The track leading to the Tower of Quiet bore no inscripts.
There weren't any pathways, nor Trailways; just a silence so utter that it thickened with every movement made by the traveler along this way. Trees leaned in from outside, stones had no moss or markings, birds did cease to chirp, the very wind that had carried their stories across the Lantern Trail withdrew.
[QUEST OBJECTIVE: Go Forth to the Tower of Quiet] Warning: An Emotional Suppression Event Is in Progress - High-Risk
Yumi and Ren continued, each step becoming more laborious. Their distant lanterns emitted less and less light, as if the very air were consuming it. Now their thoughts also drifted away, slowed.
"It's like… forgetting ourselves," Ren murmured. His voice was undertaken by the silence that weighed heavily on them as though it were slackened further by the distance.
Yumi gripped a shard given to her by Kaelen. "We anchor to this. To each other."
Before twilight descended, they reached the top of that last hill.
And it stood there.
It was an obsidian and pale bone spire reflecting an unnatural semblance from an arena of silent reproach. There was no songbird flying nearby nor any echo of sound back. The Tower absorbed not only noise but the attention of all beings.
[LOCATION REACHED: The Tower of Quiet] Status: Null Core Active
A vast exit stretched at the base-black stone engraved with glowing symbols that flared once, then faded into oblivion as Yumi and Ren drew closer.
"It is reacting," Yumi said. "Not to light, but to emotion."
She extended her hand, resting it on the stone. The slow pulse of her heart was interrupted then by a whisper in her mind:
Abandon it all. No more sorrow. No more joy. Only stillness.
" She withdrew. "It's not tempting us. It's offering surrender."
The Tower was colder than any place they'd ever been.
There were no torches. No echoes followed their footsteps. They passed rooms stacked up with memories suspended in time: snippets of voices, laughter cut off mid-sentence, faces dimmed into gray.
"These aren't prisons," Ren whispered. "They're choices. Someone chose to lock those away."
A great chamber opened at the heart of the Tower-growing vaults, a throne of veinstone, and tears-a silent regent seated there. She wasn't old, neither young. Her skin gleamed like polished marble, her eyes were deep voids. Sharpeners of stolen memory orbited around her.
"You are late," she said, not parting her lips. Her voice flooded the room like cold water.
Yumi stepped into consideration. "You took the world's silence and made it law. Why?"
The gaze of the Regent fell upon her. "Because emotion is confusion. You saw what happened when the Heartstone shattered. We offered peace. Clarity."
Ren shook his head. "You offered crisis."
"And they chose it," she proclaimed. "I did not make them; I did just remove the weight."
"You removed choice," Yumi retorted.
The Regent rose. "Then prove that your choice is stronger. Take back what was sacrificed."
[FINAL ENCOUNTER: The Silent Regent - Arbiter of Apathy] Phase 1: Echo Suppression Field
The room darkened again. The lanterns of Yumi and Ren flickered, their memories pulled like threads.
Ren staggered, "She has us-there she's draining us-our pasts turned into silence."
Yumi fell to her knees. In her hand, the opal shard yet glowed.
Kaelen's voice warned her: We were going to bury it. But maybe it is time to build again.
And smashed the shard on the floor.
The room lit up.
[ITEM ACTIVATED: Flame of Memory - Opal Reforged ] Effect: The restoration of emotional clarity, preventing null suppression.
Memory crashed over them in waves.
Phase 2: Mirror of Stillness
The Regent conjured Yumi and Ren's echoes: their blank, empty eyes staring, mouths sealed tight. They appeared as simulacra—identical in every movement.
"Their strength is beyond us in battle," Ren said. "We must endlessly outfeel them." All at once, they put every bond they knew: Vaen, Eldmere, Veridell, and yet many more. Lights around the world burst to life, waves of remembering light returned.
The echoes blinked-and splintered.
Final Phase: The Shard of Silence
Now just standing, stripped of powers was the Regent.
"Would you send this pain back into the world, let it suffer again?" she asked.
Going forward, Yumi said, "We would give it the power to choose again." She held the Shard of Silence.
And felt it break.
The whole Tower trembled. Cracks broke out all over its walls. Outside, wind had chosen to blow again; birds cried. The trees shook.
[QUEST COMPLETE: CONFRONT AT THE TOWER OF QUIET] Reward: Shard of Choice - Final Key to the World's Weaving
The Regent fell, whirling vapor; no longer an enemy, just another freed memory.
Yumi and Ren stood high atop the Tower, at last to see the sunrise.
The Lantern Trail lay at an end.
But ahead would lie a path far illuminate by brighter lights than ever came before.