At the beginning of the game, one stone giant is shown breathing life - the Breath - into another, dead giant. The player, a small black hole later revealed to be called the Spiral Heart, is spontaneously formed deep within a cave, the Weeping Cavity, and makes itself a humanoid stone body. Within the Cavity, the Spiral Heart encounters numerous half-formed beings, the Stoneborn, who were not fully touched by the Breath. One of them, Yon, begins to assist the Spiral Heart, impressed by their perfect proportions. With the help of Yon, the Spiral Heart fights their way out of the Cavity, and traverses a desert to finally reach the Worldpillar.