• Judeu was walking until he came upon a street with a two story bar and grill. He made note of it and kept walking until he found a smoke shop next to another tavern. He looked across the street and saw a tea house next to another hotel. Next to that was a bath house but the hotel he was at had hot showers.
    He opened the door to the smoke shop and he was hit with multiple smokey smells of burning incense, opiates, tobacco and cannabis; each of which had their own natural and added flavoring. There was nobody at the counter so he walked into the small lounge/waiting area with a table that had a hookah and a tin of tobacco. There was a hall with several curtained booths that he assumed were private hookah lounges. He saw a young black haired boy trot down the hallway with a tray of food into one of the booths.
    A leathery woman in her thirties popped out from behind the counter and asked “How can I help you?” in a gravelly voice.
    “What kind of tobacco do you have?” Judeu asked
    “We carry different brands, usually of what we believe best compliments a flavor. We create the flavors ourselves. So a cherry flavored tobacco might come from a different plantation than a vanilla flavored tobacco. Plain tobacco is sold by natural flavor so the brands will normally stay with the flavor group. Cigars, cigarettes and loose tobacco are available.”
    “I'm looking for plain loose tobacco with a bold flavor, nothing harsh and a quality cigar.”
    “We have three plantations” the woman put three jars on the counter and let Judeu try a pinch of each. She could tell which ones were here to spend a little extra.
    He chose a desert tobacco, it had a strong pruned smell with what smelled like maple.
    After paying the woman, Judeu left and decided to head to the first bar he had come across. The bar was also at a large T shaped crossroad and faced down the road the hotel was on. It would be a nice place to smoke and watch people. He would call out to Delilah and Hector when they were done, if they came out of the bath house in time; he might see Joseph walking this way as well. There was nothing to do for a day and a half except drink, smoke, eat, and maybe fight and screw.
    Gracchus might join them but Judeu had worked with him the longest; in towns, Gracchus found a hole in the wall bar, sat in some corner out of the way and emptied a bottle of liquor but that was only if they didn't allow smoking in the hotel rooms. Otherwise he would buy a bottle and empty it in his room.
    Gracchus was once a professional soldier who had fought in the holy wars in eastern continents. He had never been schooled like the rest and he had never fought in the province wars that devolved this land. Whatever he experienced over there put him above par with the fighters in this land but also scarred him.
    Judeu made it to the two story bar and grill; it had open arches instead of walls. There were men and women hurrying around the first floor with food and drinks. They were dressed in tidy black, tight fitting working clothes; they were all pretty. He was surprised that the place wasn't busier.
    He could smell cooking meat from the back.
    Judeu went to the bar and ordered from a pretty blonde in his early twenties: “Rum with ice.” Judeu said.
    He went to the second floor, seated himself at a balcony table with a view of the street, lit his cigar and began rolling cigarettes while he waited. He waited for somebody familiar, he waited for one of those cute servers, he waited for the next day to come, he just waited.
    Multiple boots could be heard clomping up the stairs, Judeu saw three mercenaries; two men and one woman. They didn't have the uniformity of local soldiers or conscripts. They might not have been schooled mercenaries but they looked experienced; these must have been the Midland Seventeen that took out the helicopter. Only three?
    The group sat down along the balcony railing, leaving a table in between Judeu and them. Joseph walked up soon after and greeted the mercenaries as if they were familiar friends. He stayed standing, joked with them for a few seconds and walked over to Judeu to sit down across from him. “I had a contract under Mr Spears' mercenary band for some time. No schooling, but he's got the experience to make up for it and then some. I ran into him at the hookah bar down the street so I hung out with his guys in their booth.”
    “I was over there this morning.” Judeu said.
    “Yeah, I would have been sitting in the front otherwise.” Joseph said “They're here for a fight, this group came here guarding VIPs and equipment sponsored by Midland Railway. Midland doesn't care about the politics, they just want stability in their business. There's a territory dispute going on and his band is scattered throughout the province doing something mission specific. Most of the work is done by contract fighters and there's a lot of terrorism and ambushes. The whole thing's threatening to boil over into a full blown war.”
    “And this place seemed so nice.” Judeu said. “What about the people?”
    “We have a couple days to make some friends and find out.” Joseph said. He packed a long wooden pipe and began to smoke. He used the match to light the candle at the table. “It's gonna be a cool afternoon, maybe rain.”
    “It wouldn't be so bad to be rained in at this place.” Judeu said.