Tag: journal

Posted on

Entry 64

“Tell me, REDACTED” Aldmaar began as the campfire died. Simply hearing his use of the Sorcerer’s full name charged the air in an indescribable way. “Just what the bloody hell is really going on?”

The Sorcerer had arrived at our camp unexpectedly after the previous day’s activities in Greensward. Lady Seralyne had predicted that the man would likely return to Anthracite without another word with us. And yet here he was, tall and thin and pale, dim as always as if he were a mirror for darkness.

“What mean you?” he turned that hairless, planed head toward Aldmaar, and there was a note of menace in his tone.

“He means,” the Knight of Darkmoor interceded, interposing herself between the two men, but in no way shrinking from the Sorcerer’s stiffened posture, “that you have informed us little on your intentions here. You know more than you have let on…”

“As ever,” Aldmaar muttered.

“… and this fell work of the Cult bears on all of us. Even you and your school. REDACTED, help us to understand what is happening in our realm so that we can best pool our efforts to confront it.”

The Sorcerer showed a feral grin, the skin stretched taut over the heavy bones of his angular face. “This Cult,” he said, after a pause, during which I managed to convince my companions to take a seat once again. I stoked the fire, though a dense layer of cloud and an accompanying oppressive warmth had settled over Greensward and its environs. The Thalass Engine continued to glow and spit sparks into the sky, even now. “This Cult means to free the Carrion Queen from her imprisonment and bring her to the Temple of Elemental Evil.”

“Zuggtmoy,” I said, unnecessarily.

He nodded, and crouched. He reached his bony hand into the fire, extracted a glowing ember, the flames ignoring him. The Sorcerer closed his palm on this red-hot object. For a moment, the smell of spitted lamb came to our nostrils. Then he opened his hand. There, glistening in soot-blackened skin was a diamond, finely cut. It threw multi-colored darts of light like a prism. “Inside the Temple is a gem.” The “diamond” pulsed… it… throbbed, growing and shrinking minutely. It bulged in places as if blood coursed through veins just beneath the surface. “This gem is known to them as the Heart of Darkness. The Cult believes that the Heart is linked to the Queen herself, in whatever hell she resides. They believe that, if they can locate the Temple, solve its riddles and enter the Chamber of Darkness, that they can extract the Heart from its confinement and then bring the Queen to our world.”

The “diamond” glowed and pulsed and thrummed until the light emerging from the Sorcerer’s palm made it impossible to look at. There was a flash — a shuddering of the earth and the air around us — and, still dazzled and blinking, I managed to return my gaze to REDACTED. In his hand now was merely a bit of black-grey charcoal. He inverted his hand. For a moment, the dark thing seemed to cling to him. Then it fell into the fire which hissed and enveloped it.

“And what of this riddle? And the girls?” Aldmaar was the first to regain his composure.

“And the Engine,” the Knight added.

The Sorcerer rose. “You would hear all of it, then?”

“All of it,” Seralyne said, with a firmness tinged with a note of regret.

“Very well,” the Sorcerer replied. “Firstly though, have you no cognac?”

I set about pouring the Sorcerer of Anthracite a drink.

Posted on

Entry 62

The morning was spent in slaughter. My vestments are red with blood and my heart is heavy. When we entered once again the gates of Greensward, the Sorcerer gave no warning. The guards, previously smirking now peered cautiously over their battlements. The Sorcerer with sweeps of each hand cooked them alive.

Almost immediately, the peoples were out on the streets, running at us as if a bell had signaled the arrival of dinner. Yet they found no feast. These Cultists possess some magical prowess, even the meanest of them. They have learned in their secret, underground rites witchcraft. We were beset by spells and as the fight continued, manifest elemental beings of air and earth and — yes — even the fire with which the battle had begun.

They continued to engage our horses until Aldmaar insisted we dismount and free the beasts so that they might survive. So we joined the fray afoot. The Knight of Darkmoor, as ever, waded in, her shining armor and great axe glinting in the meager morning light. Aldmaar sent volley after volley into this black host until, his quiver empty, he unsheathed his twin swords and joined the Knight, nearly back-to-back, in a knot of the Cultists.

