Chapter Text
The first picture is of the group of sports clubs with a variety of expressions. Some where wearing sturdy clothing for the outdoors, others were in their PE uniforms. Front and center were Ace and Deuce, both looking like a deer in the headlights as they stared at the camera. Leona looked bored, Ruggie was smirking, and Sebek’s face was lowering like a thundercloud at the camera, or perhaps the photographer.
-vVv-
“-Come on I was not shaking! Grim was more scared than I was!”
“Hey!”
Deuce’s defensive words made the direbeast’s fur ruffle and glare at them, paws on his hips. Paimon covered her mouth to keep her giggles in. Lumine patted Grim’s head consolingly, adjusting the Ghost Camera’s strap around her neck, wearing it openly rather than stowing it into her Handbook for a change. The hellcat stalked forward, recovering his swagger with her encouragement.
“”It took you all long enough to get here!”
When the group turned towards the voice, Lumine let the group register their presence before snapping a photo.
“Grim? Lumine?!”
After a brief pause Teyvat’s Best Travel guide zipped forward into Ace’s face with a scowl.
“Hi Ace, Paimon’s glad to see you too. You don’t have to say hi, but it sure would be nice, and you know, polite if you did!”
The ginger raised a hand, laughing awkwardly.
“Easy Paimon, it goes without saying that you’re attached to Lumine’s hip. I’m still processing the fact that you’re all here.”
“You haven’t joined any of the other sports clubs, have you?”
Riddle said this, brows knitted together and Lumine was quick to assure him.
“I’m not here as a regular participant.”
Out of all the sports clubs in the school, Lumine was most interested in the Equestrian Club and Riddle had been quite gratified to hear that. So he likely would have been slightly offended if she joined another club without letting him know she had changed her mind.
Lumine was wearing the shoulder cloak and jacket that Chiori had designed to accompany her outfit after she was personally offended by the cold weather gear that Lumine requisitioned from the Adventurer’s Guild to explore Dragonspine.
“It does nothing for your figure, your color, and spoils the natural appearance of your regular attire. Give me a few days.”
Since Chiori already had her measurements, it had actually taken less time than she stated to pull together a winter look for Lumine. She had kept with the same theme as her travel dress, white and light blue. There was a long sleeved white undershirt that fitted under her arm guards. Black gloves that covered all of her hands would be tucked underneath them to give her an extra layer. Over this was a short, fur trimmed white cloak, the outline of an inteyvat embroidered on it in two shades of blue, one lighter and one slightly darker, with slits to allow her arms free movement and a quick release tie in case she had to abandon it.
“I’m not in the habit of allowing my clothes to endanger the lives of those wearing them.”
However, the fact that the outfit was presented as ‘complete’ with the handmade broach she had gifted to her covering the tie, bearing the signature of the Chioriya Boutique, told Lumine that the designer had the utmost confidence that she would never need to abandon the cloak for any reason. Chiori had included some leggings and liners for Lumine’s boots, and infused everything with Geo elemental energy so it was functional from the moment she put it on.
At this point, it was fully infused with her elemental energy, and it was just cool enough at night that Lumine would want the extra layers to avoid people giving her concerned looks with her usual sleeveless top. Usually, she could handle everything but Dragonspine temperatures just with her elemental energy, but Chiori had worked hard to make these accessories for her, and she wanted a chance to use them.
Crowley made his usual appearance with a flutter of dark feathers.
“They are here at my behest as the record keepers for this camping trip!”
And potential security incase someone manages to stumble into the Phantom’s domain in the mine.
It was actually a very encouraging sign that Crowley had asked for a professional consultation about the situation in the Dwarves Mine when Vargas gave him his plans for the camp. Lumine had gone back to the ghosts and spoken with them to get their approval now that the mine no longer housed the combined, corrupted remains of their friends. They had happily given their support and agreed to help keep an eye on the students that entered the mine.
Lumine’s eye wandered over the crowd on onlookers, and she saw Sebek glaring at her, clearly offended. She cocked her head and him and raised her brows in question, wondering what his problem was.
-vVv-
The next picture in Lumine’s private gallery was taken by Paimon, so Lumine was actually depicted in the frame. In fact she was one of the primary subjects with Sebek attempting to loom over her again and Lumines golden eyes looking up at him with a slightly resigned look.
-vVv-
“So the reason you have been glaring at me whenever I am in your line of sight is the because I happen to be wearing white?”
