by D. Levesque
Water Drill, I think, and immediately there is a four foot long corkscrew-type thing floating in the air. I move it so that it’s over the rock, and I make it spin quicker and quicker. Then, I slowly push it against the item blocking the grate.
Water Drill Spell used. 10 points of power used.
I can see smoke forming under the drill bit. Remembering that back home they would use water to cool it down, I lift my other hand and think Water and throw that globe over to the drill bit, and then think Water Spout. The Water Spout grabs water from the canal and begins to stream it into the hole that I am drilling. It’s working!
Water Spout Spell used. 10 points of power used.
Then the noise starts. First, I hear the squeal of the drill bit, and then whatever that thing is begins to groan. Within seconds, I see that the drill bit has gone more than halfway into the pile, is about two feet of its four feet thickness. I bring the drill bit out of the hole and direct it to another location, above the waterline, and start to drill again, using Water Spout to keep the area the drill bit is working in, wet.
After the fifth hole, the Water Drill spell disappears in a burst of water, and I have to call up another one. Same with the Water Spout. Good to know. My spells won’t stay forever. Though I don’t know if they last a set time, or does it have to do with how much power or force they use? For the next hour, I keep adding drill holes. Once I start underwater though, I don’t need Water Spout anymore since there is tons of water everywhere. That makes it easier, as I don’t need to control two spells. However, it’s also harder in a way as I can’t see under all that shitty water, so I have to hope that the spell knows where to go or what needs to be done.
Finally, after a good hour and a half, I am done. Or at least I feel I am finished drilling the holes. I look over and see Raoul looking at my handiwork in amazement.
“How can you have so much power!” he tells me when he sees I have stopped and am looking around.
“Oh, I am not even done yet,” I tell him with a small laugh.
For what I want to do now, I will need a lot of water. Holding both my hands over the railing, I think Water and throw both globes towards the metal grate. Then, I think of the spell I want to use. I had put some thought into this, but I couldn’t think of a fucking name for it, so I hope this works. Water going into the holes and expanding three times its original form.
You have used a Spell command. You have used 1,000 points of power.
What the fuck? One thousand points of power using a command? As I watch, the globes of water split off into multiple streams, going into the holes I had created. Fuck, it worked! So I don’t need to just use words, I can use commands? Holy shit, this is so wrong. But if God gave me this power, there has to be a reason. Suddenly I hear groaning. I glance over at the grate and pile quickly, but I don’t see anything. The sound just keeps getting louder and louder. It almost sounds like it’s pressure trying to release. Which is exactly what I had been trying to do. I was expanding the thing so that it would split into pieces.
Without warning, there is an explosion, and I can see debris heading right for us. Shit, this is going to hurt. I brace myself but surprisingly a water barrier forms in front of us, and it stops the impact of the flying items. Turning to Raoul to thank him for putting up the barrier, I see he isn’t looking at the barrier, but behind me at Leeha in astonishment.
I turn back and see she has both her hands up, with a focused look on her face. Once the items stop impacting the water wall, she loses that look, and the water wall disperses.
“Your Elf slave is a powerful Water mage?” blurts out Raoul in awe.
“Of course,” I tell him with a grin and an appreciative smile towards Leeha, who most likely just saved us from injury. “Someone like me can’t have just regular people around me.”
“Wow,” he says, looking back over at Leeha. “I wish I could have a powerful slave like that.”
I decide to be honest with this kid and hope that one day it will change him, so I walk up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “The reason she is powerful is I don’t treat her as a slave, but as a friend. Friends protect you. Slaves don’t.”
Raoul looks at me oddly, but he doesn’t argue or tell me I am wrong. “Now, shall we head back to Master Filka? You can see that the water is now flowing back into the grate, and the water level has gone down,” I tell him.
Raoul turns to look and shouts, “Yes!” with a fist in the air. “Yes! Let’s go get you that gold, Master Alex.” He turns back and heads off the bridge and back the way we had come from earlier.
Chapter Seventeen
Raoul walks into the building, bypassing everyone, and tells Master Filka excitedly, “Master Filka, he did it!”
“Oh?” Master Filka says in surprise, looking up from his paperwork. “You got the job done? Good. You can confirm this, Raoul?”
“Yes, Master. The water is flowing into the grate again, and it’s even lowering down the level in the canal,” he tells him, nodding.
“Good,” Master Filka says with a happy sigh. “Thank you, Master Alex, was it?” at my nod, he continues. “As promised, the payment is 25 gold.”
You have received 1 Heavenly Token.
Heavenly Tokens: 3 of 200.
Whoa! I get tokens even for doing things like this? I’m still curious what will happen when I hit 200, though.
Master Filka takes a small wooden chest out from under his desk, inserts a key that he gets from a chain around his neck, and opens it. He pulls out 25 gold coins and places them next to the chest. He looks up at me hesitantly and then takes out another two gold coins, adding them to the small pile, and then he closes the chest, and puts it, and the key, back from where he got them.
Master Filka then pushes the coins across the desk towards me with both his hands and says, “The extra two are for how fast you did it. I am sure that Raoul, who loves to talk, mentioned that if I had to call someone from the bigger cities, it would have cost me a lot more, and so you did me a huge favor.”
