“How would you like your haircut?” The barber said, spinning Mike around to where he was facing the mirror.
“Oh I usually just get it-” He paused as he looked at himself in the mirror. He hadn't seen himself in a mirror for a long time, and he barely recognized the face that stared back at him. The barber gave him a moment, clearly having seen this happen more than once before. Mike's face wasn't scarred, despite the countless cuts and scrapes that had been delivered to his cheeks, nose and forehead.
His hair was long, having grown to almost touch his shoulders. The most notable difference of all was the beard that sat on his face. He’d had facial hair before the system, and he usually kept it about 2 inches long. Now, it had grown out to be nearly 6 inches long. It had happened over a long time, and since he never saw himself he really hadn't even noticed it was happening.
“Damn.” He muttered.
“If it helps, many people go through a similar experience. If you would like, we can do this some other time.” The barber said.
“No, I’m fine.” Mike said. He was going to ask for his usual hair cut, but he liked the beard and didn't think it would go well with it. “Leave the beard nice and long, and give me whatever you think looks best with it.”
“Understood. Would you like your hair to be shampooed??”
“Yes please.” Mike said, and the barber got to cutting.
“So, have you heard about that hunting group that took down the raid boss last night?” Mike asked, starting the gossip train.
“Of course I have. Everyone's heard of them by now. Hell, they might be more well known than even the village leader.”
Mike knew from that sentence that the barber didn't recognize him, which was a good thing but also happened to prove the man's point. He didn't think many people would recognize him, especially those who hadn't talked to him more than once or twice thanks to his new haircut he was getting. Sadly, it really wouldn’t take much for someone to realize he was faking his level.
For instance, anyone could identify his shirt and know something was up. High level identify skills would also completely ignore the effect. If Mike did anything that someone at his level shouldn't be able to, that would also draw attention to him and likely give him away. All this was to say that if he didn't want people to be who he was, he would need to not draw attention to himself.
“They probably are.” He said. “Have any of them ever gotten haircuts here?”
“A few of them have. Antonio comes in almost every day to get his hair done perfectly before every major fight, and sometimes comes in twice a day if they had a particularly rough outing. In fact, it is close to the time he usually comes in.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky enough to see him.” Mike joked. Almost right on queue the door to the shop opened, and in walked a tall man wearing armor better than what Mike typically wore.
“Hey Raul.” The man said, high fiving the barber.
“Antonio! We were just talking about you, have a seat.” The barber motioned to another chair adjacent to Mike's chair. When Mike saw Antonio, he recognized the man from some of the village hall meetings. He tried to subtly rotate his chair to face away from the man, but Raul spun his chair around, facing him directly at Antonio.
Antonio looked at Mike for a second, and Mike thought he saw a brief sign of recognition in the man's eyes, which was confirmed quickly after. “Oh hey Mike, about time you got all that hair neatened up.” He said. Mike noticed the barber pause for a moment, before continuing to cut his hair. Just like that, the gossip train had been derailed.
“Oh hey, Antonio right?” Mike said. He felt an identify skill come from the direction of the man, and he quickly tried to let it through without being affected by the enchantment on his shirt. He hadn't needed to worry though, as whatever high rarity skill Antonio used to identify him had absolutely plowed through the enchantment, ignoring its effects.
“Yep, that's me. Hey, did you see our fight against that wolf alpha last night? Crazy stuff. I almost got flattened by one of its stomps.”
“Yeah I saw it.” Mike said. He thought briefly about whether he should bring up the fact that it really hadn't been anything too impressive, but he decided against it.
“What did you think? Any pointers?” Antonio said, sitting on the edge of his chair waiting for an answer.
Mike had not expected the conversation to turn in this direction, especially after seeing the bad personality of Roxanne, the team's mage.
“Well, your spear work was a little sloppy.” Mike said.
“How so?”
“You almost got flattened by a stomp. You should have had more distance between you and the wolf. That's what the spear is good at.”
They had a few more back and forths, with Mike pointing out some of the things he thought the man could improve on. Namely, Mike realized that Antonio didn't have nearly the same level of control over mana as Mike had. The man apparently only had a rare rarity skill in it, and hadn't developed many spells yet.
“So what do you do if you lose your spear?” Mike asked.
“I run away. Not much I can do without my weapon.”
“You can’t even make a few mana bolts?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“I can, but nothing that would be damaging to anything at our level.” Antonio held up a hand, and a ball of mana the size of a baseball formed in his hand. “This is about the best I can do.”
“Have you tried condensing it? Making it smaller”
“Oh, I hadn't really thought of that. I was just adding more mana whenever I wanted it to be stronger.” The ball began shifting, getting slightly smaller. It started to shake slightly, and Mike quickly used his own mana to form a barrier around the ball. It exploded, with Mike’s barrier keeping it from damaging anything in the room.
“No magic in my building please.” Raul said, and Mike could almost feel the eyeroll that accompanied the request.
“Sorry, sorry.” Antonio said, shrugging it off. He turned back to Mike. “Hey, do you think you could show me a bit more on how to use magic sometime?”
“Sure, we could go hunting sometime and I’ll give you some tips.”
“My hunting group and I are going out to a monster lair we found in just a few hours, wanna join us?”
