Well, the war was over, so this was as good a time as any other. Also, the duration wasn’t nearly as oppressive as the last patch.

“Nice, very nice,” the Horned Rat, mostly regrown by now although his head was still too big for his average human sized body, clapped once the cheering had finished, “a truly fascinating end to the tournament. Ah, I could have spared my meddling in these whole affairs, inserting Nia into the tournament, if I knew this was going to end with just the drop of a nuke.”

“I don’t tzink it’z particularly wize of you to announce your scheming on live television,” the regal looking woman at his side berated the Rat in a particularly heavy French accent.

“They know what I am about,” Richard said with a bellowing giggle. “I have no need to hide it.”

At that occasion John wondered where Nia even was. The Horned Rat had not brought her with him, and she didn’t seem around elsewise. ‘I am going to ask him once this over,’ John thought, and the conference continued.

“Well then, before we go over to the actual peace conference, let me announce the other of the two changes I announced for this titular day,” Romulus said; “I will put in place a series of reforms that will allow Rex Germaniae to leave the status as the empire’s direct subordinate.”

The crowd was either baffled or shouted out in jubilation. “This will allow Rex Germaniae to perform greater inner reforms without acceptance of Roman officials. However, Germany will remain part of the greater empire and is ultimately associated to the Sons of Rome.”

That put a bit of a damper on the secessionists’ mood while it made the people who wanted to stay a bit happier. Neither party really got what they wanted in this situation, but they also weren’t offended enough to make a fuss about it. Seemingly, Romulus had quelled both of the factions demands for the moment. With nobody getting what they truly wanted, the issue was most likely going to come up again a few years down the line, but it had been postponed.

“I will take you by your words, Emperor,” Lydia said and bowed her head in a thankful gesture; “However, you will have to excuse me if I say that I want to be a judge on all of these reforms.”

“Of course,” Romulus made a benevolent gesture; “It is not my intent to end my isolation by becoming a tyrant. I will also state clearly that I will use Rex Germaniae and its fractured nature as a testing ground for state ideas.”

“So, we are to be your laboratory of policy?” Lydia asked, her voice echoed with disapproval.

“You wanted to federalize the country anyway,” the emperor shrugged; “Therefore, what I want will come its way by the nature of your own goal anyway, Queen Lydia. Nobody will lose anything.”

That wasn’t untrue, so Lydia backed down on the subject and nodded. “I will have to see these reforms in writing and in action, but I approve of the intent. I will ratify such an agreement if it proves beneficial to my people.”

“Then the first of the two changes of today has been completed,” Romulus announced; “Let us now enter the terrible squabbling about the new order of Europe. Land, previously fought over and unoccupied, ridden with strife or uncertainty. We have to decide what will happen to Eastern Europe before the vacuum is filled by something just as bad as the Blood.”

“The Sons of Odin want to permanently annex the Baltic area over which we have been fighting with the Blood for a long time,” the techno-valkyrie looking women stated her demands first. “Furthermore, we would like to occupy the northern area of Russia from the Ladoga to the Ural. We will install guilds there and let them go independent after a twenty-year period - if they so desire.”

“Anyone objecting to that claim?” Luna, acting as scribe for this meeting, asked as her pen scratched over a piece of silver paper. Nobody was interested in the Baltikum or said wasteland to the north; it seemed the Sons of Odin would get what they wanted without any negotiation. Usually that meant that they weren’t getting anything close to what they could.

“Tze Illuminati will hold onto the British main isle,” the apparent spokeswoman of the Illuminati declared as the Horned Rat, seemingly bored, cleaned his claws and the insane scientist looking man scribbled something on a piece of paper in front of him.

That announcement caused a bit of uproar, especially amongst the blonde of the three male representatives of the Scandinavians. He slammed his hand on the table and rose out of his seat, “You are just grabbing land! Most of it wasn’t even occupied by the Blood!”

“I assure you, there were organized cells everywhere,” the Horned Rat spoke calmly, stopping his cleaning and folding his fingers in a gentlemanly way.

“Indeed, a total of around 72% of guilds there, ye-hes,” the mad scientist added, folding the piece of paper in front of him a few times until it became a paper-plane. “All of them either directly or indirectly working for the Blood, indeed, yes, that’s how that was.” He threw the plane across the table, and it landed right in front of the blonde man who unfolded it. John used his ability to zoom in on things to take a glance on the graphs on that paper.

“I am supposed to just trust data whose sole source, is YOU?” he asked in the tone of quickly slipping patience. “Like hell I will-“

“Calm down, Scunnder, brother Swede,” the white-haired triplet said, “I know it must be hard for you, but be civilized.”

“Oh shut it, you trashbag,” the man growled but fell back into his seat, crossing his arms. “This is still unacceptable.”

“On that I agree,” his brother said.

“I side with the Illuminati on this,” Romulus announced; “Britain hasn’t recovered from the mayhem caused in the last decade. The Illuminati shall reign over Britain,” he took a pause, “with the condition that the guilds there be given the same choice as the ones in northern Russia, that is.”

