Mage Rainer

The gang of youths hearing the young girls voice turned around to face Jayde, thinking that they had someone more interesting to play with. Seeing the beautiful young girl standing there their eyes lit up with greedy lust, then they noticed the bouncing fireball in her hand.

Blanching white, the young man called Benler pointed his finger at Jayde.

"M..m-age!" he stuttered horrified.

A smell of urine suddenly filled the air, as he peed his pants in terror. Without a second hesitation he turned and fled, not even bothering about his friends, all his could think about was putting as much distance between himself and that terrifying fireball.

Seeing their leader fleeing the rest of the group turned tail and ran for their lives, the scrawny man, who had already undone his pants, scrambling and hopping trying desperately to run and pull up his pants at the same time.

Tripping over his own feet in his rush to get away, he gave up trying to stand up and run, crawling on his hands and knees his bare arse in the air, he crawled as fast as he could.

Jayde did not bother about chasing them down, she had no interest in causing trouble in Oldstrand and she didn't know the old man on the ground. She wasn't a saint running around trying to save everyone.

Undoing her spell, the fireball in her hand dissipated. She walked up to Elder Ryunzo who was kneeling next the beaten up old man.

"Ah, old friend" Elder Ryunzo said sadly checking the old man injuries.

Jayde was surprised to hear Elder Ryunzo refer to the old man on the ground as an old friend, from what she overheard from the gang of men, this man was a Mage, while she didn't understand how normal humans could harm a Mage in the first place, she had always felt that Elder Ryunzo feared Mages so she was surprised to hear him call one friend.

Looking up at Jayde standing next to him Elder Ryunzo looked at her gratefully, he knew if not for her actions things would have gotten way out of hand and he would have ended up in a serious situation.

"We need to help him" Elder Ryunzo said in a tired voice.

Master Whitestone called over a carriage nearby, and the three of them carried the old guy into the carriage, giving the driver instructions to take them to their hotel.

Once they arrived back at the hotel, the clerk at the hotel desk was reluctant to give them another room for the dirty old man they carried in with them, but one stern look from Jayde shut him up, and he quickly handed over a key.

Everyone now knew that Elder Ryunzo had a powerful Mage at his side and there was no way he was going to risk his life making such a powerful individual angry, as far as he was concerned if the hotel manager had any problem, he could bloody well take it up with Jayde himself, no job was worth losing his life over.

While Jayde and Master Whitestone carried the old man to his room, Elder Ryunzo called for healers to come and attend to the old man.

While the healers were busy with the old man, Elder Ryunzo feeling the intense curious gazes of Jayde and Master Whitestone informed them of the old man's background.

"His name is Rainer Gaires, he is or rather he was once one of the most powerful mages on Telia," he said with a gloomy sigh.

"Unlike most Mages Rainer believed that Mages were duty bound to serve the people of Telia to protect them, not to terrorize them, that their power was a gift and should only be used to benefit the people of Telia — needless to say his way of thinking was not very popular with the Mages' Guild."

Elder Ryunzo took out his pipe and lit it, staring into the distance remembering the past.

"He deplored the use of Mages in the warlords' wars, and advocated that all Mages distance themselves from nonmagical wars, he was very unpopular with the warlords especially when his fraction within the Mages' Guild stated to gain power."

Walking over to a nearby window Elder Ryunzo knocked some ash from his pipe outside.

"Then about ten years ago tragedy struck, something happened during Rainer's breakthrough and all this cultivation was scrapped, he lost all his magic. He was stripped of his title and booted out of the Mages' Guild. He disappeared shortly afterward. Some said that the warlords acted against him, while others said that he was going against the gods' will — so the gods punished him. Most said that he just wanted more power and forced his breakthrough" Elder Ryunzo shook his head.

"I never believed that — Rainer was a gentle and compassionate man, who valued knowledge above all else, he never cared for power and politics."

"So what do you believe happened?" Jayde asked.

"Me? I believe that the warlords moved against him. He was a cautious man, only someone he trusted would have been able to enter his tower, they must have turned someone close to him to have interfered in his breakthrough."

"So how did you meet him?" Master Whitestone queried.

Laughing softly Elder Ryunzo said, "During my travels when I was young, I was a brash young man who bit off more than I could handle, he saved my life."

"He then gave me a stern lecture about valuing my life, stating that only the foolish died young."

Walking back to his chair Elder Ryunzo sat down.

"I spent the next couple of months traveling and learning from him, he was — no is a great man" he stated.

With that, the three of them sat there quietly waiting for the healers to finish attending to Rainer Gaires.

Jayde found Elder Ryunzo's story quite an eye-opener, up until now everything she had heard about Mages had been negative, so she was really curious about meeting this gentle Mage.

***

While Jayde, Elder Ryunzo and Master Whitestone were waiting for the healers, the young men who had assaulted Rainer Gaires had arrived at their various homes. Their parents seeing their sons in such a state immediately interrogated them to find out who had bullied their sons.

When they found out that their sons had insulted a Mage, they immediately sent off their servants to find out more about this Mage. When the servants returned with news about what had happened in the Merchants' Guild earlier, they were horrified to find out that their sons had managed to offend such a powerful Mage.

Most of the parents were friends, so they quickly met up to discuss the consequences of their sons' actions. Most of them were under the misconception that Jayde belonged to the Mages' Guild, and as such believed that her actions reflected that the Mages' Guild still protected Rainer Gaires.

After much discussion, they decided to send their sons to the local military academy, while Mages were powerful they normally didn't cause trouble for the military, so they believed that at least their sons' lives would be saved, and secondly most nobles would never send their precious sons off to the military academy, so they could use this as an excuse that they had disciplined their children for the disrespect that their sons had shown the Mages' Guild when they came calling, hopefully preventing the Mages' Guild from taking actions against their families.

Satisfied that they had found a way to avert the disaster, six carriages left Oldstrand during the night rushing towards the military academy, each carry a depressed young man, who were just about to endure three years of extreme hardship, as the military academy was no picknick and these spoilt young men were about to find out just cruel and hard life could be.

There social standing meant nothing to the military academy they were just about to enter, and those 'lucky' enough to make it through the academy still had to spend two years on the battlefield after graduation.

Pity that the parents and those young men did not know that Jayde had no idea who they were, and had even less inclination to chase them down to exact vengeance.

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