Episode 23: Tomb Raiders
Within the middle of the night, Keqing goes into the kitchen to pull out a jug of water within the icebox. "I need to wet my thirst," she thought as she pours it into a glass to let her drink some cold water. "Oh, I needed that from all the paperwork I was doing before," she said as she comes into the living room to see Aether is lying on the couch to be fast asleep when he was reading Manhua.
"Such a sleepyhead," she thought to be with her boyfriend on the couch. "He has been working pretty work protecting me at those meetings. I know they could be boring but he is sweet to do it for my sake," she said with a smile creeping on her face. She pulls him up to place his head onto her breasts.
"These are your favorite pillows, enjoy them," she said as Aether could hear her heart beating very fast. "I am so grateful; you are here with me. I have been very lonely in this house besides Mei of course but now I have something I can trust with my life. You will be a husband to me in the future, so many men wanted me due to my beauty, my wealth, or my status. You only cared about who I am, I am very lucky to be with you," Keqing pours her heart to him with Aether rubbing his face into her large bust as she smiles at him. "Good night, my love," she whispered to embrace him while they sleep together.
The morning came by as the couple is still on the couch with Keqing holding onto her lover for Mei looks at this thinking it's so cute. Aether wakes up first to see Keqing's boobs in front of him feeling sheer softness and warmth. "Oh, my favorite pillows," he said as Keqing looks down at him to kiss him on the lips.
"Of course, morning sweetheart," she said as they get off the couch to prepare to get breakfast with Mei setting it up on the dining table.
"Hey, you two lovebirds. Not doing anything weird right," Paimon said as this made the two blush.
"Just cuddling up on the couch," Keqing said.
"Fine, hey Mei. Cook up some breakfast," Paimon said as Mei nods her head.
"I got that done alright, dig in," Mei said as they all gathered around the table as Mei hands her mistress a letter. "It's a request from a client," Mei said as Keqing opens the letter and reads it.
"Oh; it's a job, he wants us to go to a set of ruins to find an artifact called a Pulse Staff. A powerful mystical weapon which is a priceless relic but the ruins are covered with Hilichurls," Keqing said.
"Seems like a normal job. Some ruin exploring would be cool," Aether said.
"I remember the last time we were in ruins. it was not a good time; the money is good. Well, after breakfast let's get to it then," she said as they get to their breakfast.
Once they are done, they get into their travel outfits to go out of the mansion and go outside of the city. They have a sketch of the item allowing them to find it easily. "Well, we have an ID on the item. Time to take out those goblins," Aether said.
"I wonder if the Abyss Order is making them search for this thing," Paimon wondered.
"Could be, we have to focus on collecting this thing," Aether said as they walk down the road to head north where the ruins are located.
Paimon is looking at her new money pouch hanging from the back of her outfit. "This is so cool, I can collect my own Mora and I can buy all the snacks I want," Paimon said.
"Paimon, don't eat too much or you will be a fleshy floating balloon," Keqing said as Paimon pouts at her.
"Paimon is built to be thin, Paimon has nothing to worry about," Paimon said.
"Anywho, we need to first go through the Great Bamboo Forest to get to the ruins but there are tribes of Hilichurls there as well," Keqing said as they go up the road to see a vast sea of bamboo trees which goes towards the sky.
"Wow, these are so tall and the tree canopy is blocking some of the sunlight," Paimon said.
"Yeah, it gets pretty dim in here. Not much sunlight hits the floor, a lot of things hide within here, watch your step," Keqing said as the trio goes through the entrance with the light being light from the top with everything looking quite shaded.
"Seems manageable," Aether said as they go down the dirt road within the forest.
"These terrorists, the Red Legion, use these types of places to hide from the military. Easy to get lost here if you don't know where to go," Keqing said as they go to see something blocked by a cluster of bamboo.
"Hey what is that?" Paimon wondered to fly over there but Keqing tries to stop her.
"Wait a minute, don't go over there," Keqing said.
"Oh, it's a cabin. Hey, there are people here," Paimon said as she lets out a gasp.