“White clothing if purely impractical if you intend to spend time in the outdoors! There is no camouflage benefit and it will stain more readily than any other color!”
Lumine cocked her head when Sebek leaned a little too close, eyes glittering at him.
“Sebek, do you need a reminder of what happened the last time you got in my face?”
The Diasomnia freshmen opened his mouth, closed it then took a small step back. Lumine acknowledged this with a nod and took control opf the conversation.
“My apologies. I...I got carried away. You have demonstrated you are a worthy rival, and it does not make sense that you would garb yourself in a such a manner.”
“Find a better way to approach that, Zigvolt. You came off as unnecessarily aggressive, which is more likely to spark an argument rather than get you any information or clarification.”
Her eyes drifted over to where Riddle was arranging the tent poles and unrolling the tent.
“I’ll happily explain the details, but you have a job to do and a time limit to do it on.”
“Right!”
So as Sebek took to the task of pitching one tent after another for the Equestrian Club, Lumine explained as she had said she would.
“Teyvat has a strong market for magic in almost every aspect of life. Including tailors, though there aren’t many of them. The jacket is white, because my dress is white and it’s creator wanted to give me something to make exploring a snow covered mountain more bearable. Chiori is a genius designer, and makes a lot of her own textiles. A common technique is to spin elemental energy into the outfit itself to help sustain it.”
Lumine bent and scraped together a handful of dirt and ground it into the cloak she was wearing and wiped it on her skirt. Her hand returned to her side and the dirt was already evaporating from her clothing as the energy invested in her outfit ushered away the unwanted grime. Riddle’s brows rose, seemingly impressed, but that was nothing to the way Sebek leaned forward, watching the process closely. Silver’s voice sounded from one side.
“Briar Valley is known for it’s magic, but also it’s textiles. That kind of technique would be of great interest to the spinners, weavers and semtresses.”
“It seems the creator of your attire is a mage of considerable talent.” Sebek acknowledged with a nod. “It still is an impractical color for camouflage.”
“Well Dragonspine is covered in snow all year round, and overcast to boot. We never really had a lot of problems when we were on it.”
“Not with animals at least.”
Lumine and Paimon opted to elaborate that the bulk of their issues came from rogue ruin machines, hilichurls and the fatuui stationed on the mountain. Not to mention the bitter cold of the environment itself.
-vVv-
The picture was of Ace staring agog at the pile of fish that Floyd in his natural form had thrown up out of the lake. Lumine just thought it was a funny expression and snapped a picture of it for posterity.
-vVv-
Lumine had been going through the pictures she had taken that day, relaxing in the dwarves cottage loft. Vargas had told her she was welcome to stay up in the loft as an extra measure of privacy and convenience. He would be sleeping downstairs while she and her small posse sprawled across the small beds upstairs.
She had the knack of developing her photos down pat now so they all ran through the pertinent scenes only hours after they were taken. The official ones, she largely left unaltered, but she would speed up a few personal ones she had taken as well. She paused on this picture of Ace, watching as the scene played out. Jamil wrangled the Basketball Club members together and sent them out to forage for additional ingredients. Ace was the subject, so the photo’s memory continued to follow him.
Grim was rubbing at his ears as he looked at the picture of the Equestrian Club in the mine.
“My ears are still ringin’ from Sebek yelling that loud in the mines...”
“Paimon wonders if Sebek even knows what an ‘inside voice’ is. Does a mine count as ‘inside’?”
A dark, blurred shape streaked across the photo in lumine’s hand and snatched Ace with a yelp, making her brows rise. She touched the picture and moved it back to replay the scene tapping it to freeze it in place. The dark blur had a distinctive golden piece wrapped around it’s forearm, as if someone had taken a golden arrow and turned it into a hefty bracelet.
I recognize that armband.
It seemed Coach Vargas had a plan in place for people who he caught slacking off for whatever reason, just as Ace had been doing after separating from Floyd.
The door downstairs opened and Lumine heard the distinctive thumps of Vargas entering the cottage.
“Viatrix!”
She rolled to her feet and descended the stairs, having left her cloak upstairs. The tall muscle bound coach gave her a toothy grin. He spoke in a much softer voice, glancing up the stairs. Paimon and Grim were still absorbed in sorting the photos.
“Not even the end of the frist day and the first volunteer trainee has already appeared!”
“Ace, I take it.”
