THE GOAL — The Etherheart shattered in the Sundering, scattering seven Elemental Shards that corrupted the land. As a Hunter of the Emberhollow Lodge you cleanse the realms, slay their Wardens, reclaim the Shards and ultimately face the Hollow King. Use 🗺 Choose Zone on the title to jump straight into any of the seven realms of the Twilight Veil — Wilds · Garden grove (Mossfang) · Howling Crypt · Valley of Midas (Greed) · Feastfall (Gluttony) · Isle of Dominus (Power) · Enamora (Lust) · the Castle of Shadows (Abyssal Vault) — each sculpted from a human sin. Each has a safe entry pad, but the higher-tier realms turn lethal the instant you step off it. Press J for your quest journal. Clearing the map banks 💎 CT (an on-chain token — always paid in whole CT, never fractions) and raises your difficulty.

HUNTERS — Three champions, each with their own auto-attack style: Irene (Flyer) and Leah (Mystic) are 🏹 ranged — they loose bolts from afar — while Kai (Combat) is ⚔ melee, striking up close. Your QWER skills are the same for everyone; only the basic attack reach differs. Pick to suit your style on the title screen.

CONTROLS — Right-click: move / attack / walk to a resource. Skills are AIM-then-cast: press Q/W/E/R (or click the skill icon) to arm a skill — a preview appears — then LEFT-CLICK the ground to fire it (self-buffs fire instantly; right-click or Esc cancels). R is your ultimate. A skill icon dims when you lack the mana to cast it (a number counts down on it while it's cooling down). B: build / Forge. T: town portal (3s, stand still). M: world map. J: 📜 Journal (quest, shards, faction standing, Warden bestiary & your reclaimed Memories of the Veil). S: stop. 1/2/3: pick a level-up boon. Left-click buildings, NPCs & resources to inspect them.
📱 On phones/tablets (auto-detected) the controls go on-screen: a left thumb-stick steers, a corner ⚔ ATK button auto-targets, and a Q/W/E/R diamond casts toward your stick direction (each greys out with a cooldown timer). Small B (Build) / T (Town) / S (Stop) buttons sit beside them; the ⋯ drawer holds 📖 guide, 🗺 map and 📜 journal. Play in landscape for the best fit.

EMBERHOLLOW (TOWN) — Monsters never enter. You heal fast here. 💧 The well marks the center. 🔨 The Forge (orange flame) empowers your weapon for gold. 🌀 The portal plaza leads to each dungeon. 📦 The Stash chest holds up to 3 items for this run — deposit gear to free a slot (so new drops auto-equip), withdraw or swap any time you're back in town. 📜 The Bounty Board posts 3 daily contracts (elites, a dungeon boss, wood) — click it to claim gold & skill XP. 🧙 The Elder (that's me!) repeats this guide.

LOOT — Monsters drop gold, health globes, and gear: common · magic · rare · LEGENDARY. Better items auto-equip; the rest salvages to gold. Elites (purple ring) and bosses drop the good stuff. Rare+ gear can roll ◇ sockets — 💠 gems drop in dungeons; click a gem in the EQUIPMENT panel to socket a permanent bonus affix into your gear. Legendaries sometimes drop as ★ UNIQUES — named relics with special powers (burning Blasts, shocking Dashes, double globes & eggs). When your health runs low the screen edges flush red and pulse — a warning to grab a globe or break off the fight. Damage you take floats up in red over your hero (the white numbers are the damage you deal), so you can read your own health loss at a glance even in a swarm.

SKILLS (PERSIST FOREVER) — ⚔ Slaying, 🌲 Woodcutting, ⛏ Mining, 🐾 Taming level up as you play and survive even death. Each level grants a small permanent bonus.

ACHIEVEMENTS — 🏆 milestones (first boss, first legendary, difficulty marks…) each pay a small one-time 💎 CT bounty that survives death. Click 🏆 in the top bar to browse them.

