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    Guild- A LitRPG Novella: Monsters, Maces and Magic, #3
    Guild- A LitRPG Novella: Monsters, Maces and Magic, #3
    Guild- A LitRPG Novella: Monsters, Maces and Magic, #3
    Ebook121 pages2 hours

    Guild- A LitRPG Novella: Monsters, Maces and Magic, #3

    By Terry W. Ervin II

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    About this ebook

    You can't hide in an RPG forever.

    Eighteen years ago Tom, a barber college student, got trapped in the Monsters, Maces and Magic game world as Josiah the thief.

    The first two adventures saw all of Tom's party members, also trapped within the game world, perish within the fetid depths of the Dark Heart Swamp. His subsequent stint adventuring with NPCs proved short lived. He preferred survival.

    Over time, Tom became Josiah, adopting a life blending in with the game world's NPCs. He gave up advancing as a thief, trained as a lay healer, and works as a barber, cutting hair, pulling teeth, lancing boils and functioning as a low-level operative within the local thieves' guild.

    But life, even one lived as a faux NPC, can get interesting. Such happens when a young half-goblin thief named Gurk shows up in Josiah's shop, looking for information.

    Little did the pair know that the unobtrusive barber shop would become a focal point in a brewing guild war.

    Praise for Monsters, Maces, and Magic

    "Exciting and hilarious! It feels like a true game with friends." Dueling Ogres Podcast

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGryphonwood Press
    Release dateNov 26, 2018
    ISBN9781386687672
    Guild- A LitRPG Novella: Monsters, Maces and Magic, #3

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      Book preview

      Guild- A LitRPG Novella - Terry W. Ervin II

      You can’t hide in an RPG forever.

      Eighteen years ago Tom, a barber college student, got trapped in the Monsters, Maces and Magic game world as Josiah the thief.

      The first two adventures saw all of Tom’s party members, also trapped within the game world, perish within the fetid depths of the Dark Heart Swamp. His subsequent stint adventuring with NPCs proved short lived. He preferred survival.

      Over time, Tom became Josiah, adopting a life blending in with the game world’s NPCs. He gave up advancing as a thief, trained as a lay healer, and works as a barber, cutting hair, pulling teeth, lancing boils and functioning as a low-level operative within the local thieves’ guild.

      But life, even one lived as a faux NPC, can get interesting. Such happens when a young half-goblin thief named Gurk shows up in Josiah’s shop, looking for information.

      Little did the pair know that the unobtrusive barber shop would become a focal point in a brewing guild war.

      Praise for Monsters, Maces, and Magic

      EXCITING AND HILARIOUS! It feels like a true game with friends. Dueling Ogres Podcast

      Guild- Monsters, Maces and Magic Book Three

      Copyright © 2018 Terry W. Ervin II

      All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

      Published by Gryphonwood Press

      www.gryphonwoodpress.com

      Edited by Melissa Bowersock

      This is a work of fiction. All characters are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

      Chapter 1

      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.

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