They fought like cornered animals, these Elementalists. They asked for no quarter. They were willing, even eager, it seemed, to die. As they rushed out of homes and shops, each with curved dagger in hand, they did not hesitate, despite the growing pile of their allies in the filthy streets of Greensward.

I did what I could manage, to keep the mob at bay, disoriented, and, when necessary, I imparted healing magics to my allies. And to myself. I gave a good accounting in the rolls of the downed, though the Knight and Aldmaar stained the registers crimson.

And the Sorcerer… I have rarely seen him smile, but he was grinning like a carved harvest pumpkin throughout, hurling spells into knots of Cultists. Moving through the fray, never staying still long enough for the foe to reach him. He toyed, it seemed, with the great stone beast the Cultists had summoned, like a kitten with a ball. I could not spare the attention to track him, nor did I take any joy in observing the glee he took in his wholesale butchery.

The Cultist throng dwindled. Aldmaar and the Knight, exhausted, unrecognizable in their gore-spattered state, cast about for any new foes. I fell to my knees, hoping for a moment’s respite.

“Where is the Sorcerer?” I heard Aldmaar call. I could only shake my head, not glancing up. I heard a final, crunching blow from the Knight on the Cultist before her, who, just as I, was on his knees, unable to rise. My pulse was a roar in my ears. I feared that my breathing would never compensate for the deficit of air in my blood. My vision had collapsed into a narrow tunnel directly in front of my nose.

There was a rumble — distant but surely loud — and I found myself on my side. For a moment or more, I suppose, I lost consciousness. Then Seralayne was there, stirring me gently. She looked ghastly, but concerned. “Pieter?”

“Was there… an explosion?” I managed after a second, able to rise on one elbow, the world oddly canted as if I were perched on its very edge.

She nodded. “The Sorcerer. The Thalass Engine.”

I just stared, uncomprehending.

“He destroyed it,” Aldmaar said, just entering the limited scope of my vision. “I suspect that’s what this was all about. For him.”

Posted on

Entry 61

“It is one thing to wish you had powerful allies nearby,” Aldmaar told me this morning. “It is quite something else to have the Sorcerer of Anthracite poke his pale head inside your tent.” I laughed. Aldmaar did not even smile.

It was quite a surprise to all of us that REDACTED, the taciturn master of that dark tower joined us outside of Greensward on the morning. Although… I must say that my slumber had been restless. I had attributed that to our time spent within that unwelcoming community. Now, I wonder…

We met together, us four around the meager fire that Aldmaar had quickly stoked while the Knight and I had tended to the horses after quitting Greensward. The Sorcerer welcomed hot water for his tea, but eschewed our offers of bread and cheeses. “And if the bread comes from Harrowfen,” he said, blowing the steam from his rather too-ornate-for-travel cup, “I shouldn’t eat it either, were I you.”

I eyed the chunk of bread in my hand, a conspicuous bite missing from it. Aldmaar began to cough and sputter. I shot a look at the Knight of Darkmoor who merely smiled. “I bought this in Anthracite, as I’m sure our new companion knew at a glance.”

The Sorcerer explained that the Cultists here at Greensward and in other hidden locales throughout the Barony were working together to solve a riddle. “They know it as the Sator chant,” he said. “For reasons they don’t understand.” Then he stood up from the fire, gathering his dark-purple cloaks around him and in a surprisingly fine voice, sang:

Talas verum, dronum malas
Alema sero, luna lema
Level credo, noxa revel…

His voice had turned slightly guttural, issuing these strange syllables. “I’ll spare you the rest. Singing it… unsettles things.”

And we had felt that, as he sang. Perhaps some enchantment he had knowingly or otherwise imbued the chant with… or something about speaking these words… I had felt the hair on my arms rise and there was an uncomfortable knot that had started to thicken in my stomach. The bread, despite Seralyne’s reassurance, no longer appealed. I saw a paleness, a strickeness in the countenance of my friends.

