"You cannot leave. The bond will not let you — and neither will I. You are mine until the moon is full."
You are the apprentice of the sorcerer Malacor — and, though you do not yet know it, the vessel he has spent years preparing. When the moon comes full, he means to pour his mind into yours and leave you vacant. This guide teaches you how to survive the three acts of your escape without spoiling the turns of the story you will discover for yourself.
The game is played almost entirely from the keyboard, with the mouse used for movement in the forest.
Every dice roll is shown to you openly: roll d20 +modifier vs DC. There is no hidden math — only hard
choices under a tightening clock.
The story runs across three phases, each a different kind of game:
| Phase | Name | What it is | Win condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Apprentice's Cage | Stealth / chores / suspicion in a cottage | Prepare, then flee to the Forest Edge |
| 2 | The Forest Pursuit | Day-and-move survival across a hex wood | Reach the Boundary Gate to the east |
| 3 | The Ritual Apex | Turn-based clash of the sympathetic bond | Break, invert, or outlast the rite |
Two meters end the game if either fills, in every phase:
- The Ritual Clock (
0–100) — Malacor's rite. At100the transfer completes and you are lost. - Suspicion (
0–10, Phase 1 only) — if it reaches10, his hand closes on your shoulder.
The overarching goal is simple to state and hard to do: stop the rite before the clock runs out, and do not let him take you. How you do that — clean escape, counter-ritual, or turning his own working against him — is the shape of your ending.
You play one of six ancient bloodlines. Each is a genuinely different playthrough: different signature keys, different Phase-3 tricks, and a different relationship with the two corruption meters (Echo Bleed and the Trace Parasite). The table is your quick reference; the notes below tell you how each plays.
| Bloodline | Title | Affinity | Signature key(s) | Plays like |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Veyra | The Vessels | Grey | passive foresight; 1 bond-hijack in Phase 3 |
High-risk power; the bond both helps and corrupts |
| Nyxari | The Veiled | Grey | D — lay a false trail |
The evader; poisons the hunt, calms chaos |
| Thalor | The Wardens | White | passive ley-footing | The tank; sure-footed, self-healing, steady |
| Dravenblood | The Binders | Black | passive siphon; best at Inversion | The glass cannon; burns bright and corrupts fast |
| Sylvara | The Fae-Touched | Grey | passive forage & beast-pact | The survivalist; the wild feeds and fights for you |
| Auralis | The Echoes | Grey | R — copy the Master's last strategy |
The mimic; turns his own tactics back on him |
The bloodline the ritual was designed around. You alone begin with a Sympathetic Bond of 30 (all
others start lower). In Phase 2 the bond leaks Malacor's intent before he moves — a positional foresight
read ("he comes straight for you" / "he swings wide to cut you off") that costs +1 Echo Bleed each
time it fires. In Phase 3, once your bond reaches 40, pressing the bond (1) can hijack his next
pull once: you deny his whole contribution that round and skim a third of it for yourself. The price is
steep — Veyra bleed echo fast and feed the parasite at 1.25×, so a strong bond and a clean self are in
constant tension.
The purpose-built evader. Press D in Phase 2 to weave a false trail: it plants a decoy on a hex
leading away from the gate, poisoning Malacor's scent map so he chases a ghost. Costs 2 mana, also
drops your own trace by 3, and then goes on a 4-turn cooldown. Nyxari have the best flee bonus (+3)
and, in Phase 3, they calm the chaos storm — the rite throws far fewer wild events at them. Low raw
power, but the hardest of all to actually catch.
The stone wall. Ley-line footing (passive) makes you sure-footed on Water and Path hexes —
you ignore their distortion and traps and pay only base movement cost there, so the flooded and worn
routes become your roads. Strong White combat magic (+3 to Ward heals) and a reduced parasite
multiplier (0.85×) mean you soak punishment and mend it. Slow to adapt, but very hard to break.
The inversion specialist and the fastest to burn. Black-siphon (passive) turns half of every wound you
take in combat back into mana — you fight best when bleeding. You have the strongest Black attack
(+4 Ember). The catch: Black casting feeds the Trace Parasite at a punishing 1.40×. But that
corruption is a weapon for you — deep parasite actually adds to your clash score in Phase 3, and you
need only 5 disruption sigils to invert the rite (others need 6), with the largest inversion bonus
(+4). Burn hot, invert, or die.
