Many centuries ago, people were forced to leave their home planet and settle on a planet almost entirely covered by ocean. This gave rise to the Azure Hall—a submerged city of Earth colonists. Breathing underwater was made possible by symbiotic creatures called emirangs. But an emirang could lure a person into the Abyss—a gigantic rift in the oceanic crust—from which there would be no return. Inge was lucky: she was one of the few who passed the Path of the Survivors, and the ocean became her native element.