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NAME OF TALE The Broken Incense Censer

You have probably seen many apocalypses before, so the scene should be familiar to you. In this world you will find the scattered ruins of reclaimed metal, jagged thrusts of cheap shelter repurposed for the needs of a new age. There are miles and miles of a thinning waste, all frail plants growing meekly in the soil. There are cults of the old world's detritus, cheap plastic toys turned into idols, fuel for new engines of belief. There are people, strung loose, who never knew ease and familiarity and so don't ever miss it.
The kind of apocalypse doesn't matter much either; you'll have seen it somewhere too. A hundred thousand missiles, or gods, or plagues, all seething through the streets with their own kinds of malice. A hundred thousand children, running for their mothers, all caught up in the blast. A hundred thousand eyes that watch this, taking in the scene with the dispassion of those used to ease and familiarity.
After it was all done, and the dead had to be buried, nobody knew what to do. They tried praying, but when the air itself seemed hostile, what use was it? They'd be clawed back to earth by a poisoned sky. Sooner or later other concerns came to mind, so the bodies were left out in the open. Eventually someone shunted them off to the side, to an open pit where they could keep adding more and more when the sight became distracting. The eagles came to pick at them, and beneath the mud and stink the bleached-white scent of bone came crawling up, shining in the noonday sun, defiant in its brightness.

There were more bones that day on the mountain. These ones had been stripped clean by the years and so lay, white and shining, up against the path. The grass was thin here, clinging to a light and dry dirt. The thin winds meant less decomposition, so the bones almost looked like marble.
The pilgrim cocked his head and looked at them. He didn't know their creed. If they had died in the last few decades, then they probably belonged to the Sacrae or the Nafta Cults, and he didn't know their words. If they were older, then it'd be a strict Catholicism; there were still a few left in these parts. He could see a battered church in the distance; maybe someone there would help?
A cloud moved over; the pilgrim could hear crickets chirping. It would rain soon, and he had to find a place to stop by nightfall. He nudged one of the bones with his foot and watched it crumble under his touch. He shuddered. Things weren't quite right in these parts.
He tried not to think about the bone in his backpack. This was a different kind of bone, with its own hue and colour and purpose. Its weight shifted behind him, pushing into the small of his back. He adjusted the strap. He tried not to feel its presence, but he couldn't help it; the hum of it was there. The sweet scent of it would be gone soon, at his hand, and he couldn't afford to get attached.
The bone was buried under a pile of food, bread and fruit from the last town he saw. Whenever he reached into the bag he would root around that same pile, even as the journey saw its contents gradually replaced. Bread by corn. Corn by fish. Fish by fowl, salt beef, peas and rice, tomatoes and cucumber. There was nothing left of that first food, but the pile persisted, that created and transferred energy that bloomed forth, again and again, never losing itself in all its transmutations.

That night by the fire, he ate a meal of rye bread in the methodical way he had become used to. Ignoring the dark and the twitching surroundings, he'd focus all his attention on the flame, the way it swirled and lifted and flattened itself. He'd bite the bread in a gradually contracting circle, a rhythmic and precise spiral. He'd stare into the fire and let the world fall away so it was just him and the light. It never seemed to obey the laws of physics.
The bread became inexorably smaller in a regulated, timed motion. After the first few bites, when the impurities were dealt with, it became the same as every loaf he'd ever eaten. A thin line seemed to connect this fire, this loaf, in a narrative of shared experience that collapsed in time itself. For those few, scattered moments -
"Aagh!"
The vision burst as a figure hopped back from the fire, cursing under its breath. The pilgrim stood up, startled. It was a child, a girl, no older than nine or ten. She was sucking her hand and seemed barely aware that she'd been caught.
"Wait."
The pilgrim reached for his waterskin and opened it, pouring the liquid on the girl's fingers. He got a look at her face - half defiant, half-shy - as she murmured thanks.
"Got any food?"
The pilgrim was a good pilgrim, and remembered the oathes he'd taken before setting out. There was no trace of regret on his face as he passed the bread over. The girl grabbed it with her good hand, eagerly attacking it. He watched as the crumbs fell under her feet.
"What are you doing so far from the village? Your parents will want to know where you are."
The girl shook her head. "Don't got none. The Nafta got 'em."
The pilgrim nodded. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to say to children, or how to act around them. They were unpredictable, with a habit of getting themselves dirty. He wished he knew what to say.
The girl shifted around, munching her prize. She glanced at the pilgrim a few times, but he was deep in an apple. He kept staring at the fire, so the girl cocked her head.
"Where you going, anyway?"
"Up." He pointed to the mountain's peak.
"Ain't nothing up there. Just a lot of rocks."
"I have a job to do up there."
This intrigued the girl. Her life was defined by the harvest, the hunt and the winter snows. Was there a boar up there, red and fat and dripping with blood?
"What's in the bag?"
"A bone. I have to bury it on the mountaintop." The pilgrim chewed for a moment before swallowing. "You want a story? I have some stories."
Pilgrims always told stories, and the young were always ready to hear them. But the girl had a weary look on her face. She'd seen many travellers come through the village, and she'd heard too many lies and yarns to be that easily fobbed off.
In a village of mud and deep pits, of pig's meat and old secrets, she wanted a story that gleamed. Every day, as she prepared the hunted boar, she'd imagine the fat yielding up a hundred pounds more of flesh. She'd look at the stars at night, like so many children, and think about the hundred explorations that their forefathers had gone on.
She'd sketch out lines, drawn between the stars, where the boar would dance and dance. This world became more complex and complete. The boar would dance, over and over, hunting and hunted, trying to find the way home. She wanted to hold it, and tell it something new. She wanted a seed to light the world again, to bring colour back to the darkest pits.
"Tell me about the war. You're old enough. You must remember it."
The pilgrim did remember it -

- but did he? It came back to him in bits and pieces. He had been barely twelve, so he didn't really understand. When it started, it was all heroes and villains, tin soldiers and lead paint marching into battle. A final, regretted option, but one which brave men would stand for.
When the city began to burn, and he saw people running in a way they never ran, he felt a shiver of uncertainty. His parents had been members of a secret church, with hidden instruments of faith locked in obscure rooms, but they didn't have any answers - they just ran around in a different way, crying to their god to save them. Nobody seemed to make any sense, the old habits were all broken, and the new ones seemed to involve a lot of screaming.
So he wiped his tears and ran outside, following people yelling names as they headed towards the shelters. The smog was black around him, and he began to cough and choke. He could hear words behind him, words in a language he didn't know. He should be feeling the things the books told him about - the wartime loss of innocence, the destruction of old myths - but it all still felt like part of the same narrative. The air itself had turned against him, and a real hero would battle through it. He wanted so badly to be a hero.
The blast of a shell knocked him over. That harsh language crept closer and closer, and all he could hear was the wail of guns, and all he felt was the harsh black of smoke.
Then something shone through, piercing the smoke. It was a light, a beam through the clouds, and before him stood a shining woman. He knew immediately that she was a hero. Anyone wearing that outfit, with its interlinked scales of gold, had to be a hero. But there was something else - an inner fire that twisted and was perfect, reflecting the soul itself as it strained against a human form.
That was the day he joined his parents' religion. That was the day that his world was made, solidified, secured for a single purpose. That was the day he ceased to see the smoke and only saw the fire itself, its waves and ebbs and flows that danced and danced and danced.

When he woke, the girl was holding the bone. He jumped up, blinking at the midday sun, and snatched it from her hands. He glared at her, but she only grinned.
"That ain't a bone."
He checked it. It was fine. He felt its lines and they were all intact.
"It's made of metal. Bones ain't made of metal."
The surface of the bone glinted in the sunlight. There were no breaks, no discolourations. He thrust it back into the bottom of his pack and breathed out.
"Did you hear me?"
He started stalking off, crunching gravel under foot. The girl kept piping up around him, but he ignored her chatter. After a while, she grew silent, and he could enjoy the journey upwards. The air was thinner here, but not so thin that his lungs would burn. It was a light and free world, poised between the sea and the sky.
He stopped for a snack, and the girl was still there, looking at him. He sighed. "It's a bone of a god."
"Really?"
"Yes." He munched for a while - no spirals today. "A long, long time ago, there was a god who walked the earth and lifted humanity up from itself. But that god was broken into little pieces, and for centuries we tried to piece him back together again."
"So is that why you have his bone? To put him together again?"
The girl was squinting. She was doing a good job of restraining herself. He liked that. "One day they did put him back together again, but they didn't get it right. Then they did it again, and he came back wrong again. And a third time, and a fourth. So eventually we stopped trying to build him and decided to scatter him instead. His bones are spread across the world, where nobody can find them."
He stood up. The girl was frowning. He tossed her a piece of food, which she ate greedily. She skipped alongside him as they ascended the peak.

And then they were at the top, and he'd dug the hole in the earth. The girl sat on a rock, still frowning. He ignored her. He felt his muscles give themselves to the work, the strain and motion of action. The sun burnt his back. He didn't relish it.
When the work was done, he reached into the bag and took out the bone. He stared at the ground for a long time. Part of him didn't want to let it go.
"You shouldn't bury it."
The girl's voice was hard and firm. It sounded like something collected, a kind of determination he hadn't heard in her before. He sighed, and made to drop it into the ground.
The girl jumped across and snatched the bone out of his hand. He screamed. She scrambled back, startled, as he advanced on her.
"You shouldn't bury it! Gods shouldn't be broken! Ma starves in the hole-"
"Humans can't put him back together. " The pilgrim advanced, snarling. "That's why we scatter him, that's why we hide him. Flesh can't make him, so he just keeps coming back wrong. He'll come back by himself at the end of days, when the rivers run and the time is right. Who are you to say otherwise? Give me the bone."
"No!" The girl turned and tried to run, but he caught her. His hand was covered in sweat. He reached over and wrenched it off her.
The girl yelped. It was a soft sound, like she couldn't believe she'd have to use it. She fell to her knees, nursing her arm. He stood there, staring, and wished he knew what to say.
Her eyes welled with tears, and she fled down the hill. He stood there, holding a lump of metal.

