Unfortunately the Sorcerer was not present or otherwise not able to receive us. However, Lady Sparrowhawk and I did meet with Rectus. He shared a great deal about what he variously called the Cult and the Elementals. We listened with interest, but as is often the case in these consultations with the Royal Sage, the diversions and cross-references and allusions made it difficult to glean from the session everything one might.
The Cult, apparently, has existed in the region of Darkmoor, at at least some minimal, bubbling level, for centuries. Rectus indicated that it may be that the ancient origins of the Cult may have crawled out of the swamps and spread first amongst the rabble before being adopted by certain power-hungry members of the guilds and the nobility. The Sage spoke, a bit hesitantly, about some great-great uncle of Lord Grey who was burned due to his heretical beliefs.
The being these Cultists revere has transmogrified over time. It was much more openly Zuggtmoy the lady of rot and ruin initially. In a second or third rising of the Cult, the emphasis was on a being representing the elements of mud, wind, wildfire and storm. What name they may have given to this creature is lost to time. Although perhaps now known to the current iteration.
Rectus showed us a drawing from a yellowing scroll of the symbol of this Cult. Both he and the Knight of Darkmoor turned immediately to me. I must have emitted a sound without realizing it. The figure on that fading parchment matched — not exactly, but unmistakably — the bit of scarified ink scratched into the lower back of Valentine.
Recommitted as I am to the Truth and to disclosing those uncomfortable facts that I previously withheld, I disclosed my personal history with this symbol. “She told me it was a family crest, of a sort,” I explained.
“The Cult survives, one assumes,” the Sage replied, keeping any note of recrimination from his tone and expression, “by handing it down in secret from generation to generation.”
We spoke further of this Cult. Rectus provided us with a mystery, which he challenged us to investigate. A bit of a chant or poem, from the secret tongue of the Cult:
Mela torum, vena sela
Salat ferum,
What that is supposed to mean, I have no insight.
Tomorrow, I am to meet with Aldmaar while Lady Sparrowhawk remains in Anthracite in hopes of meeting with the Sorcerer. I must disclose the truth of this Cult and my own perfidy to my great friend. I will feel better once I have bared my soul, though the act of doing so at this moment seems impossible.
San Nicholas, I beseech from you the strength my convictions require.