Cast Mending - Part 3

Faleah couldn't hold herself back when she saw Samuel for the first time again after a whole year. She rushed forward and hugged him tight for several minutes and Alsian gave her a smile before teleporting back not wanting to disturb the two.

Faleah finally took a step back after a long minute. She looked carefully at his face that was illuminated by nearby torchlights. She saw that he had changed, his facial expression was calmer and kinder now. So she smiled, thinking that the burden he had carried all along must have finally eased. Faleah wasn't stupid, she had seen it all along.

Samuel finally took a deep breath. "Can I tell you everything?" He asked and Faleah nodded as she guided him to look out over the river in the middle of the city. It was a calm and quiet night with a light breeze.

There was a small island in the middle of the river flowing through the city, it was almost completely empty and acted more as a place for the road and bridges to cross. But it also hid the main teleportation circle to the floating city far above. Together they found a nice quiet beach like place and there Samuel could finally tell her everything, about the truth of how he had come to find her and what had happened before it.

She sat silently listening to let the young man vent and when he finally was done she just dragged him into her embrace. "I lost my husband and young son several years ago." She said with a small silent tear from Samuel's story combined with how she lost her own, they had both lost their family. "They died in a large fire... I tried to find someone to blame, so a part of me envies you! Because you have someone else you can blame." Faleah sighed and kissed him on the forehead.

"I was just a bitter and lonely ranger drinking myself to death, until you came around. You reminded me a lot about my son, thanks to you I got some new direction instead of just slowly walking down a path of sorrow. I knew that you carried a great burden from the moment I got to know you!"

"In one way, I thanked the gods for giving me a new son. So let me just tell you, that the first person you ever saved from death... was me!" Faleah hugged him tighter.

"I know its selfish of me, but... would you allow me to adopt you? I know you are grown up and everything, but...." Before Faleah could say another word Samuel gave her a big bear hug. All the memories of the year with Faleah went through his head, she had been there for him. Supporting him, training him, making sure he ate well and was generally ok. Like a mother she had pampered him at times and scolded him other times.

"I was told to live! So I would love to live with having you as a mom! I think you are amazing." His words made Faleah start shedding more tears, she had finally gotten a son back. After a while they left the beach and walked towards the city, Faleah took the lead with a huge smile on her face.

"Where are we going?" Samuel had asked and she smiled, "We are going to my house... my home!" Faleah didn't divulge any more information than that so Samuel could only happily follow. He noticed that most living areas in the republic were similar. The fact was that there were no slums in the capitol. There were poor people sure, but the Republic prided itself in making use of manpower and giving homes to most citizens.

It was the same with rich, there were hardly any overly rich people because the rank of nobility didn't mean as much in the Republic compared to the Rookian Kingdom. In the Republic, commoners and nobles alike could share important jobs. So the amount of rich people were mostly commoners that had worked hard.

Eventually they reached a smaller area inside the northern wall. There was almost like an empty forest and a large walled area. Inside was an open large park with three buildings and there were guards walking around wearing a private crest. The crest of house Gillfall one of the ancient pillars of the Republic.

The first eight cities of the Republic had been known as the eight golden cities of Kar. Each city was ruled by a mage and those eight mages formed the mage council of Kar, with the Archon holding the highest title and being the ultimate ruler of the council.

A war between The Golden Cities & Old Rookia about a 150 years prior had made several smaller states and towns around The Golden Cities join them to be protected and at the end of the war that saw no borders rewritten, the Republic of Rejuan had been born. Since too many cities and towns had joined for the Mage council to administrate them alone they founded the Rejuan council, where the smallest of commoner to the most esteemed noble could become a senator. As long as one was good at their job and carried Rejuan forward.

House Gillfall was one of the largest founding pillars, their nobles being both generals and senators that helped develop the birth of the Republic. So Samuel was a bit confused as Faleah stopped in front of the main gate to the estate. She turned around to Samuel and said: "Welcome home!" With a mischievous smile.

"Wait what? You, What? Huh? Here? How? When?" Samuel couldn't help but sound stupid. "Well you never asked my full name did you?" Faleah laughed loudly drawing the attention of the guards at the gate, whom proceeded to look who was there only for all of them to end up standing at attention. "Welcome home Lady Gillfall!" The Captain of the watch yelled out while saluting.

