The long and winding road to the Windless Vale lay between jagged hills and wide ravines. Within it was an inert land—no birds, no rivers, not even a rustle of leaves. Peaceful stillness? Nay. Heavy, almost like air had forgotten how to move.
[QUEST OBJECTIVE: Restore the Windless Vale] Status: Emotional Stagnation Identified
Yumi was the first to feel the place entering the vale: her breath was warm, but never misted the air. Ren's boots left no trace in the dust. It was as if they had vanished from this plane of existence.
"We're not just visitors," he said softly. "We are...unnoticed."
The villages they crossed were eerie, perfectly well preserved yet lifeless. Tables were set for dinner. Clothes hung on the lines. Candles burned half down and stayed at that—the wax had yet to melt any further. It was as if time held his breath and refused to exhale.
They encountered people in the central village of Silmere.
Not statues, but too still to distinguish from them. Dozens stood unmoving in a square, open eyes utterly unfocused. Their chests rose and fell with metronomic precision, but they never spoke. Never blinked.
"They're stuck," whispered Yumi, making her way around them. "Not in a body—in feeling. This is what happens when feelings are put on hold for too long."
Ren studied one of the figures. "They are conscious. I can feel it inside them. They're waiting for something."
With Yumi having lit the lantern in the square, nothing happened. She began pouring memories of the first moment she realized that her sister would be home. The pain she had carried in silence for so many years. Still nothing.
Then Ren stepped forward, holding the whisper-cord gifted in Veridell, wrapped it around the lantern, and turned to the crowd.
"My name is Ren. And I don't want to be forgotten anymore."
The lantern flared.
One figure blinked, then another. A breath caught. A hand trembled.
[MEMORY REACTIVATION IN PROGRESS]
The lantern grew brighter than Yumi had seen before, casting not only light but also movement. Wind stirred. Leaves danced. Dust rose.
One man staggered forward and fell to his knees. "I... I was waiting. But I forgot why."
Yumi knelt down beside him. "Do you remember your name?"
He shook his head. "Just... that I loved someone once. And they're gone."
Yumi nodded. "Then that's where we begin."
Thus commences the next two days, when movement seeped back into the townsfolk.
Slowly. Unsure. The lantern had not extinguished once.
A woman by the name of Etta described to them how the vale had begun its slow restoration after the breaking of the Heartstone. Speaking became a challenge, then feeling; anything was better than confronting the reality of grief.
[LOCATION UNLOCKED: Silmere — The Vale Breathes Again] [QUEST PROGRESS: 5/7 Silent Realms Restored]
On the third day, Ren returned from the northern town area with a newfound discovery, a gigantic wall of smooth black stone, half-buried in ivy. The wall is inscribed with names of people from somewhere other than the Vale: Vaen, Arken's Hollow, and even Eldmere.
"It's a memory wall," he said, "but not for the dead. It's keeping track for the souls we've been afraid to mourn."
In the middle of the wall, there was a space left uncarved.
Yumi stroked the space. "This space was left for someone who never came home."
She pulled a small shard from her pack that she had carried since the Veil: a sliver of Nulllight. It was dangerous once, but it was gone.
"I think we should leave something here," she said. "Not to forget. But to forgive."
And she pressed the shard into the rock. It sank like water.
Then, a gust of wind swept through the vale.
[EMOTION RELEASED: Regret]
The people of Silmere were weeping, but not for grief, rather for relief.
[QUEST COMPLETE: Restore the Windless Vale] Reward: Fragment of Closure.
The townspeople gathered in the square as preparations were underfoot. Etta came towards them with a new lantern, already lit, for the journey.
"Take this with you," she said. "You lit ours. Let us light the next."
Yumi bowed. "We will. And we shall tell your story."
They walked out of the Windless Vale with movement at their backs.
Wind in their cloaks. And the quiet now singing softly behind them.