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After finishing the main story of four regions inGenshin Impactbefore reaching Fontaine, you might think that the game couldn’t possibly surprise you anymore. However, this game is known for hitting it out of the ballpark when it comes to the main story, and Fontaine didn’t disappoint in that regard.
Fontaine’s story has a total of five main acts, and each one of them is quite long. However, the revelations and cutscenes between them easily make them worth it. Here’s everything you need to know about this region’s story if you’re looking for a quick recap.
The First Trial
After bidding farewell to your friends in Sumeru, you reach the shore of Fontaine where you overhear two people talking about a thrilling story. However, when you ask them about it,they mention that it’s from a real case that was heard not long ago. Here, you already learn three important things about Fontaine:
You then meet Lynette who is reminiscing about their childhood where they played on top of a hill, which is now submerged under water. Lyney also joins the gang andshakes hands with the Traveler while patting Paimon on the back. After that, he speaks about a prophecy that has been circulating, but before he can tell us what it is, the main character appears on the scene.
Finding the Hydro Archon wasn’t hard, but dealing with her will be. Furina appears at the scene and accuses the Traveler of breaking a Fontaine law since thecitizens aren’t allowed to release any flying objects, which is Paimon, during the first three days of the month. Furina brings this up in hopes of having a duel with the Traveler at the court.
However, Lyney saves the day by flaunting his magic trick and revealing the thread that he connected Paimon and Traveler with back when he greeted them. This made Paimon some sort of a balloon and defeated Furina’s entire allegation. She leaves the area after saying that she’s looking forward to Lyney’s performance.
Only then is Lyney able to tell you about the prophecy, which mentions that every person in Fontaine is born with sin. No amount of trials will take this sin away until one day,the water rises and destroys the Fontainians. This prophecy had one important line that you have to remember:
The people of Fontaine will all be dissolved, and only the Hydro Archon will remain, weeping on her throne.
You also get to witness a thief trying to steal essential items from an NPC. Both Lyney and the Travelergo separate ways to find this thief, but the search comes out fruitless.
You then take an aquabus where you meet Charlotte, a journalist who tells you abouta serial disappearance case that’s currently the talk of the town. You also get to meet Freminet at Lyney’s house when it starts raining. At this point, Freminet mentions that people believe it rains in Fontaine when the Hydro Dragon cries, and they repeat the following words to calm it down:“Hydro Dragon, Hydro Dragon, don’t cry”.
You also hear some talks aboutLyney, Lynette, and Freminet’s “Father"coming back to Fontaine.
Finally, you head over to a shop to deliver some materials where the shopkeeper mentions that the Oractrice harvests people’s beliefsduring a trial to create Indemnitium, which is used to power everything in Fontaine. You also get to meet Childe here, and he recounts some special incidents from his past.
He mentions that when he was young, he fell into the abyss and woke something up. There, he also met someone called Skirk, whotrained him meticulously and told him that he’d need all this training in the future. It turns out that Childe’s Vision has been acting up lately, and he wonders if it’s related to the past and the giant whale.
Before you enter the Opera House to see Lyney’s performance, you see a couple of people praying for a child near a fountain. When you get close to it, however,you hear someone saying “Vacher…” continuously. After that, you head into the hall and get to meet the Chief Justice of Fontaine himself, Neuvillette.
Lyney’s magic show then begins, and everything goes smoothly until the final trick. In this trick, he puts a girl in a box near the audience, and she’s supposed to get teleported to the box on stage. However, at the end of this trick, the box gets smashed by a water tank above, and the victim inside it is changed to Cowell,one of Lyney’s assistants.
Amidst the confusion, Neuvillette asks the Opera House to be sealed, and the investigation begins. Furina accuses Lyney of being theprime suspect in the case and the Traveler is assigned as his lawyer. During the investigation, you meet with Spina Di Rosula’s president Navia along with her two assistants, Silver and Meluse.
The personality of these two NPCs easily makes themone of the best NPCs in Genshin Impact.