On the way back down, he stopped at the church. It was ancient and Catholic, ivy-covered and half-ruined. It was an old world church, but it had been rebuilt hurriedly and wrong. He shuddered to look at it, but it was cold and he wanted to rest. He approached the oak-beam doors and pushed.
It was quiet and almost empty. The sun was setting, but a few faint beams shone through the cracks in the stonework. The light was red and heavy, and thick incense wafted through the air. It made him blink and almost cough.
A woman was sitting in one of the pews near the front. She was rocking back and forth, chanting the same quiet prayer with long, yearning syllables. Her hair was grey, and she was round and plump.
There was a rosary in her hands, which she kept twisting in her hands. He could make out each individual bead, the smoothness of their surface and the perfection of their form. She moved them round and round the string, pushing them through her wrinkled fingers like a spiral, one interspersed with age and care and all kinds of stress. He felt faint. His nostrils were saturated with the strange red smoke.
He remembered that day in the smog, and the way it made him feel. It was black then, and it had stayed like that all day. He'd heard his mother's voice in the smoke, thin and frail, but he hadn't run to it. There was a hero in front of him, after all, a hero in untarnished gold.
He wanted to sink into the earth, but he didn't. He ran, stumbling, down the mountain.


AT 1808J (2408Z) ON 1990-04-02, AGENT FIRESTARTER OF MOBILE TASK FORCE DELTA-3 WAS DECLARED KILLED-IN-ACTION PURSUANT TO INCIDENT 246.90090.Argonaut.

Florence watches as her jumpsuit sinks into the lake.

NOTE: This is Part 9 of 9 of the series, The Phoenix, The Nightingale, & The Magpies.
If you want to avoid spoilers, it is recommended that you instead start at the beginning with Minneapolis Burns.

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March 31, 1990
Site-246
For the final time, Florence Elsinger sat in the thaumaturgy gym and meditated. And while she meditated, she gathered her power.
Among those who know such things, it is a widely held belief that the Foundation trails behind the other normalcy orgs in thaumatology — and this is true, although not to the extent that they want those people to think. The Foundation certainly doesn't field many thaumaturges, and for most of the post-war era they've lagged behind the Coalition in occult theory. But when it comes to anti-occult countermeasures, the Foundation has long been a pioneer.
Site-246 — the original, wartime installation — was an example of that expertise. Built to withstand an attack by a cadre of Thule battlemages, it had incorporated then-cutting-edge thaumic shielding, making use of experimental beryllium alloys and the largest freshwater lake in the Western Hemisphere to protect the site from external occult energies. While the second site hadn't been built with an attack by Nazi wizards in mind, it had retained or recycled most of the original site's thaumic defenses — which, while technically obsolete, were still formidable.
Westbrook's plan hinged on three details of the site's architecture which all stemmed from this history. First, that the thaumic shielding was designed to shed any spike of Aspect Radiation directly into the surrounding lake. Second, that only the pressure hull of the new site had been built with this shielding, in order to simplify construction and maintenance. And third, that the thaumaturgy gym was located directly above one of the access tunnels of the original site.
Florence opened her eyes and released the spell she had been crafting. And this time, she held nothing back.
So, what happens when you detonate a bomb inside a bomb shelter?

From
MONITOR@NAGL-Site-246-B (Security Monitor, Site-246)

Subject
ALERT: Major Damage To Site

To
MONITOR@Overwatch (Security Monitor, Overwatch Command)

CC
NAGL@Directors (Site Directors, Great Lakes Region)

AT 0947J (1547Z) ON 1990-03-31, EXTENSIVE STRUCTURAL DAMAGE WAS DETECTED IN THE PRESSURE HULL OF SITE-246, FOLLOWED BY LAKE-INTRUSION FLOODING ORIGINATING IN THE SPECIAL ASSET TRAINING ANNEX OF SAME.
THE ALERT LEVEL FOR NORTH AMERICA—GREAT LAKES REGION HAS BEEN RAISED TO ORANGE. ALL SITES IN THE REGION SHOULD STANDBY TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE.
THE INCIDENT REPORT IDENTIFIER IS 246.90090.Argonaut. NO CODEWORD ASSIGNED. THIS INCIDENT IS STILL DEVELOPING.

The spell that Florence had just cast was not, in itself, particularly destructive. All it did was punch a hole in the floor of the gym — something so trivial that the amount of power she had pumped into it was overkill on the order of firebombing a mosquito. At least, it would have been, if collateral damage hadn't been her goal.
Most of thaumaturgy comes down to controlling the backlash that inevitably manifests from altering reality. Usually, this means channeling it into something harmless, but there's a certain class of spells that use backlash directly for productive ends. Thaumatologists call these kinds of workings rebounds, and they are mainly employed by ritual practitioners; evocators, with their reliance on internal EVE sourcing and on-the-fly spellcraft, rarely have the need or ability to perform them.
Unless they're trying to fake their own death by backlash, and have an hour of uninterrupted meditation to visualize the ritual geometry inside their own head.
This rebound was also not particularly destructive on its own. It captured the backlash of the initial spell and directed it towards heating the only target in visual range — the gym itself. In the absence of any other factors, this would have, at worst, caused a few small fires. But the walls of the gym were in direct contact with the pressure hull and its thaumic shielding — which immediately proceeded to dump the incoming energy into the nearby water.
Now, the resulting steam explosions and cavitation voids? Those were extremely destructive.

From
MONITOR@NAGL-Site-246-B (Security Monitor, Site-246)

Subject
NOTICE: Agent MIA

To
MONITOR@Overwatch (Security Monitor, Overwatch Command)

CC
NAGL@Directors (Site Directors, Great Lakes Region)

AT 1002J (1602Z) ON 1990-03-31, AGENT FIRESTARTER OF MOBILE TASK FORCE DELTA-3 WAS DECLARED MISSING-IN-ACTION PURSUANT TO INCIDENT 246.90090.Argonaut. DECLARATION MADE BY Julian Corwin, DIRECTOR OF SITE-246.

From
OPS@Overwatch (Operations, Overwatch Command)

Subject
ACTION: Priority Mobilization

To
NAGL@Directors (Site Directors, Great Lakes Region)

SITE-87 AND SITE-151 ARE TO DEPLOY AVAILABLE TASK FORCES TO SITE-246 TO ASSIST IN THE RESCUE OR RECOVERY OF AGENT FIRESTARTER. OVERALL OPERATIONAL COMMAND IS ASSIGNED TO Cody Westbrook, COMMANDER OF MOBILE TASK FORCE DELTA-3.
THIS OPERATION HAS BEEN ASSIGNED CODEWORD LIGHTFOOT BALLAD WITH CLEARANCE LEVEL 3. ALL FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS PERTAINING TO INCIDENT 246.90090.Argonaut ARE TO BE HANDLED UNDER THIS CLASSIFICATION.

Lake Superior is approximately two-hundred-fifty meters deep in the vicinity of Site-246. At this depth, the ambient pressure is equivalent to twenty-four atmospheres and the water temperature never exceeds four degrees above freezing. There is no sunlight, no plantlife, and few animals.
Incidentally, the crush depth of the Type VII U-boat, the most common submarine of the German Kriegsmarine during the Second World War, is also two-hundred-fifty meters. This is not a coincidence.
Florence had just started to fall through the hole she had created when the pressure hull failed and the lake came rushing in, intent on finding her crush depth. The implosion of the thaumaturgy gym happened so fast as to be instantaneous. The entire sequence of events, as captured by the security camera inside the gym and starting from the moment Florence opened her eyes, spanned exactly three frames of film.
Evocation happens at the speed of thought.
As soon as she had loosed the spell that would destroy the gym, Florence had reflexively raised a ward around herself. That was why, instead of being crushed into a paste, she was now sprawled on the concrete floor of the abandoned maintenance tunnel and looking up at the hole she had just fallen through. The waters of Lake Superior hung suspended in the air eight feet above her, held back by the ward and her force of will.
Panting heavily — thaumic exhaustion was already starting to set in — she hauled herself to her feet, using the tunnel wall for support. The only light came from her tattoo, which was glowing furiously as she struggled to maintain the ward. She was working against a very literal deadline now. She could hold back the lake for perhaps two minutes, assuming her heart didn't give out first.
She turned and started down the corridor, trying to ignore the frantic pounding of her heart and the burning ache in her lungs. After twenty feet, she had to stop and draw the ward in closer, which left the hole she had fallen through exposed. In an instant, the lake crashed into the tunnel, flooding the entire space beyond the ward until the next bulkhead; when the inrush hit the distant obstruction, the violence of the collision produced a powerful hydraulic shock that reverberated back towards Florence and made her stagger. Once she had regained her balance, she risked a glance behind her. The sight of the wall of water a few feet away, hungrily pressing against the ward while waiting to consume her, spurred her back into motion with a renewed sense of urgency.
After fifty feet, she reached the bulkhead and the door to the next compartment. She heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing it, although the sound was indistinguishable from her exhausted breathing. Taking the wheel lock in both hands, she threw her full weight into it.
The wheel didn't budge.
"No!"
She slammed against the wheel again, but still it refused to turn. Decades of disuse had left the mechanism seized by rust, and she no longer had the strength to dislodge it.
"No no fuck! NO!"
Florence slumped against the wall. She was out of options. And she was running out of time.

From
MONITOR@NAGL-Site-246-B (Security Monitor, Site-246)

Subject
NOTICE: Agent KIA

To
MONITOR@Overwatch (Security Monitor, Overwatch Command)

CC
NAGL@Directors (Site Directors, Great Lakes Region)

AT 1808J (2408Z) ON 1990-04-02, AGENT FIRESTARTER OF MOBILE TASK FORCE DELTA-3 WAS DECLARED KILLED-IN-ACTION PURSUANT TO INCIDENT 246.90090.Argonaut. DECLARATION MADE BY Cody Westbrook, COMMANDER OF DELTA-3, AND CERTIFIED BY Julian Corwin, DIRECTOR OF SITE-246.

Certified Record of Death
Official RAISA Copy

CODEWORD CLEARANCES
L3/LIGHTFOOT BALLAD; L3/GRAND SLAM; L2/TRITON POINT

Florence was working out a final spell to flash boil Westbrook's kidneys in the moments before she died when the wheel lock started to turn.
As the door swung open, Florence knew she was already dead.
A figure of lightless flame stood in the doorway, an inverted silhouette formed from the fire of a brilliant, invisible aura. Where there should have been a face, there was only a blinding beam of light. An impossible shadow loomed behind them — huge, dark, and ominous — the wings of a vengeful psychopomp.
The figure reached up and turned-off her headlamp, revealing the face of Special Agent Virginia Kartal, still lit from within by an unseen glow but now clearly visible.
Kartal took one look at the wall of water barely two feet away from said face and swore. "That you?"
Florence nodded once. Speaking would take too much energy.
Kartal swore again. "Come on, we've got even less time than I thought."
She bent down and lifted Florence to her feet, using an arm wrapped under her shoulder for support. Together — although in truth it was mostly Kartal half-carrying-half-dragging Florence — they managed to make it through the door and into the next corridor, and not a moment too soon. Kartal had just closed the bulkhead door behind them when Florence finally passed out.
There was a sound somewhere between a gong and a crack as Lake Superior punched the bulkhead at an appreciable fraction of the speed of sound. Kartal would later swear that the door had actually bulged inwards for a moment. But in the inch thick steel of the bulkhead, the lake had finally met its match. They were safe.

