Elemental Summoner 1 Read online

  Elemental Summoner 1

  D. Levesque

  Contents

  Info

  Map

  Review

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  About the Author

  Where to find me

  End

  More

  Prologue - Destiny’s Champions

  Destiny’s Champions

  Chapter 1- The Broken Battlemage

  Elemental Summoner 1

  By D. Levesque

  art by peterchu69

  https://www.deviantart.com/peterchu69

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  Copyright © 2020 by D. Levesque

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author

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  Don’t forget to leave a review here after you are done reading the book

  Chapter One

  “Alexander, I need you to go back there and fix that leak in the bathroom,” yells my manager from behind the counter as I walk into the store.

  Fuck, I hate it when he calls me by my full name. While my given name might be Alexander, I prefer Alex. And why the hell am I fixing a leak? I’m a clerk. Ever since I told him my father was a renovation expert before he passed away from cancer, he’s decided that somehow his skills had been passed down to me.

  “Joshua,” I tell him patiently. “You know that I tried to fix it last week, and it didn’t work. Man, you need to call a plumber.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money!” Joshua says with a grimace as I walk up to him. “Can you look at it please?” he begs me.

  Technically, I don’t start for another hour. I came in early to get away from the quiet at home, and the empty fridge. My mother, bless her soul, works 70-hour weeks at the hospital as a nurse. I barely get to see her. But this week has been worse than usual. She never even got a chance to do her weekly grocery run, and I’m not allowed to do it for her since I only pick up junk food.

  I had come into work early to grab a drink and a pre-made sandwich and start reading one of the new fantasy books that one of the authors I follow had put out.

  I say with a sigh, “Sure. But the sandwich is free.”

  “Deal!” he shouts to my retreating back. “But only if you can fix it.” I stop, turn around and simply look at him. “Fine! It’s free,” he says gloomily.

  I grab a drink and one of the pre-made egg salad sandwiches out of the cooler and head to the back of the store through a door that says ‘staff only’ on it.

  Once on the other side, I open the drink, take a sip, and put it on the staff table. Beside the table are a couple of old torn up leather chairs that are a weird shade of putrid green but are comfortable as fuck, even with the duct tape that’s there to keep the tears from getting bigger. I open the package for the sandwich and I devour the first half and set it next to the drink.

  I place my bag on the chair and taking my sweatshirt off, sigh, and head to the bathroom in the back. The leak in question is coming from the water pipe, thank God, and not the sewer pipe.

  Once I get to the bathroom, I pause to look at myself in the mirror that’s above the sink, next to the toilet. God, I look like shit. I’m only 26, but I am already starting to let myself go and I look much older. The tire around my waist has gotten bigger, and my work shirt has gotten visibly tighter.

  The goatee I started growing two years ago is still there, but you would think I only started it last month. It looks so pathetic. I am sure a 12-year-old could grow a better one. But I keep it there, hoping it will somehow miraculously explode in growth one day miraculously. My receding hairline isn’t helping either. Nor do my eyes that are puffy from lack of sleep. I was up all night playing my addiction; the online game I had been playing for the last three years. To me, it was an escape from my shitty life. In it, I could pretend to be Juxar, the wizard.

  I give myself a wan smile in the mirror and bend down and look at the pipe. There is a bucket underneath it to catch the dripping water that is leaking from the joint. Last time I had tried to use some kind of plumbing tape, but it didn’t help, I guess. I look around, and I see Joshua’s store toolbox sitting next to the wall.

  I open it and look to see if the monkey wrench is there. Yep. I turn off the main water to the sink, I remove the offending cable pipe and look at it. The white plumber’s tape is still there, but it’s useful as shit. Fuck, why the hell Joshua doesn’t simply call a plumber is beyond me. The guy keeps saying he doesn’t have money, but he does. He owns fourteen of these stores. This one so happens to be the one closest to his house, which is why he comes to work here.

  Using my nail, I remove the white tape and grab a fresh roll of it from the toolbox. Maybe I had put it on wrong? I mean, is there a wrong way? I slowly wrap more tape around the pipe and then look at my handy work when I’m done. It looks like it’s on differently. Maybe the angle you use when you do it makes a difference? Shrugging, I put the pipe back together and use the monkey wrench to make sure it’s on tightly, but not enough to crack the breakable plastic ring surrounding it.

  I turn on the main water slowly, and watch to see if there are any drips. Although, last time there weren’t any either, so I might not find out ’til next week that yet again, the pipe is leaking.