BOONS — Each hero level offers 3 boons; pick 1. They last for this run only — build something different every hunt.

PETS — Eggs drop from kills; walk over one to tame. Pets fight beside you — when no enemy is right next to a pet it joins your attack on whatever you're fighting, so the pack helps run down the ranged stragglers that try to kite you in the deeper realms; only when there's nothing to fight do idle pets gather from nearby resource nodes on their own. At Taming level 6/14/24 your pets EVOLVE (Juvenile / Veteran / Primal) — bigger and stronger, and living pets evolve on the spot. Pets recover health out of combat, heal fast in town, and both toughen and sharpen (more HP and more damage) as YOU level — and they grow markedly stronger the higher the difficulty you climb, so your pack keeps pace with the deepening hunt rather than falling behind.
🐾 Barkindle, your starter companion, is never lost for good — if he falls in the Underworld, return to Emberhollow and press B near the Kennel (the doghouse) to revive him for gold (cost rises with difficulty). He bounds back at full strength.
COMMANDING A PET — Need a pet to do exactly one thing? Left-click it to select it (a blue ring marks it), then right-click an enemy to send it to attack or right-click the ground to move it there; S tells it to stop and H to hold position. After a single order, control returns to your hero automatically and the pet finishes the job before going back to fighting and gathering on its own.

THE LAY OF THE LAND — The Wilds rise and fall: the Highcrag mesas (NW) and Emberwood rises (E) stand two tiers above the moonlit plains, while the Gloomfen (S) sinks into a glowing fen. Climbing ramps slows you — hold the high ground. On each highest crag burns a 🏹 Hunter's Overlook: stand on the pad to drop into AIM MODE — the big glowing ⊕ reticle sits center-screen; mouse to aim, A/D (or the on-screen ◀ ▶) to turn the view a full circle so you can shoot behind you, click to fire, and hit a monster's glowing weak spot for ×3 damage. Every shot reads back at the reticle: a red ✕ on a weak-spot crit, an amber ✕ on a body hit, a faint · tick on a miss. To leave, press Esc, right-click, or tap the on-screen ✕ Exit Overlook button — or just step off the pad.

