The year is 1865. It has turned autumn in the Alps.

Deep in the gigantic cave system of the Totes Gebirge (=the Dead Mountains), an unscrupulous inventor secretly develops a terrible weapon. A powerful wizard supports him in this. The machine is to convert magical energy into military destructive power and thus to surpass everything in defence technology that has so far existed. The mythical Fey are hunted down to serve as live arcane fuel. Their life force and energy are extracted in order to operate the weapon.

Charlotte von Sandling, a young woman with courage and principles, helps one of the Fey whom she frees from captivity. Now, she too is pursued and hunted. While fleeing their persecutors, a landslide locks her and her uncanny companion in cave system. She finds out that the man she has saved is by no means as harmless and nice as she thought.

But in the Salzkammergut region, a land of mystical beauty and mythical intensity, ancient powers are still at work and make both humans and Fey seek their salvation through a web of deception and honesty, conspiracy and altruism, viciousness and love. Death has become a constant companion.