The state of Imperial Bureaucracy is oxymoronic. Externally, the bureaucracy is untouchable, it is above the law, internally, it is ever-bursting at the seams and on the verge of collapse. The only large organisations within the actual state are the Imperial Military, the Special Imperial Service and the various Orders of Imperial Divines. The civilian administration is divided into Bureaus and Departnts, with the Bureaus themselves being relatively tiny compared to each Departnt.
The most consequential Bureaus: Internal Affairs, Manufacturing and Transportation, asure no more than a hundred individuals each. Each have more than two dozen departnts underneath them, all of which dwarf them utterly. There is no pipeline from Departnt to Bureau, to gain access into the latter, there are only two thods: The main, consistent, thod is Divine Nepotism, Kassandora frequently cherry-picks and fast-tracks low-level sergeants into positions of seniority, the SIS has no formal thods of promotion, instead being directly micromanaged by Malam. Arascus will personally give away positions to Bureaus. The second involves traversing the Imperial Schools of Statecraft, although these institutions primarily exist to fill the Departnts.
National governnts, such as Doschia, Rancais, Lubska or Allia, are the responsibility of the local populations. The “Clean-Slate” referendum, requiring only a third of the total population’s agreent or a two-thirds majority of the officials, temporary dissolves their parliants and brings in Arascus to personally reappoint ministers from his own trusted officials.
An honest sort of corruption is rampant throughout the Empire. The Imperial Edicts are kept vague on purpose, exemplified through Article 6: “The Notion to Uphold Moral, Imperial Behaviour”. In Lubska, this ans that begging is illegal, the unhoused are sectioned off into workcamps, in Allia, they are assigned social housing. Article 18 which states that “All Residents, temporary or permanent, need to register with local councils” is another. In Lubska, this applies even to tourists. In Allia, the Edict is fulfilled through a simple registering of the post-code, not even a house number. Everyone is aware of these differences, no one even pretends that they don’t exist, and talk of bringing Allia up to Lubska’s vigilance is scoffed upon even by the high Bureaus. When I questioned Arascus upon this, he simply stated that there is no problem. The Lubskans and the Allians pay their tithes and send their sons to war, so why bother them?
Nevertheless, there are authorities in the Empire. Imperial, not National, Courts are infamously brutal and strict, yet Imperial Courts function as a last resort and seemingly only exist to levy tithes upon the aristocracy, the moguls, and the governnts. Imperial Auditors, on the other hand, are more than willing to cooperate with the locals in order to make sure that the system runs smoothly. As long as the War and Infrastructural Quotas are filled, manufacturers can do with their product as they see fit. Arascus does not even tax overproduction.
It is a very different ruling philosophy to how I would rule a state. It is a very different philosophy to how I have ruled my states.
- Excerpt from “Imperial Bureaucracy Review, First Edition”, written by Goddess Maisara, of Order.
Prince Tarapheus sat on the back of a black hellsteed, ward up in the cold depths of Ashen Skies by the horses natural mane of fla. His captains rode their own steeds around him as the party of captains and generals slowly trotted to the north. Towards the song coming over the horizon. Swords and shields clattered against their black armour as the wind andered gusts of ash around the animals’ legs.
“Prince! Prince! Your Highness! Your Highness! My Prince!” Tarapheus’ ears were assaulted by the panicked voice of an imp that flapped its small wings through the air in order to catch up to the main party responsible for maintaining Tartarian presence in Rilia. Arascus’ Empire had been pushed back but it had not been defeated. Everyone in every council eting knew that. They had coiled backwards like a young wyrm, teeth bared, and waited to strike.
The Esberian front was the hope, the Rilian front was a matter of ti. If they didn’t have maps of this region from the First Arascan War, it would have been lost already. It was only through those maps that locations required for opening static portals back to Tartarus had been once again found. Two smaller portals, had been opened. Both hidden within natural caves although both were small. Only a few thousand Legionnaires could march through it a day. A greater demon would pause the flow entirely, cavalry was cumberso and worthless in this rugged terrain as well. It wasn’t anything like the grand rift in the middle of the Sassara.
Tarapheus’ job was simply to hold and fortify and claim this land, and be a nuisance. If he caused enough trouble to force Olephia away from the landbridge, that was a victory. How he was supposed to do that, no one knew. “I hear you.” Tarapheus growled. “It’s the music, isn’t it?” Reports had started coming in from the flaseerers scattered about the shoreline. At first, everyone had assud it a hallucination.
