I was awoken by the light pain of something hard digging into my shoulder and as I took note of my surrounding's I realized I was having a bit of difficulty breathing as my right side had a weight upon it as I opened my eyes, I immediately saw Lumine's sunny yellow hair laying across my chest as well as down her cleavage with the sleeping dress she was wearing being pulled down.
"Hmm..." Lumine groaned at being disturbed by my waking shifting pushing her face into my chest seemingly in hopes of drowning out any noises in my heartbeat also I could hear the grumblings of Paimon as she also seemed to be awakening.
"Lumine... We need to get moving." I said gently as I moved my numb arm that she was lying upon to start shaking her lightly.
"Ughhh..." Lumine groaned as she sat up from where she was lying on my stomach looking at me blearily. "Screw it. It's too early to be getting embarrassed over this." Lumine huffed as she rolled off the bed and paused to stand menacingly over the bedside table that was holding up Paimon's pillow bed.
Lumine grinned and leaned down to start gently whispering the names of food to Paimon. I could hear Paimon literally swallow as she hummed in delight at the dreams Lumine's voice brought and it was clear that Paimon was ravaging our wallets in her dreams as she swallowed everything put in her path.
But all of a sudden Lumine started muttering about super spicy food making Paimon choke on her dreaming drool roll out of her pillow bed and start floating in the air as she stopped herself from simply hitting the ground.
"Lumine how could you! I thought we had something special, I thought you were my friend!" Paimon cried out on the edge of tears.
"I am missing some Mora out of my pouch... Coincidentally it's the exact amount a plate of a plate of Hunter's Toast cost at the restaurant in the town square." Lumine mused aloud staring at Paimon with an unreadable face.
"Hehe... It must have gotten lost or fused into the Mita Churl s shield with all your other money and those magic crystal." Paimon said victoriously as she found an excuse but even, I couldn't help but look at the flying glutton at her shamelessness.
Lumine ignored Paimon's words and looked over her shoulder at me as she collected her accessories and clothes that she wore typically. "Jake I am going into the bathroom to get changed with Paimon, you go ahead and do the same and then we can go ahead together to the Knights headquarters in order to get our payment for helping clear out those domains yesterday."
I nodded to her plan and after a quick breakfast all three of us left the Inn we were staying at and made our way to the Knights of Favonius's headquarters' but just as we were about to enter the castle-like structure the damn door exploded sending the thick wooden doors and a bunch of shrapnel careening in our direction.
"Lumine!" I yelled and she matched my actions as we made a powerful outburst of Anemo energy that shattered the wooden doors and shrapnel into dust but as we were dealing with the impromptu claymore exploded a few meters in front of us, a small child ran outside through the trail of smoke left by the explosion.
"Freedom!" The little girl screamed running with her arms held out in a way that would normally give more balance but the Grimoire Catalyst that was floating behind her throwing fireballs everywhere showed that the girl was using her arms to aim where her Pyro elemental bombs were being thrown.
"I can already see Jean slumping in her chair..." I muttered seeing Klee running down the street throwing little grenades at the knights that attempted to stop and capture her, thankfully the Pyro bombs she was throwing around seemed to be really low temperature and only rag-dolled the poor knights sending them flying several meters allowing the blond-haired girl to run freely through the streets of Mondstadt in the direction of the main gate.
"Paimon thinks we found out why they wanted a bomb-proof door," Paimon said rhetorically and Lumine facepalmed at the evident example as the metal grate the knights pulled down to hopefully stop Klee failed miserably being destroyed by an actual bomb, not some Pyro energy construct that shook the city of Mondstadt with its explosive wrath.
"Dammit Klee! You are in so much trouble!" We heard Amber curse unexpectedly as she jumped off the roof of the Knights building and began gliding with her glider towards the smoking front gate of the city.
I think Jean will be a bit too busy at the moment...
As we walked into the front entrance, we could see the ground was a bit scorched from the initial explosion but seeing Kaeya leaning against the wall across from Jean's office, I nudged Lumine nodding to the other man in an effort to obviously get information about what the hell just happened.
