After the long late night meeting, Bayar heads back to his sleeping cell. Dropping the outrageously overloaded backpack to the floor he begins wearily unbuckling his sword belt and armour. These are placed far more carefully than the backpack with all it's miscellaneous junk attached to it. Exhausted from weeks of hiking, fighting and more hiking , the former mercenary drops onto his thin straw mattress with a groan.
I be getting soft as butter. There not even be a proper battle and I feel like an old man. Shortly he fell into a dreamless sleep, waking in four hours as the sun was rising. The servants that quartered near his cell were already up and bustling around. Bayar lay on the mattress, enjoying the indolent feeling of having nothing pressing to do and all the time in the world to do it.
Physiologically unable to be idle for long the big man stretched, listening to the crack of over exerted tendons and joints but enjoying the mild pain anyway. Shortly he rose and dressed in plain "civilian" clothes. The morning was taken with simple maintenance - armour to the smiths for repair (and rueful memories of the worst dents), a new pair of pants to replace the travel stained and torn, careful oiling, checking and sharpening of weapons, airing the bedroll, bartering and trading the various valuables looted and so on.
By midday, his chores done in leisurely fashion, Bayar headed into the city proper. His preferred house for relaxing in the city was Otto's Bathhouse - frequented by the city's mercenaries on furlough but classier than your average grunt could afford. After returning from campaign a man had certain...needs to take care of, and Otto's at least had curtains. He hesitated at bringing his necklace of campaign coins on the trip (Bayar's sole piece of jewellery was a leather loop with three holey silver coins strung, each stamped with the name and year of the campaigns he had fought) - the necklace could get other mercenaries to open up a little, but the coins were often a prime target for thieves. In the end he took it along, adding the ceramic disc taken from the gnolls at Henri's house to the collection.
Otto's was its usual self - a large communal hot pool where tattooed and scarred men sat in companionable silence (or gossiping like old women depending on how much they had drunk), and we're massaged by young(ish) women of at least passable beauty, ringed by small curtained areas. The wine was above average, at least.
Bayar spent the best part of the afternoon there, emerging with two new friends, somewhat poorer and a good deal drunker sometime after dark. The three men headed for that bastion of male entertainment - the recruiting grounds outside the city's gates, where the various mercenary companies that are Hess' prime export to the world found their manpower.
None of the three were interested in signing on. Still there was always a good show as the various companies tried to impress potential recruits and out do each other. News of the world also passed through, none of what reached Bayar's ears good. War. The whole world seemed to be fighting amongst itself - even more so than normal. Some place called (variously, depending who you asked) Ress, Ruhr, Russ, Wuss or Weiss seemed on the verge of collapse and civil war (the Emperor had been assassinated by his brother, or his uncle, or had fallen off his horse, or was lost at sea...). Good for business, though Bayar's experience of civil war still tasted like ashes in his mouth. To the various tales of woe, Bayar added his own thoughts and experiences about the savage humanoids - and was glad he'd brought the ceramic disc along or would have found few believers.
Some time well after midnight he returned (staggering) to his sleeping cell, both satisfied and worried. The next day would bring whatever it would. Years spent on campaign had resigned Bayar to accepting that the future was largely unknowable, though probably dangerous.