Adam's head hurt like hell.
He had never experienced this type of pain, to such a degree that he had a hard time focusing on what was before him.
But the pain wasn't his biggest worry at the moment, rather, it was what laid before him.
Or who.
The young mage woke up in an unfamiliar barn - around him was a feeder filled with some kind of food waste, a tub filled with water, and a pile of hay similar to the one he laid on.
The barn consisted of four walls and a roof - with a huge door in one of them.
The mage wasn't alone in the building, far from it. Pigs layed on the ground scattered around the room, surprisingly clean for someone who never had one of those.
Talking about animals, Parcas wasn't anywhere in sight - Which filled Adam with worry.
Apart from the animals, there was also a girl lying next to Adam, using his coat as a blanket. Whatever she had anything else on herself was debatable.
Adam looked at himself, wondering if any other pieces of clothing disappeared from his body.
He didn't miss anything other than his coat, and hat - which disappeared without a trace. Had it not been the empire, but Derdania, he might have frozen to death during the night.
"Ekhem -miss, can I have my coat back?" He inquired the girl, who started to wake up.
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Back in his coat, Adam left the barn with a red face.
The outside of the barn wasn't anything interesting - an alley filled with similar buildings among few homes.
"Meow." A meow echoed through the alley.
Adam turned around, and stood face to face with a grey tuxed cat, sitting on the barn's roof. The cat stared Adam in the eyes as if he saw his soul as clear as day. Next to Parcas, on top of the wooden roof, laid Adam's hat.
"Hello you fat thing, care to come down with my hat in tow? But please don't meow - my head dies for some reason." Adam carelessly insulted his feline companion - who knows, maybe he will rebel someday, and finally squash the human's heresy. After all, he wasn't fat - just fluffy.
'Fluffy' beast looked at Adam quizzingly, almost as if laughing his owner in the face.
"Parcas?" Adam called the grey tuxedo again.
A staring contest began, with neither of the two doing anything for a few moments.
"Hello? Will you come down or not?" Adam questioned after wrapping his arms before him. - Mental battle tactics he picked up from Derek back when the young mage was still a slightly depressed, yet unruly child.
Under such an attack, Parcas - a cat inexperienced in guilt-shaming defence, as his mother wasn't smart enough to use such things - had no way but to concede.
The kitty smacked the hat with his paw, making it fall from the roof to the ground, then jumped himself - on his owner's hunched back.
After picking the hut up, and putting his cat in the coat's special pocket, Adam was finally ready to escape the surroundings of the barn - where things were done, yet not remembered.
Sadly.
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Out of the alley, Adam took a look at the street, which was as calm as the rest of the city - various carriages and mounted riders travelled in the middle of the road, talking to themselves silently while the pedestrians walking on the sides.
'I need to find someone who can give me directions, but won't be asking questions...' He looked around trying to find some shop or vendor.
Normally, asking for directions wouldn't be weird - as it is normal that someone may not know where some particular shop is located, despite living in the same city for their whole lives. But Adam's case was different, as he was searching for the Wind Gate, the same one the envoys passed to enter the city the previous day. That would be weird - after all, one of the main entrances to the city seems like an important place to remember.
Thus, the young mage searched for something like a general store, or a farrier - (a blacksmith specialising in hooves), those two represented a group of places where outsiders were common to encounter.
However, he might have also been overthinking the issue, and asking a random person would be okay.
But anyway - The street wasn't crowded, but our mage had to move some distance to see any signboard anyway. The first one belonged to a shoemaker's shop - luxuriously decorated window showed the master's work, varying from heavy boots with metal toes and heels - good for master craftsmen despite working physically and sometimes in dangerous conditions, who had enough money to buy good boots to protect their feet - to dancing footwear, light and colourful. Perfect for a nobles' party.
Looking inside, Adam saw a few well-dressed people looking at the examples lying on the shelves - probably trying to decide what model they should order.
The young mage walked away, while a wandering trader might come here to buy an already made pair, Adam didn't have enough money with himself to buy any of the shoemaker's products - and asking for directions without even buying a little thing would be rude.
So, go went on.
Next was a blacksmith on the other side of the street, some distance away - there was a problem though, it was a swordsmith.
Not only was it expensive, but also Adam hadn't had any excuse for coming there.
He didn't use a sword, or in fact, any other weapon apart from a bow - and it showed, that his shoulders and back muscles were his most prominent ones, and a swordsmith was bound to see the difference between an archer and a close-combat warrior. Also, he firmly believed that coming any closer to a smithy would make him scream in pain - even the unusually quiet streets of Northern Overseer were too much for his pained head.
So, another shop was left behind.
Adam walked like this for a while, and he slowly lost hope of an inconspicuous shop to enter by the minute, as the number of commercial buildings diminished as he went further.
Finally, he found someplace he felt comfortable coming in - a barber.
A quick trim of his beard - which slowly grew, but at the moment was too uneven to look okay - would substitute for buying some miscellaneous item, and asking the barber for directions wasn't a thing he could be ashamed of.