“What does it mean?” Lady Sparrowhawk asked at length.

“What’s important is what the Cult believes,” the Sorcerer respond in his typically elliptical fashion. “And they believe that it means that they must abduct the young girls of the Barony and search for hidden birthmarks that will give them the access they require. They do not know it, but that song tells them where to look. Fools.”

“And to what do they seek access, REDACTED?” said the Knight, the only one of us brave enough to call him by his rightful name.

He seemed to take no offense. “The Temple of the Elemental,” he replied with a brief pause. Then he threw the remnants of his beverage into the fire with a hiss and a pop, and a blue-black puff of smoke. “Now, let us enter Harrowfen and deal with the filth that have made of it their lair.”

“How do we tell the fair from the foul inside?” I asked, meekly.

“The fair will cry for mercy when we slay them,” the Sorcerer of Anthracite replied. “The foul will retain a bit more dignity in death.”

Posted on

2025-06-06 Barony of Darkmoor Session 22

Deaconess Targeta

Session Notes

Hullo, Dear Reader. It is I, Buck Headstrong the greatest sage et cetera, et cetera.

Forgive me if I do not emanate enthusiasm at this writing. I feel, as you likely do as well, a grimness growing in the night’s atmosphere. A gloom descending upon Elder Pool that I can not shake.

I have been, you may have observed, somewhat of a critic of the acts and… feebleness of the Circle, so-called, of Darkmoor. Those representatives four of the great peoples of Darkmoor, nestled in their disparate camps. Darkmoor’s, as the young Baron put it, “collection of factions” sent forth their greatest and the result, for good or ill, was this Circle.

I take no pleasure in imparting to you the news, friends, that the Circle is no more. They have only, moments hence, managed to survive the Four Elemental Challenges of the Hideout (sic) of the Cult and are now rushing to their certain doom inside the inner ceremonial chamber where the Cult conducts their evil rites, sacrifices and summonings. These four, even buttressed by the cough redeemed cough criminals that previously — and now, it seems likely — once again perch in that Moat House, will prove no match for the Cult fanatics and their elemental soldiers.

Let us drink a modest toast to these lost heroes, or, if not “heroes,” at least to those Darkmoor mutts who strove to be such.

The Cult has risen. They sacked Greensward, enslaved a dozen or so of the citizens and took, as in those long-lost dark times, their youngest girls. Now that the Circle is lost, nothing may stand in their way.

And the grain that the Circle trudged so long and so fruitlessly to track? Even now is there black bread being produced and provided to the poor and starving of the south? My sources say that is true. The history of this black bread and of the blight that swept the realm in the long-ago is tragic and despair-inducing.

I may, of course, make my way back to the Court, to idle once again amongst the nobles and guildsmen of the great cities of Eegland. But what can you, the poor commoner with scarcely enough coin to purchase these missives that I pen on your behalf do? Little, I am afraid. Hole up, as they say. Trust no one. Guard your goods and your children. And despite the privations that are surely in our future: do not eat the black bread.

I wipe away my tears, my friends, pondering the suffering that comes. I cry for your misfortunes, Dear Reader. And for my own. The journey to Eregore is long, you see, and I have run out of sherry.

Posted on

Entry 60

Among the many reasons I have come to like and love Aldmaar Wynnrowan is that when he arrives, he rarely fails to bring an Aldermane that I may ride. I am no great horseman, and these great beasts all appear the same to me, but I believe the one I rode today is the same as when last Aldmaar and I rode together. I have not asked Aldmaar out of embarrassment. He has no difficulty in distinguishing one horse from another. Nor one squirrel from another, I suspect.

Lady Sparrowhawk, of course, has her own mount, “Spears,” as she calls him. No Aldermane, but fine and fearless in his own right. As the three of us approached Greensward, astride these majestic beasts, riding side-by-side, I felt that we must have appeared like something out of myth arriving at the mud-and-stone walls of the small town.

Such foolishness is pride.