Faleah quickly dismissed the guards back to their duties and guided Samuel inside the gates. "You are probably waiting to ask why a noble lady like myself became a ranger?" Faleah asked the moment she saw his stupid face all scrunched up in thought, she couldn't help but smile. "I took the job that made me the most free when I was a younger, I met my husband in the military and started living a bit calmer life. But back then I wasn't the lady of the house. But alas, my brother and his family died from a disease a few years back and from the main house it left me in the position of leading the house when my parents finally passed."

"For years I have been considering to leave the main house duties to one of many sister houses. But then I met you and finally decided on living a bit of a calmer life." Faleah said with a chuckle when she saw Samuel's still awestruck face.

"I guess you will have a second noble house in your name from now on... Samuel Concor Gillfall. But I do reccommend you continue using Samuel Fayt as an alias, Alsian certainly pulled a smart move on that one considering all you have told me. In rank she held a much lower position than Alsian and she was shocked to find out everything Samuel had told her. But she was a military woman that knew the importance of secret information.

"I am the last member now of the main family." She said with a bittersad voice and then turned to Samuel. "But I guess not anymore!" Faleah and Samuel finally arrived at the main estate, three huge buildings stood in a central courtyard on the hill. House Gillfall was definitely rich and owned plenty of land.

Faleah sighed and walked up the stone steps and slammed a large stone bell on the door which made a heavy echo spread through the halls on the inside. After a short wait a maid opened the door and quickly got large shocked eyes. "L-Lady Gillfall! I am sorry, we were not expecting you back!" The maid had a very apologetic tone and worried face. It was the servants job to be prepared for their master. The maid quickly opened the door for them to enter and rang a weird bell.

Faleah did not seem bothered by the staff not knowing she was coming, she had not told anyone after all. So she simply let it go, while Samuel suddenly got shocked as he saw several butlers and maids come running from several places. The large main hall had a staircase going up and also several side corridors all leading to different areas of the house.

In a matter of minutes the butlers and maids stood ready to greet the Lady of the house and a shorter man came walking dressed as a more fancy butler. The head butler walked straight up to Faleah and gave her a bow.

Typical maid clothing and black butler clothing was the go to standard. Samuel could feel several of the maids and butlers throwing him curious glances. "My Lady Faleah! Oh, what an honor it is to have you back!" The squeeaky voice of the head butler was something Samuel was not prepared for and he had to think other thoughts not to laugh or smile.

"Thank you Fori! I apologize for not sending word about my return." Faleah replied with respect to her staff which just proved that she treated them well. The staff seemed really happy to have the lady of the house back after all. Samuel noticed from the sidelines and the head butler Fori turned questioningly to Samuel. "And this esteemed gentleman is your guest madam?" His squeeaky voice asked the question on everyone elses mind.

Faleah took a few steps back and took off her raincloak and put a hand on Samuel's arm and brought him forward a bit. "This is Samuel, he is my Son!" She proudly exclaimed in front of all the staff and Samuel couldn't help but blush a little bit.

"As such you will all treat him as such, he is a student of the mage college and is also going to become the inheritor of my legacy if he so wishes." Her voice was stern and all the staff understood in an instant and they all bowed to Samuel simultaneously. "Welcome home Master Samuel!" They all almost shouted. "Hah.. ha ehh Samuel will do fine!" He chuckled nervously.

Many of the staff had faces that wondered if he was her actual son or a bastard son, a secret child. But Faleah clapped her hands and allowed them all to return to their duties. She instructed Fori to show Samuel to his room and to after that bring Samuel to her own room.

Samuel followed the head butler along and was surprised at the size of his room, a king size room that had everything. It depicted a few old paintings of what Samuel assumed to be family, there had been many paintings along the way as well, but he had no idea who they were.

Everything was just so new to Samuel so he spent the little time he had to take it all in before the butler brought him to Faleah's office, Samuel was surprised to see her in an actual dress, she looked uncomfortable but she looked prim and proper as well, she really was Lady Gillfall.

The rest of that night they spent finalizing the adoption papers before they sent a butler with the necessary information to the senate department in charge of citizenship and ownership. It confirmed Samuel as the heir of house Gillfall, but it also allowed him to keep the different names legally.

Both Faleah and Samuel were exhausted after long days, so they called it a night and decided to talk more over breakfast. Samuel gave her a goodnight hug before leaving much to Faleah's surprise, but she welcomed it happily. She welcomed a son home.

