The Empire Delusion (Open to all)

[Maribell the Wanderer]

Waterwheel village was quite poorly named, considering it was significantly more than a simple waterwheel, but village names were not really something that accurately reflected the character of the settlement after a time. Maribell strode through, choosing a midnight black suit to better match his intentions. He was going to do his best to reverse the propaganda that had been spewed upon these people. The people in Trihali spoke of a fool that had wandered through with an entourage of armed men and spoke of a swarm of rats as the undoing of Senate, and Maribell could not stand to let this insane individual get the last word. As such, he made for Waterwheel as soon as he heard the word, but he was fairly sure he had missed his opportunity to debate and shut down the individual. Instead, he had to accept simply verbally destroying his memory only.

He strode to the market of the town and sat by the local well. He pulled out his golden pocket watch and waited patiently, watching the hands slowly approach the desired hour. As the time approached, he stored it away and looked up to see numerous people converging to collect their water for their daily chores and meals. He stood and let the first person in line by so that he could complete his gathering, but Maribell gently reached out and touched him, ”Is this water too polluted?”

”You are not one of those idiots are you? I don’t even know what that means. Can you please just go away?”

Maribell responded, raising his voice and projecting to all those he could see, ”I am not here to make up issues that do not exist, such as rats eating your food or whatever polluted water is. Instead, I would just like to ask you if the past three hundred years of peace have left you wanting to send your sons to die fighting their brothers, your gold stolen by men claiming that with it they can stop the Senate from taking the same gold, your crops pillaged in the name of stopping the Senate from doing the same, and your homes invaded by men needing somewhere to sleep so that they can continue sending your sons to die? Have you ever stopped to wonder why the Senate has stood for a thousand years? Any man or woman who praises the old days of the Empire has deluded themselves into believing that a thousand years ago Illirians lived in a paradise fantasy state that we abandoned by adopting the Senate. You must all be wary of these people, because they do not seek your support for your sake. They seek it for their selfish needs. These people want to destroy the Senate, an entity that has the largest army and the most land of any nation in Dheynor. Do you suspect that it will be simply brushed aside? No, it will commit to its own defense all the resources it can muster. To combat this, their aggressors will need all the troops, gold, supplies, and bases that they can get. Do you think they will kindly ask that you support them with men? No, they will steal your sons and friends, put them in whatever scrounged armor they can steal from a dead soldier, hand them an old rusted sword that could barely cut butter, and send them to the frontlines to be cut down. Soldiers do not march for free. They demand food for their bellies and gold for their wallets. Unlike the Senate, the rebels will not have either of these things. They will kick down your doors and take these things from you, swiping the very meals from your dinner table and the money from your wives’ purses. Finally, they will need to rest. The Senate has forts for their troops, but the rebels have no such military structures. They will need to steal your beds to allow their troops to sleep. Do you expect for them to settle for sleeping on the ground? Of course not, they are fighting for your sake. Remember that: they will promise to fight for your freedom now, but will steal everything from you later. All to restore an Empire that crumbled after only a few years of existing. They will expel the virtues of the Empire, but answer me this: it lasted only 40 years and was crumbling soon before its Emperor died. The Senate has survived 1000 years, retaking almost all the land the Empire held while supporting an everlasting peace. They promise to make your lives better, but they will only make it far worse.”

He stepped down and strode away, briefly turning around to add, ”And if the rats are such a big issue, I can buy you a breeding pair of cats. They don’t cost very much.” However, Maribell did not vanish. He slipped through the city and waited for any and all response by the Empire-seeking fools. He wanted to meet them.

Two individuals muttered to each other so that Maribell could not hear them, ”Man, we need to build a gate or something to keep these raving lunatics out.”

[Astian of Dheynor]

"Tell your father I thank him greatly for his business." The aged man said to Astian. "I will." He replied, grasping the man's hand in his own as he said goodbye. Astian had been in Waterwheel for a few hours, having arrived to visit his father's treasured 'finder'. Abe Alexander was a man of sixty odd years who spent his time searching for things others wanted. Astian had made several trips to the man, picking up books his father had requested he find. With a slight smile, Astian left the small home.

The village was small in comparison to what Astian had grown up in. It was nice though, the people were friendly enough. Well at least they usually were. The more he looked, the more irritated faces he saw. People were muttering under there breath or having harsh conversations with other unhappy folks. "Mira!" He called out to a young girl with a babe on her hip. "Is everyone drinking the same sour wine?" The girl turned and walked over to him. "Just some stupid sod raving about the glories of the senate. If you ask me people need to leave well enough alone. What does it matter to me who holds the land? Either way I have to pay, my sons are called for service and no one high up gives a damn about me. I wish they'd let me try to live the best life I can with the cards I got."

