On the whole I have more sympathy for the player than the GM. In particular, I don't see why the GM didn't just have the NPC agree to arrange construction of a statue in the PCs' honour. That doesn't seem a very big deal either at the ingame or the metagame level.
And if the GM had done this, then it seems less likely that the player would have bridled so strongly at the tests, and hence less likely that the issue of the NPC being warded by 9th level spells would have come up. Given that it has, however, then in light of the backstory, if I were the GM I would have those 9th level effects be from scrolls and wands rather than from an anonymous archmage just hanging around.
And if the GM had done this, then it seems less likely that the player would have bridled so strongly at the tests, and hence less likely that the issue of the NPC being warded by 9th level spells would have come up. Given that it has, however, then in light of the backstory, if I were the GM I would have those 9th level effects be from scrolls and wands rather than from an anonymous archmage just hanging around.
