Annora, reborn as a commoner's daughter in the city of Vurden, lives a quiet life until she is snatched off the street by Rogues at age three. They chain her in a warehouse, intending to use her to blackmail her parents into poisoning House Felius. She endures a night of terror, but when the fat driver Phil gets drunk and threatens to beat her, she seizes the moment. She tips a table, grabs a vial of Nighthowler Extract, and stabs Phil with a poisoned needle. When the second Rogue returns, she feigns innocence and stabs him too. She frees herself, runs to the market square screaming murder, and leads a crowd back to the bodies. The guards question her, but she plays the terrified child, and Lord Felius rewards her family. Her brother Kalvin later becomes a Guardsman, driven by guilt, and at age ten Annora awakens to the rare Battle Maid class, gaining Dangersense, Burst of Speed, and a suite of cleaning and combat Skills. She is assigned as personal maid and bodyguard to Catherine Felius, beginning a friendship that will define her adolescence.

Catherine Felius debuts at the Duke's Summer Solstice Ball, with Annora as her invisible maid and bodyguard. Annora intercepts a poisoned wine glass offered by Lord Charleon Marcule, exposing a plot. On the ride home, her Dangersense tingles as shadows move in the street. She deflects a crossbow bolt, engages two high-level Rogues, and kills them both by combining her cleaning and combat Skills in innovative ways. But as she looks up, the city is on fire. She sprints back to House Felius to find the manor an inferno. She rushes inside, finds her parents dead from smoke inhalation, and carries their bodies out. Catherine holds her as she wails. The Royalist faction has struck, sparking a civil war. Annora's class upgrades to Ninja Maid, and she becomes Catherine's unwavering protector in the besieged port city of Kallay. For months, she fights assassins and saboteurs, her fury and grief fueling her. Finally, she faces her childhood kidnapper again, a high-level Assassin. She kills him with a teleporting knife trick, but he guts her in the process. She bleeds out on the winter street, dying for the second time.

Cadence is reborn as Hat'he-Emra Hemere, the seventeenth Imperial Princess of Ra'Sharon, a bronze-age empire along a life-giving river. Grief-stricken and isolated, she eventually resolves to change her fate. She gains the Scribe class, then consolidates Singer, Dancer, and Musician into the Muse class. She introduces paper, writes treatises on class consolidation, and argues for peace with the neighboring Hin'Tye Empire. Her father, the Pharaoh, tasks her with hosting the Hin'Tye First Prince, Uppilimus Sut. She plans an elaborate journey, freeing Hin'Tye slaves and building waystations. When sea raiders attack the city of Ugareet, she sings from a hilltop, her voice amplified by Skills, deafening herself but turning the tide of battle. Sut is captivated by her beauty and intelligence. The Pharaoh orders her to seduce him for a better treaty. She confesses her fear to Sut, and he accepts her. They marry, and her Imperial Princess and Muse classes consolidate into the Siren Princess. She travels to the Hin'Tye capital, learns magic, introduces steel and crop rotation, and becomes a force for change. She becomes pregnant, but the birth is difficult. She performs a self-Caesarean to save her child, then dies in Sut's arms, leaving behind a letter revealing her true nature as an Incarnator.

Cadence is reborn as a Hatchling Boreal Toad in a monster-filled valley. She struggles with low Willpower and overwhelming instincts, but she fights, evolves, and adapts. She becomes a Hatchling Witch's Newt, then a Hatchling Komadus Lizard, then an Infant Kobold with hands and a Hunter class. She builds a mudbrick home, survives a brutal winter, and kills a Juvenile Stone Lynx by poisoning it and burying it in snow. She evolves into a Hatchling Lesser Wyvern, then a Young Gale Wyvern. She kills the valley's apex predator, a Blood Moly, in a ten-hour battle. She meets an elven adventurer, Rei'Reihammara Solily, and her party, Seeking the Horizon. She helps them fight a Thunderbird and a giant turtle, then forms a bond with Ray. She joins the party as Hewka the Wyvern, learning the language and training her Skills. She fights a tribe of goblins led by a cunning Hobgoblin Warleader, using her wits and poison to win. She begins training to unlock the Greater Lake Wyvern evolution, enduring Ylma's sadistic fire magic. She learns about magic theory, the nature of mana, and the politics of the world. She dances for crowds, raises her Skills, and prepares for her next evolution, all while growing closer to her new found family.