Astian chuckled, "That's why you're all so fussed? Don't listen to the man if you don't want to hear what he has to say. Don't let him affect your life." "Just a book of wisdom aren't you now? She said with a smirk. "Spit a bit of that at Robin and maybe he'll stop to think for a moment." "Maybe" Astian replied. He nodded his head in leave and continued down the path. Mira was Abe's daughter. She had been married off just over a year past but still helped her father work from time to time.

All of the people seemed to be interested in the same stranger. Undoubtably the 'raving lunatic' who was the subject of so many conversations. Astian walked up to the man, he was a little curious as to who could have caused such a reaction. "Looks as though you did not pick the best crowd." Astian said to him.

[Maribell the Wanderer]

The people of Waterwheel village were especially apathetic when compared to the rest of Illiria. First, the people were only a minor trading settlement with few travelers crossing through except for merchant ships full to brim with equally apathetic sailors, because they had several more stops before they could see their families. Second, these people sat in the figurative shadow of the Senate, but lived with an economy that was no better than the fringes of the Empire. All in all, everyday life held no mystique or intrigue, and those that lived in the town held their head low and placed one foot in front of another. This meant that Maribell had to do little to actually sneak out. No one really cared about what he said and just wanted to get their water from the well for their domestic use. The well had become a necessity shortly after the village had become established. The earlier tradition of taking water from the river had ended when the town became large enough to need to start dumping their sewage in there, and the merchants thought nothing of tossing their garbage overboard upstream.

Maribell was not leaving the village, only returning to his stash to arm himself from the unlikely harassment. He always had his trusty sword at his hip and his chemical launcher against his side, but neither had the suicidal flair of bottles of organic acid. He returned to his wagon, which he used to travel to and from the places that caught his fancy. It was probably the reason why he had missed the previous rabble-rouser, but you often had to sacrifice the advance for the sake of logistics. He jumped in beneath the awning. His wagon was one of the few places he did not fear dirt ruining his suit, because he obsessively cleaned it to make sure that nothing accumulated. He crawled past a water urn filled with 5 kg of purified inorganic arsenic powder. Behind it was a briefcase, padded with as much cotton as possible. Inside, six spherical bottles of acid sat, nestled and protected from travel by the cotton stuffing. He removed two and placed them in his suit coat, making use of a designed hook-and-handle system to keep them attached. He did not like walking around with such items because they could easily break and coat his skin with enough acid to kill him from outside in. However, a showman was nothing without his tricks even if they were more likely to kill him than anything else.

He returned to the well area, standing off to the side swinging his pocket watch in a circle around on its chain to waste time. Sadly, there was not a third raving lunatic today. Instead, a sensible villager approached him and opened with a joke. He twirled his watch one last time and caught it, smiling at the stranger, ”I suppose that is the only sensible that can be said of my performance. I was hoping someone was here, but looks like our stars did not cross today. The name is Lance.”

[Astian of Dheynor]

"Sebastian." Astian replied as the man before him introduced himself as Lance. The name came so easily to his lips. Having spoken it for around a decade. Astian had become used to it for certain. It was a smart choice, he thought, made by a smart man. it had been interesting growing up as a child of the senate. Even more so considering his true lineage. Astian not only had several strong connections, but he also had learned a great deal. Lance had a point. The senate held itself together longer than the Empire ever did. However, the senate had flaws as well. The question would never come down to what was better for the people. It would come down to which side had the most strength. Astian did not feel the need to place his support on either side. Both sides had played a part in the destruction of his life. Astian did not seek to get what some called his birthright, he wanted vengeance. Once he acquired that.... who knows what he would do.

"So why do you give such a strong support to the senate? Or is it that you just prefer it over the alternative?" Astian asked. He was not going to dance around the subject, it was why he had chosen to converse with Lance in the first place. Maybe because he's a complete loony who needs to learn a thing or two about public presentation?Said Fevyn. The red dragon was no doubt rolling around on the ground just outside the village. The two were close enough to communicate still, any further and the pain would have begun to set in. Dropped as an infant? Astian replied, Either that or just born crazy. Fevyn answered.

Astian and Fevyn got along better then any two beings could. Different in some ways, similar in others. They kept their minds so closely intertwined that sometimes they couldn't tell who's thought was who's. Since Fevyn had hatched for Astian they hadn't had a single dispute. In all of their banter they rested on the same side. Even if they didn't exactly believe what the other did, they agreed. It was far easier for them to get along and listen to the other. No one knew them better after all.

[Maribell the Wanderer]

”Strong support for the Senate? Yes, I suppose on the surface I appear to be a zealot,” Maribell held onto the very end of his golden pocket watch chain, allowing it to hang freely. ”What I said I said to attract a very specific type of person, Sebastian. A type of person that cannot trust a stranger, so I chose to speak lies in hopes that I can move from being untrustworthy to friendly faster.” His goal had been to attract the lunatic that had haunted Waterwheel village a few days ago with hatemongering, and then try to explain that he lied about his position to specifically attract said lunatic. As Maribell figured, the lunatic would not trust him regardless of whether he spoke the glory of the Senate or the glory of the 1000 year old dead Empire. If the lunatic were smart, that person would confront Maribell in the former case to dispel his words, and Maribell would have relented and allowed the person to win. In the latter case, the lunatic would have kept tabs on Maribell. As the popular saying goes, to him that watches, everything is revealed. Counter intuitively, Maribell had come to the conclusion that the best way to gain the trust of the Loyalists was to denounce that faction, which was his actual position, and immediately relent his position when confronted by the Loyalists, which was counter to his true beliefs. In short, he wished to tell his truths as lies to become that which he hated to destroy what he hated. It is often quite telling that sane men do not create such plans.