Crowley had thought it prudent to warn Lumine that Vargas would be issuing a special challenge during this three day training camp. And this challenge would include giving the boys something they could not fight against, while being disadvantaged in the darkness, and morally compromised by the uncertainty and fear of the situation, and relying mostly on their wits and abilities rather than magic as he would be taking all their magic pens on the first day. Sure enough, they were all stored away.
“Indeed! He’ll be tucked away inside a side chamber of the mine under the ghosts supervision, nice and safe. They’ll see to it that he works out to compensate for his lack of participation in the rest of the camp.”
“So if anyone comes to me asking if I know where Ace is: Lie. Got it.”
-vVv-
Lumine, sans her cloak and undershirt, held a fishing rod over her shoulder and a fishing line in her hand. A grinning Floyd held the other end of the line, his long, speckled body half in the water as he reached at her. She was giving him the flatest deadpan that she could, and not straining overmuch holding the heavy duty line of her Poisson standard deep sea fishing rod. Which was likely a primary reason that she had been able to land Floyd at all.
-vVv-
“C’mooooon Shrimpy, that stuff tastes good! I want more of it!”
“Floyd, stop eating my bait!”
The other members of the basketball club were giving the situation a wide berth as Grim sniffed at Lumine’s bait pouch.
“He kinda has a point- Hey!”
Paimon, still carrying the ghost camera, dove down and snatched it away from him, holding it high out of reach.
“Don’t you dare!”
-vVv-
The wide angled shot showed a small sea of tents that the sports club members had set up, the fires were glowing in multiple areas as they cooked up their catch of the day and finished up their potions for submission to the ghosts that were proctoring the second day’s challenges.
-vVv-
Lumine noticed it first and foremost, lowering her camera, brows furrowing slightly. Paimon caught onto her mood right away.
“What is it, Lumi?”
“Ace, Leona and Deuce are all missing.”
Vargas had tipped her off earlier that Leona had also been caught slacking, so he was stowed away in the mines, working up a sweat. But he hadn’t told her anything about what was happening with Deuce and he was currently in the middle of the campsite, drawing attention to himself as he did. So she couldn’t exactly ask him...
Paimon floated up a little and scanned the students before them.
“You’re right. Paimon can’t see them anywhere.” Dark eyes drifted down to Lumine in silent question, whether they were right to be concerned. “Should we ask Coach Vargas?”
“Let’s start with Jack. He’s been working with Deuce since the camp started.”
“Yes! The Great Grim want’s more of that yummy salt grilled fish!”
“You literally just finished eating half a dozen fish that I caught.”
Lumine deadpanned at her direbeast companion as they wound thorough the camp to where the Track and Field club had set up their tents under the trees. Jack was subtly patrolling the area, and keeping an eye on their fire as the forest fairies had been making concerted efforts to douse the flames out of concern for another blaze getting out of control. Lumine woke up that morning with a dozen different small pixies watching her from the small window in the cottage loft with wide, shining eyes. It seemed they liked her energy, but were much less reserved about demonstrating it than Lilia or Horns were.
She had needed to hold back from interfering whenever the fairies tried to chase the other students away from the lake, the mine or douse their fire. And hide the fact that there were at least two of the smallest fairies hiding in her jacket.
“Hey Jack, have you seen Deuce? We noticed he’s not here. And a few other people are missing too.”
“He forgot his pickaxe in the mine and went back to get it. I haven’t noticed anyone else missing from our club.”
“Ace and Leona.”
The wolf eared freshman sighed.
“It sounds just like them to be kicking back while everyone else is working their tails off.”
“Uh oh, the mine?” Paimon drifted towards Lumine, her voice lowering. “You don’t think-?”
“The phantom we fought in the mine is gone.”
But that doesn’t mean another one couldn’t have formed with a bunch of kids knocking around in their tunnels. There were a lot of miners trapped down there. Or...Deuce might have stumbled into the Phantom Domain.
“Deuce mentioned you three and Ace found one of those things in there. Hard to believe with how empty that place was.”
“Oh believe it! That thing was huge! It woulda pancaked us if we let it hit us!”
Yeah, and Deuce by himself...He wouldn’t be able to take it on, but he could probably hold out if he tucked himself inside one of the tunnels.
Lumine decided it absolutely merited a visit to make sure that her friend hadn’t gotten himself into trouble. Though it was a situation that she would expect someone with Bennett’s luck to fall into.
