Before they left Maras-Dantia the band encountered two humans, Micalor Standeven and Jode Pepperdyne, who posed as merchants. In reality, Pepperdyne was Standeven’s slave, and they were running from tyrannical ruler Kantor Hammrik, to whom Standeven was indebted. Standeven’s plan was to steal the orcs’ instrumentalities to pay off Hammrik. Stryke would have abandoned the duo, or worse, had they not warned him of an impending raid; and in the fight that followed, Pepperdyne saved Coilla’s life. So when the Wolverines had to quickly exit a life-threatening situation, using the stars, Pepper-dyne and Standeven went with them. Their destination was the world of the warband’s mission.

The Wolverines were unaware that an indefinite number of instrumentalities existed, scattered across endless worlds. Nor did they know that a clandestine group, the Gateway Corps, was dedicated to tracking them down. The activation of Stryke’s stars was detected by the Corps, and its human leader, Karrell Revers, ordered his deputy, female elf Pelli Madayar, to recover them at any cost. Accompanied by a multi-species snatch team, and armed with potent magical weaponry, Pelli set off in pursuit of the Wolverines.

Arriving in Acurial, a world as luxuriant as Maras-Dantia was corrupted, the Wolverines were horrified to discover the orc populace had had their martial spirit bred out of them. Playing on this docility, and the ploy that Acurial possessed non-existent weapons of magical destruction, Peczan, a human empire, had invaded.

Tangling with the occupiers, who had a command of magic-rare among humans-the Wolverines found that not all orcs in Acurial were placid when they were rescued by a resistance group whose members’ fighting instincts had reawakened.