The story is told in three acts.

Act I: Descent into the Forgotten City

The protagonist is a wanderer without a name or past, who finds himself in the mountains during a long
journey. While resting in a small cave, he hears a rumble, and then the ceiling collapses, blocking the
exit.

In search of an exit, he finds a narrow tunnel leading deeper into the rock. The further he goes, the
stranger the wall becomes - as if made not by nature, but by someone intelligent. After a while, the
tunnel leads him to a giant gate, decorated with bas-reliefs depicting slender people with long sides
bent over something nameless.

The door opened at his touch. Behind it lies a city immersed in eternal light.

Before the hero's eyes appears a giant city consisting of narrow bridges and cyclopean buildings
reaching upward. In the distance, huge columns and arches appear, protruding domes, from the cracks
of which a golden light is born.

The first impression is that the city is empty, but from the very first steps you can hear the quiet rhythm
of footsteps, the echo of a reflection from the wall.
On one of the buildings, the hero notices a figure in a yellow robe with a golden mask. She stands
motionless, but as soon as he blinks, she disappears.

Soon the hero bumps into the Ghost of an ancient scholar, a barely noticeable silhouette of a man that
shimmers in the air. The scholar speaks in confused phrases, as if his consciousness is torn apart. He
mentions that the city is a friend, but continues to live, and that the hero is not the first to come here.

The hero begins to surprise the city. In his search, he finds:

• Liu, a mysterious merchant sitting by a fire in the ruins. He offers items in exchange for strange relics
found in the city, but his behavior is too... perfect.

• The Apocrypha Girl, standing under one of the bridges. She sells magical artifacts that allow you to
"see the hidden." She warns that the city is distorting his mind.

• A wandering monk who says that the hero must find a sanctuary.

During the exploration, the hero encounters the first enemies

At a certain point, the hero falls through a broken slab and falls deep under the city.

He comes to in a huge hall, the walls of which are written in runes. But most importantly, he is
surrounded by hundreds who look like him.

Here, a wandering man appears and says:

"Now do you remember?"

Kirik claims that his goal is to kill Liu. According to him, the merchant is the key to an endless cycle, and
as long as he exists, the city will return the hero again and again.

The hero can:

• Help Kirik - in this case, he will see that Liu is reborn instantly after death, like the hero himself.
• Refuse - Kirik will leave, but will return later.

• Kill

The hero comes out to the main square, where a massive gate opens before him. They work in the
Sanctuary of the King in Yellow.

Right in front of the entrance stands Hastur. He does not attack. He just watches.

And at this moment the hero regains consciousness.

Act II: The Breathing City

The hero awakens on the floor of an abandoned temple. The stone vaults are high, the walls are covered
in patterns depicting people in yellow robes bowing before a fuzzy, blurry figure. In the center of the
room is a huge engraving on which someone has scratched the words:

"You have always been here."

Liu is sitting by the fire again, as if nothing happened. He sells the same goods, but now he has a new
line of dialogue:

"You came back again?"

The hero finds the ruins of a research center, where traces of ancient experiments remain. Here he
learns that the city tried to unite all its inhabitants into a single hive mind.

But something went wrong.

They merged into a single being, and now the city is him

As the hero explores, he meets new characters:

• Agatha, a person in a silver mask, claims that she is one of those who did not fully merge with the city.
She says that the city is thirsty for growth and that the hero is part of this process.

• A chained ruin priest prays at a ruined altar. He says that there were once twelve priests here, but now
only he remains. The others have "lost themselves."

In the catacombs, the hero stumbles upon Kirik.

• His body is covered in wounds, but he is still alive.

• He whispers: "Liu is not a man."

The hero learns of the Forbidden Library, a place where the knowledge of the ancient city was kept.

To get there, you need to find three relics:

• The Eye of the Abyss, kept by the Ghost of the Scholar. He will give it to you if you guess the riddle

• The Stone of Unity, which can be found in one of the dungeons.

• The Heart of the City, which Liu wears, and which he will gladly sell for a heart made of wood, which is
sold by a hermit merchant

After collecting the relics, the hero finds himself in the Forbidden Library.
It has no ceiling - instead, an endless, fog-shrouded space. On the shelves are books without titles, but if
the hero opens them, they simply describe that he has opened a book.

It is here that he learns three truths:

1. The City was a great civilization, but they destroyed themselves by merging into one.

2. Hastur is not a god, but merely a remnant of their collective mind, trying to preserve itself.

3. The hero has been here before.

Act III: Everything Falls into Place

After some time, the hero again finds his way to the central sanctuary. Tot goes there. The hero passes
through the gates into the Sanctuary of the King in Yellow. This is a huge space, stretching into infinity.
There are no boundaries, no horizon, no shadows - only yellow light pouring from somewhere above.
In the center of the sanctuary there is a throne covered in signs and ancient writings. Hastur sits on it,
but his face is blurred, as if he cannot be remembered.

Hastur says that he will tell the hero everything if he really understood everything. But then he quickly
changes his mind and tells the hero everything.

The hero is not a person.

He is an NPC, created by this world to die again and again. He has walked this path hundreds of times,
but each time he forgot.

Under the city there is a whole sea of his corpses, each one is one of his past lives. He died at the hands
of monsters, fell into the abyss, died from Liu's sword, was killed by Kirik ... but he always returned.
This city is a cycle, and he is part of this cycle. However, someone else has taken control of it, and this is
the man at the monitor.

The world begins to collapse.

• The city is glitching, the architecture is breaking before our eyes.

• Hastur's servants and other characters hang in the air in a T-pose

• Liu's voice, or rather his text, now sounds out of nowhere

Three paths (endings) open up before the hero

1) "You've Always Been Here"

• The Hero accepts his nature and stays in the city forever.

• He disappears, and the final screen shows a new wanderer entering the city through the same gate.

• The cycle continues.

2) "True Awakening"

• The Hero destroys the world, breaking the very structure of the game.

• The screen begins to flicker, interface elements turn into chaos, textures disintegrate.

• The final frame shows a dark room with a computer, on the screen of which code is visible.

• Someone is sitting in front of the monitor, but his face is hidden.

3) "The Yellow King"

• The Hero kills Hastur... but takes his place.

• Now he is the new King in Yellow, and the city obeys him.

• Final screen:

• The Hero sits on the throne, and in front of him appears a new player entering the city.

4) "Code Break"

• The hero destroys Liu and the Sanctuary, crashing the game.

• Everything disappears.

• The screen goes black, leaving only the console interface with system errors.

• Then a line appears on the screen:

"Insert new player? [Y/N]"

5) "Death outside the loop"

• The hero abandons all choices and simply jumps into the abyss.

• He finds himself in the real world, but it is not what it should be.

• Liu stands nearby and asks:

"Did you think this was the exit?"

• Then the screen goes black, and the game freezes.