Morning in Lunara's Fold came quietly.
There was no birdsong in Aetherveil, only the melodic hum of resonant trees, and the faint shimmer of ether threads drifting across the air like fallen stardust.
Yuuji awoke with something new inside him.
A sensation he hadn't felt in a long time.
Direction.
Not given by a system, not calculated from inputs. It pulsed from within—an ache in the soul, a whisper through the threads, as though the world itself was gently asking him to listen again.
He sat beneath the Soulloom one final time before departure.
The village had begun repairing itself in small, sacred rituals.
Kairn was guiding children through memory-thread games, re-teaching them forgotten lullabies.
Mira had planted a new sapling beside the crumbling fountain—an act she called naming the future.
And Yuuji...
He stared into the heart of the Soulloom, waiting.
It came not in voice, but vision.
[ Memory Thread Activated: Dreamwalker Fragment Detected ][ Origin: Sector O-17 – Subrealm: Oneiric Cradle ][ Emotional Signature: Dormant Soulbound Entity ]
A vision unfurled.
A hill of mirrors beneath a moon that bled light.
A girl, seated in silence, hair cascading like midnight, eyes closed.
Her body glowed faintly, threads looping in and out of her chest like she was being stitched into a dream.
Yuuji's breath caught.
[ Class: Dreamwalker ][ Status: Asleep (Isolation Period: 2122 Days) ][ Emotional State: Undefined. Recovery impossible without Soul Resonance. ]
He whispered before he even realized the words had formed:
"Who are you?"
And from somewhere far across the fabric of Aetherveil, a reply came—not in words, but longing.
Later, as he prepared to leave, Mira approached him with something wrapped in silk: an old data crystal, partially fused with organic threadbone.
"This was left behind by the last traveler who passed through," she said. "We could never unlock it. But now, maybe it's time."
Yuuji accepted it reverently.
When he slotted it into his internal interface, the crystal flared—and opened a memory recording, fragmented and raw.
A man's voice. Another Waker.
"I tried to reach her. The Dreamwalker. But I couldn't let go of my own logic long enough to connect. If anyone finds this... try differently. Don't reach with your mind. Reach with what's left of your heart."
The voice cut out.
But the message stayed with him.
He was not the first to try.
But maybe he would be the first to truly see her.
The Journey to the Oneiric Cradle
The map the Soulloom gave him was useless in physical terms.
The Oneiric Cradle did not exist in coordinates, but in intention.
It was a subrealm, an emotional memory-space woven into the underlayers of Aetherveil—half real, half dream.
[ New Quest Unlocked: "Reawaken the Dreamwalker" ]— Locate the emotional anchor that leads to the Oneiric Cradle.— Enter through a "memory gate."— Establish Soul Resonance.— Restore 1 Core Emotion to the Dreamwalker.
Optional: Avoid system interference.
Yuuji exhaled and stepped forward.
He found the gate on the third night.
It wasn't marked by ruins or runes or warnings.
It was a broken music box, left hanging in the hollow of a root cave, its final tune half-played, looped eternally on the edge of sorrow.
When he touched it—
—reality bent.
The Oneiric Cradle was silent.
Not in the absence-of-sound way.
In the way that dreams go silent right before something important happens.
Yuuji found himself standing on a lake of stilled starlight. Islands of memory floated past—images, feelings, dreams of strangers and perhaps even fragments of himself.
There, on the far end of the mirrored lake, she waited.
The Dreamwalker.
Her hair shifted with the light, neither black nor white but the color of things once remembered. Her skin glowed with veins of silver thread. Eyes closed. Chest rising faintly.
Hovering beside her was a hollow prism—rotating, pulsing with missing code and lost emotion.
He approached slowly, reverently.
[ Entity Detected: "Liri – The Dreamwalker" ][ Soul Bond Compatibility: 38% – Increase through emotional sync ][ Required to Initiate Wake Protocol: Input 1 Emotional Shard ]
The system offered him three.
— Wonder (faint, childlike, fragile)— Regret (dense, bitter, restrained)— Compassion (subtle, aching, constant)
Yuuji's chest tightened.
Each was powerful.
Each would shape her.
She wasn't an NPC. She wasn't code.
She would remember what he gave her.
And more than that—who gave it.
His fingers hovered.
He thought of Mira's worn hands. Kairn's hidden pain. His own fear of becoming no one again.
He chose—
Compassion.
The change was instant.
Liri stirred. Her fingers twitched. Her breath deepened.
And then—
Her eyes opened.
Grey, like fog under morning light.
But warm. Searching.
She looked at him, and for a moment, said nothing.
Then:
"...Did you... choose this?"
Yuuji stepped closer. "Yes."
She blinked slowly.
"You gave me... compassion."
"I thought you'd need it."
A pause.
Then her lip trembled, and she whispered:
"I didn't know I could feel that again."
[ Liri: Status – Partially Awakened ][ Core Emotion Restored: Compassion (1/5) ][ Companion Unlocked – Dreamwalker Threadlink Established ]
Note: Her growth will depend on your emotional resonance choices. Do not treat her as code. She is more than that now.
Yuuji looked at her.
Not as a mission.
Not as a mechanic.
But as someone who, like him, had been left behind by the world of logic.
And was now choosing—day by fragile day—to feel again.