“Tzat iz fine,” the women in the middle of the triumvirate agreed. John somehow doubted that that election would be fair.

“Prometheus only wants the status quo to persist,” the philosopher looked up from his book for just a second to announce that and dipped under again.

“Then I shall stake my claims,” Romulus said; “The empire will install vassal states in the areas of Poland, Lithuania, Ruthenia, Belarus, Romania and the northern Caucasus. We will directly annex Bulgaria and the non-Promethean holdings in Ukraine and Crimea. We will create a free city in Kiev, Moscow and Novgorod.”

“Romulus, Romulus, Romulus,” the Horned Rat spoke in a ridiculing voice, “You think we will just accept that? You are carving up basically all of eastern Europe except the heart of Russia, which you will leave to your former lover Justitia over there.”

“That is exactly what I am going to do,” the emperor spoke with crystal clear intent.

“Did you not say that you DIDN’T want to be a tyrant?” the Horned Rat said, claws dancing over the table. “This amount of land-grabbing seems like something a tyrant would do.”

“I care little for your opinion, Muris,” Romulus returned. “I will set-up all of these countries under the principles of the Roman state, I will make of them functioning guilds of large productivity, and they shall be prosperous. After a twenty-five-year period, they will be free to vote for their independence.”

“Giving you five more years of guaranteed power than the rest of us,” Richard didn’t let off.

“I must agree that this is a bit much,” the valkyrie said. “A time that exceeds ours seems like sabre-rattling.”

“The empire is going to reform over the next years,” Lydia added; “Adding this number of new provinces to the greater empire is going to strain our administrative capabilities past the breaking point.”

“You underestimate my empire if guided by a firm hand,” Romulus dismissed the queen’s objection, “and if that is your complaint, I shall lower the timeframe to 15 years, and the Odin’s Sons are welcome to lead the process of the guilds voting for their independence.”

“For the amount of land, you want to control that is still…” the Horned Rat began.

“Still what, Muris?” Romulus’ thundering interruption caused everyone to quiver in their seats (except for Sol and Luna, the latter of which was still taking notes without any cares). “Bulgaria doesn’t hold a leyline, and the one in Crimea is weak. It is unimportant land compared to the great pulse laying underneath the Irish Sea. My territorial ambitions are below yours, Illuminates.”

‘So that’s why he just went with it,’ John thought. Now that the Illuminati had already made their own overreaching claim, they weren’t in a great position to chastise Romulus. Furthermore, the emperor had manoeuvred them into a position where it seemed that the Illumanati were actually taking a lot more land, just because it was richer in resources.

John didn’t quite know how important leylines were, but he knew that they were places in the world where natural barriers just appeared more often. These, in turn, were the only places where normal people could hope to harvest items from fantastical creatures such as dragons. The barriers people could have Fateweavers create and fill with monsters were only really useful for training, as their essences were just bolted together to make glorified training dummies.

Of course, John didn’t have this problem because every Illusion Barrier he created with monsters had loot. It was just yet another busted part of his abilities.

Anyway, if these leylines were places where fantastical herbs and creatures appeared the most, then they were comparable to oil depots which never ran dry. Quite valuable indeed. No wonder Romulus could use that to move himself into the morally superior position.

The only way the Illuminati were able to criticise Romulus now would have been to make concessions on Britain, which they clearly didn’t want. The Odin’s Sons also seemed much more inclined to let Romulus be overbearing, especially after the emperor had already given into their demand to lower the timespan before the countries went into referendum and handed organization of those to them.

The Horned Rat realized all of this, and he tail whipped angrily against the ground. However, he didn’t comment on the matter further and instead left it to the woman to talk again. “Tzis is acceptable,” she said in her heavy accent, her glaring golden eyes telling a whole different story.

“Great then, the remaining lands will be left in a set-up control guild patronized by Justitia,” Romulus declared; “Anyone against that idea?”

The answer was universal now, although the Horned Rat grumbled something about that being the exact thing he just said would happen.

Luna wrote the final agreement on one piece of paper, and once she was finished, it reappeared in front of everyone. What followed where two hours of detailing. Where exactly the borders of Ruthenia where, if the British Isle included a claim on Ireland or not, if Prometheus was entitled to pass through the newly acquired lands of the empire unhindered. The rough division of everything seemed to have been the quickest part, the politicking about the details was filled with discussions and heated arguments.

By the end they all were both happy and angry, but they signed the contract and thus acquired a new order for Europe.

“Great, now this is over,” the Horned Rat growled and became the first to leave the hall.

“I azk for forgiveness regarding hiz rudeness,” the regal woman bowed but took her leave as well before Romulus could answer, dragging the mad scientist off with her. The rest of the assembly also slowly scattered, Romulus held a little speech, and the livestream was cut-off, the hall emptied.

Everything was over and done with; John went over to Lydia in a hurry, “I have to ask Richard something, can you wait for me by the exit?”

“Sure,” Lydia answered, probably already guessing what it was about; “Just hurry, I think a victory party is in order after all of this.”

“Yes, I will be back in a second,” John promised and ran after the Horned Rat.