The Darth Chronicles

Thrice Burdened

Earl Francous stood and took Olga’s hand, indicating she should step out and head down the aisle toward the exit. She did so without a word, as he had spoken none, and she could feel the tension in his touch.
They walked out of the room and down a long hall, eventually crossing a small courtyard and entering the castle again through a door adorned with a banner bearing the crest of Duke Richard. The earl guided her down another long hall, entering the room at the very end.
She never saw him move. But she slammed against the wall. The point of his ornamental dagger at her throat.
“Duke Judoc values witches and would never give one to a rival. Further, he knows of my experience with them and would not wish to start a war he cannot win. So I can only assume he has no knowledge of what you are. That means this is the guild’s doing. I’m going to give you five seconds to tell me why I should not leave a dead witch on this floor. What does the guild want with me now?”
Olga was petrified as tears flowed freely down her face, and she looked into his eyes. Those eyes that had been so kind earlier now contained a hatred that was nearly palpable. She knew that she was about to die and could force no words out to save herself.
“I have kept my word. I have done nothing, have trained no one, not even my daughter. What do you want of me now? ANSWER!”

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The Great Healer

“Sorceress Olga, the high council has decided to treat this as a sorcerers challenge since you defeated these two in open battle.
Challenge rules apply, and you have claim to the power and property of the sorceress Fein and the wizard Jacques. Do you wish to claim their power?”
Olga was stunned, by the situation and the question. She looked at Francous and he smiled and nodded.
“Yes.”
“The right to claim the power of another is part of the challenge as defined in the rules of the Council. This ritual requires the assistance of two sorcerers of the first tier. Before we assist you with the ritual, you must agree to submit to the authority of the council. Are you willing to submit to the authority of the Council?”
Again, Olga was confused by the question. She had never considered that she had a choice in accepting their authority. Francous saw her confusion and spoke up.
“I’m sorry, I should have explained this to you before bringing you here. The council holds authority over this continent and the two island nations. If you do not wish to live within the rules of the Council, you will be given the option to move to the other continent, but you would not be allowed to remain here.”
“So if I say no, and refuse to leave?”
Faras responded immediately.
“Then we would be forced to either block you from the power or push you out. There are many ways to have a say in the council rules, but you must agree to live within them to stay in the territory we protect.”
“So I really have no choice if I want to see my family.”
“That’s unfortunately correct. To keep the peace, we cannot allow any exceptions.”

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The Power Colors Saga

Torl’s Journey

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Raised on old Arth by monks who were masters of the old realm, hiding themselves and their charges from the witch hunters, Torl spent his life dreaming of journeying to the fabled planet Aleron. There it was said people lived with the freedom to be who they were and use their talents freely without fear of the witch hunters. After years of scrimping, he has finally saved enough money to begin his journey.
Trained his whole life to avoid detection, and hide his skills, Torl is always on his guard. But to maintain that cover, he must take a tourist’s route through the stars stopping and viewing the sights throughout the realm. It is on one of those stops on a small meaningless planet called Earth that Torl makes mistakes that change everything. First he allows the power colors to gravitate toward him out in the open, and then when a young witch is caught by the hunters he finds he cannot sit by and watch her get tortured to death for the entertainment of the witch hunters. Putting everything at risk, he reaches out to the young girl as she is preparing to wreak havoc in a desperate last stand…

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Rebuilding A Legacy

It seems Torl’s Journey was only the beginning of a lifelong battle to regain what was lost in his parents’ lifetime. Having been forced to claim his hereditary rights as the First Seat of the High Council for the Free Colonial System, Torl finds himself beset by enemies known and unknown as he attempts to change this realm into what it was intended to be.

With Lia and Seala by his side, he begins the process of pulling the masters together and rebuilding their skills and strength, but the political and corporate powers that have run the realm for many years align against him and soon he finds himself fighting more than political battles.
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Seala’s Burden

​​Life as the daughter of the high councilor and the now famous first lady Mir Master Lia, was filled with duties and responsibilities.  The constant stream of dull meetings and political functions left Seala yearning for something new.

As the daughter of the highest ranking master in the realm, she first needed to become a master in her own right.  At last her teacher agreed to allow her to test for the mastery,  and expectations were high.

As a reward for her hard work and dedication to the mastery, combined with her birthday celebration, her parents agree to send her on the Sociology and Political Sciences trip she had helped to organize.  She and her classmates would travel to the world known as Whisper.  This was one of the planets where notech infused the atmosphere and technology disintegrated rapidly.

And thus she embarked on a trip that would change her forever…
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Taarl and the Fool’s Game

The High Councilor’s administrator and chief of security, I’lle and Taarl successfully test for the Lar mastery and take a vacation to celebrate.  While on that vacation, Taarl pops the question and their lives change forever.  They decide to honeymoon on Elos where they will visit the mud pits and plan to create a sculpture of their own.  Torl and Lia surprise them with a gift of luxury accommodations and a first class tour of the planet, but their honeymoon is viewed by others as an opportunity.

