May Farrow and her gang of raiders have spent weeks tracking down the black hound, the essence of May's guilt for unleashing a great evil. The player character is resting by the firelight in an old barn to hide from the storm outside when a black hound arrives and after being shot twice by an arrow, it cries one last time before it dies on the player lap. May almost kills the player, accusing him of being in league with the dog (meaning she thinks the player character is another essence of her guilt) and almost kills the player character (PC) before the Riders of Archendale save the PC. They question the PC, take the PC to the magistrate, who question the PC further and inform the PC not to leave the areas of North Sembia, Archendale, Battledale and Deepingdale. Whenever the player then approaches somebody with great guilt, the black hound appears to him and eventually the players actions make the player the essence of guilt throughout the four areas mentioned above. As the player unravels more secrets, he learns that he can't kill guilt, thus he cannot kill the black hound or what he has become (the player can physically die, but people won't forget about what the player did). Eventually, he learns the tale of a widowed farmer's wife, taking great guilt in her husband's death as for some reason she believes its her fault, she tries to resurrect him. She succeeds but finds him to be an abomination and cannot stop him, despite him being very weak at the time. Through the course of the game, the farmer is growing stronger and stronger off the guilt absorbed by the black hound through the player. The player learns of this wife being May Farrow, who believes killing the hound would be a way to stop the farmer, the hound however latched its soul onto the player and uses him as a tunnel to channel guilt to the farmer and as a guide to the world.
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