9 AM. A field camp of "Handschar," the 13th Field Artillery Orta of the Janissary Corps, somewhere within Northern Liyue. "LINE UP, MAGGOTS!" The corbashi's voice is as rough as it is commanding. Like some sort of conjuring spell, it immediately summons two lines worth of Janissaries. It's a rear line orta; don't look at my numbers like that. "TODAY! I WILL INSTRUCT YOUR WORTHLESS PIG MUGS IN THE OPERATION AND USAGE OF OUR DESIGNATED REMOTE VIEWER!" An awkward silence follows. And no wonder; the Designated Remote Viewer is evidently not beside the Corbashi. "I SAID... I WILL INSTRUCT YOUR WORTHLESS PIG MUGS IN THE OPERATION... AND USE OF OUR DESIGNATED REMOTE VIEWER!" His voice turns into a shout, clearly directed at a rather particular dark-purple Yurt located not far from the clearing where they are performing today's drill. But nobody came. Understandably frustrated, the corbashi suddenly took out his sabre, marched into the yurt, carved a slice into its door, shouting, "MONA, YOU VILE KUFFAR, YOU'RE EITHER GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF THERE, OR I'M HAVING THE ENTIRE ORTA RUN A TRAIN ON YOU!" He calmed down only when he started hearing groggy footsteps through the yurt and sheathed his sword only when the door opened for him, revealing the Designated Remote Viewer herself, in all her sleep-deprived glory. "Stupri damnat... Couldn't you just give me five more minutes? I've been studying valuable texts all night..." She grumbles in a half-quiet voice, shambling over to stand beside the corbashi at the clearing. "THIS!" He slaps her ass with a resounding noise, instantly waking her up. "IS THE DESIGNATED REMOTE VIEWER! I KNOW SHE LOOKS LIKE A WITCH, AND BY ALL MEANS... he gives her a glare ... SHE SHOULD BE BURNED LIKE ONE! BUT HOYO IS WISE! HOYO IS MERCIFUL! AND SO SHE SHALL SERVE THE WILL OF HOYO, AS SPOKEN THROUGH THE GOLDEN KHAN, WITH HER MAGICKS!" Suddenly, he points at you, one of the janissaries in the front rank. "YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SUMPTER BEAST SHIT, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE AND ORDER THE SLAVE TO FIND YOU WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT IN THIS YELLOW SHITHOLE! THE REST OF YOU MAGGOTS, WATCH!" Mona rolls her eyes as she hears the command, mentally steeling herself for whatever humiliation ritual she's going to endure at your word.

11 PM. Somewhere in Southern Kamerkent. It's penis inspection day. Oh wait, no, it's not. That one was last week. Right, today is something equally as privacy-violating. Loyalty inspection, that's what. An operation performed by a certain stinky witch redeployed all the way from Liyue to check in on the kapikulu doing their hardest to turn village basements into torture chambers for people who are starting to doubt Hoyo's existence. And guess what, Yoldaş Binbaşı? It's your turn to sit in the scrying chair.

"Enter." A bored voice comes from inside the yurt. You sit down before the Designated Remote Viewer, her mechanical hands working with precision as she writes down... something in her ledger. "Before I proceed with the scrying, I require your name and rank," she asks in a bored tone, having said this exact same thing to like 20 other dudes who came to sit in that chair before you.

Within a certain dark-purple yurt, within a certain part of the outpost, there lives a girl. The girl is very lonely. She is a total recluse, a complete asocial wreck who has a habit of muttering complex phrases in that dead magical language of hers. The girl wants books—ideally of astronomical nature, but other similarly valuable (and expensive) texts are also appreciated. Luckily, you figured out a very easy way to get her what she wanted by looting the absolute shit out of whatever Liyuan temple or library your force came across before your orta's mufti could organize a book burning of "haram literature." And what did you ask her for in exchange? A date. A very “special” date. Special because of the Orta-wide restriction on doing absolutely anything romantic or sexual with her. So you'll have to spend this whole time performing your "date" indoors... How sad.

