A Change in Power

[Arretine Empire]

Empress Caelia Valens Aedificans, sat on her throne in the Imperio Magistratus. It was the heart of the empire, at least in theory, but in practicality it had not for centuries. Still the Magistratus was enormous, the largest administrative building in the Empire housing all the great gears of the state. The throne room was large, and adorned with the most beautiful of classical architecture. She was the first woman to have ever sat on the throne, and took a moment to relish it. Normally, if her father had lived on she would have never seen the throne, but with succession laws the way they were she was now Empress and she would keep it.

Caelia stood and walked away from the throne, walking down the empty aisle of the throne room. In today's world she had no need for a throne, instead she needed a good desk. Where her father and those before him had lacked in the field of administration, she knew she could not fail. Arretium needed her to fulfill the role of unifier for her people, and break the hold of the dukes and kings on the Empire.

---

King Arathus stepped into the great Imperial Hall in the Magistratus, and chuckled. He always wondered why the city of Arretium even had a building like this, it wan't like it was even useful. No power flowed from this building, just an example of wasted money. Of course this was something Arathus has become skilled at, something he fellow high lords had come to resent him on. He headed forward with a a look of smug confidence on his face, he was certain he would emerge victorious as he always had when it came to negotiating with the figureheads that called themselves Emperors, or at least in this case an Empress.

Flanked by his personal guards he entered a moderately sized meeting room, with an elaborated table in the middle. Around the table were the heads of each of the territories. King Arathus, ruler of Agregentum took his place at the table. The others, King Altlamid of Fedlimid, Duke Mago of Motya, Duke Malchus of Hamilcar, Duke Barisi of Genosa, and Duke Robles of Tartessos. At the head of the table was the Empress. She stood up and addressed the group of men before her.

"My lords, we are here today to discuss the very pressing matter of our economic depression. Something must be done, the situation we have been wasting away in is intolerable. This once great empire is nothing but a shell of its former glory-"

"Empress please, I do believe we know the true reasons why what ever problems the Empire is having is because of the continued attacks by King Arathus and his allies -" Atlamid exclaimed, interrupting the Empress.

Atlamid was in turn was cut short by Duke Barisi who stood up pointing at the King, "You know very well King, that your forces continue have incursions into our territory-"

The entire room seemed to explode in arguments, all the the most powerful men in the Empire squabbling at once. The Empress found this awful, listening to the supposed monarchs screaming. However in the back farther from the rest, Duke Robles sat in his chair watching the exchange with his arms folding stoically. His position was more special than the others. He had been a personal friend of Caelia's father, which no doubt helped him gain the position as Emperor. But on top of this we was fairly young, and over time had become a friend to Caelia herself. In reality her only true ally among the broken lords.

"Enough!" Caelia shouted, "This is why we are here we are going to figure this out now dammit, before something worse happens."

The lords were taken aback by this outburst. King Arathas recovered faster than the rest, snickering, "You are Empress in title only, you hardly have the right to-"

"Shut up Arathas," Robles interrupted. Arathas turned back in rage but kept quiet. "Don't be a fool. We all know this Empire is in shambles. We would be best served if we listened to the suggestions of the Empress in this matter. Regardless of how much power you think she may or may not have. We haven't much time before this Empire could take the turn for the worse, we had best make it a turn for the better."

 

[Arretine Empire]

Empress Valens was alone in her chamber on the balcony. While her house guard had always advised against it, she was never truly afraid of some assassination attempt on her. She looked over across Arretium, a huge city sprawled out against the coast line. The only reason she was able to see over the tallest buildings was because the Imperial Palace was situated on the tallest hill of the city, nearly a mountain in its own right. The Palace though had come to signify the decrepit state of the Imperial government, and how useless it had become.

Caelia knew what she needed to do, she simply did not want to be the one to 'pull the trigger'. Long months of negotiations most likely laid ahead, and her overall goal was to simply stop the in fighting that kept occurring. This fuedal nonsense has ceased hundreds of years ago in other Europe countries. the fact that Arretium, once the jewel of the Long Sea, could not muster the courage to stop all of this saddened her deeply. She only had two dukes on her side, Duke Mago and Duke Robles. They were both cut from a different cloth from the rest of the lords. Robles, as one of her families closets friends came as a natural ally. Duke Mago was a different story. He and his family had been ruling over their domain, the second wealthiest in the Empire, before they had been targeted by Barisi and Atlamid. Having little desire for conquest the family of Duke Mago had turned now to the Epress in hopes of some sort of reunification to solve the current problems within the Empire.