The Traveler and Navia investigate the ins and outs of the case, but it all renders useless at the start of the trial as Furina reveals that Lyney wasn’t in the box during the trick, and thatboth he and Lynette are members of the House of the Hearth, which is the Fatui. Lyney didn’t mention any of this to the Traveler before, so they get wary.
However, they still decided to listen to what he had to say, and Lyney mentioned that heused the time between the trick to investigate the core of the Oratrice. There, he heard someone talk to him, and he instantly went back out. Even after all that, Traveler decides to fulfill their role as Lyney’s attorney and break the case wide open:
During the trial, there was a guard who brought some Primordial Seawater in his hand and said that it was found in Lyney’s belongings. However, it was later revealed that he was Cowell’s accomplice, and they wereboth working under the true culprit behind the serial disappearance of young women.
Before he can reveal the identity of his boss, he getsdissolved into water right in front of the entire court. You might have solved Lyney’s case and saved him, but there’s a much bigger mystery ahead. In the end, Lyney also reveals a heart-touching story that was the reason for them becoming a part of the House of the Hearth.
The Serial Disappearance Case, Explained
After winning your first case against the Hydro Archon herself, youhead out to lunch with Navia where Paimon accidentally drinks her Fonta. You then set out to meet the Hydro Archon again, but the Traveler’s sucked into a different domain near the same fountain and meets an Oceanid longing for someone named Vacher, that name again.
You realize that this Oceanid is one of the dissolved women, and she asks you to find Vacher and ask him to move on. She also suffers from memory loss,one of the effects of the Primordial Seawater mentioned by the guard in court. When you become conscious again, you see Navia and Clorinde fighting an army of Gardemeks.
After the battle, Navia tells you how Paimon was actually the reason she’s still alive. TheFonta that Paimon drank contained Primordial Seawater.
It seems like the person behind the serial disappearance case is now after both Navia and the Traveler. It was also revealed thatNavia’s father is called Callas, also known as Callas the Unfaithful all across Fontaine. He was blamed for murdering his own friend back in the day, and chose to go for a duel with a champion instead of a trial.
However, in this duel, he forcefully kept going until his death even though the result could be declared much before that. It was alsorevealed that Clorinde was the champion duelist who went against Callas, and he also asked her to take care of Navia as his final wish. Navia investigates the records but doesn’t find anything for Vacher, and the party decides to head over to Neuvillette’s office.
At the office, Navia tells Neuvillette about Vacher and why they’re looking for him. However, he doesn’t find anyone of that name either. Neuvillette also expresses his disappointment in the treatment of Navia’s father, but she asks him why he didn’t just let her stop the duel that day even though he thought there was something fishy with the case.
As the party heads back out of the building, it starts raining (Remember what Freminet said?). This rain, however, gives Traveler the ideathat the Primordial Seawater could be involved with Navia’s father’s case. Back at Spina Di Rosula’s main base, we got to know a lot more about the case involving Navia’s father:
At the time, they hadn’t paid muchattention to a set of clothing that was on the scene, but it became important evidence after the introduction of Primordial Seawater.
In the same conversation, Melus reveals the main reason behind Callas' doings. He found out that themastermind’s next target was Navia herself, and he was also diagnosed with a disease and had only five years to live. He also landed on the crucial information of the main base for the mastermind, but decided to use the information as a means to protect Navia.
He made it known that a few members of Spina Di Rosula know something about the Sinthe business,but also said that the truth will never come to light if Navia remains unharmed. As Navia decided to mess with the mastermind again, she instantly started being targeted. Melus' recent investigation also revealed that one of the three people is a mole in Spina Di Rosula:
After investigating all the targets, the Traveler and Navia think that Marcel is the most suspicious. However, before they can act on that, Thierry appears and tells them that the Fontaine court has chargedChilde as the culprit for the serial disappearance case, and he’s about to be tried in court. At this point, the two decide to split up in their investigation.