EXPLORING (FOG OF WAR) — Each run the world begins shrouded. Your minimap (bottom-right) and the 🗺 world map (M) reveal only where you have walked — a lit bubble follows you and paints a trail as you roam. Resource nodes, dropped loot and lurking enemies stay hidden in the fog until you've explored their corner of the map, so wander the edges to uncover what's out there. The fog resets each new hunt.
🧭 THE OBJECTIVE COMPASS — A gold needle on your minimap always points the way to the current chapter's goal — Yume's enchanted compass, now true for every episode (Episode 1 points home to the carnival; later chapters point to that chapter's realm; Episode 7 holds dead-steady on the Castle of Shadows). Follow the needle when you're lost. It rests the moment you reach the destination zone.
📑 THE ATLAS — Beneath the 🗺 world map (M) sits your Atlas: a live tally of this hunt's progress — how much of the Veil you've explored (the fog you've peeled back), the memories you've reclaimed for the codex, the waypoints you've discovered, and the hidden caches you've cracked open (plus how many still sit sealed in the fog). A quick glance tells you what's left to find.
FINDS ON THE ROAD — Every hunt the Wilds are strewn with finds: piles of gold, bundles of wood, and dropped gear, each marked by a faint golden glint so you can spot it from a distance. Walk near one and it is drawn to you automatically — no clicking. The richest finds (and double-value gold) sit out on the far edges of the map, so the long road rewards the bold. Rare reclaims now sound distinct — a triumphant chime when you crack a hidden cache, a warm tone when you eat a human-food anchor, and an ethereal note when you recover a memory (🔊 toggles all audio).
🗝️ HIDDEN CACHES — Three treasure caches are sealed in the hardest-to-reach corners each hunt — atop the two high mesa crowns (the slow climb gates them) and out on a far map edge. A tall amber pillar of light marks each from afar. Unlike loose finds, a cache is not drawn to you — you must climb or trek all the way to it. Crack one open for a guaranteed Rare-or-better weapon/armor plus bonus gold and a gem.
🌑 THE SUNDERED LEDGE — Out on the far south-east corner a stone ledge floats across a bottomless void moat (a dark ring rimmed in violet). You cannot walk across — step into the gap and the edge throws you back. Use your dash (Kai's Charge, the E skill — or a Blink) to leap the gap and land on the ledge, where its own sealed cache waits. Dash back out the same way.
🏮 THE LANTERN ALTAR — In a far north-west corner stands an altar ringed by three dead lanterns. Draw near and its runes reveal a colour sequence (e.g. violet → amber → teal). Light the lanterns in that order — just walk up to each — and a sealed vault grinds open with a guaranteed Rare-or-better cache. Touch the wrong lantern and the whole sequence guts out; begin again. The order changes every hunt.
🔒 THE HIDDEN VAULT — Out in a far north-east corner a vault lies buried flush with the earth — you won't see the prize, only four rune-plates ringing the spot. Draw near and the runes pulse a step sequence; stand on the plates in that order and the slab grinds up out of the ground, revealing a guaranteed Rare-or-better cache beside it. Press a plate out of order and the runes die — start the sequence again. The order changes every hunt.
💰 THE COFFER WRAITH — Each hunt a treasure-goblin bolts loose somewhere in the Wilds — a small, gold-sacked spirit marked by a gold pillar of light. It never fights; it only runs, a touch faster than you, so you can't simply walk it down — dash (Kai's Charge) or hit it with ranged bolts / skills to bring it down. Catch it and it spills a sealed cache (a guaranteed Rare-or-better hoard) right where it fell. Let it outrun you and it slips through a rift with its loot — gone for the run.
☠ THE REALM ITSELF FIGHTS YOU — In each of the four Sin-Realms the land has its own hazard once you leave the safe entry pad. Valley of Midas (Greed) — gilded snares clutch your heels, slowing and biting you. Feastfall (Gluttony) — a hunger-storm that feeds on the still, so keep moving to soften its bite. Isle of Dominus (Power) — lightning gathers at your feet (a yellow ring); step out before it strikes. Enamora (Lust) — a beguiling rose-light tugs you off your path and pricks you with thorns. Stay sharp — the realm bleeds you between fights.
🗺 WAYPOINTS & VISTAS — The first time you set foot in a realm you discover its waypoint: the surrounding map is revealed (the fog peels back around it) and you collect a finder's reward of gold & Slaying XP that scales with the realm's tier. A discovered waypoint lights up on the 🗺 world map (M) — and from Emberhollow you can click it to teleport there. So the deeper the realm, the bigger the first-visit bonus.

BLOOD MOON — Every 30 minutes in the Wilds the sky turns red and a swarm converges. The horde is weak but nearly as fast as you — you can't simply walk away from it, so keep moving and thin it with area skills. Survive the swarm and it sets for bonus loot and Slaying XP.

WARDENS — Each zone's boss fights its own way: Mossfang Alpha snares the ground & summons saplings, the Crypt Howler drains the living to mend itself, the Realm-lords of sin guard the Veil — Aurelian, the Gilded King (Greed) rains molten gold and ENRAGES at low HP, Throngullet, the Endless Maw (Gluttony) chills you and looses ice shards, Vael, the Crowned Tyrant (Power) strikes from the spire and chains lightning to your pets, Seraphel, the Beguiling Rose (Lust) rends the earth with grasping thorns, the Vault Warden of the Abyssal Vault tears the seams of the world — voidfire & shades — and the Hollow King shifts through phases. Every boss also slams the ground — a red ring marks the blast, so move out before it fills — and the deeper you climb the difficulty ladder, the more relentlessly a Warden slams (the ring still gives you the same moment to dodge, it just comes around faster)! Your pets can't read a telegraph, so a slam catches them — but they only take half the blast (you take it full), enough to weather a hit or two at your side.

