On your journey to find out who will break the golden rule in The Forgotten City, you will come across multiple mysteries that you need to solve. One such mystery will lead you to something in the upper cistern, but first, you need to find a way there. This is why we're going to show you how to get into the upper cistern and there are two options you can choose from.
Read More: The Forgotten City: How To Get the Treasure Behind the Golden Statue
How To Get Into the Upper Cistern
There are two ways that you can get into the upper cistern. One way will require you to get the golden bow and the other will require you to free a prisoner. We've laid out both ways to get into the upper cistern.
Option One: Enter Through the Door Near Malleolus’s Villa
If you choose to go ahead with this option, then you will need to have the golden bow. To get this, you will need to enter the palace and find Naevia. Once you have the bow, make your way to Malleolus's Villa.
When you are standing outside the villa, there should be a small set of steps leading down to a door to the left of the staircase. Walk up to this. Domitus will try to talk you out of it but you need to choose to keep going. After Domitus stops talking, continue to walk through this door and the second one.
Follow the path around and you will eventually come across a peeled statue. Shoot the statue to turn it into gold but make sure you have at least 3 left in your inventory. Once the statue has been taken care of, keep following your path forward until you see this on your left:
Walk up to the waterfall and you should see a set of vines on your left. Shoot these once to turn them into gold and climb up them. At the top of these vines, there will be a gap and another set of vines. Shoot the vines and jump then pull yourself up to them. Once you reach the top of this set of vines, carefully pan the camera around to look behind you. You should see another set of vines that curve up the wall. Turn these into gold, jump to them and quickly pull yourself up to them.
When you reach the top of the vines, pull yourself up onto a ledge then turn around. You will now be in the upper cistern.
Option Two: Free Duli and Get the Key
Another way to get into the upper cistern is to free Duli and get the key. After freeing Duli and exiting the time loop that his release triggers, you should have the key in your inventory. To get to the cistern from the portal, look to your right and follow the path. It should bring you to a tower with a lot of steps in it. Climb up all of these steps until you reach the top.
At the top of the tower, look around until you see a ladder. Climb up this ladder then follow the path until it brings you to another set of steps. These steps will take you to the Great Temple. At the top of the steps, follow the path around to your right until you come to more steps on your right. Head down these steps until you see a boulder on your right.
Face the boulder and keep walking forwards. You should come across a small opening in the rocks to your right. Follow the path through this opening until you come to a set of blue doors. The key you got from Duli will open these. All you need to do is unlock the door and walk through it to get into the upper cistern.
Once you are in the upper cistern, you may learn some dark secrets in The Forgotten City. There are many quests for you to complete but some of them will need you to complete other tasks before you can complete that specific one. We've got a guide on how to get Malleolus to drop out of the election and one on how to save Ulpius. They are two quests that can link to a lot of others.