As we made our way through the gates, past the mean-faced guards in their wooden towers and through the slick alleys, the eyes that turned our way showed not awe but fear. And, perhaps, hate. We arrived at the village’s tavern. No one took our horses, though there were those reclining on the shoddy porch who might have. “I will stay with the horses,” Aldmaar offered. The Knight of Darkmoor and I entered the dark establishment.

Inside were half a dozen villagers, dirty, most drunk though it was not yet noon. They sneered at the mark of San Nicholas on my armor and leered at Lady Sparrowhawk. When I asked for rooms, I was told by the innkeeper, a corpulent woman who seemed to care little for her hygiene, that no rooms were available.

“You have other visitors in this shithole town?” the Knight asked.

“Not very kind there, lady,” the innkeeper responded.

“Just turn around and go back out the way you come,” one of the drunk men shouted to laughs and acclaim from his friends.

One, unfortunately, could not refrain from making a lewd suggestion to Lady Sparrowhawk. I imagine they could put his nose back into place, after she was through with him. But what about the scattered teeth? I might have helped him, coughing and vomiting in that broken chair. I did not.

When we returned to Aldmaar, it was to watch him firing arrow after arrow into the earth, inches behind the retreating heels of a young, shirtless man. The man, running for all he was worth skewed in the mud, and slid face-first. Aldmaar laughed with that whole-body mirth that so rarely makes an appearance.

“What did he do?” I asked.

“Thought I wouldn’t notice him slipping a hand in your saddlebag.”

“Goodness. What did he take?”

Aldmaar shrugged. I followed the line of fine-feathered missiles while the youth struggled to his feet. As he attempted to flee, I commanded that he stop. Weak of mind, he could not resist my order. I pulled the fingers of his right hand open while his eyes alone moved to follow my actions. Clutched in his filthy hand, still rolled up in a stout leaf for freshness, was a golden apple I had purchased from a vendor at Anthracite.

I bade him keep it.

I prised one arrow after another from the earth on my return and handed them to the ranger. “No rooms,” I reported.

“Just as well,” he responded. “But let us have a look about town before we seek lodging elsewhere. The Sorcerer said there was some secret here, did he not Lady Sparrowhawk?”

She nodded. We continued. We walked the horses through the small community, past the cemetery on the hill, past the several mills powered by a great machine that, with its promise of consistent work must have drawn many of these residents here. We made our way, almost to the shore itself, entering at last that great barn-like structure with steel tentacles snaking down into the water and a massive chute emerging from the front where torrents of water extracted from the depths fed the network of aqueducts known as the Seaspill.

The Engine itself is a mechanical wonder — awesome and terrible. It belches smoke and produces a noisome ooze like niter infused with lampblack. The racket of its many spinning wheels and clashing cogs is unbearable. Without a word — at least that I could make out, Aldmaar stopped in his approach. He would go no further. We entrusted our horses to him and the Lady and I continued.

We spoke to the Engine-master, a clever fellow from Anthracite name of Thoren Calthex. We shouted to each other, truth be told, over the clatter. Lady Sparrowhawk wasted no time with niceties. “We have spoken to REDACTED. We are investigating cult activity in this region. What can you tell us of this village?”

The man’s eyes narrowed and he cast about him. I nearly laughed from the theatrics. “You mean the Temple,” he replied. There was no hint of a question.

“What have you seen?”

He gestured back into town, in the direction of the cemetery. “There’s a shack, yonder. Past the gravedigger’s. Looks like the others but has this symbol cut into one of the posts..”

I described the symbol. His eyes widened again. Nodded. “Down inside, they do their… rituals. Used to keep it secret, months ago. Now they don’t seem to care who sees. Their robes and their masks. Their chants.”

“Mela torum, vena sela…” I recounted.

He hissed at me, made a slashing motion with his hand. “Don’t want to hear that! Stop it, I say!”

Lady Sparrowhawk calmed him. “You’ve seen them? The cultists? Do you know which of the villagers might be participating?”

He made a broad sweep with that self-same hand. He took in the entire town with that gesture.

