The darkness didn't last long. It didn't feel like sleep, but like falling through deep, cold water.
When Lumine opened her eyes, the familiar warm candlelight of headquarters was gone. There was no wood, no stone, and Mondstadt was no longer there.
Instead, they stood on a surface of white, milky glass that stretched in all directions to the horizon, only a limited light source that barely illuminates its surroundings. Above them there was no sky – only an endless tangle of floating debris and broken mirrors, in which scenes moved too fast to be grasped.
>>"Lumine...?"<<
Paimon's voice sounded thin and echoed strangely, she clung to Lumine's sleeve, her small legs trembling.
>>"Where are we? This doesn't look like headquarters... This looks like... Everywhere and Nowhere!"<<
Jean was already standing, her sword was drawn, the blade glowing in a pale anemo light, which, however, appeared dull in here. She seemed alert, her eyes scanning the horizon.
>>"We are not in a place that can be found on a map."<<
Jean noted with remarkable calm, although her fingers gripped the hilt of her sword more tightly.
Lisa stood a few steps away, holding her head, her eyes wide open, filled with a mixture of horror and scientific fascination.
>>"A corresponding consciousness... Lumine, Your energy has built a bridge. We are in the limbo of her memories. This... this is the inside of Noxira's soul."<<
Suddenly the air froze, a soft clinking sound, like falling glass, cut through the silence. A few meters in front of them, something materialized – it looks like a Crystal. It was a crystal line growing out of the glass base, transparent and traversed by blue veins.
Inside, a scene was frozen: A young woman, who looked strikingly similar to Noxira, stood in front of a massive gate made of dark metal.
>>"Look! Paimon has found something!"<<
Paimon called out and pointed at the fragment, She was too afraid of, or had too much respect for, the place to simply pick it up now.
Lumine took a step closer, her heart hammering against her ribs, she felt an enormous attraction emanating from the crystal. It was not merely a picture – it was a feeling, a feeling of loss and infinite coldness.
Lisa stepped beside her, her voice now quiet and warning.
>>"Be careful. When we touch these fragments, we experience what she experienced, but this awareness is unstable. If we lose ourselves in their pain, we may never find our way back to our own bodies."<<
Jean looked at Lumine and saw the determination in Lumine's eyes.
>>"We can't leave her here alone. If this is the only way to bring Noxira back... then we will take this path."<<
Lumine nodded and reached out for the first crystal fragment; before her fingers touched the surface, the wind whispered in this world – a wind that did not blow, but spoke:
>>"Don't... anchor..."<<
Lumine did not withdraw her hand, she's determined to safe her friend and as her fingertips touched the cold, pulsating surface of the crystal, the entire glass floor beneath her feet trembled.
The surroundings around her began to distort, the milky emptiness giving way to a monstrous architecture formed from glass. Huge, white glass columns shot up out of nowhere, but they weren't stable. They were split in the middle, hovered at impossible angles, and were held together by chains of pure, blue light. There was no horizon anymore, only a labyrinth of stairs leading into nothingness and floating ruins reminiscent of a city abandoned by the gods.
>>"This... this is not a dream" <<
Lisa breathed a fascinating voice as she let her gaze wander over the broken palaces that hung above them in nothingness.
>>"This is a keeper of memories, a memory of a time when we weren't there yet."<<
Suddenly, the crystal in front of Lumine ripped open, the blue glow of the veins inside poured like liquid fire across the floor, forming a life-size projection of the past.
They saw Noxira – or what she once was; she was not wearing clothes from Mondstadt, but a robe made of a fabric, which acted like liquid mercury and shimmered in the light of this world's artificial sun. She stood in a hall made of black obsidian, before her rose a figure whose face was veiled by dazzling light.
>>"The project is completed"<<
A voice sounded, but it was not human. It sounded like the grinding of metal on stone.
>>"You are the stable center, the anchor for what is to come."<<
The Noxira in the vision shook her head and her hands trembled.
>>"I feel... like I'm breaking. The energy... it doesn't fit into this form."<<
The luminous figure replied cooly:
>>"Pain is a sign of resistance, get used to it. You weren't created to feel, but to hold.<<
Suddenly a crack ran through the image, a tremendous crash echoed through the dream world, and the ground beneath Jean, Lisa, and Lumine began to splinter. Black shadow, shaped hands with claws, shot up from the cracks in the glass floor.
Jean noticed it just in time and called shoutend: >>"Caution!"<<.
She spun around and sliced through the shadow hands with a hard Anemo strike before they could reach Lumine.
>>"The world is fighting back against us, we are unknown bodies in its pain."<<
Lisa lifted her Catalyst, and purple flashes danced between her fingers.
>>"Noxira's subconscious recognizes us as intruders. If we don't stabilize this memory, she will devour us"<<
Lumine looked back at the fragment; the Noxira in the vision now screamed silently in pain, while her face right where the scar was now, burst open and bright, white-blue fluid sprang out.
Lumine shouted against the howling of the approaching storm.
>>"We need to go deeper, perhaps then she will remember us. There, at the bottom of the stairs, there's another fragment!"<<
She pointed upwards, where a staircase made of floating debris rose steeply into the dark sky. Up above, another vestige shone, larger and darker than the first.
