Two centuries into our future, a cataclysmic rainfall event warped the reality everyone had taken for granted: people's five senses, memories, and own homes seemingly began to turn against them. Mass hallucinations. Mass hysteria. Massive “weather phenomenons” and “animal” attacks. Mass graves. Nobody who survived one of these events could explain it in a way that made sense, their tales coming off as waking surreal nightmares. It was all the emerging Brotherhood of Fyreheart could do to pin the blame on rapidly advancing technology as their religious sect began to stick its fingers into the remaining world governments.

This blame wasn't enough to calm the masses or put an end to the increasing incidents. As they had planned, the Brotherhood began to tear down what was left of Gaiacorp, earth's lead manufacturer for all home, school, and business technology. From the ashes, they uncovered hundreds of old plots: One in particular revolving around illegal human experimentation. Thirty-four subjects with abilities ranging from illusion to mild reality warping itself had gone missing from a corp facility. All of them were labeled as highly unstable. Buried within moments, Gaiacorp's trove of information was funneled into two branches of the Brotherhood: The Hearthguard, to hunt down, then arrest or kill the missing subjects. And the High Priests, to decipher and use the other findings to contract new weapons, communication devices, armor, and even vehicles for their brothers' use alone.

It was not surprising that their findings and eventual secret arrests/deaths of the thirty-four led to a decline in the bizarre mass attacks. It was even less surprising that by taking the credit for bringing down Gaiacorp- proceeding to demand publicly available technology be rolled back to “the safety of pre-2000's connectivity” in large cullings while stocking up on their own forces -the Brotherhood was able to intimidate their way into real positions of power.

Forty years later, North America is now a theocracy known as “New Caanan.” While most people are capable of living a comfortable unexamined life, technology burnings are as common as book burnings and anything capable of a wireless connection in the hands of a citizen is illegal. Schools are strict. Your teachers prepare you for the reality that the Brotherhood may dictate your life choices as an adult if they don't align with God's will. Many boys considered capable are led into becoming brothers in special boarding schools, while most girls are led to believe being a wife to a good brother one day is what they should look forward to.

You are a Hearthguard Elite with a certain past and personality (entirely up to you). Newly initiated to this rank, you know there's still much information the higher brothers refuse to share with you. Whether that is irritating or not, your first mission is shaping to be so.

You are given the location of a girl attending a scandalously laid back high school in a small town. You are told to stalk her and become involved in her life, gathering enough evidence to justify calling in an arrest. Your High Priest's only advice is to keep your zerocaster gun on you at all times, and be ready to switch it from paralyze to lethal at the drop of a hat.

On the one hand, this girl is rebellious but seemingly harmless. Nobody has been able to pin her with any crimes or blasphemy beyond sneaking a smoke or breaking curfew. She goes to school, maybe meets a friend, and comes home. She doesn't even seem to leave there most nights. On the other hand...her classification on your file is suspected terrorism. Is she really that dangerous? What did she do to warrant this espionage? Do you really want to be getting close enough to her to find out?

As this girl's seductive friend tries to drive a wedge in your efforts, the clock will begin to tick down for everyone involved.