| Montserrat Monastery Train Station | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Informations | |
| Country | Spain |
| City | Montserrat, Catalonia |
| Address | 08199 Montserrat , Monistrol de Montserrat, 08691, Spain |
| Appearance | Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse |
Montserrat Monastery Train Station is a important destination in Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse.
Montserrat is a mountain located near the city of Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. There are three main peaks: Sant Jeroni (1,236 m), Montgrós (1,120 m) and Miranda de les Agulles (903 m).
It is Spain's first National Park, and a major tourist destination, famous for the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, which contains the Virgin of Montserrat (Mare de Déu de Montserrat).
Here's more information about the mountain, the Benedictine Abbey, and the Virgin of Montserrat.
Etymology
"Monserrat" literally means "saw (serrated, like the common handsaw) mountain" in Catalan. It's due to the rather sharp look of the mountain.
Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse
After learning in Castell dels Sants, thanks to a map found within Gehnen’s belongings, a connection between some relevant places of Catalonia and “La Maledicció” that in a specific order show the location of the “Tabula Veritatis”, George and Nico discover that the clues of this interesting map point to Montserrat, a very touristic place in Catalonia. Moments later, Richard Langham appears on scene exposed now as Gehnen’s grandson with Tiago Marqués held captive. Langham now knows where the Tabula is located and plans to take Marqués with him to help find the lost artifact. He leaves Nico, George and Eva locked inside the library with no way out. Luckily, George a secret mechanism which opens a hidden passage out of the property. Once outside, they all agree to travel to Montserrat’s train station to follow Langham’s footsteps and save Tiago Marqués’ life.
Already in the station they notice that the place, which is normally full of tourists, is completely empty but three guards on the Monastery’s main entrance. It is time for George to bring out the dumb tourist and gather some information on what is going on here. He tries to talk to each guard, but none of them tell why the Monastery is closed. They decide to look for other way in, maybe there's some other way round via the cable car station or at least someone in there who can tell them what's really going on.
When they are approaching the station’s door, Nico notices that someone is coming and warns the rest to hide immediately. Richard Langham and his personal guard appear on scene talking about the Monastery. Langham instructs the guard to block everything off. Lock the whole place down and all the routes up to the Monastery. He is firmly sure that the Tabula has got to be up in the Monastery. He then orders the guard to make the old man (Tiago Marqués) talk and not be so gentle with him this time around. After hearing this, his daughter Eva decides to follow those two and try to slip through the old building on her own. Meanwhile, George and Nico take look at the car station.
George tries to open the station’s main door but it is shut tight. Near the door there is a keypad to enter an exact code, unfortunately neither Nico nor George know that combination. By taking a look on the surroundings of the building, George finds one those tourist telescopes that usually charge a fortune. To his surprise, this particular telescope is completely free. By taking a closer look to the scenery, George discovers that near an old chapel down the hill, there is a familiar rock carved in the mountain. It looks like a face seen inside the Ouroboros in “La Maledicció” - it's exactly the same shape as that rock. Observing the painting, he remembers that Langham's got the forged image. The one without the face. So the rock is not going to mean anything to him. George doesn’t think the Tabula is up at the Monastery. He think it's down there somewhere, around that rock.
From where they are, George sees one of the cable cars hanging midway across the valley. Not only they made the Station close but also stopped the mechanism of the cable car from working. There’s something glinting from inside the car, but he cannot make out what it is. George proceeds to look through the peephole to see things more clear and detailed. By looking closely, he distinguish there are a couple of people stuck in the cable car. They looked kind of familiar, then George realizes that it is his old friends Duane and Pearl Henderson. Pearl is seen trying to get someone’s attention by using an object to reflect sunlight to where George and Nico are. He signals them back using the old car’s mirror found in Castells dels Sants. George isn’t sure if they've seen it until Pearl starts writing something on the car’s window. From what he can read[1], George learns the door code from the station’s main door.
Once inside the station, they notice that no one is manning the counter. Behind the stand there is a small closet. There is no lock - but the door won’t open. When George tries to sneak into it, he hears a female voice from inside the room. She is staying right there until she knows it’s safe. Meanwhile, an unknown man asks for help from inside a locked metal box on the floor. With no key George is going to have to find a way to break into it. He grabs the lunch box and places it inside one of the large cogs part of the cable car mechanism. The box is now wedged in the cogs - or rather, the giant can opener. By operating the lever located on the console in the corner, the cogs start turning and they are able to break the metal box. The container is mangled beyond repair, but inside there is a two-way radio. While speaking to Duane Henderson, Pearl suggests George to ask Kat for help because she knows everything about the place. He tells Pearl that the girl is locked in the closet and doesn’t want to come out. Pearl delicately asks George to let her talk with Kat through the radio. At first Kat doesn’t believe Pearl is really Pearl. When she asks for a proof, Pearl starts singing with her part of a musical[2]. Already out, Kat tells George and Nico that there were some guys with guns who took over the whole station so she hid in there.
