Spring, a time of fresh starts and new adventures, arrives in Iluk. The villagers throw a banquet to celebrate the advent of a new year, and Dias decides it’s about time he visited Eldan in Mahati. It’s sure to be a long journey with quite a few surprises in store for Dias, his family, and their newly arrived Lostblood wards. But that’s nothing compared to the biggest surprise awaiting Dias and his party: the unstoppable force that is Eldan’s mother…

Iluk Village’s winter prep is steadily taking shape. The hunting and foraging is going well, the firewood stockpile is growing, and Ellie is making warm winter clothing for everyone. But Grandma Maya prophesizes hardships on the horizon in the form of inclement weather and invading monsters. Dias rises to the challenge undaunted, but things get complicated when the pregnant Francoise and dogkin mothers finally go into labor. Has this battle-hardened warrior finally met his match?!

A blizzard hits Iluk, forcing everybody to stay indoors while it runs its course. The twins, bored out of their minds, demand Dias entertain them with a story. Dias thus regales them with a tale from the war, a tale that—unbeknownst to the man himself—has become legend. It is an epic of battles and strategy, of good versus evil, and of a small, unassuming hamlet grown into the famed “Golden Lowlands” with more than a little help from Dias himself.

When a trip to the forest leads to a meeting with a mysterious cavekin, Iluk Village suddenly finds itself with three new cavekin residents! The family of blacksmiths decides to join Dias to fulfill an ancient promise and immediately starts on building a furnace. But what good is a furnace without the magic stones to fuel it? To rectify this oversight, the cavekin and Dias embark on a hunting expedition into dangerous monster territory!

Iluk welcomes Dias’s friends—and a new herd of baars! This thrusts Francis into a battle for leadership over the village baars; does he have the chops to beat his new rival? On top of that, Alna’s brother Zorg has returned to rescue his little sister, convinced that she’s been forced to marry the despicable and dastardly new domain lord. Can Dias clear the air (and stop his wife from murdering her brother) in time to thwart a dangerous threat looming over the village?