In the years after a man-made pandemic brought humanity to the edge of extinction, a band of survivors in the Broad Valley fights to keep the dream of civilization alive. Living in the ruins of a hospital, they built the Crescent City. Daniel Lawrence owes the City his life: Without the medicines they prepare, he'd have died as an infant. In return, he serves them as a field medic. On his first mission as a full-fledged Adept, he finds that the world outside the city is unforgiving, and threatens to destroy everything he stands for.