by D. Levesque
I can’t help but laugh, and she turns to me with a hurt look. I shake my head and tell her, “Leeha, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever made love to. I want nothing more than to have sex with you again, over and over. Where I come from, your looks would make you someone very desirable. I would be an idiot to turn you away,” I say, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Truly, you won’t leave me here and go out on your own now?” she asks hesitantly.
“No, I want you with me. I am the one who should be asking you if you will stay with me,” I tell her truthfully.
Leeha looks at me to see if I am being deceitful, but when she doesn’t see anything but my feelings for her, she turns over and hugs me sideways, making me fall over on my back. With her head on my chest, I stroke her hair and tell her, “I promise not to leave you, Leeha, as long as you promise the same.” It sounds crazy, but I mean it. I truly do care for her, even though I just met her. Is it God doing it? I don’t care. She is amazing.
Leeha lifts her head and she is smiling, but there are tears in her eyes, “I promise as well.”
You have received 1 Heavenly Token.
Heavenly Tokens: 2 of 200
What the hell? Did I just get a point for agreeing to stay with Leeha? Or was it her deciding to stay with me? I know God said that getting to 200 means I get into Heaven because of all my good deeds, but how is keeping Leeha with me a good deed?
I mean, hell, do I even get something when I hit 200, other than a guarantee of entry into Heaven? I shouldn’t be a greedy bastard, really. I mean, I have access to the five Elementals and English, which seems to be its own powerful magic.
God, if you can read my mind, give me a fucking manual for this shit! I am used to playing with wikis! But of course, no answer. I kiss Leeha on the forehead and as the euphoria of sex starts to wear off, the first thing I feel is the wet spot.
“Crap,” I say out loud with a groan.
“What,” Leeha says sleepily.
“The wet spot,” I tell her. “What if the staff sees it and figures out we had sex?”
Her head lifts quickly, and she looks at me nervously.
“Can we use Water magic to move it, say to that chamber pot?” I ask her, feeling just as nervous now.
Leeha’s eyes get bright, and a grin appears on her face. She hurries off the bed and closes her eyes, raising her hands with her palms face up. I just sit there and stare, enjoying the view of my amazing Elf, naked in front of me. As always when using or calling up magic, she starts with a globe of water in her hand. Then it disappears, and she opens her eyes. Suddenly, the water or liquid lifts up off the bed and creates a larger ball over the mattress itself. I get off the bed quickly and open the lid of the chamber pot with my toe.
Under the control of Leeha, the ball moves until it’s just over the chamber pot, about an inch over it, and then the liquid ball dissolves and splashes into the bottom of the chamber pot.
“Yes!” Leeha cries.
I go back to the bed and put my hand down on the blanket, and it’s dry, even the prime spot where Leeha had squirted. I pull the blankets back and see there are sheets. Well, not a totally uncivilized society then.
“Are there bed bugs here?” I ask her suddenly, looking at the bed nervously. Kind of late now since we just fucking had sex on it.
Nodding, Leeha says, “Yes, but usually inns have an Earth mage on staff who gets rid of them after each guest. Same with the sheets. While they only get washed once a week in this inn, from what Pricilla said, the Earth mage also freshens them up. It’s standard.”
“An Earth mage for just that?” I ask her, perplexed.
“Yes, not all Earth mages, or any Elemental mages for that matter, have the same level of power. So those who are low ranking, or low in power, usually get jobs doing things like this. Powerful mages are not the rule.”
“And what about you? How powerful are you in Water?” I ask her.
“As an Elf Water mage, I am relatively powerful. That’s the reason I can be the assassin that I am. But I am not human, so the human Mages’ Society doesn’t care about us,” she says bitterly. “They do not allow us to enroll into their schools to learn spells. We must learn it on our own or steal them.”
“Steal them? Like a spell scroll?” I ask her.
“A what?” she asks me, a frown on her face as she gets into bed.
“A spell scroll, where a spell or how to do a spell is written down?” I ask her, getting into bed next to her and pulling up the blanket.
