4. The Hanger’s House

Kinch enters the Hanger’s House, the public-facing door to the Takers Guild near Cadoth’s gate. A distractingly pretty, clearly magicked clerk reviews his ledger and pay-in, while an inked Assassin-Adept oversees the exchange. Kinch reflects on Guild ranks and the power and mystique of its higher enforcers.

The clerk probes Kinch with seductive banter and illusion, even doubling herself as an older version behind the bar—signaling high sorcery and authority. She offers sex for a queening, but Kinch, wary of his debt and goals, demurs despite the erotic cantrip working on him.

Shifting to business, the clerk presses a witness coin to Kinch’s head, projecting true-seeming images: a chaotic retreat from a ruined two-toned tower; giants, massive and many, hurling trees and stones; Hrava burning by a lake; and a disguised woman with an emerald choker and a rose tattoo demanding a mark be removed. The vision confirms an unprecedented giants’ army sacking Hrava.

The agent then briefs Kinch: the Ispanthian he encountered is heading to Oustrim, likely Hrava. Kinch must accompany or shadow her, gain her confidence if possible, and await further instruction. For outsiders, he is to claim a mission to retrieve relics from the Oustrim king’s reliquary—the Keshite arrow wand, a ring of Catfall, and the Hard-Stone Torque.

She sets the timetable: it is the nineteenth of Ashers; Kinch must press the Spanth to make Hrava by the first of Vintners, two moons hence. When Kinch jokes about paying for pleasure, her glamour drops to reveal rotten teeth—“You get what you pay for.” Shaken and newly urgent, Kinch bolts from the Hanger’s House to begin the mission.