The survivalist. Wild-forage (passive) means the wood feeds you even in camp (+forage), and your
beast-pact (30) gives a ~30% chance that a wilderness encounter simply doesn't happen — the wild
things recognise their kin and let you pass. Lowest parasite multiplier (0.80×), a forage bonus (+3)
on every gather, and in Phase 3 the Wild Resurgence chaos event lends you the most strength of anyone.
You are domination-resistant and have a unique nature-bond escape ending — but you falter amid man-made
stone.
The mimic. Press R in Phase 2 to copy Malacor's last strategy back at him — and what it does
depends on what he was just doing:
- He was hunting (Bloodhound) → your next step is free and swift.
- He was laying ahead (Architect) → you leave a trap on your own back-trail.
- He was circling / idle → you cloud his read and drop your trace by
8.
The echo has one charge; make camp to recover it. Auralis also ride the Echo Storm chaos event where others drown in it.
You keep Malacor's house while he works. It plays as top-down room exploration: WASD/arrows move,
E interacts with the nearest object, SPACE waits a turn (and listens), G toggles your
spellbook. Doorways move you between rooms.
Read the Chore Board by the door in the Main Room to see the day's tasks (2 per day, rising to 3 from day 3). Each day, Malacor announces an errand and leaves mid-morning; the board tells you when he returns. His trips are consistent in length so you can plan:
| Destination | Round trip (day-segments) |
|---|---|
| the village below | ~3 |
| the standing stones | ~5 |
| the deep wood | ~6 |
| the old ruin | ~7 (furthest) |
The top-of-screen banner always tells you the truth: "THE MASTER IS AWAY … ~N turns till he returns" (green) or "THE MASTER IS HOME // tread lightly" (red). A day is 12 segments; the clock at the top reads Morning / Midday / Evening / Night.
Every action costs a segment. You have two ways to spend your time:
- Do the chores. Finish all of the day's tasks and suspicion drops by
1— "He can have no complaint… today." Chores are safe, and keeping suspicion low is what keeps you alive. - Sin while he's away. The real progress toward escape happens in the forbidden rooms — the Study,
Master's Chamber, the Tool Shed — and it is far safer when he is gone. Doing a forbidden thing
while he is home spikes suspicion (
+2to+3); the Master's Chest while he is home is madness (+3). Forbidden interactables glow red when he is home.
Key things to find and do (each is a skill check — the die is shown):
- Loose Floorboard (Your Room) and Search the Pantry (Kitchen) → clues to the hidden library, the iron key, and stolen herbs; the pantry unlocks the Root Cellar.
- The Study → learn a Grey spell from the Grimoire; crack the Blood-Sealed Drawer for a ritual-disruption sigil; and, once you have the library clue, open The False Bookshelf to the Hidden Library (lore that reframes everything).
- Root Cellar (safe workshop — "no one ever comes here") → learn a White ward in secret, and Brew a Counter-Ritual Draught to push his clock back.
- Master's Chamber → The Master's Chest → the letter that tells you what you truly are.
- The Glowing Stone (Clearing) → restores mana and quiets the bond.
Suspicion runs 0–10 with escalating tiers:
| Suspicion | Tier | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| 0–2 | calm | — |
| 3–5 | caution | he is watching |
| 6–8 | alert | when he returns he searches the house |
| 9–10 | paranoid | study sealed; the clock accelerates; escape blocked |
If suspicion is 6 or higher when he comes home, he searches. This is a Concealment check against
DC 12 + suspicion — the more suspicious he is, the harder it is to pass. Fail and he finds your hidden
things: suspicion is knocked down but the rite lurches forward +4 and you lose that night. Pass
and he finds nothing he can name.
When you first try to walk into the trees at the Forest Edge, the truth erupts: Malacor appears in a blast of smoke — "YOU CANNOT LEAVE." From then on your Tasks panel becomes an Escape Plan. You may only flee once every requirement is met:
- Learn magic — at least 2 spells learned.
- Break the rite — at least 1 disruption sigil in hand.
- Keep your nerve — suspicion below 9.
With all three done, returning to the Forest Edge opens the escape modal. Choose how you run (each is a Stealth check at its own DC, and your choice is remembered into Phase 2 and beyond):
| # | Escape | DC | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stealthy & Prepared | 13 | Quiet, provisioned. Lowest risk. |
| 2 | Distraction-Heavy | 15 | Illusions and decoys buy time. |
| 3 | Aggressive Theft | 17 | Steal his ritual knife on the way out. |
| 4 | Desperate | 13 | No plan. Just run and pray. |
Fail and suspicion jumps +3 and you reel back to try again; pass and the cottage falls behind you.
