Thomas had always hated the gilded halls. The marbled surfaces that shone from every direction. The mild glint of gold wherever it had been engraved. It all felt wrong. It was not something that should exist within a crusader order. Even so, it was not his place to comment on what he felt was a waste of resources.

That being said, it was not only the overabundance that Thomas hated. No, it was the bureaucratics that happened within these halls. The political manoeuvring. The scheming that would allow the crusaders to gain on their political opponents. It was something that he despised with a passion yet knew was essential to the order’s survival.

Thomas stood and waited nervously before a huge golden door. He had departed the heretical vampire’s hideout for this place the moment that he had evacuated the building. The gravity of the situation was much more dire than he had ever expected. The raid had been supposed to be simple. A fight without any excitement. A simple routine. Yet, it had been anything but that. He and his fellow crusaders had almost lost their lives in that battle. Something that should not have been possible in a raid on heretical vampire upstarts.

“Crusader Captain Thomas Colart, Captain of the 69th crusader company, wishes for an audience with the Grandmaster!”

Thomas yelled with his heart beating rapidly in his chest. He always hated entering this room.

“You may enter…”

An old voice replied from beyond the doors. The massive doors swung open without a sound and without anyone pulling or pushing.

The opening of the door revealed a large reception room with a single ornate desk standing in the middle. The sides of the room were decorated mainly with countless bookshelves filled to the brim with books and scriptures. The only surface devoid of bookshelves was the one directly behind the desk. Instead, there was one large window, from which one could see many kilometres in the distance. The keen of mind would notice that the horizon did not look at all like Gliese Prime.

Sat behind the ornate desk, was a single man. He looked to be in his middle fifties with a faint layer of wrinkles slowly showing their presence. His face was weathered and staunch, showing not a single emotion. His most distinguishing feature was his slightly greying golden beard that almost seemed to float in the air before his chin.

Unlike the normal crusader, this man wore no armour at all. He simply wore ornate clothes that anyone would recognize as the garbs of cardinals of the Western Gliese Church.

This was the Grandmaster of their crusader order. A former scion of the Elyrion Kingdom and a subject of the pope of the Western Gliese Church. A high-level ascendant to boot. Yet, a crusader he was not. A man that had bought the loyalty of his men with money. In Thomas’s mind, a disgrace to the crusader order.

Despite Thomas entering the room, the Grandmaster kept writing on a piece of paper not even bothering to acknowledge his presence. Only after several minutes of writing did the middle-aged man put away his quill and turned his attention to Thomas.

“So, Crusader Thomas.” The man that made Thomas hate these halls addressed him with a chilly voice. “For what reason have you interrupted me in these early hours?”

Thomas wanted to scuff. What early hours? He knew full well that the so-called Grandmaster barely ever slept. Despite the thinly veiled loathe in the Grandmaster’s voice, Thomas replied with the decorum that was expected of him.

“Reporting to Grandmaster Miles. I have arrived to inform the Grandmaster of developments to the 69th crusader company’s raid on the heretical vampires under the lead of low-borne vampire Elias Simonson.”

“Oh. Could it be that you have failed in your duties Crusader Thomas? Should I perhaps send the 1st crusader company to clean up your mess?”

Thomas felt a headache growing in his skull. He knew full well why Grandmaster Miles had such animosity towards him. The 1st company was a company made entirely out of the Grandmaster’s people, the 69th were the opposite. Just because his company had chosen to support another in the selection, they had attracted his ire.

Even while the Grandmaster was looking to cast blame, Thomas would not submit to his pettiness.

“The vampires have been purged from their abode, with only three managing to escape the raid.”

Although the Grandmaster was adept at hiding his emotions, a slight flash of disappointment appeared on his face.

“I see.” The Grandmaster leaned back in his seat. “And why did you think to bring this to my attention? We have protocols that need to be followed and this should be a clear-cut case.”

“I would have done so, but these vampires had access to some peculiar weaponry that I believe you might be interested in.”

A hint of interest appeared in the Grandmaster’s eyes as he leaned forward in his seat.

“Explain.”

“As you wish.” Thomas brought forth a data pad and walked over to a small terminal. “May I?”

“Permission granted.”

Thomas plopped the data pad into the console and a huge holographic screen appeared before the two.

“As you might be aware, Grandmaster, the raid location was initially discovered by the arcane bureau’s observers because of a medium scale realm’s collapse. Initial analyses indicated that the destruction radiating from the collapse would have been the act of two medium scale faction’s fighting, but upon further investigation, we found that no such realm actually existed nor were there any combatants.”

“Go on.”

The interest in the Grandmaster’s eyes was no longer veiled but fully visible.

“When we arrived on location, we found that the vampire’s powers were exactly like they had been described. They would have been destroyed easily, had it not been for the tools they employed. The tools were anything but normal. They had control over a construct, which was golden and approximately twenty meters in height. Initial estimation of its power places it around the middle of the fourth tier.”

