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Inside the front door is a vestibule with small stone hearths on both sides. There are also alcoves where you would assume that Guards or even Doormen would stand on duty by a wooden door opposite of the front - at the moment they are empty, but the inside door is half-open, and while you cannot see anything immediately, you can hear movement and idle conversation inside. You have not broken your stride from the bound up the front stairs, and are heading straight for this inside door ... when you catch sight of posters nailed to the door. Without even thinking about it, you come to a complete stop, and without caring that someone might happen upon you reading them, you glance through them as quick as you can. As you might have feared, a number of them are bounties, though most are for ships or bands, not individuals. You cannot see any that mention the Euthyphro either, but ... you had been hoping that the clerk-houses wouldn't have anything like this. Still, you think that in a place like this, there would be Doormen instead of Guards, and you think - well, you certainly <span class="mu-i">hope</span> - that those Doormen aren't in the habit of checking the active bounties as regularly as Guards do. Obviously, no sane Pirate or Ne'er-do-well would wander into a Port Authority clerk-house and ask about Family Patents, right? So they wouldn't bother, right?
But still, you remain where you are - and for one moment, you consider bailing. It is only when you hear Giotto and his brothers start to ring in the eighteenth hour that a fire is lit under you once more. You straighten your back - though just a bit, as it would look presumptuous, not to mention ridiculous, for a maid to go marching in there with her head held high - and you slip through the door into a room that you can only describe as a gallery of desks. They line the walls, though at this point only a few of the three dozen or so are still manned by clerks. One of those clerks, in the process of leaving, sees you and stops dead in his tracks. Another, who was already looking up from his work, presumably on account of the tolling, catches sight of you as well - and then, one by one, all of the Port Authority men in the room - the other clerks, the pair of doormen standing at a door opposite of the one you just came through on the other side of the room, the pair of doormen sitting on benches in the area inside the lines of desks, a few civic Pages and what appears to be a very aged Porter - they all stop whatever they were doing to stare at you as well.
Part of you would like nothing more than to beg their pardons for the intrusion, say something to the effect that you thought this was someplace else, and then leave with all possible haste. After all, this is not just awkward, this is dangerous. And yet, to leave now, under such scrutiny would probably result in even more suspicion. More than that, if the absolute worst came to pass, you can take succor knowing that there is no one at the door behind you.