A knock on the door shook her from her thoughts. "My Empress, you asked to be informed when the next rounds of negotiations would begin."

She turned her back to the view and walked to the doors to her room. It was time for round two.

OOC: I'm going to try and keep each post short so people can read and keep up interest without having to go through walls of text.

 

[Arretine Empire]

Duke Mago had retreated to his personal residence in the city for the day until the next round of negotiations began. With him was the commander of Empress Valens' personal guard, Lucianus a tall man of Gallic origins. They were both looking down at a map of the Empire, with small pieces scattered around the map marking significant holdings of every house, soldiers, and on. Mago was carefully considering every financial possiblity and outcome of the situation, while no doubt Lucianus was contemplating the military implications of the next step.

"So your Grace, do you believe we can pull this off?" Lucianus asked.

Mago chuckled, "With the right amount of money we might be able to pull off anything."

He took a glance at the map and pointed out a few small figures spread out amongst the six lords holdings, "These represent the Territorial Imperial Guard units no?"

Lucianus bent down a bit to look at the places Mago had pointed out on the map, "Yes your Grace. What would you want to do with them? They are nothing more than militia."

'I don't want to do anything with them necessarily. But the capital of each one of the six lords holdings has a nearby Guard unit yes? If so I believe we can use them to expedite our total control"

"I believe I understand what you are looking to do your Grace," Lucianus replied, a smile replacing his generally stoic face, "I believe we can exchange the contingent of Territorial Guard units with a equal sized unit of Imperial Guard forces. We have enough men to pull this off. The real question is how do we replace them unnoticed?"

"Leave that to me Lucianus, money can get you anything you desire remember?"

 

[Arretine Empire]

Masiago, Duchy of Genosa

It was the middle of the night and for the most part the Territorial Guard barracks were asleep. The watchmen himself was slowly beginning to nod off when a group of trucks lights began to appear down the road. He stood up straight and poked the other night watchmen to get up and be ready to receive whoever was coming.

When the first truck finally pulled up, a man in a Territorial Guard uniform stepped out and approached the guards, "Private, please hail your barracks commander. We need to be speaking to him."

Both the guards looked at each other and one of them spoke up, "Sir, what is your business here."

"We have our reasons," the man from the truck said as he pulled out neatly rolled Arretine bills. Both the watchmen nodded to each other and one of them went back to the guard booth to call the commander.

---

After the barracks commander came down to talk to the man from the truck, more money was exchanged and the convoy was let in. Inside the convoy was the exact number of men present in the base. The old occupants loaded into the same trucks the newcomers had arrived on and set out to their new destination, written out in orders from the top general of the Territorial Guard himself. All in all it happened fairly quickly, the actual Territorial Guard troops packed fast and were off before anyone in the Duke's personal military was ever able to notice. As far as the city would know in the morning it was just a brief training exercise and the boring Territorial Guard garrison would remain as it was before.

 

[Arretine Empire]

They were at it again in the conference hall. The yelling and the pointing, back and forth between the royals. One side demanding territory the next, countered by a demand for more money or a diverting of more trade. Empress Valens and Duke Mago sat next to each other as the debates raged on. Even Duke Robles had succumbed to the in fighting now yelling with the rest. Now the debate was about whether or not Tartessos would be able to annex a portion of their "divine land" from Hamilcar.

Mago leaned over to the Empress, "How long do you think they can keep doing it?"

"I'm not sure, they certainly have a lot of land to bicker about. What about you, why aren't you worried about this?"

"Me?" Mago responded, "They passed the topic of my small lands a long time ago, these lords have enough lands to yell at each other for years"

"Have you nothing to say Empress!" King Fatlamid reared his head from the argument. "You have spent this entire time gossiping in the back with the fine Duke over there. Perhaps you do not care about the integrity of your Empire, or the care of the subjects who elected your father to the most supreme of offices"

"Of course I desire to see a peaceful resolution to your situations, " She started, "But you must know by now that your petty quarrels never seem to cease. You have discussed the same strip of land three times over the past five hours. Before that it was the proper method of exchanging different currencies within the same Empire. What we need is unity."

