“There won’t be time for any of that,” the elf replied. Jeremiah has served as Mason’s second now for three years at the Monastery of Puluru, learning the ways of the stars and the star goddess. “We have to go- the election’s gone poorly, for us that is. Puluru worshippers are out of favor now. The Royal Society serves Cthulhu now.”
“But, Cthulhu is evil. . .?”
“Yes.”
“Surely there were enough votes to carry the election for our esteemed colleague Bradley . . .?”
“Bradley’s out. Dead. The Marquis Van Der Camn heads the society now.”
It was only then that the gravity of his situation set in. The Royal Society studied the stars at the pleasure (and in the pay of) the King. For many years, the clergy of Puluru represented a sizable faction within the society, though wizards, seers, sailors, and all other variety of stargazers happily coexisted with them. Jeremiah’s (and Mason’s) patron Sir Bradley, himself a worshipper of Puluru and Knight of the Order of the Stars had headed the society these past blissful ten years. But while Jeremiah and Mason have been here at the Monastery, the sinister influence of Van Der Camn must have grown.
“I met the Marquis when he first joined. . .?”
“Yes. He was a young, ambitious, and wicked man then. Now he is an old, ambitious, and powerful man. His followers carried the election. They are purging the so-called ‘taint of Puluru’ worship from its ranks. And that means you are I are on the outs.”
Jeremiah nodded, “Alas! I did not plan to take to the road, not at this time. Yet, what else to do. . .?”
“Nothing. Split up. Hit the road. Find somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Where the Royal Society and that Cthulhu cultists Van Der Camn can’t reach us, then eventually build again.”
“This is farewell then. . .?” a tear wells at the corner of Jeremiah’s eye, though neither he nor Mason will speak to it. Perhaps, they might admit years later, that there was a certain variety of dust in the air, an ionic charge that caused an involuntary and purely physical reaction which one might mistake for a tear.
As the days turn to months, then years, Jeremiah never stops anywhere too long. Cast out from the Kingdom of his birth, hunted by the Royal Society which has its tendrils, and now they truly were tendrils spread so far, and hunted also by the very Order of the Stars which his former fair and fallen friend founded, Jeremiah Starstorm was truly a pilgrim. What friends he could still count on, members of the Society or the Order not loyal to the Marquis, or other exiles in hiding like himself were difficult to identify, and the risk of double cross and betrayal great—for the Cthulhu cultists who now controlled both could not be trusted in anything.
Someday, Jeremiah tells himself, someday I can take the fight back to them. After all, even the Marquis Van Der Camn is neither immortal nor infallible, and surely though the Cult now has a veneer of Royal approval, surely, but surely, the King himself does not actually approve, after all? How the Marquis has fooled him, I know not, but fooled him he must have. So even the current regime may fall out of favor. And when they do, if we can just gather enough secret allies, organize in the hidden spaces, and then we might rise up, and take back the Royal Society and the Order of the Stars.
But for now, Jeremiah Starstorm must content himself to tread the soil or the world, ever with his head in the night sky. . .