> 7th Hill Intra-Nexus Update to the Comitia VIII:
>
> The transit of sanguine essentia has returned to prior levels.
>
> My recommendation is to convene as soon as practicable to lift the restrictions on essentia use in the capital.
>
> Caelus Sertorius Osterianus - Censor VII
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Prologue
The Senate Square was nearly empty as the afternoon sun descended on the seven hills of Erulea, the city which became an empire.
A cluster of young scribes bickered as they carried stacks of albumstone etched with the day’s business to be published in the forums, their hands speckled with the bright chalky residue of the soft stone. They rushed from the steps of the senate to one of the uniformly massive buildings adjoining. The lengthening afternoon glow lit the bigger, newer albumstone buildings of the second empire with a bright orange glow that clashed with the more natural marble of the older buildings in the square, proud remnants of the first empire.
As the scribes chatter and shuffling footsteps were cut off behind enormous doors, Podius was left in silence on his bench to glare. The youths reminded him of the team he left the city of Erulea with; he had not been back since.
His reminiscence lingered in the lengthening shadows of the ostentatious buildings dedicated to the power and wealth of the empire. They were symbolic of the corruption of the second empire: too bright, unnecessarily large, and in a style that aped the elegance and functional beauty of the first.
Shaking the bitter look off his face he focused on his task.
He was not alone in the square. Standing in front of his target were the Emperor's Guards, their ceremonial armour chased with gold, sweating in the lingering heat of the harvest season.
Podius quietly enjoyed the soldier's discomfort. It was that sort of wasteful and pointless job that plagued the legion away from the front. Twenty soldiers stood at attention in full armour all day, but they had no real power to guard against what was about to happen.
Amongst the guardsmen a tessarius was glaring back at Podius. The senior soldier was a grizzled veteran in the highest rank he could achieve as a soldier without a commission and his gaze carried the weight of that experience as he eyeballed Podius. He wasn’t sure if the gaze carried suspicious of the heavy robe and cowl he was wearing in the heat or if he sensed what Podius was carrying but the man was on high alert.
Even out of uniform and outranking the veteran soldier the stern glare made Podius uncomfortable, reminding him of his time as a conscript. Shedding the feeling of scrutiny he adjusted his battle armour, preparing to strike. His fingers softly stroked the gauntlet on his right hand letting the hard lines reassure him as he rested them on the calculii, a vibrant red gemstone that would manifest the power he carried.
Here at the centre of the empire he could feel the power beneath him, a vast well under the eight hills tugging at the essentia of a vast proportion of the continent. Standing so close to the Erulean Nexus there was an urgency to the draw on the massive pool of essentia he had hoarded as it begged to be released.
Channelling some essentia down his arm a familiar feeling of power surged and the potential for violence drowned his distaste for the pretension of the capital and what subtle apprehension lingered. He would need to incapacitate the tessarius quickly, then subdue his subordinates.
The time had come for Podius to unleash his frustration and to do what was needed to clean up the mess of Erulean politics. The moment of glory for Podius and the REAL Erulean Legion.
Standing and throwing off his robe with a flourish, Podius flared essentia through his body with a burst of red light that coalesced in a halo of crimson fire. He focused the power down his legs and cast Crimson Tail, an ars he was famous for. The light rushed downwards and ignited into plumes of flame, lifting him off the ground. He accelerated upwards and in moments he was high in the air over the senate steps.
With graceful skill he rotated and slowed his momentum with a jet of flame. As he descended the streak of flame leading back to his now charred seat flew behind him like a cloak and with a gesture he whipped it down in an explosive splash across the steps.
The Emperor's Guards had reacted quickly drawing their short swords and rectangular shields. In just a moment they had glowing edges on their blades and barriers of white light emanating from their shields to form an opaque wall with a pearlescent sheen. Standing ready at their posts along the steps up to the senate they made no move to engage as the fire smouldered around their shielded bodies.
Landing amidst the flames, Podius addressed the Senate steps.
“Too long we have listened to the feeble fishwives that served as the sheperd's of the Great Erulean Legion…”
Podius trailed off as the guardsmen didn’t react.
The tessarius made an awkward coughing noise and signalled the guards to lower their shield.
“You might want to go inside to give your speech,” the senior soldier suggested.
“... you aren't going to stop me?”
Sheathing his gladius and saluting with an open hand over his heart the tessarius shook his head with a chuckle.