While Navia accuses Marcel at the Opera House, the Traveler heads into the mastermind’s lair and discovers many secrets:
After Marcel is charged as guilty and the verdict is confirmed by the Oratrice Mechanique d’Analyze Cardinale, Neuvillette then asks Childe tostep on the stand as he still has to get a verdict since he was initially accused. However, he also mentions that the mastermind has been convicted, so it’s obvious to assume that Childe is innocent.
To everyone’s surprise, for the first time, the Oratrice goes against Neuvillette’s decision andshows Childe as guilty regarding the serial disappearance case. Childe doesn’t accept this and tries to fight back, but Neuvillette quickly subdues him and promises that he’ll investigate what happened with the Oratrice thoroughly, but till then, Childe has to respect the rules.
Furina, however, says that it was allaccording to her plan and the Oratrice didn’t do anything wrong. As Vacher is being taken out of the court, he learns from the Traveler that Vigneire is in the Fountain of Lucine, and Neuvillette permits him to enter. However, it wasn’t quite a heart-touching reunion as you’d expect.
One of the first lines mentioned by the Oceanid in this domain is:
But Vacher… If you ask me, this world would be better off without you.
The Oceanid in the Fountain of Lucine revealed that it wasn’t Vigneire, butall the sacrifices that lost their lives at the hands of Vacher. They all turned into water and merged into one consciousness. They said that Vigneire despises him, doesn’t want to see him, and her saying that he shouldn’t come to the Fountain was her last drop of pity for him.
After that, Vacher’s victims surround him, and back in the real world,you find out that Vacher lost his soul and died of fright.
This case has shaken Neuvillette’s belief, and he came to meet Navia to display his grief. He said that he believed an innocent man would never throw his life away, andlet Callas have his duel because of that.
The Fortress Of Meropide Arc
The crisis of Fontaine isn’t nearly over even though you’ve solved the serial disappearance case, a new problem arises in the form of a Fatui Harbinger. Neuvillette calls you to his office and informs you that Arlecchino a.k.a. The Knave, who’s number fourth of the Fatui Harbingers, requested to confirm Childe’s health in the Fortress Of Meropide.
He also reveals that Childe has suspiciously disappeared from the Fortress, and he needs the Traveler to investigate their whereabouts. You head down to the Fortress with fake criminal charges and meet withLyney and the gang there to learn that they have their own goal of investigating the forbidden areadown there.
You also learn of some Forbidden Rules where you’reasked not to do specific things if you want to be safe.
After a few long and treacherous days in the prison, you learn that the rules were created by three people who wereserving Childe to keep the tunnels empty at night and allow his escape. However, the tunnels that Childe used to escape are filled with water and he couldn’t have possibly gone out. Lyney then sends Freminet to investigate Childe’s whereabouts and Lynette to investigate a hatch in the Infirmary.
However, it turns out that the Duke of the prison, Wriothesley, is ahead of everyone andalready captured Lynette while Clorinde saves Freminet from the waters. After a showdown between Lyney and Wriothesley where Sigewinne has to intervene, you learn some very important things about the surroundings of the Fortress of Meropide.
An important thing that’s easy to miss is Childe’s underlingssaying that he left because he heard a certain “call”.
Wriothesley first reveals that he let Lyney continue to dabble into the Fortress' issues because he also wanted to know what happened to Childe. Moreover, it seems that thePrimordial Seawater is somehow getting leaked into the sea and increasing its concentrationaround the Fortress of Meropide, which almost took Freminet’s life.
Next, he takes you to the infamous Forbidden Area where he shows you a meter that’s constantly rising. He reveals that the meter calculates the level of the Primordial Seawater itself, andthe prison is built above none other than the Primordial Sea. He also shows you a ship that he’s creating in case the prophecy is true.
The next day when you wake up in prison, you realize that Primordial Seawater has already broken through the meter shown before, and Wriothesley is holding it off temporarily with Clorinde. You head to the surface and ask for Neuvillette’s help, buthe also mentions that The Knave is about to meet with Furina and the Traveler needs to be thereto protect her.
