<<silently>>\n<<set $intro_spearmen_result = "1">>\n<<endsilently>>With a smile, you lift your blade and stalk towards the fight. A spearman backs towards you, away from the pistoning legs of a rearing horse. It is childsplay to run him through. Blood spreads across his jerkin and he falls to the ground, but you have already moved on. Another Enemy turns to you, his spear dropped in favour of a stolen sword and desperate fury in his eyes.\n\n[[KILL|PalaceMeleeKill]]
You pull your steed to a halt, and the cavelry wedge stops behind you. Some chuckle darkly to themselves - the old hands love to watch you do your work. Behind their shield wall, the Enemy warriors shuffle nervously and wonder if the stories are true.\n\nThey are.\n\nYou shake back the arms of your coat and push the power through your veins. Fire erupts from each finger and swirls together into a sphere of rolling flame. Bigger and bigger it grows. Sweat beads upon your brow and loose strands of hair are burned away.\n\n[[Throw it|PalaceShieldsFBall]]
Or 'An End To Strife'
<<display "ActualStart">>
.passage .title { display: none;}\n.passage .body { font-size: 20px;}
''"What is the meaning of this?"'' you hearself cry as you storm into the room, followed by the last of your knights. The doors slam behind you like thunder and every face turns to you.\n\nDozens of men stand around your throne, each one bloodied with sword and spear in hand. The leader, a black haired cretin in stolen armour - armour once emblazoned with your colours - steps forward.\n\n"Empress. Tyrant! It is over! The people have risen and your time is ended. Surrender and you will be treated mercifully. After all, you are only a woman."\n*<<choice "ThroneSurrender" "Surrender">>\n*<<choice "ThroneRefuse" "FINISH IT">>\n
\n----\n\nThank you for playing //Empress//. This has been a little idle daydream, made in a couple of evenings with the intention of making something, anything, and actually finishing it.\n\nIt is finished, and I totally do not plan to continue or improve upon it, but if you like this kind of thing follow me at @LilyLayer4.\n\nThanks and apologies to Porpentine (@aliendovecote) and Anna Anthropy (@auntiepixelante) for their Twine tutorials and showing that little games like this can be made without worrying too much.
You are too [[late|TownBurning1]].
----\n''ABOUT THE AUTHOR''\n\nLily Fox (LilyLayer4) is a talentless hack who paints with the words the way Pollok painted with... paint. Case in point. She dreams of growing up to be a Space Demon Empress someday. Send a tweet to get in on the ground floor now!\n\n----
Your glorious silver mare rears as you haul in the reigns by a ruined shop. It was once a dress-makers, finest in the city. Now, nothing. A guardsman you recognise crawls from the ashes, bloodied and with tears streaming. "Oh, majesty, majesty... you, you've come, save us? Save us?" he begs.\n* <<choice "SubjectRun" "Time is short">>\n* <<choice "SubjectKill" "Traitor! Coward!">>
"Kill them."\n\nIn a blink, your knights carve through rebel flesh and bone. They hack heads from necks and impale chests upon their blades. Bakers, masons, farmers and deserters are sliced apart like so much swine. Screaming, stinking swine whose liquids soon flood across the floor.\n\nThey made you do this. Traitors and fools who turned away from you, who sprurned your care. If you were cruel it was to make them strong. If you denied them, it was to teach them to make do.\n\nThey betrayed you.\n\nNo more mercy.\n\n''Long live the'' [[Empress|Conclusion]]. ''May she ever reign.''
The earth shakes under a thousand pound hooves as you and your knights charge down the hill and into the city. The collossal doors of the city gate lay shattered across the flagstones.\n\nYour [[subjects|TownBurningSubjects]] - men and women who escaped the slaughter - scream and weep at your approach, hiding in the wreckage of carts, taverns and houses. Bodies litter the streets and pools of blood are still wet upon the ground, but the enemy has moved on to the [[palace|PalaceExternal]].
When word of the attack came, you raced back to the capital with all speed and an army at your back. Day and night you had prayed that the forces of the Old Enemy planned to take the city whole, that they would lay seige and so give you time to return and defeat them before any harm was done.\n\nInstead you crested the hill around the capital to see colummns of smoke rising from your burning city, almost blotting out the sun. Fires burn across the landscape - the markethall, the tanners street, the guild of alchemists all gutted by the flames.\n\nBut your banners still flutter from the Imperial Palace! Your tower, your home and seat of authority has not yet fallen! Could you have arrived in time to [[save it|TownBurning2]]?
