Set in a world based on late pre-colonial Mesoamerica, Maya, a warrior princess, is celebrating her fifteenth birthday, but when the underworld gods appear and announce she must pay for her family's misdeeds, everything changes.[citation needed] If she refuses to go along, the world itself will be ravaged by the gods, so she embarks on a quest to fulfill a prophecy that says that three warriors will appear who will help her defeat these gods and save humanity itself from destruction