Count Sessine is about to die for the very last time...

Chief Scientist Gadifum is about to receive a mysterious message she has been waiting for from the plain of sliding stones...

And Bascule the teller is in search of an ant and is about to enter the chaos of the crypt...

And everything is about to change...

For this is the time of the Encroachment and, although the dimming sun still shines on the vast and towering walls of Serehfa Fastness, the end is close at hand.

The king knows it, his closest advisers know it, yet they still prosecute the war against the clan of Engineers with increasing savagery.

The crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent, an emissary who holds the key to all their futures...