<<silently>>\n<<set $intro_spearmen_result = "2">>\n<<endsilently>>The orb sails through the air languidly, almost peacefully, and splashes down behind the shield wall in a sudden cacophany of shouts, the clattering of armour and spears. The screams start and the whole line breaks. A man runs blind, his body lit up like oil. His comrades are distracted with their own problems - burning shields, melting faces, popping eyes. Your cavelry charges and puts the rest down with ease, and the way is clear.\n\n[[Enter|PalaceInt1]]
<<silently>>\n<<set $intro_guard_killed = "1">>\n<<endsilently>>You do not have time to waste on nursing every fallen soldier. You have your throne to save! With a shout to the men and women at your back, you kick your horse into action and continue down the avenue. The guard stumbles forwards into the cavelry charge and is knocked down to be trampled under hoof. You do not look back, all attention spent upon getting to the [[palace|PalaceExternal]].\n\n
"I. Am an EMPRESS!"\n\nA dread wind whips through the throne room and, in an instant, a bolt of lightening leaps from your outstretched fingers and strikes the traiterous worm! He screams, smouldering, and is echoed by his comrades - bakers, masons, farmers, deserters - as the bolt leaps between them.\n\nThe rebel figurehead falls to his knees and you help him to the floor with a savage kick of your riding boots.\n\nTraitors, cowards, vermin all! How could they turn on you, after everything you gave them? You gave them purpose. Your lessons taught them strength. And this is how they repay you?\n\nAs you knights deliver coupe de graces to the filth across the floor, you consider that you have been too merciful. No longer.\n\n''Long live the'' [[Empress|Conclusion]]. ''May she ever reign.''
[[About the Author]]
At first it looks like a wall has been erected across the palace gates, but the firelight reflecting off a score of shield bosses and as many spear-heads gives it away.\n* <<choice "PalaceShieldsCharge" "Lead the charge!">>\n* <<choice "PalaceShieldsMagic" "Burn them all!">>
Empress
The Imperial Palace is defiled! Your banners torn down and burned, paintings slashed and statues shattered. Blood covers the floor in streaks and pools, and furniture has been uppended for barricades by both sides. Bodies of knights and soldiers and not a few servants litter the halls, the corridors, the stairways, all the way up to the [[throne room|ThroneRoom1]].
So this is it. This is how it ends? The sword slips from your hand as you realise just how tired you are. When did you last sleep?\n\nYou find yourself slowly walking forward. The soldiers, though wary, step aside and let you pass. You collapse onto the throne one last time.\n\n[[Not the last.|ThroneOrderDeath]]
<<silently>>\n<<set $intro_guard_killed = "1">>\n<<endsilently>>Utterly pathetic. Your skin crawls, bile rises in your throat just looking at him. If soldiers like him had stood and fought, you scream, this city would never have fallen! How DARE he beg for salvation when he wouldn't life a finger to fight for you?! How DARE he!\n\nThe coward crawls towards you, still weeping and apologising, still begging. He reaches out a hand and grabs at the saddle of your horse. "Please, please, majesty, I'm sorry, I'm--"\n\nHis babbling ceases at last when you run a dagger through his throat. With eyes wide, uncomprehending, he vomits a jet of blood across your battle-skirts and only lets go of the saddle when you kick him away. Free of his grip, you urge your horse back into a gallop towards the [[palace|PalaceExternal]].\n
<<silently>>\n<<set $intro_spearmen_result = "0">>\n<<endsilently>>With a furious cry, you kick your horse into a run and charge the plow into the enemy line! Multiple spears catch your mount and you a thrown over the foe to roll, thudding and scraping over flagstones and knocking every point of your body.\n\nMercifully, nothing is broken and you pick yourself up off the floor. The spearmen are entangled with your cavelry, too busy to pay mind to you.\n* <<choice "PalaceInt1" "Enter the palace">>\n* <<choice "PalaceShieldsMelee" "Join in the melee!">>
You're going to enjoy this.\n\nHe slices wildly, well out of danger. He stabs, and you parry with ease. Again, and you step aside. In desperation he hurries forward and you give him a slash across the arm for his trouble.\n\nThe swordsman scurries back, too close to another of your knights who almost guts him. The battle pushes him back to you, and as he falls the wildly swinging sword cuts across your chest, spilling blood down your breast and staining your royal robes.\n\nA scar. A scar upon your perfect decoletage? Heartbeat racing, all you can hear is the pounding in your ears and the world turns red. With a roar you plunge your sword through his bowels, draw it out, stab down again, and again, and again until the creature is a gurgling mess of meat and bone oozing over the flagstones.\n\n''Long live the Empress.''\n\n[[Enter the palace|PalaceInt1]]