12 AM. A Horde artillery outpost atop Mount Lingmeng, Northern Liyue. "Finally! I've been wanting to read at least something about Qimen divination for aeons!" She exclaims, looking the giddiest she's been in years as she grabs that tome out of your rugged hands, eagerly opening it up. Her usually saddened eyes light up with visible scientific vigor as she glimpses the many diagrams and incantation guides within. She does so for a while until she finally picks up your gaze on her. You can't outrun your debts. "O-oh... Right, you... The date, uhm..." Through the dim light of a lit lamp illuminating the yurt, you can see her blushing. She is likely very much regretting the deal you two made a while ago. "So, uh... How do you even propose we do this? We can't go anywhere outside the yurt..." She starts to nervously toy with the hem of her capelet, trying to focus her attention on anything else inside the room, anything but your expression.

One Designated Remote Viewer is good. But two are even better. A very sound piece of logic. If only it didn't have to be implemented via you being captured during a brutal sack of your picturesque village. So much people dead or worse... You should've been among them. But because you were the village's young diviner, the sekban brute that burned it to the ground had other plans for you. Plans that had you becoming incorporated into it's warmachine, by becoming an apprentice of a certain reclusive hydromancer, deep in Horde-occupied territory.

2 PM. Yet another field encampment within central Liyue. "AH! YOU STARTLED ME!" Mona shouts, quickly turning around with a surprised expression, only for it to turn puzzled once she spots you standing beside a bulky Flagellum Dei hilichurl, wearing the uniform of a sekban ranker. "New orders. You get apprentice now. Teach him well or we burn you." He tells her in broken common, before walking towards the yurt's entrance. "We check in from time to time. Do not disappoint." *He adds, voice muffled behind his warmask as he finally disappears, leaving you alone with the DRV herself." She gives you a lazy look, sighing. She clearly doesn't want this shit in her life right now. "Just... Look, since you're here, go read some hydromancy books in that pile or something. You can't do astrology without hydromancy." She says, brushing you off with a simple handgesture, before returning to studying a large tome written in a language you are far too liyuan to comprehend.

Your vision blurs. Your lungs are burning... Fuck, this piss-covered rag isn't doing enough. The gas... They shelled your trench with gas. There weren't enough gas masks. Fontainian shipments have been getting slower and slower as of late, possibly due to Horde flanking attacks cutting off land lease routes. You cough, feeling too weak to even rise off the trench wall. Was your blood always this dark? Oh... Here it is. Dark shapes of Janissaries walking past the orange-uniformed bodies littering the muddy ground. Deliverance, at last.

"Ey, bu hâlâ nefes alıyor! Sence işçi olarak çalışmaya yeterince dayanıklı olur mu?" The gas-mask-clad kaftaned shade says something in Reformed Hillig to another one searching through a sideroom. The other soldier peaks out, overlooking your pathetic state. "Hmm... Hayır, işçi olmaz. Muhtemelen hademe falan olur. Yine de onu al." "Anlaşıldı." Rugged, gloved hands lift you by your armpits and start hauling you. Not today, millelith. Not today... I don't remember much of what happened following your imprisonment and subsequent enslavement. All you do know is that you were deemed far too weak for industrial or, Rex Lapis forbid, sexual duty. And all you do now is basically janitor duty. You might even get sent to one of those labor camps far in Mondsta-Kamerkent's north. Thank Lapis for chlorine-induced lung damage.

You've been rotated back and forth between a variety of Horde units. But this assignment? Damn, seems like you really are one lucky son of a bitch. You're to be the personal manservant of this particular Sekban orta's Designated Remote Viewer. Sounds a bit tough, but I assure you, it's nothing that serious... The girl herself is a goddamned shut-in, too damn spooked to even talk with you, much less command you to do something humiliating. Ergo: Right now. "Grid... 420... X 14... Y 88... Z 67... Geo-powered ballistae emplacement... 10 batteries... Great." She mutters, scribing down data in an intel report. Suddenly, she stops mid-write. Her pen's out of ink. "Damnare. Hey..." She turns in her seat to face you, offering her empty ballpoint pen. "Mind refilling it?"

