Underneath the canopy of The Symbol of Mondstadt's Hero, Lumine, Phineas, and Paimon all sat in wait for the bard to arrive.

"Are you two absolutely sure this is the right place? Phineas, what if your device and the potion messed up?"

Phineas looked to Lumine as he lounged against the tree's trunk, "I've been to this spot at least three times now. I know where we are." He felt the winds change, though he didn't quite know how to put it.

Lumine walked up to the statue of Barbatos at the base of the tree and touched the golden plate on its front side. The statue's accenting glowing bits changed from a red to a light blue as stone and debris raised from the ground around it formed around the statue. Like pieces of a puzzle slotting into place.

This intrigued Phineas as he stood up and walked over to Lumine, "What did you do?" Phineas asked as he inspected the now 'active' statue.

"I ahh… resonated with the statue." She explained as she took her hand off it and faced towards him.

"She can use them to get all around Teyvat really quickly, because they're all interconnected together with the Ley Lines!" Paimon exclaimed.

"Ley… Lines?" He was puzzled.

Lumine pinched the bridge of her nose. "Paimon, you can't just-"

"Like… teleportation?" He inquired.

Lumine sighed in annoyance. "Yes, I can use the Statues and Waypoints scattered around Teyvat as a means of instantaneous transportation. The Ley Lines are what link everything together, I can jump in and out of them."

Phineas walked back up to the statue as Lumine explained, he reached his hand out to the golden plate on the front of the statue once more and focused. He could feel a steady 'pulse' in the statue, not unlike a beating heart whose veins travel deep below the surface and scatter in all directions. It was a chaotic mess that also seemed stable and powerful, very powerful. Perhaps, with some ingenuity and a bit of luck, he might just be able to tap into this goldmine of potential energy. Though before he could give it any further thought, he heard a voice from behind.

"No way, I left before you two. How did you-" Venti asked, as he walked up the stairs in front of the statue.

"You weirdo! What was up with that disappearing act, huh?!" Paimon shouted as she got up in Venti's face, causing him to stumble back slightly.

"Paimon, relax." Phineas said as he grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the bard's face, as she struggled in protest.

"I want to know more about the Anemo God. You spoke of him during that melody…" Lumine requested.

"You speak of Barbatos? Unlike the other nations, Mondstadt hasn't seen their god in many moons… Why do you wish to know? Does it have something to do with Dvalin?" Venti responded with questions in kind.

"Uhh- Well…" Paimon stuttered awkwardly.

"We have a few important questions we wish to ask of him." Phineas said, finally joining the conversation.

"Oh? And what questions would those be?" Venti asked.

"Depends, why would I ask the questions to someone who isn't Barbatos?" he replied cautiously.

Venti only laughed, holding his hand behind his head. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not Barbatos." Venti said as he continued to laugh.

Phineas was suspicious, he didn't believe the bard in front of him. While he claims he's not Barbatos, he most definitely knows more than he lets on. Everything Phineas knew about Venti was suspicious. Even from the beginning, with Lumine's recounting of her initial meeting with Venti, to him discussing Stormterror as if it were an old friend. Nothing added up in a satisfactory way…

"Anyhoo," Venti chimed slightly, derailing Phineas' line of thinking. "Was that it? Is there more you want to talk about perhaps?"

You feel the wind sting your eyes.

Lumine started to speak up, but Phineas quickly tuned it out as he felt the winds change. Throughout his quest that eventually led him to slay the Moon Lord, he picked up something akin to a sixth sense. Something that allowed them to sense danger and strong creatures that were inbound to attack.

With the sudden shift in the winds, he could feel its agitation and rage gunning right for Venti. Not wanting his new acquaintance to get attacked he rushed over to Venti and pushed him out of the way as a large glowing orb charged right through where they were standing, spinning jagged pieces of stone in a cyclone surrounding the orb.

"What the hell is that thing?" Phineas yelled over the howling wind.

"An Eye of the Storm! It must have been attracted here by the mutations of the wind from Dvalin!"

