Golden Bee
The cool guy of online
Romancing the Heart
“Are you mad, girl?!” “No, just insulted.”
Goa, India, 1936. It’s a week after the wedding in Istanbul (detailed in Black Cat of the Golden Horn). High roller Alexandre Arnaude and cat burglar Eleni Dimitrios join Rafe Lancaster, Devika Velyapur, Zelda Saeki, reporter Trudy Truman, and the all-American American, Gyatso Tsering, aka Steel Eagle. They’re at a sweaty train station near the border of Portuguese and British India. Allegedly a visa problem, a little digging reveals somebody flagged the group as “possible political subversives”. The Tibetan Spirit of the Bronx Isn’t taking it. He points his signature tire iron at the station chief. Zelda and Trudy intercede. The local factotum doesn't want to be in this position either; he got a telegram from Panjim (The capital of Portuguese India) ordering him to hold the ZSS until military police can arrive. Portugal, having missed much of the scramble for foreign territories after the 1755 earthquake, is cracking down and lashing out. And there’s only so much the stationmaster can do.
Devi sneaks Rafe into the telegraph room. Within hours, the group is not only allowed past the border, they’re given an apology and a first-class train car.
“Just because I make weapons,” explains the industrialist, “doesn’t mean we need to use them.”
***
The ZSS takes the train up to the capital, with Devika trying to condense all her elementary school history classes into a 3-hour train ride. Arnaude is busy looking at maps. If the group wants to continue their quest, they need to get him to the grave of his ancestor, Charles Le Fay. In Panjim, the group stocks up. State-controlled media censorship is the order of the day, so Trudy reaches out to her international network. South Goa is lightly populated, extremely Catholic, and run by large land-owning corporations. The only notable city is Chaudi, and a boat is the best way to get there.
Goa is several decades away from being a tourist party paradise, so the group investigates the church. Father Lorso, local parish priest, advises people against going south for work. Hipster Zelda speaks Latin and has a conversation with the man.
Lorso knows about Chaudi because he used to work there. A local mining company offered good wages for miners to work in a sea cave; many died. Lorso preached against the company then faced intimidation and attempted arson. He sent the problem up the chain and got reassigned. The church was closed; he left it in the care of a local non-Christian friend, Sohan.
Trudy laments; This would be so much easier if they were political subversives!
***
The group rents a boat and heads south. Eagle, not into superstition, spies on Arnaude. The group's employer is making strange leaps of logic, as if something is guiding his progress.
***
Our heroes meet in Sohan at the church. They picked up a phrasebook and can communicate with him, slowly. Father Lorso asked him to look after the church because it holds sacred artifacts. He leads the foreigners to them: an ornate sword, a rosary, and a small cross. Arnaude is excited: relics of Charles Le Fay! Devi checks for mystic stuff - there’s increasing mystical power… coming from Arnaude’s amulet!
Soham recoils from the light - very upset, calling it the “Heart of Wrath.” He saw it (or a stone like it) once before, long ago. Local legend says a demon fought an avatar of the divine, was slaughtered, fell in Chaudi, and tainted the land, driving people to envy and wrath. Other stones of this kind have been found. People are drawn to them and come to bad ends. Soham insists the strangers take the artifacts and go.
The next lead is to explore the mining sea-cave. On the shore of a rocky beach, crates and seven dead bodies are stacked up. All the dead are male, six are local (dressed as overseers rather than miners), one is a European in khaki (a manager for the mine). The overseers have tattoos identifying them as members of the Red Jasmine Cult! They died of acute bullet poisoning.
The crates bear the symbol of the Silver Order. Last Zelda figured, the Order and the Cult were allies. Looks like that’s over.
The group investigates the caves, traveling what seems like miles in cramped quarters. Eventually, the tunnel opens onto a ledge over a vast cavern. Flashlights bounce off veins of red gemstone running through the rock like blood vessels. It’s the same kind of gem as the Sacred Heart Amulet. The gem veins and amulet are resonating, amplifying each other.
The cave seems partially exploded or collapsed. Climbing down, the group sees that there are objects sticking out of the rubble - columns, large shiny metal objects (bigger than a person), patterned like Damascus steel, shaped like closed flowerbuds. (Just like the damaged vehicle in the Sindh desert, or the strange artifact from the cartoon Roadhouse from Stretch and Pan). This isn’t a natural cave. Ahead is electric light and the sounds of a generator. Several people are examining something, speaking in fervent Spanish. Nearby, more strangeness: a huge crystal formation reaches out of the ground like a hand with fingers. To one side is an 8 ft tall pen, with people in it, moving in an oddly jerky way.
