Jade War

THIRD INTERLUDE The Cursed Beauty

Eight hundred years ago, a renowned Alusian explorer named Gaubrett sailed across the sea in search of a fabled island with mountains of jewels guarded by giants. Upon successfully landing on the southern peninsula of Kekon, Gaubrett was pleased and relieved to encounter no giants but instead an Abukei village. After a tense but peaceful exchange with the village elders, the natives brought the half-starved travelers food and water, and Gaubrett and his crew set up camp by the shore. As grateful as they were, the sailors could not help but greedily notice the green gemstones hanging over the tribe’s simple dwellings and decorating the bodies of the men and women. Even before the rise of the Kekonese warrior caste of Green Bones, jade was of significant cultural importance to the aboriginals, who viewed it as the divine remains of the First Mother goddess Nimuma and, being genetically immune to its effects, wore it for status and ceremony.

Gaubrett proceeded to barter a considerable amount of his ship’s wares in exchange for the villagers’ jade, which they seemed more than willing to trade in exchange for foreign tools and curiosities. Gaubrett stored the acquired jade in a wooden chest in his tent, which he opened several times a day in order to admire his fortune. Once much-needed ship repairs had been completed, Gaubrett and his crew made ready to set sail. At that point, it occurred to the explorer that there was a great deal more jade to be had, and that he had come an awfully long way across the ocean to be leaving with so little compared to how much these simple savages flaunted so carelessly.

That night, Gaubrett gathered his men and led them into the Abukei village where they massacred the inhabitants and gathered every last bit of jade they could lay their hands on. In good spirits, they departed Kekon. Despite ample stores and good weather, over the following two months, the ship descended into an inexplicable madness. Shortly after Gaubrett hung two officers for treason, the crew mutinied; Gaubrett and several others were killed and their bodies tossed overboard. The storeroom lock was smashed and the jade equally divided among the crew. Two subsequent mutinies resulted in several more deaths. Half a dozen sailors threw themselves into the sea; others fell into a delirious fever and cut themselves with knives. One man was said to have pulled out his own eye and eaten it. A small group of beleaguered survivors, at last convinced that the treasure they carried was cursed, threw every piece of jade on the ship into the ocean and managed to limp their vessel into a port in southeastern Spenius. Their tragic tale quickly spread, cementing the “cursed beauty” as a faraway place of near mythical wealth and mysterious evil fortune.

Seven hundred and fifty years after Gaubrett’s journey, the Shotarian general Damusaro famously disagreed with the national War Cabinet’s decision to occupy Kekon, arguing, “That damned island is like a beautiful woman with a barbed pussy—very tempting, but not to be fucked.” Perhaps as belated punishment for his vulgar objections, his superiors later sent him to command the Garrison House in occupied Janloon during the Many Nations War. His name was whispered by the One Mountain Society, and despite obsessive security precautions, he was ambushed and killed in broad daylight by a young Green Bone assassin named Nau Suenzen.