The next few days were easily some of the least stressful that saturn could have asked for. With the resounding defeat of that mercenary group the rest had decided to stay away from the city and the knights. Saturn’s presence had a rather worrying effect on the groups as they would approach only to immediately scatter when they saw the behemoth step out from the gates. Eventually they knew to stay away from the golden demon and further yet they found that if they did fight him they would be trounced, arrested and sent to the city guard. Easily earning jail time or services as they had tried to fight a major in the knights.

Well. A major for now; he had no idea what was in store for him. But that was a different story for a different time. Saturn took a seat at the meal hall, many of the mindrache had recovered; treated by the nurses or various healers that were at the outpost. They were concerned still and saturn could understand that. Many of them were merchants, many of them were old, the few young could barely hold a blade. There was only a handful of ones that were old enough to defend themselves and not be too old to do anything. Saturn couldn’t help but imagine biting the inside of his cheek at the frustration here.

What if we taught you to fight?

That question was a resounding frustrating no; they weren’t good combatants. Much of that could be seen from the way that they were handling this. Further still there were more of them that couldn’t fight and many were still learning their trades respectively. To swap trades would disrupt their entire community and saturn sighed.

There wouldn’t be a community for them to go to if they couldn’t figure that out. There was just too much at stake after all. If they didn’t do something they wouldn’t have a home; wouldn’t have their own freedom. That was something they seemed to hesitantly agree to. Looking at one another and many of them seemed a bit out of sorts. Some got angry and some of them stormed out. The older ones especially save for the elder who just sighed. He understood the wisdom in what saturn was suggesting.

The youth seemed to be for it save for a few of them that were too gentle; too mild mannered. Saturn knew that forcing them to do it meant a lot of bad things. But there were a few of the youngins that liked the idea as they hadn’t even chosen their roles or trades yet. Saturn would help them; he’d train them and try to get things sorted out. The mindrache youths like this.

The elders continued to struggle and resist against the nature of progress which was fine. They didn’t seem to mind the protection that the knights afforded them at the moment and saturn sat there mulling that over. What if he inducted the mindrache into the knights? They’d get resources allocated to them and the knights would consider them as part of their own. At least the guards. Not the elders and youths.

This led to a bit of an uproar with the mindrache elders, the main one didn’t seem to like it either and he sat there listening to their concerns and further still some of them were getting exceptionally rowdy. Saturn tapped his hand on his leg and then motioned. The gate was right there; they were free to leave and take their caravan wherever they liked whenever they liked. The knights here were stretched thin and saturn was the only knight here with the authority to do what was necessary.

This made a lot of them calm down and the elders seemed to take what he had said to heart; or at least seemed to be a little easier on the ears about it. He’d cross his arms and mull over the options. He could train them personally; he didn’t know much outside of spears and firearms when it came to weapons. When it came to magic however he trounced many individuals out of an elemental advantage alone. Something maybe he could trigger in enough of them that would cause their mages to be strong.

The few warriors he could put in with the recruits and have them learn the basics over the course of a few weeks here. The caraveners looked a little concerned over the idea of spending too much time in one location with the mercs that were no doubt going to show up more and more. Saturn understood that problem all too well but they needed time to recover, time to train and time for them to get acclimated to living in one place. They didn’t like that but what were they to do? Echo was helping talk them down at least and he was pretty sure that if given enough time the elders would eventually just agree to what they had to say out of the gate if it was good enough.

The elders could learn magic, the youths could learn the basics… and those of age? Could learn how to fight thoroughly. Both saturn and echo could teach them while the vestige taught the elders magic. The three of them working together to ensure that the mindrache would be ready for anything coming their way. Some of the youth and some of those of age liked the idea of learning magic. The vestige had tons of information to give and would be a good teacher too.

If he needed help? Saturn would step in and tutor them; if they were stuck on something saturn could also pull from the library. Now really the last question was… Did they want to join the rune knights officially? That was a harder answer than he expected; many of them were uncertain and a few outright said no but then were uncertain again. They had to weigh the pros and cons among themselves. Take a few days or the like. Saturn understood and sighed; eventually going outside to stare at the stars.

”They’re just afraid saturn.”

”I know. I’d be too.”

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