-vVv-
Deuce was holding a Favonius Codex in one hand and a sizeable magic stone in the other, in parody of the pictures where a fisherman showed off their catch. He looked a little roughed up, but his turquoise eyes were bright with a genuine grin.
-vVv-
Deuce had gotten stuck inside the domain. He had tucked himself into a corner and not approached the Domain Key, the floating red-purple sigil that floated in the air and signaled the onset of the challenge. He was inspecting the barrier that enclosed the domain.
Lumine sighed, letting her sword dissipate from her hand.
“Here you are.”
“Lumine, Grim, Paimon! Where the heck am I? I was just looking for the pickaxe I dropped when the fairies attacked us today!”
Paimon performed a quick inspection of the freshman and let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh it’s a good thing you didn’t start the challenge. Paimon was worried we wouldn’t make it in time.”
“Challenge?”
“Remember how we powered up those smaller magic stones into a big one that saved your and Ace’s enrollments?” Lumine gestured at the space around them. “The domain stuck around. But since your magic helpd form this place back when the year first started, when you got close it let you in even though you didn’t consciously want to come in.”
“Actually, I did want to come in.” Deuce admitted with a long exhale. “I heard steps in the mine. Big ones. Like that monster that we fought. I was trying to get away from it, that's all I could think of. I'm still not sure how I ended up here.”
That did make Lumine turn serious for a moment.
“Alright, good to know. Hopefully the ghosts can keep everyone else out of harms’ way until I can take care of it.”
Lumine considered it part of Deuce’s charm that he didn’t even question her being the one to handle things. He just looked at the Domain Key.
“So what’s the deal with this thing?”
“That’s how the Domain knows you’re ready to begin. Think of it like the start button.”
Paimon explained, zipping around it. Grim batted at Lumine, his eyes bright.
“Lumi, Lumi can I try it again? You said it was ready!”
“Alright, we can try, but remember to keep an eye on your Blot and pull back to recharge your energy. I will have Paimon pull you out if you don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah! Let’s just go!”
“Shouldn’t we be, you know...leaving?”
Deuce looked momentarily uncomfortable. Lumine gestured at the Domain Key.
“We are. This isn’t an established Domain that you can back out of easily though, so the fastest way out is through.”
“Alright, if that’s...I don’t have my magic pen, Lumine. I won’t be able to help-”
Deuce had decent reflexes, so when Lumine chucked a book at him, he caught it. The cover was white, with metallic reinforcement along the edges and a piece of bright turquoise in the center. He barely registered what he held before he was back in Lumine’s hands.
“Actually wait, you’d do better with a piece of cor lapis, since your dominant element is Geo.”
Several efficient movements later and the turquoise was replaced with a piece of butterscotch colored amber stone and the book was handed back to Deuce who blinked at it.
“Try channeling your magic through it as if it were your pen.”
He tried it, and the book shivered in his hands.
“That...feels like it could work.”
“It should. Keep an eye on the stone in the cover, it’ll be what takes the place of the mage stone to let you know how much Blot you’ve accumulated.”
Lumine reached out a sword Deuce had never seen before fell into her hands. A single edged katana style weapon with a dark purple hilt with a golden guard and pommel and a small white tassel hanging from it. The blade itself was dark along the spine, and the sharpened edge was pale, almost white in contrast.
“Between the two of us, this shouldn’t take too long. Geo resonance really is quite useful.”
-vVv-
The final picture of Lumine’s personal album of Camp Vargas was another that showed her, and as the first picture had been, contained a large group shot. She was wiping ink off the blade of her weapon with a smile as she marched towards the camera with a smile. Behind her, was a study of different expressions.
Ace and Deuce were following her, the former clearly teasing the latter. Floyd, missing the sun shade he had been wearing in the first picture, and his clothing a little torn, but grinning like a fool, was staring at Lumine without shame or reservation. Ruggie was also following along, eyes a little wide, but hiding a snicker. Jack and Leona came just behind him, their ears pressed flat. These expressions were clearly due to the fact that Sebek, at the tail end of the group, had been caught in mid shout, with the remains of a large Phantom deteriorating behind them all.
-vVv-
“What is that thing!”
Ruggie yelped, recoiling from the sight of the lumbering monster. It’s glass head half full of dark ink and dragging a pickaxe in one hand, and bearing a lantern in the other.
“whO...takiNg my Stones!?”
Jack shifted into a ready stance, his face going pale with shock.
“It’s that monster Deuce was telling me about!”
