Lanterns and saving
Lanterns are the safe places of the Long Dusk, and they are how the game keeps your place.
Burning and dark lanterns
Some lanterns always burn: in Lantern Town and at the rest stops of each region. Others have gone dark. Touch a dark lantern and your ember kindles it, for you, for good. Kindling lanterns is how many quests begin, and it earns XP.
Saving
Touching any lantern that burns for you saves your place there. Sparks flare from it when it becomes the lantern you saved at. When you sign out and come back, you appear beside it. When your flame goes out, it rekindles there too.
Touching a burning lantern also rekindles your flame to full. Away from lanterns, your flame comes back slowly on its own once you have been out of a fight for a few seconds.
Going home
A homeward ember carries you back to the lantern you saved at. Tansy the moth sells them, and Tock the beetle tinker makes them once you reach level 3. Use one from your bag and stand still while it gathers. Moving, attacking or being hit breaks it, and it does not work while a Gloom Heart is fighting you.
Shortcuts
At the far end of every region there is a shortcut back toward its start. A shortcut door is shut from the near side. Come through it from the far end once and it stays open for you.