Operational Record

1. Background
On ██/██/1990, during an unrelated meeting scheduled as part of the SKIPTRACE program, Foundation Agent ████ █████████ (hereafter referred to as "Peckinpaugh") made it known to this agent that he desired the assistance of the Unusual Incidents Unit in staging the defection of fellow Foundation Agent ████████ ████████ (hereafter referred to as "Fitzgerald"). Incidental to this request, Peckinpaugh disclosed the existence and location of a previously unknown Foundation facility within the United States, where he and Fitzgerald were stationed. The revelation of this information was taken as a sign that Peckinpaugh was acting in good faith, leading this agent to offer the Unit's assistance in extracting Fitzgerald. Authorization for the operation was subsequently granted by Assistant Director Mallory during a telephone call that evening.
Due to the location of the facility from which Fitzgerald was to be extracted, it was necessary to requisition outside assets to conduct the operation. The Mystic-class deep-submergence vehicle Merlin (DSRV-3) was loaned from the Pentagram, and the Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw (WAGB-83) was enlisted to serve as a staging platform. Merlin was originally used to recover Thule grimoires from the wreckage of U-666, and possesses a number of abnormal modifications that were considered essential to the success of the operation. Irregular Agent Fingal Floyd, who has Sidhe and Selkie heritage, was temporarily transferred from Three Portlands to perform deep water reconnaissance.
2. Objectives
The primary objective of the operation was to recover Fitzgerald alive. As a secondary objective, this was to be done without the knowledge or awareness of the Foundation, if at all possible. An additional objective of extracting Peckinpaugh was initially considered during preliminary planning, but was dismissed at the request of Peckinpaugh; it was instead decided that Peckinpaugh would remain in place to facilitate the secondary objective. The possibility of using Peckinpaugh as a defector-in-place was also discussed, but was discarded due to the risk presented.
3. Outcome
Using Merlin to descend to the target area, the operation team successfully rendezvoused with Fitzgerald. On-site Foundation forces were occupied by an emergency incident initiated by Fitzgerald, allowing Fitzgerald to be extracted covertly. There is no evidence that Merlin or the operation team were detected at any point during the extraction; the Foundation was apparently aware of the presence of Mackinaw in the area, but have shown no signs of knowing its true purpose. Approximately two hours after the extraction of Fitzgerald, the field office in Chicago received a message from the Foundation through SKIPTRACE, requesting the Unit's assistance in requisitioning Mackinaw for a search and rescue operation; the Chicago field office denied this request on the basis of lack of specificity.

March 31, 1990
USCGS Mackinaw
The jumpsuit barely made a splash when it hit the water. Florence watched as it drifted away on the icebreaker's wake, already starting to sink slowly into the black of the lake. In less than a minute, it was gone.
She was still there when Kartal came out onto the rear deck a few minutes later. The sunstone necklace Westbrook had given her was cradled in one hand. She stared intently at it without a trace of emotion on her face, deliberating over whether to throw it into the lake after the jumpsuit. Without a word, Kartal came over to lean against the railing next to her.
When Florence finally spoke, her voice was rough. "What am I going to do?"
"About what?"
"Life, I guess." Florence shook her head without taking her eyes off the gem. "I've never had a real job, I've never lived in a house, I've never paid taxes, I've never—"
Kartal held up a hand to cut her off. "We'll be setting you up in something like witness protection, so you don't need to worry about housing or money—Uncle Sam will take care of it. The stipend you'll be getting isn't much, but it's tax exempt. Should be enough to support you."
Florence closed her eyes, before saying, in a voice barely above a whisper, "Would it be enough to support two?"
Kartal stared at the other woman curiously, until her eyes lit up in sudden understanding. "Is it Westbrook's?"
Florence nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Bastard," she swore. "Does he know? Is that why—"
"No." Florence curled her fingers around the necklace, concealing the sunstone from view. "I was going to tell him, but…" She trailed off.
"But?" Kartal prompted.
Florence shook her head. "It was a lie. All of it. He never loved me. He was just a honeypot to keep me compliant. He told me so himself."
"God, that's…" Kartal couldn't find an appropriate English curse, so she did it in Turkish. "Are you sure you want—"
"Yes." Her fingers whitened as she clenched her fist around the gem. "I already decided that it was what I wanted, before he told me the truth. And I refuse, I refuse, to let him ruin this for me too. I've lost everything—my parents are dead, anyone I've ever been friends with has been amnesticized, and the man I loved was a fraud. I won't lose my daughter too. She's mine, he can't have her."
She took a breath to steady herself, and when she spoke again, her voice was as cold as the depths of the lake. "He won't even get to know what he's lost. He can't know, because if he did, he could use the contagion link to find us. So he'll be alone, haunted by the ghost of his own crimes, until he dies. And he'll deserve it."
Kartal whistled softly. "Well, I suppose revenge isn't the worst reason to become a parent."
Florence laughed once, mirthlessly. "I'm doing this for me. The revenge is just a perk."
Kartal nodded. "I'll see what I can do to get that stipend increased."
"Thank you."
The deck vibrated gently under their feet as Mackinaw continued on its eastward course towards its home port of Cheboygan, Michigan. Once there, they would continue by Way to their final destination, which Kartal had so far only spoken of obliquely. Florence had gathered that it was an extradimensional city of some sort, beyond the reach of the Foundation, a place offering safe haven for wizards and parahumans. It almost sounded too good to be true.
Florence considered the future, terrifying and exhilarating in its boundless possibilities. The last decade of her life — ever since she had discovered her magic — had been filled with nothing but fire and blood, as she had fought countless monsters at the behest of other monsters. Now, here at last, was a chance for something different. A chance for peace. A chance for life.
She wasn't sure she knew what to do with it. But she knew she wasn't going to let it pass her by.
"You'll need a new name," Kartal said, finally breaking the silence. "Or at least a new surname. Florence is common enough that you can probably get away with keeping it."
"That's fine. Nothing good ever happened to Florence Elsinger anyways." She thought quietly for a moment. "What about Thorne?"
"Florence Thorne?"
She nodded.
"I like it. It suits you."
They stood there in silence for a few more minutes, listening to the rhythm of the engine. In the distance, a V-formation of Canadian geese honked and hollered across the sky, apparently getting an early start on the journey north.
Eventually, Florence slipped the necklace into a pocket and turned to look at Kartal.
"So, what more can you tell me about where we're going? Someplace nicer than Duluth, I hope."
"That depends." Kartal smiled wryly. "Miss Thorne, how do you feel about rain?"
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Item #: SCP-DOTS
Object Class: Sweet
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-DOTS is to be kept in a standard one-room one-bath apartment because she is lonely and

Doctor Dots drums her fingernails across her keyboard. Her eyes wander down to the badge that lay on her desk. ‘Candi April Dots—Containment Specialist'. Containment specialist. Contain. Ment. Special. Ist.

just because she has enough money to buy a bigger house, she doesn't. SCP-DOTS is to be provided chocolate and chewy candy because she's a cannibal

Would a Containment Specialist be messing around, writing themselves as an anomaly? She has things she could be doing. Plenty of actual anomaly files to finalize gave a slight call. The blueprints for an additional five humanoid containment cells at Site-27 were screaming pretty loud. Four standard, one non-standard. That blueprint seemed pretty proud of itself giving that it was bigger and pink instead of blue. Her supervisor seemed to agree considering the completion date of said pink blueprint was in two days. It's not that she doesn't want to do it, that isn't the case at all. She loves her job. It is more exciting than most Foundation positions in her opinion. She likes to design, and anyone who took one look at her would be able to read that in multiple different ways.

. Not really a cannibal, but her name is Candi.
Description: SCP-DOTS is very girly. She is very put together. She likes to wear patterns and be fashionable. Many of her colleges ask if she was in school for fashion design. She was, at one point. Fashion was what she had wanted to do since

She was a kid? No. That was who someone had wanted her to be, sure. What she wanted as a kid was to look at how things worked. Dots chuckles to herself as her thoughts play out in her head. She was the kid who would take the batteries out of the princess wand because she wanted to know why it worked like that. 'Candi April Dots' was a name the RoseWood Elementary School office staff knew all too well. Dots had been in there so many times, she could still put a name to each face.
"Ms Dots, would you like to explain why you kept taking the batteries out of all the classroom toys?"
"Ms Dots, would you like to explain why you wouldn't allow any of the boys to use the remote-control trucks?"
Ah, that one was a special one. It was one thing when she was dismembering princess wands and talking pony toys. It was another when remote-control trucks and cars became her target. Dots pushed her chair back to allow access to the desk drawers. She opens the left most drawer, retrieving a small remote-control, and a hand-sized, half destroyed, poorly painted pink monster truck toy. She smiles, the nostalgia the toy brings feeling warm comfortable. It doesn't work anymore. Maybe it would if she would have just gave it some more thought. Maybe if she would have just stopped and gave chances. Maybe if she would have allowed for some help. Maybe then it wouldn't have been stolen. It wouldn't have been stolen and then

sometimes? She likes cute stuff and pink stuff, but what she really wanted to do was big design. Like engineering. She can make some pretty impressive things, maybe that's her anomaly, hm?

Dots gives a sad laugh at her own writing, the small truck now in a tightly clutched fist. She releases the truck back into her desk drawer, and her knuckles from tightening pain. Dots uses her lab-coat sleeve to dry her eyes as she attempted to regain focus.

Item #: SCP-DOTS
Object Class: Sweet
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-DOTS is to be kept in a standard one-room one-bath apartment because she is lonely and just because she has enough money to buy a bigger house, she doesn't. SCP-DOTS is to be provided chocolate and chewy candy because she's a cannibal. Not really a cannibal, but her name is Candi.
Description: SCP-DOTS is very girly. She is very put together. She likes to wear patterns and be fashionable. Many of her colleges ask if she was in school for fashion design. She was, at one point. Fashion was what she had wanted to do since sometimes? She likes cute stuff and pink stuff, but what she really wanted to do was big design. Like engineering. She can make some pretty impressive things, maybe that's her anomaly, hm?

