Today was Diensday, the first of the month of Dios and so also the first official day of Spring on the northern continent of Alverus. Winter had truly ended a few weeks before with the improving of the weather and the temperature rising daily. Paderborn never truly saw winter, it snowed on occasion, but those times were very rare and this was not one of the snowy years. Instead it rained, almost a constant downpour some weeks. Streets had been turned to mud and everyone and everything seemed coated in the muck until it felt like the entire city would simply sink into the ground. While some would have welcomed the disappearance of this wicked and corrupt city, many others would have wailed at the disappearance, most notably many thousand of its wretched inhaibtants, and those who came here to trade with or exploit them as they saw fit.<br/><br/>The coming of spring meant an increase in trade and travel; it also meant that soon would be the season of war once more. This year talk of war on the peninsula of which Paderborn was a part was rampant. Everyone knew that Turov would march again to war before long. Refugee camps still existed outside the city, the poor and starving people huddled in their cloth tents. Mercenaries had begun to arrive in the city as well, some stopping only briefly before heading to Turov or Dusun or some other destination to participate in the coming conflict. Only a handful stayed in Paderborn. The city had no true central government, no army, and no plan to hire mercenaries to defend itself. The merchants who ruled the city did have private armies which fought at times amongst the warehouses and on the docks. It was not uncommon to find a dozen or so dead bodies on the docks with teh coming of first light.<br/><br/>The docks had begun to fill with ships of all kinds. Those who smuggled goods that were illegal in other cities unloaded them here. Pirates bought and sold goods here in Paderborn as well as looked for new crewmembers. Slavers visited this port, and already some of the refugees had begun to disappear, most to be sent to the slave markets of the southern continent. Slavery was technically ilegal in Paderborn, which only meant trade in slaves was not conducted openly. It was done in secret houses and with bribes to what served as the city watch.<br/><br/>The market itself was crowded and dirty, a few days of clear skies had dried the ground and the constant bustle of feet generated a low-lying cloud of dust that covered everything. Goods of every kind were on display, from finely crafted weapons, to rusty iron bars, smoked meats and fish to half rotten fruit. Merchants called out to passersby, offering their wares, and offering choice insults to those who ignored them. Others haggled and bargained, buyer and seller trying to outmaneuver one another in the dealing. In many ways, a typical chaotic marketplace, only this one was not the one area of chaos in an orderly city, it was the only area with a semblance of order in a city of chaos.