Paimon clung desperately to Lumine's hair and complained
>>"Paimon wants to go home! But... but we can't see her suffering like this... Quick Lumine! Before the stairs fly away completely!"<<
Together they ran off, while the world around them continued to fall apart and behind them. The glass pillars plunged silently into infinity, before them waited the truth, which Noxira herself had forgotten.
The storm died down as suddenly as it had arrived. The shadow hands that had been clawing at them just moments ago crumbled into fine, silvery dust, settling like snow onto the glass floor. The staircase of floating debris stabilized, now glowing with a soft, pulsing pearly shade.
Jean lowered her sword, her breath still heavy, but her eyes softened as she looked around.
>>"The resistance... it's gone. It's as if she recognized us."<<
Lisa closed her book and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
>>"Or she's too exhausted to push us away anymore. Look at this..."<<
The surroundings had changed, the aggressive, sharp-edged ruins had given away to softer forms, and they now stood in a sort of glass garden. Trees of crystalline light arched over the path, and in their branches hung not leaves, but small, glowing fragments of memory that chimed like bells in the wind. It was beautiful, but it was a beauty that felt lonely. They reached the second large memory fragment at the end of the stairs.
This time, it was no longer a spikey crystal, but a calm, mirror smooth surface hovering in the air and Lumine stepped towards this Crystal.
This time she didn't hesitate as she touched the mirror, no pain spread through her, instead, it felt as if someone were whispering a sad secret into her ear.
The group saw Noxira in a small, sterile room and there were no windows, only white light.
She sat at a table, tracing patterns in the dust with her finger and she looked younger, almost like a child.
A voice, softer this time but devoid of emotion, spoke from the darkness:
>>"Noxira. Tell me, what do you see when you close your eyes?"<<
Young Noxira answered without looking up:
>>"I see the wind. But it's not in here. It's waiting outside. It says I'm a hole in the world. That I'm... I'm stealing the air... instead of breathing it..."<<
The voice replied:
>>"The wind is a variable and you are the constant. Your body is designed to filter the energy that would destroy others. You are not a hole, Noxira. You are a vessel, you will also encounter this with other elements such as water, electricity, fire, and more."<<
The vision flickered and they saw Noxira stand up and press her hand against the white wall.
Where her skin touched the stone, black cracks began to spread and exactly like the scar on her face.
>>"It hurts to be a vessel..."<<
Young Noxira whispered, sad and wounded.
>>"That is the price of your destiny,"<<
Was the final answer before the vision shattered into a thousand glittering sparks.
The glass garden expanded before them and the deeper they come, the clearer it became. This was not a place of forgetting, but an archive, the glowing fragments in the trees weren't random images they were arranged chronologically, like books in an infinite, floating library.
Lisa paused before a tree whose branches were nearly breaking under the weight of silver vials. She didn't touch any, but her gaze was filled with awe.
>>"These aren't just her own memories... Look at the glow. These here are old... centuries old. She's preserving them. She isn't just a vessel for energy, Lumine. She is an archivist of souls."<<
She whispered fascinated and scientific curiosity
Jean looked around, her hand now resting relaxed on the hilt of her sword.
>>"Like... A Memorykeeper or Guardian? Someone who guards what the world wants or needs to forget?"<<
Lumine continued toward the center of the garden. There, where the stairs culminated in a large, circular platform, sat a figure.
It was Noxira, but she looked different, she wore a long white robe that seemed woven from light, and she held a small, glowing sphere in her hands as if it were a fragile little bird.
This "Dream-Noxira" didn't look up as they approached, her voice sounded like an echo from a great distance.
>> "Every tear the wind couldn't carry away... every scream lost in the storm... I have gathered them all. So that they don't vanish. So that they don't... remain unread."<<
Lumine stepped onto the platform uncertain but excited.
>>"Noxira... is that you?"<<
The figure which looks like Noxira shook her head.
>>"I am what remains when the vessel is full I am the weight of memory."<<
She lifted the sphere Inside, Lumine saw a brief moment from her own journey the moment she lost her brother.
>>"Even your grief has found a place here, Lumine. I am holding it for you, so that you can keep moving forward."<<
Paimon gasped.
>>"You mean... you take people's pain away and keep it for yourself?"<<
The Dream-Noxira smiled sadly.
>>"That is the duty of a Keeper. But the cracks... they are growing larger. There are too many memories. The world has grown too old for a single heart, my body can't take it anymore."<<
Suddenly, the platform began to quake and the cracks on Noxira's face the Fracture glowed a dark blue. The spheres in the trees around them began to vibrate restlessly.
>> "Dvalin's corruption..."<<
Lisa understand it immediately and puts everything together.
>>"Noxira didn't just feel his pain, she archived it. But his pain was poisoned! It's destabilizing her entire memory bank!"<<
Jean stepped protectively in front of Lumine. >>"We have to help her to clear this burden, or this entire place will collapse!"<<
The Dream-Noxira now looked Lumine directly in the eyes her eyes were clear, yet filled with tears and open her hand for Lumine.
>> "If you hold the Keeper's hand... you will see what I see. Are you ready to carry the weight of the world with me for a moment?"<<
Lumine didn't hesitate she saw the cracks spreading across the dreamscape, mirroring the pain on Noxira's real face back in the headquarters. She reached out, her fingers inches away from the Keeper's hand.
>>"I'm not letting you go"<<
Promised Lumine her and took her hand.