“Well sir, you are a decorated Legionnaire so there doesn't seem much point. Though part of me would like to see what you can do with that and half the sanguine essentia of Erulea.” The tessarius chuckled and gestured reverently at the glowing gauntlet.
Podius was flummoxed with the response to his attack, but took the opportunity to show off his Legendary Gauntlet. Turning and extending his arm to let the gem on top of his hand catch the light as he tried to catch up mentally.
“The Fist of the Red Tyrant… beautiful.” The tessarius was transfixed.
“It coalesced on the Duroglenn nexus invasion.”
The veteran whistled his appreciation as he asked seriously, “No-one else came back?”
Podius shook his head with a grimace.
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“Ah…” The tessarius gave a sombre nod as he saluted again and waved Podius onwards. “Welcome home. They are waiting for you in the chambers.”
“Right, well… I’ll be going in then…”
Podius scratched his head as he turned up the steps. Passing the guards as they saluted and returned to attention within the clearing smoke from the fading fire.
Reaching the top of the steps Podius paused, here he had imagined an epic confrontation. His homeward march had been slow, gathering essentia from each of the transit nodes along the Via Sanguinis to fuel the power he now wielded, he had to frequently top up the constant drain of maintaining the vast pool of essentia he wielded unnaturally outside of a rift. At each stop it was a surprise that none of the soldiers or priests stopped him at any of the sub-nexuses. To be again allowed to pass without challenge was deeply confusing to Podius. The essentia he had gathered was a valuable resource, the power and lifeblood of the empire.
The hardened soldier within him also felt a deep dissatisfaction of unrequited violence.
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As he moved past the steps he came to the arched entrance of the ante-chamber of the Senate Chambers. The room was uncomfortably warm with fireplaces on each wall of the nine-sided room. There were different themes on each wall: richly decorated gold leaf on the western wall to wooden shiplap spars on the mantle beside that.
At the centre of the room a large multi sided fireplace squatted on the original marble floor. The bright white albumstone hearth shouted it's garish second empire origins and was gaudily carved with scrollwork and gold plated swords drawing the eye up the eight legs to a coronet set on each of the mantles. This fireplace symbolised the 8th Hill of Erulea, the hidden cabal of the powerful and connected of the empire. With a scowl and a wad of spit he moved past, focusing his attention on the humble fire on the north western side.
Reverently he rubbed the marble mantle, beginning a ritual to honour the hearth as he had done in times of celebration and remembrance since he was a child. Tentitively he let the marble of the mantle draw a trickle of his stored essentia and murmured a prayer. As he idly recited the words he traced the red veins in the marble across the carvings of regular people working to create. They laboured at looms and forges, with tools in their hands and concentration on their faces. Podius’s tracing stopped at a leatherworker bent over a stretching frame as he reminisced.
His childhood on the 7th Hill was a distant memory, though he still felt like a young man at only 31. His life since his time in the workshop had been nothing but violence and the countless deaths of friends and enemies. He had jumped into meaningless battle after battle joining the macabre dance with the Silvanian Kingdoms and now the memories and blood weighed heavy on his spirit.
Podius finished the ritual by kneeling and resting his forehead on the hearth stones.
“You probably shouldn’t keep the Emperor waiting,” a familiar voice softly chided. “But it is good that you honour the hearth still.”
Podius instantly recognised Censor Caelus despite the decade and a half that had aged the man. Caelus was a teacher and mentor to Podius, as the Censor of the 7th hill he had assessed his attunement as a youth and taught him the basics of essentia and suggested a path for his ars and classes.
They clasped wrists in greeting and Podius gestured at the multi coloured trim on his white robe.
“I see you are still torturing children.”
Cealus laughed as they walked together. They exited the antechamber and strode through a hall lined with busts of past emperors.
“We all do what we must,” Caelus recited the words of the First Tyrant glibly. Smiling at his own wit for timing the quote as they passed the long dead emperor's face carved in albumstone. Podius’s rolled eyes in response made the older man smile wider.
“When I heard you were returning I had hoped your defiance might have matured, but you always did think so rigidly. It is a classic trait of a deep red. Where are Kaeso and Bostar?”
Podius frowned at the mention of his surviving team members.
“Kaeso stayed to raze Duroglenn, and Bostar disappeared one night on the way back around Tremona. Why are you here? To talk me out of it?”