READING THE ENEMY — A coloured marker floats over every monster so you can judge the danger before you commit: grey/green = easy · white = even · orange ! = tough · red ☠ = deadly · ??? = far too strong, flee! A small ⚠ THREAT legend sits just above the minimap (bottom-right) so the colour scale is always on screen. Monsters also have moods — most give chase, a few ignore you until struck, some hound you all the way back to town, and clever ones break off and run when they're losing. Higher-tier realms spot you from further and chase longer, and field more ranged attackers — so the deeper you descend, the more shots you'll have to dodge.

CHAPTERS — The tale of Beyond the Twilight Veil runs across seven episodes, from the Night Carnival to the Castle of Shadows. Use 📖 Chapters on the title to see each episode's setting, party stance and objective, and to drop straight into one. New chapters unlock as you clear the campaign (clearing the map advances you one chapter — the run-over screen names the new chapter you just opened). Locked chapters show 🔒 until you reach them. Each chapter opens with a story cutscene the first time you enter it — Episode 1 "Night Carnival" opens the tale in the warm dusk of the human world — a safe carnival of lanterns and friendly pets, no monsters, only wonder, where you meet Ayume and your loyal pet Barkindle; Episode 2 "Masquerade" introduces the fox-masked Yui in the grove; Episode 3 "The Rite of Blades" is the blood-pact at the portal, where the living Blood Scimitar brands you and your first shadow power awakens (your Corruption gauge starts low ever after); Episode 4 "Garden of Whispers" — the first of the three Realms of Desire, the Luring Garden (desire as the wonder that wants to keep you) — shrinks you into a dream-garden where the river of visions shows you a vision of the betrayal still to come; Episode 5 "Dance Macabre" — the second of the three Realms of Desire, the Hungering Dance (desire as consumption — the crowd that eats you alive) — turns a beautiful dance into the Ballroom of Nightmares — light the colour-hungry blooms to carve a path while the dancer-swarm hunts you, and watch the dark drag Ayume down toward the throne (was it a capture… or did she go willingly?); Episode 6 "Shadows of the Self" — the last of the three Realms of Desire, the Hollow Wastes (desire as the price come due — what the dark has made of you) — strands you on a dying grey plain of cracked ash, where you meet the human girl Yume, who gives you a compass pointing to the Castle of Shadows and teaches the bargain of the deep Veil — eat human food to pull your Corruption back toward Humanity, but a steadying human draws the hunt straight to you (power, or peace, never both); Episode 7 "Kage no Mamoru" storms the Castle of Shadows (Yomi no Tō) — a boss gauntlet against the shadow-lord Kage no Mamoru where your Corruption gauge IS the fight: stay too human (below the Power Threshold) and your blade barely marks him as he mends in the dark, so you must embrace the shadow to wound him — yet push past the Critical Limit and the Veil consumes you mid-fight. Fell Kage and the throne opens — but it is no rescue: Ayume was the architect all along, Yui is absorbed into the onyx throne, and the true final boss is Ayume herself. Defeat her and the difficulty you cleared decides your ending — the Holy Grail awaits at difficulty 9. Ayume and Yui join you as companions — Ayume at your side through the monster-free Carnival, and Yui as an allied fighter who hunts monsters with you once the descent begins (from the Garden onward), each now standing beside you in their own true form (Ayume wears Leah's face; Yui, Irene's). Trust them while you can: a companion can turn against you when the tale demands it. Click the box — or press Space / Enter — to advance dialogue; every speaker has their own voice (a tonal bark as they talk: bright for Yui, low and grinding for Kage no Mamoru, an eager woof for Barkindle), with soft stings as a scene opens and closes and a darker/lighter chime when you take a dark or light choice. The story's turning points — the Whisper crossing a new Corruption threshold, the moment Ayume reveals herself, the line that names how you carried yourself into your ending — land on a deeper reveal sting, a dread-stab paired with a blood-red flash across the screen and a shudder of the dialogue — the picture lands even with sound off. Replaying a chapter you've already seen? Tap the ⏭ skip tab on any dialogue box — or press Esc — to leap to the end of the scene — it always stops at a dark/light choice so your path stays yours to decide (the options are numbered 1./2. — press 1 for the darker option, 2 for the lighter). A small hint line under every dialogue box shows the controls (▶ click / Space · Esc ⏭), so the whole campaign is playable from the keyboard. The 🔊 toggle (bottom-right) mutes all of the audio.

