On a single autumn day in Malevore, five strangers — moon elf Alistriaah, cleric Jora, gravedigger Tarn, bard Baramine, and illusionist Vivid — each receive separate warnings of something dark moving through the town and the Moonwood beyond: disappearing fey refugees, a corrupted graveyard bearing the mark of the Order of the Long Death, and a young satyr boy named Lorenth who vanishes before the night is out. Commissioned by Commander Mornsteel to find the boy alive, the five are ambushed in the graveyard by hunters hired to warn off "fey sympathizers," survive the attack, and set out together into the Moonwood — five people who were not yet a party, becoming one.