Author Iion:
, we introduother key pyer to this saga of flict. With the gover’s side except for the Emperor himself, Ilja Arseniy is the most doted figure on that side. This es from his personal diary, which we obtained from the National Archives of Spignania. In this diary, he wrote detailed notes about his days in the service of the terintelligence Department. Another reason we are choosing to focus on him is because he has a plicated legacy even among gover supporters as both sides sort of threw him uhe proverbial bus at the end of the ortrayed as both a model servant of the people and a rogue madman hellbent on prolonging the war. We want to portray a more accurate view of this plicated man. So we begin his tale just before his “assion” to the Political Department.
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Part 0: Birth of a Revolutionary
| 0:2 | The Corrupt East |
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Seifedmis 16th, 968 (7/16/968) - Allivino - Riccali Landgraviate - Ilja Arseniy
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Ilja had travelled across the try throughout his training in the terintelligence Department, from the heavily fortified borders with the Andrian Empire and Republic of Ceprodi to the bustling capital of Spignane. However, none of them had been as bad or depressing as Allivino and all of Riccali by extension. The whole of the Landgraviate was just a hive of corruption and crime that agents like Ilja had to slog through. Ahe local authorities did nothing to help him. Needless to say, he was not happy as he sat in the Allivino courthouse waiting for his meeting with the city magistrate. He flipped through his diary, taking note of all the colorful nguage he had used to describe the city, none of it positive.
Like the rest of the ndgraviate, the courthouse was sort of rundown. It had peeling paint on the walls aiced a couple of cracks in the floor and the walls. Holy, the fact the pce funed was a sho. It was like the whole pce was stantly on the verge of colpse, only kept up with drug money and insane amounts of corruption. What a horrible pce for his first time leading a team.
Finally, the police officer at the door told him the magistrate was ready to see him and so, without a look back, Ilja threw open the door and stood at the magistrate’s desk. The magistrate shrunk back a little as he put on his best sug up voice saying. “Ah, officer, it is a pleasure to-”
“Don’t pretend to not know what I’m here for. I’ve had two of my people tell me that your officers have been obstrug them.” Ilja said in the calmest, most threatening way he could muster.
Again, the magistrate shrunk back. “I don’t know what-”
Ilja’s bck gloved hand smmed onto the table. “I know for a fact your people have been screwing over my officers.”
“Maybe they just made a mistake?” The magistrate would’ve shrunk back further if he wasn’t already at the limits of the chair.
Again, Ilja leaned forward. “Tell your people to give mine all the information they need or so help me gods. I’ll make yret it.” He then moved slightly, revealing his pistol, normally hidden by his long bck coat.
“O-of course, sir.” Then he picked up the telephone on his desk and dialed a number before speaking. “Excuse me, please give the agents full access to our files… yes, all of them.” Then he hung up and looked back at Ilja with a look that asked if he was good now.
To which Ilja, though still annoyed, just nodded and said. “I trust you’ll be more cooperative ime.”
Then he walked out ahe courthouse and got back to the car he took here. He quickly got in the car and started driving back to the headquarters. As he did, he watched the city around him and thought about how much it had clearly suffered. The road itself had cracks in some parts and in others he could see weeds growing from the asphalt. About two decades ago, this city experienced a boom as manufacturing pnts moved into the city, leading to a popution and iment boom. However, that was short-lived as gover policy shifted industrial development south and also hurt the workers of the east through other means. The biggest being that they started using prisoners in various bor camps as a cheaper source of bor pared to free workers.
Naturally, this led pao pull back from the east as the gover policies and subsidies they could gain from in the south and the bor camps pulled them away from the east. Naturally, as people started leaving and jobs left, many turo other means to make danized crime was one of these means. This led to the rise of the Riccali Family, who are now the top traffickers s, guns, and humans. They run several front businesses and are heavily involved in illegal gambling. It has gotten so bad that the terintelligence Department has had to get involved because the local polid national police haven’t been able to get a hold of the situation. It’s for this reason that Ilja is iy with his team, one of many such teams iy.
As he arrived back at the nondescript building, the task force was using as their headquarters. He got out of the car aered the building. Inside, he quickly fshed his badge at the receptionist before entering the building proper. Inside, several agents of the CID were milling around with some busy on the phone or others clearly just wasting time. Ilja didn’t waste his time with them and instead went straight to the ior assigned and over the city. As soon as he ehe office, the smell of smoke hit his nose.
Ihe ior was smoking and as soon as he saw Ilja; he put out his cigar aured for him to sit down. The ior ortly man and not oo hide his vices, so to say. Demonstrated by the et full of expensive old alcohol and his pent for smoking fn cigars mostly produced in the Southern Venesian Isles, which cost a fortuill, he wasn’t openly corrupt. Although he had often idly specuted about how he afforded all of that on an ior’s sary, sihey were all horribly underpaid.