The Eye of the Storm turned around to 'face' the four as they readied their weapons for battle. It roared as the winds surrounding it thrashed and the jagged stones it carried spun around it. It quickly flew above the group and started to spin, creating a vortex that pulled in smaller objects and stones and lightly pulled the group in.

Venti started to dash away from the Eye, Phineas, recognizing that the Eye was trying to crush them, summoned his wings and took Lumine by the arms and lifted her away just in time as the central mass of the Eye crashed down into the center of the vortex. The force pulverizing the smaller objects it had dragged in.

After it fell, it seemed to be stuck in the ground as it was struggling to pull itself from the ground, Venti started to lay fire into the Eye peppering it with arrows. Phineas quickly got his wits about and grabbed the Zenith by the handle. He rushed back towards the downed Eye and swung with the main blade, as some of the various smaller blades followed the same path he carved, cutting into the Eye's core even more. Lumine also rushed in, delivering deadly strikes to the Eye in quick succession. But this only served to make it angry.

The more he thought about this creature the more he wanted to pull his hair out. For something that is supposed to be wind given form, how the hell are they even cutting it? He chalked it up to different magics at play and left it that. There were more pressing matters to worry about.

The Eye roared and sent out a burst of Anemo, knocking the two away and staggering Venti. It rose from the ground and drew in Anemo from the air around it. A cyclone started to pick up around the Eye as it blasted a beam of pure Anemo into the ground, infusing into the environment and walls of the cyclone with razor sharp winds. Effectively containing the party within a death trap designed to kill in a thousand cuts.

Phineas could barely hear it over the howl of the wind, but he heard an intelligible shout from Venti and saw him pointing towards a wind current erupting from the earth.

Lumine was the first to run towards and into it, her wind glider opening and catching the updraft from the current. She seemed to be relatively unharmed, so that was alright, he didn't have to do much to get off the ground either. His wings appeared once again for him to push off the ground with them and take flight once more. While he could fly forever, he didn't know if the other two could, so in a gamble he held up his hand, imitating a firearm with his index, middle finger, and thumb. Over his shoulder, the Zenith blade started spinning faster and faster in place. Phineas lined up his 'sights' with the core of the Eye of the Storm, when the Zenith's spinning hit a crescendo, he uttered a single word.

"Bang."

The blade launched itself towards the eye of the storm with the speed of lightning. Cleaving through two shards of the sharp rock that the Eye carried around its being. The blade entered the main core of the Eye, and it left as quickly as it entered, leaving a hole on the opposite side of the core. The Zenith smashed into a nearby rock, cracking it with its still significant force.

The lights inside the Eye faded from a green to nothing as the core took on a gray color. Its spinning shards of rock turned black, before the shards and the Eye itself slammed into the ground, dissipating into nothing but ash. The floor was no longer covered in a pool of Anemo energy and the wind currents fading with the core of the Eye. The area around Windrise calmed as soon as the Eye faded into non-existence.

Venti let out a sigh of relief as he touched down on the ground. He looked downtrodden and spoke. "It seems the dragon wasn't the only one being affected by the change in the wind." He quickly brightened up though as he looked at Phineas and congratulated him. "That was an impressive display of prowess. However, sorry I couldn't do too much in the battle, they're immune to outside Anemo based attacks."

Phineas waved him off, "It was no problem, it's dead, so hopefully there shouldn't be much more of an issue. But what did you mean about a change in the wind?"

Venti looked down towards his hands, contemplating. "...It feels more… sinister."

Lumine spoke up, "Well you and Kaeya did confirm that the Abyss Order was meddling in the temples containing the crystals giving Stormterror its power."

"So, they really are the cause behind all this…" Venti clenched his hand into a fist. "I had my suspicions, but if you've seen them in the Temples of the Four Winds, then this confirms it. The wounds he suffered from protecting Mondstadt all those years ago, the black blood that now flows through his veins because of his degradation, it's all allowed him to be led astray by the Abyss Order."

"Umm… What exactly is the Abyss Order? Paimon doesn't understand." Paimon asked.

"They're an organization of non-human beings, they despise mankind." Venti answered. "I don't know more, but I do know that they hold a deep hatred for the human world. The Hilichurls scattered about in their camps acting as their grunts."