What is she doing? She has ideas. She has things she can do. Things she's started on. The blueprints for an additional five humanoid containment cells at Site-27 were screaming pretty loud. Four standard, one non-standard. That blueprint seemed pretty proud— she's already said that. She'll probably say it again. But she can't remember. She puts her computer to the side, allowing room for paper documents to have their say. She pulls out one folder and hey, that one is almost done. She grabs a pencil, marks a few lines, and it's done. It was so simple. She was so close to completion on so many things yet…yet she wasn't. So many projects only require actively doing it. Just turn her brain on for a bit and it's done. But she can't do that, can she? For some reason, it is so difficult just to pull out a paper and be focused for ten minutes. Why is that so difficult? She loves this job. And she's said that before. She'll probably say it again.

Item #: SCP-DOTS
Object Class: Sour
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-DOTS is to be kept in a standard one-room one-bath apartment because she is lonely and just because she has enough money to buy a bigger house, she doesn't. SCP-DOTS is to be provided chocolate and chewy candy because she's a cannibal. Not really a cannibal, but her name is Candi.
Description: SCP-DOTS is very girly. She is very put together. She likes to wear patterns and be fashionable. Many of her colleges ask if she was in school for fashion design. She was, at one point. Fashion was what she had wanted to do since sometimes? She likes cute stuff and pink stuff, but what she really wanted to do was big design. Like engineering. She can make some pretty impressive things, maybe that's her anomaly, hm?
Maybe what's weird about SCP-DOTS is that she feels a lot of things. She can feel one way, and express it in another. There's certain pain she's never felt, but she knows how to. She can do everything and nothing at the same time. What is she doing? She has ideas. She has things she can do. Things she's started on. The blueprints for an additional five humanoid containment cells at Site-27 were screaming pretty loud. Four standard, one non-standard. That blueprint seemed pretty proud— she's already said that. She'll probably say it again. But she can't remember. Sometimes she wishes it all would just

Stop.

Dots throws her head back in a laugh as she and some co-workers mess around with a new stock of anomalous objects in the Site-27 break-room. She's fine now.


"Excuse me?" Antony asked.
"Banishment," the woman answered. "You are forbidden from stepping foot onto territory controlled or monitored by the Foundation starting today. This includes outer space and parallel dimensions."
"This is ridiculous. I've been at this Site for seven years, that's not a thing that happens. How would that even play out?"
"Let me give you some advice," the woman said, leaning in close to Antony. "It was a 7-6 decision for this punishment, and you know too much for us to simply remove your memories and reintroduce you to society. It's this or execution."
Antony chose to crush the arm of his office chair, rather than bury his face into the computer terminal on his desk. Of course exposing a bureaucratic system would lead to a bureaucratic response. He waited for an unreasonably rickety bridge to erupt out of the floor, leading to an arena of red horns and pitchforks.
"What does that leave me, then? Where am I supposed to go?" Antony said.
The woman pushed her drooping glasses back onto her face. "Well, I suppose that leaves you with nowhere." The door soundlessly marked her exit.
Antony's face toppled into his hands. He couldn't tell whether the liquid staining the sleeves of his shirt was sweat or tears, but he didn't care. Anything that would absorb this moment would suffice. His head was spinning, and he knew it would only be a few moments before the rest of his body received the doomsday signal.
It started in his heart, which drummed painfully across his rib cage and spine. Blood gushed through his veins. Electricity dripped along the overcharged wiring in his brain. He felt his soul mutate into a fiery, formless state. Before he could work out a way to calm himself, his legs gave way.
Antony collapsed onto the terminal, a paint-peeling screech choked his eyes and ears. He scoured his surroundings, but found no source. It had to be an anomaly, a specter designed to torture him. Blood began slowly trickling out of his ears, staining his hair. His hands pounced at the monitor, grabbing and clawing like a rabid animal. The computer nearly detached from the table.
His arms became weak; years worth of wailing had whittled his strength to nothing. His fingers uncurled, and nerves across his body flared. He wondered if this was his punishment, the alternative. He would have his life, but only the mangled piece that remained. With a single granule of energy left, Antony lurched into the edge of the screen.
The sound of rubbing glass filled the air as the monitor gave way. Inch by inch, it stretched and widened beyond the limits of the terminal. It flew across the office, engulfing everything in black glass. Antony collapsed to the sanitized carpet, the specter still roaring even in the face of his creation.
It was a door.
After a handful of moments, it awoke, sucking the color out of the world. A whirlwind of light and pain and sound flooded past Antony. Dingy glass turned to wood, dull grays turned to brass. His muscles defrosted, and he took in a grateful breath. When the storm finally settled, Antony was alone with the doorway.
He stepped through, and was met with a room of pristine white. It was perfectly symmetrical, and at least three times his height. A series of dotted lines divided each wall into nine equal segments. Chunks of dislodged concrete peppered the floor and stuck impossibly to the ceiling. The ceiling lines, however, remained perfectly intact.
"Hello? Is there someone…" Antony croaked out to the whiteness.
He wanted to say more — his tongue was already twisted into position for the next word — but his mouth went limp. A blanket fell onto Antony's mind, and tied his thoughts down. A rebellious syllable would sometimes escape, but its followers would immediately be washed away. He let out a silent groan, rubbing his temples.
Then his body entered freefall. At least, that was the closest thing he could compare it to. His hair spiked as cold air rushed in and out of his lungs, forcing him to breathe. He fell to his knees. Was this his fate? To be paralyzed in a blank room for all of eternity. Was this what banishment entailed? He was riddled with theories, but none stuck.
A wave of fire swept across Antony's hands. His back arched, and his legs slowly rose. Antony whipped his body around and saw a naked man with jet-black skin. The man tilted his head, allowing Antony to view his featureless face. As Antony climbed to the ceiling, he kept his eyes trained on the man. He looked as lifeless as the concrete he was standing on.
Antony landed on his back, and searched for somewhere to anchor himself. He chose a corner near a large crevice. Wiping blood and sweat from his ears, he returned his gaze to the man. He wasn't there. Antony scanned his surroundings hundreds of times, but there was no sign that any living thing besides him had spent a second in this room.
"Please!" Antony cried out, the sharp sound making him clutch his ears. "Please," he whispered, "if you're outside of the Council, then please… let me leave. There are so many more… fucking idiots that will come here. You can let one go."
Antony rested his head against the wall as he waited for a response. Tears were pooling in his eyes, but none were foolish enough to show themselves to this man. This entity.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done any of this. I don't know why I did…"
He began to rise. His vision darted to a chunk of debris that could weigh him down, but his dangling arms lost the will to reach out. He closed his eyes, ready to be obliterated in one brutal, instantaneous moment. Instead, he felt relief wash over him as he approached the center of the room.
Antony felt renewed, like he had woken up from a dream. When his vision was freed, a rotary plate of scenes greeted it. A child in an orange jumpsuit rocking back and forth below him, a ghost in a lab coat typing on a computer above him, and a group of thirteen devils beside him. Each one appeared, disappeared, and reappeared as the room spun around Antony. He laughed. He didn't know why — and he didn't particularly want to — but he did.
After days of viewing scene after scene, however, Antony's grin faded. These people weren't real. They couldn't live or breathe or think for themselves. These were visions designed to season his soul before it was consumed by whatever sick anomaly was doing this to him. He was going to die, and he refused to give into happy fantasies.
"Stop," he said.
Antony swallowed, the sound echoing across the chamber. He began counting down from one-hundred, hoping to lose consciousness at seventy. But all was quiet as he reached sixty and fifty and forty. Upon his next revolution, Antony saw it sitting on the floor above him. It was smaller, and tossed a blue kickball to itself, which fell and rose and fell and rose in a melodic cycle.
It swiveled its neck to Antony, and approached. Each silent step wrenched the knot in Antony's throat deeper and deeper. Adrenaline shot through his brain, the last line of defense in a dying system. It stood, face to shivering face, in front of Antony, letting the kickball roll away into nothingness.
"Please," Antony begged.
A bud prickled in his neck, the jewel in a necklace of vines which wrapped around his mind. The prickling spread across his neck and chest, before suddenly snapping in a deafening roar of panic. Antony's neck opened, releasing a floodgate of blood and saliva up his face. He desperately tried to hold his neck closed as sheets of crimson crawled up his face, choking him.
His hands felt numb, though, and useless. His body failed to respond to any command, and Antony watched the color slowly filter out of his fingers. It dribbled out of his palm, chewing through the floor to form another deep-seated crack. Antony continued fighting as his vision turned from white to red to black.
And then the room was empty.


Does she?
We ask trembling
Gazing upon the void
A hole in the vast sea of stars
Waiting
Can she?
The answer a
Notion in lore unknown
So much was forgotten Somewhere
In time
Should she?
None speak of this
Black thought born from despair
Though sickened we refuse to heed
Her voice
Will she?
We strive to still
The advent of the last
Moon after moon her anguished cry
Rings forth
Do we?
Truly fathom
The task undertaken
As we wait in dread for her child's
Howl


« La Rue Macabre »

