The Forgotten C

The player wakes after being rescued from floating down the Tiber by Karen. She asks them to look for Al Worth, who disappeared while exploring the ancient ruins. The opening sets the stage for a mystery that twists between present-day Rome and a hidden underground city.

Karen explains that Al Worth vanished in the ruins beneath the city while investigating ancient sites. She believes retrieving him will reveal the truth behind the strange portal and the hidden city. The quest begins in the ruins above the underground complex.

In the ruins, the player finds Al Worth dead by hanging, with a note about the portal hidden in the ruins. The note hints that choosing death could be the safer option when faced with the unknown portal. This grim clue foreshadows the city’s time-loop mystery.

The portal transports the player to a living version of the city where people go about their daily lives. They realize they are in a different time, in a place governed by a dangerous rule. The transition marks the start of the central time-loop scenario.

A farmer named Galerius guides the player to magistrate Sentius, who explains the city’s tightly knit community. Sentius outlines the Golden Rule and describes the ritual to Proserpina that could reopen a portal back to the start of the day. The tone becomes immediately urgent.

Sentius reveals that the city’s fewer than two dozen inhabitants are bound by the Golden Rule: a single sin dooms everyone. He warns that the Rule’s consequences will unfold later that day if no action is taken. The stakes are now tied to the day’s fate.

Sentius has prepared a ritual with Proserpina to send the player back if the Golden Rule is broken. The only escape is to create a paradox in which the Rule never fails, depriving Sentius of a reason to perform the ritual. The player must navigate this moral trap to survive.

The player shoots Sentius with a pistol from the present or with a golden bow that turns targets to gold. With Sentius unable to complete the ritual, the city’s cycle remains unbroken, and the player and Al die trapped in the ruins. The timeline collapses into a grim outcome.

The player frees Sentilla, Sentius’ daughter, from a cistern above the city. Sentius’s memories show his long plan, and Sentilla sets him on fire, violating the Golden Rule and triggering a time paradox. The result is an escape for the player and Al, returning to the living world.

Following the paradox, the player and Al exit the loop and return to the present. Depending on choices, they arrive either alone or with other survivors from the community, reshaping their present-day lives.

The canonical path begins as the player discusses how the city’s arrivals lined up with Vestal Virgin Equitea. The player learns they are actually in the Underworld, with the Styx as the river and a Charon-like ferryman guiding them. The cosmic framing shifts the stakes to ancient alien origins.

Equitea tasks the player with collecting four plaques representing Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Sumerians. These plaques armor the Grand Temple, which sits atop the city and serves as the gateway to the deeper history beneath the surface. Each plaque ties to a culture that built over others over time.

Inside the Grand Temple, Pluto explains the alien origin of the city and Proserpina’s human ascent. Jupiter forbids her return, and Pluto wagers that humanity can live a year without sin, which inspired the Golden Rule. These revelations rewrite the city’s mythic backstory.

The player convinces Pluto that enforcing the Golden Rule creates sin, or uses the golden bow to intimidate him. Pluto suspends the Rule, triggering a time paradox that brings everyone back to the living world, but with the Golden Rule altered. Sentius is left as the lone statue in the sealed city.

In the present, the living residents reassemble in a museum-like setting and Proserpina surfaces among them. The epilogue confirms that the statues have been restored to mortal life and that the city’s history has been revealed to the world. The player’s journey closes with a tangible link between myth and memory.