‘An Expected Plan’ and its follow-up quest, ‘An Expected Lie,’ are sequels to the Fontaine Research Institute Chronicles main world quest of Genshin Impact. While the prequel is a much bigger quest, these two quests are relatively easier to complete as most of them comprise dialogues with only one association game.
There are also no secret pathways to take, as the entirety of the quest is marked for you. All you need to do is go to the marked locations to progress through the quest.
An Expected Plan
Once you’ve completed the Fontaine Research Institute Chronicles, you will get a new world quest at the Lumidouce Harbor.
You will see a woman wearing glasses named ‘???’ at the harbor, who you can talk to to initiate the quest.
Shortly after, Raimondo arrives, and both NPCs will explain the dangers associated with the Arkhium Kinetic Core ever since the explosion that occurred during the Fontaine Research Institute Chronicles world quest.
Once the dialogue is complete, you must take the elevator to the lower level of the Lumidouce Harbor.
When you reach the lower level, you will encounter some suspicious people.
A fight between you and Chaussivert will start. Defeat him to continue with the quest.
After the fight, follow Chaussivert back to his ship.
You and the company will then make your way to The Rusty Rudder. When you arrive at The Rusty Rudder, you need to find Covault.
Pro tip: you can also speak to the Pitot, the Tavern’s owner, to find Covault, which is probably the “canon” way of finding him.
When you get close to him, a cutscene will initiate, after which Covault will wake up and start fighting you.
Once you’ve successfully defeated Covault, he is returned to the ship. After talking to him for a bit, you return to the shore to go to the drop-off point mentioned by Covault.
Keep following Covault for a bit, and he will eventually stop and attack you together with his mutineers.
When you return to the ship, an association game will begin where you must associate different elements to come up with the correct outcome.
This is how you can solve this association game successfully:
- Interpret ‘The transported Nacker’
- Interpret ‘The major buyer from Snezhnaya’
- Interpret ‘Chaussivert, the Shadow over Lumidouce Harbor’
- Interpret ‘Loillier’s boss’
- Associate ‘The transported Nacker’ with ‘Loillier’s boss’
- Submit ‘Nacker and Concini’ as conclusion.
Once submitted, you need to go to the real drop-off point. When you go to the next marker, you will get a cutscene, after which you must follow two couriers until they arrive at their camp.
When you get to the camp, another fight will initiate.
You will eventually reach the delivery point, which is a secluded house.
To everyone’s surprise, Edwin Eastinghouse, who was supposed to have died during the events of the Fontaine Research Institute Chronicles world quest, comes out of the house.
After the dialogue ends, you get the location of Nacker from Edwin, which concludes the ‘An Expected Plan’ world quest. As soon as this quest finishes, the ‘An Expected Lie’ world quest immediately starts right after.
An Expected Lie
You need to go south of Fort Charybdis Ruins, as marked by the quest marker.
Continue following the quest marker, which will take you to an underwater ruin with a locked door.
To open the door, you need to solve a quick puzzle. First, go to the left side (northern direction) of the door and equip the Xenochromatic Ball Octopus’ ability.
Return to the locked door and you should notice an orange crystal mechanism. Hit it to unseal the locks around the border of the door.
Now, use the Ball Octopus’ ability on the valve to move the cube from the left side of the door all the way to the right side.
Once the cube is on the right end of the door, quickly hit the crystal mechanism again to lock the seals around the door and prevent the cube from returning to its original position, the left side.
Wait a few seconds, and the door will open up. This quest is also important as one of the Fontaine Legends only spawns in here once you’ve completed it.
Make sure you switch to either a Claymore character or a Geo character. This is because you will have a boss fight now, and this boss has a Geo shield that can only be destroyed with heavy attacks.
This boss is similar to the Automated Supercomputing Field Generator Fontaine Legend you find in the Overworld.
Once ready, proceed deeper into the ruins until you get a cutscene.
First, use your Geo character to destroy the boss’ shield. Once the shield is down, use your main DPS to deal as much damage as possible.
Nacker will spawn on the platform above you when the machine boss is defeated. A water teleporter will spawn by you.
After some dialogue, you must return to Edwin’s house to rejoin Lemarcq.
Finally, the party returns to the Fontaine Research Institute, where they meet with Raimondo and Choiseul.
You get 80 primogems from both quests combined and an achievement called ‘A Predictable Ending.’
