Saderan Perspective

After the senate session ended many of the senators either left for their villas or dispersed to further chat and scheme about the future. Many senators were still talking about today’s events and many more about the new laws set forth by the emperor. A lesser amount of them were seemingly talking about a strange feeling they’ve been having through the week. Many were just brushing it off as a feeling of nervousness from the new enemy while others thought it was a sign from the gods. Past all of these senators sat a small clique of senators safe from prying eyes and ears in a little room.

Cicero: puts down his wine glass. These new laws passed are straining the economy. With the lands between our west and east cut, it's going to be hard to get grain shipments to their silos. 

Marcus: That it will be, I’m more worried about the recruitment quotas being sent out. With the empire practically split in two now we need more able bodied men to be working on the fields that we have. I can understand the emperor’s need for fresh recruits in the legions, but still to hurt the markets and food storage we have doesn’t bode well for the empire. 

Casel: It does not, but this order set up to the allied kingdoms does give me pause.

Cicero: Why so Casel? 

Casel: While the allied kingdoms are certainly closer to the gate than any imperial legions within the region. To pull our southern garrisons out of their forts to help the attack doesn’t help us. The kingdoms to the south are preparing for war, maybe against each other or to retake the land we took a few generations ago. Moving those legions will leave our southern lands open to attack. 

Marcus: While that may be true the greacians have always been fighting each other. They wouldn’t attack the southern lands even if we didn’t have a single legionnaire there. If their collation of kingdoms gets into a battle and one loses more warriors than the other. Well what’s to stop the other kingdoms from turning back around and taking some of that new undefended land. I’m more worried about the troubles on our western frontier. 

Cicero: Ah yes the cartiagians  are rallying their armies and hiring mercenaries. With many of the legions in that area gone it would make sense for them to make a southern push and try to take bellhango and rondel. Cutting the empire in half even more and taking the western frontier. With only a skeleton force taking up refuge in our frontier castra I would expect they could break through the line into the frontier within a month or two.  

Casel: Which means the western part of our empire will have to deal with three separate invasions at the same time. Even if we were to fully recover our lost forces to retake the whole western empire would take a multi decade long war. Not to mention the possible centuries it would take to fully repair the damages to the land. The current doctrine put forth by the emperor does protect the heartland and the eastern empire. But it exposes the west too much to our allies and our enemies in the region. Hopefully the allied kingdoms are able to push the enemy from the gate out of our lands so we can recover.

Cicero: And if they fail?

Marcus: They can’t. their military numbers combined; they can marshall a force of over a hundred thousand men. Including the different auxiliares they carry with them they should be able to push the enemy out of the western frontier. The only problem is what happens after the battle.

Casel: Yes that it is. If they win the battle easily they will have the western frontier to themselves. An army nearly a hundred thousand strong will have free reign of the more prosperous region of the empire. They could easily turn against the legion attached to them and raid the whole region.

Cicero: Yet what else can the empire do. We’re retraining all our eastern legions to this new doctrine, our western legions are left to the commands of their legates. Our western empire is too exposed. Even our most loyal allies in the west might take advantage of our weakened state and pillage it.

Marcus: Empire is truly exposed. We have no hold over the west anymore we can only pray to the gods that everything goes well for the empire. 

Casel: indeed we can only pray. Let us hope that the gods favor the empire in this endeavor. 

All the men nod as they take sips of their glasses of wine. Their minds know that the empire if it wins this war will be forever changed. 



Myui perspective

She sat in her room, looking solemnly outside her window. When the deserters came to italica she held hope that her father would be with them. She knew that her father was a loyal man to the empire but she thought no hope that her father would try and guide them. Instead they returned and told her the truth. Her father was most likely dead after he lead italica’s legion through the gate. Her family was now at each other's throats, her sisters using their husbands to try and claim the city, starting a war between their clans which ended with a few hundred people dead before her sisters husbands were able to calm their minds. She was weak, when she first learned of her father’s possible passing she didn’t understand, she couldn’t understand. Her father was the best person in the empire. He treated everyone as his equal; he didn’t force taxes on everyone he built housing for people that lived in squalor. He couldn’t die he was too god for emory to take away. When she finally accepted the fact she cried and wailed into the night only being able to take comfort in her maids. She was in bed for a whole week, weak frail and wondering why. Why had the gods dealt her such a horrid hand. Her sisters didn’t comfort her; they simply fought over who could control her. Her maids were the only ones there for her. They truly cared for her in the weeks that she lived after her father died. Right now looking out at the city she is forced to care for she sees the carriage of the rose order approaching. She heard that people from the other gate were coming and that the city might be besieged. Yet the walls weren’t aflame and the people weren’t running towards the palace. So it seemed everything was going well. These new people would most likely want to speak with her, so she got out of bed and rang a bell for one of the maids to make her look a bit more respectable. She would have  to met these new people, she couldn’t be that weak girl anymore.