  I watch it for five minutes, with my mind admittedly going back to the Quest I did last night, which is the reason I am so tired today, and I don’t see any leaking.

  I had found a Questline that no one else had found. I even checked the wiki to make sure—nothing on the site about it. So I ended up staying up late to finish it before anyone else could, taking down details about it, so I could write up a walkthrough about it later for the wiki and stamp my name on the page.

  I wash my hands clean from the germs I am sure are all over the place in here, using liberal amounts of soap and hot water until they are red and almost raw from the scrubbing. At least I know this bathroom gets cleaned weekly, as I am the one who does it. Once I’m done, I head back to my food that’s waiting for me at the staff table. I sit down and finish the other half of my sandwich and my drink, and take my book out of my bag.

  Ah, come to me, oh words of wisdom. I glance at my watch, I have forty minutes before I need to start my shift. Sweet, I think to myself. I open the book to my bookmark, which is a hot Elf girl that is most
ly naked, other than the bikini she is wearing. Yeah, I know. What would a fantasy Elf girl be doing wearing a bikini? Who cares!

  To make sure I don’t get too engrossed in my book and lose time, I take my smartphone out and set the alarm for five minutes before my shift starts. Joshua hates leaving late to go home to supper with his kids and wife.

  I get pulled out of my book with a shock and stare at my phone like it is something evil. Fuck, I had just gotten to a good part of the story. As much as I want to stay and read it, I know Joshua. He docks me an hour’s pay if I am even a minute late. I learned that the hard way when I started working for him five years ago after dropping out of college. That’s right, five years. That’s part of the reason I am able to work the evening shift instead of the night shift. I have the seniority, and also Joshua likes me, even though he keeps saying I could do so much better with my life than work for him. I just shake my head and tell him I am doing exactly what I want to be doing.

  The day staff hate working with Joshua. The night staff, well, Joshua’s older brother has dibs on that shift. I put my garbage in the waste container next to the table, throwing my bottle into the blue recycle bin that I knew Joshua’s brother will end up dumping into the wastebasket anyhow. I get up and stretch, stiff from sitting down without moving for so long, and place my bookmark into my book, before putting the book inside my bag. I walk over to the set of four lockers, I set my bag in one of them and close the door, placing my thumbprint on it to lock it.

  One thing that Joshua was willing to splurge on was these lockers. He said he got them at a discount, but the staff didn’t care since they were so damn cool. No keys, no combination to remember. Just your thumbprint, I think with a grin.

  Heading to the front of the store, I walk through the door and stop dead in my tracks. There is a man in front of the counter, but he isn’t buying shit. He has a gun in his hand, and it’s pointed at Joshua. The man has a ski mask over his face, and he suddenly turns towards me, with the handgun tracking my way.

  “Whoa, whoa!” I shout at him, putting my hands up.

  This isn’t my first robbery in five years, but looking at Joshua, I can see he is white as a ghost. Working the day shift, he has never been robbed before. “Listen, if you want the cash, we can give you the cash. All right? It’s cool, man. Just my boss there, he will open the till and pass you the money. Good?” I tell him in a calm voice.

  “What the fuck, man,” the robber says, turning the gun back towards Joshua. “I asked you if you was alone, and you said yes. You fucking lied to me, you fucking asshole,” he tells Joshua, waving the gun back and forth threateningly.

  “Whoa, whoa!” I shout again, focusing his attention back on me, which unfortunately also means the gun is now facing my way again.

  “He didn’t know,” I lied. “I came in through the back door and had been reading a book in the back room. Normally I would come in through the front door about this time, for my shift,” I tell him in a soft and calm voice, even though my heart is in my throat from having a gun aimed at me.

  “You’s lying,” he says, taking a step towards me, but I stand my ground. “You probably already called the fucking cops,” the robber shouts in what I can now see is a panic. His eyes have gotten bigger, and his breathing has gotten quicker. Shit, is this guy jacked up on something?

  “No, seriously, dude. I didn’t call the cops. Listen, let my boss get you the cash from the till, and then you can go. We promise not to call the police, all right?” I tell him, unsure of what he will do. Most robbers at night are pretty well either drunk or nervous. This guy is going into full-blown panic mode.

  Suddenly, I hear a scream from the doorway. I turn, and there is an old lady who must have just walked through the door and seen us being robbed at gunpoint. Instead of acting like a normal person and backing out quietly, she screamed. Really?

  Shockingly, I hear a loud explosion, and something slams into my forehead that fucking hurts worse than the time I got a marble in the forehead from a slingshot when I was 11. And that is the last thing I remember before everything goes black.

