Conspiracy of Evil

The Conspiracy of Evil refers to the secret plot by Queen Dowager Prim Marlon and the sorceress Abyss I.R. to place the queen's son on the Marlon throne, overthrow the Kingdom of Lucifenia, and establish a new Marlon regime across all Evillious. Spanning decades, the political machinations had a lasting impact on the era.

Origins
Although openly supportive of the marriage between Anne Swee and Prince Arth Lucifen d'Autriche, Prim Rogzé secretly resented losing out to her close friend and later attempted to poison Arth's wine glass using Gift. After Arth and Anne distanced themselves from her, suspecting she was the culprit, Prim swore vengeance on the queen. Afterwards, Prim left Lucifenia and, taking advantage of the King of Marlon's depression over losing his wife, courted and married him; by the age of seventeen, she bore his child.

Following the birth of Prince Kyle Marlon, Prim became obsessed with him, wishing her son to become the great king of a Marlon empire, and began working to achieve this goal as well as get her revenge on Anne. Through her brother Presi, a minister of Lucifenia, Prim kept herself informed on the affairs of the kingdom. At some point, Prim also met the Staff Officer of Beelzenia, Elluka Clockworker, and was briefly trained in the magical arts before the sorceress left.

In EC 482, concerned over Elluka's substantial aid to the kingdom of Lucifenia, Prim sought out a mage to counter her, meeting Abyss I.R. in the Blood Pool Region. Knowing that King Arth's children would become reincarnations of Hänsel and Gretel, the sorceress offered Prim use of the Venom Sword in order to seduce him and prove her authenticity as a powerful mage. Taking the sword, Prim visited Lucifenia and used the vessel of sin to enter an affair with King Arth.

Months later, Abyss I.R. approached the queen again and requested that, in exchange for her aid, Prim would give her a child for experimentation and help her collect the vessels of sin. Although initially planning to give over another child of her husband's concubines, Prim eventually handed over her child with Arth, Ney Marlon, the babe's blonde hair threatening to betray the queen's infidelity. With her conditions fulfilled, Abyss I.R. pledged her support for the creation of a more powerful Marlon nation.

Political Dealings
As Prim's court mage, Abyss I.R. finished the queen's tutelage in sorcery and trained Ney as her personal agent while conducting her experiments. She also proposed the formation of the Espionage Task Force as a means to broaden her intelligence network. At some point, the two recruited the aid of Duke Sfarz in their conspiracy, the duke using his information network to discover the Glass of Conchita and the Marlon Spoon.

Focused on making her son into the next Marlon king, Prim took a disliking to Kyle's painting hobby and arranged for the death of his art tutor, Margaret, after she and her husband were jailed as political prisoners. Following this, she bribed several art critics and the painter Nikolay Tolle to harshly criticize Kyle's paintings, breaking his confidence.

Later, planning to kill King Arth and his twin children in her bid to ruin Anne's life, Prim had requested Abyss I.R.'s aid. In response, the sorceress released the Gula plague in the Beelzenian Empire during the Lucifenian Expansion War, indirectly murdering King Arth as he invaded the country and became infected with the disease himself. With King Arth dead, Prim then acquired the help of her brother Presi, a minister in Lucifenia, in the next stage of her plan to assassinate the twins.

After tricking her brother into believing the plan was to possess Alexiel by the Demon of Pride in order to advance his ambitions, she sent Abyss I.R. to Lucifenia that December. Unbeknownst to her, Abyss I.R. deviated from her plan and planned to have the Demon of Gluttony possess Arth's heir Prince Alexiel; to that end, Abyss I.R. came to the Lucifenian Royal Palace with the Demon sealed in one of the Four Mirrors of Lucifenia, telling Presi it was the Demon of Pride, and set a trap for the twins.

When Riliane was the one possessed by the Demon instead, Presi faked a claim that the princess was Arth's named heir. In the ensuing political struggle, Presi was killed, Alexiel was declared dead, and Elluka was tricked into believing she had sealed a demon away. Ney was sent into Lucifenia to be adopted by Mariam Futapie and begin her infiltration. Soon after, Abyss I.R. summoned another Gula strain to kill Anne and sent Ney in as a spy to Lucifenia, also unbeknownst to Prim, making plans to transplant the true Demon of Pride into Princess Riliane.

