Failure. Little news came from Vaedron that was good news. Everyday was another report of failing stocks, corporations leaving the country, skyrocketing prices, about uncovered corruption. A dirge would have been a fitting theme for the failing state.
Buildings were falling into disrepair. No matter what the government tried to say, it was failing. The country's infrastructure was collapsing, and government was barely present, and powerless. Law was gone, crime was rampant.
One faction was rising from the ashes, a group known as the Blood Knights, a militarist and imperialist faction that promised to rebuild the country, and restate it as a power, bring the country into the ascendency. The Blood Knights were an Order - Turned Police-Force- Turned political organization. In years past they had been a true order of knights, valiant warriors that had defined the Vaedron ferocity as soldiers and their strong collectivized culture, that had gone abroad and served as mercenaries for foreign powers before eventually returning to become the official security force of a loved King, but as all men do, he died, and the Blood Knight’s found themselves as a supported political force, and they embraced it, but they never ran in elections for many years, however as the country began to tear itself apart, they consolidated their power in the capital city of Sar’Von, and their influence grew.
The country bolstered behind them and they had managed to take control of the country. That had been five years ago.
However, things changed rapidly in the government within the span of a month. Someone had taken control of the party, that much was known about whoever it was, things began to look up for the country, people finally had hope.
Sar’Von
The city was recovering from the depression, was the whole country. People walked the streets in relative comfort, they knew they were save as armed men bearing the emblem of the Blood Knights kept the laws in place.
There was a bustle to the city, people were jubilant. Today would be a day long remembered by the country, for better or for worse.
At midday there was a gathering in Serin Park. There was no standing podium, no grand stage, there was a simple wooden stand that a microphone poked out from sitting on a cracked concrete slab. Armed soldiers were acting a barrier around the massing people.
The wind blew every few minutes, causing leaves to rustle, the air was thick with anticipation and excitement. A single man who looked no more than twenty one years old walked the podium, he had a handsome, angular face, his eyes were dark green, in contrast to the pale skin that was common among the Vaedron. He had his black hair combed to the right, and the tips of his hair were dyed crimson. He was built like an ox, and stood at just over six feet tall, he looked like he could have been a football player at college.
No band presented him, no one introduced him. He walked to the podium, a slight smile on his face. “People of Vaedron, I am Zeke Desserix, I speak not as someone who is trying to control the country, not as someone who would wish for power, but as someone who knows what the country has been like these past seven years.” The people were silent, they had expected someone older, someone more powerful, someone like one of the knights of old, like Sparticus was to the enslaved of Rome.
“I promise to you, that if you wish me to step down, I will, I promise that I will not let this country falter and die. I may seem inexperienced, and possibly even ridiculous for trying to even govern a country such as ours, but I know what the worst go through everyday to simply survive, I know of the privileged lives the wealthy have. I know of the good deeds of honest people, but I also know the temptations of desperate men and women, doing what they must to survive.” Zeke paused.
“I know of the fires in all our hearts, the lust for the glory years of King Veshen to return. I can not promise a golden age, but I will do everything in my power rise from our depression and center a new era for our nation, away from the corporate ruling we had in the past, distant from the feudal ways that caused many hardships for us.”
“The Divine One will be with us, the Ascendant. If you wish it of me, I will bring us into a new age, we stand on the precipice of strength and power, all we must do is seize it! I will not remain isolated from the world. I will open our trade, open our borders. We will stand united under one banner that will join the ascendancy and we will honor our ancestors for it.” The people cheered calling out his name.
Zeke waited for them to settle down before continuing. “We are a great people, we will not falter from our task, no matter what opposes us. If we must conquer, we will fight, if we must fight we will fight, but we will never surrender our will. I would sooner take the death of a warrior like so many before then to live defeated, on my knees, grovelling at feet of another.”
“You are who the minds of the government must be on, we must rebuild, before foreign militaries would take us. I will not lie to you, our list of allies is non-existent. There are many that would threaten our borders, but we will not fall to them, we will stand, we may bend, but we will never break! For Vaedron!” Zeke ended his speech there, he heard people calling out a title that had not been said since the days the country was unified. They were calling him the Emperor, or as it was in their native tongue, Kara’Val.
For good or for evil, this man was the ruler, loved by many more then that disliked him.