A Papal Dillemma

Pope Julius sat upon his papal throne with an exhausted expression on his aging face. He had only become Pope a few years prior, and yet it appeared as if he had spent decades presiding over the Church. After countless losses against his rival in central Europe, he had just about lost the will to continue his struggle against the German Reformation and its damnable figurehead. 

In his hands, loosely held by a failing grip, was a note that recounted the recent events in Iberia. King Felipe was dead, and so too was his army. However, that was not the worst of it. In the hours after the foolish Spanish King had walked into his death, the German-Granadan Alliance had marched into Spain, and conquered most of its territory. 

Berengar, the accursed, had expertly laid a trap, and the Spanish King walked right into it. Worst of all, this damnable fiend had the nerve to extinguish one of Christendom's few natural stockpiles of the valuable resource, known as saltpeter.