Pultris Politia was married to the 2nd daughter of Duke Itaris of House Bellamira, a House which gained the right to rule the Propcent Island Kingdom in the post-war treaties.

  The marriage was mostly political, an excellent way for the damaged House to regain their footing properly after recovering from the war and giving up their mages in the Rodric Charter.

  They were invested in the future of Pultris from the beginning to secure diplomatic relations with the Western Coalition. However, their investment paid dividends due to Pultris’s truly delectable rise to power.

  Therefore, House Bellamira sought to deepen ties through Duke Itaris, and succeeded in courting Pultris to become a part of their family.

  So what do families do? They share in the fortunes of their power and wealth of course!

  And Pultris obliged gladly, supporting Bellamira and the Propcent Island with his full weight.

  This quid pro quo established Bellamira the political capital to amass a formidable militia, a result of the Commission's discreet support in the gathering of mercenaries and supply of former knights from the war to court their knowledge as well as the students under their tutelage.

  At the height of House Bellamira’s influence, exerted through their military might and proxy in the Commission, they may have unified the Central Continent under the banner of Bellamira within the following decades.

  The exact method of their ambitions are speculated on by the few historians who study the reign of Pultris’s Commission, but most agree that their military build-up was likely done to enact conquest across the continent through war.

  But all that aside, the root cause of Pultris’s downfall was the fact that there was a true absence of love between him and Lady Flora.

  In fact, Duke Itaris probably loved Pultris more than the amount that his wife ever loved him by a factor of thousands.

  Duke Itaris could probably have even gladly served the disgraceful former Secretary General in bed if that would have improved their relations!

  Not that he swung that way. Probably… But the scent of power was undoubtedly attractive for someone like Itaris Bellamira…

  The loveless marriage was worsened by the fact that Flora Bellamira did not manage to have a child with Pultris despite best efforts.

  So what did a hedonist like Pultris do in a loveless marriage?

  …Womanise.

  All of this was kept deeply under wraps, of course, but Pultris had the awful habit of sliding into bed with any woman he could see. And these kinds of… disgraceful actions continued well into his tenure as the Secretary General.

  And above all, the man desired powerful women. Apparently… having some sort of… complex.

  Clearly the habit became amplified when the man drank given that the fog of alcohol gave the man enough courage to grope… Runae Aethernalis.

  The House of Aethernalis retreated tactically at the start of the Greenwich war on the Central Continent, allowing the other powerful factions in the three continents to gather up the resistance to hold the Fae at bay for a while.

  They were responsible for coordinating the war efforts and holding the line in the Western Continent even after the emergence of Hero Rodric.

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  For such actions, the House of Aethernalis was well regarded politically in all continents, and regarded as a respected and reasonable voice within the post war outlook for the Central Continent.

  They were actually quite ambitionless after the war, uninterested in much of the political environment within their continent, and focused much more on the restoration of their kingdom and working on their domestic needs to accommodate Rodric's mandate to elevate the commoners to citizenry with dignity.

  Runae Aethernalis embodied these principles as the first daughter of her father, the king, and was set to inherit the kingdom humbly in the following years when the fateful party was held in her manor.

  By a horrendous stroke of misfortune, she had invited the scum going by the name Pultris Politia to her modest year end celebration.

  She likely invited Pultris to connect with the powers of the Commission as part of her preparations to take the throne in time.

  However, given the small and intimate nature of the party, Pultris apparently… let loose on his alcohol consumption, leading to a bit of a spat in the ballroom of a small time noble after… an inappropriate comment to his wife.

  Pultris, drunk on power at this point, had the unfortunate idea that he was immune to consequence.

  Which he was.

  However, Runae Aethernalis decided to intervene in the matter as the host of her party, and guided the shitfaced Secretary General out of the manor to send him back to his residence.

  And this audacious man… decided to take the opportunity to force himself on the future empress.

  The man groped and kissed the very uncomfortable, horrified woman. What a swine!

  If word of this went out to the world, it likely would have been a very loud, noisy scandal that could have damaged some of Pultris’s influence. And given the position of Runae Aethernalis as the heir to the throne of Aethernalis, Pultris would visit Runae Aethernalis the morning after to apologise profusely, and beg for mercy.

  Certainly, it would be hard to say that such an apology was sincere.

  He likely despised the fact that he apologised given his tendency to be completely full of self-importance. A common trait among powerful people like the man. But it was the only choice for him to keep things buried quietly for the sake of his position.

  And how did Runae Aethernalis react?

  She accepted the apology.

  What could someone gain from picking a fight with the single most influential individual in the Commission and in cahoots with the ambitious and armed House of Bellamira?

  It would have been political suicide to pick a fight with someone like Pultris.

  And if Runae Aethernalis did not gain the favour of her father over the factions of her older brothers through pure chance.

  She was cunning, manipulative, powerful and intelligent in all the ways that politics favoured. And as most powerful people are, self-important.

  The trauma of Pultris’s assault could not incapacitate such a figure. It emboldened her to destroy every fibre of the swine known as Pultris.

  Runae Aethernalis would quietly take the throne after a thorough consolidation of power in the factions of Aethernalis, and gain the commoner’s favour through her bold implementation of progressive tax policies that would have taken several decades to be accepted by nobility.

  She would maneuver like a madwoman to establish diplomatic relations with the Houses of Luminara and the House of Valentis anticipating the speedbump named Bellamira. And she would further move to secure the support of the still decaying Empire through financial support, and go into talks with the neutral nations of the Western Coalition.

  And with the mysterious death of the king in the months after, this political prodigy named Runae Aethernalis would take the throne quietly and quickly.

  However, even with the support of numerous nobles across the 3 continents, Runae would be unable to effectively influence the Commission, an independent and ‘neutral’ body of power who had an iron grip over magic and mages.

  So she did something unexpected.

  She found an opportunity within the Commission.

  And it was named… The Ethics Committee.

  Rodric had explicitly given the Commission the instructions to establish the small department, foreseeing the potential that the Commission had to become an institution of corruption and irresponsibility.

  However, the Ethics Committee had been degraded and underfunded after his death, given the unsavory nature of their work for the people in power.

  It was actually rather difficult to corrupt the Ethics Committee due to the required use of a divine artefact that ensured ‘virtuous’ acts in their tenure. Something specified by Hero Rodric and supported by the Churches after the war for a short while.

  However, what use was something like that if you could stuff it full of idealistic, underachieving and ambitionless individuals and provide them mountains of paperwork completely irrelevant to the state of the Commission?

  So future Empress, Runae Aethernalis used this to her advantage.

  She slowly encroached on the members of the Committee, groomed and elevated her choice pick to the position in the Committee.

  All this took place in less than 1 year.

  And what happened next would be history.