Adventure of Lo 3

Old Venn flicks the scrap pendulum into a wider arc. Sawdust spirals between the crates, and his eyes stay on Lo's crossbow, not the target. "A moving mark is closer to the road," he says. "If you want paid work in Hothmmur, you need this."

He reaches under the counter and lays down a thin slate board. A charcoal sketch shows three wanted faces, each with a place note and coin mark. One seal is already half-scraped away. "City notices," Venn says. "Bounty boards, dock claims, missing thieves. Targets like these keep a steady hand fed."

The pendulum whips back toward Lo. Beyond it, a fresh notice flaps on a post by the yard gate, the ink dark and official. The shape on it is not clear from here, but the red wax seal is. Old Venn lowers his voice.

He taps the nearest wanted slate, then the gate, then Lo's crossbow. The yard is still quiet, but now it feels like a threshold. One clean shot, one honest job, one hidden past held tight.

Lo gives Venn a quiet nod, then turns toward the gate. He studies the posted notice and the scraps of inked paper beside it, letting the bold seals and place names settle in his mind.

The nearest bounty is for a runaway dock clerk, small reward, alive only. Another names a knife-handed debt collector last seen near the fish market. The city stamp is clear on both, heavy wax and clean authority.

Lo catches one more detail, a faint clerk's mark under the seal, a trade-house sign he recognizes from the dock quarter. That notice has been handled more than once, and recently.

Venn taps the slate once, then the gate notice, and waits for Lo's choice.