Free Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book One by Dean Cadman Page A

spring in her step, she exited the room and headed back towards the main stairs.
    Lusam, with a slight groan, went over to the first pile of books and retrieved several of them, before heading back to his writing desk and recording their titles. As he began writing, he suddenly realised that they were going to need to use another part of the room, and they would also need another set of letters writing on the wall, to store the books that were already catalogued. He arranged the new area of the room while Neala was out getting their food, and continued to catalogue the books until she returned with lunch.
    Neala came back with a variety of foods. She had also had managed to get some water bottles from somewhere, and even fill them with nice cool water. Very grateful for both, Lusam took his share and found an area to sit and eat his lunch, whilst thanking Neala for thinking about their water situation. After they ate lunch they both went back to work, stacking more books, then cataloguing them over and over until it was time to stop for the day. They were both very tired, but still decided they would go out for something to eat, before returning to their sleeping cells and falling asleep, warm and content.

    The next few days followed the same pattern as the first, except now Neala would buy enough food at breakfast time to last them the rest of the day, saving them a trip out in the cold evenings. The time they saved, was now spent teaching Neala how to read and write. Lusam was impressed by the speed at which Neala had picked up the basics, and by the end of the first week, she could read simple sentences with little difficulty.
    They had managed to get a wheelbarrow, of sorts, from Mr Daffer a few days earlier, and it had indeed made the job of moving and re-stacking the books much faster and easier for them both. The downside, however, was that Neala now had much more free time while Lusam was writing, and she was starting to get a little bored during the extended periods of inactivity.
    “Would you mind if I went to explore this place for a bit, while you're doing that?” she asked Lusam hopefully.
    “No, not at all. Just don’t get lost down here,” Lusam replied jokingly. He had been wondering earlier if Neala was beginning to get fed up of just standing around watching him, while he catalogued all the books; obviously she was a little. Exploring the underground chamber would be good for her , he thought to himself.
    “Take your time. I'll be about an hour doing this pile,” he said, nodding towards the stack of books closest to him. “Oh, and one other thing,” he added.
    “Yes?”
    “Don’t you dare bring back any more books,” he said laughing.
    Laughing right back she replied, “You can count on that!”
    Neala picked up one of the spare lanterns and turned back to Lusam. “Do you mind?” she asked, nodding towards the lantern, which suddenly burst into life with a small popping sound. “Thanks,” she said, heading out of the room towards the main chamber.
    “No problem,” he replied after her, before returning to the task at hand.

    Neala had been secretly itching to explore the underground complex ever since they had first arrived. All those chambers, corridors and rooms must hold something of interest she mused to herself. Even if it was only a long forgotten coin or two. She stood in the main chamber, trying to decide how she could best explore this giant underground structure. She chose to start with the first corridor where their sleeping cells were situated. Although they had already looked inside a few of the cells down that corridor when they first arrived, they weren't really looking for anything other than a room to sleep in at the time. She also remembered several locked doors along that corridor, and after all, Mr Daffer had given them permission to explore the place. His exact words being: “ Feel free to have a look around … ” which Neala was more than happy to interpret as: