Free The Sorcerer's Legacy by Brock Deskins

caught, but woods fairy know and takes him away that night. He say he was sorry but it too late,” Grick finished with a sniffle.
    “You don’t think the woods fairy will come for me tonight do you? I wasn’t that bad and I said I was sorry,” Ellyssa asked nervously.
    “No, fairy no come this time,” Grick leaned towards her and gave her a sniff. “But you getting pretty rotten. You gots maybe one or two more chances. Depend on how bad you are.”
    “I’ll kill rats and I’ll write my lessons, I promise, and I won’t use magic again without permission!”
    “That good, maybe not too late for you like too late for poor Grick. Come, I see rat.”
    Grick led Ellyssa deeper into the basement rooms, which were quite extensive. They spread out to cover a considerably greater area than the tower and keep section above. Some of the timbers had gotten sodden and crumbled over the ages and would need to be replaced, but most of the rooms were still sound, having been protected from the elements by the ground and structures above.
    Grick shined the bulls-eye lantern on a rat that ran along the wall just ahead. “There rat, go whack it!”
    Ellyssa darted after the fleeing rat, and with a small squeal of distaste, brought her wooden rod down on the vermin’s back. The rat began flailing about and screeching in a high-pitched wail of pain.
    “It’s not dead! What do I do now?” she cried, putting her hands over her ears.
    “Whack it again!” Grick ordered.
    With another shout of revulsion, she brought the stick down on the rat again and again until it stopped moving and ceased its wailing. Ellyssa had tears in her eyes as Grick stepped up and dropped the dead rat into the large burlap bag he carried.
    “You do ok. Next time you hit rat harder,” the goblin advised.
    Grick had set out some food earlier that day in hopes of drawing the creatures out. His bait was proving effective and it did not take long to find more rats.
    Grick directed the light of his lantern at another of the creatures. “There, this time you hit hard.”
    Ellyssa followed the goblin’s advice and put all her might into the swing against the next rat. Entrails burst out of the slain creature’s side and spattered onto her shoes and small droplets of blood speckled her face.
    “Oh gross!” she shrieked.
    “You whack that one too hard,” Grick pointed out unnecessarily.
    “Ew, it’s on my shoe!” Ellyssa moaned.
    “That ok, you gots lots of time to get it right,” Grick reassured her.
    Ellyssa rolled her big hazel eyes. “Oh thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.”
    “You welcome,” Grick replied with a sly grin.
    By the time her duty was over, the burlap bag was heavy with slain rats. Grick made her go dump it outside the wall before she went to her room and spent the next hour writing out the ten fundamentals of wizardry.
    Her fingers covered in ink, she went downstairs to the bath chamber where an iron bathtub stood a few inches over the floor on iron feet. She made sure the plug was in the bathtub and pulled a on a chain that dangled down from a large metal pipe jutting down from the ceiling. The pipe led to a large wooden water tank built above the main room of the keep. The top of the water tank had a roof that shaped like a flattened funnel so it could capture the rainfall and fill the tank. Since it was not the rainy season, dozens of laborers spent nearly a week filling up the reservoir with buckets using the large well in the courtyard.
    The chain was attached to a lever that opened a valve in the pipe. The opened valve released a torrent of water, which quickly filled the tub. Ellyssa removed the lid that covered the large pan built into the floor filled with a slow burning oil and lit it with a long candle. The oil flared to life and began its job of heating the water with its orange and blue flames.
    Since she was not that big, she only filled the tub up about halfway and it did not take long for the flames to heat