🔯 THE FORTUNE TELLER — A striped oracle tent stands in the carnival hub. Left-click the Fortune Teller to have your cards read: the first reading is a full prophecy that seeds the road ahead and warns you of the allure of power (your Corruption gauge made plain). Return any time for a fresh omen — short hints about resting in the light, the fox at the masquerade, the branding blade, the door that opens but one way into the one-way descent, the dark below that runs the hunt backward (cross over and you become the hunted), human bread to mask your scent in the deep, the throne someone you trust already knows the way to, the road home woven far below for the one who will not surrender to the dark, and the grey middle land that opens only once the worlds run both ways. She turns three cards that night but covers the third — "come back when you have walked far enough." Once you have witnessed the betrayal at the throne, return to her tent and she will finally turn that last card for you.

HUMANITY ⇄ CORRUPTION — Below your mana sits the Corruption gauge: every skill you cast siphons a sliver of your self, and your ultimate (R) costs the most. Lingering deep in the Underworld (Episode 3+) erodes you too — and the deeper the realm, the faster the dark consumes you. Resting in Emberhollow / the carnival hub purifies you fastest; the entry safe-pads ease it gently. Cross the Power Threshold and your shadow power awakens — every skill bites harder the deeper the shadow runs (scaling up to +60% skill damage as you near the brink), and your ultimate ignites a shadow-frenzy (doubled attack speed) on top. This is the Veil's bargain: the very corruption that empowers you is the corruption that will consume you. But cross the Critical Limit and max the gauge and you are Consumed by the Veil — you lose yourself (this counts as death). The bar shows your remaining Humanity % — keep it in the light. As the gauge climbs, the 🕷 Whisper — the dark's own voice — begins to murmur to you, one taunt at each new depth of corruption; a sign you are slipping further from yourself. Your 📜 Journal keeps a 🕷 The Whisper record this descent — how many of its depths you've heard, and its last words to you. 🍞 ANCHORS OF HUMANITY — scattered through the Underworld (Episode 3+) are loaves of human food, each lit by a soft warm glow. Walk over one to eat it and pull your gauge back toward Humanity (−Corruption) — your one source of relief out in the deep, far from the carnival. They are not drawn to you like gold; you must go to them — so each loaf pings your minimap as a warm-amber ✚ (always shown, even through unexplored fog), so a low-Humanity hunter can always find relief. Yume's bargain holds, too: for a breath after eating, the meal masks your scent — the Underworld's hunters lose track of you and break off the chase (a brief respite in the deep). While it lasts, a 🍞 MASKED countdown shows in the top-bar status indicator so you can spend the window. It won't fool a boss, and any creature you've already struck keeps coming; when the scent returns the hunt is back on. CHOICE MOMENTS: once per run, as each chapter begins, the tale stops and offers you a choice — a dark path that buys power but feeds the Veil (+Corruption), or a light path that holds to your humanity (−Corruption). Click the option you want; how you answer flavours what's said next and nudges your gauge. Your choices this descent are tallied into 🌗 YOUR PATH in the 📜 Journal — and, once you've made your first choice, shown live in the top-bar status indicator (🌑 shadow-leaning · 🕯 light-leaning · ☯ balanced) so you can read your drift at a glance — lean dark and you read as Shadow-Touched or Veil-Bound, hold to the light and you stay Pure of Heart; it resets each run, so every descent is a fresh reckoning with yourself.