The only problem that may arise is the price, some barbers back in the Capital took outrageous money for their services, Addam hoped this one was aiming to be a facility for the common people, not a noblemen's meeting place.
Anyway, the door opened quietly and Adam stepped into the barber's shop - with sweat on his forehead.
"Welcome! How can I help you?" A man stood up from a chair next to a table with numerous drawers standing next to a wall, on which hung a mirror.
"Hi." Adam greeted the man nervously. "I would like to get a clean shave, is that possible?" He asked, feeling his facial hair - barely long enough to feel individual hairs, and inconsistent across his chin.
The barber took a step forward, then another, and another, and another until his face was a few centimetres away from Adam's chin.
The man bent down a bit, looking at Adam's pathetic facial hair a bit from below, while the observed one leaned away, in an attempt to put the barber away from his personal space.
"Yeah, I can do wonders this... Thing." He said without changing his position, circling around Adam's chin with his finger.
"Okay... can you move... a bit?" Adam uttered, nervousness nearly blurred his headache to nothingness.
"Oh, sorry - you are my first client today. You see, I am quite restless before cutting some hair down, especially while the weather is so good." Indeed, the barber was right - the sun was shining, letting its gaze illuminate and warm up the world, the standard 'pretty weather', though, Adam preferred it when it was colder. On a cold day, you can always put on an additional sweater, on a hot day, you can't take your skin off.
Of course, this doesn't apply to people too poor to buy a sweater and those mad enough to peel their skin off for additional cooling.
"So, any fade? Preferred design? Anything out of the ordinary for a clean shave?" The Barber asked excitedly, with some hope in his voice.
"No, just a shave my beard, nothing more nothing less." Adam preferred to voice his request as fool-proof as he could. While the barber may not have been a fool, he was certainly a weirdo, and with such people, you should act as if they were fools, otherwise, you might find yourself in an unfavourable situation.
"Oki doki, come on - sit down and relax. The beard - or whatever this should be called - will disappear in no time."
The barber guided Adam to the seat, and after ensuring that his client was comfortable, reached for the shelves on his table.
"What would you say for some enrichment serum? It would make your bear grom much better than it is now... - By the way, why didn't you shave it yourself? it's not a complicated procedure." The barber asked while preparing his stuff.
"I... didn't... have the tools necessary..." Adam said with badly hidden uncertainty while moving his hand as slowly as he could alongside the length of his torso, to move his coat over his right side and hide a dagger safely sheathed there.
"Oh, I see... Don't worry, I am equipped enough for both of us." The barber said casually.
Adam looked at him incredulously. "I doubt that.." He whispered.
"Okay, let's start - please stay still, otherwise I will take off more than just some hair." The barber said, and immediately after that his face stiffened, and he became way more serious out of the blue.
"Have you ever tried the buns from the bakery on the other side of the street? These are delicious, and the ones with filling are even better - they make you lick your fingers for days after." He stopped for a moment, in which his suddenly dreamy expression changed to one of enlightenment - it seemed that the seriousness was either temporary or was hidden behind the Barber's flickering emotions. "Wait, that's not a pro, it's a con! those sticky fingers are a real menace, especially in a line of work such as mine..."
Adam let the man talk, half overwhelmed by him, half scared of him. The thought of asking for directions crossed his mind, but along with a new emotional state every minute, a razor-sharp blade next to his neck made him apprehensive. What if he could not answer some questions the Barber may ask after hearing his incredibly suspicious question related to the local urban environment?
I personally, think he was overreacting - probably because of a terrible headache.
"So, tell me - are you married?" The Barber took Adam by surprise.
"Huh?" Adam's mind got flooded with images of the girl he found by his side this morning, but he quickly shook it off and answered the blade-bearer. "No..., what about it?"
"Nothing..., it's just that after taking this hideous thing masquerading as a beard of your face, I realised you are quite handsome. Surely girls flood over you like Haeartha after heavy rain." the barber praised with a spark in his eyes.
Hearing the man shut his mouth for a moment, Adam finally started to take the conversation into his own hands.
"Regarding your first question. No, I didn't visit that bakery, mainly because I am here only for a while. I am a traveller." Adam said, no longer was his forehead adorned with sweat, and his headache subsided enough so that he could think straight.
"Oh, that explains the lack of shaving utensils, only a madman would use a dagger for that." It seemed the Barber was not only mentally weird, he also had perceptive eyes.
Adam stayed silent for the rest of the shaving session, only sitting in silence and listening to the barber babble on and on, but eventually even he had to stop as there was no more beard to shave.
While giving him the money, Adam finally asked the Barber the question this whole charade was for.
"How do I reach the northern gate? The Wind gate if I remember correctly." The young - yet already bearding - mage asked.
"Oh, just go right after leaving the shop. You should reach it in about 15 minutes." The establishment's owner answered. Without any questions attached.
Leaving the barber's shop and turning left, Adam had only one thought in his mind
'I really should not drink so much...'