“I can’t. Lucas is finishing his big statue tomorrow and the village will be upgraded to a town. If I’m not there it will look bad.”
“Bummer.” Antonio's shoulders drooped a little. “Maybe some other time then.”
The barber finished cutting Mike’s hair, and spun him around towards the mirror. Mike looked at himself, seeing that the barber had brushed all of his hair up, and left his beard nice and long. His hair shined like it had been shampooed, though Mike didn't remember that getting done. “Thanks Raul. How much do I owe you?”
“2 Silver.” The barber said, getting to work on Antonio's hair.
Mike placed the coins on a counter, then left the shop. He was surprised at the stark contrast in personalities within that whole group. Between Roxanne’s bitchy personality and Antonio's almost childlike curiosity and wonder, he wanted to know what other kinds of people worked with them. He reengaged the enchantment on his shirt, making him appear as if he was level 30 once more. He had failed to get much information from the barber, so he went to the next place he figured he could gather some info.
“Hey, good to see you again.” Mike said, walking up to the captain of the guard.
“Oh, hey Mike. What's up?” She said, turning away from the main gate towards him.
“You know I never got your name. What is it?”
The corners of her lips dropped a bit, and her face grew a bit more cold. “What do you want?”
“I was just asking your name.” Mike said, slightly taken aback.
“You never cared enough before, which means that now you want something.”
“I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about what's going on in the village. I don’t know much other than the really big things.”
“Oh, that’s it?”
“Yep.” Mike said, smiling innocently.
“Well for starters, we are finally seeing crime start to pop up across the village. It is still at a very low level, and isn't anything more than the occasional fight or petty theft. Mostly caused by people taking gemlock.”
“Gemlock? What the hell is that?”
“You haven’t heard of it? Go see the alchemists, they can explain a bit more about it. All I know is that stoners will find a way to get high off anything, and this is their most recent fix.”
“I’ll do that.”
Mike then found himself knocking on the door of the alchemists building, eyeing the suspicious pink smoke coming out of the chimney. The door opened, and Alex the alchemist opened the door, letting Mike come in.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.” The man said. Leading him towards one of the rooms in the building. “I’m guessing this is about the gemlock?”
“It is.” Mike said. They stepped into a room that looked like the fanciest lab Mike had ever seen. Beakers and tubes lined every surface, and Mike had to duck under a few tubes that were delivering liquid to various parts of the lab. “So, you are making drugs now?”
“Well, kind of.” Alex said, reaching into a cabinet and pulling out a small clear container. Inside the container was a small pink stone, which shined like a gem. “We were trying to experiment with sublimation in poisons. That way we could carry them around without needing a storage container.”
“Ok, just assume I have zero knowledge of chemistry when you explain this to me.” Mike said.
“Fine. Sublimation is when a solid skips over becoming a liquid, instead converting directly into a gas. There were a few elements and compounds that did this back before the system, one of the most well known being iodine. The second most known would have to be carbon dioxide, also known as dry ice. We figured that this could save a lot of money on beakers if we could use magic to delay the process until we needed it. But we found a much easier solution.” He brought the rock up to his nose, crushing it in his fist. Pink smoke shot out from his hand, and every bit of it was inhaled. Mike noticed the mana within Alex’s body changed slightly, as if it was more volatile.
Mike tried not to look too uncomfortable with what was happening, and simply listened as the alchemist continued explaining. “Now, we needed to make sure our poisons wouldn't lose potency when they sublimated, so we needed to test them. The easiest way to see if they lose potency is to have somebody report the effects after taking the poison. Obviously I wasn't about to hire a test subject, but I also didn't want to start inhaling deadly toxins. That's when I thought to myself ‘hey, why don’t I use something that doesn’t hurt, just disorientates’. Best idea of my life. Now, inhaling that poison through this process produces pleasant hallucinogenic and psychoactive effects.” He reached into another drawer and brought out a large box. He pulled another rock of gemlock out of the container, holding it out to Mike. “Wanna try some? I promise it’s not addictive.”
Mike slowly pushed the mans hand away from him, trying not to provoke the juiced up man. “No thank you. Do you not sell potions anymore?”
“Sometimes, but making this stuff is way more profitable. I have all kinds of new creations that I sell. I have potions, drugs, poisons, *ahem* performance enhancers…”
“So you are selling gas station penis pills now?” Mike said.
“This stuff is way better than anything you would find in a gas station." Alex said, sounding offended. "You can trust me on that."
“Where did the other two alchemists go?” Mike asked. He remembered the two women that had worked with Alex to make the mana sapping poison.
The mention of the two clearly upset Alex. “Those two weren’t in it for the science. They were all like ‘No, you can’t give out free samples to get people to like gemlock’ and ‘You are going to ruin our reputation selling those pills’. Buncha wusses. They left shortly after I started selling gemlock.”
“Welp,” Mike said, walking towards the exit. “This has been… interesting. I’m going to head out now.”
Just before he made it to the exit, Alex called out to him from the lab. “If you ever have a lady friend to impress, just come over to my store in the shopping district! Make sure to ask for Go Juice!”
“Of fucking course he called it that.” Mike muttered, closing the door on his way out.