The Knight of Darkmoor and I could only lock eyes.

Posted on

2025-06-05 Barony of Darkmoor Session 21

Farrier of Elder Pool

Session Notes

A joke that I have recently heard in the streets of Elder Pool: What goes into one of Gilda’s brambleberry scones? Answer: Sir Kog’s fist!

It is I, Dear Reader, Buck Headstrong! The greatest Sage and Chronicler of this or any age. Vellan, do you hear me? I am the greatest Sage and Chronicler!

The joke, I admit, is a sad one, and no more sad than the truth that underlies it. Whilst the supposed cult continues to go about its filthy business undeterred, the great Circle of Darkmoor is spending their time upsetting the small local shops and eateries that are the lifeblood, such as it is, of Elder Pool. When it comes to halting murder and naked aggression, my friends, the Circle excels at arresting suspect grain.

The Circle discovered, I am told, the cult hideout at the Grain Records office about which many of you, please do not deny it, were already well aware. Inside, however, they were quickly thwarted, after having narrowly survived a cut-and-thrust encounter with a pile of rocks, by a series of damp stairs. Rather throws some suspicion on the recounting of that fell squirrel1 Fluffy that this group managed to defeat the famed Shambler of the Swamp, doesn’t it?

Now, at least, the Circle has departed. Off tilting, it seems. at windmills. Leaving us to our own devices. Which may simply be for the best.

I did foreshadow in a previous missive a discussion of the great beasts, the Aldermane, did I not? I arrived here at Elder Pool for the first time, my friends, young and full of vim, knees still shaking from a journey in the fantastic carriage of the Earl of Eregore, that great noble of this region. I have witnessed for myself the uncanny speed that can be achieved by such an enchanted vehicle pulled by a team of Aldermane upon the legendary High Way. If you ever manage to experience it, Dear Reader, you will have lived a very full life. Let us not, however, delude ourselves. You never will.

The Aldermane were once bred here in Darkmoor, by the Seldan family, under charter of the sixth Lord Grey. Yes, Brannick Seldan, who today toils with more mundane horseflesh at the family farrier trade in Elder Pool is descended from the family who alone possessed the knowlege of breeding these fantastic beasts. At the end of the Great War, however, as with so many once-booming industries in Darkmoor, that enterprise collapsed.

The Aldermane live on, wild, in the Twisty Wood. The King’s horsebreakers, with their cruel magics, impress the great horses of Darkmoor into servitude. They are, I understand, short-lived and temperamental in this forced labor.

The carriages themselves are a wonder, and also, in the bright days, produced here in collaboration with black Anthracite. As well, that business has fled this benighted land.

It is a dismal business, recounting the wonders of a gilded age long past, when our present is one of squalor and our future looks no brighter. And yet that is why you have parted with a hard-earned copper in the cup of that filthy ragamuffin who has carried this letter to you. To escape from these Grey Days and to dream of a time the likes of which none of us shall ever see again.

I salute you, brave reader. Except you, Vellan. May you choke on a brambleberry scone.

  1. Surely, by now, you no longer require this footnote. ↩︎
Posted on

2025-05-20 Barony of Darkmoor Session 19

Session Notes

The Guilds of Darkmoor have served the realm nearly as long as there has been one to serve. Of all the institutions of Darkmoor, they have best weathered the period of anarchy and depression, post-War. Much of the continued success of this faction can be attributed to the leadership of the guilds, and in particular to their current High Guildsmaster, Andreas Book. While trade with Darkmoor’s neighbors is only a shadow of its former glory, it, along with the taxes paid by the oppressed nobles, accounts  entirely for the coin that runs through the fingers of Lord Grey, Baron of Darkmoor.

Is it the continued success of the Guilds that has caused so much recent upset and rancor in Elder Pool? Shopkeepers and innocents of the street have run afoul of these new Dark Cloaks who seek to inspire terror and disrupt business in the heart of Darkmoor’s capital, all going about their criminal business with impunity. With no answer from the Circle of Darkmoor, recently returned from their vacation in the marshes.