In EC 492, Prim went in disguise to Yatski and met the struggling Mikina Freesis, Duke Sfarz's daughter. After helping her recover from an injury, she gave the merchant's wife the Marlon Spoon. Later, following the death of the Marlon King, Prim began systematically murdering his other successors and concubines to establish Kyle's legitimacy to the throne, and her son was finally crowned in EC 494.

When the queen was later approached by Mikina Freesis, having unintentionally used the spoon to kill her father, Prim coerced her into providing aid to her conspiracy, asking Mikina into her agent as well as appropriating funds from the Freesis Firm.

Reign of Evil
Main Article: Reign of Evil

With the death of Lucifenia's Queen Anne in EC 499, Princess Riliane succeeded her and Ney successfully transplanted the demon from the mirror given to the princess to her. Not expecting Anne's death, the distraught Prim planned to make the daughter of her hated enemy miserable in her stead. Under the demon's influence, Riliane's arrogant and and selfish behavior intensified over the years, imposing heavy taxes on the populace and wantonly executing citizens for menial reasons.

Again deviating from Prim's wishes, Abyss I.R. planned to have Kyle possessed by the Demon of Lust; to this end, the Venom Sword was delivered to Keel Freesis via his wife in preparation for Kyle's possession. Popular support for "The Daughter of Evil" continued to plummet after a famine left the people starving while the princess opposed sharing the palace's abundant food stores. Leonhart Avadonia became increasingly resilient to Riliane's policies and constantly opposed her.

After Ney informed Riliane that Leonhart was secretly stealing food from the palace stores to feed the hungry citizens, Riliane collaborated with her servant, Allen, to assassinate the man. Ney then told Allen she overheard Leonhart plan to kill Riliane, assuring he would accomplish the mission. Leonhart was successfully assassinated the next night.

Shortly after, King Kyle frequently met with King Thorny Elphen and Keel to relieve Lucifenia's starvation. During one of these periodic visits, he came in contact with the Venom Sword and under the Demon of Lust's influence, became impulsively enamored with one of Keel's maids. Following his return to Marlon, Kyle's fervent lust led him to hastily reject his engagement to Riliane.

In a letter addressed to the young ruler, he explained his reasoning and gave it to Lucifenia's prime minister, Minis Stoup, during his visit to thank Marlon for its support with the famine. Soon after receiving the rejection letter, Riliane demanded that Mariam and Ney discover the identity of Kyle's lover, and Ney visited the Freesis Mansion, learning about Michaela. Although discovering Michaela's identity, Ney reported that she only knew that the girl had green hair, prompting Riliane to commence the Green Hunting.

After it was discovered that Michaela was an associate of Elluka Clockworker, Prim ordered Ney to kill her, imprisoning Kyle until she could learn the whereabouts of her hideout from Mikina. After informing Riliane that the girl was still alive, Ney impersonated Allen and killed Michaela in Keel Freesis' hiding place, eliminating one of Elluka's allies and instigating further conflict between Elphegort, Lucifenia, and Marlon.

Marlon Occupation
As a result of Michaela's death, Kyle acted to overthrow Riliane and achieve vengeance. To that end, in the run up to the Lucifenian Revolution, Kyle went in disguise and offered his aid to the Resistance, bringing an army of Marlon soldiers into the country to stand against the opposing Lucifenian military. Ney was sent to the battle at the Lucifenian Royal Palace and killed Mariam Futapie in the midst of the chaos.

After the capital was taken, Prim sent a letter giving her support for Kyle's actions, but with a list of conditions for him to follow; among them was an order for Marlon's occupation of Lucifenia and integration of the country into one of its territories. Around this time, Prim arranged for Kyle to be possessed by the Demon of Pride after Abyss I.R. removed the Demon of Lust, wishing to retain his obedience. Agreeing to her conditions, Kyle announced the annexation of Lucifenia during the ensuing peace talks. As Mariam's death was announced, as well, the Three Heroes were officially disbanded.

With Lucifenia brought under Marlon rule, Kyle took up administration of the country and control of Marlon was given over to Prim. Later, Ney told him that Germaine Avadonia was the one responsible for Michaela's death, prompting him to call up a Witch Hunt against her. In EC 501, Lucifenia was incorporated into Marlon completely, despite Kyle facing opposition from the Lucifenian Resistance. At some point, Elluka and Gumillia were added to Kyle's Witch Hunt after they were discovered spying on Lucifenia.