She looks at me oddly. “Alex, most of us can’t read. How would writing a spell down help?”
“True,” I say lamely. I forgot about that. “So how would you steal a spell then?”
“Easy, you force it out of someone,” she says, as if stating the obvious.
“Ah, right,” I tell her with a chuckle.
Leeha puts her head on my chest once I am settled down, but then looks up at the candles and the oil lantern over our head. She sighs and says, “Dammit, I don’t want to get out of bed again.”
“Oh. Let me try something. Do we want all of them blown out?” I ask her, wanting to show off to my sexy Elf again.
“No, just keep one of the candles,” she says, looking at me curiously.
Wind. I imagine the wind blowing out the flame that’s in the oil lantern, and it goes off. Then I think of the wind going to the candles and only blowing out two of them, and just like that, two of them are out. Wind, I think again, to release the Elemental. Within minutes, we are both asleep.
The next morning, I wake up without Leeha in bed with me. Before the panic can set in, she comes in and says she went downstairs to let the innkeeper know that I was ready for my two breakfasts. I have just enough time to get dressed into my gray leather pants and shirt, but not my boots, before Pricilla knocks on the door and Leeha goes to answer it, head down.
Pricilla walks in with a tray again and on the table deposits two plates with bacon, eggs, beans, and a bread roll on each one, as well as two cups of steaming liquid. From the smell, I can tell what it is before I even see it. It’s fucking coffee! Pricilla also places a small jar down, as well as another mug of water- I had drank the first one last night after our lovemaking-and another hard loaf of bread. I mean, not a full loaf like I would get back home. This loaf of bread is half the size.
“This is cream,” Pricilla says, pointing to the jar. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted milk with your coffee? And did you want both cups of coffee? That’s a lot of coffee,” she asks me, unsure.
“Yes, keep both. I love coffee,” I tell her with a cheerful smile. Fucking right, I love coffee. I was so addicted to the stuff that while I know this wis a new body, I still have cravings for it, especially in the mornings.
“Very well. When you finish eating, my Lord, just leave the dishes. The cleaning staff will take it away when you leave. I assume you are leaving today?” Pricilla asks me questioningly.
“Yes, I sent my bodyguard on an errand, and he will be meeting us just outside the city walls, a couple of miles out,” I tell her, lying.
“Well, just remember, if you ever want a good place to stay, The White Sheep is one of the better inns in Lomar,” she says.
“Yes, that is what Le-, my Elf told me,” I say, almost forgetting that masters don’t use their slaves’ name.
“Oh! Good slave!” Pricilla says, walking over to the taller Leeha and patting her on the head like a dog. “Well, you need to come back then!” Pricilla says, beaming as she heads to the door.
“Yeah, I will,” I say cheerfully, but only if I am going to burn this fucking place down. I am so mad inside that I would love nothing better than to call up Fire and just set this place ablaze.
This world, the way it treats its slaves, based on the stuff Leeha has been telling me, is worse than any history I ever read about back home. Elves, Felinis, Rabinis, Dragonis, and Mer, are all treated worse than property. The Mer, Leeha says, are lucky in that they live i
n water, such as lakes, rivers, seas, or oceans. But the rest of them are hunted in order to become slaves. They have no rights. Even coming into the cities, most take their chances that they won’t be abducted. Leeha says the only reason she’s been left alone is because she would show them her magic, and they would back off.
The couple of times that they tried to abduct her here in Lomar, she showed the humans it wasn’t worth it. But that means each time she comes to the city, she might meet someone who is more powerful and is willing to try. Of course, now that she has me as her ‘master’, they will leave her alone. Or we hope, anyway. But we decided that if need be, I will use my ability as a Water mage, and show them the error of their ways. And right now, with the way I feel, I fucking hope they do try.
Leeha comes over to me after locking the door and puts a hand on my chest. “Alex? It’s all right,” she says softly.
“No, it’s not!” I tell her angrily, but the anger isn’t directed at her. Then I sigh and let out a deep breath.
