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Eighteen steps down the spiral staircase. Josiah’s leather boots scraped along the limestone slabs as he descended into the pitch-black shaft. He traversed them, once each direction, every day. Part of his routine for the past eighteen years.
A fraction of the shallow furrows worn into the gray stones were from his boots. His mark upon them would increase until the day he was gone, and someone took his place.
The stones established part of an inner core of what had been a fortified structure more than a century ago. Its roots extended well below street level. Very few alive knew that. Now, wooden beams, boards and planks gave form to a row of shops with apartments situated above them. Intended or not, they concealed the stone stairs and, more importantly, the associated rooms, shafts and tunnels.
The narrow stairwell held no windows. Instead, it offered stale, unmoving air. Some might’ve said that air resembled Josiah’s heart. It wasn’t true, deep down. The inky blackness his human eyes drank in...that darkness in no way resembled his true heart, no matter what some few might whisper. What did anyone in the city really know about him...who he was now, and who he’d once been?
Josiah wasn’t even supposed to be here. Not in this stairwell. Not in this world.
If he’d left the door open behind him, some light might’ve filtered down from the apartment situated above his barber shop. But he strove to keep his work life and his home life separate, even if only in a symbolic way.
His shop, located on Mudrackle Street, part of a long assemblage of wooden buildings grayed by years of exposure to the elements, was situated between a vacant shop and one of a candle maker. The empty shop’s most recent renter had been a hag of an herbalist. The candle maker’s shop would be empty today too, being open only three days of the week. That was okay. Nobody stole candles.
And the herbalist? Josiah was pretty sure some actual hag blood coursed through her veins, up until two weeks ago. Some addicted thug knifed her for peddling inferior product. Maybe the bent-nosed crone deserved it. Maybe she didn’t. Her foul mouth and nasty disposition probably tilted the scales against her. In his previous life, authorities might’ve blamed her attitude on a genetic predisposition, or a bad home life. Here, in this RPG world, in Three Hills City? That kind of thing didn’t register to the city’s guards or her magistrates.
Josiah reflected as he continued down the dark stairwell. Violent deaths took crack and cocaine dealers that cheated the wrong customer. Didn’t seem to matter which world. People there and here remained essentially the same.
“Almost there.” The creaky, human-like voice echoed in the stifling shaft. The gray-feathered parrot riding on the middle-aged barber’s shoulder possessed a certain intelligence. Nevertheless, she couldn’t count. Josiah knew that. Rather, the bird always uttered that phrase the moment he reached for his key ring, feeling for the skeleton key that fit the lock. He always did that upon reaching step fourteen, four from the landing.
The barber kept locked whatever he could, like the upstairs door. He generally treated the poor and desperate that dwelled in this part of the city, a poverty-ravaged section rife with squalor, with reasonable respect. That afforded him a status which rendered him immune to most petty theft. Nevertheless, forced entries, robberies and muggings, still happened. Josiah wasn’t an easy mark. He was a second-rank thief. Nor was he invulnerable, despite also being a fifth-rank lay healer. Barely visible scars from a half dozen slash and stab wounds, three of which he’d sewn up himself while in training as a healer, attested to that fact.
The locked, steel-plated door wouldn’t allow the tread of his boots on the landing’s thick wooden planks, the dull hollow thud made with each step, to pass through, so he didn’t fret the daily remark made by his gray parrot, Helga. A scream in the stairwell might be heard in his shop. A gunshot definitely would...but Josiah didn’t have such a weapon. This world offered plenty of screams, but no guns. Even so, he was pretty handy with the enchanted dagger tucked in the sheath attached to his brown leather belt.
The barber preferred browns, from his boots and breeches to his tunic and leather cuffs, so he didn’t stand out. Didn’t look particularly dangerous.
Selecting the proper key, he slid it into the waist-level lock, turned it clockwise, and listened for the click. All the while he peered through the peephole. Just like he’d done day after day, month after month, year after year. And, as usual, nothing stirred in his shop. There wasn’t a lot of light filtering through the shuttered windows, and even less reached the alcove the rear entry door was set into, but his one-eighth elven blood provided superior low-light vision. Nowhere near a full elf, but superior to even the most keen-eyed human.
