Title: A Gentleman and A Scholar Source:Start, End Date Taken: 504
You and Paimon come across a nun (wearing very, uhm, un-nun-like clothing)—who sharply accuses you of eavesdropping on her. She’s about to really lay into your friend until she recognizes who you are, at which point she drops her accusations. She wants to know why you’ve come to the mountains—indeed, you’re currently standing on a path underneath the shadow of an exceptionally tall, snowy peak. You explain that you’re looking for someone—“Albedo”—and the shady nun advises that she’s marked his tracks so you can follow them up.
You use your elemental trace ability to head up the mountains with Rosaria accompanying you; the trees quickly give way from fir to snow-ladden and scraggly birch. The cold is dangerously pervasive and often you have to stop and activate heat-granting pillars along the way up to prevent yourself from freezing up totally. (You would think that if any of you had been planning to make a trek this far up north one of you would have thought to have seen about getting some thick coats, but no.)
Finally, the three of you find a young man standing in front of an easel along the pathway. Fortunately this seems to be the person you’re seeking, based on Rosaria’s confirmation. Unfortunately, there’s three hilichurls between you and him in the road dancing around a lit fire. Instead of them attacking the artist at work, though, the lot turn on you; you make fairly fast work of them in spite of their shields and clubs made of stone and ice.
Afterwards, Albedo wants to know who you are and why you disturbed the hilichurls. He says that he’d only just finished his sketch work of the monsters. This seems confusing, and his explanation about the “unique attributes” of one of the particular hilichurls seems even stranger. Before he can really get into it, Rosaria decides she’s had enough and leaves you to your mission.
You explain to Albedo that you met a girl in Mondstadt who said he was up in the mountains doing research. From this he extrapolates your identity—and not only that, but posits (correctly) that you’re not just from outside of Mondstadt but from an entirely different world. He then asks if you wouldn’t mind assisting him in some of his research—a study on the essence of life. He demonstrates to you an ability to make a broken tree branch bloom into fresh life—before it disappears into twinkling, dwindling lights.
Despite the wonders that alchemy can produce, Albedo says that he has a particular “seed” in his possession, a method of which that “has produced no results.” This thing, whatever it is, also hails from another world, and he’d like to make it grow. And that, apparently, is where you come in. He believes that because he is constrained by only being able to comprehend the intricacies of the known world, by studying, he may finally learn what it is he needs to know to get the seed to sprout.
“So I’m an… object of research?” You conclude.
Paimon is Very Unsure about this, but in spite of her unsease you’re curious.
“What’s in it for me?”
“Mora, knowledge. And the answer to the question you are seeking. It happens to be an answer that I can provide. How does that sound?”
Paimon does a little wiggly happy dance in mid-air, and you also happen to find this to be an agreeable arrangement. With the proposal settled, the three of you set off, heading further up the mountains towards where Albedo has himself stationed for his research.
.005
Source: Start, End
Date Taken: 504
You and Paimon come across a nun (wearing very, uhm, un-nun-like clothing)—who sharply accuses you of eavesdropping on her. She’s about to really lay into your friend until she recognizes who you are, at which point she drops her accusations. She wants to know why you’ve come to the mountains—indeed, you’re currently standing on a path underneath the shadow of an exceptionally tall, snowy peak. You explain that you’re looking for someone—“Albedo”—and the shady nun advises that she’s marked his tracks so you can follow them up.
You use your elemental trace ability to head up the mountains with Rosaria accompanying you; the trees quickly give way from fir to snow-ladden and scraggly birch. The cold is dangerously pervasive and often you have to stop and activate heat-granting pillars along the way up to prevent yourself from freezing up totally. (You would think that if any of you had been planning to make a trek this far up north one of you would have thought to have seen about getting some thick coats, but no.)
Finally, the three of you find a young man standing in front of an easel along the pathway. Fortunately this seems to be the person you’re seeking, based on Rosaria’s confirmation. Unfortunately, there’s three hilichurls between you and him in the road dancing around a lit fire. Instead of them attacking the artist at work, though, the lot turn on you; you make fairly fast work of them in spite of their shields and clubs made of stone and ice.
Afterwards, Albedo wants to know who you are and why you disturbed the hilichurls. He says that he’d only just finished his sketch work of the monsters. This seems confusing, and his explanation about the “unique attributes” of one of the particular hilichurls seems even stranger. Before he can really get into it, Rosaria decides she’s had enough and leaves you to your mission.
You explain to Albedo that you met a girl in Mondstadt who said he was up in the mountains doing research. From this he extrapolates your identity—and not only that, but posits (correctly) that you’re not just from outside of Mondstadt but from an entirely different world. He then asks if you wouldn’t mind assisting him in some of his research—a study on the essence of life. He demonstrates to you an ability to make a broken tree branch bloom into fresh life—before it disappears into twinkling, dwindling lights.
Despite the wonders that alchemy can produce, Albedo says that he has a particular “seed” in his possession, a method of which that “has produced no results.” This thing, whatever it is, also hails from another world, and he’d like to make it grow. And that, apparently, is where you come in. He believes that because he is constrained by only being able to comprehend the intricacies of the known world, by studying, he may finally learn what it is he needs to know to get the seed to sprout.
“So I’m an… object of research?” You conclude.
Paimon is Very Unsure about this, but in spite of her unsease you’re curious.
“What’s in it for me?”
“Mora, knowledge. And the answer to the question you are seeking. It happens to be an answer that I can provide. How does that sound?”
Paimon does a little wiggly happy dance in mid-air, and you also happen to find this to be an agreeable arrangement. With the proposal settled, the three of you set off, heading further up the mountains towards where Albedo has himself stationed for his research.