”I suppose that doesn’t make sense. Little does. The rightful heirs of Illiria are hunted. The Loyalists hide when the people favor them. The Senate stuffs their pockets even as the people despise them more and more. Sometimes the best move is to take one step back,” he smiled innocuously at Sebastian. He was mildly hinting that his true position lay parallel with the rebels, which “Lance” slightly suspected was this man’s philosophy. He had no evidence of the matter only that it seemed to be in vogue to hate the Senate. Besides, Maribell had almost no fear of any man turning him in for seditious words, since he just stood in front of a large crowd to support the state. At this point, he had begun to swing the pocket watch back-and-forth as a pendulum.

[Astian of Dheynor]

The man spoke like a manipulator. Lance was obviously someone who could push his point. It also seemed as though Lance was talking down to him, but that didn't bother him so much. It seemed this man thought a bit highly of himself, and having that confidence wasn't always a bad thing.

Although Lance's next group of words created a slight pang in his heart, nothing appeared to change on the outside. His expression and body language were normal. He had come accustomed to conversation about his family. He had needed to, else risk exposure.

"Humans are fallible, whether senators, heirs or common men." He said, "However I do not believe people should generalize others as much as they do. My father is a senator." Astian said, "I've grown up around the senate. Some of them are not as bad as they seem at times." Quite unlike myself, he thought. Astian had to attempt to remain as neutral as he could. Although he was not as skilled at it as he would like.

Astian had had a privileged life compared to many. He had seen how hard others worked, he had been present as his sisters feed hungry children. That was the problem. It didn't matter what people said. No rule could create the perfect world for everyone, although they tried to convince the subjects they did. Lance was right when he said little made sense. Perhaps, however, that was how things were meant to be.

[Maribell the Wanderer]

Maribell had decided he had wasted too much time in this pathetic village. One could argue that he was being a bit too harsh in his judgment of Waterwheel, but it was nothing like Riedel, which he has over the years come to accept as what little home he had. He had come here to try and draw out the rebellious forces and ingratiate with them, but it seems like none were taking the bait. ”You may be right Sebastian. Luckily, I am also human,” if one forgot the fact that I really shouldn’t be he thought, ”and therefore allowed to be perfectly fallible. I may hold mutually exclusive ideas in my head and accept them both as truth, even when I deny the expected in favor of the impossible. Having said that, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance Sebastian, but I must now leave to further haunt other villages with my presence. Have a good day.” He caught his pocket watch and returned it to its rightful home in his pocket before he stepped away towards his wagon.

As he weaved around the townsfolk, he crossed paths with two traders entering the town, both leading their pack oxen while on foot. ”I’m just saying what I heard. These bandits were just doing their usual bandity thing, right?” spoke one merchant. He was dressed down, but he looked very much like a textile merchant from the East with the beautiful rolls of fabric on his ox. Too bad there were not Siourean, or they would have been of an actual good quality.

”Right,” the other merchant replied. She looked like a traveling herbalists with a prominent display of ointments and poultices upon her pack animal.

”I hear they go in for the kill of this boy and his dad, but they stop dead in their tracks when they hear a horrendous roar from the forest. They look to see what made the noise, and it is this giant four-armed beast! It rushes the first bandit and tears him literally in half with his huge tusks, you see because the creature has huge tusks, and the other bandits piss themselves.”

”Is that actually part of the story or are you just making it up?”

”No, they definitely pissed themselves. Wouldn’t you?” she, of course, shrugged. ”Anyway, this beast, I think the guy who told me it was called a Wendigo, just killed the rest of the bandits, except one. This guy hid or was blessed or lucky or whatever, and he managed to sneak to the boy and dad. The three pushed the wagon away and got away from the Wendigo. Crazy.”

”Sounds completely and utterly false. Where did you hear this?”


”A merchant. Crossed his path while he was heading away from Lys and I was heading here. He told me it happened outside of Lys. In fact, the bandit survived and joined the Sianeh temple there. Turned his life around, apparently.”

”Doubtful,” she muttered. Maribell listened and shrugged. This could be an interesting lead to follow up on. Myths were very rarely spoken of going around and murdering bandits, and it could be an interesting chance to investigate the history of the North. As he has learned in his life, history was one of the few pleasures in life that he could actually enjoy. He decided his next stop would be Lys.