"Who the fuck is this flying fairy?" a woman questioned as Paimon pouts at her.
"Paimon is not a fairy," she complained as she dodges a bolt from the woman's auto crossbow.
"Can it fairy," she said as Paimon is flying away to latch onto Aether's face.
"Paimon, I need you to get off my face," Aether said.
"Oh shoot, it's the Red Legion," Paimon said as several troopers come out wielding spears, swords, and auto crossbows.
"Oh, we got ourselves the former Yuheng here. I bet you a worth a pretty Mora as a ransom, take her boys and girls. Also, kill her boyfriend and the fairy too," the female team leader said as they rush at them.
"Gee, I don't see the point of kidnapping me," Keqing said as the enemy group split off for five of them heading Keqing. Four of them wielding melee weapons and the fifth one using a ranged weapon.
She is deflecting and evading their swings for she is trying to avoid the incoming rapid fire bolts. She leaps into the bamboo trees to avoid the aim of the automatic crossbow to see the bolts can cut through the thick bamboo.
"Damn it, hate that thing," Keqing said as she remembers its bolts can easily cut through military armored chest plates. She leaps back and forth around the trees to begin picking the terrorist troops off with her leaping onto a first one and driving her blade into her chest killing her instantly.
She is bouncing off the trees to avoid the bolts with her lunging at the second fighter to chop his head off. She retreats into the trees again as one of the bolts strikes a tree to blow it up with an explosive impact. The blast knocks Keqing back onto the ground with one of the Red Legionnaire going in with a spear.
Keqing uses her speed to dodge the swing from the weapon and chop off his spear hand. She cuts the guys down and disappears into the trees with her going to swoop in to kill the last Red Legionnaire. She lets out a weak electric blast to stun the crossbow user and cut her down with her Jade Cutter to end the threat.
Aether is dealing with his own group of Red Legion goons with him summoning up stone walls to block the incoming bolts. He conjures a boulder under the crossbow user to toss him into the air as he knocks the guy via wind blast into a tree to take him down.
He made the boulder explode to scatter shards of rock to take out even more Legionnaires as he is slashing into more grunts. he leaps away from a swing from a spear to slice the weapon in half and stab his sword into the woman's chest to kill her off.
One of the Legionnaires survives the attack to try to go for the crossbow pistol on one of his dead comrades. Keqing knocks it to the side to hit him in the head with the blunt side of her weapon.
"This isn't over, my comrades will take care of you," the man said.
"Why are you trying to kidnap me?" she asked.
"We will need all the cards to gain an edge against the Qixing. Those pigs are losing a grip on the villages and towns within the outskirts. It's only a matter of time until they collapse and we take over," he said as the man pulls out a crossbow pistol for Keqing slashes his neck to kill him instantly.
"Not on my watch, I will not let a cult take control of my home," Keqing said as Aether grabs one of the crossbows to see it is quite advanced for what it is. It's in both long gun forms and pistol forms for them to use helical magazines under the barrel to feed a certain amount of bolts into the firing mechanism. The Long gun form holds up to 45 bolts while the pistol form can hold up to 20 bolts.
"How did they get their hands on this?" Aether asked.
"I heard it could be custom made weapons from mixes of the old world of Ether and more advanced nations. Not good," Keqing said. "Let's get going and check out their hideout," she said as they got inside a hut to see them having maps and weapons.
"Must be a scouting post here," Aether said to see marks on the maps with locations picked as targets.
"Must of use it before hitting the city when the festival happened," Keqing said to see a flare to set it off to make a bright light. "The military can see this and take control of this place. Let's go on our mission," Keqing said as they go deeper within the forest.
"They had an outpost this close to the city. Not good, better find those ruins," Keqing said as they go into the forest until they see a bunch of Hilichurls are gathered around the entrance of the ruins they need to go inside.
"There is it," Paimon said as they got behind a tree to survey the area.
"Okay, hit them fast and hard," Keqing said as Aether nods his head for them to part ways to split the Hilichurls attention and cause chaos. She summons her Jade Cutter to chop down the monsters as she tears through a grouping of Hilichurls. She backflips away from a shield bash of a Mitachurl as she swiftly gets behind the monster's guard to stab into its chest several times to drop it dead on the ground.