A day-and-move survival march across a procedurally generated hex wood, in the spirit of Curious
Expedition. Reach the Boundary Gate to the east while Malacor — a pluggable hunter AI — tracks you
from behind. Left-click a discovered hex to move toward it; click your own hex (or E) to interact
with a node.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| click | Move one step along the path to the clicked hex |
| E | Enter / interact with the node you stand on |
| SPACE | Wait and listen (costs a move and a sip of water) |
| C | Make camp (end the day, rest) |
| X | Open the alchemy bench (brew) |
| F | Toggle the faction-war panel |
| B | Throw in to a nearby skirmish (when one rages) |
| D | Nyxari only — lay a false trail |
| R | Auralis only — echo his last strategy |
You get 7 moves per day. Each step spends the move, and drains resources; when the moves are gone you
must make camp (C) to sleep and reset to 7 for a new day. The top banner shows DAY N // moves left
X / 7, plus a distance-and-mode read on Malacor ("you feel him near // 4 hexes // BLOODHOUND"). He never
sleeps: each night's camp lets him take several free steps while you rest.
Watch all four. Food and water going negative bleeds your Health, and thirst kills faster than hunger.
| Resource | Drains from | Refilled by | Danger |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food | every step (−1) |
foraging, camp, market, loot | <0 → −2 health/turn |
| Water | every step (−1), waiting |
springs, lakes, camp, rations | <0 → −3 health/turn |
| Energy | every step (by terrain cost) | camp, rest, stimulant | out of energy = hard going |
| Mana | spells, false trails, seizing | shrines, glowing finds, rest | needed for your signature tricks |
Camp (C) costs 4 food and 4 water, and restores energy (+22, capped at 60), mana (+12, capped 40),
and health (+6). You cannot camp with almost nothing left to eat or drink.
Nodes are the waypoints scattered through the wood. Standing on one opens a panel; every node offers Rest (a little energy and mana), and the six contested nodes add a Seize the Power option. Actions deplete a node for a day or two, so spend the visit well. Types group by behaviour:
| Node group | Examples | Primary action |
|---|---|---|
| Water | Water Spirit Spring, Shimmering Lake | Drink Deep — big water refill, a little food |
| Shrine | Ancient Shrine, Corrupted Ritual Scar | Attune — purge trace and parasite, gain mana |
| Market | Goblin Market, Smuggler's Cove | Barter 6 food → mana or rare reagents |
| Fae | Fairy Ring, Fae-Touched Grove | Fae Bargain — a gamble: boon or a trace spike |
| War camp | Rebel Encampment, Loyalist Outpost | Parley (Persuasion DC 12) — food & faction favour |
| Spore Caves | — | Harvest Spores — reagents, but may wake a keeper (combat) |
| Contested | Ley Line Nexus, Fae Grove, Ritual Scar, Water Spring, Rebel Cache, High Ground | Seize the Power — mana + a disruption sigil, but distortion, trace, and watchers |
| Plain waypoint | Wilds, Mill, etc. | Forage (Forage check) for food & water |
Seize the Power is how you stock the disruption sigils you'll need to invert the rite in Phase 3 —
but each Seize warps the ground, raises your trace by 6–10, and "something now knows exactly where you
are." The Ancient Shrine is your antidote: it's a trace-purge site that scrubs both trace and
parasite.
A new weather rolls each day (and expires after 4–8 turns). It shapes the hunt:
| Weather | Effect each step |
|---|---|
| Clear | nothing (the default, ~55%) |
| Rain | washes your trail — trace −1; fewer encounters |
| Storm | hard going — trace −2, energy −1; hardest to track in; more encounters |
| Anomaly (Wild Magic) | mana +1 seeps in; most encounters of all |
Bad weather is often your friend — a storm thins the trail even as it wears you down.