It was the third Sunday of the month, and, as usual, the folks of La Rue gathered together to tell each other their stories and trade. People came across from all planes of reality to join the day's events. There were stalls of all sorts, from ones selling simple blankets or handmade wares, to the grand bazaar stands that offered the finer choices of life. On these days currency is never exchanged for goods as it is not often useful to the residents. The price for one's wares are simple: trading valuables for stories or for other valuables.
All sorts of creatures understand that one rule, even the most recluse and alien beings understand this. Even strangers hidden under cloaks know their place.
Josephine, dressed in a cloak of black with blue trim, the colours of the Mekhanics, walked into the town. They gazed at all of the clocks that were out on sale and heard the tales from the sellers nearby. This one moved down the main street when they overheard something unique, and their metallic footsteps stopped clacking on the wood as they turned to see who had drawn their attention.
"Legends tell of a famous house, hidden deep within the swamps of La Rue. This house isn't where one would expect to see a house though, no. The house can only be found at the top of a ladder, attached to an old Elm tree. It is said that most who get lost in the swamps of La Rue may find their way to the Treehouse. There, lonely travellers may enter but never leave…"
An old man sat down with just a few trinkets and baubles on the floor, telling some young kids the tales of La Rue Macabre. This man had a toothless smile and balding head, but the way he talked was more of a young man recounting his days of adventure. This appealed to the younger ones who knew nothing of this world. As he finished re-counting the story and received finer items such as old toys and wool, the cloaked stranger moved in to talk. A quiet ticking and whirring could be heard for each movement they made.
"Uh huh," spoke a metallic voice from underneath their cowl. "That was interesting and all, but where is this weird house?"
"That depends," the old man, who spoke with a deep southern accent, sat back and smiled. "What you goin' to give me?"
"Nothing," Josephine said coldly. "I require the location of the house for Mekhanic business. It is of the utmost importance that we achieve this."
"Kid!" shouted the old man. "I am over 200 years old! I can't remember half my life, let alone where a house is!"
"Oh Mekhane," Josephine groaned. "Have you got any idea where this house is or not? If not, I will take my leave. Do not waste my time with fables!"
The old man looked around, seeing the many strange folk staring at him and the figure. He turned back to them and whispered, "Listen, we don't do that here. You want information, you must hear it the way it was told. I don't write these rules down, it was good ol' Cotton Eye Joe! Now shut up and listen."
"Ugh… Fine. Continue with your story, but get to the bits that I need."
"Ya ruined the mood now. Let me get back into it."
The old man burned some scented candles, picking them up and waving them around the air between the two. The figure coughed out loud. "The year was sometime in the early 1860s, when America was in that whole Civil War. My pappy was in that war, you see… It was actually quite a funny tale how he wound up here -"
Josephine made a clicking sound with their fingers - or the sound of two metal fingers rubbing together to make the sound - to draw the old man back to them. "Not now old man, tell me about the house."
"Gods damn you! Fine, the Treehouse is in the Swamps as I said, the only way in or out of that house is a ladder attached to an Elm tree. That tree is deep in the swamps and you aren't going to get there without some guide. Even then, the house is very picky on who enters."
"Hmmm…" Josephine looked at the elder for a few seconds before they turned to see a young man, dressed in the same robes as Josephine, approach them from the side. He looked at the pair, flicking his black wavy hair out of the way. For a split second, the old man could have sworn that his left eye was glowing. A slight humming noise could be heard from the young one.
In his hands were a few things rarely seen in La Rue - circuit boards, wires, gears, and a small fan. The old man looked at him and smiled. The Mekhanic, called Ben, looked apprehensive when he caught the old man staring at the objects in his hands, and he quickly tucked them into the satchel he wore. Josephine stepped in-between the staring eyes and their partner.
"If we give you the fan, would you point us to a guide to the swamps?"
"Yes! Give me that fan, and I'll even give you a guide!" the old man agreed excitedly.
Josephine shrugged and rifled through the satchel before pulling out the fan and tossing it at the old man. "Guide. Now."
The old man inspected it before giving it a few bites. Satisfied, he pulled out a crudely made piece of paper and handed it to the pair. "There's your guide. Happy days to you!"
"Son of a bitch," they moved in to deliver a blow to the old man before turning around to see their partner holding back their cloak. They sighed, straightened out their cloak and turned back to the old man. "I will remember this."
The old man simply grinned at them before waving them off as they moved away from him.
As the pair moved through the crowd of immortals, the cloaked Josephine looked at the piece of paper in their hands. The young Maxwellist meanwhile waved at a pair of old women draped in red and white cloth. Josephine swatted around their general area, clearing away a few bugs trying to get into the cloak.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Mekhanic. "I have yet to understand why we chose this area as our resting place. Its humid, damp, and -" they squished another bug. "There're too many bugs!"
Their partner rushed in front of them, frowning at them. "You complain too much! If you spent less time complaining, we'd be completing our objectives exactly one minute and thirty-one point nine seconds faster than our current parameters predicts. Our goal is to recover Elder Artemis and bring him back to our church. Who knows what could happen to him! We are already behind the deadlines…"
Josephine shook their head and chuckled. "Listen, Ben, I'm sorry if we're being slow about this but time isn't a factor in this plan. And besides, we have yet to run into something serious. You know how Elder Artemis is with his adventures here. Bloody old coot can't sit still for five minutes. If something happened to him, he would have escaped. He won't just keel over like the rest of these… uncultured flesh ones."
Josephine moved their hand up to Ben's head and ruffled it. Ben blushed and shuffled where he stood, looking up at Josephine and smiled. "We'll get through this. I promise," Josephine reiterated.
Ben shook his head to get the hand off and smiled. He took the guide from Josephine and examined it closely. After doing so he handed it back to his partner and extended his left hand. When he did this, a fuzzy holographic image began. The image cleared itself to an image of La Rue. The pair stared at the image for a while, until Josephine noticed the other residents staring at them.
Ben also realised this and, after drawing a route to the nearby docks, he closed his palm and walked in the path he dictated. Only then did Josephine realise how much had changed since their arrival in La Rue. The other fleshy beings wouldn't have noticed the holographic map because they weren't augmented to perceive the digital workings of WAN. Not that Josephine would understand it themselves, as they saw it as more of a stepping stone to achieving apotheosis through Mekhane's ideals.
After trekking around the city and having to double back a few times, they arrived at the docks where the boats were kept. The locals called the place Cotton Dock, after their local guardian Cotton Eye Joe, who brought in some truly big fish from somewhere deep within the swamps of La Rue. Many fishermen set up shop here or there with tools, trinkets, and books gathered from faraway lands. Many of the immortal beings, that have been in the city for most of their lifetime, visited the fishermen for trade as they are the ones that venture out of the border the most.
The pair walked along for a short time before stopping at a small tugboat. It looked like it was about to fall apart if so much as a single person stepped on board. From the look around the dock, the other boats were tending to stay away from this one as far as physically possible. Spraypainted on the backside of the erstwhile boat was its name, The Donkey's Ass. Josephine stepped on cautiously with their partner staying on the pier.
"Hello?" shouted Josephine. "Anyone here? Please speak up, our time is important," they spoke the last bit as sarcastic as is possible with a metal voice box.
"What?" cried out someone below deck. The door sprang open and out popped a dwarf with a grey beard and pirate's hat. "What does ye want, you money grabbing seaman! I got ye gold right he-" he stopped in mid-sentence as he sees the cloaked figure on his boat.
"Greetings dwarf. I am Fabricator-Faithful Josephine, of the Mekhanics. I have come here to see what your vessel has to offer."
The dwarf blinked for a few seconds before pulling out a flintlock pistol and aiming it at Josephine. "Ye got three seconds to leave before I shoot ya for saying such fancy words on me vessel!"
"Look, I don't think that's-" They stammered as the flintlock hammer was pulled..
"One…" counted the dwarf.
"Seriously, what did I do wrong -"
"Two…" the dwarf took a firing position.
"You're just being ridiculous," Josephine said before a shot went off, drawing everyone's attention towards the boat. Josephine fell to the ground at where they stood. Ben stood there, scared to move or act in any way. He stared at Josephine's body, swallowing and gulping loudly.
The dwarf walked over to the body, kicking it to make sure it was down for good. Suddenly, a hand grabbed the dwarf's leg and tripped him over. He looked up to see Josephine standing over him, shaking their head with an aggressive whirring sound.
"Why'd you do that?" Josephine said as their face was no longer cloaked. The dwarf's eyes looked at the ticking person before them. The face looked feminine, aside from the odd gear or two shifting and ticking outside of their head. There was what could be said to be hair flowing down their head, but if one were to inspect closer, they would see that it was black cables and wires made to look like hair.
"Gah!" the dwarf shouted, trying to kick off Josephine's hand off his leg. "I thought you were some land-lubbing assassin sent to kill Captain Black Jaw!"
"Black Jaw? That's your name?" said Josephine in their mechanical voice. "And besides, if I were an assassin, you would think I would have finished you off just then."
"Uh… I guess that's true. What can Captain Black Jaw do for you missy?"
Josephine shook their head. "I abandoned my gender long ago when I became Fabricator-Faithful. Now, how much is it for your services?"
Black Jaw looked at them and then at the man on the docks. "Depends, ye got gold or are ye willing to offer other services?"
"What kind of services?"
The dwarf knocked on the boat and making a dent in the floor. He then looked at the pair with a look that says, "Know how to fix a boat?" Josephine looked at Ben, who in turn began to analyse the external area of the boat. After a few seconds, Ben entered and extended his left hand. The dwarf looked at him with a questioning look before Josephine turns and nods.
"We can fix the boat after we return from our adventure. For now," they pulled out a small bag and shook it. "Would this bag of a thousand drachma coins suffice?"
The dwarf took the bag and greedily looked inside, counting and pulling out a few random coins to give them a bite. After a few moments, he grunted in assent and gave them a curt nod. "Well, consider the contract signed! Where do ye need to go? Outside of the border? Perhaps you want me to escort you for a romantic tour around the swamp? Pretty sure I got a Michael Bublé disc here for you to enjoy…"
Ben shuffled where he stood, embarrassed that the dwarf would suggest that they were there for pleasure, not business. Josephine tried not to giggle before they pulled out a map and showed it to the dwarf. They then pulled out a pen and circled a spot on the map. "We need to go to this area; we want to explore a treehouse."
"You're serious about this?" Black Jaw looked at Josephine with seriousness in his eyes. "That's deep on the other side of the lost sector."
"The… lost sector?" Ben said, looking like he is focussed on something else. "I have no record of the lost sector in our systems."
"Ha! Guess even a Hummer can't get good info!" Black Jaw laughed before clamming up when he saw Josephine looking down at him, red eyes piercing his jolly mood. "Oh uh… The lost sector was what happened when Cotton Eye Joe and Scratch fought against some… Thing. They won but that whole area is… messed up thanks to that fight. Like the trees there feel like they're watching you, or some 'orrable mutant lives underneath, waitin' for a boat to eat up. Lost a lotta good friends to that place.”
"I heard the stories of people going missing in the swamps," Ben said after blinking a few times. "Is that the reason why?"
"Who can say? That area is far enough away from here so they may not be the reason for those disappearances, but I know the fishermen are terrified of going to that area. If you want me to do this, I expect this boat to be having racing stripes and extra speed by the time we're done there."
Josephine nods. Black Jaw smiled and rushed to the Captain's cabin to start the boat up. His voice was on the intercom soon afterwards. "This is your Captain speaking; we're leaving Cotton Dock now. Please keep all limbs and non-corporeal beings in the ride at all times."
Josephine sat down beside Ben. Their limbs made the slow whirring and ticking noise, shifting and changing to suit their posture. Josephine turned to stare at Ben with dimly lit red eyes. "Don't worry about the mission, okay?"
"I wasn't. I was calculating how long it would take to complete it. It's so irritating to be away from the noosphere for this long… It's just quiet."
Josephine kissed Ben on the cheek and cuddled him. "It's okay. We'll be in and out, ten minutes tops."
"According to my estimates and data, we should be there in approximately three days and four hours, seven minutes and ten seconds… now."
They smiled before Ben received another kiss from them. "Nerd."

