The once-proud Espani nation lost everything to the plagues and monsters of the New World. But fencing master Lorenzo Quesada believes an ancient relic will restore his dying country to prosperity and honor, as long as the military doesn't find it first.

Meanwhile, brilliant airship engineer Taziri Ohana is on a routine flight when she is shot down by a secret Espani warship, stranding her behind enemy lines with an odd collection of unruly tourists.

Now thrown together by fate, Lorenzo and Taziri race through a gauntlet of vicious assassins, undead demons, and giant beasts to find the fabled Skyfire Stone in the peaks of the frozen mountains. But when the Espani warship sets sail for Marrakesh, Lorenzo must stop a war that could destroy every nation of the Middle Sea, even if it costs him both the stone and his life.

Welcome to the world of AETHERIUM, where strange machines sail the seas and the skies, enormous prehistoric beasts roam the earth, and the restless dead whisper to the living. Similar to our own world in the sixteenth century, AETHERIUM explores a reality in which many of the megafauna did not die out, including terror birds and saber-toothed cats, and in which a devastating Ice Age continues to ravage Europe while Africa enjoys cool rains and the Sahara is no desert at all. But strangest of all may be the science of seeing, hearing, and controlling the souls of the dead using a golden metal with many names: sunsteel, orichalcum, and... AETHERIUM!