When George asks Kat If she can help them start the console, she communicates George that the men that took over the station sabotaged it. The idiots stuck a spanner in there and blew the fuse in the back by the prongs. They wanted to make sure no-one could use the cable cars. She warns George not to stick his arm inside the console or otherwise he'll get fried. It is time for Trevor to save the day. George places his matchbox home near the console’s hatch and sticks to his body a paperclip covered in jam, now Trevor is fully equipped for the mission. By attracting him with Rich Tea crumbs (gifted from Bassam) near the broken fuse, Trevor peacefully walks towards it so that the paperclip makes contact and the electrical current can flow through the entire circuit. Despite the fact that Trevor gets a minor shock during this, the console is now working. Kat handles the cable car mechanism and lets George and Nico go down the hill to the Santa Cova Chapel to meet Duane and Pearl Henderson.
As George and Nico get closer to the face in the rock, he knows for sure that they are on the right track. It is definitely the same as the face in “La Maledicció”. But with one difference, the symbol of the tabula is missing from the rock formation. As they see no way to reach to the stone face, they decide to take a look around and find another way up.
Later in the story with the help of Duane’s radios, George is able to distract Langham’s guard who is patrolling Santa Cova’s main entrance by hitting him with a hammer, hard enough to knock him out. Outside they see a cable car ready to go, so they rush to climb onto it (specifically climb of it) before Langham even thinks of stopping the cable cars’ mechanism from working again.
A short run and a long jump later, they are both gripped to the exterior of a running cable car. Nico suggests George they should have waited for another car, but he is absolutely sure that if he can open a near window everything will be just fine. Unfortunately, George can’t do that from outside so a slightly panic face is shown in Nico’s expression. He later manages to open the cable car’s door thanks to the ball of yarn gifted by Fleur.
Already inside, George tries to open the stuck window near Nico so she can safely enter the vehicle. Several gunshots are heard and seen entering the cable car which causes Nico to lose her balance and disappear from George’s sight. He kneels to floor trying to evade the shooter’s aim and screams her name. Moments later, a second vehicle approximates George’s cable car exposing Shears and Medovsky holding both a gun in hand.
Medovsky greets George in a threatening manner and hastily asks for his painting, “La Maledicció”. George pretends not to understand what he is asking for, and explains to him that even if the painting was really his (Marqués is the real owner) he would not give it to him because Medovsky is just a common gangster. Medovsky’s bad temperament becomes enraged, he is not willing to let George off the hook again. Apparently, Medovsky discovered that George was the one who stole the valuable coin[3] from his residence the time he pretended, along with Nico, to be from the Insurance Company.
In the meantime, Nico is dangerously hanging from the very end of the cable car. She tries to ask Shears for help but he denies. While Nico is down there, he adds, maybe she can clear something up for him. Something Nico said when they first met has been playing on his mind. After having a philosophical argument with Shears and making him change his mind about killing Nico, he has an epiphany that makes him realize that the only thing that has led Shears here is himself and his actions. Shears wants to change his destiny and make things the right way[4]. He decides to talk to his boss, guaranteeing he’ll sure understand why they should not kill anybody else. Unfortunately, Medovsky doesn’t care about Shears wishes or thoughts. Shears takes courage and resolves to shoot Medovsky at once to show Nico he is the one who makes the choices, not others for him.
They all three come back to the cable car Montserrat station and try to decide what to do next. George and Nico need to find Langham, stop his crazy plan, rescue Eva and make Nico win a Pulitzer. They have got pretty good idea where he is going thanks to Marqués last words: to Eden (Mesopotamia), or Iraq as it is now. As Shears is deeply sorry for all the horrible things he’s done to George and Nico, he offers them a ride to Iran on Medovsky’s jet to catch Langham's helicopter. He's got the keys, the contacts - and a full drinks cabinet. It's the least Shears can do.
