Vhalar 10, Arc 703
The bath house in Andaris was far from the first of its kind that he had visited, but it was one of the more luxurious ones with its marble columns and statues, the Mortalborn thought as he stepped through the door. The twin suns had burned down relentlessly on the city for the past couple of trials and made any kind of physical exertion nigh impossible, and thus the prospect of relaxing in the water seemed even more appealing to him than it usually was.
Perhaps he would pay a slave to give him a massage after he had enjoyed the pools, he pondered, as he walked towards the changing rooms at a relatively brisk pace. His back hurt slightly after a trial in the laboratory, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache, perhaps the result of experimenting with questionably smelling substances. Unfortuntely immortal blood did not mean that one was spared the aches and pains of mortalkind.
The area where the visitors left their clothes was comparatively empty. There were only two other men there one of whom he knew from the university, an assistant professor of history, if he remembered correctly, in his thirties, slightly overweight and with the pallor that many of those that spent their trials with books and behind closed doors unfortunately possessed.
They nodded briefly each other, and then the historian abruptly turned away, perhaps slightly ashamed of his own nudity or the state his body was in. The Mortalborn found such behaviour fairly ridiculous as nudity was man’s natural state. He took his clothes off without hesitation, folded them and put them where they would hopefully not be stolen before he wrapped a white towel around his lower body as seemed to be the habit here.
Having done that, he walked past the steam rooms – an invention he still didn't understand, why pay to sweat when one could suffer the heat for free outside? – and the pool where parents played with their children to an area that was exclusively reserved for men.
There, he let the towel drop to the floor before he set one foot into the water, testing the temperature of it and then the other one before he eased himself onto a seat, letting out a sigh as he did so. The laughter and the screams of the children in the family pool were nearly inaudible here, and the temperature of the water was so pleasant that the trials and tribulations of life in that age of war began to fade from his mind.
The only sounds that could be heard in this part of the bath house were the quiet conversation of two men that discussed business arrangements of all things and the occasional lapping of the water against the edge of the pool, soothing and somewhat monotonous.
The bath house in Andaris was far from the first of its kind that he had visited, but it was one of the more luxurious ones with its marble columns and statues, the Mortalborn thought as he stepped through the door. The twin suns had burned down relentlessly on the city for the past couple of trials and made any kind of physical exertion nigh impossible, and thus the prospect of relaxing in the water seemed even more appealing to him than it usually was.
Perhaps he would pay a slave to give him a massage after he had enjoyed the pools, he pondered, as he walked towards the changing rooms at a relatively brisk pace. His back hurt slightly after a trial in the laboratory, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache, perhaps the result of experimenting with questionably smelling substances. Unfortuntely immortal blood did not mean that one was spared the aches and pains of mortalkind.
The area where the visitors left their clothes was comparatively empty. There were only two other men there one of whom he knew from the university, an assistant professor of history, if he remembered correctly, in his thirties, slightly overweight and with the pallor that many of those that spent their trials with books and behind closed doors unfortunately possessed.
They nodded briefly each other, and then the historian abruptly turned away, perhaps slightly ashamed of his own nudity or the state his body was in. The Mortalborn found such behaviour fairly ridiculous as nudity was man’s natural state. He took his clothes off without hesitation, folded them and put them where they would hopefully not be stolen before he wrapped a white towel around his lower body as seemed to be the habit here.
Having done that, he walked past the steam rooms – an invention he still didn't understand, why pay to sweat when one could suffer the heat for free outside? – and the pool where parents played with their children to an area that was exclusively reserved for men.
There, he let the towel drop to the floor before he set one foot into the water, testing the temperature of it and then the other one before he eased himself onto a seat, letting out a sigh as he did so. The laughter and the screams of the children in the family pool were nearly inaudible here, and the temperature of the water was so pleasant that the trials and tribulations of life in that age of war began to fade from his mind.
The only sounds that could be heard in this part of the bath house were the quiet conversation of two men that discussed business arrangements of all things and the occasional lapping of the water against the edge of the pool, soothing and somewhat monotonous.