It's been ten years since The Raven had successfully beaten off the invasion of their world by the denizens of the demon dimension, and under the leadership of Sol, The Unknown Warrior, who had once led the mercenary troupe into battle, the country of Balaia is finally starting to recover. While some things, like the destruction of the various colleges of magic and their attendant cities, and in particular one college's heart (the conduit of magical power for all who studied a specific college's methodology), will take longer to recover from than others, it's finally starting to look like there will be a future that is based on more than just eking out an existence.
However, for the last time Sol has been plagued with nightmares of his former companions desperately reaching out to him for help. Although his wife puts it down to his having had to watch them all die while he and Denser (the magician who was the only other survivor)made their way back to their own dimension, the dreams take on a new meaning when a re-animated corpse possibly possessed by the soul of his former brother-in-arms Hirad Coldheart shows up at his front door. For it's not just Hirad who has returned, but other members of The Raven — even some who had died long before the battle with the demons — are walking around in other bodies, claiming that their dimension has been destroyed, and Sol's world faces the same threat.
Needless to say, despite the presence of 40 or 50 re-animated corpses walking around the city of Xetesk, the strongest surviving college of magic, Sol and Denser take a little convincing that the threat is real. However when they lose contact with the Southern continent, the home of the elves, they begin to suspect there might be some truth to what these lost souls are saying. Yet how do you pack up a whole continent's, let alone a world's, population and move them to another dimension? In fact why should you? Hadn't Balaia and its people proven itself in conflict before and overcome almost impossible odds to fight off the demons? What could be worse than that?
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