The book opens with an organized post-Roil cleanup, where everyone in the city is encouraged to search the nearby mountains for dungeon cores before they get the chance to become a problem.

In order to give the children of his orphanage more experience with the outside world, Jeb has a group of his kids taking part in the cleanup, which attracts treasure seekers from all walks of life.

He is in the middle of secretly keeping an eye on the children when Vresh Tekalis shows up with a mission: venture over to the air force base in Vegas and disable the nuclear bombs therein before they can deploy them on solmnath, Jeb’s current place of residence.

Jeb points out that the only reason they would want Jeb to do the job would be political as Vresh could easily do it if she wanted to. He agrees to take the job in exchange for a hefty reward, making a Deal of it in the process.

Jeb heads cross-country to vegas, where a group of humans are gathering strength to carve a large section of the west of the continent for humans. Their plan: Nuke the biggest Pharosian city in the west, then use the chaos to snatch the western coast from the Empire.

Shortly after Jeb arrives, a dungeon spawns out of nothing in the center of the base, spewing out a race of militaristic insect creatures who nearly eradicate the base.

In order to secure his cover as an ally, Jeb helps bring the dungeon core under control by wrapping it in Myst-insulating gold.

Afterward, Jeb spends a few days getting the lay of the land and figuring out where all the nukes are...until his cover is blown by Legolas (the combat drone) shooting a plane out of the sky.

Jeb is dragged into a violent shootout, which is brought to a sudden end by the arrival of the roil, sending all the survivors scrambling for cover.

Jeb spends a couple days in a bunker with Vresh and a heavy gunner, before the three of them head back up to the surface. There is nothing left but a thick coating Faradan stone deposited by the storm, covering everything.

Wondering why the monolith that was preventing the base from being hit by the storm had failed, the three of them headed for the giganting faradan monument. When they arrived, they saw two Keegan, one of whom was interacting with strange glyphs emanating from the monolith.

They’re drawn into a fight when the gunner starts firing, and everyone is defeated handily by the wizard keegan. The keegan shows extra interest in Jeb, who can’t understand what he is saying, on account of his System being disabled.

Jeb manages to drive the wizard off by shooting a bullet through his ring, damaging the keegan on the fifth dimension.

A while afterwards, Jeb has found and disposed of every nuke in vegas, but his Fairy Deal with Vresh still isn’t done. Wondering where it could be, Jeb’s attention is brought to both a murder-hole the kids found in the mountains, along with the recent event of Casey Thompson being kidnapped.

Connecting the dots, Jeb heads into the wizard’s dungeon, loaded up with an assful of C-4.

Jeb successfully negotiates Casey’s release from the keegan in exchange for digital schematics of advanced human weaponry, but he’s still beholden to Vresh to remove the last nukes originating from Vegas, which he strongly suspects are held by the wizard.

Vresh contacts Jeb and informs him of the history of this particular wizard and that the Empire believes he might be trying to marry Myst and nuclear fission in such a way that it would eradicate life on Pharos.

Jeb ‘powerlevels’ by scamming some pirates out of their Abilities with water, while he waits fro the Enforcers to arrive for a group assault.

Ron and Eddie team up to create a masterpiece of necrotech.

Jeb finds a hint for how to shift the nature of his Myst and begins practicing in earnest.

The surviving leader of the human faction plots.

Shortly after the Enforcers gather, the human general releases the captured dungeon core in the city. Assuming this is an attack from the wizard, the enforcers are prodded into moving before they’ve formed a cohesive plan.

Jeb realizes who is behind the attack and splits off from the enforcers shortly before they inter the wizard’s dungeon.

Jeb fights general Meyers in a long stalemate while she deals damage to his people and town. Jeb eventually lures her into the pit of the dungeon she’d unleashed on the city. Jeb blasts a hole into the wizard’s dungeon, and the two dungeons begin fighting each other for territory.

In the middle of the scuffle, Jeb sacrifices his left arm to stab Meyers with his accolade, which allows him to gradually outfight the human Myt-user, tearing their Ability out of their skull and refocus on the wizard’s butler.

Jeb sucker-punches the butler, then carries on, finding the Enforcers easily under control by the wizard. The wizard fights Jeb for a moment, giving him advice disguised as insults to his competence, until his minion calls him out on it.

Once attention is brought to it, the wizard restrains Jeb and gets back to his experiment: feeding a nuclear bomb into the fifth dimension to see what happens.

When the bomb is all they way through the gate, a being of divine law steps through and tries to kill the wizard for crimes against the gods.

The wizard’s concentration lapses, allowing Jeb and the others to free themselves. Jeb and others then dive into the fifth dimension for some truly wonky stuff, each represented by a cloud of possibilities.

Jeb manages to grab the ‘reins’ of the nuke without dying, then when he’s about to collapse, he tries to use one of his accolades to suppress the nuke.

The accolade grows teeth on both ends and begins pumping Jeb full of fifth-dimensional fissile energy.

Jeb wakes up outside the fifth dimension, having been dragged out by Vresh. They are then captured by the wizard, who gives Jeb a short physical, letting slip that the bomb is inside him now.

They break out of their captivity, losing several of the Enforcers along the way, until they break out into the city proper, still reeling from the dungeon attack that sank a good portion of the city into the earth.

The nuke problem reaches a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion as the wizard and the Emperor declare a truce, while Jeb and the other enforcers are left to pick up the pieces.

Jeb visits Nancy, who was wounded in the fighting, shortly before going into a private room to sulk. A moment later, he begins coughing violently, until he spits out a large chunk of half-clotted blood onto the floor.

The blood begins burning through the floorboards.