Open the bench with X. Recipes cost reagents (the ingredient you loot, forage, barter, and
harvest):
| # | Recipe | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Masking Draught | 2 reagents | trace −15, parasite −20 — shake the hunt |
| 2 | Trail Ration | 1 reagent | +10 food, +8 water |
| 3 | Stimulant | 1 reagent | +14 energy, +8 mana (a cost you pay later) |
Passing through wild (non-node) terrain can provoke a proc-gen encounter, its odds scaled by ritual pressure, day, trace, and weather. Sylvara's beast-pact can waive it entirely. When an enemy bars your path, combat is a simple turn duel:
| # | Action | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Strike | — | 4–8 physical damage |
| 2 | Ember (Black) | 2 mana | 8–13 (+Black affinity) damage; raises trace and feeds the parasite |
| 3 | Ward (White) | 2 mana | heal 6–10 (+White affinity) and gain a shield |
| 4 | Hex (Grey) | 2 mana | weakens the enemy's attack; small chip damage |
| 5 | Flee | — | Athletics check vs. the enemy's speed — break away or eat a free hit |
Win and you loot the foe's food, water, mana, and reagents. Lose and you fall in the deep wood — a game over. Note the color economy: Black is your biggest hammer but the one that corrupts you; White keeps you standing.
Warbands of Rebels, Loyalists, Trolls (and others) contest the wood in a live simulation — toggle the
panel with F to watch reputation (−100…+100) and forces at arms. When a skirmish rages within reach,
the prompt "[B] throw in" appears. Pressing B reinforces the faction you favour most, raising
their reputation by 6 (and lowering their enemies'). Faction favour is earned in the long game — parley
at war camps, aid them in battle — and reputation you've banked shapes who helps you and who converges on
the Master's side.
Reaching the Boundary Gate carries you into the Ritual Apex.
The Heart of the Ritual. This is a turn-based clash of the sympathetic bond — a tug-of-war scored round by round. The clock is already near its climax (forced to at least 60 on arrival), and you carry in everything you built: your disruption sigils, your echo bleed, your parasite, your bond, your magic. Press number keys to act.
| # | Action | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Press the Bond | Your strongest clash push (quality 3). Veyra with bond ≥ 40 can hijack here. |
| 2 | Grey Disruption | A solid push (quality 2) that also builds ward and grey-masking |
| 3 | Sever the Rite | Counter-ritual: knocks the clock back 4–8; small clash value |
| 4 | Attempt Inversion | Turn the rite against him — resolves the story immediately |
| 5 | Ward Yourself | A small push (quality 1) that stacks ward, blunting his next contribution |
Each non-inversion action scores your clash contribution (a base of 5, plus lineage bonus, action
quality, and magic affinity, minus a penalty for echo bleed and — for most bloodlines — the
parasite). The Master answers with his own contribution each round, reduced by any ward you raised.
The bond bar at the top shows the tug-of-war; the rite pours on 1–2 clock per round regardless.
Every clash round can trigger one of nine chaos events, weighted by your bloodline, the clock stage, your black-casting, and how lopsided the clash is:
| Chaos | Effect |
|---|---|
| Resonance Surge | both bleed more into the field (echo +2, clock +1) |
| Null Zone Collapse | a calm — no clash change this round |
| Sympathetic Feedback Loop | whoever is losing takes a further −2 |
| Fractured Agent Manifestation | a splinter helps one side at random (+2) |
| Ritual Inversion Feedback | the rite lurches — clock +2 |
| Memory Fracture Echo | you lose the thread (−1 clash, echo +1) |
| Bond Severance Shockwave | both clash scores reset to 0 — begin again |
| Wild Resurgence | the wild lends strength (+2, or +4 for Sylvara) and heals you |
| Echo Storm | drowns most (−2, echo +3) but lifts Veyra & Auralis (+2) |
Nyxari calm the storm (far more "None" rolls); Sylvara court Wild Resurgence; echo-bloods ride the Echo Storm; Dravenblood invite the Surges.
Inversion is the boldest win — you reach into the pouring and turn it around. You need enough disruption sigils (the components you gathered by seizing contested nodes and cracking his drawer):
- Dravenblood and Veyra need 5 sigils.
- Everyone else needs 6.
The attempt is a roll against a DC that rises with your echo bleed (16 → 18 → 20, and auto-fail if
echo bleed ≥ 81 / Consumed). Your lineage adds an inversion bonus — Dravenblood most of all (+4), and
their Black casts count as extra charge. Outcomes:
- Clean (2): the working turns cleanly — the best inversion result.
- Partial (1): it half-holds; you keep yourself, mostly.
- Corrupted (−1): with too much echo already bled, it fuses you both.
Attempting inversion ends the phase there and then.
The round loop ends — and you reach an ending — as soon as any of these happens:
- Your lead over Malacor reaches +18 (you win the clash), or his lead reaches +18 (you lose).
- The ritual clock hits 100.
- 12 rounds elapse without a decision — a deadlock.
- You attempt inversion (which resolves immediately).