Eleni sneaks Trudy into position to overhear the people. They’re examining a chained person. Despite the language barrier, she manages to catch references to the Silver Knight, some other knight, and the word “dero”. Evil dwarfs?
Zelda knocks out the generator with a well-placed shot. The gems glow faintly, but our heroes have advantage because they brought flashlights.
The shackled figure is moving jerkily - It was one of the laborers, but has veins of red gemstones growing out of every orifice. It furiously tries to rip the chains out of the ground. The Silver Knight’s forces have extremely strong willpower, so Devi pairs with Steel Eagle to bring the heat in melee. Unfortunately they also have body armor. Which doesn’t help them very much when crack shot Zelda begins aiming for the head. She goes six for six, dropping an entire group before Eagle can get a knockout.
Arnaude, who’s been acting strangely this entire adventure, frees the prisoners in the pen and then stands as if frozen. The laborers-turned-gem-zombies rush out of their enclosure, heedless of any danger and immune to mental manipulation.
Zelda shoots down a chunk of ceiling which drops on the shamblers, squashing some and temporarily cutting off the rest. Eleni tries to drag Arnaude away from danger - and he’s able to shake off the mental effects. He demands Devi give him the relics, condescending to her. The group gasps; This is an absolutely foolish place to try and big-time the boss. She refuses his demand and swipes the amulet from him. Her will is strong enough to overcome the voice shouting in her head; Le Fay? Is he the one possessing the gem miners, the one who guided Arnaude to this place?
The client explains that the artifacts need to go into the crystal hand immediately. Devi, with the permission of the party, places the artifacts and allows the client to commune with his ancestor. Meanwhile, Zelda finishes off all but one of the remaining “Silver Pawns”, and Eagle cuffs him for extraction. Looks of intense distress, confusion, and pity cross the face of Alexandre Arnaude. The gem creatures advance… and stop. They create a gap, and Trudy, following her nose, finds a path to fresh air.
The Silver Order prisoner explains what the group had missed: the Red Jasmine Cult was running the mine to make an army of gem zombies, but didn’t really understand what they’d found: a “dero laboratory.” The Silver Knight’s obsessed with learning their secrets, and killed the cultists after pretending to give them valuable crates so they would retreat.
“Are you mad, girl?!” “No, just insulted.”
Goa, India, 1936. It’s a week after the wedding in Istanbul (detailed in Black Cat of the Golden Horn). High roller Alexandre Arnaude and cat burglar Eleni Dimitrios join Rafe Lancaster, Devika Velyapur, Zelda Saeki, reporter Trudy Truman, and the all-American American, Gyatso Tsering, aka Steel Eagle. They’re at a sweaty train station near the border of Portuguese and British India. Allegedly a visa problem, a little digging reveals somebody flagged the group as “possible political subversives”. The Tibetan Spirit of the Bronx Isn’t taking it. He points his signature tire iron at the station chief. Zelda and Trudy intercede. The local factotum doesn't want to be in this position either; he got a telegram from Panjim (The capital of Portuguese India) ordering him to hold the ZSS until military police can arrive. Portugal, having missed much of the scramble for foreign territories after the 1755 earthquake, is cracking down and lashing out. And there’s only so much the stationmaster can do.
Devi sneaks Rafe into the telegraph room. Within hours, the group is not only allowed past the border, they’re given an apology and a first-class train car.
“Just because I make weapons,” explains the industrialist, “doesn’t mean we need to use them.”
***
The ZSS takes the train up to the capital, with Devika trying to condense all her elementary school history classes into a 3-hour train ride. Arnaude is busy looking at maps. If the group wants to continue their quest, they need to get him to the grave of his ancestor, Charles Le Fay. In Panjim, the group stocks up. State-controlled media censorship is the order of the day, so Trudy reaches out to her international network. South Goa is lightly populated, extremely Catholic, and run by large land-owning corporations. The only notable city is Chaudi, and a boat is the best way to get there.
Goa is several decades away from being a tourist party paradise, so the group investigates the church. Father Lorso, local parish priest, advises people against going south for work. Hipster Zelda speaks Latin and has a conversation with the man.
Lorso knows about Chaudi because he used to work there. A local mining company offered good wages for miners to work in a sea cave; many died. Lorso preached against the company then faced intimidation and attempted arson. He sent the problem up the chain and got reassigned. The church was closed; he left it in the care of a local non-Christian friend, Sohan.
Trudy laments; This would be so much easier if they were political subversives!
