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Blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes, Ei spins her Favonius Lance gracefully in her hand as she delivers her finishing blow to a random Mitachurl.
“Is that it for this section?” Kaeya asks.
“It should be,” answers Zhongli, nodding slowly. “Have we received our primogems?”
“Yep,” Childe confirms. “I just made a wish; we’re at forty-six pity and we still don’t have Candace!”
Ei raises an eyebrow. “Remind me why we’re trying to get Candace again?”
Kaeya gestures to Ei as he crosses his arms. “I agree with her,” he says. “We don’t need a shield because we finally got Zhongli, and we definitely don’t need another Hydro character since we just triple-crowned Childe.”
“She’s hot,” Childe says simply, as if that explains everything.
“Yeah, but it’s not like we’re gonna use her!”
“But she’s hot,”
Kaeya throws up his hands in resignation. “Fair enough,”
Ei drops down to the ground and begins collecting the loot dropped by their dead adversaries. “I still don’t understand why we’re collecting literally everything.”
“Because we don’t know what Alhaitham is going to need,” Zhongli explains. “It’s better to be overprepared than underprepared, in my experience,”
Kaeya rolls his eyes. “Are we still on that?” he asks incredulously. “Guys, the leakers said he isn’t coming out until 3.6. That’s, like, April,”
“He’s coming out?” Childe asks. “Good for him,”
“No, not that kind of coming out,” says Ei, shaking her head. “He’s talking about the banner,”
Childe blinks. “Oh. Right.”
Zhongli sighs. “Okay; now what?”
“I dunno,” Kaeya says, shrugging. “We’re pretty well-off in terms of primogems,”
“Are we though?” Childe asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I mean, I would say so,” Kaeya says. “We’re halfway to hard pity already and it’s only October.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have a guarantee,” Ei points out.
“Yeah, but we also have plenty of time,” argues Kaeya. “Think about it—we got Zhongli back in late August, and in the span of less than two months we’ve already gotten ourselves to forty-six pity. Going by that logic, it should take us until just around April to collect enough to hit hard pity twice.”
“And even if we don’t have enough in time for Alhaitham’s banner, we can always just speedrun,” Zhongli notes.
Childe, Ei, and Kaeya all shoot Zhongli a nasty glare.
“Hell no.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“What in the Abyss is wrong with you?”
Zhongli looks confused. “What seems to be the problem?”
Childe narrows his eyes. “You will never understand just how much sleep we lost over your stupid self.”
“Huh?”
“You heard the man,” Kaeya says hotly. “The three of us—”
“Plus Fischl,” Childe interrupts.
“The three of us and Fischl spent so fucking long running around all over Teyvat trying to get primogems because you had the audacity to make us lose the 50/50.”
“Actually, that was Mona’s fault,” Ei points out.
“Yeah, but that’s beside the point,” dismisses Kaeya. “The point here is that no, Zhongli, we are absolutely not going to speedrun because we will have enough primogems.”
“Sleep is important,” Childe says, nodding adamantly.
Ei rolls her eyes. “Says you,”
Zhongli shakes his head. “I understand,” he says. “Shall we go do our daily commissions, then?”
“Who gets to decide what our commissions are?” Childe grumbles as he runs in circles aggressively trying to bash a mushroom into the ground.
“I second that,” Kaeya says. “Why are we playing Whack-A-Mole with sentient mushrooms?”
“Because Katheryne said so, I guess,” Ei says. “It’s free primogems, so I don’t really mind it,”
“Yeah, but Whack-A-Mole?“ Childe says skeptically.
Zhongli shrugs. “Free primogems are free primogems, Childe.”
“Fair enough.”
The quartet manage to finish smacking mushrooms into the ground and are rewarded with ten primogems for their efforts. Kaeya pockets them as he pulls out a coin and begins idly flipping it.
“Now what?” he asks, only half-paying attention.
Zhongli consults their commissions list. “We have to go to Vanarana next,” he informs them. “Some Aranara needs something or other,”
Less than a minute later, the party arrives at the Statue of the Seven in Vanarana.
“Bruh,” Childe mutters, shuddering. “I hate these goofy ahh Aranara bitches,”
Zhongli frowns. “Huh?”
“Childe, kindly refrain from talking like a Fortnite kid,” Ei reprimands.
“Maybe I am a Fortnite kid,” Childe challenges.
Kaeya gives Childe the once-over and smirks. “You know what? I can kind of see it.”
Childe makes a face at Kaeya. “This is why your dad left to get the milk,”
“What the fuck—”
Ei and Zhongli exchange glances and sigh.
“Guys,” Zhongli says, clapping his hands once to get their attention. “Alhaitham, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Childe says and immediately stops bickering with Kaeya.
Ei smacks a palm against her forehead. “Down horrendous,” she says, masking it as a cough.
Kaeya raises an eyebrow. “Come on, Ei. We’re all down horrendous for this dude.”
“He’s got a point there,” Childe says. “The things I would let that man do to me—”
“Childe.” Zhongli’s voice takes on a warning tone, and Kaeya and Ei get the sense that they’re missing out on some long-running friendly argument.
“Sorry, Zhongli; I’ll keep my thoughts to myself if they aren’t PG,” Childe says robotically.
Zhongli nods. “Thank you.”
“Okay…” Kaeya claps his hands together and clears his throat. “Let’s check our inventory.”
“We have a decent amount of Nagadus Emerald Fragments,” Ei declares. “We also have a good deal of drops from various Sumeru enemies.”
“I’m assuming he’ll need Eremite drops,” Kaeya reasons. “After all, he’s an Akademiya scholar, isn’t he?”
“That makes sense,” Zhongli agrees. “And he’ll probably need stuff from the Jadeplume Terrorshroom as his boss drops.”
“So then that just leaves the regional specialty,” Childe says. “What do we think it’ll be?”
“Well, hopefully it’ll be the Sumeru Rose, because we have a shit ton of those,” answers Kaeya. “But knowing our luck, it’s probably gonna be something obscure.”
Zhongli nods. “This is correct.”
“So, should we just start collecting literally every plant we see?” Childe asks.
Ei hums thoughtfully. “I suppose,” she says. “But I feel like every plant is a bit overkill. Maybe just all of the Sumeru plants we come across?”
Childe shrugs. “Seems reasonable enough.”
Kaeya draws his Favonius Sword and begins casually tossing it from hand to hand. “Well, let’s go get our primogems, shall we?”
Zhongli nods solemnly. “Alhaitham will be home to us before we know it.”
“It is as the Archons will it,” Ei agrees.
Childe chokes on air. “Aren’t you guys both Archons?”
Zhongli blinks before quickly recovering. “Well then in that case, it is as we will it. And Alhaitham will come home.”