“Announcing Lydia August the Fourth of House Hohenzollern, Marquise of…” the herald started rattling down titles as they made their way in. It was one night later; John had had a chance to reapply his oils; everyone had gotten a good night’s sleep; Lydia had gotten to do some paperwork. The world was largely back to normal. Although there was a Russia shaped hole on the map of powers that needed to be filled.The court was as packed as was expected of a historic peace deal, people of all kinds and professions stuffing the giant hall. The last two occasions on which John had been here, first for the trial and then for the deployment orders, he had been rather hastened, but this time he took a moment to take it all in.

There were rows upon rows of long benches running away from the central walkway. They stood in a slightly diagonal angle and were made from sand coloured wood, a colour John began to think Romulus was in love with, seeing how much he used it. Even the very last rows, from which one could basically only see little figures gesturing in the distance, were packed to at least hear what would happen here.

Every twenty metres or so, there was a small series of steps that lowered the next aisle enough that the one behind it could easily look over. From a certain height upwards, flying platforms allowed the most influential or wealthiest of the onlookers to make their private areas in the otherwise public hall.

The design got more and more luxurious the further in he got, a myriad of eyes following him as he walked down the central way behind Lydia, together with Rave and Aclysia. Momo and Metra were watching this from the sidelines.

‘These people look like they need a fun conversation,’ Sylph chirped into his mind; ‘Can I have one with them? Can I? Can I?’

‘S-sylph, now is really not the time,’ Gnome carefully said.

‘It’s never the time! I am bored, these political stuffs are stupid, you are stupid, I wanna talk to people!’

‘You can wait over there with Momo and Metra if you promise not to bother anyone,’ John said.

‘What? Really? Coooool!’ Sylph materialized and flew off. Salamander, with an annoyed expression, flew after her to make sure the tempest elemental didn’t go about and do stupid stuff.

Looking after them, John felt the princess’ glare and looked at the grey eyes that were peeking over Lydia’s shoulder. ‘Do you need to make a scene?’ they seemed to say. In response he just shrugged; it was just Sylph having fun, he cared fairly little about the crowd, aside from the fact that he wanted to get out of it as fast as possible.

At the end of the hall, there was a large flat area and then the podium with Romulus’ throne on it. Behind it stood still, unmoving since the start of the war, the casket of the former king of Germany together with the two-headed eagle that was Rex Germaniae’s patron god.

The throne was vacant, the emperor was instead sitting at a round oaken table. It was big and separated into several segment for seats by the carving on it, each segment going to a seat.

There were three parts that had the image of a three-eyed owl sitting atop a fleur-de-ilis, the iconography of the Illuminati. These seats were filled by the Horned Rat and two other people John didn’t know apart from the fact they had to be the other two members of the triumvirate that led the guild. They didn’t seem to be interested in John’s arrival, but he was very interested in them. One of them seemed to be a similar person to Maximillian, albeit a bit older and female. Wearing modern clothes but with the addition of certain noble things (such as an extraordinary number of rings and other jewellery as well as the red and white cape), the raven-haired woman had a diligent expression. The last of the triumvirate was a guy that John could only describe as a mad scientist, complete with hair that seemed to be mid-combustion, dirty goggles and oil-stained clothes that may have once fitted the occasion but had been sacrificed to science.

They were a… diverse bunch of people, and John was itching to Observe them, but he didn’t want to risk offending any of them when he got caught. With the Horned Rat around, there was no if to that situation.

Next up were four seats that had the emblem of a man holding the sun and the moon close to his chest, filled by Rodaclam, Sol, Romulus and Luna in that order. The emperor sat with his back to his own throne and waited for everyone else to get into their seats with closed eyes and crossed arms.

In a seat single to her and without any emblem sat Justitia. The blind goddess was here to ratify the demands that were made to her as placeholder for the now destroyed Blood of the Proletariat more so than she had the seat to negotiate.

Then there were four who were sitting under the emblem of a one-eyed raven with his wings-wide open in front of a hammer. The Sons of Odin were represented by three men in modern clothes who looked remarkably alike as well as a woman. The men all had strong-jaws and wore outfits that were technologically advanced mixtures between armour and practical clothing. The most noticeable difference between them was their hair colours, one white, the next blue and the last blond. The women at their side was a typical northern beauty and had dark blue, almost black, hair as well; her outfit was similar to that of her compatriots but had also been equipped with a pair of wings.

They each wore a certain colour scheme that made it rather easy to identify who each of them was supposed to be. The woman wore white, for example, combined with her hair colour that made for the two colours in the flag of Finland. The white-haired man wore red, making him the Dane of the group. His blue haired (presumed) brother wore mostly red but had white stripes at the rims of his armour, the colours of Norway. Meanwhile, the last of the group wore a whole lot of blue, combining with his golden hair to make him the obvious Swede.

John had expected the faction to look a bit more like Vikings, but it seemed they didn’t want to fit his stereotypes this time.

Another single seat was given to someone who was wearing a toga, like Romulus, and wearing an olive branch on his head, also like Romulus. The balding man with grey hair was busy reading something and so obviously Greek that John didn’t need to guess from his emblem, a laurel branch winding around the acropolis, that he was from Prometheus.

Lastly, there were seven seats given to the electorate of Rex Germaniae, united under the symbol of the two-headed eagle who was their emblem and who also watched over this whole proceeding with keen eyes. Lydia took her seat amongst those people, right next to Maximillian, and John went off to the side where the advisors were running around.

He saw Nariko there, but because the women looked upset about something and he wanted to listen closely to this historic event, he didn’t speak to her. With everyone finally at the table, they had actually followed an ordered introduction in which Lydia just happened to be last, Romulus opened his eyes and rose from his seat to address the audience and everyone who was watching them through the cameras.

