B4 Chapter 433: Briefings and Plans, pt. 7

Grandmaster Olmos swept his eyes over Kaius and his team, appraising each one of them individually.

Kaius wasn’t sure what he was expecting when Rieker had said they would be talking to the grandmaster of the Guild. Perhaps somebody of palpable strength, grizzled and warlike, drenched in magic and artefacts. Instead, Olmos looked almost normal. A man late into his middle years, dressed sharply in a rich suit. Yet for all casual inspection that might suggest the man was some wealthy merchant or lesser noble, Kaius would have never mistaken him for one. He had iron in him.

It was plainly visible in his ram-rod spine; in the way each and every one of the grandmaster’s movements seemed measured and calculated, and the precision with which his hands were folded in front of his waist. Hells, even the tension to the slight, curious tilt of his head oozed gravitas.

“Rieker has told me some interesting things about the lot of you. Among the first to discover aspects, and you brought this information straight to the Guild. I’ve been most curious — Rieker speaks of forgotten mysteries, of Honours, and just a score or so of days ago, he mentions that you wish to share skills, too? Why, this I’ve been positively eager for this conversation,”

Olmos’s eyes shifted back to Kaius, minute flickers in the mans illusory projection dragging at his focus thanks to Truesight.

“I wish to ask you personally, where do Silvers like this come from? They aren’t normally found in Deadacre of all places, especially not rising so swiftly,” the grandmaster asked.

Kaius breathed, folding his hands in his lap.

Their rise, at least, could be explained easily. “Grandmaster Olmos,” he started, “it is a pleasure to meet you. The story is an interwoven one. I’m sure Rieker must have mentioned some of the difficulties in my last year before I had class selection,” Kaius said

The grandmaster nodded with the slightest incline of his head.

“Well,” Kaius said, “because of that, we were forced to fight over our level — Porkchop and myself, that is. That led to honours, which begat strength, which led us to push further — which brought us more honours. That also led to our brush with aspects, and our ability to best the Crucible.”

Olmos nodded thoughtfully. “That is true, but it is not the core of my question. It is rare, the man that finds wealth and moves to spread it freely. I wish to know why. What is your interest in this? You have procured for yourself and your team quite the advantage. Yet, rather than safeguard it, you would use the Guild to spread it widely. Hells, you’ve damn near handed me the keys to the largest political upheaval this continent will have seen since the Shattering.”

How could he even begin to explain? Yes, there was danger — and yes, the stagnation of the world caused problems that he wished to end. The rising tide lifted all ships, as it were.

More than that, he was just tired of it all. The web of death and secrecy that caught so many.

Kaius ran his hands through his hair. “My father and my dynasty were killed by tenets of secrecy. I’ve seen evidence through the ways of the meles of a better path. My feelings were only reinforced with our experiences in the Crucible.”

“Oh?” Olmos replied. “Rieker told me precious little of what you experienced in there, only that it would be better to hear it from your mouth.”

“We met an ascendant,” Ianmus interjected, drawing the Grandmaster’s attention. “A godlike being of great strength, brought to our world by the System to oversee part of the integration. This phase change, we learned, was supposed to happen far earlier, and there are more to come in the future.”

Kaius nodded at his teammates’ words, drumming his hand on the desk in front of him. “We thought it prudent to help prepare people as best we could. Besides, even disregarding legacy skills, the more people forging ahead and sharing the knowledge they find, the faster we will all progress.”

“So this is a sentiment shared by all of you, not just Kaius and Porkchop?” Olmos asked.

“It is,” Kenva replied, as Ianmus nodded.

The Grandmaster fell silent for a spell, thinking deeply as he interlaced his fingers.

After a moment, he sighed. “So, the long and short of it is that you wish to detail how fully to capitalize on aspects; what honours are, and how to acquire them; how to make use of Crucibles, and even for the guild to spread a selection of godsdamned legacy Skills?.”

Kaius scratched behind his ear. When the Grandmaster put it like that, it was a little ridiculous for a single meeting. “I suppose we do, grandmaster Olmos.”

The Grandmaster shook his head, giving a rueful smile to Rieker and Ro. “The two of you never do come to me with easy problems, do you?”

Rieker laughed. “No, we do not.”

Some of the Grandmaster’s steely exterior softened for a moment, a small smile spreading across his face. “This will be big and complex. You were right to bring it to me. But I do think it is manageable,” grandmaster Olmos shifted back to Kaius. “Let’s start with aspects. We already have a bit of a program up and running for that. We can move to honours and skills after.”

The conversation started in earnest as Kaius and his team shared every scrap they had learnt in their time down in the depths and over the last year. Excluding, of course, subjects they couldn’t share — details on cycling and the like.

At first, the Grandmaster was silent and thoughtful, yet as Kaius explained the process behind discovering personal truth, solidifying it with embodiment, before finally the advantages that a Crucible may bring, Olmos’s expression began to shift to disbelief. When he and his team spoke of the honours they had discovered and the advantages they could bring for those who started early enough, Kaius saw unrestrained joy in the man’s face.

It only grew when he spoke of the skills he wished to share to nurture future powerhouses — hells, anyone who would learn them — grandmaster Olmos seemed almost manic, pearly white teeth shining in the ward lights of his office.

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“This could change everything,” Olmos declared, standing up as he paced back and forth behind his desk. “Do you understand what you have brought me?”

Kaius remained silent, fairly certain that the question was rhetorical.

“This is change. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said this would bring upheaval — there are a dozen political deadlocks that will break with this.”

All at once, the grandmaster laughed — a deep sound from the depths of his belly. “Oh, half of the old guard will be fuming. Hell, half the dynasties on Vaastivar will be on the verge of rioting.”

Olmos paused for a moment, his face growing serious.

“It is a good thing you want to share this broadly, because if we try to keep this purely to the Guild, we would have a goddamn continent of war on our hands.”

Kaius raised an eyebrow. “War? That seems a little extreme.”