“Are you sure?” I ask him. “The job was for 25 gold, and I am happy with that.”
“Yes, I am sure. Think of it as a tip. Can I ask how you did it?” he asks me curiously.
I remove the pouch from my pocket where I had put it, as I had felt it wouldn’t be safe having it on my belt, and I place the gold coins in there before answering him. “I used a water drill to make a bunch of holes, then I forced water into the holes and expanded the water, causing it to explode into pieces,” I tell him, not getting into the details of my spells.
“Fucking hell!” he tells me in admiration. “I never even thought of that. Like we do with rock mining!”
Ah shit, they already do that here? So what I did wasn’t new? Crap, I thought I had figured out something new. “How come no one else did it that way?” I ask him curiously.
“Because most of them are idiots and new mages. Most of the mages who work in the mining quarries are highly paid. Unless you knew about rock mining, you would never have thought of it. You must be well-traveled then, Master Alex, to have figured that out. Well, you have my thanks and the thanks of the city of Lomar.”
“You’re very welcome. If you will excuse me, I have some things to do before I must leave the city,” I tell him.
“Of course!” he says, waving me away. As I turn to leave, Raoul stops me with a hand on my arm.
I look at him and he says to me softly, “I will think about what you said, Master Alex. About friendship instead of slavery. Thank you.”
I put a hand on his shoulder and say, just as quietly, “That is all I can ask.”
Once outside, I walk down the road a bit with Leeha in tow, until we are far away from any ears. “Where to now, Leeha?”
“We need to get supplies so that we can head out. Once we have the things we need, we can leave,” she whispers, with her head still down, acting the part.
“Good, because fuck, I hate seeing you like this,” I tell her fer
vently.
“You think we are still being followed?” I ask Leeha.
We have been on the road now for two days. Once we got the supplies we needed in Lomar, we left that place as fast as possible. Most of the supplies cost us about nine gold. We are both carrying packs on our backs now, and in them are food items for us to travel with, and also things that Leeha wanted me to buy for trading purposes, like salt, paper, sugar and spices, and even coffee.
Where we were going, these items sell for good money. It seems that sugar especially is an expensive commodity here. The small bag I got, for a size that on Earth I would pay about three dollars, cost three fucking gold here! “Yes, they are trying to hide, but I can still see them or hear them at times. I would say there are five or six of them,” Leeha confirms to me.
“Mages?” I ask her.
“No, I would say they are just a brigand. Most cities have spies that send information about travelers to them, so they can attack outside the cities, where there is no protection.”
“Can we outdistance them?” I ask her nervously.
“No, this is their territory. They would track us down quickly. They have a tracker with them, most likely, and I am not good enough to hide both our tracks.”
“Ideas?” I ask her, even more worried now.
She hesitates but then says, “I can kill them if you want, but I doubt I can get them all. It would give you a chance to run away, though.”
I stare at her hard. “Leeha, if you think I am about to lose you after I just found you, you must take me for an idiot.”
She smiles gratefully and says, “I know, but I had to offer.” She reaches out and takes my hand and places it against her cheek. “And I do not wish to lose you when I just found you, as well.”
“Good,” I tell her with a soft smile. “So let’s figure something else out. If we can’t outrun them or hide from them, that leaves one thing.”
“We fight them,” she says, nodding her head firmly. “Do you know anything from your world or your language that would help us here?”
“Hmm. I mean, I have some ideas. For one idea I have, they would need to be close together. But it also means I would need to use multiple Elementals, so they can’t live to pass that news on,” I tell her, some ideas bouncing around in my head. One thing the people on my world are good at, is killing each other. I have tons of ideas from movies, tv shows, and books that I have read.
“Alex, these are brigands. They can’t be left to live anyhow. If they do, they will only bring more of their gang down on us. Brigands usually belong to a Guild, and I would say if they’re from Lomar, it would be hundreds of members.”
“Shit,” I tell her. I guess I never really looked at it that way. I just figured this was a group of thugs.
“What about a narrow path where they would need to go single file?” Leeha asks me.
“I doubt they would be dumb enough to fall for that, would they?”
“True,” she says with a sigh. “Fuck!” she blurts out. I know that if she were alone, she would have no problems getting away and that I am the one holding her back. So I need to use my power to remove them.
“Actually,” I say slowly, an idea forming, and I look at her with a grin. “Can you find a large open area? I want to confront them face to face.”
“What?” she says in fear. Fear for my life.
“Oh, you will like this one,” I tell her, my grin getting bigger. “And we won’t even be close to being in danger.”
“Just an open field?” Leeha asks me, clearly unsure if what I am going to do will work.
“Yep,” I tell her.
After thinking about it, Leeha describes an open area about an hour from here that sounds perfect for what I want to do. Once we get there, I put my plan in order. I ask her to start a fire as if we were going to camp here. She looks at me oddly, but obliges.
Then I place my pack on the ground, and I sit down next to it and get to work. First, I need to make the ground thinner, but where can I put all that dirt and rock from underneath? Earth. Then, I think of the command I want and it takes me a minute to figure out how I want to spell this shit out. I’ve had the feeling that the Elementals under my control understand my mind, so I hope that’s true.