While Neuvillette shows his true power and pushes the Primordial Water back down before casting a seal over it, he says an important line:
This sentence is too severe, forgive me for overruling it.
Back up in the chambers, an earthquake is witnessed by Arlecchino, Furina, and the Traveler. Knowing that this is a result of what happened in the Fortress,Arlecchino seriously starts mounting pressure on Furinaand asks her just how she’s going to save the Fontainians from the prophecy. You then witness a side of Furina never before seen where she stands up for herself and refutes Arlecchino’s claims.
Arlecchino asks the Traveler to walk her out where she reveals thatshe already tried to assassinate Furina and take the Gnosis. However, not only was the Gnosis not held by her, but it also seemed like she wasn’t the Hydro Archon at all. It seemed like she was under some sort of curse. Seeing her pitiful state, Arlecchino leaves Furina alive.
You also talk to Neuvillette right after where he hints thathe’s none other than the Dragon Sovereign of Water. However, he doesn’t have the full power of the dragonsince some of this power was stolen by the first Usurper, and that power is what gives the Archons their authority.
Keep in mind that Neuvillette isn’t like the other dragons that we’ve met across Teyvat. He’s thefirst Dragon Sovereign we meet in the story.
Dragon Sovereigns were the beings that ruled over Teyvat before the first Usurper.
The Truth About The Primordial Sea
Just before leaving the Fortress, you have a dream where you see Childe in an ocean with a giant whale. Things start going downhill super fast from this point as you hear another tremor as you leave the Fortress.Turns out this tremor came from a surge of Primordial Seawater in Poisson, which was the base of Spina Di Rosula.
As you head over there, you learn that Silver and Melus, the best NPCs in the game,have unfortunately lost their lives to save the other people. You also learn that The Knave provided support to Spina Di Rosula and evacuated everyone much faster. She also asks you to investigate some ruins nearby that could be linked to the prophecy.
Navia requests tocome with you to these ruins, and The Knave doesn’t mind it either.
However, a bridge breaks down in the ruins and Navia falls into the Primordial Seawater. The game then takes you to a court where some people, specifically, the people who lost their lives in Poisson recently, ask Navia to join and become one with them. However,Melus and Silver protect her and defend her against the crowd. Amidst all this, Neuvillette appears in court and drags Navia out before her consciousness dissipates.
You then head over to a room where you find four slates resembling the prophecy of Fontaine, andthe slates are mentioned as “the history of the future”. There are four slates in this area:
While the order of these slates seems wrong, Neuvillette mentions that they need the first one todecipher the prophecy fully and decides to confront Furina about it.
Some Old Voices, Some New
As you head back to Spina Di Rosula’s hideout, you meet Mona there who came to Fontaine to be a part of The Steambird interview. However,she also mentions that only a Visionary could make a prophecy of this scale. You’ll learn that a few mages in the Hexenzirkel are also Visionaries, and the Traveler will ask for their help to ascertain the prophecy.
On the other hand, Furina will still refuse to tell Neuvillette any of her secrets, and theentire Fontaine gang will make a plan to corner the Hydro Archon. Between that, you’ll get to meet someone named “N” from Hexenzirkel. She’ll have the same voice that you heard at the very end of the Sumeru Archon Quest, and she’ll give you some useful information as quoted:
In the end, Nicole said that you can just play your part in this story, and fate will handle the rest.
Cornering The Hydro Archon
As the plan to corner Furina comes to fruition, you end up in a small building with her. There, Traveler tries their best to get the secret out of her, but just when it seemed like she’s about to break down,the building opens up and you suddenly find yourself in The Opera Epiclese. It’s finally time to judge the Hydro Archon herself.
Before the case starts, Furina asks everyone about their role in this humongous plan:
As the trial starts, the Traveler raises aserious allegation on Furina of her not being an Archon, but an impostor all along. Furina, being the god of justice and all, refutes all arguments easily, but the true test comes when they ask her to dip her hand in the Primordial Seawater. If she is the Hydro Archon, the water wouldn’t have any effect on her.
