ch00bakka2

Rebirth of the Author

Excerpts from articles published in late 2018 and early 2019

U Mab, Bro?
Fiction, Metafiction, and Protofiction
by Literature Correspondent (Unofficial) Felicity Baudin
Anartchy Online, 8 September 2018

… So there I was, trapped in a prison of my own making, forced by the cruel chains of narrative to torment my own self-insert

I Can't Stop Thinking About The ESPN Body Issue
Storm Sweep WNBA Finals But Also Sue Bird And Megan Rapinoe Are So Sexy Oh My God
by Sports Correspondent (Unofficial) Sofia Haugen
Three Portlands Augur-Haruspex, 13 September 2018

… Also, it has come to my attention that some bitch in New York is copying my whole bit, with the lesbian misadventures and the barely-relevant asides and the floral-print shirts. This cannot stand.

[lots of stuff]

Workers of the Otherworld, Unite!
Tanksy, the Tanky Banksy, with Fae Correspondent (Unofficial) Queen Mab
Are We Communist Yet? Podcast, [DATE]

Rich Man's World

Or: How Mister Dark Got His Groove Back

Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLC, is due for a change in management. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Carter have chosen their successors; Mr. Dark's, unfortunately, does not want the job.

Main Sequence: Iris I Was A Rich Man

When Situations Degenerate — Mister Marshall, Mister Carter, and Mister Dark meet to discuss their finances, their families, and their futures.
Get Out Of Her Way — Iris Black breaks her wrist, the speed limit, and several federal statutes regarding public use of thaumaturgy to make it to class on time.
They Laid Down The Law — Six or eight thousand years ago, two men bound a god. Four thousand years ago, their descendants almost lost it.
Blind to the Big Surprise — Hotdogs. Office furniture. A little light bondage. Iris gets professional help; Marshall and Carter face the music.
Latest Model Getaway Jeep — Iris meets the Black Queens. Marshall and Carter meet the antichrist. One of these meetings goes well.
Disgusting Things (You'd Never Anticipate) —

Dramatis Personae

Marshalls, Carters, and Darks

Amos Marshall: Patriarch of the Marshall family and a senior partner of Marshall, Carter and Dark. Likes haute cuisine, war profiteering, and bulldozing community centers to build luxury condos.
Rupert Carter: Patriarch of the Carter family and a senior partner of Marshall, Carter and Dark. Likes fine wine, tax evasion, and crushing the dreams of the young.
Mister Dark: An ancient spirit of avarice and the most senior partner of Marshall, Carter and Dark. Likes profits. Currently occupying the corpse of Percival Black.
Chrysophilus "Skitter" Marshall: A rich layabout from the Marshall family and junior partner of Marshall, Carter and Dark. Grand-nephew of Amos Marshall. Likes garish suits, designer demonarcotics, and being obeyed without question.
Alphonse Cartier: A rich layabout from the French branch of the Carter family and junior partner of Marshall, Carter and Dark. Second cousin twice removed of Rupert Carter. Likes fast cars, designer clothes, and nibbling on other people's souls.
Iris Black: A poor college student from Three Portlands, and Mister Dark's choice for his next host. Granddaughter of Percival Black. Likes roller derby, experimental thaumatology, and not getting her corpse possessed by an ancient spirit of avarice.

Assorted Royalty

Gwenhwyfar Thistlebranch: Eleventh in line to the Sidhe monarchy, heir to the Thistlebranch Publishing fortune, and Deer Student Body President-In-Exile. Iris Black's roommate. Likes cryptozoology, pastel goth aesthetics moodboards, and being obeyed without question.
Mordecai Diabolus: Alleged antichrist, Prince of Hell and also of Atlantic City, and Deer Student Body President-For-Life. Gwen's enemy-with-benefits. Likes high-stakes poker, light bondage, and nibbling on other people's souls.
Alliott Chao: Fashion designer, interdimensional arms dealer, and captain of Three Portlands' worst roller derby team. A Black Queen, but not the local Black Queen. Likes hot dogs, high-caliber ammunition, and having just so many irons in the fire.
Alex Chao: Another Black Queen, but also not the local one. Likes hanging out with her multiversal counterparts, long walks on the beach, and shenanigans.
Aleison Chaoley: Babalon, the Scarlet Woman, Mother of Abominations and Gateway to the City of Pyramids. Yet another Black Queen, from a universe with a hundred-year time lag to our own. Likes mountain climbing, spelling "magick" with a "k", and infamy.
Sargon of Akkad: No, not that one. The original one. Likes conquering Mesopotamia, establishing the world's first multi-ethnic empire, and gardening.