Before opening, very little light made it into his shop, unless someone broke the shutters getting in. Of course, if someone was lying in wait, unlikely as that might be, was why he walked down in darkness. It allowed his eyes to remain adjusted. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, goblins and the like had that advantage over humans. In most respects, he was human, and he strove to mitigate non-human advantages whenever possible.
Before he lifted and tugged the secondary bolt lock aside, Josiah peered into what he called the periscope, a twisting tubular device built into the wall and running along the ceiling of his shop. Containing glass and mirrors, it gave him a view into the main part of his shop.
All was quiet and clear, so he stepped through the door. Helga launched from Josiah’s shoulder and flew to her daytime perch high along the east wall.
The parrot said, “New day. New day,” while Josiah locked the heavy door behind him.
Josiah lifted and gently shook the lantern hanging on a hook near the door. He’d filled it with oil before leaving last night. Still, checking it was a habit.
Satisfied with the slosh felt and heard, Josiah grabbed his flint sparker hanging from its nail, lifted the glass and caught the oil laden wick after one try. The minor magic lent to the sparker by an enchanter saved time. Not a lot, but each little bit added up.
Once the lamp provided flickering light, Josiah moved over to the small stove where he kept two kettles of water, hot water being necessary for his trade. Folded and stacked neatly on shelves next to the stove were some of the various towels and wraps he also used. They were gray and permanently stained, but otherwise clean.
Through the front door and shuttered windows, he heard the noise on the street. He didn’t have glass windows. Those were too expensive and easily broken. Instead he’d invested in wire mesh that functioned like a screen. The two mesh screens let light and air in, but kept the larger insects out. He had a Light Spell cast within a cabinet mounted on the ceiling. That supplemented light from the street, especially on cloudy days, and during the winter, when he kept the shutters closed. For detailed jobs, like stitching or pulling a tooth, he added lamp light to the mix.
The predawn rush over and morning deliveries and movement in action, he continued his routine. From a ceramic flask, he splashed a little oil on the bits of wood and lumps of coal in his stove before lighting a reed from his lantern. He wouldn’t open his shop until one of the kettles was close to steaming. There was no need to hurry. His best-paying customers were largely nocturnal, and were only now stirring...those that needed or desired his immediate services.
Josiah carried the lantern into the main shop and used the flame to light a scented candle. Cinnamon. It’d mask some of the stench of the streets when his shop door was opened, let alone the screened windows. Some of the waste and decay that drifted in, not all. Having a candle maker for a neighbor had its advantages.
He checked the water in the steel kettle resting on the iron stove and checked the one in waiting. He knew they were full, along with the barrel he paid the candle maker’s son to fill on the days his father’s shop was open. On the other days, if needed, he hired a street urchin to carry buckets to the well house down the street and around the corner, and haul the needed water back.
Before putting on his brown apron, Josiah used it to dust off his padded barber chair and headrest set in front of the big mirror mounted above the counter. Not necessary. More of a habit.
Several cabinets with shelves and drawers along the shop’s west wall held his tools, spare towels and rags, and the mundane ointments, oils and salves necessary for his trade. Along the east wall sat four wooden chairs, each with a worn quilted seat pad. What he jokingly called “a luxury” for his waiting customers.
He put on his apron. It was splotch-stained with blood from teeth-pullings and dealing with minor surgeries, like lancing boils or cutting out warts. He’d have to look into getting a new one. Mention it to Gaffry the tailor when they crossed paths, maybe at the Blue Bugle later in the week. Until then, a little extra grime wouldn’t matter. His customers expected it, and Three Hills City didn’t have a health department that enforced a litany of regulations.
After tying on his apron, tugging at the sleeves of his tunic, and momentarily adjusting the belt dagger and making sure the cuff in his pants hid the stiletto stuck in his boot, Josiah checked the counter under the mirror. The straight razor rested parallel with the counter. Black Venom, or one of his lackeys, hadn’t visited his shop and accessed the Drop Room. Whenever someone visited, they moved the razor to perpendicular, a polite notice that someone had been in during the night.