YOUR ENDING — Clearing the final boss shows an ending decided by the difficulty you beat it at — the higher you climb, the more of yourself and your friends you save. Difficulty 6 unlocks the ▶ Memories (the OVA secrets on the title); difficulty 9 is the true Holy Grail ending, where Yui is redeemed — clear it and the full epilogue plays right there at the moment you earn it (and replays anytime from the ▶ Memories). And the ending now speaks to the path you walked: the dark/light choices you made this descent (your 🌗 Path) close the scene with a final line — whether the Veil knew your name all along, or you gave it nothing it asked for. Your 📜 Journal keeps an 🎭 Endings Witnessed roll — which of the nine difficulty endings you've reached and how far you've climbed, so you can see the rungs of the ladder still left to earn. Each ending you've witnessed remembers itself there with a one-line echo of how it ended for you; the rungs you haven't reached stay sealed, no spoilers.

📖 THE STORY SO FAR — Lost which chapter you're in or what it wants? Your 📜 Journal opens with THE STORY SO FAR: the episode you're playing, its setting, your party's stance, and your 🎯 objective for this descent — plus a ladder of all seven chapters showing which you've cleared (✔), where you are (▸), and what's still sealed (🔒). And the moment a descent begins — once the opening cutscene and your dark/light choice are past — your 🎯 objective flashes up as a banner on screen, so you always know what you came to do.

📜 MEMORIES OF THE VEIL — Living the story reclaims lost memories into your 📜 Journal codex: each chapter you play recovers its memory, while the two hidden OVA fragments — 📖 The Bookshop (Ayume's origin) and ✒ The First Page (the truth) — are recovered at the betrayal and at a difficulty-6 clear. Your first difficulty-6 clear also pays a one-time 💎 +2 CT for unsealing the truth. Collect all nine to complete the record.

DEATH IS REAL — Death in Etheria is permanent. A revive potion gets you up cleanly. Otherwise you may pay 3 💎 CT to be dragged back after 60s — but you'll be Injured (80% power) for 24 hours, and if you fall again within that window it's PERMADEATH: all gear & difficulty lost (💎 CT and your skills always survive). Survive the 24h and the injury heals. Buy revive potions (2 CT) on the title. One run every 2 hours.

Waypoints light up when you reach each place. Click a lit waypoint while in Emberhollow to travel. M / click outside closes.

📑 ATLAS — your progress through this hunt: how much of the Veil you've uncovered, the memories reclaimed, waypoints found, and hidden caches cracked open.

One-time 💎 CT rewards. Earned forever — they survive death, like CT and skills.

Your charge as a Hunter of the Emberhollow Lodge. Progress is permanent — it survives death and cooldowns.

Jump straight into any realm. Each has a safe entry pad — but the deeper, higher-tier realms turn lethal the instant you step off it. The Wilds are the gentle, incremental start. Realms open one at a time, in order: fell a realm's Warden and its key unseals the next (so a far chapter like the Ep7 Castle stays locked until you've cleared the realms before it). Picking a sealed realm drops you back in the Wilds and names the exact Warden to fell next. The single realm you can open right now is marked ▶ NEXT (amber) and tells you which Warden, in which open realm, unseals it — the rest stay dimmed 🔒. Realms behind you read ✔ (green — Warden felled, key taken); your current rung on the climb reads ◆ Frontier — fell its Warden to unseal the next.

Beyond the Twilight Veil unfolds across seven episodes. Chapters unlock as you clear the campaign — each drops you into its setting. Pick where to begin, then ENTER THE CARNIVAL.

You are the blade of this tale. Ayume and Yui will know you by this name.