“But I am not powerful enough to do anything about it. Yet. Shall we eat breakfast? What’s our plan after this?” I ask her, sitting down at the table and pushing one of the plates over to her side, as she sits down in the chair opposite mine.
“Once we are done breakfast, we will grab some supplies and head back out into Mital Forest. That was the reason I was coming here. I came here for a job and money to buy supplies, but since I am with you, I am wondering if you can make money for us?” she asks, almost pleadingly.
“Aren’t we leaving today, though?” I ask her, puzzled.
Nodding, she takes a bite of her eggs before answering. “Yes, but most of the jobs you can do as a powerful Water mage can be done in hours. Especially by you,” she tells me with a grin.
“Right,” I laugh. I pick up the mug of coffee and splash in some milk, which I see is thick like cream, not the normal two percent milk on Earth, and take a sip. I sigh happily.
“Better than sex?” Leeha asks me jokingly.
“Sex with you? No fucking way. Sex with others? Possibly,” I tell her with a grin.
Chapter Sixteen
“You want me to trust you, an unknown Water mage, with a task?” snorts the short, skinny man sitting at a desk in the building that Leeha brought me to. He is dressed in a green robe, but it’s cut from a finer material than anyone I have seen yet.
According to Leeha, this is the contract office for mages only, run by the Mages’ Society. She said any job that needed to be done by a mage was required to go through this man. He looks and sounds like a pompous, righteous asshole.
“Well,” I tell him patiently. “Do you pay me before or after the job is done?”
He looks at me shrewdly, but Leeha said that the one thing the Mages’ Society does not accept is cheaters, stealers, and thieves. If the man says he will pay me, he will pay me. No arguments asked.
When I asked if Leeha could get a job also since she is a Water mage, she shook her head and said no, since she isn’t human.
“All right, I might have a job for you,” he finally says with a sigh. “Though I doubt you will succeed since we have had over fifteen mages try it in the last month. Everything from Fire mages to Earth mages. But the city council is starting to get on my ass about it. The pay, if you can do it, is now at 25 gold,” he tells me.
I look at him in surprise. 25 gold? What the hell kind of job is this? I mean, I had been hoping only to be here ‘til the late afternoon, at which point Leeha and I had been expecting to head out after getting some supplies. I try not to look at Leeha, who is standing behind me with her head bowed. She had said to take any job that paid above ten gold. Well, this was above that. Way above that.
Nodding, I say, “I can try.”
“Good,” he says. “Raoul!” he shouts. Out of the back room, through a curtain, comes a young boy of about ten or eleven years of age. He is wearing a white robe, with a stripe of green across his chest.
“Yes, Master Filka?” the boy says, bowing to him.
“Take this mage to the sewer blockage. Explain to him what needs to be done, verify that he was unsuccessful, and return.” He turns back to me, “As you can imagine, we can’t be wasting our day for this, so you have until noon to repair it before it’s considered a failure.”
“Why noon?” I ask him, perplexed.
“What? Because you will have run out of power by then,” he says with a grunt.
“Right,” I tell him, nodding.
Ah, I forgot that my power pool is larger than what most have. So it makes sense that if someone who is a normal mage tried to use their magic to remove whatever this blockage is, they would run out quickly.
The boy Raoul turns to me and bows. “If you will follow me, Master?” he says, asking for my name.
“Alex,” I tell him.
“If you will follow me, Master Alex, I will bring you to where the blockage that Master Filka mentioned is.”
Nodding, I follow the boy as he heads out the front door of the building, where there is a line of other mages waiting to enter. When we first got to the building, there were about six other mages in line, all in different colored robes, and even two who wore normal clothing but had a colored cloth tied on their sleeve, which I guess was meant to denote their Elemental. Now as we exit, the line is longer, with well over fifteen mages waiting.
The boy heads down the road to the left, and I follow him for a good five minutes without saying much, with Leeha following behind me quietly. I look back at her, and she looks up and nods.
