arrived.
Rosalyne strode in on those long, pale legs, took the seat at the head of the table, crossed her legs, and looked around the room.
"Report. What is important. Starting with you."
She pointed at the Pyro Skirmisher.
"Yes, Lady Signora."
The Pyro Skirmisher spoke carefully: "Following your orders, we devoted all efforts to locating the sealed vials containing the Anemo Archon's scent. However, we discovered that the owner of Dawn Winery, a man named Diluc, was also searching for them. So we had several counterfeits produced and listed them on the market at ten thousand Mora each. Diluc purchased every last one of them."
"Get to the point."
Rosalyne said with a note of impatience.
The Pyro Skirmisher quickly continued: "Through this operation, we turned a total profit of over thirty million Mora."
Rosalyne nodded: "Deposit twenty million into my personal account. Send the remainder to the Northland Bank."
"Yes, Lady Signora."
The Fatui officers in the room exchanged quiet glances, equal parts envious and resigned. Not a single one of them dared to say what they were thinking.
The counterfeit scheme had been thought up by people at their level, and they were walking away with nothing to show for it.
There was nothing to be done about that. Rank was rank. And the gap between them and an Executive was not a small one.
Signora's habit of taking the largest share was hardly unusual. Most of the Eleven Harbingers were not known for generosity toward their subordinates.
The result was a peculiar irony: the Fatui officers looked sharp and well-equipped on the outside, every inch the elite force, and yet most of them were quietly broke. If a squad got wiped out on a mission, you might not be able to scrape together a thousand Mora from the bodies. The average Hilichurl was probably sitting on more coin.
"Wait."
Rosalyne frowned suddenly, as if something had just occurred to her.
The Pyro Skirmisher asked carefully: "Lady Signora, is something wrong?"
Rosalyne said flatly: "You performed well this time. Set aside three million Mora and distribute it among those who were involved."
The Fatui officers stared at her.
Bang.
One of them was so stunned that he fell clean off his chair.
"Do you want to die?"
Rosalyne's gaze turned cold, settling on him with the particular quality of someone calmly calculating consequences.
"S-sorry, Lady Signora! I was just... I was surprised."
The Pyro Skirmisher jumped in quickly: "Lady Signora, there's really no need. Being of service to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa and to you is already more than enough for us."
The other officers murmured their agreement.
Honestly, they all wanted the money. The problem was that Signora's behavior was making them deeply uneasy.
Something was different. This wasn't normal. A house cat that normally received half a bowl of kibble a day suddenly finding a full bag poured into its bowl would have every reason to wonder if its owner was planning something ominous.
Rosalyne said with a flicker of impatience: "Stop overthinking it. Take the money."
In the end, they took it, equal parts grateful and quietly worried.
"Next."
Rosalyne turned to the Hammer Skirmisher beside her.
The Hammer Skirmisher said in a low voice: "Lady Signora, word arrived from Snezhnaya. Grigor was caught at the border, and the Gnosis was retrieved from him. What are your orders regarding his punishment?"
A sharp flash of killing intent crossed Rosalyne's eyes.
What Grigor had done was a direct transgression against her authority. Any Harbinger in her position would have had him executed without hesitation, and likely gone after his family as well.
Rosalyne opened her mouth: "Put him to the stake—"
She stopped.
A moment of silence.
"Break one hand and one foot," she said, her voice cooling back to its usual flat calm. "Imprison him. Handle everything else according to standard Snezhnayan military law."
The officers looked at one another.
That was considerably lighter than burning at the stake. And it seemed she had no intention of touching his family either.
Had Lady Signora... changed?
---
After the reports were finished, Rosalyne picked up a blank sheet of paper from the table, wrote a few words on it, and held it out to the Cryo Cicin Mage.
The Cryo Cicin Mage took it and read through the contents.
"Flour... tomatoes... onions... milk..."
All of them were completely ordinary ingredients.
She looked up, puzzled: "Lady Signora, this is...?"
Rosalyne said without looking at her: "Buy everything on that list for me."
The Cryo Cicin Mage nodded and said nothing further. Asking Lady Signora to elaborate would only make her look dumb.
After the meeting ended, she walked out into the corridor, list in hand, still turning the question over in her head.
There were no quantities written down either. How much of each was she supposed to buy?
She spotted the Mirror Maiden she had been speaking with earlier and walked over.
"Laura. What do you think Lady Signora wants me to buy all this for?"
The Mirror Maiden glanced at the list, and her eyes lit up: "If I'm reading this correctly, Lady Signora is preparing to make her move on Mondstadt."
The Cryo Cicin Mage blinked: "How did you get that from a shopping list? These are just cooking ingredients. What does flour and tomatoes have to do with Mondstadt?"
She eyed the Mirror Maiden with some skepticism. Laura had also predicted that Grigor was finished, right down to his dog, and Signora had let him off with broken bones and a prison cell.
"You're not thinking big enough." The Mirror Maiden's smile was knowing. "Ask yourself: why would Lady Signora specifically instruct you to buy these ordinary ingredients? Is she going to start cooking? Does that seem like something Lady Signora would do?"
The Cryo Cicin Mage considered this and reluctantly shook her head: "Probably not."
"Exactly. So there's another reason. Think about what happens if we don't just buy a few items, but sweep the entire market clean of these ingredients."