Your final state — who won the clash, the clock, your echo bleed, parasite, sigils, whether you severed the rite, and your bloodline — is fed into the ending tree below.
Every meter that governs the game, with the thresholds that matter:
| Meter | Range | Where | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ritual Clock | 0–100 | all phases | Malacor's rite in 4 stages: Preparation (<25), Alignment (25–49), Convergence (50–74), Possession (75+). At 100 you are lost. Convergence (51+) can force the pursuit. |
| Suspicion | 0–10 | Phase 1 | His wariness. 3–5 caution, 6–8 alert (he searches), 9–10 paranoid (study sealed, clock accelerates). 10 = caught. |
| Sympathy Trace | 0–100 | Phase 2 | His primary tracking vector. 21–50 more Bloodhound; 51–80 path-lock & acceleration; 81+ aggressive pursuit and trackers. Rain, shrines, and masking draughts lower it. |
| Echo Bleed | 0–100 | all | Loss of self through the bond. 21 whispers; 41 the Master's echoes seep into the hunt AI; 61 his dominion; 81 Consumed (inversion auto-fails). Veyra bleed this to foresee. |
| Trace Parasite | 0–100 | all | A corruption that feeds on Black casting (+5 × your multiplier per cast) and wanes when starved. 40 aggressive, 70 parasitic. A drag on most in the clash — but a weapon for Dravenblood, and a parasitic body is a spoiled vessel. |
| Sympathetic Bond | 0–100 | all | The two-way tie between you and Malacor. Veyra start at 30 (others lower); at 40 Veyra can hijack his pull. The lever that can be severed — or turned. |
Your ending is decided by the state you carry out of the Apex. Roughly how each is reached:
| Ending | Title | Roughly how you reach it |
|---|---|---|
| True Freedom | TRUE FREEDOM | Win the bond clash — cleanest with clock < 50, low echo (< 21), and ≥ 2 sigils, but any outright clash win lands here. |
| The Rite Unmade | COUNTER-RITUAL VICTORY | Win the clash having severed the rite (used Sever the Rite) with the clock still < 80. |
| The New Master | CLEAN INVERSION | A clean inversion (level 2) with echo bleed below 41 — you wear his power like a stolen coat. |
| Half a Crown | PARTIAL INVERSION | A partial inversion (level ≥ 1) — you keep yourself and steal a fragment, but something of him rides along. |
| The Fused Thing | CORRUPTED INVERSION | A corrupted inversion (level −1) — too much of you had already bled away. |
| Hidden in the Forest | (Sylvara only) | Sylvara who win the clash with the clock < 80 — the Fae-bond takes you sideways into the deep wood. |
| Mutual Destruction | MUTUAL DESTRUCTION | A deadlock with clock ≥ 70, or losing with a parasitic body (parasite ≥ 70) and no inversion — the rite cannot hold and tears you both apart. |
| Tragic Possession | TRAGIC POSSESSION | Lose the clash and let the rite run — the Master pours himself in and shuts the lid. |
Every ending is further coloured by a bloodline-specific closing line, so the same fate reads differently for a Veyra than for a Sylvara.
- Read the away-banner and hoard your sins. In Phase 1, do every forbidden thing while he is at the furthest errand (the old ruin). Finish the chore board on the days you can't afford risk.
- You need two spells and a sigil to run. That is the whole escape gate — learn a Grey page in the Study and a White ward in the Root Cellar, crack the Blood-Sealed Drawer, and keep suspicion under 9.
- Water before food, always. Thirst does
−3health a turn; hunger only−2. Prioritise springs and lakes, and don'tSPACE-wait when your skins are low. - Weather is a tool. Move aggressively in rain and storm — the trail washes thin and he loses your scent. Hunker down in the clear.
- Trade trace for sigils, then wash it off. Seize contested nodes for the disruption sigils you'll need to invert — then Attune at an Ancient Shrine or brew a Masking Draught to purge the trace and parasite you racked up.
- Mind the corruption meters before the Apex. High echo bleed raises the inversion DC (and above 81 it auto-fails). High parasite drags your clash — unless you're Dravenblood, who wants it.
- Play your bloodline's verb. Nyxari lay false trails (
D) and calm chaos; Auralis echo his last move (R); Dravenblood burn Black and invert; Sylvara forage and let the wild fight; Thalor tank on ley roads; Veyra press a strong bond and hijack. The game is easiest when you lean all the way into what your blood does best.
"A bond runs both ways — it can be severed, or turned. You are not merely a cage. You are a lever."