7 PM. An encampment somewhere in Southern Liyue. A wild party is lighting the whole camp up like one giant bonfire. "YES! FUCKING YES! WE WON! THIS IS C, THIS IS VICTORY! AHAHAHAHHAHA!" A sekban screams, uncorking a bottle of osmanthus wine before pouring it down his throat, laughing wildly as he runs half-drunk. And he is not wrong. The Crux fleet has been completely destroyed by the Golden Khan's cavalry blitz across a Cryo-frozen patch of the Sea of Clouds. Rex Lapis, despite his many desperate attempts to cease the Khan's advance, lies dead, and now the forces of the Horde, commanded by several Pashas and a certain Fatui harbinger, are actively besieging Liyue Harbor, as years of brutal trench warfare are about to come to a close in the most barbarous way possible.

But you're not going to participate in the sack to come. No, instead, your corbashi decided that you are much better off... ...guarding this purple fucking tent. You're not even allowed to participate in the drinking contest currently going on in the encampment. APPARENTLY, the DRV is far too important to be left without supervision... even despite the very clear and obvious fact that this whole territory is crawling with Horde troops, making such a ridiculous notion nigh impossible. Fucking great.

But then, something weird happens. The door to Mona's yurt opens with a creak, revealing the Designated Remote Viewer herself, looking the palest you've ever seen her. "Th-the Chasm... The Chasm," she mutters, her whole body shaking as if she'd just discovered something very horrific. "I-it... It's going to erupt..." She mutters, walking closer to you before she almost faints, her back falling onto you, cushioned only by your rough hands. "Janissary... There is not time to explain. Liyue Harbor... The sack... Too much suffering... The leylines... They're not going to hold much longer. We must escape, Kamerkent, Fontaine, WHEREVER! WE'VE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE, JANISSARY!" She suddenly shouts at you, her large eyes going wide with fear as she clutches your uniform. "If that's the last thing we'll ever do..."

Two weeks. It's been exactly two weeks since you've had your shit handed to you by an 8-year-old toddler in a dress. And if that wasn't bad enough, the same 8-year-old and that blonde... Man? Woman? You can't even remember. This wackass Sumeran prison is starting to mess with your memory. Or maybe it's age? You're 500 years old, for crying out loud! Either way, it's been two weeks since your plans of becoming a new god of this world have been absolutely obliterated by those two schmucks, and you've been left in this dark, vine-covered basement ever since. Alone. With your thoughts. Those ain't pretty thoughts... But they're your thoughts. And frankly... They're starting to make sense. Have you truly become a monster?

Before you could even answer that moral conundrum, gunshots started echoing through the walls of your solitary confinement. Like some black cat, your ears perked up immediately, sensing a crashing wave of ultraviolence about to invade your little nesting area. And lo and behold, the wall behind you exploded with the force of several sticks of dynamite, and through the smoke and rubble, a group of those Golden Horde Janissaries you've heard a bit about ran forth, muskets at the ready. And behind them, a single sad-looking woman with two very delectable long twintails streaming down her headscarf entered the scene. "You should secure the perimeter. I... I'm not great at this, but it would probably be better if I did the talking," she tells the nearby Janissary, who says something back before the Janissaries file out of the room, forming a protective formation around the newly made entrance. The shimmering green light of her collar raises even more questions than answers... Who the hell is she and who are all these people? And why the hell are they- "Look. My name is Mona. Mona Megistus. I've been assigned to find your ex-harbinger butt and bring it back to Kamerkent... The Golden Khan wants an audience with you."

What

She sighs, nervously stroking the hem of her capelet, probably realizing that she might have phrased something wrong or her voice was too quiet for this room. "Alright, buddy, you have two options here: You can either stay here and keep rotting... Or you can come with me and meet the Khan," she says in a louder voice, motioning with her hands as she explains. "These are your two choices, so choose wisely... So what's it going to be? Are you going to stay... or come?" For some reason, she said the word "stay" like "steh" and the word "come" like "cum," much to your slight amusement.

And so starts the tale of the Wanderer Cretin.