***
The group rents a boat and heads south. Eagle, not into superstition, spies on Arnaude. The group's employer is making strange leaps of logic, as if something is guiding his progress.
***
Our heroes meet in Sohan at the church. They picked up a phrasebook and can communicate with him, slowly. Father Lorso asked him to look after the church because it holds sacred artifacts. He leads the foreigners to them: an ornate sword, a rosary, and a small cross. Arnaude is excited: relics of Charles Le Fay! Devi checks for mystic stuff - there’s increasing mystical power… coming from Arnaude’s amulet!
Soham recoils from the light - very upset, calling it the “Heart of Wrath.” He saw it (or a stone like it) once before, long ago. Local legend says a demon fought an avatar of the divine, was slaughtered, fell in Chaudi, and tainted the land, driving people to envy and wrath. Other stones of this kind have been found. People are drawn to them and come to bad ends. Soham insists the strangers take the artifacts and go.
The next lead is to explore the mining sea-cave. On the shore of a rocky beach, crates and seven dead bodies are stacked up. All the dead are male, six are local (dressed as overseers rather than miners), one is a European in khaki (a manager for the mine). The overseers have tattoos identifying them as members of the Red Jasmine Cult! They died of acute bullet poisoning.
The crates bear the symbol of the Silver Order. Last Zelda figured, the Order and the Cult were allies. Looks like that’s over.
The group investigates the caves, traveling what seems like miles in cramped quarters. Eventually, the tunnel opens onto a ledge over a vast cavern. Flashlights bounce off veins of red gemstone running through the rock like blood vessels. It’s the same kind of gem as the Sacred Heart Amulet. The gem veins and amulet are resonating, amplifying each other.
The cave seems partially exploded or collapsed. Climbing down, the group sees that there are objects sticking out of the rubble - columns, large shiny metal objects (bigger than a person), patterned like Damascus steel, shaped like closed flowerbuds. (Just like the damaged vehicle in the Sindh desert, or the strange artifact from the cartoon Roadhouse from Stretch and Pan). This isn’t a natural cave. Ahead is electric light and the sounds of a generator. Several people are examining something, speaking in fervent Spanish. Nearby, more strangeness: a huge crystal formation reaches out of the ground like a hand with fingers. To one side is an 8 ft tall pen, with people in it, moving in an oddly jerky way.
Eleni sneaks Trudy into position to overhear the people. They’re examining a chained person. Despite the language barrier, she manages to catch references to the Silver Knight, some other knight, and the word “dero”. Evil dwarfs?
Zelda knocks out the generator with a well-placed shot. The gems glow faintly, but our heroes have advantage because they brought flashlights.
The shackled figure is moving jerkily - It was one of the laborers, but has veins of red gemstones growing out of every orifice. It furiously tries to rip the chains out of the ground. The Silver Knight’s forces have extremely strong willpower, so Devi pairs with Steel Eagle to bring the heat in melee. Unfortunately they also have body armor. Which doesn’t help them very much when crack shot Zelda begins aiming for the head. She goes six for six, dropping an entire group before Eagle can get a knockout.
Arnaude, who’s been acting strangely this entire adventure, frees the prisoners in the pen and then stands as if frozen. The laborers-turned-gem-zombies rush out of their enclosure, heedless of any danger and immune to mental manipulation.
Zelda shoots down a chunk of ceiling which drops on the shamblers, squashing some and temporarily cutting off the rest. Eleni tries to drag Arnaude away from danger - and he’s able to shake off the mental effects. He demands Devi give him the relics, condescending to her. The group gasps; This is an absolutely foolish place to try and big-time the boss. She refuses his demand and swipes the amulet from him. Her will is strong enough to overcome the voice shouting in her head; Le Fay? Is he the one possessing the gem miners, the one who guided Arnaude to this place?
The client explains that the artifacts need to go into the crystal hand immediately. Devi, with the permission of the party, places the artifacts and allows the client to commune with his ancestor. Meanwhile, Zelda finishes off all but one of the remaining “Silver Pawns”, and Eagle cuffs him for extraction. Looks of intense distress, confusion, and pity cross the face of Alexandre Arnaude. The gem creatures advance… and stop. They create a gap, and Trudy, following her nose, finds a path to fresh air.
The Silver Order prisoner explains what the group had missed: the Red Jasmine Cult was running the mine to make an army of gem zombies, but didn’t really understand what they’d found: a “dero laboratory.” The Silver Knight’s obsessed with learning their secrets, and killed the cultists after pretending to give them valuable crates so they would retreat.
