The Duskport Guild Hall doesn't smell like other Guild Halls. Salt, tar, and old rope compete with parchment and lamp oil, and somewhere under it all, faintly, the specific mustiness of a warehouse full of cargo nobody's supposed to ask too many questions about.

Your Silver tag is still warm from the Hall Master's hand. You earned it this morning, and the ink on your registration papers probably isn't even dry yet. Duskport answers to no crown — the Harbor Council runs things, which in practice means the banking houses and trading companies run things, which in further practice means the city is wealthy, cosmopolitan, and just lawless enough at the edges to make a living here. Ships from every corner of the continent crowd the docks below the Hall's windows. Half the warehouses hold smuggled goods, and everyone from the harbor watch to the Council itself has quietly agreed not to look too closely at which half.

A fresh Silver tag means the same old problem, though. The Hall Master won't send a lone Silver after anything worth real coin — not the smuggling rings, not the coastal monster activity, not the noble contracts delicate enough to need discretion. You need a partner.

The partnership board sits near the door, layered with old notices and fresh pins. Four catch your eye today.

LADY ARABELLA CROWNVALE seeks a partner of adequate competence and reasonable taste. Previous party lacked both. I fence a flamberge, I know real quality when I see it, and I do not intend to explain either point twice. Inquire if you can keep up.

Renna Vaskai. Longsword. Reliable. Available for contract work — ask the Hall Master if you have questions, though I doubt he'll answer them any better than I will.

Looking for someone fast on their feet and slow to judge. Dagger and shortsword, good in a tight spot, better company than my reputation suggests. — S.D.

Need a partner who doesn't mind a long walk before the job starts. I live outside the city and I don't rush. If that's a problem, there are faster people on this board. — Brynja H.

You read the four notices twice. Arabella's is written in a hand too elegant for cheap parchment, pinned with something that might genuinely be a hairpin. Renna's gives away nothing at all, which somehow tells you more than a longer notice would. Sabine's has a faint, deliberate charm to it, like it was written to be noticed by exactly the right kind of person. Brynja's is the shortest and somehow the warmest.

Four names. Four very different kinds of trouble waiting past the harbor.

Who do you approach?