Vincent had left early in the morning, in an attempt to make it to the market before the streets filled up with bargain hunters. After spending an hour in the local tavern and scoring a cheap, early breakfast with some of the previous night's ill-gotten gains, he'd made it to the opening market to find that he was in luck; he merchant he'd been looking for had been punctual and brought his bounty of materials to boot.
Now, as it rolled over to mid-morning, he found himself heading back to his clinic with his bag full of all kinds of different plants and extracts. A few people were sleeping in the alleyway leading up to the cast-iron door built into the otherwise solid-brick wall, but none of them made a peep towards him and just kept on snoring away as he stepped over and around them.
'Bless their little vagrant hearts,' Vincent thought to himself, taking out his keys to open the door, and finding himself practically assaulted by the sound from inside as he did.
"Water... need water..." The man on the bed inside groaned as if he was an old man left in the desert to die, rather than a strapping young idiot who'd just woken up on a relatively comfy bed in a relatively upscale clinic.
Well, relatively upscale for a back-alley clinic, anyway. Vincent liked to think he had some standards.
"You can always get up and get yourself some, you great big child," The dark-haired and now dark-faced man muttered towards his patient, placing his bag down at the table near the door, before he walked over to the counter, picked up one of the bottles filled with water, and threw it at the man. He caught it with a groan and a yelp before Vincent picked the bags up and began to carry them towards the area of the clinic where the man was resting, passing him and walking towards the tables, basins and cupboards at the end of the room.
"Anyway, that little cut should be just about fine now it's stitched up," He shouted across the room to the man on the bed as he began to sort out his purchases, "Just keep it covered and try not to get stabbed again. Avoid that area of town the next time you want to screw around with prostitutes."
"God, what am I going to tell my wife?" Was the man's only response. Vincent didn't know whether he found that rude or was more relieved he didn't have to engage the idiot in conversation. He'd spent a few hours carefully removing half of a broken, rusty shiv from the man's side after he'd come staggering in panicking the night before, and whilst he'd gotten paid handsomely for it, it'd cut a big chunk out of his remaining supplies in the process. Didn't help that the payment took a lot of scaremongering and persistence to eke out.
Rich idiots being a pain in the ass. What a surprise.
"Tell her what you want, isn't my job to play peacekeeper with your missus. I'd suggest saying you got mugged, but that would just make things difficult for my regulars," He muttered back, finishing up his sorting of his materials into the appropriate places before he picked the man's clothes up and threw them at him. "You could tell her you got stabbed by a prostitute after you tried shortchanging her, but that sounds like the kind of thing that would earn you sleeping on the couch for life."
"Hey, fuck you, this is serious!" Well, clearly this fellow had overstayed his welcome.
"If it's so serious, go get dressed and think about it somewhere else." Vincent spat back, taking a sharper tone as he stepped towards his patient. "I have business to take care of, marriage counseling isn't part of that."
Before the man could even object, he found himself grabbed by the collar of his uniform and dragged from the bed with inhuman force. A few moments later, he was lying on his back outside with his coat, shoes and socks still in his hands.
"Clear off," Were the last words from the back-alley doctor that had treated him before the cast-iron door was slammed shut before him. At least, before it opened again and Vincent poked his head back out to add: "Oh, and get up off the ground quickly unless you want that to get infected. The stitches and antibiotics will only do so much."
"Man, you look like complete shit," One of the freshly-woken vagrants outside of the door snickered towards the man with a mouth half-full of rotten teeth, who promptly got up and stormed away. "And that's coming from me of all people!"
______
A few minutes later, and Vincent was sifting through the letters that had been delivered whilst he was out. Whilst mostly junk and general correspondence with old acquaintances, one thing did stick out enough to catch his attention.
"Summons?" He muttered to himself, as his eyes scanned up and down the letter from his Guild. He couldn't tell from a glance whether they were from Thoth herself or just some other high-ranking member of the guild, but nonetheless they seemed fairly insistent on his appearance
Inconvenient, perhaps, but interesting. Perhaps there were expedition teams being assembled with other Guilds? Or maybe it was to do with the Labyrinth? He'd heard it was going to be opening soon.
"Might as well," He grumbled with a shrug, getting up from the table to grab his coat. Seemed like he was in for an eventful day, at the very least.
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