Something clicked in the Cryo Cicin Mage's mind: "You mean..."
"The people of Mondstadt value their freedom above all else. If they go to the market and find they can't buy the food they want, they'll march straight to the Knights of Favonius headquarters and make a scene about their freedom being violated."
The Mirror Maiden smiled: "Create enough of that kind of chaos, and Mondstadt becomes unstable. That's when we can move in."
So there was a grand strategy hidden behind a grocery list. The Cryo Cicin Mage looked at her with genuine admiration: "Laura, you really do understand Lady Signora's thinking better than any of us."
---
Three days later, it was time to set out for Stormterror's Lair.
Outside Mondstadt City, Lumine, Venti, Jean, and the others watched Ji An approach with a puzzled expression.
Lumine: "Ji An, what's wrong?"
"I tried to pick up a Fisherman's Toast from Good Hunter for the road, but Sara told me they were completely out. Not just the finished food either. The ingredients themselves were sold out."
He frowned: "Doesn't that seem strange to you?"
Paimon: "Is that all you're worried about? Forget it! Let's hurry up and go. Paimon has been waiting for this!"
Ji An looked at her with suspicion: "Paimon, why are you so eager all of a sudden? You're not hoping to find something in Stormterror's Lair, are you?"
Paimon: "N-no! Ji An, don't make things up!"
Lumine said without any particular ceremony: "Venti told Paimon the place used to be a royal city, so Paimon has convinced herself there must be treasure buried there."
Ji An nodded slowly. That tracked.
For Paimon, who divided all of life's experiences into two categories, delicious food and things that might lead to money, a former royal city was essentially a treasure chest waiting to be opened.
Venti laughed: "For the record, Paimon, I never actually said anything about treasure."
Jean sighed: "And even if there had been treasure there at some point, after this many years and this many adventurers and Treasure Hoarders passing through, the odds of anything valuable remaining are quite low. Klee's mother went exploring the lair not long ago and blew up several corridors just to make the tower easier to climb."
She shook her head as she said it.
That particular mother and daughter were both a handful in their own ways.
Klee herself was a case study in the gap between remorse and behavioral change. She would look genuinely sorry when Jean scolded her, nod along with everything that was said, and then go straight back to blowing things up at the earliest opportunity.
The definition of: I understand completely, and I will do it again.
If there was anyone in the world capable of keeping those two in line, it was probably Klee's father, whoever he was. A man so mysterious that even Jean had never managed to meet him.
---
They traveled in Master Diluc's carriage and reached Stormterror's Lair before the afternoon was out.
Paimon: "Wow, the wind barrier is enormous! It covers everything! Busker, can you actually dispel all of that?"
Jean: "Paimon, he is Lord Barbatos."
Venti: "Haha. I'll give it my best."
He walked up to the edge of the wind barrier and went quiet, tilting his head slightly as though listening for something.
"Yes. I can hear the rhythm of the wind."
He raised his hand. A faint, translucent harp, condensed from divine power, materialized in his palm.
Venti plucked the strings gently.
A soft melody rose from the harp and drifted outward toward the roaring, sky-filling wall of wind ahead.
The effect was immediate. The fierce barrier, which had howled and churned like something furious and alive, quieted. It was like watching a screaming child suddenly go still at the sound of a familiar lullaby.
Paimon: "He actually did it! The wind barrier is gone!"
The group entered Stormterror's Lair.
"So this is what remains of the royal city of Decarabian, the solitary king of the tower."
Ji An looked at the vast circular ruins surrounding them and felt the weight of their history quietly settle over him.
He had learned the story.
In the age before the new Mondstadt existed, the land had been locked in bitter, unrelenting cold. Humans struggled to survive in the frozen wilderness with nowhere to turn. Desperate, they had pleaded for the protection of Decarabian, the God of Storms.
Decarabian had accepted their submission. He built a royal city for them, a place where the ice and snow could not reach, where starvation was not a daily reality. For the first time in a long while, the people of Mondstadt had room to breathe. Room to live.
But Decarabian had his own vision of what that life should look like.
He built his great tower at the city's center as a symbol of his authority, and he received the worship of all who lived beneath his protection. He took pleasure in his people's obedience. In his understanding, those he sheltered owed him their reverence and their love.
What he never seemed to grasp was that his constant storms made daily life miserable for the very people he believed he was protecting. Lost in his own idea of what prosperity meant, he remained blind to the resentment quietly building among his subjects.
The people of Mondstadt yearned for freedom. But the solitary king would not open the gates. The only reason they had submitted to him in the first place was the cold outside. Their hearts had never truly been his.
When the time finally came, they rose up. They rebelled, tore the royal city apart, and brought the solitary king's tower down.
Decarabian's dream shattered along with it.
---
This was the version of history told throughout Mondstadt.
The people who had risen up and overthrown the tyrant were celebrated as heroes. Without them, there would be no freedom, no new Mondstadt. Every Mondstadter held that story with pride.
But standing here among the ruins, Ji An felt something harder to name.
"Why does this story leave me feeling unsettled?"
It might have been a difference in how he looked at things. But he couldn't shake it.
The people in that story had been desperate and freezing. A god had taken them in, built them shelter, kept them alive. When circumstances became more comfortable, they had turned around and destroyed the one who made their survival possible.
Wasn't that just kicking away the ladder once you'd finished climbing it?
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