Saturn sat there quietly with echo as they recounted the missing individuals, dead or banished. All of them were elders, all of them had been dealt with in one way or another by treachery of the highest order. The mindrache themselves didn’t know what to do; they hadn’t any idea what a lot of them would do outside of staying here. One leader among them and one from outside; it was a powerful driving force but what were the two knights going to do for and with them? Saturn paused and looked to the guards that he had trained. His jaw slackened and he felt something blossom inside of him.

”Mages. Warriors. Guards. Crafters, traders. We can make you all something that would be of a town. Of a city.”

Saturn stood amidst the meeting tent with a hundred small beings that in a different world perhaps the positions would have been reversed where they were trying to help him but it was such this world that they would need to without a doubt be able to make their own way. Saturn would have to make some calls; he couldn’t reliably train a hundred or so people at once. So they’d have to wait a little bit but he could take the warriors while echo took the mages. Vestige could even help in that effect.

It’d be slow going at first, only a handful at a time but that was the point. That was the entire case of being able to watch people grow; trainers showed up, craftsman showed up, builders and mages showed up. They had the resources at their fingertips and with an fervent gusto the mindrache walked forward into their new lives. Every day was better than the last; every experience and every fight that he was able to witness from their little bodies.

He got to see echo teach people how to weave powerful magics with the help of the vestige, while it wasn’t anything like a trained or long time mage would be capable of it was more than what the bandits could deal with. That was exactly what he wanted to have of them; a way for them to actually defend themselves enmasse. Saturn found his own trainees to be a handful, about a dozen or so that were wanting to learn various kinds of weapons. Some he was familiar with; some he was not. Thankfully the arrival of some trainers out of the rune knights were able to take the load off of him and help him with the ones he did know.

It was still slow going; some of the mindrache weren’t exactly the most coordinated or they had tempers. The former was fine they could iron that out quickly and the latter? Temperaments took a long time to change and they’d have to work on that if they wanted to protect people with their new powers and not use it against them instead. Something that was quickly hammered in place was not to use their skills against the defenseless or helpless. The weak or the sick, the elderly or young. There was much of his knight beliefs that were ironed into the mindrache over the next few weeks.

Some used axes, others spears, a few knives and a sword or two. The mages understanding of their craft had deepened thankfully and echo had returned for the fifth time with satisfaction brimming in his eyes. The trio was making a grand effort; vestige was giving lessons to the ones that needed a little more in the way of advanced tutoring when it came to magic and combat as they were the oldest among the three. Saturn wasn’t entirely sure how old the vestige was but they seemed wisened beyond their years. Likely having to be part of a deity for a long time would do that to a fellow.

The guards and mages would train against one another; learning how to work with one another and in an effort to fight what could be a very one sided battle otherwise. Many mages had the option to fly off from danger but with the wings they had that made the warriors even stronger than some of the other races. Saturn would himself be the one to test some of the fiestier warriors and mages that were going a bit too far for the trainers likings.

They had passion, they had fury, the want for a future beyond what was directly in front of them. The training went well day in and day out; he’d make motions and they’d follow suit. While he didn’t know many spells there were incantations and motions he was aware of that he was able to teach them. The perks of never being able to forget something was that you could be a great teacher to those that needed something from you. Every little movement from warriors he had only briefly met; every little fact that made every little thing more important than the last.

The twist of the spear; a twirl or flourish of a sword. The overhead motion of a powerful slam from a heavy weapon. Every little thing that he had learned up to this point was at their disposal. Once the guards had been figured out the trainers took fully over; they had the basics down for their trainees and thankfully this let saturn, echo and the vestige to teach the mages together. They were able to create lessons and the dozen or so mages, strong weak or otherwise were present for each.

The first lesson was that of controlling their inner element, many of them had fire. Some had light and only one had arcane. A rarity among mindrache but it was a welcome one; the ones that had darkness had their own teacher and they were willing to make time with them over those of this grouping. Something that saturn understood being part darkness elementally. Saturn would do his best to each the light mages while echo weighed in on the various magical seals that were sprouting.

The vestige was easy to work with, his defensive spells and his offensive ones made it easy for the mindrache to actually move forward. They were able to test magics against his barriers and further yet? They were able to make it so that echo could fight them in earnest; taking great pride in their growths as mages. Some of them stumbled or had their spells blow up in their faces.

They were thankfully easy to patch up as the magic wasn’t strong enough to cause lasting harm. Some of the more powerful mindrache were mindful of how much mana they put forward. In all, everything was shaping up and the bandit attacks had lessened as of late due to the proficiency of the various mages or guards that were quickly becoming more apparent they wouldn’t just be an easy mark anymore. It was something that saturn was happy to see.

Some of the mages also wanted to start trying to summon things from different planes, others wanted to try to set up a more permanent facility for training themselves and the ones interested in learning magic. Something akin to a little mindrache school of magic akin to the academy from far away. Albeit less grandiose and certainly not as well in the span of resources. They could after all just go to the academy for more training! Saturn was fairly pleased to see that many of the mages were well versed in making combination effects with one another as many of them didn’t share a similar class.

The future was looking brighter and brighter…

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