The Hierophant

## Prerequisites

You must have activated the DAEMON by getting The Emperor Reversed ending, as well as having unlocked the Burned Apartment's address from The Empress Reversed ending.

## Description of Events

* Lila goes to the Burned Apartment, and we are taken into an extended flashback of William investigating the apartment shortly after the fire burned it down. He approaches to find a police officer stationed outside the door, who is only allowing residents of the building to enter. He lies and claims he is a tenant and the officer leaves to take care of an emergency before he can verify.
* Will enters the location where The Lawrence Fraternity conducted its activities, after tearing down police tape covering the door. Inside there are two doors; the door to the left contains a phone. The DAEMON will begin to tell him the phone number upon inspecting it closer (the phone number is randomly generated).
* Once the phone number is fully entered, the phone will ring and Father Lawrence answers. Instead of a traditional portrait, his head is shown floating in a dark void.
* He and William will converse for a time, with Lawrence expressing confusion, and at one point saying "Lawrence.. This is what they called the last vessel, wasn't it?". William asks Lawrence where he is and what happened to him. Lawrence explains that he is in a "strange, strange place", but says that he deserves it for having tricked "you all". He also mentions a "turn of the wheel". William asks what he means and Lawrence says that Lila must not continue what he started, and is too clever to be tricked. He also states that The Empress was not enough to stop her. There's another way though: Ryibkin. He then says that William is the only one he doesn't want to suffer from all of this and gives him the code to unlock the computer in the adjacent room. The phone call then ends.
* Will accesses the computer using the passcode he was just given. There are two files on it: one locked behind a password and another containing a URL that leads to Ryibkin's website.
* At the bottom of the page, Ryibkin links to Father Lawrence's research paper which is gated behind yet another password. He states that the DAEMON can help find the code through an answer.txt. An answer.txt can be found inside the file folder of DAEMON, containing the password: PARASITES. Inputting this password will allow the player to download the PDF of Lawrence's paper.
* The PDF contains a depth of info related to UIW-AMs and memes, hinting at how Lila and others like her came into being. It will also give us the password to the locked document in-game: FIRSTGOLD. This gives us the full, uncensored version of the document's ending. It reveals that Lila can only be stopped/killed by killing all of her hosts (people that know of her existence). It describes her as "a construct of thought, unable to live independently of people’s knowledge of her". At the end, Lila seems to be able to speak to Will temporarily, saying "~Remember that, Will".
* Will exits the building and is met with a pair of law enforcement officers, one of whom introduces himself as special agent Arnold Hill. He asks Will to come with them and the game returns to the main menu.

## Yu's Office

*Detective Yu:* "So, a Hierophant. ...Will has come a long way to learn the truth about the Fraternity, hasn’t he?"

"Yeah, right. A lot of hoop jumping just to learn what I could already have told him myself. By the way, Yu. ...That fire was your men’s job, wasn’t it?"

*Detective Yu:* "...Yes. It was us. Obviously, Lawrence was aware of the FBI knowing of UIW-AM. Moreover, we have been utilizing them proactively for the last ten or fifteen years. ...We were a bit late with the fire, though. Now Lawrence is in a place, where there is no time at all."

"So it was you lot who stole all my food?"

*Detective Yu:* "..."

"He called Lawrence when I was asleep."

*Detective Yu:* "I know."

"What did they talk about?"

*Detective Yu:* "..."

"Did he read what was in the secret file? C’mon, detective, you know I’m curious. What was written here?"

*Detective Yu:* "...I’m not sure if you are playing with me here, Lila. …You.. You are a haze, composed of many human minds intersecting. A construction of thoughts of many hosts."

"W-wait, how’d you.."

*Detective Yu:* "As long as there are humans, who know about you– As long as you have hosts, you can’t be killed."

"So.. Are you going to just?.. ..."

*Detective Yu:* "There.. There doesn’t seem to be a different way to do it. I– I’m so sorry, I.."

**The game shifts to the perspective of Detective Yu, pointing a gun at William/Lila. Here, the game branches into two choices: shooting William or closing the game to spare him. You cannot reverse the decision to shoot William without editing save data.**

### Shooting William

The game closes. Upon loading into the Yu's Office file again:

*Detective Yu:* "Oh.. Oh God.. I'm so sorry, Will"

*Lila:* "It's never that simple, is it, detective?"

*Detective Yu:* "You.. You tricked me, Lila"

*Lila:* "Your sorrow is exquisite, detective. I haven't had such a feast in a while. ... If I knew just how rich your pain was, I'd never even bother to inhabit William, hehe"

*Detective Yu:* "You are horrible, Lila"

*Lila:* "Well, that's a harsh thing to say. At least I'm not the one to kill an innocent boy, detective"

*Detective Yu:* "You.. Need to leave ... I- I need a moment"

### Sparing William

"...Not bad, detective. You are much smarter than you look. …No nourishment for me today, I guess."

*Detective Yu:* "Well, I’m sorry, but you won’t trick me that easily, Lila. Let’s proceed with our conversation."

## Sources

1. ↑ Ryibkin's website
2. ↑ Lawrence's paper