Someone yelled: "This is an outrage, and should not be accepted. He needs to face consequences!”

The king sighed. Ever since Tablos got the glorious idea to give the sons of his most powerful nobles various penalties for their actions against a fellow student, even if she was not a noble but a commoner instead, they wanted him to do something about it.

He laughed quitely at that.

Preposterous! Why should he anger a goddammned Archmage, just because they were unable to teach their children that mobbing might not be the best idea, and their rights as nobles did not, in fact, take precedence before the rights of someone with larger magical potential, especially in the eyes of an Arcchmage.

But still, they could not be ignored.

While they knew that it was futile, even dangerous to trouble the Archmage, he, their king was fair game.

The situation certainly was not helped by his relatively weak magical abilities.

He could not simply ignore them, he risked a rebellion if he did that.

He needed something he could give them, so that at least a majority was on his side, the military side the Archmage already promised him to handle.

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But he still would need them to realize the errors of their ways, so that he had enough nobles left to keep the government consistent.

He thought about a not to dangerous bone to throw them.

Some were easy, they had already realized that the Archmage would not be happy, if they continued making trouble.

Those metioned to him, privately and quitely, that they wanted a small series of ceremonious titles, so that they could tell their families that they righted the wrong.

But the others were difficult. He did not need that many nobles more on his side, but he did need a few.

Some of those were clearly opportunists, but that was to dangerous for some. And how much would he need to give to get enough was another question. He also wanted to make it clear that this kind of action was not acceptable in any way.

He sighed.

Then he had an idea: "I hereby degre that those hurt by the degree of the Archmage arehereby absolved of any wrongdoing in the eyes of the kingdom. But I also degree that the ruling of the Archmage is still in effect, because while the kingdome sees it as a heavyhanded reaction, it was still legitimate. But the Archmage is hereby penalized by ten percent of the yearly income of the affected children, to be paid to their familities, as a sign of his good will."

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Somewhere else the Archmage Heinrich Tablos laughed quietly.

While the children of nobles did technically have an income as soon as they came to the school, most of their money came from gifts of the family.

He needed to pay less than a month of his wages, which he mostly got to keep up appearences. He had, in fact no need for that money. "Well played, my dear king, well played".