A young man, in truth merely a boy by age, walked upright and confidently down a stone hallway. The boy's simple golden circlet and silvered chain shirt glimmered in the irregular, dim light provided by torches affixed throughout the hallway's walls, and the ruby pommel of his sheathed sword on occasion reflected a splash of red onto the surroundings. The boy turned to the wizened, white-bearded man walking beside him – identifiable by his mitre and crozier as a bishop of the Holy Catholic Church – and asked him in a hushed voice, "Have all the documents been prepared as I requested?"

The bishop raised his left arm, revealing the bundle of parchment he carried, and replied, "Yes, my liege." After a moment, he continued, "But I'll admit that I'm not entirely sure how you'll manage to get the other parties to sign any of this." The boy waved his hand in a dismissive manner, and said, "A plan has already been put into motion. The details will be discussed once we arrive at the council chambers."

After a few short moments of walking, the pair turned a corner and came upon a closed, wooden double door. Two guards at the door, clad in plate armour and wielding poleaxes, stood at attention as the pair rounded the corner, and moved to the sides of the hallway to allow the pair access to the door. The boy unhooked a silvered key from his belt and slid it into the door's locked, and with a click the doors slowly creaked open. With the doors unlocked, each guard grabbed the handle on their respective half of the door and pulled them fully open, and closed them after the boy and the bishop had walked through.

Past the door was a large, circular room, with a great circular stone table at its centre. Numerous maps, diagrams, and documents were scattered across the table, illuminated by light from a chandelier hung from the centre of the stone room's roof. Two other men were already in the room: a tall, broad man clad in ornate plate armour and a great-sword at his hilt, and a weedy, mustachioed man wearing court finery. The two were arguing about how much money it cost to feed an army or something, but that argument ceased as the boy entered the room.

The weedy man immediately turned to the boy, and pleaded, "My lord, thank goodness you've come to talk some sense. Lord Vaudémont here has presented me with the most infeasible budget. I know as marshal he has an inherent bias towards military spending, but this is just obscene. As treasurer I cannot in good faith agree to such a—." The boy raised his rand to cut the weedy man off, and replied, "As treasurer it is your job to raise me money, not tell me how to spend it. Enough of this foolishness; we have a short time and must focus on th—." The weedy man interrupted the boy, "Wh-what?! Preposterous! See here," the weedy man grabbed a document from the table, and pointed to a line on it, "I cannot even make out what this expense is supposed to be! it's completely illegible!"

The weedy man kept droning on for several more moments, during which the armoured man put his right hand on his sword hilt and looked pointedly at the boy. The boy nodded, and in one swift movement the armoured man's great-sword was drawn and the weedy man's head lay upon the ground, detached from his neck.

At the sound of combat the guards in the hallway rattled the door open and burst in, one shouting, "My liege! Are you safe?" as he entered. The boy replied, "Yes, I am, thank you," and, gesturing to the weedy man and his severed head, continued, "But our late treasurer here seems to have suffered a stress fracture of the neck." The guards looked at each other, shrugged, and exited the room, re-closing and locking the door behind them.

"My thanks, Lord Vaudémont," the boy said to the armoured man, "Now that that's settled, how are the preparations coming along?" The armoured man responded, "Excellently, my lord. Our forces should be assembled by the end of the month." The boy nodded in approval, "Good, good. You should be ready to launch your surface attack on schedule, then."

Upon hearing the word 'attack', comprehension dawned upon the bishop. In shock, he blurted out, "My lord! Is that... legal?"

With a grin, the boy replied. "I will make it legal."