A wasting disease is stalking the fishing villages along the coast. Rumors have spread of a miasma leaving entire towns empty of their inhabitants. Peasants have been reported behaving strangely, walking into the water and drowning, never to be seen again. The sickness has struck Ladoga, a small coastal village in Ionnes' barony. Near bankruptcy, the loss of the lucrative fishing industry would spell the end of his fief. He summons a noted plague doctor to aid him.
Halloran travels to Ladoga, meets with Raha the Elder, and begins to treat the sick. Grigoi tends to his cousin Dmir, who has contracted the Affliction. Halloran investigates the OssuaryTower outside of town looking for a possible source of the contagion and finds that many bones are missing. Grigoi takes his children Stasi and Mighail and flees Ladoga, encountering and killing an Afflicted in the Traps.
- Grigoi’s children come down with the Red Mumps, and he returns to Ladoga to seek Halloran for treatment, fighting with Dmir’s widow Ida for help taking care of his kids. Halloran travels to Kravca and discovers the Ageshkir offshore. Halloran burns Kravca, accidentally destroying his cart and supplies in the process. Grigoi meets Halloran on the road back to Ladoga and negotiates treatment in exchange for help ending the plague. They make the connection between the Pearl and the Ageshkir, and go to investigate. They reach the Pearl and find that it is surrounded by tens of thousands of crows. They climb inside and find the entrance to the cave defended by a golem made of bones.
- Grigoi attempts to fight the bone golem and has his leg crushed. Halloran uses his knowledge of necromancy to destroy the golem, but is attacked by Nazera. Grigoi recognizes Nazera as a necromancer who was exiled from Ladoga with mortal wounds decades earlier. Nazera is killed by a Nameless Orc., who explains that nothing can die within the Pearl, a fact which has saved Grigoi’s life. Namless carries Nazera outside to die while Halloran amputates Grigoi’s crushed leg. Nameless shows Halloran what he has uncovered in the Pearl, including the cyst chamber where monstrous humanoids are made and a massive heart pierced by a silver spear. They return to Ladoga.
- Grigoi speaks with Nameless about using troll blood to restore his leg. Nameless concocts a poison for bartering with trolls. The party travels north to investigate ancient ruins that Nameless encountered in the hopes that they can uncover a way to fight the Ageshkir. They are ambushed by goblins, who cower before Nameless’s orciness. They reach the Ruins of Dragev. They find evidence of a battle in which men, dwarves, and the goblin races assaulted a Ditani city. They explore a ziggurat half-frozen in a glacier, and find the Ditani’s account of their role in the First Epoch, summoning a demon named Damunga to fight the Ageshkiri. They summon Damunga who demands a sacrifice, and offering, and a weapon to fight the Ageshkir of Kravca.
- Grigoi, Nameless, and Halloran travel to the territory of a tribe of trolls. They attempt to poison the Shagrod, the chief, but are discovered. Grigoi shoots Shagrod and ends the fight. Nameless takes possession of the rest of Shagrod’s tribe and sacrifices his offspring as part of a ritual to create a potion which will restore Grigoi’s leg. Grigoi drinks the potion and is consumed by hatred. Nameless travels to his village to find a brother to offer as a sacrifice while Grigoi and Halloran return to Ladoga, finding it burned in the aftermath of an attack by afflicted villagers. Nameless journeys back towards Sumuta to sacrifice his brother while Grigoi and Halloran sail to Carda to search for Grigoi’s children.