The Mekhanics of La Rue Part One | The Mekhanics of La Rue Part Two »


| A Fishbowl, Shattered | An Opportunity, Gained »

“Smoke?”
“No, I don't smoke.”
“Yeah, I don't either. But it helps to have them. Puts people at ease to have a smoke.”
“I-”
“Hold on. Let's clarify what type of conversation this is. This is the type of conversation where I talk and you listen. Because I'm sure you have over a million questions and I'm not going to be able to answer them. I'll answer a few though.”
“O-”
“First, did you really see what you just saw? That will depend on a choice you're going to need to make very soon. But right now I can say that what officially happened was a simple serial murder case. What actually happened was an eleven-foot tall mammal-like reptile you might call a ‘chupacabra' came along, injected a powerful hemorrhagic poison into your neighbors and family, then sucked up their insides before we could catch it and lock it up.”
“B-”
“Stop. We don't have time for tears right now. Like I told you, you are going to make a very important choice very soon, so you need to pay attention. To make an incredibly long story short, everything is real. Everything. There are monsters, aliens, cursed objects, and anything you could ever imagine trying to hurt you out in this world that is so much bigger than you thought. You still with me?”
“Good. Let's put it like this: your world has been a fishbowl. And now, the fishbowl just shattered. Welcome to the real world. In every shadow is a new unspeakable monstrosity, a new fatal curse. A human with extraordinary and terrible powers in every crowd. And on every block of every street is a new nefarious organization trying to control them and you.”
“Don't worry, we're the good guys. And why am I saying that? Because we let you live this far. The others wouldn't do that. You're just gonna have to trust me on that.”
“Who are we? We are the SCP Foundation. That stands for Special Containment Procedures. We do three things: we secure the anomalies that go bump in the night like chupacabra back there, we contain them, so situations like this don't happens, and we do it to protect you. We're a worldwide organization composed of scientists and agents who have dedicated our lives to this cause.”
“We're going to offer you a choice. You see, we've seen your work and we like what you do. So you've got two options. Listen carefully. You may not have looked into the void but its looked back at you. Now the question: do you turn back?”
“This is a basic amnestic inhalant. Take it, and we fix your little fishbowl, and you can go back to living in it. Or you don't. That's the other option: Remember it all. Maybe you're sick of the fishbowl. Sick of the captivity and the monotony and small bubble that is your life. I don't know. What I do know is that I don't have time for you to think it over.”
“Of course, you don't just get to walk away free. You'd be one of us. No leeway with that, unfortunately. But it's not a bad position. Pay's alright, vacation hours are good. And you're spending your time literally researching the impossible. Could be worse. Not a single day is boring though.”
“Yesterday I worked with a Tibetan monk who moves at 200 kilometers per hour constantly, every day. And the day before that? A giant metal ball that turns people into living Picasso's. You'd have to see it to believe it, not that anyone should have to see something like that. It's the most wonderful and the most soul-crushing job in the world. Sometimes both in the same day.”
“So what do you think?”
“…”
“I can see the look in your eyes. You were in before I even gave you the option, weren't you?”
“Welcome to the SCP Foundation.”
“Now let's see….your name was Henry, right? Henry Dromgoole? Gonna have to change the last name. Sort of a tradition around here.”


A little arson doesn't hurt anyone, right? All she was doing was getting rid of a horrible, run-down house for pricks. 'They need this. They deserve this', she thought as she flung a crackling torch into the town's local church. Ah, a new age. It was a time of revival and rebirth. So technically, this is rebirth. In a holy way?
Either way, it could mean that-
Oh, shit. Is there a mass going on in there?
She ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, smacking her ashy hands together and grinning. 'Blanche Narivad', Mama would always say to her, 'Keep your antics up and you'll be screaming in the depths of Hell!' Sure Mama, but suddenly it doesn't apply to you when you tempt another man? Proceed with your adulteries then, Mama, because I'll see you in Hell when I-
"OOF!"
Blanche had crashed directly into a stranger. The woman towered over her. She was tall, gaunty, a phantom. Black hat, black dress, and with a lacy veil that circled delicately around her head.
"Watch where you're going, ill-face!" Blanche huffed and looked the woman in the eyes. The mysterious woman exchanged the look, so slowly and eerily it appeared non-human. She seemed to be a timid, doe-eyed woman. Except she was not.
"I believe you were the one to crash into me." She replied, Blanche struggled at first to understand the woman through a thick, posh accent but her intentions finally got through as cold and to the point.
Blanche winced and narrowed her eyes. "Foreigner, eh? Well, stop standing around! I don't want to be late for these auditions.." She didn't mention the part where she set fire to a church.
"Auditions?" The woman perked up.
"Yea. You looking for a problem?"
"Ohoho, no, no!" She chuckled, "Why, it just so happens that I am going to auditions too!"
Blanche snickered. Must be auditioning for the circus.
"Well…hehe… good luck." She mumbled, hoisted up her dress, and hurried towards the theatre.
Thank God, she won't have to see that stupid wench again.
Blanche huffed as she sat down beside the woman she had seen in the town before.
You just had to jinx yourself, huh? Now if we both get in we'll have to act alongside eachother! Acting- on stage! That is the dream. But alongside other people…blegh. Not the dream. Those in the room with her were a varied bunch, the lady sitting beside her had a dead straight posture, almost doll-like. Another woman stood across from them, her hair bulbous at the sides and pulled into two braids, with a lax face and cleaned-up clothes. And a little blond boy, who looked barely 15, strategically covering his features.
A male voice yelled from the theatre where they were supposed to audition. It had a sense of power and confidence to it. That must be the Masque himself, such a vivid character!
"Francine Delaviere! Please, hurry up!" Francine, who was the woman sitting beside Blanche, stood up and glided out of the room, hurrying on a detailed mask fit specially for her face.
Blanche was now alone with two strangers. Conversation wasn't needed, but the boy at the wall tried anyway, tracing his fingers along the wood.
"I… sure hope I am accepted. To be in acquaintance with the Masque.."
The woman across the room simply nodded her head gently, and gazed at the ceiling. A soft wailing could be heard from the theatre. Not soft, really, just far away. In reality it was incredibly loud and emotional. There was an echoed clapping, a small 'bravo' from the Masque and what seemed to be another male voice, ghastly and crisp.
The Delaviere lady floated silently back into the room, her giant coat and dress catching the air lightly and making it sway. You could swear she was a ghost. She stretched and said,
"Exceptional, as always."
Blegh, a narcissist.
The other two in the room glanced at her, and the boy narrowed his eye. Wait.. eye? Where's his other eye? How did he lo-?
"UM… BLANCHE NARIVAD?" The Masque called. Oh shit.
She hurried her way through the arched doorway and walked directly on to a stage. It was completely dark except for the faint lights coming from oil lamps, but Blanche could make out the outlines of rows and rows of seats, curtains, and a balcony, even through the mask she had just put on. It was a big, looming theatre, that was eerily quiet as there wasn't any audience. But there was. Sitting in the front row was the Masque, his silky white shirt not even doing its job as he had it buttoned only halfway up, exposing his toned chest. His collarbones blended into a horrible black ooze that started from his neck up, and from behind his delicately made mask his head was covered in thick, slimy, dripping black lumps.
The figure next to him was quiet and tense in contrast to the sprawled Masque sitting next to him. He appeared tall and scrawny, even from a distance, showing clawed fingertips and vulture-like features. Or was that a mask?
"Ms. Narivad, would you like to begin now? I don't have forever in this body, you know."
"I believe you have around three days, my love. That victim is fresh."
The Masque quickly turned towards his companion, and his mask suddenly changed into a frown.
"Don't tussle with me, doctor. I know how long bodies last."
The Doctor clasped his talons together. "If you insist. Now, where were we?"
Blanche coughed. The Doctor flinched and opened his mouth.
"Shut. She doesn't have it." Masque put his hand up.
"But just in case-"
"No. Sit down."
Blanche looked at her hand-written script, then began to speak.
"Expressions of betrayal!
The beams of light illuminate my mouth! To limelight my screams as my purest sign of anger, then mock me,
Is nothing more than-"
"Hold on," The Masque interrupted, "Did you write this?"
"…Yes. You said we could recite our own writings or stick to the script."
"…Continue."
Blanche smiled, then began again. She threw her body around dramatically.
"-Is nothing more than an insult to my true emotions!
My sins will not be forgiven by them,
And the gate to Heaven will refuse to open unless I kick it wide!"
She said the last line as she stamped her foot and tensed up. As she ended, her voice became demanding, booming and seeping with malice. She held her power stance for a little longer, then stopped.
There was a delayed applause.
The Masque was smiling. "Bravo! That was wonderful. I enjoy the breath of fresh air that is authors who spout nonsense and hope others believe it means something. You may leave, Narivad."
Blanche took off her mask and grinned a quick flash of her yellowed teeth. She turned to leave, until the Masque spoke again. He leaned forward slowly.
"Say, Narivad. How badly do you want to be in the Troupe?"
She flinched and felt like she couldn't breath at the question.
"More than anything."
"I see. And you were the only one in your area who saw the pamphlet?"
"Most likely. I took it down and burned it before anyone else got to look."
The Doctor followed the conversation back and forth with his eyes. His blue eyes. Wait, no, his yellow eyes. Grey? You couldn't tell in the light. The Masque spoke again, smoothly and deliberately,
"Would anyone care if you left?"
Blanche's mind wandered. What was this, really? Was she going to die accepting a job? She thought about her current situation and how she has no one left but her cursed mother and the fire on the torches she burned. If she could get a job here, she could finally pursue her dreams of acting in front of everyone, and under the teachings of her biggest idol, who she had heard of through word of mouth since she was young. If his grand stories were true, and here she was finally seeing him in the flesh-and-ooze, well…
"No. Not at all."
"Very well. You may leave."
She scurried back to the door and opened it. Then she heard faint whispers between the men. The Masque wasn't a quiet man.
"Do we really need to have auditions for this? I'm getting impatient…"
"It was your idea, love. Would it be easier to just…ask them then?"
"…Maybe. Ahem, can you tell Giorno to come in, Ms. Narivad?"
Blanche stared back into his not-eyes. His change in tone made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
"You know, eavesdropping is very rude…"
She nodded and left the room faster than she was already, and could feel his cold glare upon her back.
Giorno…who was Giorno? It was one of the three other people in the room, and the tall one was named Francine so it was one of the other two. Her math classes really paid off with that one.
"Uhhh, Giorno? The Masque called you."
The boy from before jerked up. There was anxiety written all over his face as he scrambled to get up and rushed past without a word. Soon there was silence again.
Blanche could hear a muffled tenor voice with a strong vibrato from the other side. Was he singing? At this point Blanche wondered if the Masque even cared about auditions at all, and if he just wanted a following. A loyal one.
After awhile Giorno came back in. He was very, very nervous and reeked of teenage sweat. Poor boy. Blanche almost had pity for him.
"The Masque wants everyone in… he said..he said forget about t-the auditions, come in…"
Confused glances were shared as the three slowly got up and followed Giorno back onto the stage. Blanche could hear an annoyed mumble from the bulbous-haired woman, something about how she had something extravagant prepared for the audition and what-not.
"Forget the auditions, darlings!" The Masque said, as the Doctor pinched his brow in annoyance. "I've gotten bored already and i've only been through three! Barnaby-"
The bulbous-haired woman looked up. Her face did not change from its relaxed, droopy expression. The Masque continued,
"I'm guessing you already heard the questions I asked the others?"
"Yes. And I'd do everything to be in the troupe."
"Good to know. I think you all have reasons for joining and I very much appreciate the flattering stories," the Masque laughed, "About how you've heard of me! Very, very flattering…"
He got out of his seat and climbed the creaking steps up to the stage, getting uncomfortably close to the four. His voice grew more enthusiastic.
"Either way, you can see it in yourself and in the others around you. You are nobodies with nobody to go to! You all have problems and you're all losing in the game of life! We've all heard the stories. An ancient actor, forced to clamber from body to body just to spout a little passion into the world! Look at me, I'm rotting just standing here!"
Blanche was quiet. Everyone was quiet. Except the Doctor who was picking at his nails, perhaps from hearing his companion ramble about his origins many times before.
"And I'm running out of time, all the time. That's one of my problems. Mister Pestilence over here is getting me bodies quick enough, but-"
The Doctor looked up. The atmosphere went grim at the mention of both the 'Pestilence' and how the Masque possessed bodies to live, then die again.
This seemed to make things a lot more personal, as the group huddled closer, like they all shared a tendency for the gruesome and grizzly.
The Masque sighed. "What I'm saying is, I want to live. I want to act. But I can't do that without…well…do you get me?"
Giorno stepped back instinctively. "Wait! You're not going to use us, are you?!"
"Silly boy, not at all!"
He raised his arm to smack Giorno on the back of the head, saw him recoil, and stopped.
"…I wasn't going to touch you anyway. You'll get hurt. Stand up, boy!"
Glancing at his hand, Blanche could see it was pulsing and seeping with the black slime, and then noticed the small, darkened erosions on the armrest he had his palm on during the auditions. She watched Giorno timidly fit back into the small circle they had made. Masque glanced at him gently, then continued.
"I don't trust humans, but I would like some help, and what better a group then die-hard followers who also have a flair for the dramatics! You can help my companion and I find those poor, poor victims carrying what plagues them, and in return we can travel the world and show them what peculiar people like you are really worth! No more being in the shadows!"
Blanche spluttered, "What is it that we're getting into?"
The Masque looked humoured.
"Depends. For now, we could call it a little…partnership. You could say it in a sense that no one will know where you are and if you try to leave I'll kill you, but if you want to choose that route…"
"I'm in, don't worry." Blanche nervously grinned. She was not a fan of dying.
"Wonderful! As for the rest of you?"
There was a collective nod from the other three. They felt stronger as a group already but panicked in a sense that they were practically forced into a devout following with their idol and his strange companion. But, they'd follow the Masque wherever he went, because he understood them. That was an unspoken rule in the all-new and extravagant Theatre Troupe. The troupe sticks together, and stays together. They weren't alone anymore, they were family. A family full of lowlifes who worship an enthusiatic mask, but one none-the-less.

