While tunneling through a mountain in the Russian Southern Urals, a team of engineers are trapped in a deep, large, cavern containing a living rain forest. Looking for a way out, they discover a hermitage that once was home to a historical society who called themselves chroniclers, whose members were able to travel in time to view a famous person or event in order to record history correctly.

In the hermitage library, are the records from many time-traveling chroniclers. They are the privileged few who view the lives of Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia, and his family. But hiding out and watching their every move, the remaining chroniclers are determined to keep their existence a secret, even to the point of murdering any that discover them. The engineers find themselves running for their lives through the seemingly endless forest, wondering whether they would eatherface death at the hands of the dangerous and adamant chroniclers. . .or the primeval creatures of the forest.