AN: I do not own any part of the Final Fantasy XII universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.

AN2: I realize I'm later than I expected to be in publishing this chapter. I'm a little low on the patience to type my ideas out. (Translate as bored as hell but too lazy to do anything.)~The Original AN.

(Story)

Now my child, you have come to me for two moons already and we have barely covered two centuries of time. I see a need for continuing our lessons with much vigor, so I would have you arrive promptly at earlier times rather than dallying about with Maisry of all people. Oh ho, struck a nerve? Do not presume that your life is your own when you are alone. The community serves the community, do not forget your edicts!

Now that there is some silence for good hearing, come towards the fire, this shall be a long and complicated chapter to our story.

When King Dio won the War of 784, he utterly wrecked Dorstonian and Archadian stability. Where before the assurance of superiority kept them aloft, in the Dorstonian case quite figuratively, they now found themselves being outshone by the little Dalmasca of before.

With the end of the war and the appointment of Earl Redmis of Nabradia as regent, a celebration was held down the river Tykes for his coronation as the regent. One of the first stops saw an assassination attempt which nearly took the Earl's life. When questioned on it, the would-be killer identified that the Duke of Balfonheim, the rightful heir to the throne, would see him dead so as to keep his position.

Make note that it is for this very reason that Earl Redmis later attributes his seeking of the throne.

As the celebration continued down the river, a stop just outside of Dadu held two airships awaiting them, where they were to be taken in for questioning. The escorts held off the airships while Redmis made his way by foot North into the wilderness of Archadia. For three days he moved freely through the wilds of Yumnar Forest until he reached an Archadian peasant who took him to the western gate of Archades. There he made his way into the Imperial city and was crowned regent and, shortly thereafter, emperor of Archadia.

The purist faction, centered in Balfonheim where the Duke held his authority, threatened with civil war should the Duke not be able to take his rightful place on the throne as mandated by the treaty of 784.

The central faction, centered in Archades where the newly crowned Emperor sat, in return pointed to the expanding and militarizing Dalmascan Kingdom. Emperor Redmis went to the Phon Coast and invited the Duke of Balfonheim, whose name...I've...shit I've forgotten his name. Duke Bardly! That was it. Don't laugh at me child, I'll toss you in that fire.

Emperor Redmis went to the Phon Coast and invited Duke Bardly to meet with him there in how best to deal with Dalmasca's continuing rise in power. When the two dared to sit down amongst each other without the public watching, they agreed that their squabble over the throne would jeopardize Archadia's bid to remain united in the face of a Dalmascan revenge war. The thought was, at the time, that the Dalmascans had moved into the Salikawood region in order to dash into the western Archadian lands which had no real major city system to defend it.

Thus a conspiracy was born.

When they returned to their centers of influence, they played the dramatic weeks of two bitter sides nearly on the verge of civil war in the aftermath of the war of 784. However, the two grudgingly offer terms in the eye of the public in order to curb Dalmascan growth. With this as official policy, it did not take long for King Johnst to seek an alliance with the Myancizarian Empire.

However this also had the unfortunate side affect of raising Archadian suspicions of Dalmascan plots to cut Archadia up for itself. This widespread feeling allowed several acts of legislation to be passed with little public outcry.

First off, the lands surrounding Balfonheim, including the Cerobi Steppe, all the way up the Cerobi River, and the Ciizano Island, would be placed under the rule of the Duke of Balfonheim. This previously established Duchy would become semi-independent from the Emperor's Archadia, however the two would need to work closely to achieve anything.

In the second place, Emperor Redmis would be granted official pardon for his next act.

That act, which took place in 826, was the official pardon of Nabudis of its' war crimes which deemed it uninhabitable land. This pardon allowed reconstruction teams to erect palings, drive the local flora and fauna which had become overgrown into a more manageable state, and begin building it into something of the city it once was. The work on Nabudis took roughly 37 years, well after Duke Bardly or Emperor Redmis had died.

Before that time, Emperor Redmis in the Archadian Empire, or as it was better becoming known, the Western Archadian Empire, drove for a solid network of airship relay city fortresses. Nabudis was fashioned in the manner in which it had been before it's ruination by Judge Zecht. This put it into a state in which it could very easily defend itself from anything other than a nethicite implosion, which no state at the time had devised a way of doing just yet.