I hold up the little globe of Earth and speak in English. “I hope you understand me, little buddy. Here is what I want. Make the ground under this open area thin, but hold it up using pillars so that I can collapse them when I want to. For the dirt and rocks, compress them until they are tightly formed, and if need be, you can hide them in the forest behind us. With me?” I ask the swirling ball of Earth.
The ball gets larger and almost seems to bow before it jumps off my hand and into the ground. I then call on my next plan, Fire, and I have a ball of fire in my hand. “All right, I hope you can understand me as well,” I tell the little fire globe.
This is the first time I have had a fire globe in my hand, but I don’t feel any heat from it, even though I know it’s hot. “I want you to go underground with Earth, and I want you to create lava at the bottom of the pit when Earth is done. Don’t burn down the structures though, as I need them to stay up. Can you do that?”
Again, the globe seems to get larger and bow somehow, before jumping off my hand and disappearing into the ground, leaving only a small scorch mark on the grass.
I look up and Leeha is peering at me strangely. “What?” I ask her.
“Did you just speak to those Elementals in your language, and did they respond to you?” she asks me slowly.
“I am not sure if they responded. It might have just been my imagination,” I tell Leeha with a chuckle. “So what exactly are these Elementals? Are they living things?”
“We aren’t sure—even those of us who use the magic. For most, it’s just a way to direct the power we have. This is the first time, Alex, that I have ever seen an Elemental react that way,” she says.
“I guess I just thought since you all called it an Elemental and not an Element, it would be more than its component.”
“What do you mean?” Leeha asks me, sounding perplexed.
“Well, there are five Elementals—Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and Mind. In the stories on my world, and mind you, these are stories we would hmm, tell our kids-” How the hell do I tell her about the printing press and books? Or about reading on an eBook reader? And that all those stories come from an author’s imagination?
“In some stories, for those who can call up things like Fire, or Earth, they come out as golems that present them. Like Fire, it would be a tiny man in the shape of a flame. Earth would be this rock-shaped thing. Air would be, I don’t remember that one, I think it was a bird? Water can be a tiny person made of water. And Mind, that I would not even know what to guess,” I tell her with a laugh.
Leeha stares at me without saying anything, but then we are interrupted.
“Oh, look what we found,” says a rough male voice.
I look up and on the other side of the field, are five men. Exactly as Leeha had figured, though I would not be surprised if there was one more hiding somewhere.
“You gave us quite the chase,” the man says, wagging a finger at us.
The man has an eyepatch over his left eye, and he is in rough leathers, with two large daggers on his sides instead of a sword. The clothes he is wearing are mismatched. He is grinning, so I can see he is missing most of his teeth, and those that are there are blackened, and fuck me, they must hurt. The other men with him are pretty well carbon copies of him, without the eyepatch. Most have just a single dagger. I guess having two makes him the boss.
Shit, did my Elementals have time? As soon as I finish that thought, in my head, I get a feeling of done. Not a word, not a sound. More of a fleeting feeling, but I get it twice. I barely hide my surprise, but thank God, they are all looking at Leeha.
“Oh, and your slave will fetch us some nice coins too. Too bad she’s not human. It would have been nice to have a romp in the grass before se
lling her, but even I won’t stoop that low. Mikor here might, though,” he says, turning to one of the men with a smirk on his face.
“Oh fuck you boss, you know that was once, and I was young,” the man groans, causing all the others to laugh.
“So, now,” the man says, coming closer and taking one of his daggers out. “How about you give us your bags, including the one your slave was carrying, and you allow us to kill you. Otherwise, we will make this extremely painful for you, and let you die slowly for hours, instead of a quick dagger through the heart,” the one I decide to call The Pirate says with a smirk. “Oh, and that bag of gold too, can’t forget that,” he says, wagging his finger.
“So, let me see if I got this right,” I tell the men.
And the odd thing is, I am speaking in their language, not the Elven language. I had not noticed that in the city. I understood everyone and talked to them, but it didn’t dawn on me that we were speaking a different language until later, when I mentioned to Leeha that I didn’t know everyone spoke Elven. She was shocked and said that I had been speaking in perfect Prithgarian, the language for the country of Prithgar, which the city of Lomar was in.
“You will kill me quickly,” I continue, “if I give up my slave, my coins, and my bags? And if I refuse, you will make my death slow and painful. But in the end, you will still have my coins, my bags, and as you call her, my slave?”
“Oh, we have a smart one here, boys,” the Pirate says with a laugh, taking another three steps closer to us, his men following him. Which is all right since it brings them right to the middle of where I had my Elementals build my trap. Even if they were to try to move away from it, they were still five or six steps from freedom. The trap starts two steps in front of me, and Leeha is standing next to me. “How about I give you a generous counter-offer?” I tell him with a smile, still sitting on the ground.
“Oh, you hear that, boys?” the Pirate says, looking at his lackeys standing behind him and laughing. He turns back to me and says with a snicker, “And what is this generous offer you want to give us? Will you give us all a blowjob so we will kill you quicker?”