  Chapter Two

  With a jarring abruptness, the pain in my forehead wakes me up. I bring my hand to my head to feel for the bump that I think I should have, but there’s nothing there. It’s smooth, and there’s no pain. I look down and see that I am sitting in a chair a wooden chair-and I am on a porch overlooking a lake.

  Hearing a noise, I turn around and see a table next to me, and on the other side is an old man reading through papers from a manila folder.

  “Hmm,” I say, but the old man holds up his hand.

  While I wait for him to speak to me, I look him over. He seems to be in his eighties, with a long white beard and short white hair. His beard is clean and well kept. There are wrinkles all over his face, and it’s a face that is strong in character. He keeps looking through his papers and mumbling to himself now and then.

  How the fuck did I get here? Judging by my surroundings, it seems like I’m at some kind of cottage on a lake. The sun isn’t high, so it’s about late afternoon. I can even see ducks on the water. I look at the old man again. He is wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a red and black western-style shirt. He has a pipe in his mouth that keeps blowing aromatic smoke, which I get a whiff of every now and then. It smells nice, I think absently.

  Where the hell am I? The last thing I remember is being with my boss Joshua, and getting robbed by a man in a ski mask who started panicking near the end. Then an old lady walked in, screamed, and set the robber off. Thinking back on it, I think I heard an explosion as well.

  “Excuse me,” I try speaking to the old man again.

  He looks up and sighs in exasperation. “Listen kid, I am trying to go through your paperwork as fast as I can. I just want five minutes. Is that too much to ask?” he says, turning to me. The gaze he gives me is so intensely powerful that I lose my tongue and just nod to him, swallowing hard. The old man nods, puffs out more smoke from his pipe and turns away, looking back down at the paperwork in front of him.

  What does he mean, my paperwork? I don’t bother asking, as it seems like asking questions won’t get me anywhere anyway, but it will make him look at me again with those piercing eyes. And that gaze! What the hell?!? It’s like I had lost the ability to speak.

  After a couple of minutes of sitting quietly, I realize it’s kind of peaceful here. I never was a nature kind of person. I grew up in the city of Boston, the same as my last name, and never really traveled. My mom has been a full-time nurse since I was two years old, and my dad, before he passed away, worked for the city as some kind of city manager. They never really took me on camping trips or to a cabin. When we went away, it was to places like Disney or Florida, to stay in some type of timeshare.

  After being quiet for a good ten minutes, the old man turns to me. “So we have a problem, kid,” he tells me with a heavy sigh.

  “Problem?” I ask him, as I’m not sure what’s going on.

  “You died early,” the old man says, nodding as he puts the folder on the table between us.

  I look at him strangely, not understanding what he means. Died early? What does he mean died early? I feel quite alive. I reach down as I’ve seen people do in movies and I pinch myself, and feel genuine pain at the act.

  “How can I be dead?” I ask the old man with a small laugh. “Is this some kind of joke that someone is playing on me?” But the nervous laugh I let out shows just how unsure I’m feeling.

  “What do you remember last?” the old man asks, looking at me with a soft gaze this time.

  “I was with my boss Joshua, and we were getting robbed,” I tell him, a frown on my face. “Then there was an old lady who walked in on the robbery, and she screamed. After that, it’s all black. I am not sure what happened,” I finish, my face scrunched up in concentration.

  “Well, I can tell you. You died. That bullet went straight through your head. In and out,” the old man sighs. “You were not the
intended victim. It wasn’t your time.”

  I look at him oddly. “What do you mean, I was not the intended victim?” I ask him.

  The old man takes the pipe out of his mouth and bangs it against the side of the porch, knocking the ashes out of it. I watch as they flutter away on the wind. He takes a pouch out of his right side pants pocket and fills up the bowl again before putting the pouch away. Then he produces a match from his other pocket and lights the pipe up again, puffing away before he begins to speak.

  “So, you were not supposed to be shot. The bullet was meant for your boss, Joshua. It was his time, not yours,” he says, blowing out a ring of smoke.

  I just sit there and stare at him in surprise for a minute. I’ve never believed in the idea that everyone dies for a reason or that everyone has a time to die. Yet if I am to believe that what this old man is saying is true, it would mean I died from a bullet that was meant for someone else?

  “How is that even possible, and just who are you anyhow?” I ask him, unsure at this point what I should be thinking. I feel like this is happening way too fast, and I feel so off somehow, like I’m not all here in body and in spirit.