[ WP ] The hero was killed , the princess was sacrificed , and the evil king rules the land . For the average citizen , though , things have taken a turn for the better .

The sorceress known as Empress Iredeen is officially recorded as a regicide and war criminal. Her legion of loyal dragons slaughtered thousands of young men and old knights during her war with the king. Towns and cities burnt to ash along with those who lived within. And when she finally reached the castle with the hero's corpse dragging from the saddle of her winged mount, she laughed as her dragons devoured the royal family before King Rickard's eyes before beheading him herself and casting his head down into the streets below. 
 
 The months that followed the end of the war were filled with the deepest of despair. We were stripped of all freedom, sent to live and work where she chose. All the children were taken away to her reeducation camps to `` learn to better serve their Empress.'' She seized all of the farm land and transformed the scattered orchards and fields into single massive labor camps where the men and women worked to bring her the riches of the land. Many were sent away from the countryside altogether to mine the mountains where her old fortress stood. Smiths, carpenters, architects and laborers worked endlessly to fulfill her vanity as the citizens slept on the floor in little more than huts. She had ears everywhere, any attempt at rebellion ended before it began with the conspirators being spirited away in the night. 
 
 When we heard that Prince Tersch from the Duchy to the south had been sighted with his ranks of Ivory knights we felt hope for the first time since she took the capital. That hope quickly faded with each scrap of news from the border camps. The prince's knights were no better equipped to fight the Empress's monsters than our own were, after a few weeks unable to fight directly they instead turned to burning fields and poisoning water, killing laborers in an attempt to weaken the Empress's forces. Empress Iredeen did n't care in the least as we starved, or coughed blood from contaminated water, but what she would not suffer was `` some swaggering princeling to sate his ego with the blood of [ her ] land''. She sent all three thousand of the Ivory knights along with the prince back to the Duchy as charred corpses piled in carts she force their own soldiers to pull. When the Duchess sent a second army to avenge her son it did n't even leave Duchy land before it was decimated. 
 
 No one else dared act against her after that, the other lands cut all ties with us and declared the Empress's lands forsaken. We ourselves resigned to a fate of eventual collapse and starvation or death under the rule of a tyrant. But as history shows, events took a rather unforeseen turn. As the months passed the labor camps became more structured. Our simple huts with dirt floors became more akin to barracks with orderly cots. Rather than work us until we collapsed, we were divided carefully into shifts maintained by time-keeping devices of the the Empress's own divining. Instead of starving on scraps we ate three times a day of our own bountiful harvest and livestock. 
 
 After a year passed the Empress began allowing us to see our children at the end of each month, and by competing against other labor camps for higher yields, we could see them more often. To our shock instead of being broken and scarred our children were healthy. Whats more they could read and write, better even than the majority of the relative few adults who were literate. They were clearly hesitant and wary of our reaction, but they spoke well of their captor. They told of how they ate better than they ever had before, how their beds were soft as king's, and they held themselves with pride when they showed us the fruit of their education and combat training. Our stomach's churned at the way the Empress had captured the admiration of our children as easily as she had slaughter their friends and family but though none would speak it aloud, in our hearts we all held at bay thoughts the same as the children's. 
 
 After two years had passed the Empress began to hold skill evaluations and to move some of us back into the cities. Instead of ruins we found buildings taller and grander than those in our memories. She provided bakers and cooks with the very best ingredients, the tailors with the very finest threads and fabrics, all from the labor camps that we ourselves had worked at shortly before. Smiths and jewelers crafted beautiful works of art from the riches we mined out of the mountains. By the fourth year of her reign the city streets were unrecognizable. In preparation for reopening trade the Empress has instituted a system of credit in order to create an economy. We still lived and worked where she chose, but monthly evaluations allowed for advancement and relocation. Families were able to reestablish ties and the children now spent one month of the year living with their families. Credit to buy nonessential items was issued according to the yield and skill of our labors. Standard food and housing however were assigned to us regardless of credit. None of us starved in the streets not because she valued out lives, but because she would, `` not have [ her ] streets dirtied by vagrants.'' 
 
 The fifth year of Empress Iredeen's reign saw the reopening of trade in a grand celebrations at the capital. Envoys from every country arrived to see what had become of the country declared forsaken. The rulers of the other lands had some notion of changes happening under the Empress's rule, but she guarded her border jealously with terrifying beasts and used powerful spells to distort scrying and repel familiars. I recall the unconcealed shock on the faces of the envoys. Where they expected the raw metals and gems of a tyrant, they saw instead finery fit for their benefactors. Under the royal family our country had traded mostly in harvest and livestock, but the Empress gathered those from every profession into schools and provided them with book and scrolls detailing the finest techniques from every land. Near five years spent exclusively in honing their craft with the aid of masters showed. 
 
 After the initial festivities the Empress invited the more elite of the envoys to a banquet held in the throneroom of her castle, now rebuilt to near twice it's previous size. I was personally present. I had seen her once before, but it was the first, though not last, time I had been in the Empress's presence, and truly to say I was in her presence is the most apt description. Her will seemed to envelop and dominate all around her, when she looked at each envoy in turn she seem to measure them exactly, every skill and weakness, every impulse and intention. She welcomed them all with a smile perfectly replicating that of a gracious host, and invited them to share what they thought of the days festivities. Each inflection of a word and movement perfectly calculated. 
 
 A few of the envoys offered quintessential compliments, but one of the more prideful and less cunning scoffed beneath his breath. [ The following is an account of the conversation that transpired thereafter. ] ( *continued in comments* )