« A Good Actor Never Dies | Orchestra Del Masque »


Things had gone to hell and it wasn't Niles Hessen's fault. She had cautioned against the scorched-earth approach. She warned that they were playing with forces that could cause reverberations they would live to regret. She had stood at that podium, facing a rounded dais of seven impassive faces, begging them to reconsider. The tallest of them raised an eyebrow.
“I don't see why we can't treat this like any other religion that grows out of control,” said the - she didn't know his position, actually. She just knew that he had clearance far above hers and would decide if they would wipe the Veldt off the face of the earth entirely.
“This isn't a religion,” she'd said, tone urgent and face flushed. “This is older than that. The scrolls the Arnatsiaq boy showed me - the book we recovered from the den in Cairo - they're ancient. Ancient. And the things they tell you how to do, they work. We've seen it. ”
“And what would you have us do, hmm? Refuse to act, and clean up when the storm is over? Do you have any idea the amount of amnestics it would take to clean this up? What it's already taken?”
“I don't know what to do instead. I'm not going to pretend I do. I'm just saying not to do this.”
They thanked her for her time, and she was promptly ignored.
They did come to her afterwards. She proposed the Hiemal classification. A small consolation prize which she was too distraught to enjoy.

When Elle Ives noticed the cracks coming through the concrete floor of the target range, her first thought was that Niles' math was wrong. But Niles never got the math wrong. She'd said the growth pattern would take two weeks to reach them in the provisional site they'd been moved to, but it had only been three days. It wasn't that Niles was impeccable with her math - she wasn't. But she knew this and would double, triple, quadruple check to make sure she was right. She couldn't afford to be wrong.
So what would make the Verdant target them here? The answer was, of course, the children. She grabbed as much ammo as she could carry and ran, following the thing's trail to their shared target.
The creature that burst through the floor in front of the humanoid containment cells was serpentine and maggot-like all at once. It was overgrown, translucent, and pulsing, with two vestigial arms segmented like an insect's, and gave off the sickly sweet stench of rotting fruit. Seeing it rear to strike at a fleeing researcher, saliva and slime dripping from its mandibles, she understood at once why the Arnatsiaq siblings had found the Verdant disgusting. This was a thing that had bypassed fertility into fecundity.
It had already begun to strike at the doors. She couldn't kill it from here. Frankly, she wasn't sure if it was possible - between the size and whatever bizarre, broken biologies kept it going, she didn't know if it could be killed. But crippling it? That she could certainly do.
The light fixture was old, rickety, overly large, and probably not up to code. With a few well-placed shots, the fixture came down like she thought it would, taking a fair amount of the ceiling with it. No one would have judged her for thinking it was dead, given the amount of fluids that burst over the floor. But it was one resilient fuck, and as she made for the door, her leg was caught in a crushing vice.
The arms were short, but stronger than they looked. Elle screamed as they closed around her calf. The thing yanked her bodily into the air and screamed back. She opened fire on it in desperation and blind panic as it drew her towards its maw.
She must have hit something sensitive, as it flung her against the wall with a pained screech. Breathless, she tried to crawl towards the door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the point of its arm raising to spear her.
The door opened. She was grabbed by both arms and pulled inside, causing her to sob with pain as they jostled her crushed leg. She looked up to see Niles' face.
The door closed.

Niles held Elle close, heard her whisper “mon cherie” between gasps for breath, their foreheads touching. The three children behind her huddled closer together. Niles turned to them and smiled.
“It's okay. This is Elle. She's my fiancee. She's going to watch you for a while.”
“Niles.”
“I'm going to need your gun.”
“Niles, no.” She could tell that both of them were thinking the same thing - this wasn't how it was meant to be. Elle was the warrior between the two. She could fight that thing and survive - if not for her leg. They both knew that Niles facing the worm-serpent would mean her death.
But Niles didn't need to win. She just needed time. Time for the reinforcements she'd signalled for to arrive. She turned to see the fire axe in its case on the opposing wall.
“Vasily?” The oldest Arnatsiaq child looked up from where he was holding his sister. “See my jacket in the corner there? Wrap it around your hand, and break the glass to get the axe.”
He did as he was asked, handing Niles the axe. It wasn't a lot, but it was something. The solidity reassured her, if only a little.
She took a breath to steel herself.
“I love you.”
“Niles -”
But the door had already swung shut.

It swung its barbed tail at her the moment she emerged, and she jerked to the side in a spasmodic reflex, barely dodging the attack. She hoisted the gun and fired, aiming for its eyes. Maybe if she blinded it, she at least might even the odds somewhat. Her hands shook and she kept having to dodge away from its tail and arms, but she managed to burst all but one of its eyes. Three out of four, she thought, trying not to gag as its vitreous fluid spattered over her. It screamed and lunged, leaving a crater in the wall beside her.
Gotta… Gotta get it away. Away from here. Can't risk it bursting through the wall. Okay. Okay.
“Okay.” She gulped hard and shot it a couple of times in the jaw, and then ran down the hallway.
Just keep buying time.

Something pinged on the computer terminal inside. Elle made to get up, but her leg protested, sending white-hot glass spines into her flesh. Vasily noticed and sent his sister up.
“What does it say, Anya?”
“Comm… communications compromised. Distress signal not received.”
Elle swore silently. Anya looked back at her brother. “Vaz? Are… are they gonna leave us here? They're not gonna send help?”
“It's okay,” Vasily said, after a pause. “Someone will come. Someone always does.” He looked fearfully at Elle. Elle gestured for them to crowd around her.
“Someone always comes,” Elle said. “I met Niles - Dr. Hessen - on a day like this. A different day. A different monster. We were in a room together. A little smaller than this one.”
“Tell us,” Vasily said, moving closer and pulling his sister with him. Dimitri remained in the corner, hands clutched in prayer, lips moving silently.
“It was funny…” Elle looked up, trying to hide how much the pain from her leg was affecting her. “I was new, then. They'd recruited me. From the French foreign legion. I was slated to be a field agent, but I was stationed at a Site in Canada while I was waiting for my assignments. It was a small Site. Bigger than this one, but small. You start to recognize faces. And I kept seeing her. I could never really find a good way to talk to her, though. She seemed sweet, and jumpy, and smart, and I - well. I'd done a lot of things I wasn't proud of. She seemed too good for me.”
She sighed.
“But we ended up hiding in the same office room during the breach. I didn't even do it on purpose. We talked to pass the time. I asked her about the breach. She wasn't scared - she knew what had gotten out, how it behaved. She told me how long we had to wait for it to calm down, and she was right. But, you know? I… When the all clear went out? I was sad, in a way. We had gotten to talk a bit about ourselves, and I… I liked her more with every word. I didn't want to let her go.”