When Taarl wakes one morning to find his new wife missing, he brings all his skills and resources to bear as he desperately tries to find and rescue her before Torl learns of the incident.  It is a race against time as he knows Torl will tear the realm apart to recover I’lle as soon as he learns she is missing.
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End of an Era

A tall beautiful blond woman in her middle years stood in her office at the top of a very tall building in the center of the University of Tali. Her big blue eyes had traces of smile lines around their outer corners from years of smiling and laughing. Her small pointed nose separated the incredible eyes from her perfectly shaped, full lipped mouth. Here too were the beginnings of smile lines, but she was not smiling now. Her face held the look of concern for the first time in many years as she stood contemplating her accomplishments and failures in building a new type of university. She had spent her entire adult life creating a place of truly open and accepting academia.
Trali looked out of the window of her private office. From here she could see many of the other university buildings. Nearest was the School of Medicine, one of her greatest achievements had been getting the traditional medical professionals to accept the art of healing using the power colors as being valid and real.
…..In years to come, the lives of Lia, Seala and Torl would become entwined and would change the lives of all humanity. This is the story of how it all began.
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P’Hilz Story

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The third child of a poor farmer in a small village on a small unimportant world, P’Hilz was different.  She could see the beautiful power colors flowing through everything and responding to everyone.  As most small children do, she told others all about the wonderful things she saw, the only problem was that no one else in her small farming community could see these colors, and they quickly declared her a little off in the head.  Years of teasing and torture by the popular kids in her community left her very shy and almost completely alone.  She had only one friend, a girl her age who was a little slow to learn new things and a bit overweight who was teased almost as much as P’Hilz.  P’Hilz though was a good student and earned high scores in all her classes and with that came the hope that she might someday get a scholarship to go to the city and study at one of the universities there.  It was not really very likely, but it gave her hope.
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The K’Jin Mission

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K’Jin had been a disappointment to his parents.  Both parents were Kre Masters of the Miir order, and moderately talented with the power colors.  They had dreamed of  having a child who would reach the upper echelons of the mastery wielding great control over the power colors.  Instead they got a child who, while exceptionally talented in the martial arts and a borderline genius, had no ability at all with the power colors.  The only real evidence that he was not just another villager was that he had been able to teleport from birth and he was exceptionally skilled at precognition.  Neither talent, however, had anything to do with the power colors, they were simply extrasensory skills.

Being the child of two masters, K’Jin lived among apprentices and masters with full access to all the training made available to them.  In an attempt to fit in among them, he apprenticed himself to one of the senior master’s security guards and declared for the Laar order.  Rather than bringing him closer to his parents, this move created an even wider gap between them as his chosen order was the complete opposite of theirs.
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K’Jin Released

​​In the second book of K’Jin’s mission, he adapts to his new reality.

K’Jin’s determination to see the end of the Witch Hunter realm is flamed by his inability to continue the mission set for him by High Councilor RinTorl.  Srin Master H’Jax took him on as an apprentice when his talents with the power colors were released, but K’Jin’s development has progressed so quickly that he has become the second highest ranking master on the planet.

When it comes time to free Sheltered Six from the witch hunters, K’Jin is put in charge of the team that will free the southern continent while Master H’Jax takes the much larger task of freeing the northern continent.  But freeing the planet and defending it when the witch hunters return to take it back leaves them seriously short of masters and desperate for aid.
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Journey to the Mastery

​​A collection of 4 Power Colors Short Tales.

Master Mixer Sslasl – Orphaned by unknown parents on the planet of G’Ham. Sslasl was raised in an orphanage run by G’Hass and her husband. When G’Hass’s husband died, Sslasl took on the orphanage financial responsibilities and worked wherever he could to keep food on the table while he prepared for and pass the mixer test to get a job in the chemical mixing factory in the city he was raised in.

Sslasl and the Mastery -A fluke chance review of a proposed propulsion mix brought him to the attention of Master Masl. And now he was apprenticed to her in the mastery to lead a team to build a fuel mixer to allow war ships to travel extremely long distances without refueling stations.

Mika’s Art – Raised in the inner city where her father was an engineer in a transport factory, and her mother was a genetic scientist working on new strains of crops that would eventually be grown in environments that were less desirable for human habitation. Mika had always struggled with the social scene. She was, however, exceptionally talented with pencils and paints and recently had developed a knack for forming clay as well. It was in her art that she found peace and acceptance.

Zaable’s Destiny – Raised in a mining community on a remote asteroid, where his parents worked the great mining machines extracting minerals from an asteroid belt rich in the components commonly used in spacecraft engines. He eventually stopped attending class in person and took all the available classes from the comp unit in his family’s quarters. Now he was nearing the age where the company would demand that he either learn to run a mining device or leave the asteroid belt for good.
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Crystals and Destiny

​​A collection of 4 Power Colors Short Tales.

Crum’s Crystals – Crum had learned at an early age to polish and shape stones he gathered from the tailings of the nearby mines.  Not only was he able to sell them on the street for credits that would buy food and occasionally a night in one of the flop houses, but the work made him feel like he was a part of something meaningful.  Once or twice he had found shards of the crystals that were mined here and he would feel great comfort in their touch.  But always those had more value than any of the stones he formed and he would invariably have to sell them to eat.

Corporal Xasl – Like his father before him, Xasl struggled to make a living doing odd labor jobs moving from city to city as the seasons changed.  Today marked three weeks since he had last found work enough to eat a real meal.  He could not even remember which city he was in now.  When he saw a muscular woman opening the door to an office he did not recognize, he pushed himself to his feet and made his way over to ask her if she had anything he could do to earn enough credits for a meal.

Aarn Becomes a Man – Aarn was the eldest son of a well-known landlord in the largest agricultural section of Amelus.  Aarn like his father could tell if a field was well tended or not from looking at the aerial images relayed from their satellites but his father insisted on them making an appearance at every field regularly.    Today they were going to evict a family who had not been able to keep up with the lease payments, and Aarn’s father insisted that Aarn would do the eviction.

Healing Cil – A recovering drug addict who had lost her family, friends and career to a designer drug that nearly killed her, Cil struggled every day just to find enough food to keep her alive while desperately trying to convince potential employers that her days of self-destruction were over.
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