The following year, Abyss I.R. discovered Elluka and Gumillia infiltrating the Marlon royal palace and captured Elluka, taking her body as her new medium while the sorceress' apprentice escaped. To continue her service to Prim with Elluka's body, Abyss I.R. declared herself dead and moved on to the new host. During this time, it was discovered by Abyss I.R. and Prim that Riliane was alive, working in a monastery; they soon dispatched Mikina to go spy on the girl under the guise of visiting Clarith.

Around the same time, Kyle imposed a trade block with Elphegort to promote trade within Marlon's borders and strengthen its economy. By EC 505, King Kyle requested the use of the Espionage Task Force to go hunt down the fugitives under the Witch Hunt, and Prim conditioned that they have total freedom in their activities and had Abyss I.R. select Ney as its head. Ney was given use of the Glass of Conchita for their purposes.

Conquest
Equipped with the glass of Conchita, Ney and the Espionage Task Force were sent to Retasan Fortress. With Ney replacing Riliane Mouchet as the city's commander, the blonde-haired spy then infiltrated Beelzenia itself. During this time, Marlon also launched an invasion on the weakened Asmodean, starting the initial invasion by raising the dead Gula victims killed in the previous decades. Ney declared war on Beelzenia for the Kingdom of Marlon and directed the undead army on assaults throughout the empire.

Over the ensuing two months of warfare, she also ascertained that Germaine Avadonia was working for Beelzenia, although both she and Gumillia had left by the time the fighting was over. After Beelzenia captured Retasan Fortress in a crippling counter-attack, Ney returned to Lucifenia and then to Marlon to receive further instruction from Abyss I.R. In addition, the Marlon army also worked to suppress an assault from Asmodean forces. Under the influence of the demon of Pride, King Kyle made plans to conquer all of the Evillious region with renewed attacks on Beelzenia and Asmodean and then a sweep through the rest of the western states.

Civil Dispute
Later, due to the intervention of Germaine, Gumillia, and Yukina, Kyle was broken of his demonic possession and the fighting remained at a standstill as the group began returning to Marlon to move against Prim's conspiracy. In response, Prim moved her residence to Castle Hedgehog in the north, while Abyss I.R. sent out a gigantic ziz tiama against their ship and retreated to the capital with Ney. Ney then moved to Castle Hedgehog with the Glass of Conchita to bolster Prim's defenses, creating an army of undead to engage the Marlon military.

After approaching the group and attempting to take Gumillia's body for herself, Abyss I.R. lost her control over Elluka's body and stayed at the Freesis family estate in her cat form, waiting to possess Mikina. During the assault on Castle Hedgehog, King Kyle confronted his mother and learned the whole of the conspiracy while Prim planned to have him again possessed by the Demon of Pride.

Shortly afterwards, Ney's strained mental state snapped and she killed Prim for failing to praise her, only to succumb to the Demon of Gluttony and be subdued by Germaine and Kyle. She was later killed by Abyss I.R. using Mikina as a medium. After stealing the vessels of sin gathered at the estate, Abyss I.R. fled to the Held Monastery, where her cat body was destroyed in a final showdown and the conspiracy was ended once and for all.

Aftermath
The wars and ravages of disease left in the wake of the conspiracy left countries such as Asmodean and Beelzenia weakened and resentful of Marlon and Lucifenia. Concluding the conspiracy, Marlon restored Lucifenia's former sovereignty and lost much of its gained territory. Following this restoration, Lucifenia was made into a Republic in EC 510.

Civilian Perception
Although never fully realized by the public, Prim's schemes led to the suffering and death of countless innocents and multiple wars between countries across all Evillious. Her actions to set up Princess Riliane as monarch turned her into a hated tyrant, despised in posterity for her cruelty throughout Lucifenia and its neighboring countries.

The people of Elphegort became contemptuous of the Lucifenian military as a result of the Green Hunting and prolonged conflict within its borders, and Marlon was viewed as a dangerous imperial power that lacked interest in its subjects. Because of the secretive nature of the events and their supernatural elements, the general populace never learned the truth of what transpired. However, despite being considered fiction, the novel written by Yukina Freesis which detailed the events became extremely popular during the 10th century EC.