The group wanted to use this as a tactic to scare her into saying the truth, butFurina dipped her hand in without hesitation, and she indeed didn’t dissolve. While this would normally mean that she won, Sigewinne came to the stage and revealed that the Seawater had been diluted specifically because they thought Furina would go to this extent.
It turned out that she did show signs of being in contact with the Primordial Water,confirming that she’s not the Archon.
Once it’s confirmed that Furina is guilty of the charge of not being the Hydro Archon,Neuvillette turns to the Oratrice for the final verdict. However, the Oratrice’s response shocks everyone:
The Hydro Archon, Guilty, to be punished via the Death Sentence.
The allegations against Furina were that she’s not the Hydro Archon, and yet the Oratrice referred her with the same title. Moreover,the death sentence has never been given to any Fontainian before this.
The Truth About The Prophecy
Before everyone could recover from what happened, Freminet comes into the court with the missing slate from the ruins. Neuvillette then deciphers the stages as follows:
As soon as everyone deciphers the slate, a giant hole opens up in the middle of Opera Epiclese, and the familiar whale that you saw in the dreams, theAll-Devouring Narwhal, appears out of it and tries to eat up the people of Fontaine. However, Childe also appears from the same hole and fights the Narwhal alongside Neuvillette to send it back into the hole.
He mentions that Narwhal has been devouring the Primordial Sea and growing bigger, which resulted in the rise of Fontaine’s sea level. Moreover, in their current state, theTraveler and Neuvillette cannot destroy it because of how big it’d gotten.
The Truth About The Hydro Archon
Amidst all this talk, the Oratrice starts up and starts executing Furina’s death sentence. Traveler tries to stop it butboth the Traveler and Neuvillette are transported to different domains. First, you get to see the true Hydro Archon, Focalors, talking to Neuvillette and revealing the true past and the present of Fontaine.
Focalors mentions that she was given the task of saving the people of Fontaine by the former Hydro Archon, Egeria, but that was no easy task. The prophecy had to be fulfilled, and if she wanted to save Fontainians,she’d have to deceive the world including the Heavenly Principles that the prophecy went as it was supposed to. It was quite a predicament.
To combat this, Focalors devised a plan. She brought herself into the Oratrice with the Gnosis whileshe left her “human” counterpart out in the world by the name of Furina. The human counterpart was told that she needs to play the part of the Hydro Archon if she wants to save all of Fontaine, and she’s been doing that, ever so meticulously, for the last five hundred years.
All this time, getting ridiculed by Arlecchino,getting judged and betrayed by her own people, when all she was trying to do was save them.
Meanwhile, only a portion of the Indemnitium created by the Oratrice was used to power Fontaine, and the rest of it was used tocreate a sword powerful enough to execute the Hydro Archon and her throne. Yes, Focalors' endgame was to remove the authority of the Hydro Archon and transfer it back to the Dragon Sovereign of water, Neuvillette.
As the plan came to fruition, Neuvillette got the authority of Hydro back andforgave the Fontainians' sin, and Furina finally got her freedomwhile the Hydro Archon, Focalors, was executed. As you defeated the All-Devouring Narwhal with Neuvillette’s authority, the water level did rise, and the flood came to pass, but Fontainians lived on without getting dissolved.
You also met Childe’s trainer, Skirk, who mentioned that All-Devouring Narwhal is her master’s pet,and the master’s name is Surtalogi.
The Fontaine Finale
During the final few dialogues of Fontaine after the flood had passed, you learn a few important things. The first of them being that theHydro Gnosis is now with Arlecchino, and she’s taking it back to Snezhnaya. Moreover, Childe is also now safely back in Snezhnaya and recovering from his injuries from the long battle. You give his Vision to Arlecchino for delivery as well.
Neuvillette also tells you that he used his authority as a dragon to convert thePrimordial Seawater inside Fontainians' bodies into pure blood, and that’s how they survived the flood. You also learn that the Visions are nothing but the remains of the Third Descender in Teyvat.