However the Western Archadian Empire also needed a means to access the Naldoan Sea without having to rely solely upon the Duchy of Balfonheim. To make up for this, Delvion was built first as a marine port. Later it adopted an official town which boomed under Dorstonian refugees. All port cities of the Naldoan would enjoy a healthy boost of population thanks to the regime in Dorstonia at the time.

A little story behind Delvion, is that it was named after the ancient god of prosperity, much like Miriam was once the ancient god of swords. This prosperity would flourish very brightly when beneath Delvion, a marine cave was found to hold deep riches of magacite. The first ever underwater mining cave was built in Delvion, 831. This system more or less continued for a peaceful building era until Emperor Redmis died in 859 of old age. He left his son, Redmis the II, to take his place as Emperor in a completely different system that what his father had known as a boy.

On the other hand, the Duchy of Balfonheim realized its' greatest strength was the Naldoan Sea. Therefore two cities were planned with great efficiency along the coast, aided of course by the refugees of Dorstonia.

Just east of Phon Coast on a small island, Ukbar Island, the port city of Toton was raised. Likewise, on the western coast of Ciizano Island, the city of Akbar, named after the brother of Ukbar the demi-goddess of the tide. Akbar, Toton, and Balfonheim together supported a wide array of purists, surprisingly with a majority of the population being only 1st or 2nd generation Archadians. However they also supported a wide network of naval ships, which placed a check onto the growing might of Gippal island, which threatened by its' mere presence to close Delvion off from access to any from the Naldoan Sea should war come.

Duke Bardly had a long affair with the countess of Sochen, the ruined city of a distant past. She bore him three sons. The youngest two were named Count and placed as governor of two outlying cities of the Duchy. The eldest, the rightful heir to the Archadian Empire, would take his father's place as the Duke.

This quiet family life did not befit the ravages of poverty that the Duchy fell upon in the times after being cut off from most of the trade that the Western Archadian Empire attracted to itself with its' various projects. This had the rather unfortunate side effect of continuing some of the animosity shared between the purist's and the centralist's.

Before his untimely demise due to food poisoning, Duke Bardly had declared that the Dalmascans were far too overzealous to be able to win this war of infrastructure. He said this in the knowledge that within six months of his death, the Duchy of Balfonheim rose in prominence with the fall of Dorstonian order. This was in 860, not but a couple of weeks after Emperor Redmis had passed on.

(Story)

AN: May 21st, 2012: You may notice a couple of discrepancies with the story for a couple of days while I complete the timeline I mentioned in the previous chapter. Inserting a chapter into the middle of the story has thrown my usual rhythm off, but I've finished up to 706 in the timeline. All I need to do is go a further 78 years and it'll be complete.

As always, I prefer it when you review. It puts a smile on my face.

Archadian Empire

671 O.V.-706 O.V.: Emperor Gramis Gana Solidor the II: Lived 610 O.V.-706 O.V.: 96 Years Old. Reigned for 35 years.

706 O.V.: Emperor Vayne Carudas Solidor the I: Lived 684 O.V.-706 O.V.: 22 Years Old. Reigned for 1 year.

706 O.V.-771 O.V.: Emperor Larsa Ferrinas Solidor the V: Lived 694 O.V.-771 O.V.: 77 Years Old. Reigned for 65 years.

771 O.V.-784 O.V.: Emperor Halim Ronsenburg Solidor the II: Lived 728 O.V.-784 O.V.: 56 Years Old. Reigned for 13 years.

784 O.V.: The Treaty of 784 names Earl Redmis as the regent of the empire till the people of Archadia can decide what form of government they want.

Western Archadian Empire (the Usurpers)

784 O.V.-859 O.V.: Emperor Redmis of Nabradia the I: Lived 769 O.V.-859 O.V.: 90 Years Old. Reigned for 75 years.

Eastern Archadian Empire (the Duchy of Balfonheim, the True Archadian Empire)

784 O.V.-860 O.V.: Duke Bardly Ronsenburg Solidor the I: Lived 772 O.V.-860 O.V.: 88 Years Old. Reigned for 76 years.