Samuel had an easy time falling asleep when he finally realized how exhausted he was. But he was not quite ready to be waked up by a butler in the morning. 'Right.. nobles have servants for things.' Samuel almost sighed inwardly. He had promptly refused any help in getting dressed in any particular clothing, he took simple clothing and then his college uniform rather than anything else. For one it was comfortable, it was also self cleaning and in his mind better looking than any ridiculous clothing that had been prepared.

For the next few days, Samuel spent his time learning about the responsibilities of a noble and learned a bit more etiquette and how to act around other nobles of high standing. Although Faleah often spoke about the fact that not all nobles cared about that, especially in Rejuan. It was a bit more carefree in the Republic. But it wasn't bad to know how to act just in case, and getting to know more about the responsibilites and duties one might have as a noble were important as well. It gave him some insight into house Gillfall.

The house staff and guards took quick to the new friendly young master and they all saw that he was a hard worker in many ways so he quickly gained their respect as well. During his free time, Samuel continued to practice magic and to understand his rewards from passing the trial. He had no idea what the items did, but he had read enough about magical items that he knew that some of them needed bonding to be used.

He spent a few hours meditating with the items, both the sword and staff needed bonding. So he recalled how to do it from the lessons about magical items. A few hours later both the sword and staff had been linked to him. He felt it like an invisible chain that bound him to the items. The chainmail however was not an item that needed bonding.

Often it was only the more powerful and rare artifacts that needed bonding. Armor was usualy the least enchanted gear people bound to themselves. One thing Samuel noticed was that the chainmail was light as feathers, so he started looking closer at the chainmail and realized it wasn't actually your typical chainmail that was simply enchanted.

It was an enchanted piece of mithril chainmail. Samuel laid out all his items in front of him and suddenly realized that together these items must have been worth at least 10 000 gold coins. Samuel took the next opportunity he got to cast identification spells on all three magical items and was awed by what he found out that they could do.

He had no idea what the artifacts were called but he got a rough idea of what they could do. The sword could produce flaming strikes and could be coated in fire on par with an adult fire breathing dragon if not more. There were additional things like the fact that the sword would rebirth itself in fire if it ever god damaged, Samuel assumed it had something to do with the phoenix like hilt.

The Amber Staff, instead was a great focus that helped spellcasting, casting with ones mind was a difficult task which only a few ever reached the peak. Most mages got staffs as their focuses instead. Samuel was already really good at shaping with his mind so he was determined to become an expert at it, but having a staff in a pinch would be really useful.

The staffs wood was made out of some old tree he was unable to identify. But it wasn't something that intrigued him that much, especially considering that the staff allowed the wielder to cast spells of one level higher than the caster could cast.

Of course both the sword and staff were limited in how much they could be used per day, but they were the kind of items most mages would dream of, which made Samuel wonder just what kind of things others who had passed the trials had been given. It was literally a treasure trove.

The Mithril chainmail was the least interesting to him, but even then. It was an amazing piece of defensive material, it was probably strong enough to protect him from being pierced by an Entine so easily again, not only that, but it was also comfortable and light to wear and could easily be worn underneath his academy clothing. So from that day on he always had it on top of his shirt and underneath his academy clothes.

Funnily enough it was also self repairing, like the academy clothes. He did not want to carry around the staff or sword openly though and kept them in his weird pocket dimension instead. He had read about pocket dimensional items before, most common were bags or backpacks that could hold an insane amount of things, which made him confused because his wasn't bound to any item - instead it was bound to his mind and he could will it open at any time.

He would always have the items at the ready, but he chose to carry around the sword Faleah had made for her son instead. Her gift to him, the beautiful hilt and blade that symbolised a griffon. House Gillfall had been a founding pillar not only because of their great influence, but also because of where that influence came from.

They were the greatest griffon and hippogriff trainers in all of Rejuan, they did all the breeding and training for the Royal Griffon Knights and Royal Hippogriff Squads. As well as the normal Griffon Knights and Hippogriff Scouts. It was The Rejuan Republic's pride and joy, it was also one of their symbols. The wings of freedom soaring through the sky. Because Rejuan was a nation of freedom and unity between races. Always improving on those factors whenever they found flaws.

The days passed quickly and soon enough the day for meeting his teammates came around and he prepared himself to go back, but not before Faleah herself had come to wish him good luck to his surprise. It would take a while before he got used to this new position of his, but he had accepted it and didn't want to let Faleah down. That same morning a short while before Samuel was leaving they had received a letter from the state that officiated Samuel as the heir and his adoption fulfilled.

So with a happy heart he headed toward the island where he would teleport back to the mage city soaring in the sky.