“It is a shame they did not come with you, they would have been helpful for what is to come. I am just here to bear witness, I was the Censor responsible for your conscription and still my wagon is very much hitched to yours.” The Censor sighed fondly and seemed at ease despite the seriousness of the situation. “Come. Let us meet our fate.”
The pair entered the senate chamber. The floor of the room was carved down some way below them and from the entrance they looked down to the recessed floor of the massive circular room. The roof was an incredible dome with a circular sky light at the peak that normally made the space bright at its centre, but as night was falling an eerie orange glow hit one side of the room and left the rest of the room shrouded in darkness.
On the circular stage in the middle of the room a man was lit from below by the soft warm glow of several torch stones scattered artfully around him. Emperor Septimus VII looked exactly like the murals and statues with perfectly curled brown hair under his coronet, a golden wreath of oak leaves. He had too-smooth pasty skin of one born to privilege who had spent too little time outside. As the 7th to inherit the title claimed by the 7th Tyrant he had probably never seen a rift, let alone risked his life in one.
Podius had thought about what he would say to the Emperor for months. As he started his practised speech the frustration came through in his voice and echoed through the cavernous room as he moved and spoke.
“While we have suffered on the front through nightmares and deathscapes, here in Erulea the limp wristed, corrupt and inept have actively slowed the progress of the legion…
…The politics of the Centuriata have elected a series of atrocious marshals who have led the northern legion to a cycle of uninspired victories marching overwhelming force up the Via Sanguinis. Their lethargic expansion taking every opportunity to secure personal profit and their disorganisation and insufficient supply inevitably culminating in an embarrassing retreat that starts the cycle again down the same. worn. campaign trail…”
Podius had walked as he spoke and now on the stage he stood across from the Emperor who just stood and listened to him speak. The man was nodding placidly as Podius’s speech escalated to a rant.
“...and you… you have done… NOTHING!” Podius waited for a response, but the Emperor said nothing as he just mildly smiled and nodded his head. The Emperor's calm demeanour, the lack of reaction and passive expression on his face enraged Podius and he began to channel his essentia, “Even now. Faced with overwhelming power, YOU… DO… NOTHING!”
Flourishing his legendary gauntlet, Podius made a five point gesture as he channelled essentia through the ars encased within. Powerful bolts of fire leapt from the red calculii mounted on the top of his hand towards the Emperor with five thumps of instantaneously created super heated air igniting and accelerating with a corresponding roar as they struck. The figure in front of him stumbled as it was engulfed in fire.
Barely flinching as the conflagration swirled around the room Podius began a follow up attack subconsciously, the fingers of his left hand twitched as he began triggering his finisher ars to merge the inferno he had summoned in the initial barrage.
As the threads of essentia tugged on his fingers, begging him to compress the air ignited in the chamber to a focal point and grind his target to a fine ash, he hesitated.
Within the raging fire he no longer saw a man, but a glimmer of gold swirling in an inscrutable runic font and the flicker of something large moving. No-one could possibly have survived his opening attack with perfectly attuned ars channelled through calculii developed from a decade and a half on the front charged to peak rift levels with the essentia he carried. Each bolt could kill a dozen men.
Muscle memory triggered the ars without his concious thought. The inferno was sucked into a fraction of it’s size leaving a vacuum of air in the room and the stage they stood on glowing and sizzling with heat. A moment later a wave of hot air rushed back at Podius, and as it roared through the room he had a clear view of his target.
Where Emperor Septimus VII stood was a pile of ashes. A surreal moment passed as he felt a moment of relief before a tendril of worming doubt clawed at him, this had been too easy.
As he stood, staring at the ash, Censor Caelus patted him on the shoulder and walked to the pile of ashes. Podius could sense an ars allowing him to withstand the lingering heat. His old mentor reached into the smouldering pile picking something up from within, carelessly scattering the remains of the former emporer as he did so.
He held up the Emperor's coronet and pronounced loudly to the room.
“The Emperor is no more, his line has ended! Let us praise the 8th Tyrant.”
Caelus kneeled in front of Podius and offered him the coronet. As Podius placed the golden wreath on his head he banished his lingering doubts.
“All hail Tyrant Octavius!”
Around the room several men lit torch stones to reveal themselves in the gloom and joined the resounding cry.
“All hail Tyrant Octavius!”
Podius stood on the stage as strange men greeted him as Octavius. He was the emperor now. He would fix Erulea.