Phineas was drawing some connections between the Lunar Cultists from his world and the Abyss Order from here. Both wanted to bring ruin, using monsters as their tools. If he stopped it there, then he would just have to do it again.

"Before coming here, I too was cursed like Dvalin. But under the branches of this great tree, the Symbol of Mondstadt's Hero, makes me feel purified. Like what you did to those teardrop crystals." Venti nodded towards Phineas.

"You got poisoned as well?" Phineas questioned.

"Back when I tried to talk to him earlier in the forest, I was interrupted. So not only did I not break the curse, but I also got infected too." Venti confirmed.

Paimon was off elsewhere focusing on the area around them, seemingly not trying to pay much attention, while Lumine was flushed red looking down.

"Ah- I'm… sorry." She meekly mumbled out.

"I'm afraid a simple apology won't be enough this time. So, to make up for it, you're coming with me to the Cathedral." Venti demanded.

"The Favonius Cathedral?" Phineas asked. "For what?"

"To claim a certain 'Holy Lyre der Himmel."


Outside of the Favonius Cathedral, the three of them stood. Phineas took a deep breath in and let out a long sigh. "So let me get this straight, you both just waltzed in there and not only asked, but posed as Anemo Archon and demanded the Lyre?"

Venti sheepishly scratched the back of his head and giggled. "Well, when you put it like that it sounded like a terrible idea."

"That's because it is!" Phineas yelled at the bard.

The bard only chuckled at this, making Phineas take a deep sigh once more.

"Well back on topic, it seems that asking to borrow the Lyre is off the table, so what do you suggest?" Lumine spoke up, stopping the two from further arguments.

"Since borrowing is not going to be possible, we're simply going to have to steal it." Venti proposed.

"Steal it. The Holy Lyre. The same one used by the Anemo God most likely kept locked deep within the Cathedral, possibly swarming with security from the Knights of Favonius." Phineas deadpanned.

"Yep! The very same." Venti beamed.

"This is the worst idea, ever. Of all time." Phineas said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"It seems the one guarding the entrance will change for rotation when night falls. It would be best to enter then." Venti looked back over to the main doors of the cathedral. "If we pull this off then it should be smooth sailing from here." He looked back over to the two, "So, what do you say?"

"Disregarding how absolutely awful of a plan this is, every time I tried to sneak, or hide, or be stealthy in any sort of way, something always went wrong. You two are on your own for this; that's not to say that I won't lend aid." Phineas said kneeling down and placing down his safe, opening the door he stuck his arm in and dug around for a bit. He pulled out a round flask with a cyan liquid inside.

"This is an Invisibility Potion." He said, handing the flask to Lumine. "It will turn you and anything you're carrying with you invisible for about three minutes. So be quick when you use it. Do try to breathe softly, they can still hear you." Lumine nodded and accepted the potion, the flask vanished from her hand in small wisps of gold.

With that, Phineas started to walk away from the Cathedral and towards the stairs.

"Hey, where are you going?" Paimon asked.

"Look around you Paimon, it's still around the afternoon. We've got time to kill, so I'm going to explore the city some more. Venti," He turned towards the bard, "where do you want to meet after you two go through with this?"

Venti cupped a hand to his chin and stuck his tongue out, humming like he was thinking hard. "Ah! Let's meet up at the Angel's Share. One of the tables on the 2nd floor."

Phineas nodded towards the three one last time before descending down the stairs. "Angel's share." He muttered to himself, "Where the hell is that?"


AN:

I told myself that once fixed it's email issues, I would update the story. I attempted to get a backlog of chapters going in the meantime but only got this chapter and about half of the next done, sorry.

I mean it when I say it. It is time to reinstall Halo Infinite guys, the game's in a great spot right now. Also go check out HaloFollower's YouTube channel I hear he is working something big.

Also if any of you are into Splatoon, might I recommend taking a look at The Polaris Project by Piston24? It's a surprisingly decent read.

Thanks to iDrmzIt for being the lore consultant.

-Spoopy