The Adventurers had beaten off the dastardly coup attempt and dealt with those who took part, but a new threat was raising its head in the form of a recovered letter detailing a threat to back up any failure with the spraying of some sort of mind-control powder over Thoth and the subborning of the armed forces by ... The Brotherhood of Luxor!
The Prince of Thoth showered the brave Earthmen with praise, and the noble houses of Thoth agreed that an alliance in the form of a treaty with Britain would be a good and honorable thing in light of the obvious high character and loyalty of the British people to the people of Thoth and their Royal Family. Mr Smith stayed diplomatically silent rather than point out his nationality to those Martians who praised him mistakenly as British, then quietly corrected the narrative to include friendly Americans. No member of the team could walk abroad without drawing nods of approval from High Caste Martians, respectful bows from merchants and cheers from labourers.
And if there were any that felt differently about the state of matters, they made sure to keep to the shadows and remain unobserved. The Prince was as popular as ever, and the people all seemed to view his continued rule as a positive thing, and his new friends as worth cultivating. Thoth influence would surely grow, as would her markets, and Shastapsh could perhaps be brought back to the negotiating table with the arrival of British troops and cloudships.
This new plot was worrying though, and the Prince asked if his new friends, so obviously capable when it came to martial matters and possessing marvelous British armaments far superior to those that Thoth itself could manufacture, could perhaps travel to Shastapsh, locate the place where this dreadful mind-control dust was stored and attempt to destroy the stockpile.
The team immediately agreed. They were riding high on adrenaline and felt invincible when it came to putting Martians in their place. They had the Wasp for transport. They had their fighting skills and spirit. And they had their implacable determination to thwart the vile Brotherhood of Luxor at every chance they could, until the opportunity presented itself to bring the leadership to heel and enact justice for the terrible things done in that organization's name.
The morning began with perhaps two good omens. Firstly, a message from Captain Turngood sayng that he had been approached by an Englishman asking for passage back to Syrtis Major. This turned out to be one Dr Phipps carrying an impressively large medical bag. He was quite eager to obtain passage to Syrtis Major, and as a result was perhaps rather too easily persuaded to join the adventurers on their proposed sortie. The other was when Forsyth recognized a former lance corporal of his acquaintance standing in the crowd, dressed much like a Martian. The poor soul had obviously hit on hard times and "gone native". Forsyth and this man, lance-corporal Jones spent some short time getting re-acquainted before Forsyth suggested he needed a factotum, someone to "do" for him and Jones was so grateful it was almost embarrassing.
During this meeting, Smith was approached by a Martian noble and a merchant who, in broken English, informed him that they were pleased to meet someone from the Kingdom of America, that they had heard of the wonderful new repeating muskets carried by the cavalry there and that they wished to obtain perhaps 25 of these marvelous muskets with maybe 100 rounds of ammunition for each weapon. These weapons would be issued to a special unit of soldiers raised by this Noble for the service and greater glory of the Prince.
Smith declined to be drawn into this proposal, and the Noble and merchant took polite leave of him.
Waldmont noticed that while this was going on, two sinister figures in hooded robes were observing the conversation using a monocular, and were apparently recording what was being said by lip-reading. He trailed the figures to an alley between two large properties but lost them there.
The team staked out the alley, then decided to investigate, and were rewarded by spotting that they were being ob severed from both rooftops. On one side this proved to be a residence block of terraced apartments, but a concierge would not allow the team access to the roof after a conversation between Jones and the concierge became very heated. A small contingent of militia turned up, and the argument shifted to being between them and the concierge, so the team decamped to the other building to try their luck there.
This, being a sort of souk or bazaar, proved to be a better bet, but Waldmont got caught up in a seemingly endless transaction with a merchant leaving everyone else to investigate. Forsyth went up to the roof and wandered over to the parapet, where his eye was drawn by a sudden flash of reflected light. Leaping to one side he was narrowly missed by a crossbow bolt. He drew his pistol and fired at a fleeing figure (cloaked, sinister) but missed his shot. The fleeing figure leaped over the further parapet in a move Forsyth had seen last in Meepsoor when a Brotherhood saboteur had made it to escape over the side of the Wasp.
A short argument broke out again when Forsyth came down to report as the concierge had followed the team dragging the militia along with her, but the merchant busy instructing Waldmont in how to haggle sharply pointed out that the team were in fac the very heroes that had saved the Prince from insurrectionist scum, and the militia officer told the harridan to go back to her desk, saluted the adventurers with a very tired expression on his face, ordered his troop to about face and got back to the business of keeping the peace.
Postulating that the Brotherhood was possibly in on their plans the adventurers made plans quickly and left on the evening of the third day, setting a course to fool any observers and travelling only by night. There were two close brushes with Shastapshi kites over the course of the two-night trip, but the Wasp was able to evade them both without an exchange of fire. The days were spent grounded at anchor, the Wasp hidden under camouflaged tarpaulins.
The team were dropped off outside the Shatapsh city wall and made their way stealthily into the city on the search for the warehouse storing the mind-control dust.
Things were going well, and information was gained thanks to Jones's streetwise abilities, but then the adventurers ran into a patrol and Jones's powers of persuasion proved not up to snuff wen challenged by the officer in charge. The officer grabbed his sword hilt and Phipps, wound tight by the tension, drew and fired.
The fight was short. Phipps was quite severely wounded by the halberd-wielding guards and soon the team were obliged to surrender. They were disarmed, chained and marched off ... to the warehouse they were looking for! Chained to the wall of this building the team were able to detect that the warehouse was some sort of grain store, was very dusty (the ventilation slits were voiding a veritable mist of powder), and that dust smelled faintly of the Red Sands that Forsyth had encountered in Colorado.
Whispered conference produced the opinion that the atmosphere in the warehouse was highly explosive. If only there were some way that a flame or spark could be introduced into that building the problem of the "Mind Control" dust could be dealt with in a flash. Talk of lobbing a lit fuse through one of the vemtillation slits was quickly quashed by consideration of the force of the resulting explosion. It was known that similar explosions had wrecked dockyards on Earth. No-one standing in close proximity to this building could be expected to survive such an event.
Alternate talk of bombing the building from the Wasp was also abandoned when consideration of the effects of the blast on the ship were added into the discussion.
Jones chose this moment to produce the key to their chains, filched during their capture, and the adventurers freed themselves and stole into the night to make a workable plan.
Clear Credit: Map of Shastapsh from the board game Cloudships & Gunboats © 2000 by Frank Chadwick, published by Games Designers Workshop. Map reproduced to illustrate narrative. No challenge of copyright is intended. I do not have clear attribution for the art itself, the rulebook citing Interior art by Lauretta Oblinger. If the responsible artist will contact me I will attribute properly.
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