“Keep your hair on all you herbivores.” Leona stalked forward, his tail betraying how eager he was for this encounter. “This thing just volunteered as my punching bag. I’ve had to listen to Vargas and those ghosts all day, and I have got some frustration to work out!”
“That nearly killed us last time we were here, and that was when we had our magic pens and Lumine!”
Ace protested, staring at the junior in shock. The lion beastkin scoffed.
“Don’t make me spell it out, herbivore. You all almost got killed. This thing is easy prey to me.”
“Hahaha! Man, camping on land is fun!”
Floyd drawled, matching Leona’s predatory gait with a sharp toothed grin, both of them turned towards Ruggie however as the Phantom slowly made its way towards them.
“Ruggie, hold your hands over your head and jump in place.”
The hyena’s ears pinned back and he hunched defensively.
“Is now really the right time to make me do jumping jacks?”
“Do it sharksucker, or I squeeze you first.”
Leona smirked, nodding at the Octavinelle student.
“What he said.”
“Fine!”
Ruggie did as instructed and he hadn’t been hopping for long before a sizeable magic stone fell out from under his shirt. The other onlookers exploded.
“You held back another magestone!?” Sebek exploded in outrage, holding the pickaxe in the a defensive stance. “You shameless opportunist!”
Before Ruggie could reclaim his ill gotten gains, Leona had snatched it up, tossing it in his hand and turning back towards the Phantom with a menacing gleam in his eyes.
“Now we’re talking...!”
Before he could do anything however, something dropped from the sky with a battle cry, sword first. A deep cut opened up on the monster's shoulder as the figure landed, already recovering for her next attack. Then she struck with a hiss of sharpened steel through the air. The monster recoiled, wavering precariously as it fell to one knee as she took out one of its legs. She turned, holding her sword before her, and brought it down in a swift, practical excution slice. The ink bottle head crashed to the ground, cracking open in a spray of darkness that didn't seem to touch Lumine, standing in her white dress all but glowing in the darkened mine shaft. In the stunned silence that followed, she regarded her defeated enemy with a hum.
“That wasn’t nearly as painful as last time. And clearly whoever they sent down here to inspect the place after the first time didn't do a good job."
She turned back towards them all reaching down and plucking the cap from the remains of the monsters head to clean the worst of the ink from her blade.
"Everyone still in one piece? Yes? Good.”
And with that, she dismissed her weapon as any housewarde would put away their staff and turned towards the exit.
"Ok, Paimon, Grim, Deuce, we're all clear now."
Ace’s expression went sour for a moment behind her and he hurried to catch up with them all.
“You can’t just drop in, kill the monster in a few swings and walk away like it’s nothing! Lumine!”
He yelled after her, stomping forward, skirting around both his fellows and the remains of the phantom. Deuce arrived from a side tunnel with Grim and Paimon.
“What, did you forget she could do that?”
“I didn’t forget anything, and where the hell were you Juice?”
Floyd shook himself awake and started after them all with a grin that promised trouble.
“Shrimpy! You stole my kill, how you gonna make it up to me, huh?”
Jack recovered next, and started for the exit, not saying anything, but throwing an appreciative eye at the dissipating monster. Ruggie eyed the magic stone in Leona’s hand but opted to not try and grab it, muttering something mournfully about kissing his payday goodbye. But he did speak up.
“I saw her luggage when we got here. There was no way she brought a sword in it. Where was she keeping that thing?”
Leona watched Lumine walk away, standing straight up and ignoring everyone between them.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
“But I do want to know that! That badass as hell!”
Up ahead, Lumine was speaking animatedly to Deuce.
"So, you found that whopper of a magic stone fair and square. Sam gives very reasonable market prices for that kind of thing."
"I still have the ones we found the first time around."
Ruggie picked up speed, a chuckle filling the air.
"So, it seems like Ramshackle's been hogging the good secrets to share among friends? Any chance little old me could get in on that action?"
Leona moved along, slowly but surely, but Jack saw as he started to move after the remaining students that he was not walking. No, he was stalking after Lumine now, and the anticipatory gleam in his eyes that he had gotten at the prospect of a good fight with the now soundly trounced monster was still there. Only he was fixating entirely on the Ramshackle Housewarden. At least until Sebek recovered his senses enough to shout and start running after her, new fervor in his eyes.
"Viatrix! I demand you face me in battle!"
"Hey Crocodile, I got dibs!"
Departing the mine and returning to camp was a noisy affair, but everyone returned in one piece.