The Grandmaster gasped audibly. It had to be known that the Grandmaster himself was barely qualified for being named a fourth tier ascendant, meaning that this colossus was half a tier above him. Even on the entirety of Gliese, it was exceedingly rare to find anyone above the lower fourth-tier threshold. Those above that were either old hermits hiding away somewhere or the top brass that sat on the council of Gliese. Despite the common thought that colossuses were inferior to ascendants on the same level, for the colossus to be so powerful was simply unimaginable.

“Ho… how did you live? No, how did the vampires build such a construct? Did you find any schematics?!”

“The construct was, without a doubt, not built by the vampire’s hands. They could barely control it as is, let alone build something so impressive. My guess is that the construct is built upon forerunner technology.”

The Grandmaster perked up at the mention of forerunner technology.

“Forerunner technology?!” Are you certain?”

“To a reasonable degree.” Thomas brought up a screen on the hologram that depicted the details of his fight. “As you can see from the derelict state of the power conduits, it is highly likely that the construct has been in a dormant state for many years. Had it been in its original state, I believe that this construct might have been at the sixth tier if not more.”

The Grandmaster stared at the information on the hologram for almost an entire minute, scouring it for anything that could indicate that the crusader’s words were wrong, but he found nothing.

“What is its current state?”

“Our last records indicate that the construct entered into a temporary dormant cycle, but we were forced out of the hideout before we could ascertain the details.”

“Could it possibly have malfunctioned due to its age?”

The Grandmaster began to speculate.

“It is highly unlikely. An essence that matches its origin interfered and seemingly ordered it to shut down.”

“An essence that matches the origin?” A slight hint of fear appeared on Grandmaster Miles. “Does that not mean that the creator still lives?”

“Negative. I traced back the source to one of the vampire’s sacrifices.”

“A random sacrifice brought down a colossus?”

Thomas could easily hear that the grandmaster did not quite believe him. His next words would surely label him a lunatic.

“Yes, a teenager to be specific.”

“Crusader Thomas, are you are telling me that a random teenager that happened to have been captured by the vampires brought down a weapon that could destroy a medium-sized faction? Could it be that you are daft?”

Thomas did not even bother to reply to his superior’s abuse, but instead just went to the terminal and inserted a new data pad.

“I harboured the same doubts that you do right now, but all the evidence that we have gathered supports the theory.”

A new holographic view popped up in mid-air before the men. Sett’s entire body was visible to them, without missing a single detail, intimates and all. Countless pieces of data were outlined, such as his blood type, medical history, ancestry, locations, and much more.

Thomas tapped one of these pieces of information in order to see the details.

“Before I departed the vampire’s abode, I took a sample of the teenager’s blood while my vice-captain profiled him. Although he is newly ascended and does not even qualify for the first tier, he nonetheless matches the essence of the construct perfectly without even the most minute deviation.”

The Grandmaster stared absentmindedly at the information before his eyes, the gears in his brain clearly working on overdrive.

“Where is the child now?”

“The 69th crusader company is currently transporting the sacrifices of the vampires, including the teenager, to the trauma facility in accordance with the council’s procedures.”

The Grandmaster stared into space looking at nothing in particular. His scheming brain was clearly working in overdrive, attempting to figure out just how they could benefit from this situation.

“Have you contacted the bureau yet?”

“I have not.” For once Thomas smiled. “I thought it best to relay the information to you before I made any such moves.”

Of course, he had to go through the Grandmaster. There was no way that Thomas was willing to make any decisions by himself on such important matters.

The eyes of the Grandmaster lit up hearing Thomas’s words and he even looked at Thomas in a new light.

“Good, Crusader Thomas, you have done extremely well.” The Grandmaster even showered Thomas with compliments, something that he had never done during his stay at the order. “Contact your vice-captain, ensure that she brings the teenager to our facilities. No, bring all the sacrifices here. Neither the bureau nor the council is to hear anything of the raid that you have conducted today. The things that you have told me, is to stay only between you and I, are we clear?”

The words that the Grandmaster had spoken were, without a doubt, treasonous to the Council of Gliese, the current ruling faction on Gliese. If anyone found out that they had conspired in such a way, they would be labelled evil and be put in much the same situation as the heretical vampires that Thomas and his company had just hunted down.

Even so, Thomas did not say any words to dissuade the Grandmaster. It was because he himself would have done the exact same thing in his place. All ascendants craved power and the potential power that the teenager represented was beyond their imagination. Even if they had to face the entirety of Gliese Prime’s ascendants, they would strive to control that power source.

“Yes, Grandmaster.”

Thomas saluted.

“Good, now go. Time is growing short.”

With that, Thomas left the office in a much better mood than he had arrived in, knowing full well that the pawn the Grandmaster had just introduced to the playing field could easily be the Grandmaster’s own downfall.