As Ilja sat down, the ior said. “Ah, just the man I was looking for, so tell me sergeant, did you vince our friend at the courthouse to give us what we need?”
After waving away the disgusting smell of cigar smoke, Ilja answered. “Yes sir, I got what we needed from him.”
“Excellent. I knew you were the right man for the job. Tell me, did he give you any trouble?”
“No trouble, sir.”
“Wonderful, care for a drink. I just got a new shipment a few days ago.”
Ilja shook his head and said, “I appreciate the offer, sir, but I still have things to work on.” Which was just a cover for the fact he hated alcohol ?for its taste and effebsp;
“Ah well, keep up the good work.”
With that, Ilja left auro his offid inside he already had his people who had returned, bing through the various dots they took from the courthouse. So he got to work as well and worked to find an opening they could use to break down the Family’s structure iy.
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Seifedmis 18th, 968 (7/18/968) - Allivino - Riccali Landgraviate - Ilja Arseniy
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It took two days for him to find what he was looking for. Though it wasn’t without suspicious activity by ents. Several times, while the agents under his and spoke with the ents in the headquarters, they were told either directly or ily that they were making a mistake by iigating. However, none of the agents pressed when Ilja ter forcefully asked them to expin would actually expin. They also noticed a couple of files went missing one night. Ilja was holy very close to snapping but in the end they cobbled together enough evideo get the head of the city’s branch of the Family put away.
In short, the evidence poio the Family Captain named Vsevolod, having ordered several hits against political rivals of the current gover, running fraudulent businesses, and bribing several members of the local administration. The issue was that none of this was crete enough, so Ilja and his team iigated further. Ilja, for his part, went to the courthouse to speak to the magistrate about the bribes he took.
Again in the courthouse, there was really nobody but a couple of police officers. As Ilja stormed up to the magistrate’s office, one oved to stop him, only for Ilja to shove his badge in the cop's fad say. “Don’t even think about trying to stop me.” Uanding his position, the cop backed off. Finally, he made it to the magistrate’s office without stopping to knock. He threw open the door.
Inside, a stily an was he magistrate and Ilja shot her a gre that told her to leave, and she quickly scurried off. Ilja then spped the various dots he fouailing payments to the magistrate while he fumbled to readjust his clothes.
“So I hope you remember what I said as I left st time.” Ilja said as he sat down across from the magistrate and this time he openly pced his service pistol oable just out of reach of the magistrate but very mu reach of Ilja.
“Y-yes, of course, sir.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what these papers say?”
“I’m sorry but-”
Ilja cut him off and in an icy tone said. “Read them.”
The magistrate, with a shaky hand, took the papers ahem out. They were damning in the sehat the papers would crush his reputatiohen looked back to Ilja to see what he would say.
“I’m sure a man like you could tell me what I want,” Ilja said.
“I’m sorry I ’t do that.” The magistrate pleaded.
Ilja sighed and then tossed a letter from his coat pocket towards the magistrate, who caught it and read it before turning pale. Ilja helpfully crified for the magistrate, “I’m surprised you fot that any attempt to obstruct the work of the terintelligence Department is treason. Although I’d be more than happy to be the first oo arrest somebody for that. Face it, you either get shot by the gover for the mafia. Which will it be?”
Defeated, the magistrate spoke. “Fine. What do you need?”
“Gd we could e to an uanding. I want any unications that you had with the Riccali Family and I’m tapping all the phones in this building.”
“Go ahead.”
“Oh, and I want the letter back.” Ilja said, and the magistrate slid it over to him.
With that, Ilja brought the rest of his team ter that day to install the wiretaps. He then seized any unications and any recs of them that existed in the building. It took a while, but his team finally got what they hey also seized the financial records of a couple of busihat they suspected of being fronts. Naturally, they isoted one of those specifically that wouldn’t budge for the regur agents. So Ilja, with the rest of his team, desded on a courier service business oskirts of the town.
The drive there was tense as all the agents expected some resistance, although nothing too dangerous sihey doubted the Riccali Family would dare to kill CID agents. Still, it was tense and ohey arrived, they kept their bands close on their ons. Ohey ehough, they rexed, as there were only a couple of people there and a few employees. Ilja quickly kicked out the ers and got the employees together.
Ilja began by speaking. “We know this pce is a front for smuggling something, so either you help us out or you get locked up with whoever put you up to this.”
A few of the younger employees looked around, fused, and Ilja saw from their body nguage that they didn’t know what he was talking about. However, he then saw one of the older employees who looked to be a marying to make himself seem smaller. So that’s who he targeted.