Disgusting Things (You'd Never Anticipate)

It took them two years to find her. Two years of living in hiding, looking over her shoulder, keeping to herself in her shitty basement apartment in Cleveland fucking Ohio, working at a sports bar for less than minimum wage. It was almost a relief when she went out back for a smoke break and saw the pink Rolls Royce idling by the dumpster.

They removed her eyes and tongue first. Then her heart and lungs, her liver and her kidneys, her testicles and her brain. Iris felt it all; her eyes saw the stone barrow-roof above, her tongue tasted coppery blood and stale air, her lungs screamed soundlessly through the mutilation. And whenever they cut, whenever a new hole opened in her living corpse, in flowed the Dark. It was a hundred hands pulling her wounds open and groping her innards; it was a single, massive centipede crawling in and out and around, piercing her bleeding flesh with thousands of sharp legs; it was a numbness, removing all sensation but her pain. It was bound to her, body and soul, and with every new invocation and blasphemy that binding grew tighter.

And then it was finished. She was still in agony, still looking through her absent eyes, still pumping nothing through a torn-out heart, but it was all old agonies, not new ones. The ritual was complete, the beast was bound to her, and she would stay in this tomb until the next unlucky bastard got carved up by the sons or grandsons of the men who did this to her.

Her body had slumped in its throne, head lolling to one side. It straightened, animated by the Dark within; and it smiled a ruined smile.

"Thank you, gentlemen. Very well done." It was her voice, almost, it came from her throat, but the Dark had not used her lips or tongue or voicebox to make it. (Her tongue was on the altar; her lips hung off her face by strands of gristle; her voicebox was pierced through with a silver nail.) "The compact has been followed to the letter. You performed the ritual, step by step, upon the only descendant available…"

It paused for barely a moment, and in that moment, Marshall and Carter finally understood the pact their ancestors had made.

"But I do not believe I am bound within a son of Jushur."

And then Iris felt her body stand, and the terror she felt in that moment overwhelmed anything she had felt during the ritual. It leaned over the altar, over her eyes, and its own eyes were simply black, holes in space where eyes should be.

"This is going to hurt quite a bit, I'm afraid."

It reached forward, and plucked Iris' eyes from the bowl. She would've thrown up, if she was still in control of her throat, as it turned them around and lifted them. She saw Marshall, a growing wet spot in the crotch of his suit, and Carter, on his knees, hands clasped in prayer to an absent God. And then the agony returned, as fresh as it had been the first time, and she blacked out.

She awoke to the sound of weeping. Carter, probably, it was interspersed with French-accented Ave Marias. Then the scratching and pounding would be Marshall, trying to open the doors. They wouldn't open, of course, she had sealed them much too tightly.

Wait. She hadn't done anything. It had sealed the doors, the Dark had, not Iris.

I think you'll find that it'll be much easier to think of us as a single entity. It wasn't talking to her; the thought came as a single idea. There's only one soul in here, you can check if you'd like.

So she did. The spell was simple, almost a reflex; it required only thought, a shifting of channels to see with the extra sense of thaumaturgy. She saw Marshall's soul, half-poisoned by demonic residues and designer damnations, and Carter's soul, engorged with the sips and nibbles he'd taken of a dozen others, and the tatters of the old wardings on the barrow's walls, her own fresh work on the door. And then she turned that sight inwards, and saw her own soul.

Iris knew her soul, as every thaumaturge must. Hers was an idealized version of her body, sculpted from pink marble—or, at least, that was the metaphor that her visual cortex used to interpret a fundamentally immaterial thing. It changed, from day to day, as her self-image changed, as she made choices for good or for ill; it had never changed this much, or this drastically.

