Avalon:Chapter Test

Once the rising pearl of the Inner Sea region, the coastal metropolis of Arcadia had since fallen into decadence and slow decline. As the Capital of the Holy Imperium, the city was still ringed by high walls and dotted by garish palaces, but the fluidity and nonstop expansion of its harbors and marketplaces have given away to territorial oligopolies by urban guilds and major corporations. Market control discouraged competitiveness and brought stagnation, widening the class divide through the reduction of opportunities. The result was social instability, crime, and economic recession as the bright, the motivated, and the daring left to seek new frontiers, leaving only conservative patrician families to squabble across the political circles.

What remaining was a city of servants and courtiers, plebeians who slaved day and night for the Senators and their wealthy supporters. Here in the beating heart of the Imperium, the legislature had long stopped being a representation of the people, its subcommittees now fraught with corruption and individual interests.

The executive throne did no better.

Generations of adoptive sons taking the crown -- many of them wise and just -- nevertheless laid a disastrous precedence to the line of Imperial Succession. Theodosius III, the previous Emperor of the Holy Imperium, died sixteen years ago from sudden cerebral hemorrhage, leaving both a biological and an adoptive son. The ensuing civil war scorched the Holy Imperium with flames for six years. Known as the 'War of Imperial Succession', it quickly engulfed the entire continent, as the Imperium's neighbors and enemies took advantage of the chaos to slice off and annex border states and Duchies.

With the help of the patricians' bottomless funding and the Legions once loyal to his late birth father, Gaudentius Aurelius brought an end to the bloodshed by seizing the crown. Yet even in his moment of triumph, he looked towards the northern horizon with bloodied eyes, never forgetting the treachery of nations that should have been his allies against the infidels of the south.

It took tens years to consolidate his power, ten years to rebuild the Legions to full strength, ten years to bribe and negotiate and wrangle for all the arrangements.

And now...

"What is our status, Stilius?" The Emperor asked as he strolled down the shadowy halls, followed only by his most trusted servant -- the foreigner who trice saved his life from overwhelming odds, rising from stablehand to Magister Militum of the entire Holy Imperium.

"Our spies in Cataliya confirms that the Caliphate is mobilizing. Troops are pouring across the Grand Trait Bridge by the thousands every day as they march towards the Rhin-Lotharingie border. Regardless of whether they believed our emissaries' promises, the Caliphate now lay committed. It is only a matter of time before they declare Holy War against the Empire."

"Good, and the Pope?"

"His Holiness, Pope Vigilius has long harbored a hatred for Emperor Geoffroi of Rhin-Lotharingie for his revocation of Papal Investiture. Neither has the Holy See forgotten Geoffroi's swift eagerness to take advantage of the civil war by stripping us of our western territories. The Papal Legates swear that if Geoffroi folds before the infidel armies and pull back his border defenses, His Holiness will have a more-than-long-enough list of transgressions to have him excommunicated."

"Excellent. Even without aid from those petty Lotharin nobles, that alone should be enough to fracture the Empire during its most critical hour. It will also strip them of any right to call for crusaders' aid. What of their ally, that upstart Kingdom of Weichsel?"

"Imperator, during the War of Imperial Succession, Weichsel not only stole twice their landmass from our border territories, but also struck fear into the heart of Rhin-Lotharingie before the two states could forge a defensive treaty against Imperial retaliation. It is not wise to..."

Old companions or not, the Emperor cut off his foremost general without a moment of hesitance:

"When we want your sermons, Stilius, we will ask for it. Continue, or must we repeat ourselves?"

"Yes, Imperator. As you already know, the Winter Lords of Vastergotland, desperate after the epidemic that scythed through their herds and blinded by their eagerness for our gold, launched their invasion before the Caliph was ready. Weichsel Marshal von Moltewitz handed them a series of disastrous defeats before winter could embrace the Northern Sea. By now, it is fair to assume that our efforts in Vastergotland have been wasted, and the Greater Jarldom of Skagen stands unwilling to commit without their allies."

"A great shame. We can only pray that tensions at their northern border will at least pull Weichsel's armies away. What of our own forces?"

"The Northern Legions stand ready under Gaius Aetius. They're assembled near the Weichsel-Lotharin border, poised to apply pressure against either military. The Western Legions were officially furloughed by Marcus Belisarius; but his forces have merely broken down into organized labor units and can swiftly regroup once the time is right. The Southern Legions have been recalled home under my personal command to remove their presence from the borders, so that the Caliph may focus on waging his war."

"You have done well, Stilius. Once the Caliphate and Rhin-Lotharingie maul each other to exhaustion, we shall have the perfect opportunity to seek permission for a new crusade. Then, I shall become the first Emperor in five centuries to reclaim lands lost by the Holy Imperium, and maybe even reconquer Lotharingie itself. Meanwhile, your name will rise above Marius himself in becoming the most celebrated general in Imperial history."

"You are most generous, Imperator," Stilius bowed, suppressing the urge to warn his liege of counting chickens before they hatch.

"The Grand Republic will not interfere in the west unless they feel threatened, and the Chorasmia Sultanate is currently fighting off an invasion from further east. Our only known threat at the moment remains the Kingdom of Weichsel. I want that alliance fractured if not broken, Stilius; be discrete, but otherwise do whatever it takes."

"Yes, Imperator. I have already dispatched three of my best operative squads north. It should not be long before one of my plans bear fruit."