The Garania Empire, having been for centuries the dominant power on the continent and undoubtedly one of the strongest nations on the planet, was in a bad state.

To understand why, we have to look at the ruler of the empire, Empress Isabella I. She had ascended to the throne at the age of 15, despite her father, the late emperor Lothair IV, having died of old age, he had been far too busy in his youth he spent conquering vast swathes of land, leading to him having his first and only child late in his life.

Isabella herself was a very kind person, despite her powerful position she made sure to treat everyone with respect, whether they be the ruler of a neighbouring empire or a local castle’s janitor. She wanted nothing but the best for her nation, but its troubles were due to causes beyond her control, and her youth and inexperience certainly didn’t help.

The problem was that in the country’s law books, dating back hundreds of years and claiming to be ordained by the Gods, women were forbidden to hold the throne. The then sick and elderly Lothair had changed the law hastily to allow his daughter to be his successor, a move that was seen as blasphemous by most of the nobility and military.

At the time, most members of these aforementioned groups had kept their mouths shut as the old emperor was still held in high esteem by all his subjects, once he had croaked every ambitious male noble with even the furthest connection to the royal bloodline had claimed the throne for himself.

Furthermore, the peasantry of the nation wanted to be free of the high taxes and long, hard days of manual labour that were imposed on them by the nobility. Isabella did not want to use the army to quell the ensuing peasant revolts, but she was too inexperienced and unable to convince the peasants to stop revolting, nor the nobles to grant them concessions.

All in all, this meant that just two years after Isabella had taken the throne, the Garania empire was now a house of cards about to topple, with several pretender armies beginning to march to the capital and peasants in several cities having overrun the local castles and proclaimed self-rule. All of the Empress’s efforts to calm down the situation had just made it worse, as the nobles refused to listen to a woman, and the peasants refused to listen to someone who’s clothes cost more gold than they’d ever see in their life.

Now, Isabella lay in a slouched position on her golden throne, the ornate crown adorned with hundreds of priceless jewels and passed down the royal family for generations sat atop her luscious blonde hair that flowed down to her shoulders. Her style of dress was far more akin to that of her father’s than that of most queens, wearing a regal shirt made of the finest silk on the planet, her coat of similar quality lying on the throne behind her as it was a hot day. Her pants stretched down to her ankles, where her feet were in sandals adorned with jewels and her nails painted purple, a sign of her status considering how rare the pigment was.

The empress had fallen into desperation, and had sent invitations to nobles not in revolt against her asking for possible solutions to the crisis the empire was facing, an invitation that was taken by a group of unmarried noblewomen to be their opportunity at remaking the empire in their vision, with the help of a particular device developed by a court scientist.

The group of six noblewomen, accompanied by a security entourage told to stand outside of the castle, entered the royal palace, its servants bowing to them as they entered the throne room, kneeling before their empress.

Isabella allowed the women to stand up and come closer in order to present their idea to her.

One of the noblewomen began to speak for the group. “Your Majesty, we are here to present just what is necessary to end the crisis this country is facing. Eleanor, please provide a demonstration to the Empress.”

The brunette on the right of the group put her hand in her bag, pulling out a device that had a similar appearance to a crossbow, except with a tiny barrel instead of the usual bolt. “What you see here your majesty, has the power to shrink down anything you can think of.” She primed the weapon, then aimed it at an end table at the side of the room. As soon as the barrel collided with the table, it became discoloured and rapidly began to shrink for a few seconds, before reaching a height of a few centimetres.

Isabella’s eyes widened, she was astonished that such a device existed and was capable of this extraordinary feat. She attempted to remain calm as she responded, “Very well, now how shall this end the strife that plagues the empire?”

“With this device, we’re capable of completely changing society in order to make sure that what caused this crisis cannot happen again. Firstly, all peasant towns and cities are to be shrunken down immensely, after all, how can peasants revolt if they don’t reach above our toenails? Of course, a few will remain at normal size to provide food for us, but their numbers won’t be large enough to stage a proper revolt.”

The woman at the front of the group continued with a smirk beginning to show on her face, “The second step is to strip all male nobles of their titles and shrink them down to the size of a mouse or so, in order to make sure that they can never claim your throne. They can serve as servants, and they’ll still be large enough to be able to impregnate a normal sized woman.”

Isabella thought that this step was far too extreme, but then she remembered all the times her opinion had been disregarded, how there were dozens of nobles in revolt against her purely because of her gender, and decided that it was probably for the best, and nodded as the noblewoman continued.

“All we need to make this a reality, is to construct this device on the scale of a siege engine in order to be able to apply it to entire towns and cities. We can’t do this with our property and workers as we need far more materials and manpower than is on our fiefs, so I implore you, your Majesty, to give us these tools.”

The Empress believed the solution to the peasant revolts provided by these women was far too extreme, for peasants to be the size of ants in comparison to the nobles, but it was either that or her head on a pike and the empire in flames, so she had no choice but to accept.

“Very well, I shall grant you what you need. Go down to the workshop and explain that I approved of your plans, and they shall provide whatever you ask for.” The group of noblewomen kneeled once more to Isabella, thanking her for her approval, before walking out of the throne room.

“I can now only hope that this will result in peace and prosperity across the empire,” Isabella thought to herself…