Mostly revolves around an empire Sova in early industrial era. It is currently at war with Casimir and they are losing. In Sova magic has been outlawed except for a small group of people who maintain some existing magical artifacts/infrastructure. The afterlife is a known thing, and there is an alien species that is all of a sudden killing and eating everyone in the afterlife. Follow three POVs:
- A diplomat who is told by some monks that all of a sudden they lost contact with the afterlife. She goes to contact the fish people who say they know about it but don't know what to do about it. There is a magical artifact that lets the aliens into the mortal world that she briefly has but loses. There is a mysterious creature called the Knackerman that is following her and keeps trying to kill her.
- A crazy noble that is experimenting with a plauge that instantly on contact makes you lose your humanity and just tries to spread it to others. He eventually figures out how to take control of the mindless slaves while protecting himself, and goes into the enemy country and starts taking control of the local population.
- A young middle class man who got sent as a new officer to the frontier where people keep dieing in mysterious ways and everyone hears screaming that isn't coming from anyone. Ends up getting attacked by catmen on an expedition. They capture people and turn them into cat people with a magical artifact for unknown reasons. He is only half transformed and escapes back to Sova.