ID: 237

Outcome: Narrow Victory

Open After Story: Yes

Manual Prompt: Yes

Text:

You led your people into the Lapis Lazuli Palace. That was your victory, but more so theirs.



After coronation, you immediately began drafting reforms with Maggie. The most crucial: stripping the nobility of their right to raise armies, weakening their power while strengthening the crown. In your vision, nobles freed from the burden of maintaining private forces would see their troops disbanded or absorbed by your generals, then redeployed to the empire's key fortresses.



Naturally, your reforms met resistance. But that your gathered strength couldn't overcome it, which you'd anticipated. Yet neither you nor Maggie, ever your steadfast ally, would retreat. A vast empire has its inertia.To push hard in the right direction, even if not enough to derail ancient wheels, was victory enough.



Nobles slandered you. They ignored your decrees, or obeyed with hollow gestures. Slaves never heard your voice where their masters confined them, exploiting them more brutally lest they realize the law now called them men. You clashed endlessly with bureaucrats and nobles. Friction became conflict. Conflict became civil war. War eventually sputtered out through compromises, leaving only scars upon mutual trust.



It seemed endless. The realm you longed for seemed forever out of reach... You'd toppled a Sultan, yet couldn't savor victory's fruit, the jewel-bright prize still hanging above the realm...



How many more challenges must you face? How much of your spine must wear away to taste its sweetness? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? Would your lifetime suffice?



Ha... No matter! You'd try again and again. You and Maggie stood united before the court, glaring down your foes while behind the curtains, your hands clasped tight.



You feared nothing.

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