Niles was heaving for breath. She leaned against the wall for support, only to have to jump away when the worm's tail smashed inches from her face. The gun had been discarded long ago - she'd run out of ammo after managing to blind its final eye. It could still track her, though - sunken pits below its eyes kept flaring and hissing. Heat sensors, she'd realized. Like snakes have. She was bleeding from so many cuts, though none of them had been deep enough to kill. Not yet. She was so tired. She was wearing it down as much as it was exhausting her, and she didn't think she would be the one to be left standing. But she couldn't think about that right now.
Its right leg stabbed at her, and she blocked it with the axe, managing to land a good blow in return. She swung, and swung, and swung again, hitting the joint or close to it each time, finally cleaving the segment from the rest of the limb. She sighed and took one moment to breathe.
One moment too many. The barbed tail swung, and half her world went dark. A torrent of warm liquid ran down her cheek, and fireworks of pain exploded along the left side of her face.
“Fuck you! Fuck you fuck you fuck you!” Niles clutched one hand to her ruined eye, gripped the axe, and charged, screaming, not caring if she lived or died, just wanting to see the fucker bleed. She was going to die, but she was going to at least try and take the damned thing with her.

Inside, a boy prayed to every god he'd learned in his books.
One of them listened.

Elle was almost unconscious, the two Arnatsiaq children curled up next to her in a frightened huddle. Before she slipped into sleep, she tasted something that she hadn't tasted for years. Something she hadn't tasted since Tunisia.
Desert sand.

The creature shrieked, its tail buried in Niles' stomach. She felt the barb's presence lessen until it was gone - she looked down to see it had dissolved into sand, which was growing red with blood. Her blood. A warm red light suffused her vision. Dry, hot wind moved her hair. Two canid creatures walked towards her, sniffing gently at her wounds. One licked at the space where her eye should have been. The other nuzzled at the wound in her abdomen, keening softly.
Footsteps. Niles looked up. A tall, dark-skinned man with the head of a strange dog stood before her, dressed in brass armor.
Niles had spent many, many days in her youth reading myths. She knew their stories instinctively, innately. Even on the verge of death, she knew who she was seeing.
She bowed her head and placed a hand on the ground in supplication.
“Lord Set.”
“Hello, Daughter of Thoth. I cannot say I expected this.”
“I'm sorry, my Lord. I tried, I -”
“You did very, very well. I would not have expected such a valiant effort even from one of my own, to whom war comes so naturally. Sekhmet herself would be proud, little scholar.”
Niles nodded. Everything was starting to go hazy around the edges. She couldn't quite feel her hands.
“In the other room - my fiancee - the kids - please -”
Set placed a finger to her lips. “I know. Don't be worried. They are safe.” Niles nodded once more, and collapsed. As her vision went dark, she felt herself being lifted and held in strong arms.
“I'm sorry, little scholar. This wasn't the path you were meant for, but it is the one we need you to walk. Let's see if we can't save you yet.”

Niles woke up in a soft bed with a warm, furry presence beside her. She reached out, thinking it was one of her plushies that she'd knocked away in the night, but she started awake when it moved.
The canid from before, with its strange ears and forked tail, lay on her comforter. It looked at her with bright and curious eyes. Her plushie lay to its side. She picked it up out of habit, and extended her other hand to stroke the creature's fur. It was softer than she expected. She made to get out of bed, but found her legs shaky. The canid moved to her side, letting her bury her fingers in the tuft of fur at its shoulder to stabilize herself. She made her way down the stairs, the canid's presence reassuring her that she would not fall.
There was a god in her kitchen. Set was eating graham crackers out of the box and inspecting her favorite corgi mug. Niles yelped and bowed out of instinct.
“My lord, I hope my humble home is to your liking.”
He looked up and chuckled softly. “Relax, little scholar. There's no need for the formality, eh? We're at war. No time for pomp.”
“Where's Elle?”
“Your fiancee is outside, tending to the children and the animals.” Seeing Niles' confusion, he elaborated. “Her leg has been fully healed. Bone is something we work well with.”
Of course. He's a Veldt-aligned deity. They mold bone like clay. A broken leg is nothing.
Niles raised her hand instinctively to her eye. Set's expression changed, and Niles' stomach dropped.
“I cannot heal what will not grow back naturally.” He pushed her phone towards her, looking apprehensive. She braced herself as she opened the photo app and flipped the camera.
“However, if a substitute becomes available, we can certainly replace.”
She had two eyes. One was its normal golden brown, the same color she'd woken up to every morning.
The other was brilliant orange, the color of some wolf's eye, or great cat, or -
“Taken from a goshawk. One of the family's. We didn't kill him just for this, don't worry - he died warning us of the Verdant's presence.”
“They're coming here?” Niles clutched her plushie tighter instinctively.
“Oh yes, little scholar. We're at war.” Set looked out the window, his gaze becoming inscrutable. “Don't worry - your house has been warded. Nothing will get in here unless it is a friend of yours or of mine. The young Arnatsiaq boy - Dimitri - he shows something of a talent for the art. As do you, I think.”
“Me?”
“You've got potential. There's a well within you, young one, and it runs very deep. You could make quite the mage. And you already know the ways of the hunters. Predator behavior and psychology - if you're going to be a scholar right now, that's the best possible subject.” He smirked. “You're certainly not perfect, but I'll take what I can get.”
Niles decided to take that as a compliment, even if backhanded.
“Eat. We're headed back to your Site at noon. We're going to look for survivors, gather information, assess resources.”
He pushed a banana and a half-eaten bag of pork jerky towards her. Niles took it and ate. She had had weirder breakfasts.

Elle embraced her fiancee so tightly that Niles had to wheeze something about her ribs for her to even consider letting go. She didn't.
“They'll fix them if I break them, anyway.” She looked her fiancee in the eyes. “I thought you were dead.”
“I -”
“Never do that to me again.” Before Niles could reply, she pulled her close and kissed her hard.
Vasily coughed, and Elle pulled away. “Okay, we can't all fit in my car, so -”
Set waved a hand. “It's covered. I'm borrowing a ride.” He gestured, and a burnished, glimmering wooden raft appeared beside them. It had sails of linen and gilded accents. Elle placed a hand on its surface, which was warm to the touch.
Niles' eyes were wide. “Is that the Solar Barque? The one that rows Ra across the Duat every night?”
“Yes. Well, one of them. We're just gonna have to get it back by nightfall. Otherwise I'm going to get yelled at by corporate.”
Niles stood there, stunned. Elle looked at her and smiled crookedly. “You heard the man. Limited time offer. Let's go.”

The site was in ruins when they arrived. There was a hole in the cracked and shattered floor where the wyrm (Niles was proud of that name) had burrowed up and gone on its rampage. Parts of the ceiling had collapsed from the seismic activity. Chunks of concrete and drywall were everywhere.
Set had taken the kids to retrieve their belongings from the site, while Elle and Niles went to search for survivors, with the canids serving as makeshift sniffer dogs.
“Maybe we should split up?” Niles suggested, but Elle looked at her like she was crazy.
“I am not letting you out of my sight for the next week, petit colibri. We're a package deal. Where you go, I go. At least until we can get some ground under our feet.”
“All right. Can't promise I won't get on your nerves.”
“You never annoy me,” Elle said, and took Niles' hand.
They didn't find a lot of bodies. They did find some alarmingly large bloodstains and occasional pieces of viscera, which were somehow more disheartening. At least bodies could be identified. You couldn't bury a bloodstain.
It scared them both when an arm they'd previously thought to be separated twitched. The rubble surrounding it shifted, causing a shower of debris.
“Holy shit.” Niles said.
Elle was already moving chunks of concrete. “Stay still,” she warned. “Don't move. We'll get you out, all right?”
Piece by piece, they uncovered the survivor. A short black woman, face colored grey by concrete, looked up at them.
“Hessen? Ives?”
“Harolds!” Niles knelt and hugged her colleague.
“Jesus fuck. Thank Christ. I thought everyone else was dead.”
“They still might be. Are you hurt? Follow my finger with your eyes,” Niles said, testing Harolds' vision.
“I think I'm okay. Nothing broken. Bruised as hell, but all my parts intact. I just got caught under the rubble. Holy shit, what's with your eye?”
“Long story. We should check her for compartment syndrome later,” Elle suggested.
Niles nodded, helping Harolds to her feet. “Let's get her back to the others.”
“Others?”
“Yeah, the Arnatsiaq kids made it out.”
“Really? Holy shit. Wait a second, who are these? Are those 3807's dogs? Is he here?”
“Yes, but don't call him that.”
“How the hell -” Harolds began, but was interrupted by the appearance of Vasily Arnatsiaq. The boy had always looked slightly forlorn, with the thin face and dark circles under his eyes, but he looked absolutely defeated now.
“You should come see this. He asked for me to come get you.”
“All right. Show us.”
He beckoned, and they followed. They found Set and the remaining Arnatsiaqs standing in front of a concrete wall - the only one left standing and whole in the entire building. That was not the interesting thing about it. The feature of interest was the enormous topiary of sorts that had grown on it, or possibly out from it. It was ivy and moss and vines, forming an immense, complex, viridescent pattern. A stag's head, its antlers branched out into tree's limbs, forming a circlet around the cervine sigil.
They all stared in silence for a few moments.
Harolds broke the silence. “I'm sorry, I'm confused. Is that the goddamn Milwaukee Bucks symbol?”
“It is,” Set explained, “the sigil of our enemy, the chief deity of an ancient primal force that will eradicate this world and remake it into a twisted facsimile of what once was. This is the mark of Cernunnos.”
Niles blinked and stared into space. “Sometimes things bleed over. Over into the non-anomalous. Symbols get borrowed and shared and stolen until no one knows where they came from anymore.” The explanation seemed to be more for herself than anyone else.
Elle clarified. “You know what, sure. It's the Milwaukee Bucks logo.”
Niles felt the same sense of wrongness that she had felt from watching James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause in a film class in college, and upon seeing Dean's famous line of “You're tearing me apart!” being reminded of Tommy Wiseau's butchered “homage” in The Room. The feeling you had when you learned of the parody or the imitation before the original, and now the order of association is all wrong in your brain.
This was going to be a very strange war.