It is I, Dear Reader, Buck Headstrong! How your eyeballs surely have suffered in the absence of these carefully printed missives! My apologies, friend. Never again shall you have to withstand such a sustained famine of the legendary honey that drips from my mouth and pen, I promise.

And what of that shadowy being, Fluffy? I can say only that you my relationship with that ungrateful rodent is fully exhausted. Good riddance, I say.

Let us turn then to the Circle of Darkmoor and the violence that has become such a commonplace under the rule of this latest Grey. Andreas Book, as well as his close associate met with the Circle. Subsequent to that meeting, the Circle approached one of the victims of the recent Dark Cloak violence, Shen Varle, local cobbler. We all have seen the violence done to poor Shen.

Subsequent to their interrogation of that frail cobbler, already, surely, having suffered enough, the Circle then made their way to the cemetery. Not,  though, I am told, based on anything they learned from poor Shen. As, by now, we have all learned, I suppose, the Circle discovered some sort of hidden temple or shrine beneath the mausoleum of one of the former great families of Darkmoor, where Dark Cloaks were carrying out rites of an unholy nature involving nearly a dozen citizens, recently murdered.

The Circle then made their way to the hut of kindly local herbalist, Salina Tamsen. I am told, Dear Reader, that the Circle asked her to evaluate a number of items, including a powerful, dangerous poison which that suspicious tool of Anthracite — you know the one — having learned of the chemical’s fell nature, tucked into a secret pouch with a foreboding leer.

Word reaches us, Dear Reader, of unspeakable violence in the small village of Greensward. Violence is growing throughout the Barony, it is now clear. Something is simmering, bubbling, festering in Darkmoor. A dark shadow is creeping across the land.

Who amongst you believes that this Baron and his selected Circle are capable of any course other than, as has been their repeated pattern, turning matters towards the worse?

You shall hear more from me soon, loyal reader.

Posted on

Entry 59

We camped near the water, between Anthracite and the swamps, the wind whipping at our meager fire. Lady Sparrowhawk had joined us, up from Anthracite. She shared with us a story she had gleaned from meeting with the master of that dark tower.

There was a plague, she recounted, even adopting a bit of the sorcerer’s creaking voice, with a glint of humor in her eye, in times past. Generations past, she waved her arms as he is like to do, that afflicted, first, the wheat and barley of the field.

This pestilence (she continued) caused whole crops to fail and a fear of famine swept Darkmoor. Worse, however, was that the bread made from the wheat and the ale from the barley caused those to consume it to be likewise afflicted. Those suffering from this blight could eat their fill, enough for two or three men, and remain starving. They grew gaunt, with their skin hanging from their bones regardless of how they fed. Their eyes seemed to grow huge in their narrow faces. And they hungered.

The only satisfaction they could achieve was in eating the flesh of their fellows; sipping on their blood, cracking their bones to feast on the marrow. And this frenzied feeding made the afflicted powerful and manic. The hair of their heads and bodies fell away and they eschewed clothing; indeed even boots on their feet as they chased after the only herd animal they valued: their neighbors.

“This story, Knight of Darkmoor,” I intervened, “is not the sort I prefer immediately before retiring for the evening. It does not prefigure a full night’s rest.”

They laughed, though I made no jest. Why was she telling us this tale?

“The sorcerer felt there was some lesson in this for us, Brother Pieter.”

“And how does this legend conclude, in the sorcerer’s telling?”

“He states that, in the end, an accord was reached between the living of Darkmoor and these cannibals. There was insufficient food, given the blight, to feed the entirety of the realm. And there were these ravening Glass-eyes, as they were called, who cared not for wheat and barley.”

We stared at each other across the fire.

“I can guess the rest,” Aldmaar was the first to break the silence. “These Glass-eyes, well-fed and satisfied became the noble classes of Darkmoor.”

I joined them in laughter. We took up our thoughts, in silence and the waning light until Lady Sparrowhawk spoke up again. In her own voice.

