You step into the glowing pool

You stand at the edge of the glowing pool, the light reflecting off of sand-dusted stone. Even this far beneath the arid landscape above, the air feels dry, heavy with heat and history. The water shimmers like liquid glass, its glow soft but steady. Beckoning. Every instinct - every fiber of your being - warns you to stop, but the ruins hum with quiet expectation. After coming this far, you can't bring yourself to turn away.

You breathe deep and take a step.

The water accepts you without resistance. It's warm - warmer than it should be - and carries the scene of dust after rain. As you wade deeper, the light climbs around your body in slow waves of gold and white until the air itself seems to bend and breathe. Your muscles ache from the long journey, but that ache soon fades and is replaced with a weightless calm.

The hum in the air blossoms into a chorus of voices - layered and distant.

"The Keeper returns not to the world, but to the memory beneath it."

Images form in the light. You see the desert as it was ages ago: not barren but rife with life and song. Towers of stone rise from the sand as great pillars - marble gleaming in the sun. You see The Guardians standing around the very pool you now occupy. Their now-faceless forms shine radiantly, guarding the pool. In the center, in the pool, kneels a mortal figure cradling a familiar sphere of light.

You recognize the figure!

Like looking in a mirror, you recognize yourself in this memory. If not yourself, then someone you once were. In another life perhaps.

"You were the last Keeper," the voices whisper. "The one who sealed away what could not be destroyed. Each offering was a memory once yours, forgotten in the long silence. Now, all returns."

Warmth floods your chest, bright and endless. You see flashes of memories - the desert before it turned to wasteland, the fall of the city founded there, the creation of The Guardians, their promise to watch until the sands forgot their names. You realize now: the ruin was never built to hold treasure. It was built to house memory itself.

The pool brightens, light spilling up the walls like dawn breaking across the dunes. The hum deepens, then it fades into something quieter - an exhale. A release. You close your eyes as the light washes over you, and you sink below the surface. There is no fear, no sound. Only stillness. And the deep, slow rhythm of the earth remembering itself. 

When the light fades, the chamber lies silent. The pool is calm again, glowing softly beneath layers of ancient stone. The obelisk hums once, like a heartbeat, and goes still. 

Above, the desert is quiet. Wind whispers across the dunes, smoothing away the last traces of your treasure hunting expedition. A single beam of sunlight breaks through the clouds, striking the sand where the ruins sleep. 

Deep below, in the heart of the oasis-that-wasn't, you rest within the glowing water. You're no longer lost. No longer searching. You have become the memory, watching over what was buried and what will someday be found again. 

Fin.