Hallucinations did not have a steady beat though.
Nor did hallucinations sing.
And if they sung, then certainly not in the Rilian and Imperial tongues.
A dark sky howled around him as the demons that made up his staff officers looked around on their hellsteeds turned east, it was coming from the north now. “It’s a sighting in the fires!” The little imp cried out, his fat little body carried by wings far too small for him. The little creature must have sprinted the flight here, demons were naturally red-faced, this one was almost dark crimson with blood.
“A sighting in the fires.” Captain Koronii repeated, the cold air underneath Ashen Skies lost another degree.
“Call up Kaliop.” Tarapheus’ bood the order. “Yilkon, you do it.”
“At once your Highness.” Captain Yilkon veered away on his horse towards the west. There stood one of the main camps in Rilia. Tarapheus didn’t let them congregate too much, just in case Olephia suddenly got an order to
“What was in the fires.”
“Lights coming over the horizon.”
“Lights over the horizon.” Koronii repeated once again. The hellsteeds hair of fire no longer felt as warm. Everyone knew what that ant. Imperial ships sailed in the darkness and only revealed themselves to bombard. This was a change in strategy. It was a show of force. Tarapheus had not been alive to serve in the First Arascan War, but he had read enough of it to know that what was considered a show of force on Arda existed on another level of scale. It was much like the wind magic that had devastated the armies to the south. That was an Ardan show of Force.
“Counter-attack.” Tarapheus said. It had to be. It was a counter-attack or they were about to drop sothing so devastating on them it would make the mass-manufactured Olephia bombs look like a damn joke. It better be a counter-attack, the other option was far worse. “What did they report?”
“Nothing else your Highness!” The imp squealed back, its words coming inbetween ragged breaths. “Just lights, Ardan ones. Their white ones, not the sun!”
Tarapheus had no reply. “Mmh.” Was all he could manage. They had a few of the grand cannons that had recently been designed in Tartarus. None were in position though, they were simply too large to bring directly through the pair of small portals to Tartarus opened up here. Parts could be brought over and then assembled, but parts took ti. And ti was sothing they never seed to have enough of.
“If I may advise.” Captain Koronii said, the horns on his head were an off-coloured grey. Darker than Tarapheus’ dull ivory ones.
“You may.” Prince Tarapheus said.
“If they’re bringing in a major Divine your Highness, then the best course of action would be for you to retreat.” Koronii said it with nothing but resignation.
“Anassa and Irinika were confird in Esberia today morning.” Captain Hakz said. His single horn should have sent him to be a re legionnaire, but it had co out half bone, half spotted black. A halberd hung off the side of his hellsteed as the animals ca to a trot. Behind them, they ash had been burned into black marks where they walked.
“We wait for a seerer and see.” Tarapheus said.
That was all they could do at the end of the day. Captain Yilkon returned with Flaseerer Kaliop on the back of his hellsteed fifteen minutes later. The soldier in the front rode in black armour, hands clasped tightly around the dark reins, the magician in the back was almost ethereal. A succubus dressed in fla, her curled downwards as if trying to hug the beast she rode on. Every now and then, when the song hit a low point, everyone would turn to look towards the north. At least the lights weren’t here. Tarapheus had to blink away the imagined glowing hue in the darkness of Ashen Skies. Surely they weren’t here. “Your Highness!” Yilkon said.
“Your Highness!” Kaliop jumped off the horse. “I assu you want to look through the fires again.” Tarapheus answered with a slow nod, Kaliop was already beginning her spell before he even finished. She reached down and used her finger to draw a wide circle in the ash around her, then walked out, finishing the diagram as she went. “It’s the eastern seaboard, yes?”
“It is.”
Normally, the demoness would crack a joke. Flaseerers had little respect for the military hierarchy, they belonged to the temples. Officially, Tarapheus only had rank over her because he was part of the royal family and she was not. Today though, with an Ardan war song playing in the distance, no one had any ti for jokes. Kaliop clapped her hands together, said a few words of power, then cast them into the air.
The ring in the ground before her blazed upwards, a column of searing hot fla ward everyone up. The Hellsteeds turned to warm themselves up around it, Tarapheus found himself leaning over for the warmth as Kaliop, her mouth singing her own chant, thrust her palms into the fire. She twisted them, her tail whisked from side to side, her eyes turned to the bright orange of fire, her language beca incomprehensible, and the pillar of parted in its midsection as if it suddenly grew an opening.
