Oathday, Sarenith 16 (evening)

The drama continues. Now that Snagsby has learned that no one is searching for him, he’s inclined to stay here in Korvosa where other followers of Nocticula are working to build a temple. I can certainly respect that, as it’s the sort of higher calling that I can relate to. In turn, there is Cress, who was searching for Snagsby, and now isn’t, and is more or less out of a job. Returning to Kaer Maga for more bounty hunter work is obviously not something he is interested in given how that turned out, and recent events have aligned his interests with ours, so he’s asked to join us. Being kidnapped and coming within minutes of having your brain eaten is a powerful motivator.

Meanwhile, Varin was informed of a family emergency and he can’t stay on. Also understandable, as family is important (see the past couple of weeks in Diamond Lake for lessons on that topic).

Through Snagsby, we were introduced to a gentleman named Dave, who had taken an interest in the news that’s been coming out of Diamond Lake (this would be the news that we have been responsible for). Dave has a rather colorful past: his maternal grandmother is a necromancer, and to say that they don’t see eye to eye on this matter would be something of an understatement. Given what we’ve stumbled onto and his personal opinions towards the undead, he is also keen to sign up.

I’ve known Sangsby for a few years. Varin I know less well, but we’ve spent the past several weeks together, relying on each other in situations that are life-and-death, and you can’t do that sort of thing without getting close to one another. Plus, he was there at the beginning, too. What I am getting at here is that it is not so easy to say goodbye to either of them.

For my part in this drama, I finished my research at the library and determined that my ancestor is almost certainly a silver dragon. I didn’t really think Ilthane was in our family tree—she’s the wrong gender, for one, though I honestly don’t know how the whole “dragon takes human form” thing works—but it’s a relief to be able to rule her out. That would have been a complication I did not need.

I also looked into the chain of title for the warehouse and learned that it was owned by Telekin. They have no will registered, nor could I find a next of kin, which means the property will eventually go through escheat and end up owned by the city, to be sold off or just redeveloped as they see fit. To start that process, though, we’d need to inform the city that Telekin is dead, and none of us considers that a high priority. Let’s face it: the building is in terrible shape and should be condemned, it’s not home to a legitimate business that anyone cares about, and no one is lining up to buy it. There’s no urgency here. There is some risk to the public, however, given the partially collapsed floor, so it makes sense to occupy the place (and keep the public out) until it can be properly dealt with.

Fireday, Sarenith 17 (night)

We had dinner with Eligos again tonight. Ostensibly, it was to go over what he learned from his research, but we had our own information to share, too. He started by asking where our investigations had led us, and we filled him in, leaving out names at first.

“A mind flayer? Those are rare even around here.”

“We uncovered a connection to someone high up in Korvosan society.”

“That’s…very troubling.”

“The problem is, we don’t know who to trust. What’s your relationship to the folks that run the Championship Games?” I asked.

“I don’t get involved directly. I’ve wagered a little. It’s not the most scholarly of efforts,” he added with a smile. “It certainly fills the city’s coffers with revenue every year.”

“If I told you the name was involved in the games in some fashion, would that surprise you?”

“There are a hundreds of people involved in the games, and it wouldn’t surprise me that much.”

I looked around at our friends for cues, and saw something in Viktor that suggested I should forge ahead. So I did.

“Raknian,” he said. “Raknian is involved.”

He sounded rather skeptical of this claim, and I can’t say that I’d feel any differently in his place. So I reached into the bag we’ve been carrying and pulled out the ledger.

“This is what we found,” I said, pointing to his name as I passed it to him. “He hired Zyrxog to kill us, among other things.”

Eligos thumbed through it, growing more alarmed as he scanned the pages.

“These items are being bought and sold here in Korvosa? Many of these are illegal and dangerous!” Then he found Raknian’s name again. “Loris Raknian purchased the Apostolic Scrolls? The Apostolic Scrolls? That’s in the city?”

After his heart attack wore off, we asked about both.

“Raknian is a man with many connections and a great deal of wealth. He used to be a gladiator but as he got older, he transitioned into a new role as the owner and operator of the arena. I don’t know what interest would he have in the Scrolls, but regardless, you will need far more direct, damning evidence before accusing someone of his stature of wrongdoing.”

Yeah, that part we had already figured out on our own.

