“Welcome Ladies and … well, it´s only gentleman, I guess. Thank you for attending this important meeting!” I looked down on around twelve men who sat around a large table, armed with quill and paper. Those were the crucial military officials who had positions that could theoretically be used to threaten Arthur´s orders. They all looked at me in wonder as I stood on the table and walked in a straight line on it, only to turn around at the end. “I have nothing but one task for all of you.”

“You cannot give us any orders.” One of the men said, slightly agitated by my behaviour.

“You may be right, but he definitely can.” I pointed towards Arthur who stood beside Markus with arms crossed in front of his chest. “My orders are his orders, understood?”

None of them were happy with this development, but at least there weren’t any complaints so far. Walking on the table like the world belonged to me certainly gave them quite an imposing impression of me.

“It is nothing but a simple task, so don’t worry. There were quite a few spelling errors in the documents you submitted and it honestly got on my nerves badly. So, we will train to spell now. I will dictate a few words and you will write them down, alright?” I didn’t wait long but rather started to read them the prepared text out loudly. “Admission of guilt. Write this as the headline please, there should be a simple line indicating where to start. Going on: I, insert your name here … don’t write insert your name here, but rather write your name … don’t write your name either … you get it, don’t you?” I looked down on a paper and someone apparently got it right. “Alright. I, your name am guilty of inciting insurrection within the army. Everyone did that?” I didn’t wait a millisecond until I continued.

“Alright, now just sign the document at the bottom of the page. Take the second paper and write down the alphabet in capital letters and lower case, please. I will fill out the rest of this document myself, thank you very much!”

“What is the meaning of this?” Asked the same person who spoke up earlier as well. He didn’t fill out the carefully prepared papers for me which was very saddening to see.

“We were practising spelling?” I said innocently and collected the papers from those that filled them out. Around half of them did, but the others were simply unwilling to do so.

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“Alright, if you really want to know the truth … there has been quite a lot of suspicious activities lately. We do suspect a group of officers who want to plan an uprising. This is a test of your loyalty so to speak. If you don’t fill this out, it means you are already disloyal.” I stepped down from the table while speaking and stood exactly behind him after I finished. I leaned over to him and whispered into his left ear. “You will pay for Luna´s death.”

Immediately after saying that, I stood upright again as if nothing happened at all and began to circle around the table.

“So tell me, are you disloyal?” I asked once and for all while staring into his empty eyes. He was the only one who had a parasite controlling him so far.

“This isn’t about loyalty at all! This is just insanity. Arthur, would you fill this out?” He asked and turned towards the duke, only to be presented with the exact same admission of guilt everyone wrote, except that he was found guilty of plotting against the king.

“Are you loyal or disloyal? Choose, or I will do it for you.” I threatened and watched him how he refused to write down a single word. A dagger flew across the tent and struck the officer from behind. It wasn’t me who threw it, it was Markus.

“Illegally using military funds for personal usage is forbidden. Under military law, I hereby sentence you to death.” Said Arthur, slightly late although that didn’t matter at all. The others were happily filling out their very own admission of guilt and even gave me the papers willingly. One had to start all over again because of all the sweat that dripped down.

With this, everyone, even Arthur, was disposable. We could easily throw them out by creating a few more documents using Tom´s forging capabilities he surprisingly revealed a few hours beforehand.

We would still be in trouble if Arthur would be controlled, but there was really nothing I could do except to give him a few practical tips and running around the whole night in the area where the officers slept while Tom and the rest prepared everything for our little trip. That day, a staggering amount of two hundred and thirty officers were purged because of forged evidence. They were all burned at the stake and exploded gloriously. Gore was everywhere, but sadly, there were far too few onlookers in my opinion. As I didn’t find more worms an hour before the sun would rise, I visited Tom again who was giving the documents the last touches.

“Heyho!” I picked a finished one up and began to read.

Admission of guilt.

I, Jean Wolf, am guilty of insurrection within the army. I colluded with an underground organisation of unknown origin to overthrow …

It was perfect. There was absolutely no difference between Tom´s and the man´s handwriting and it was exactly sentimental enough to go through as written by a person who knew he was going to die. The text ended just before the signature and even took into account the known backstory of this man.

“Where did you learn this stuff?” I asked out of curiosity because I couldn’t do such things. I could translate this text to a hundred different languages, but I couldn’t make it seem like another person wrote it.

“I worked a few years as a noble, going from bank to bank and living off the loans they gave me. A lot of paperwork has gone into setting up these fake personas. Birth certificate, certificate of ownership of a mansion as collateral, even a few letters by the king with his seal, marriage certificate with a wealthy woman, you know how it is.” He casually told me that, but I was in all honesty quite impressed. One had to be a certain kind of person to go into a bank and demand a loan while everything that supports you are a bunch of forged documents.

“And why did you go to the bandits after that? Sounds like a nice and relaxing lifestyle.”

“It was boring, incredibly so. At some point, I decided that living as a bandit probably suited me better.” I didn’t think of him as the adventurous type before, so his revelation came quite surprising.

“Do you regret that decision?” He didn’t seem to know the answer straight away as he rubbed his chin for quite some time before answering.

“Partially. I´m not the kind of guy that goes around and threatens others, so the bandits may not have been the perfect decision.” He concluded, perfectly in line with my view of him. He wasn’t the brutal type of man, but rather liked to beat his enemies with knowledge and wits.

“I see.”

“Markus and I are finished with our preparations. What about your side?”

“I burnt so many humans at the stake that I lost count of it. It´s now or never.” We left Arthur´s tent shortly afterwards. We found Markus together with Arthur at a campfire and waited for Markus in the distance. They noticed us but still didn’t interrupt their private conversation. Arthur had quite the stern expression while Markus honestly seemed a bit bored. Both of them didn’t know what we were about to do and as such, I doubted they were talking about anything relevant.