And Tarapheus looked through that window, linked to another fire, controlled by its own seerer, sowhere in the distance. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His thumb idly drew a star on his forehead, a prayer to Tartarus itself. “Where is it?”
“Five fires north. Forty minutes ride from here at a trot.” Kaliop replied.
“Forty minutes ride. Practically no distance at all.”
“Muster the troops.” Tarapheus said. “Captains, organise a response force. Bring over all forces we have in the area. Yilkon, you’re in charge of stalling, the rest of you, prepare a counter-assault. One main force, not-wave doctrine.” A choir of ‘yes your highness’ and ‘at once’ and ‘it will be done’ answered as the captains and generals began to ride off.
Tarapheus finally opened his eyes and stared through the window in the fla to what was happening over there. Gold statues and disks were scattered over the beach, that was so that Prince Mammon could monitor the situation even when they weren’t there. Mammon had not said anything though.
What was there to say?
A full Imperial fleet was inbound. Twelve ships in total, six on either side that were pulling sothing which looked like a battering ram. Tarapheus recognised the high towers of the Kassandora imdiately, as well as the Hallin and the Aris, those ships were famous even in Tartarus at this point. They were floating steel fortresses, not even castles, that bristled with weaponry. Now, they bristled with Imperial flags, barrels pointed upwards. Demons were already positioning themselves on the beach, spread out as was doctrine to counter enemy shelling.
Not against this though.
Twelve ships? A battering ram? What was that even? Blinding spotlamps on were pointed in all directions, illuminating the sludge that was the Eparika sea, as on the rest of the ships. And the Imperial black-red-white, flying high on every bow and every control tower.
Eight of the massive vessels began to veer off the sides. Tarapheus had read the reports and he had seen them once when he had been crossing the landbridge into Rilia. The turrets turned in the opposite direction as the ships, so that they always remained pointed towards the shore. It was written about. They were turning broadside to fire. “Send word to the beach troops Kalliop.” Tarapheus stalled when he saw the demoness’ eyes pin him.
There it was, the questioning crimson eyes that held the unsaid question: Send word for what exactly? Against Imperial battleships? “Don’t bother actually.” They’ll eat up so of the ammunition at least.
They ate up none of the ammunition. The demons stood on that beach, weapons raised and ready. So of the casters began to channel the flas in preparation. They were t not with cannon-fire from the massive guns on the vessels but with rifles from onboard. Small-calibre swept from side to side along the beach. The largest vessels raised their guns at an angle. They would be shelling the area, not the beach.
Two of the vessels, those that were towing that massive rod on its platforms slowed down. Two more, smaller ships that Tarapheus did not know the na of, sped up towards the beach. The demon prince and the succubus by his side simply watched, mouth agape as a pair of steel fortresses charged towards sands hidden under a layer of ash. The demons of the beach fell one by one as bullets ripped through them. He heard the song cleary now, not through the portal but over the horizon. His mind had not played a trick on him, the sky was indeed being lit up by sheer amount of Imperial spotlights conglorated into one area.
The beach opened up or the sea rushed forwards or maybe both happened at the sa ti as two Imperial vessels purposefully beached themselves. Imperial magicians on board, it had to be. Stone pillars rose out of the beach and grabbed at the vessels to keep them from falling over. Tarapheus felt the leather of his reins squeeze into his fingers as his mind ca to one conclusion.
If they had sent just a force, just troops, maybe those troops could be eventually exhausted. Maybe ammunition could be expended and the Imperial force could be forced back under the waters. But they were not dislodging two steel castles that bristled with their own guns and cannons. Humans launched into the air, their clothes twinkling, magicians. The ground pulled itself up and angled downwards to make ramps to the deck. Soldiers began to run down them.
But it was when the three huge statues at the bow of one of the ships moved that Tarapheus realised he was watching the physical incarnation of his death warrant co ashore. He had been wrong, they weren’t statutes. Imperial Divinity ard in war-suit, armoured and ready.
Tarapheus watched a snow-haired giant jump down from the ship. Two more behind her, one with hair of gold, then other the colour of orange roses. The cheer from the n was so loud he heard it over the horizon.
They fell into the ashen beach like the blade of a guillotine.
Imperial Battlegroup ‘Reclamation’ makes landfall in South-Eastern Rilia.
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