As for the Apostolic Scrolls, legend says they were penned by Kyuss himself. According to Eligos, it’s believed they can summon, or perhaps create, a great monster that is itself capable of spawning an innumerable amount of undead. If they were truly in Korvosa, that would imply Raknian or his agents were setting the city up for some cataclysmic event. If we wanted to stop it, and if we wanted to expose Raknian’s involvement—much less accuse him of our attempted murder—we’d need to get close to him. A tricky matter given that he knows who we are.

“The upcoming games seem a natural excuse, if you can find a way to use that to your advantage,” Eligos suggested. “There is a dinner for the gladiators, their sponsors, and city VIPs on the evening of the 22nd, which kicks off the games officially. I could secure invitations for you to attend as my personal guests, if that would help.”

That would get us access once, but what we really needed was ongoing access. And to that, we would need to be part of the games, themselves. No one, including myself, had an appetite for becoming gladiators—our small glimpse of actual warfare was enough to turn us away from violence as a sport—but sponsoring a team was not out of the question. Eligos saw merit to this idea, and is going to see what he can do.

Moonday, Sarenith 20 (night)

Eligos came through for us. He invited us to dinner tonight to get all the parties together and formalize the agreement. Three additional guests were dining with us: two were people we’d never met, and one was a familiar and surprising face.

Of the former two, the first was an aasimar woman—one that could easily pass as a human—named Celeste. She was an associate of Eligos, and essentially the brains behind this scheme.

“Eligos reached out and told me of your needs. Unfortunately, to enter a team in the games you need a gladiatorial license, and those are quite difficult to acquire. At this late stage, I would say impossible. But I have a friend,” she said, indicating the man sitting next to her.

“Smallcask’s the name. Ekaym Smallcask,” he said. “And it so happens that I have a license but have been unable thus far to procure a team to sponsor. I was beginning to despair at losing my chance to enter these anniversary games until I heard from dear Celeste here, who put me in touch with, er…”

He turned to the third guest, the one we recognized.

“I’m Tirra”, she said. We last saw her in Diamond Lake, as part of the adventuring trio that was hoping to to score off the long-emptied Stirgenest Cairn.

“My guild has an interest of its own in the games,” she explained, “and we can assemble and equip a team of gladiators provided we have a sponsor. So it seems all the necessary pieces can fit together here for all of us to get what we want.”

To field a team in the games, you needed a sponsor, a team of gladiators, and a manager. The sponsor provides the license and funding, and the manager provides the expertise that is the glue between the sponsor and the team: they are the primary liaison for the team (which is sequestered for the duration of the event), they ensure the team has the equipment they need, they function as the team’s coach. Sometimes the manager and the sponsor are the same person.

This did beg the question of, “Why?” as the other two members of that group, Auric and Khellek, were entered again this year as “Auric’s Warband”. Tirra was proposing a team to, essentially, oppose her friends. We’d have been remiss not to ask…so we asked.

“My guild has a vested interest in Auric’s band failing to win the belt for the third year in a row. Personally, since they are my friends, I ask that if it’s your team that faces them, defeat them without hurting them any more than necessary.”

She didn’t go into details, and we knew better than to ask. Regardless, her request was reasonable. Sera correctly guessed that “her guild” would be Korvosa’s thieves’ guild, and that led to a conversation that I absolutely did not need to know more about.

All we had to do was designate a manager and come up with a team name. For the former, everyone kind of looked at me since I had actual training as a soldier, which would be about as close as any of us would come to formal expertise here. As for the latter? We decided to poke the hornet’s nest. If anyone involved in the games was working with the Ebon Triad, we figured the name “Ilthane’s Fury” would attract their attention.

We formalized the agreement with one stipulation: I wanted to meet the team and spar with them, just to get a feel for their skill level. If we were going to do this, then we were going to be in it to win it. My pride was at stake here, after all. But on a more practical level, the longer the team lasted—it’s an elimination tournament—the more time and access we would have to figure out what Raknian was up to.

I need to do some shopping. The dinner is two nights away, and as the manager I will be expected to play the part, and look good doing it. That means a dress or gown. I’ve never owned nice clothing much less formal attire—even if I’d had that kind of money before, there was nothing in Diamond Lake worth dressing up for—and I am going to need as much of that time as I can spare for a crash course in fashion.