“People of the world, the Blood of the Proletariat is no more. It has been lit aflame by the torch of justice and sacrificed on the altar of history. With it burn my need for revenge, for justice has been done, and with it I sacrifice my age of idleness. The empire shall no more stand as an unmoving monolith, slowly eaten away by the waves of time, but instead it shall find a new way to exist. I dub today the day of two changes, but before we can begin with the talks about the new European order, we must settle the matter of the German succession, for there cannot be a clear discussion without a figurehead amongst Rex Germaniae.

“Both candidates have committed grave mistakes out of compassion. Maximillian led a traitor deep into the heart of the tournament as his trusted aide Alexej. Lydia kept quiet about her father’s true history, and thus we were blind to the Blood breaking into the vault of the Knights of Teuton, thus remaining unknowing that they had claimed one of the most powerful one-use artefacts the empire had kept locked.

“Both have shown faults, but both have also shown promise. Maximillian overcame betrayal and has shown that his trust in tradition isn’t blind by revealing to the world his refusal to fuse with his elemental. Lydia overcame prison, freeing herself before being found and had shown to be willing to work with instead of against the present structures if they are responsive.”

The emperor finally took a pause. “I do not have a favourite in this race, when I voted for the fight to happen, I did so because I thought neither of them worthy. I would lie if I thought that has changed. They remain too young, too convinced of their paths and too inexperienced, but given guidance, they might fill the vacuum that Frederik has left behind. We are out of time, and so I will leave it to the electors to vote once more. First, electress of the Ne-“

“Excuse me,” Maximillian interrupted, “but I rescind my claim to throne. Voting is unnecessary, really.”

John felt like he needed to get a new set of ears, and apparently, everyone else shared that conviction.

“Could you repeat that?” Romulus, blinking in confusion, asked in a baffled tone. Even at over 10 millennia of age, the emperor didn’t seem to have experienced enough to expect this.

Always a bit of a showman, Maximillian rose from his seat and began a long walk around the table. Slow steps, underlined by the clicking of his walking stick, echoed through the room as he talked. “I am rescinding my claim to the throne of Rex Germaniae, and furthermore, I am going to leave Austria for a few years; the governing will be transferred to a council of my siblings and cousins,” he said with a grin and basked in the confused murmuring and glances he got from everyone.

For a moment he just walked, passing the Illuminati without a word. “As you have correctly pointed out, my emperor, Alexej betrayed me,” he said in a suddenly much more grave voice; “I can still feel the place where he stabbed me, and while my body may have healed,” he stopped for a moment and tapped his bad leg, “mostly healed, I remain… unhealthy of mind. I have been needing to take medication to sleep. I lock the door thrice and have Hawpler watch over me. In my current state, I am not fit to rule anything; it is only my showmanship that even keeps me current at times like these. Indeed, it is the publicity that let’s me stand upright and tall when all I need… is a vacation.

“So, I leave the throne I don’t have untouched and the one I have empty for a few years, and I am going to travel and return at some time in the future to claim again what is rightfully mine. Until I can trust again and until I feel like a human again and not like a target dummy, I leave behind my nobility and my titles, for I am not worthy of either right now. I leave it…” he stopped his full circle between his empty and Lydia’s seat and gestured at the wide-eyed princess sitting there, “…to her.”

Then he took his seat again and was left the only grinning person in the hall. Even the Horned Rat seemed confused about what had just happened. Now John also understood what Nariko was seething about; with Maximillian forfeiting the throne, her last chances, however, slim to win the gamble she had taken when siding with him were eliminated. That, in turn, put her future in the Abyss Auction into question.

John started working on a plan to funnel money over to Nariko in a way that would get him on her good side. Would be a nice change of pace, and he would become protector of a den of (presumably) hot Japanese girls. Everyone won.

The happenings at hand took precedent though. The Reichsadler acknowledged the leaving king’s decision. Stretching his mighty wings with a screech from both of his beaks, he suddenly was set ablaze, the fire quickly spreading to the casket bearing the old king.

Nobody moved as both the massive form of the eagle as well as the corpse were consumed over the course of several minutes. John watched in awe as the past king was sent off in thoughtful silence. John had only shared one conversation with the man, during which he had already warned him that the Gamer would have been one of the last persons to get to know him. He probably would have been an interesting person to know.

For John that was the extent of his feelings, but for Lydia that obviously wasn’t all there was to it. This was her grandfather, the man who had picked her up after her normal family had crumbled. In a world that had seemed harsh and cold, he had given her shelter and a new path. Nobody could have blamed her for the single tear that rolled over her face as the fire burned, although she wasn’t the only one who cried.

The pyre eventually became naught but ashes.

“Your regency has begun,” Romulus ended the universal silence, standing up and walking over to the ashes, staining his hand with black as he reached inside and picked something up. He went back to the table and sat-down, opening his fist to reveal a tiny hatchling rearing his twin heads. “He will grow with your time as governor, as monarch, as queen of Rex Germaniae,” he spoke in a soft voice, watching as the hatchling spied its new queen and slowly tapped his way over the table.

It took weak steps, a struggling bird too young to fly and yet too old to remember how to walk with such a tiny body. Slowly, it made its way over to Lydia and finally sat down in front of her. The newly ascended queen raised her hand, hesitating for a mere moment, before finally gathering all of her strength as more tears began to fall from her blue eyes.

“Join me, people of the world,” Romulus roared as Lydia placed the hatchling on her shoulder; “Join me in congratulations for the ascendance of Lydia Augusta the Fourth of House Hohenzollern - Queen of Steel!”

The crowd screamed the newly appointed queen’s name out in unity, three times. John joined them for the first, but then he got distracted by a bunch of windows.

John accepted the quest without hesitation.