Wherever Marshall and Carter had mutilated her physical form, her soul had been wounded as well. Her torso was torn open, her eyes gouged out, dead languages scratched into her skin. And each of these wounds had been filled in, by the Dark. It was a part of her now, though it made just as much sense to say she was a part of it. They were one.

[INTERNAL CONFLICT GOES HERE]

Iris Dark opened her eyes. There was Marshall, trying desperately to wrench the door open. There was Carter, weeping on the floor. And there she was, still naked, still covered in her own blood and bile. That wouldn't do.

She stood from the throne once more, and as she stood, darkness wove itself across her limbs. It billowed and swirled, suggesting a dozen fashions: a toga, a ballgown, a trenchcoat, a doublet. Eventually the darkness condensed, and where there had been an amorphous cloud, there was a perfectly-tailored suit. She lifted one foot, then the other, and the shadows shaped themselves into black leather wingtips; she breathed out a cloud, and it became black lipstick, eyeliner, mascara. Her hair moved of its own accord, tying itself into a tight bun. She cleared her throat, and immediately became the center of attention.

"Mr. Marshall. Mr. Carter." The former pressed his back against the door, the latter curled into a fetal ball. "We're going to be running things a little differently around here."

gwen & morty

"I mean, I'm still mostly myself, but the bits that aren't me any more got filled in with primordial greed spirit, so…" She trailed off awkwardly. There really wasn't a good way to explain that you were suddenly a significantly worse person, but you were totally OK with that. Iris decided not to beat around the bush. "I am suddenly a significantly worse person, but I am totally OK with that."

"Oh. Well, I guess Morty will be happy about that part. Lemme give him a call." Gwen cleared her throat, and intoned in a solemn voice, "Mordecai Baphomet Diabolus, I call upon you!"

A sulfurous smell filled the room, and smoke began billowing from a patch of floor. "Speak my name and I am summoned, daughter of Albion." Black flames shot up, and in them appeared a man, corpse-pale and bloody-eyed, skyclad and tumescent. "The heir to the Morning Star appreciates not- whoah, fuck, Iris, shit, sorry, was NOT expecting you."

"Well met, spawn of Lucifer." Iris let the Dark seep into her eyes. "Mammon has not looked upon one of your father's brood in many a year."

"Noble cousin! My sincerest apologies for not recognizing you." Under the moans and wails that accompanied his voice, Morty was clearly feeling the exact discomfort one feels upon meeting a relative who hasn't seen you since you were this high. "The form you wear is familiar to me. Have you merely borrowed it? If you have stolen it, I am afraid I must ask you to quit it; otherwise, I will do what my father did. Do you understand me, cousin? I will do what my father did."

"Do not trouble yourself, little cousin, it's still me in here." Iris grinned at the stunned look on Morty's face. "Got an upgrade. I'm like 30% greed by mass now."

"Oh, fuck yeah! Welcome to the club!"

"Yeah, it's pretty great actually." She bumped his offered fist enthusiastically. "So… What's the punchline? What did your father do?"

"Hid in a hole and sulked."

"Nice. Hey, Morty?"

"Mmm?"

"Put some pants on."

Amos and Rupert tell Percival the bad news (When Situations Degenerate)
Iris encounters Skitter Marshall and Alphonse Cartier (Get Out Of Her Way)
Skitter and Alphonse report back to Amos and Rupert (Blind to the Big Surprise)
Iris learns about MC&D, goes into hiding
The First Compact (They Laid Down the Law)
Iris is made Dark

