Year: 930 – New Year's EveLocation: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Capital District
The cold wind curled through the heart of the capital like the breath of an old god — steady, unseen, and ancient. It swept past marble facades and iron lanterns, slipping between banners and uniforms, until it reached the white-columned front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — the newest and proudest artery of the Reich's imperial machine.
Set at the center of a massive, perfectly circular stone roundabout, the Ministry stood with near-religious symmetry — a building not just of function, but of reverence. At the roundabout's core towered a colossal statue of a woman carved from flawless alabaster. She rose thirty feet above the paving stones, barefoot, draped in a flowing cloth so delicately sculpted it seemed to shiver in the cold. One shoulder bare, the fabric wrapped across her chest and hips in the ancient style of Roman matrons — dignified, unapologetic.
In one hand, she held a closed stone book, its spine carved with the word Ordo. The other hand extended outward, palm open, fingers slightly bent — not in welcome, but in warning, as if halting deception before it could pass. Her expression was calm but unreadable, her gaze set far beyond the Reich's borders. She was not divine — she was mortal, deliberately so. A symbol not of gods, but of enduring human diplomacy, bound by discipline, reason, and resolve.
The blackstone roundabout beneath her gleamed with silver-flecked mineral dust, polished smooth enough to reflect moonlight and torchlight alike. Torch-bearing lampposts ringed the space, each wrapped with iron-laurel wreaths for the year's end. Soldiers paced along the edge in slow, measured rhythm — the sound of boots echoing with ceremonial gravity.
Framing it all was the Ministry itself — broad-shouldered, monolithic, and born of forced speed. Constructed in a mere fourteen days, it was an architectural miracle of labor and logistics. Massive white stones, quarried from nearby cliffs and dragged by oxen teams, had been hoisted into place around the clock. Engineers and masons toiled by firelight under harsh wind and barked orders. No hour had passed without hammer-strikes or steam drills.
Its design was a marriage of German militarism and Roman imperial classicism — an architectural doctrine of power. Square pillars rose from the base like stone sentinels, each etched with eagle insignias clutching arrows and olive branches. Arched windows ran in even procession, their iron latticework shaped into runic lattices and regional glyphs. Atop the roofline, statues of men and women in diplomatic garb stood facing outward, frozen mid-gesture — as if speaking to the world.
The entire structure gleamed with a seamless white stone finish, cold and pure, blinding under the moonlight. From afar, it resembled a Roman basilica refitted for a new age — a temple to policy, flanked by banners of conquest.
Red Reich flags, each emblazoned with the black swastika, hung in solemn symmetry from every balcony. In the wind, they rippled like blood-soaked scrolls, illuminated by spotlights mounted discreetly in the flagstones below.
But beneath this imposing architecture, deep within the foundation, roared the ministry's mechanical heart — a steam-powered command system.
In a subterranean chamber beneath the eastern wing, a row of iron boilers hissed and thundered. Water was piped in from the reservoir beneath the city, heated to blistering pressure inside sealed cast-iron vats. Massive steam pistons, each the size of a wagon cart, rose and fell with slow inevitability, powering heavy rotary turbines locked in brass braces. Every surge of pressure spun coils and converters that fed energy to the chandeliers, typewriters, communication terminals, and heating panels above.
The halls trembled faintly with this industrial pulse — a quiet thrum of power, constant and absolute. Mechanics in leather coats stalked the boiler levels with charts and oil cans, adjusting valves and whispering prayers to the pressure gods. Gauges glowed red. Pipes ticked and hissed. Steam drifted through grated vents into the corridors above, warming the floors beneath the diplomats' boots.
Inside, the Ministry functioned with a brutal, paper-fed rhythm.
A wide central hall ran the building's spine — paved in checkered marble, inlaid with imperial runes, and lit by chandeliers strung with gemstone tubes and heated filaments. On either wall, engraved oak plaques listed every treaty signed by the Reich since its rebirth. Under each plaque hung a brass-framed map — some crossed with red string, others stabbed with black pins, denoting revisions, crises, and borders soon to shift.
From the main corridor, rows of offices branched off like disciplined arteries. Each was built to exact standard: a black metal lamp, a dark oak desk with brass handles, and drawers locked with bone-carved keys. Filing cabinets lined every wall — their drawers labeled not by name, but by region and urgency. Letters from Thearom, Bashurian, and dozens of border kingdoms were stuffed into pigeonholes or stacked beside telegram machines still hot from use.
Paperwork was constant. Half-stamped communiqués, untranslated manifestos, rejected peace offers, coded military summaries. Some bore wax seals, others intricate ribbon codes or rune-inscribed clips that shimmered when touched.
The air smelled of ink, brass, steam, and dried parchment — a dry, iron-scented calm that warned against idleness. Too much heat made men soft. Here, warmth was rationed like rations in war.
The silence of the Ministry was not silence at all — but a calculated rhythm: the click of typewriter keys, the creak of chairs, the whisper of turning paper, the occasional cough or stamp of a document. In one office, a tired interpreter furrowed his brow over a smudged Bashurian letter. In another, two junior officers quietly argued over the wording of an ultimatum.
At the back of the ground floor stood the central stairwell, built wide and squared, lined with solemn murals of diplomacy. No battles were shown — only submissions: kings kneeling, chancellors signing documents while cities burned behind them, golden pens drawn like daggers. Men breaking bread with clenched fists.
Above the archway of the stairwell, engraved in blackened gold, were the words:
"Words bind more kingdoms than swords ever will."
But just beneath — carved crudely into the white stone by some anonymous hand — another line whispered back:
"But swords remind them."