"My friends," Gran Maestro Romano Priggia Marinno told his fellow Consiglieri, the most powerful men and women of the Federazione Dell'Ovest (A/N: Western Federation in Remiano, their language). "You must have heard about the recent troubles our neighbors in the Rantharian Empire are undergoing."
"Yes," Consigliera Alteia Macara Fiolana replied. "Already, one of my caravans has arrived back with its cargo, and my men in King Sydrian's court have warned me of problems within."
"All of us have received similar messages from our men, Alteia," Consigliere Gian Broga Cailno said. "Do remember that they are our greatest trading partner."
"Indeed," Romano said. "Now, we must act swiftly. I am of the belief that we should give support to Sydrian. A messenger arrived just this morning, with distressing news. He has lost all of Rowengia and several provinces to Skydon due to revolts in them, and he also reports that he is being pressured by our neighbors in the southeast, those bandits led by so-called King Boris. I'm sure you three from Venina," he said, pointing at Viola Jarana Veninana, Carlo Colovo Zareno and Mal Luccio Quipreno, "have suffered him the most."
"Yes. I've had to spend extra to pay for some condotieri to protect those of my caravans that pass near enough the territory they control," Viola said, clearly affronted by the fact that she had to earn less than what was her intent.
"I'm sure one or two merchants in my town have tried to make deals with them, but they are rather unreliable in that account. They sure learned their lessons when their traders returned without a coin nor their animals," Carlo stated.
"That's the mistake of every inexperienced merchant, they don't know there are people that can simply not be traded with," Alteia said with a bitter smile, remembering the mistakes she had made herself.
"Well, this is where we come," the Gran Maestro said. "They say they have large resources, in fact they have actually offered us 90 million Scudi (A/N: plural of Scudo, 1,000,000 Scudi = 1 EP) to not attack them. Now, we have two choices. Either we go to war against them, and take the money when we win, or we take the money, wait until they are weakened, and then go to war with them. The latter choice would not make us look good, but is the safest possible choice., but they are so small that I doubt they could field large armies. Besides, how can we be sure that they actually have all that money, or that it is but a feint to make us wait while they ravage the Rantharian Empire? It would make us look like bad friends to Rantharia."
"So, what do you suggest? That we take the money, and then the land and the money?" Gian said.
"Sure. Of course, part of that money would go to making our army bigger and make it easier for our soldiers to win, and the rest can go to pay the Venina merchants for their trading losses caused by Boris. And the money we gain from those investments can then go to rebuild the lands we'll free from Boris. part of that money would have to go to the rebuilding of those lands, and part to pay for the probable losses our army would suffer, but the rest would be easily used by our nations to finance themselves, as well as paying the merchants of Venina for their trading losses. What is your opinion?"
"I would be all for the idea, but, these rumors of Boris having spies in every city in the world, how would we deal with them?" Mal asked.
"Well, that's certainly a problem, I admit it. However, it is easy to solve. As soon as the invasion starts, we'll ensure that the deployment is only known to us and our generals, and we'll ask every city in Venina to send supplies to support the army. We'll just make sure that it is impossible for them to know where our troops are exactly.they receive our message back, telling them we reject their offer, they'll ready themselves for war against us. However, the deployments will be secret, as we will ensure that our troops do not come near to a city. Sure, we can ask them to send supplies to support our troops, but as we will be asking from many cities, no spy will be able to be sure where our armies will come from."
"Not a bad idea. We should consult with our generals, in any case," Gian replied.
"Indeed. Now, let's hear about the quarterly gains from our trading missions to the Empire."
