October 4 and 5, 1986. The Ushiromiya family assembles on the private island of Rokkenjima for their annual conference. The primary agenda is the inheritance of the ailing family patriarch Kinzo's considerable estate. Then a typhoon grounds everyone on the island, a letter arrives claiming to be from the legendary witch Beatrice — rumored to haunt Rokkenjima — and people start dying. The first episode in the Umineko no Naku Koro ni series follows Battler Ushiromiya, returning to the family gathering for the first time in six years, as the island's secrets begin to surface.