Fatlamid snorted,"Your desire for a supreme Imperial government is well known. But let me tell you your place in this government, you only mediate you don't -"

Suddenly the walls around them erupted in gunfire, sending dust and debris flying through the large room. Suddenly the room was a maelstrom of panic and death, half of the guards in the room were killed immediately. The others in a panic turned their weapons at the walls and blindly returned their fire. The Empress pressed herself on the ground next the Duke Mago and their own guards. "What is happening, who is attacking us?"

Lucianus,who was also present, grabbed the Empress and motioned for the Duke to follow, "We need to get out of here!"

He ran forward, his two remaining Guardsman by his side. They burst through one of the rooms side entrances blanketing the corridor with fire from their personal submachinguns. The Duke and the Empress sprinted out running down the hall, the three guards trailing behind them covering their retreat.

After what seemed like hours to Empress Valen, they finally made their way to the ground floor of the Magistratus.

"Here," Lucianus said, "The garage is this way, we need to make our way their, I'm certain some of my men are there."

They ran down the rest of the hall to a large set of double doors. Behind them, masked troops continued to take shots at them as they closed the doors behind them. There were six other men in the garage, all of them facing the garage doors. One of the Guardsmen turned in surprise, "Empress, commander, what's going on?"

"No time to explain, load everyone up it's time to go."

 

[Arretine Empire]

Duke Robles took his tie and he slowly walked up the throne room. Inside surrounding him were his closest knit conspirators and advisers. The men and women who helped him reach the point he had gotten to. Of course he couldn't trust any of them, but none the less they had helped him to here. To take total control. He had spent years with the Empress, and while he felt saddened that he had to exile her, he had let her go somewhat on purpose though his men never knew that, it had to be done. The glory and power of the Arretines had to be realized, and while he was sure she could have built a better Empire than any of the other squabbling idiots he had killed, she would never raise as high as he could.

During the brief attack in the Magistratus, he had decapitated the heads of the entire country. His loyal Imperial Guardsmen had stormed the palaces of their heirs and had seized control of their assets. And the best part? None of the lord's armies raised a finger to stop him. His men had lost track of the Empress though, and after fierce fighting at a naval base on the western coast, the Guardsmen loyal to the Empress managed to get her on board a ship out, which was guarded by two warships from the Guard. It was a minor setback, but it mattered not. There was nothing she could do, and the people had been so used to inept emperors that they seemed to even welcome this unifying change. He had used this opportunity to seize the title of the Kingdom of Agregentum and Arretium. He would need them to begin financing his mass expansion. Of course he had to leave the others intact to appease his allies, but none the less his power was assured, as Emperor.

He sat down on the throne, and an older man approached wearing traditional robes holding in his hands a large crown. "Do you accept this responsibility? To reign over your fellow man, equal in all but titles, and do bring glory to our Empire?"

Robles lowered his head, "I do"

"Then I crown you Emperor Martinus, Emperor of the Arretines, King of Agregentum, Duke of Tartessos, and Lord of Arretium" the man said as he placed his crown on his head.

Emperor Martinus rose and smiled.

---

Empress Valen hung her head of the railing on the ship she was stowed on. Next to the ship were two Arretine battlecruisers, ships loyal to her. On board there were around two hundred loyal Guardsmen that had escorted her to safety.

"Have you considered our destination Empress?" Lucianus said, approaching from behind her.

"I am not certain my friend. I believe we may be able to find refuge in Ivernia. I doubt they are enthusiastic with the rise of the brand new Emperor"

Lucianus nodded, "I believe you are right. We have passed the Tiburan Empire. If our destination is Ivernia, then we should be there in only a few days. I'll tell the captain of the Endevour to radio ahead when we are in range and see if he can get us permission to seek refuge."

Caelia barely heard him, staring off at the calm seas. It was night time, but a full moon had risen illuminating the waters beautifully. "I can't believe he betrayed me."

"I know, but we will be back Empress. The Empire will be yours again, I promise."