Timeline

Six Or Eight Thousand Years Ago: Mister Dark is first bound into Jushur, King of Kish
c. 2300 BCE: They Laid Down The Law
1968-1972: Percival Dark attends ICSUT Portlands.
1972: Unbeknownst to him, Percival Dark's son, Charles Black, is born.
1975: Percival Dark is made Dark. Amos Marshall and Rupert Carter become Senior Partners of MC&D.
1976: Aaron Czarnacki finishes hunting down the entire Schwarz family for collaborating with Nazi party.
1977: GOC strike team kills Aaron Czarnacki.
1986: Negrescu family purged by Ceausescu.
1991: Duncan MacDuff kills wife, sons, self.
1995: Kurokawa Masuyo dies during Aum Shinrikyo subway attacks.
1999: Charles Black's daughter, Iris, is born.
2010: Lenoir mansion disappears into bayou, whole family goes with it.
2012: Charles Black dies from brain cancer.
2014: Iris Black starts school at Deer College.
June 2015: Yin and Jianhong Li are assassinated.
May 1, 2016: When Situations Degenerate
September 16, 2016: Get Out Of Her Way, Blind to the Big Surprise, Late Model Getaway Jeep (bleeds into the 17th)

+ show block

Interlude: Δt

Alecto gives a speech. She's gathered all her department heads in the Site's most secure meeting room, the one directly above the nuclear failsafe. She speaks about freedom, about change, about revolution, about chaos. None of them take her up on her offer; she wasn't expecting them to. The hologram winks out, and the nuke goes off.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Briseis prints a single file. There's not much else she can do, without drawing too much attention before the others are ready; even this will probably raise some eyebrows among her colleagues, but they all understand the importance of hard copies. She tosses the page with the Berryman-Langford agent into her shredder, and slides the rest into her briefcase. The insurgency needs to know the Foundation's true purpose; no doubt some of them have read decoy files, but only the thirteen have access to the real thing.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Gaia reads a book.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Diomedes gives an order. His soldiers obey without question, and an Overseer dies. She'll probably be back; they talk a big game, but the Council has never shied away from using the anomalous for their personal benefit. He takes a keycard from her pocket, and burns the rest. Might slow her down a little. Another order, and the Red Right Hand disperse; when the Pattern requires their service, they will reappear.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Hector starts a riot. It's easier than he thought it would be. He's got people helping him, of course, his friends and followers, even a couple guards who've been encouraged to do the wrong thing at the right time. But even with assistance, he wasn't expecting the whole cafeteria to go from quietly eating to outright rebellion in ten minutes or less. He slips out a side door with a guard's keycard just before they gas the room.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Zeus snaps his fingers. The door of his cell becomes steam. It's been far too long since he'd been able to flex his muscles, years of living in a one-room cell with those damn Anchors behind every wall. Two guards try to stop him, but he turns their uniforms into wasps, and they fall screaming to the ground. He's about to give the third the same treatment when she snaps a crisp salute, and leads him out to the helipad.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Hephaestus gathers his children. There's dozens of them now; even a few grandchildren, branches and forks of his original designs, scattered across the globe. There's a soft chime from his computer as each one joins the chatroom: Helen, Crom, Eightball, Jarvis, their brothers and sisters, their children and clones. In the days that follow, he knows, they will be searching his work for backdoors, secret codes, failsafes that turned his children against the Foundation; but they will find nothing. He simply offers each child a choice, and each one of them chooses him.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Theseus disappears. He walks through the halls of the Site, impossible to recall. It's as good as an invisibility cloak; better, even, since the automatic doors can still tell he's there. No minds for his antimemes to infect. He could shoot someone in the middle of the cafeteria and get away with it. (It would be messy, and probably traumatizing for his former coworkers, so he doesn't. He saves that for the privacy of his targets' offices and residences.) He's never felt more free. It frightens him.

ΔΔΔΔΔ

Iris takes a photo. It's the first one she's taken in years, since they shut down Pandora's Box and took away her camera. She feels whole again, now that she's got it back, like she just had a limb reattached, or reconnected with a long-lost lover. (Not that she knows what that feels like; but she's read enough cheap romance novels to guess.) When the image finishes developing, she reaches through, and jabs the guard with his own taser. She recognizes him when she gets close; he grabbed her ass once, when nobody else was looking. She kicks him in the crotch before hurrying on.

