Session: Oct. 16th, 2023

Remember when I said that perhaps we needed to be more forthcoming and just tell people things, to try to incriminate our enemies instead of just hiding? I think that backfired royally today.
 
The day started out fine with that advice in my head. I managed to grab the Inquisitor before she left, and told her all about Dan'or'avil and Ahzek. Interestingly, she seemed to recognize the name Dan'or'avil, but I didn't get much of a sense of why. It didn't seem to be a sly "oh I know who that is" kind of recognition, but more an inkling of recognition like she'd heard it before? Curious as to what that connection was. Then she was surprised to hear about Ahzek, citing him as being a somewhat boring person. She was surprised to hear that he worships Cor'nate, and seemed interested in the orb I mentioned. So hopefully, after being much more forthcoming there, it might lead to SOMEONE getting in trouble for some of their crimes. Whether that's Malzod, Dan'or'avil, or Ahzek, I don't care. But if we could remove even one enemy from our plate by legal means, that would be ideal.
 
The Inquisitor then had to leave to go see if we could visit Ny'ell in prison, and Elegant decided to take a nap, so that left Mud, Zun, and myself kind of aimless. We decided to go see the nearest city, Ketter, and check out if they had any magical tattoo shops, and then, because Mud and Zun got weirdly excited about it, check out their apparent fight club (thanks to a recommendation from Rayen). Since we didn't know where anything was, we asked a nice looking old lady, and my gods was she a hoot. Blind as a bat, but twice as cheeky. Gave us directions to the Exalted Bastion for the fight club, and told us to check out The Vials, the local apothecary, for info on tattoos.
 
Turns out the apothecary was run by her daughter, who informed us there were no tattoo shops in town, but that the butler of Count Payten was rumoured to have one, which was wildly convenient for us. She directed us to Helena, the blacksmith, who apparently runs the fight club out the back of her shop. Mud and Zun signed up, I put myself down as a maybe (if you can't use magic, there's literally no point for me, but she said there might be a magic user in town who'd duel me?), put Cor'nan down as a maybe (figured the man could probably stand to blow off some steam), and when she asked if we knew any musicians, offered up Elegant's talents (because the man also needs to get his mind off of things). Mud stayed behind to learn more from Helena, and Zun and I went back to talk to Carlen about his tattoo. But that's where things got...complicated.
 
So turns out Carlen DOES have a tattoo. The blood fury one at that. But it also turns out that he's a freaking JACKED psychopath, so that's a concern. He said he got his tattoo from a man he killed, and that he had no remorse for it. Would be totally willing to kill again for a great tattoo like that. Said he had a friend in the capital that did tattoos through more legal means, but the fees start at 200,000gp, a sum we quickly informed him we did not have. He then asked if we would be interested in acquiring a large sum of money through less-than-legal means, to which we told him that we probably would be willing, so long as it didn't involve hurting or stealing from innocent people. He said he'd get back to us tomorrow, after talking with his boss about whether we could be brought in. Then informed us in NO uncertain terms that he would immediately kill us if we tried to backstab him.
 
As we went to leave, to further assert the power difference between us, he produced two daggers out of nowhere and threw them very accurately beside each of our heads into the door. I'll be honest, I don't take kindly when someone tries to intimidate me, so I turned around and went "I can do that too!" and pulled out Mortalis. That was a mistake. He clearly recognized the weapon. Maaaybe he only recognized that I'm a warlock, but it seemed to be more than that. But Zun...brash, chaotic Zun, immediately goes "The jig is up, he recognizes it, Eirlyssia". JUST. LIKE. THAT. Outed me without hesitation. I didn't get a sense for whether or not Carlen recognized my name, but him knowing it is NOT good. He asked me how long I'd had Mortalis, and then we left. But it's been bothering me since. While I have been suggesting we be more open with outing our enemies, I was not intending to be more open with outing our identities. It makes me extremely uncomfortable that that psycho now knows exactly who I am, and most likely, what I have in my possession. If word of that gets back to any of our enemies...if he has any connection with them...it especially concerns me knowing that Carlen would most likely be very willing to sell us out.
 
My only solace is that I might get some answers tonight. I realized, after talking with the Inquisitor about how I don't know why exactly Dan'or'avil wants to kill me, I should just ask him. I can cast Sending. Why not? Ask him straight up what the hell I did to make him want to kill me so much. Then I plan to ask Mortalis if he can get through the barrier in my memories. The Inquisitor said going through minds was a risky procedure, but I wonder if, when it's a patron who's already connected to your mind, it would be easier? Maybe then we can finally know what Ahzek is responsible for.