A Home Like Ours by Fiona Lowe (feel good books .txt) 📕

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,