The first elections in the country I founded were rather turbulent, but the fact that they worked at all was quite encouraging. After some major bug-fixes, I had announced the new constitution three months before the winter solstice, and I had published copies on both physical media and the internet analog my Gremlins were building for anyone to easily access.

Personally, I did in fact run for office, but not for parliament. Instead, I ran for head of the Department of Public Infrastructure; that way I could focus on building up the country like I had wanted to do in the first place, without having to handle every single little thing that came my way. To my surprise, I actually had a challenger appear in the form of a Dungeon from the country's periphery, who was thus spared from the Drake Guard's localized genocide.

I'll be honest, some of the Deep Machine's ideas for the country's infrastructure were really good, especially after they updated their power sources to include nuclear reactors in addition to geothermal. I still won, thanks to the ludicrous amount of goodwill I had among most people for my role in getting rid of the Grand Dragons, but I gladly took up official correspondence with them.

Parliament meanwhile got split between three major parties and a couple of minor ones. Starting with the most powerful party, the Amali Liberation Party, which was generally focused on improving domestic conditions and keeping the Grand Dragons out. The ALP held 38 seats in Parliament. Interestingly, three of the ALP's elected members of parliament were Dungeons, which prompted a bit of spirited debate over how they would attend Parliament; ultimately, it was decided that they would attend via telepresence, since that was just the easiest solution.

Next most powerful was the Interventionist party, who were advocating military build-up followed by deposing every single Grand Dragon they could find, in order to free the entire world from their tyranny once and for all. They held 35 seats, and were eager to caucus with the ALP; both parties had similar goals, simply differing in where they thought the focus of policy should first be placed.

The last major party were the Union of Adventurers and Mages, commonly referred to as the Adventurer's League. Their policy position was relatively traditionalist, but fairly compatible with the ALP and Interventionists. Mostly, they just wanted policies conducive to lots of powerful adventurers cropping up, including easy access to Dungeon-run obstacle courses, weaponry, and training for anyone who wished it, just like adventurers had access to in the more lax Draconic Realms prior to my removal of the Grand Dragons. The Adventurer's League held 31 seats after the first election.

And then there were the minor parties. The first officially went by the Church of the Steel Titan, largely being composed of those particularly impressionable sorts who mistook the incredible firepower of my battleship chassis as a sign of divine favor, worshiping me as a deity. Though I was rather annoyed by this fact, these people were fairly harmless, with most regarding them as a somewhat sillier wing of either the ALP or the Interventionists, given their policy propositions. Thus, the Church got their 13 seats in Parliament, mostly being elected on a per district basis.

The last party officially went by the Advocates For Traditional Rule, but basically everyone referred to them as the Dragonist Party. Though they easily made the Supervisory Court's first case rather contentious with their barely-not-unconstitutional rhetoric and policy propositions, it was eventually determined that they had no concrete proof of being connected to the now illegal Drake Guard. They weren't able to prove that the Dragonists weren't connected to said organization, however. Still, they won exactly zero district seats, and only barely broke the threshold for by-party voting, leaving them with a mere three seats in Parliament. Though I was quite unhappy the Dragonists got any seats at all, I wasn't about to rip up my own freaking constitution about these people.

Speaking of the Supervisory Court, it was voted to have eleven seats for Justices in a snap referendum since I forgot to specify that in the Constitution. Ultimately, the Court wound up with four ALP Justices, three Interventionists, three Justices from the Adventurer's League, and one from the Church of the Steel Titan.

Aside from the election, things were fairly peaceful over the last few months, as more of a functioning country got built, various Dwarf diplomats showed up to discuss matters, and a couple conquest-seeking Grand Dragons died to the Republic's perimeter defenses.

Still, after taking my oath of office, I got ready to move out of Regno Prima to a new structure a dozen miles or so north of my present location. With the gentle sliding of well-made machinery, I slotted my core into a civilian aircraft chassis, released the bonds of service for most of the Gremlins and Clockworks who had been keeping the transitional government running for the last six months, and set off for my brief flight to my new office location.

Seldom did Grand Dragon Samathin have occasion to use an avatar spell, as most of the official structures she visited within her Draconic Empire were built to the scale of a Grand Dragon such as herself. The royal laboratories on the other hand, did not fall in such a category. Thus, Samathin cast a spell derived from a Dungeon's minion production abilities, spawning a miniature version of herself to act through as she went to see the progress her loyal researchers had made on the project.

After several security checks, Samathin's avatar reached the lab where the artifact codenamed Frozen Bacon was being studied. In actual fact, said artifact was never frozen, nor did it have anything to do with Bacon. Instead, it was a clockwork retrieved from an orbital dungeon shortly before its destruction, one which had a very interesting functionality that Samathin wanted to copy.

The lead researcher greeted Samathin's avatar with an enthusiastic salute to her chest and a vocalization of "Greetings Empress Samathin! We've made a recent breakthrough with regards to this Clockwork, and we've copied the rune structures that allow it to produce synthetic Dragonfire."

Samathin grinned, before noting "It's very good that you've managed to replicate the results, but do you understand the underlying principles well enough to alter the design as needed?"

The red-headed lead researcher preened slightly as she reported "Absolutely! We've even figured out what Dragonfire actually is, something that's eluded our inquiries until now."

Samathin nodded, noting "That is something I wish to be informed of later, but not at the exact moment. Right now, I want you to bring your findings to the head of Clockwork Design and inform him that we will be having a Code Gold meeting in fifteen minutes. The Scaled Regents cannot be allowed to learn of this."

As the lead researcher scurried off, Samathin once again found themselves musing at just how much additional power over them someone would give a ruler who at least offered an appearance of caring for their wellbeing. Other thoughts included the fact that Samathin could very well soon have a valid replacement for the eight most treacherous but sadly necessary elements of her rule. After all, synthetic Dragonfire had already proven itself a wonderful power source for that Titan beyond the sky, so why couldn't it be used to power an army of Clockwork Dragons?

Still, this project had to progress in absolute secrecy; if the Scaled Regents learned they would soon be obsolete, the Empress would be forced to activate the kill switch for all of them. She knew she couldn't keep her current territory secure from upstarts without other assets able to fight on an even footing with a Grand Dragon, and losing territory would allow all the treasures her people had built to fall into the greedy talons of other Grand Dragons, which simply wouldn't be acceptable.