Ilja walked up to him and smiled at him. “I think you might have something to tell me.” The man tried to shake his head, but Ilja just ughed. “e on, there’s no reason we ’t work together on this.”
As he said this, he signaled his team to break into the ste room with the packages. Seeing the agents break into the ba, the manager broke his silence. “Wait! Wait! Fine, you snake, just don’t punish my employees here.”
“If you’re useful, they’ll have long and happy lives.”
The manager just sighed ahem bato the ba. He then pulled down a couple of packages hidden behind others. He then id them out on the floor and opehem, revealing multiple bags of white powder. Ilja motioo one of his agents to open the bag and the agent did and gave him a thumbs up. With that, Ilja had his men put handcuffs on the man and take him away.
“Wait, please uand. I had no other choice. My family would have starved if I didn’t-”
Ilja shut him off by saying. “Save it for the court. I'm not paid to listen to your life story.”
With that, Ilja ended his iigation for the day, as did his team. The his big break as his wiretaps in the courthouse finally bore fruit. He recorded a versation of Vsevolod berating the magistrate for being the reason that his operations were being targeted. Ilja recorded, and he finally felt like he had enough evideo request a raid to arrest him. So he wrote up a draft of a pn to present to the ior. The resulting folder was rge and so he put a band around the folder to help keep it closed. He theed the folder to the ior, who promised to look it over and give his orders based on it the day.
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Seifedmis 19th, 968 (7/19/968) - Allivino - Riccali Landgraviate - Ilja Arseniy
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The day, Ilja stayed at the headquarters so that he would be ready for the, in his miual authorization of his raid to take down the local Family Captain. However, it didn’t e even as the hours passed by. Nothing happened. Plenty of things were going on and he saw agents were still milling around, busily w on whatever their tasks were. It was straer all, with his pn, the CID could start ing up the city. Yet nothing until it was almost nightfall.
A few minutes before nightfall, one of the ior’s aides came and? told Ilja that the ior wao see him. So Ilja hurried over to the ior's office. Ihe ior sat in his chair fag the window in his office. The smell of his cigar wafting over the room as an envelope sat on the desk. Ilja coughed to announce his presence, and the ior turned around and said. “Ah, please take a seat.”
So Ilja did, and he asked. “Have you given any thought to my pn, sir?”
The ihed quietly and tapped a finger on the desk as he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to spare.”
“What?” Ilja could only excim in surprise at the very obvious lie. Then he posed himself and asked, “What resources do we not have? lenty of officers here, lenty of ons, and it’s not like we’re short on anything else important.”
“It is something you’ll e to uand soon.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Open the envelope.” The ior said as he slid it across the desk.
Ilja ope and saw inside were a couple hundred s. The money was equivalent to a few months' sary for him. He just looked up at the ior, who said. “How about we put this behind us? You take the money, I give you a good reendation, and we fet about this pn you gave me?”
“Are y to bribe me?” Ilja asked incredulously.
“Think of it more as a reward for your service thus far.”
Ilja stood up and tossed the envelope of money back at the ior. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to accept this. I’ll just have to sort this out on my own.”
As he turo leave, the ior said o thing. “You will end up regretting this.”
With that, Ilja stormed out of the offid quickly gathered his team and other sympathetic CID agents. At first, what Ilja said surprised them, but they quickly agreed to e with him. After all, he had been reliable up to that point and hadn’t really risked their lives before. Also, after all the iigating that they had done under Ilja’s and, they khat something had to be doo deal with the Riccali Family.
They grabbed a couple extra guns just in case they hem and packed them into a couple cars that they would take to go arrest Vsevolod. Through basically strong-arming the armory persohey got a couple heavier ons than their service pistols. Then they were on the move with the small voy heading towards Vsevolod’s mansion.
Ilja was in the lead vehicle and was busily preparing for the frontation. As the officers’ vehicles rumbled down the ed streets of the city, they finally made it to the mansion. The mansion was a sharp trast to the rest of the city, with the mansion having pristine white walls and well-maintained greenery. As they arrived, Ilja’s men got out of their vehicles a up behind them with a mix of rifles, shotguns, and pistols.
Ilja, for his part, waited until his people were in position, then he approached the mansion. He kept his hands free in order to not provoke a rea as he walked up the gate. From the baly, a man dressed in a fine suit spoke. “Ah, you must be Sergeant Arseniy. I’ve heard much about you.”
Ilja responded. “You must be Vsevolod.”
“Indeed, I am. I have a proposition for you-”
“Not ied. e down here a me take you into custody peacefully.”
“You and I both know that’s not happening.”
“I’ll give you five mio resider.” Then Ilja walked back to his men.
After five minutes passed, and nothing happened, he gave the order for his men to advance. So began the first raid against the Riccali Family uaken by the terintelligence Department.