- Namless leads his brother northeast to Sumuta. His brother tries to kill him with a boulder while they camp in a ruined watchtower, but Nameless intimidates him into backing down. While crawling through a cave network created by a landslide, Nameless’s brother is taken by a giant spider. Nameless saves him by defeating the spider in a contest of riddles, and carries him to Sumuta. Damunga accepts his brother as a sacrifice and offers to kill both the Ageshkir causing the plague and Baalex the Endless if Nameless sacrifices Halloran and Grigoi to him. Meanwhile Halloran and Grigoi arrive in Carda. They find the docks deserted but quickly run across a plague procession being led by Duke Elaro. They speak with a member of the Collegium who directs them to a port inspector named Domar, who agrees to help them search the port records for signs of Grigoi’s children, and they determine that the ship carrying Grigoi’s children was likely taken by the pirate Zavosti. Halloran’s Collegium nemesis Sigmi alerts the Ecclesiarchy to his presence, and they dispatch Chamber Militant guards to arrest him for heresy. Grigoi and Halloran convince the Chamber Militant guards of the importance of their quest, and the guards take them to see Duke Elaro. The duke is in the middle of a ritual in which he is sacrificing himself to Teura in an effort to save his people. Halloran fails to talk him out of it, and he eviscerates himself. The new Duke, Duke Lysu, gives Grigoi and Halloran a pair of carracks for going after the pirates.
Nameless makes his way west towards the Gathering after seeing a blood red moon. En route he steps in a bear trap, which crushes his leg. While he struggles to free himself, he is attacked by the spider he outwitted before. He kills the spider and extricates himself from the trap. At the Gathering he ascends the Hill of Blades and presents his deeds to Baalex the Endless, who shows him that he knows about Damunga’s offer. Baalex bestows the name Gol-Goroth on him and he passes out. Meanwhile Grigoi and Halloran see a signal fire on the horizon, and sail to it to find the wreck of the Prinz Eugen, a carrack carrying refugees from Ladoga. They resuce Kalin, one of Zavosti’s pirates, who reveals that the ship had been attacked by Zavosti’s pirates, who were driven off the Afflicted villagers. Halloran amputates Kalin’s arm after noticing an infected bite in the hopes of staving off affliction. Grigoi and Halloran take several sailors and go to explore the Prinz Eugen. They fight off a horde of afflicted, and the sailors are killed. Grigoi calls for his children, and his daughter Stasi calls back from the wooden crate she had hidden herself in after the afflicted began their attack. As they are reunited the cargo hold is ripped open by a sea beast, which pursues them through the ship, splintering the bulkheads as it lurches through the hull. Grigoi lures the monster away from Stasi and Halloran, who are able to escape, but is swallowed whole. Gol-Goroth has a vision of Grigoi’s death, and sees the path to Zavosti’s fortress.
- Halloran and Stasi enter Zavosti’s fortress and see Mighail fighting a chimpanzee in a pit while Zavosti’s pirates gamble and drink. Stasi leaps into the pit. Zavosti orders more chimps released into the pit. Halloran tries to convince Zavosti to call off the fight, but the chimps injure Stasi and Mighail before he succeeds. Seeing that the fight is won, Zavosti orders the chimps driven into cages and Halloran bargains for silver. Zavosti proposes that Mighail and Stasi fight each other as a cure for his ennui, and that he grant the winner their weight in silver. Halloran offers a potion that will cure him instead, and Zavosti agrees. Halloran forages for needed fungi and rendezvous with Gol-Goroth, who helps him prepare a hallucinogenic draught. Halloran trades it to Zavosti for a chest of silver. Halloran and Stasi take Mighail and the silver back to Carda, where Duke Lysu orders it forged into a spear. They carry the spear north to Sumuta, and are attacked by a pack of Afflicted sarchuses. They drive them off with minor injuries, and proceed to the Ziggurat in Sumuta. Gol-Goroth summons Damunga, and asks if he will accept Stasi as a replacement for Grigoi. Halloran senses the betrayal and attacks. Gol-Goroth grabs Halloran by the throat and burns him with Black Rust, but Halloran manages to throw him from a window and Gol-Goroth falls to his death. Damunga tells Halloran and Stasi to construct a summoning circle on the coast of Kravca. They manage to fight off the Afflicted denizens of Ladoga and complete the circle. Damunga appears, destroys Garaxas, and vanishes. Duke Lysu offers his hand in marriage to Stasi as reward, and Stasi rejects him. He reinstates Halloran within the Collegium, and makes him a dean.