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The game begins with the player character lighting a fire in a dark room. Shortly afterward, a woman stumbles into the room and collapses. Struggling to sleep and beset by "voices", the player character starts to collect resources from a nearby forest to calm down. Eventually, the woman comes to her senses and reveals that she is a builder who can aid the player character. The builder helps the player character establish a village for wanderers to settle in. The villagers help gather resources, but the player character overworks them until they essentially become slaves. At some point, the player character's intense wanderlust causes them to acquire a compass and explore the area outside of the village. The player character emerges into a post-apocalyptic wasteland full of decrepit ruins and hostile enemies. If the player character dies while exploring, they awaken in the village, seemingly revived by the builder with the aid of a glowing locket around her neck. While exploring the wasteland, the player character discovers an abandoned "wanderer" spaceship and brings it back to the village. The builder, disgusted by the player character's mistreatment of the villagers and violent actions in the wasteland, eventually vanishes, leaving her locket behind. In the wasteland, the player character can encounter an old wanderer, who discusses his past as an admiral in a space fleet that devastated numerous planets. Ultimately, it is revealed to the player through numerous clues that "wanderers" are actually a race of extraterrestrial beings who invade planets and leave them in ruins. The player character, who is a wanderer, uses the spaceship to head into outer space in search of the builder. However, the ship encounters a meteor cluster and is heavily damaged, falling back to the planet’s surface and looping back to the beginning of the game.
In an alternate ending achieved by not building any huts, the locket is instead acquired when the builder collapses from exhaustion. The wasteland segment proceeds as normal, with the builder eventually waking and expressing optimism over the player character’s change of heart. The player character and the builder board the ship together. When the meteor cluster is encountered the builder uses telekinesis to push the danger aside, bleeding from her ears and nose and bidding the player farewell before falling unconscious. The player character successfully escapes the planet, though potentially at the cost of the builder’s life.