“The Sorcerer says, rather, that they founded their own church. And the children of this church have kept its nature secret for generation after generation. That they built a Temple, under the guise of the church of Zuggtmoy, and until that Temple is discovered and finally brought down, the Glass-eyes will always return.”

Posted on

Entry 56

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.

Posted on

Entry 54

I sit here in this modest room at the Ragged Moon, hunched over this journal. I commit to this: no matter how shameful my actions have proven to be, I will not withhold them. I have been lying for too long, to my flock, to Aldmaar who only sought to help me, to the very Lord I have sworn to serve, and most despicable of all, to myself.

I was almost literally dragged by my ear by Lady Sparrowhawk, Knight of Darkmoor, to the cemetery where she shattered the chain securing the great door of the mausoleum. “Pieter,” she advised, holding my gaze with her firm, piercing blue eyes, “you and I will investigate, in this moment, what has been occurring here amongst the dead, as you have several times promised his Lordship you would do without fail.”

I swallowed my pride, and creating a minor enchantment so that we could see despite the impinging darkness, she and I descended.

I do not know what I expected to find. However, my breath was quickly drawn from me as we continued. Row after row of shelves, sepulchers and niches where the bodies of the fallen of Darkmoor had been respectfully interred now lay bare. Not all of the remains had vanished, as we inspected passage after passage in that dark, damp space. Those whose final resting places bore the holy symbol of San Nicholas — or those who had been interred bearing or clutching symbols of my faith– remained. However, many … far, far too many, who I had personally delivered to them their final rites and seen brought to earth here, were lacking. And in a number of instances so great I… do not know how to confront, another symbol had been hidden here, perhaps alongside them this entire time. A dark symbol of fire and torrent, marsh and smoke minted into coins and pressed into stone and woven into dark, noisome bedclothes were all that served to indicate that a person, in their final form, had ever resided in these spots.

“The people, Seralynne, they’ve been stolen.”
“The dead, Pieter, have arisen and stolen themselves.”

The symbol, I knew, was that of a threat, a cancer growing in Darkmoor. The “Old Church,” I’ve heard it called. The “Temple of the Elemental.” A secret cult whose members meet in basements and in catacombs, tunnels, concealed places beneath the earth. They speak a forbidden tongue, evil and powerful merely in the speaking. They lie and obfuscate and disguise in their daily lives while they meet in their hidden worm-holes and spread their contagion, pulling especially the young and hungry in with their promises of dark power.

And they prey upon the gullible, the old and vain, with flattery and promises and little gifts. And even those whose wisdom, so-called, is vaunted by many may fall into this web of lies. And then lie to obscure their own part, their own foolishness and naiveté. The cultists use these fools to do work they could not themselves, such as having their allies freed from an earned imprisonment with the shallowest of misrepresentations.

The love that they give, these cultists, is of the ugliest sort. Easily discerned by any willing to look past the pure animal acts. Easy, that is, except to those who look only for evidence that someone might love them.

“You have cried enough, Pieter,” Lady Sparrowhawk said, not unkindly. “Now we must act. At last, you see what is happening in our Darkmoor.”

We returned to the shrine in Elder Pool, to find it entirely vacated. Every item of monetary wealth, gone. Deacon Willmat slain in his robes, a leering grin cut into his dead face by some ritual dagger. Thomas Slate, freed by my incompetence, entirely at large. And with him, likely clutching his young hand and having a shared laugh at my expense, Valentine. Lovely Valentine.

The scales have fallen from my eyes. In the morning, I will travel with the Knight of Darkmoor to speak to the sage, in Anthracite. To learn what we might about how to confront this threat.

But only after I confess my sins to the Lord of Darkmoor. Whatever recriminations he has for me, I will bear with equanimity and take to heart that which I can bear. I have disgraced myself and failed to live up to the promises I made to San Nicholas, on that spare altar these many years agone. But I am Pieter of San Nicholas, and there is no more time for self-pity and tears. We are at war. I can, at this moment, not yet find pity for those who oppose us.