They thought the planet was tidally locked to its sun, so they built mines on the dark side, and Nightside City to provide entertainment to the miners and part them from their hard earned pay. About a hundred years later, they realized it wasn't a tidal lock but rather an incredibly slow planetary rotation and suddenly the doomed Nightside City, with its showy casinos, became a popular tourist attraction. The lucky few got off-planet before the casinos realized their workforce was fleeing and they ensured only the wealthy escaped. P.I. Carlisle Hsing had hoped working for some of the larger casinos would be her ticket off-planet, but a rival framed her for some illegal hacking and she got blacklisted. Now she's stuck living and working in the part of town between the vibrant downtown and the abandoned sky scrapers up slope in the sun without the money to move further into the shade and forget about passage off-planet.

In the land of Baroken it is the Wizard Lord's duty to protect the land, people, and magical ler. Since hunting down rogue wizards is one of their most important duties they are gifted with a set of talismans, ler that have been bound to an object, to ensure they have the most power. It was not long until the wizards of the Council of Immortals realized that those talismans would make it very difficult to deal with a rogue Wizard Lord, a Dark Lord. They created a second set of talismans that would be linked to those of the Wizard Lord and given to talented individuals who would act as a team to take down Dark Lords. The talismans of The Chosen as they are called enhance their natural abilities with specific magics according to their role in the team but they also bear a curse. When one of the Chosen dies the Wizard Lord loses the power of his linked talisman so should he kill all of the Chosen he is no more powerful than other members of the Council. They think they have covered every possibility. They are wrong.