You're a con artist who has stumbled into the role of a lifetime: a legendary guide who alone can navigate the Burning Wastes to the Sunken Temple. Your caravan of zealots believes every word you say, but the desert is full of deadly mirages, and the temple's guardians are waiting to slaughter the faithful. You must bluff, improvise, and survive the trek while maintaining the lie that will cost you your life if exposed. With every step, the line between con and prophet blurs, and the temple's secrets may be more than you bargained for.
The story begins
The wind had died an hour ago, leaving the air thick as a held breath. You stood atop the dune’s crest, your stolen robes snapping against your calves, and pointed at a smear of dark stone on the horizon—the temple's broken crown, half-swallowed by the sands.
"Three days," you said, your voice carrying the weight of a man who had crossed these wastes a hundred times. "No more."
Behind you, the caravan stirred. Forty zealots, their faces cracked and blistered, looked at you with the desperate hunger of people who had staked their souls on a lie they didn't yet know was yours. Kael stepped forward, his eyes fever-bright.
"You've brought us this far, Guide. The others said the path was impassable."
"Others were weak," you said, and the lie tasted like ash. The map in your pocket was worthless—you'd stolen it from a corpse three days ago, along with the name.
Seraphine watched you from the shadows of her hood, her gaze sharper than the sun. She said nothing. She didn't need to.
The sand beneath your boots shifted, and somewhere deep below, something ancient turned in its sleep.
What happens next is up to you.
Or read in the app
More like this
The Glacier's Witness
You saw the forbidden ritual that erased your homeland—now outrun the hunters who'd silence you forever.
The Gilded Puppet
You staged every discovery—until a real map falls into your hands, and the wilderness you faked becomes your only way out.
The Painted Firmament
You've lived your whole life in a village with painted stars overhead—and now the painter is watching you.
Ghost of the Wastes
MatureYou are a scavenger mistaken for a warlord, and the only way to survive is to become the ghost they fear.
The Homecoming Debt
You return to a desert village that sold your promise—and the water beneath it.
The Water Vow
Betrayed by a broken treaty, you must cross the burning wastes to find a legendary well—before your people die of thirst.