The last thing George remembers is getting on board on Medovsky's jet and accepting a cocktail from Shears. He finds himself in a very dark room and all alone. After asking for some light, the Gnostic Chapel found in Castell dels Sants appears on scene along with Tiago Marqués. Even though he is dead, Marqués has come to George in a spiritual form to bring him some advices on how to defeat Langham. He is not alone though, because Father Simeon and Wilfred Hobbs are here too. They don’t agree in anything the other say, but try to give George a meaningful and helping advice. Marqués tells George to “Maintain the harmony and protect the balance. Because he has the answer in his hands.” George doesn’t understand this last sentence and he quickly wakes up from what it looks like a dream, only to find himself holding Marqués’ old medallion on his left hand. Nico tells George that he was dreaming and communicates him that they must be close to Eden, “the source of four rivers”.
Moments later a familiar sound is heard on the plane’s speakers. Shears tells Nico and George that they have finally arrived to the final destination. To Paradise, to Eden. [5].
Quotes
- George: “How 'bout that Nico?”
- George: “A talking lunch box. Huh! What will they think of next?”
- Nico: “That's quite a mess you've made there, George.”
- George: “You know what they say about making omelets, Nico?”
- Nico: “You can't make them without strawberry jam?”
- George: “Got any ideas how I am going to reach those prongs?”
- Kat D: “Don't you have something useful in your pockets?”
- George: “Yep. Most likely.”
- George: "Even clinging to a cable car, Nico looked good."
- Medovsky: “So. We meet again! I've come for my painting.”
- George: “What painting?”
- Medovsky: “La Maledicció."
- George: “Gesundheit!”
- Medovsky: “What is it you imbecile? How many times have I told you not to interrupt me when I'm about to kill somebody. Remember what we agreed? I'm the big man who takes care of the big things.”
- Shears: “And I am the little man who takes care of the little things.”
- George: “I've got a nasty feeling death is coming my way.”
- Father Simeon: “Ach! See what you get when you turn from Jehovah? A paint-spattered hedonist! Don't listen to either of them, George! A heretic - and a lazy drunk!”
- Hobbs: “Hey, I'm not lazy!”
- Kat D: “Oh dear. The monks aren't going to like that.” (Talking about the almost destroyed cable car)
- George: “We had a little philosophical disagreement on the way up. Nothing that a little TLC won't fix.” (Tender Loving Care)
- Shears: “They're not really broken. More in a transitional state. It's amazing what a lick of paint can do.”
Trivia
- There are three goons at the entrance of the Monastery. They don't agree about why the Monastery's closed. The first one says it's because of a virus loose, the second one says the monks are on strike, and the third one says there are VIP visitors (The famous "Prince of Where"...)
- Looking at the fence that guards a tree in front of the train station, George can guess they have dog issues around there.
- Glass canopies sparkle in the sun on the modern building that is the cable car station. Will have been a pain to clean those.
- The Henderson have an uncanny way of showing up wherever George goes.
- Kat is quite surprised about the men taking over the cable car station. They never mentioned guns at the job interview.
- The men didn’t bother to go down the hill to the Santa Cova Chapel, they settled only for closing down the cable cars.
- The real savior of Pearl and Duane - who where stuck in a cable car in the middle of nowhere - isn't George. No. It's Trevor, his cockroach!
- The cable cars are scheduled to run all day.
- The cables are suspended in a huge contraption that runs the cable-cars up and down.
- ↑ Pearl Henderson writes “Help! Stuck. Door code 0797” on the cable car window with her red lipstick. George wonders how she came to know that.
- ↑ It looks like both Kat and Pearl Henderson love musicals as they know each word of the “Major General’s song” from Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance.
- ↑ After leaving Medovsky’s residence, George keeps an antique coin he finds above a cabinet. He later gifts it to Adam, Nico’s neighbor. Probably because he feels guilt due to the fact that Adam’s apartment has just been trashed. George learns through Medovsky that the coin is in fact very valuable. Its market price is one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Sure one can do a lot of redecorating with that!
- ↑ Shears confesses he never intended to kill Henri Dubois at the Le Lézard Bleu Art Gallery. He just wanted to rough him up a little but the gun went off, and the rest is history. The fact that he already had made a choice not to shoot him, says a lot about Shears. Henri’s death was an accident.
- ↑ Shear’s communication on the plane: "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. I hope you've had a pleasant flight. The temperature in Eden is a pleasant 30 degrees centigrade. We shall be landing on a flat plain about two kilometers into the desert which you will find is a pleasant stroll to your destination. Fasten your seatbelt and all that gubbins. Finally, may I take this opportunity of thanking you personally for choosing to fly Air Shears. We do hope you'll fly again with us soon".
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