Thankfully Lumine nodded and we made our way over to Kaeya and our presence seemed to finally catch his attention.
"Such a hassle... What the hell am I supposed to do." He muttered running his hands through his dark blue messy hair.
"You alright Kaeya?" Lumine asked raising an eyebrow almost sassily as she was evidently still spooked at having a large door and a bunch of shrapnel thrown at us.
Which I was of the same mind honestly...
"Oh, thank the Thousand Winds, Jake, Lumine, your arrival is surely by the grace of the gods!" He stared at us creepily as he placed his hand to his chest and continued his bombastic tone. "Great envoys sent by our Anemo God to save this mere mortal, could you perhaps but spare just a moment."
Lumine and Paimon both shivered from his intense tone almost subtly putting me between them as Paimon yelled at Kaeya while she was floating next to my shoulder. "Eww Kaeya you sound so desperate cut it out."
"Spit it out eye patch," Lumine said still using me for a shield actually angling her head to the side as she stood solidly behind me only exposing her face to Kaeya.
"Uhh... It's a bit private so let's go meet outside into the courtyard in a couple minutes, plus it will be easier to breathe compared to all the dust in here." Kaeya evaded directly answering Lumine's question, swiftly passing us with Lumine walking around my body to keep Kaeya between me and her at all times making me wryly smile at her actions.
"Is he really that skeevy you Lumine?" I asked as we walked over to Jean's office to at least get our compensation after our jobs yesterday and all the money Lumine lost after Jean shot all her money and magic crystals into that Mita Churl's shield.
"Yes. I feel like he is a wanna-be pirate, and pirates are scum basically in any case." Lumine said firmly and I couldn't deny she was right as pirates were literally just boat bandits.
After knocking on Jean's door, we heard Lisa call out to us from inside to come in.
"Lisa I didn't know you were now the leader of the Knights of Favonius." I joked making Jean who was buried in some paperwork chuckle as Lisa dropped the book she was pushing onto a shelf.
"Cutie, you made me drop a book... Don't do that again or I will have to punish your dearie." Lisa spoke with her eyes closed and wearing a scary smile.
"Yeah... Well, don't be a butterfingers." I said throwing her threat to the side as me and Lumine turned to Jean who seemingly done with her piece of paperwork gave us her full attention.
"Yes! The payments for yesterday. Let me just get that..." She said and then she took out a pile of Mora from her dimensional pouch and we took them into our own with Lumine's being noticeably bigger with how she was paid for the Mita Churl's shield.
"Sooo. What was with the child throwing bombs everywhere?" I asked as honestly, I was curious as to why in the world Klee went crazy bombing her way out of the Knights building.
Jean and Lisa both sighed giving each other looks of frustration before Lisa turned to me speaking softly. "Well, we just got a letter from Klee's mother who is far away on an expedition, and Klee hearing her mother won't be back for a long while combined with getting in trouble earlier, and the new bomb-proof door thought we were going to lock her away in solitary confinement until her mother got back."
Lisa huffed shaking her head and the little bells on her witch's hat rang as she spoke frustratedly. "Obviously we wouldn't have done that all but she had seemed to have come to her own conclusion and seemed to have decided to run off to the Dragon Spine Mountains in search of her big brother figure Albedo."
"Sooo should we go after her?" I asked in concern as that mountain range was extremely dangerous even to a vision wielder like Klee.
"Yes! We are both stuck here having to keep a solid presence here in Mondstadt after Stormterror's attack yesterday and Amber may not be enough to escort or coax Klee back home here. Just be gentle with her... She is emotionally distraught with the knowledge her mother won't be back for at least another year." Jean explained and then after getting some more information about Klee, we ran off ignoring Kaeya's yells for our attention as we glided outside of Mondstadt using the top floor of the Knight's building.
"From fighting off a dragon to hunting down lost children... What's next are we going to save a cat from a tree?" I muttered making Lumine giggle as we finally made landed past the lake and began walking towards the distant snowy Dragonspine Mountain.