Aether is pulling out stones to launch the Hilichurls into the air as he cuts them in half by air crescents. He ducks under the swing of an ax as he cuts the leg of the Mitachurl to make it kneel onto the ground. He drives his blade into its head to kill the beastly Hilichurl to put it down.
Keqing is running away from a wave of vines from one of the Hilichurl shamans. She runs up a bamboo tree to jump off to see the vines crushing the bamboo tree. She lunges at the Samachurl and shoves her blade into its head. She leaps away from a blast of ice from a Cryo Samachurl as she fires an orb of lightning to strike the enemy down to shock it to death.
Aether summons a boulder to block an incoming flaming strike from a Mitachurl. He jumps off the stone and lands onto the monster's back to stab into its neck. A Cryo Samachurl fires a barrage of ice spikes to fly towards Aether. He leaps off with the dying Mitachurl taking the hit and getting finished off by the spell. She slashes the air to release a few wind crescents to cut down several shamans.
They both managed to clear up the area for the entrance of the ruin is open to them. "Okay, let's get this thing before more of these goblins show up again," Aether said as Keqing nods her head for the trio to head down the stairs to see the scattered structures of the old world nation Ether.
"Gee, still intact despite laying here for thousands of years," Paimon said.
"These are built to last for sure," Keqing said as they go down into a huge underground space with pure white metal walls and weird machines dotting across the area.
"There it is," Paimon said to see a staff placed on a pedestal on the far side of the chamber.
"Okay, pretty easy," Aether said as Keqing noticed something in the corner.
"Aether, wait," she said to knock him over to see a Ruin Grader try to tackle them but they dodge the attack. Both Aether and Keqing are on the floor.
"Thanks for the save," Aether said as they get back up to summon their weapons.
"My pleasure, come on. Let's take this thing out," Keqing said as they depart to avoid the blast from the robot's eye laser. It maintains a stream of energy to skirt across the metal floor with Aether conjuring walls of stone but gets blasted apart by the robot's energy beam.
"We fought these things in Dragonspire, they are very annoying," Paimon said as Aether summons a rock pillar to launch them both into the air. Keqing holds Aether's hand to toss her hairpin to warp over the robot. She is on top of it with Aether just behind it. She powers up her blade to stab into its head to begin shocking it.
Aether tosses gemstones to pierce into its back as the Ruin Grader grabs onto Keqing to toss her into Aether to knock them both down. The gemstones didn't do much damage and it begins to fire orbs of energy. They avoid the energy blasts for they leave large craters on the metal floor.
The Ruin Grader jumps right for them as the duo evades but its landing made a mini shockwave that stuns them both. The machine tackles Aether to knock him across the floor.
"Aether," Keqing sounding worried as she powers up her Jade Cutter to leash out several lightning crescents to crave into the armored hull of the machine. "Hey bucket of bolts, leave my boyfriend alone," Keqing said as the machine turns its attention onto her to see her as a threat.
It fires its laser with Keqing using her speed to evade and dodge its laser beams. She tosses her hairpin at its eye and warps strike it to deliver a powerful attack gravely damaging it. Then its cores are exposed on its feet with Keqing jumping down and striking them both to destroy them weakening the machine.
"Take this," Keqing empowers her blade with lightning to increase its cutting power to use her best technique Starward Sword to swiftly slice at the robot from multiple angles with lightning-fast speed to appear behind it to deliver the final blow. Her attack manages to cut the robot into multiple pieces to end the fight.
"Nice work Keqing," Aether said as Keqing helps him up for Paimon grabs the Pulse Staff feeling the mystical energy coming off of it.
"Paimon has the staff," Paimon said.
"Good, time to head back. Don't want to see anymore Hilichurls or Red Legion in these parts," Keqing said for them to exit the huge Great Bamboo Forest with their task completed but Keqing's mind is still on the Red Legion based within the forest. "Gee, this is only going to get worse huh," she wondered as they head back to the city to collect their reward.