I turn back around and look at the boy and ask him, “So, how hard is this job?”
He turns around, walking backwards, and says, “Pretty hard. The last mage who tried it was one of our more powerful ones from the local Society’s office. He figured it would be easy money, but he failed. It was kind of embarrassing, really. He had bragged that he would get it done in minutes. He ended up spending hours trying and tapped himself out,” he finishes with a grin.
“So the chances of getting it done are slim,” I tell him.
Nodding, the boy slows down and begins to walk next to me, to make it easier to talk. “Pretty well, Master Alex. I mean, the thing is, Master Filka doesn’t want to call in someone from the bigger cities, like Balla or Popar, but he might need to. The only thing is it means the cost to fix it will go up. How much is Master Filka paying you? 20 gold?”
“No, he said this job was 25 gold,” I tell him with a raised eyebrow.
“Ah,” he says with a grin, “Well, if he has to call someone from the bigger cities, the cost would be over 100 gold, and he would look bad in the eyes of the Mages’ Society for not being able to do it himself.”
“Good to know,” I tell him. So there are bigger cities than this place, and they have the more powerful mages?
“And here we are,” he says, heading onto a bridge sitting over a canal of water, and stopping in the middle, next to a railing. As we were walking, I had started smelling shit and other things, the stench getting worse the further we went, and now I know the reason. The canal is basically a sewage canal.
I walk over and stand next to Raoul, who points off to the canal wall’s left side, where I now notice a sort of opening in the wall, with a metal grate. In front of the grate is a mound of…I don’t know what.
“So, that is the blockage. We haven’t been able to remove it to let the water flow, so because of that, within a month the water will overflow over the canal walls, and onto the streets. That’s your job. Remove it and clear the blockage so the water can flow back into the grate. You’re only seeing the top of the grate,” Raoul says, pointing to it, “which is about a foot above the water, but it leads down ten feet, and it’s completely blocked.”
“Why not just remove the grate?” I ask him curiously.
“They’ve tried. It’s built into the wall, so it can’t be removed without destroying the wall. Which would cost more to repair than having a mage come from the other cities.”
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br /> “Right,” I tell him. Moving closer to the railing, I put my hands down on it and look at the issue. So, let’s see what I can do. Since I am supposed to be a Water mage, I call up water in my palm, Water, and I throw my globe out over the filthy water. Water Sword. Three swords made of water appear, hovering in midair. I then focus and throw the blades as hard as I can against the blockage above the water.
Water Sword Spell used. 10 points of power used.
With an explosion of water, the Water Sword smashes against it and explodes away. So much for that. It hasn’t even made a scratch on it.
“Everyone tries that first,” Raoul says with a small laugh and a grin. “Had one mage who kept throwing Fire Swords at it, and all he was doing was heating up the shit, causing the smell to be worse. They finally had to tell him to stop since it was getting so bad.”
So, brute force won’t work, is what Raoul is saying. Calling up Water again, I throw another globe of water across over the railing and send it closer to whatever is blocking the water.
“Do we know what the stuff that is blocking the grate is made of?” I ask Raoul.
Raoul shakes his head and says, “No. Even our Earth mages are unsure if it’s rock material. Nothing seems to penetrate it.”
Interesting. Let’s see, how would they go about it on Earth? I mean, TNT would be awesome right about now, but that would probably blow the whole thing, including part of the wall and the street next to it, into smithereens. What about a hammer?
Water Hammer. The water globe shapes itself into a large hammer’s head. With my thought, I send it smashing into the thing, hitting part of the water as well. But instead of the results I expected, water gets splashed out to a radius of ten feet.
Water Hammer Spell used. 10 points of power used.
Well, that didn’t work. Ten points for Water Hammer? Good to know. I guess that would be considered brute force as well. What else would Earth people try? Well, it’s a big rock. What about drilling? Based on the size of it, drilling a single hole won’t do much. But what if I drill a ton of holes and then force water into them? Would that cause it to crack?