Josiah nodded to himself. It’d happen tonight then. They almost never went three nights in a row without making drops and picking up whatever the guild members had deposited. The dropped “whatevers” included payments, coded messages, sometimes stolen items to be fenced. Left were usually payments or reimbursements and coded information and instructions for specific jobs and assignments.
The Drop Room was one of several the local thieves’ guild maintained in Three Hills City. Despite being a member of the guild in good standing, Josiah didn’t care for being a thief. He’d rolled up a thief as a character for a Monsters, Maces and Magic game. And got sucked into the game world—as that character. As Josiah, the Lawful Black thief. His stats weren’t too bad. A sixteen Coordination, or Dexterity, score and seventeen Luck. But he wasn’t the type of person who did well as a thief, and he wasn’t a “Lawful Black” type. At least the “him” that had rolled up the thief character and gotten trapped in it. Becoming a lay healer resulted in less conflict of personality, conflict between who he really was and who he currently was.
Truth be told, after nearly two decades, it was getting harder and harder for Josiah to keep track of who he really was...Tom from Cincinnati, the barber college student with a fiancé, or Josiah, the lay healer, barber, thief. Except for quiet nights in his apartment above the shop, he thought of himself as Josiah. It was the only way to survive, both physically, and mentally.
He checked the water. Getting close, so he lifted the pole from its wall mount, maneuvered its hook into the eye latch, and slid the ceiling cabinet’s door aside. Magical light, equivalent to a one hundred watt bulb, filled the shop. A Light Spell that strong required a 15th rank magic user, and cost him more than a few gold coins. The investment fifteen years back proved its worth every day.
The barber returned the pole to its mount on the west wall, blew out the lantern and returned it to its hook near the back door. While making his way to the left-side window’s shutter, intending to lift the bar to open it, three thumps hammered upon the shop’s front door.
From her second favorite perch, the one above the mirror, Helga announced, “Customer. Hello, customer.”
“Uhh, huh,” Josiah said. “I believe you’re right, Helga. I believe you’re right.”
Another two thumps sounded before Josiah was able to slide the two bolts back, lift the latch, and pull the heavy door open.
Josiah was a lanky man and taller than most. Even so, he had to look up at the hulk of a man standing outside his shop. The man was about to pound the door again with his right hand balled into a meaty fist, while his left hand cupped the side of his face.
Josiah stepped aside and gestured to the man. “Come right on in, sir.”
The man, dressed in a grime-covered sackcloth shirt, thick cotton trousers and heavy boots lumbered over to Josiah’s barber chair and turned.
Josiah recognized the man. He’d seen this guy several times over the past month, always buying a stale loaf of bread from the Second Hand Bakery. He was pretty sure he heard others refer to him as Stosh. He was in his mid-thirties, with weathered skin, calloused hands and short-cropped hair.
“Baa tooo,” the big man said, pointing to his swollen jaw.
“You’re Stosh, right?” Josiah asked.
The man’s eyebrows arched for half a second before he gingerly nodded.
Josiah followed up with his next question. “Can you pay?” It was a crude question under the circumstances but, if he couldn’t pay, bartering was always an option.
Stosh patted a hand—the one not cradling his jaw—on his trousers’ pocket. A small clink of metal sounded.
“Good,” the barber said. “Sometimes I work on a payment plan, or even bartering.” He gave a crooked smile. “But, I prefer not to take that route whenever possible, as do most of my customers.”
He helped the big man into the barber chair mounted in the center of the shop.
“Let me open up the windows and get the screens set. More light so I can take a look.”
The man nodded his head ever so slightly. Even that caused him to wince.
Josiah hustled to unbar the shutters covering the two windows and lift the screens set into slots in the frame. It was an “innovative” bit of construction, and expensive, but it saved his screens. One day, if he got windows, it would protect them as well. Even with hardening spells, glass wasn’t immune to hurled bricks. At least the hardening spells he could afford. Hurrying back across the shop, he then lifted his circular head mirror from its wall hook and arranged the polished metal device over his forehead, tightening the leather strap.