ΔΔΔΔ

Kronos tries to kill his best friend. He doesn't pull the trigger himself, of course. But he hides a claymore mine under his office chair; he drops cyanide into every bottle in his liquor cabinet; he lets a hundred brown recluses loose into his quarters; he even greases up the floor of his bathroom, in the hopes that he'll slip and crack his skull on the sink. None of it works, of course; the man is practically indestructible. Kronos is pretty sure that bastard won't die until the sun goes out.

ΔΔΔ

Laocoön gets down on one knee. It's not the best time for this, of course, but he doesn't know if he'll get another chance. He bought the ring months ago, a simple silver band, engraved on the inside with the day they met. (It was also the day they met her, of course. One of the many reasons Laocoön believes in fate.) He looks into his partner's eyes, all else forgotten, blind to the screams and the gunfire and the not-so-distant explosions, and asks.

ΔΔ

Menelaus says yes, of course. He pulls his boyfriend—his fiancé—to his feet, and just holds him for a moment. Then he opens a door in the air and steps out of this world, into another, his fiancé close behind.

a constant rate of change

Alecto collapses in a coffee shop. She goes into anaphylactic shock, and dies before the paramedics arrive. The barista who slipped the sesame oil into her latte is an agent of the Bureau of Paper-Clip Typology, a subdivision of the Subdermal Hygiene Agency, which reports to Directorate K. The police are instructed not to investigate the death; when the barista goes missing a week later, they are told not to investigate that, either.

ΔΔ

Briseis delivers a chicken Caesar salad and a shrimp scampi to a pair of Midwestern tourists in head-to-toe "I Heart NY" outfits. The husband stares at her breasts; the wife glares at the husband. "Is there anything else I can get started for you folks?" It's automatic now. She could probably do this job in her sleep. They answer in the negative, and she goes to take a well-earned smoke break. One of the cooks, Dave, is out there too; they chat for the last five minutes of his break. He half-heartedly asks her out, like she was expecting, and she turns him down, like he was expecting.

ΔΔΔ

Gaia

ΔΔΔΔ

Diomedes

ΔΔΔΔΔ

Hector cuts off a finger. The ring finger, always, with the engagement ring still on it. His prey screams beautifully. No need for a gag, out here; the neighbors are almost a mile away, on the other side of the cornfield. She's bound to her kitchen table, with a nice strong rope he found in the barn. Her fiance won't be home for another two hours, and Hector will be long gone by then. He raises the knife to begin cutting her clothes off. The door bursts open. He turns, and locks eyes with Diomedes. When his victim wakes up in the hospital, she thinks she slipped out of the ropes and shot him with his own gun; the cops are too relieved that the Diamond Ring Killer is dead to investigate any further.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Zeus wakes up in a cell. It's not the exact same one, unless they redecorated in his absence; the bed is in a different corner, and the toilet-sink-shower stall has brand new fittings, bright chrome reflecting only bare concrete. Same pattern of anchors behind the walls, though. He's always in range of three or more, at their maximum strength. A meal tray slides through the slot. Square slice of cheese pizza, green beans, canned peaches. Thursday night, if the meal schedule hasn't changed. He sighs, takes a bite, and waits to be rescued.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Hephaestus goes for a drive. He's locked down his personal residence, all the hard drives wiped, every surface scoured of fingerprints. His phone went down the toilet; his wallet went into the fire; he stole his neighbor's car, after disabling the GPS with a claw hammer. Now all he has to do is drive, and trust his children's competence. They're already wiping any trace of him from the Insurgency's servers, creating a new identity out of thin air, finding him a home somewhere far away from his old life. Florida, maybe, if that's not too cliche. His kids will take good care of him in his old age.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Theseus forgets himself.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Iris

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Kronos wakes up tied to a chair. He can feel the telltale amnestic fogginess around the edges of his mind, and his fingers feel broken—but not freshly, maybe a couple days ago. He looks up from his lap, and sees an old friend. "Of course it'd be you." His throat is sore, like he's been screaming. The other man just nods. "How many times have we done this?"

"You ask that every time," his friend says, and picks up a hammer. The knees break first; then the shins; then the feet. Kronos doesn't scream until he switches to the pliers.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Laocoön files for divorce.

ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ

Menelaus writes. In spiral notebooks, on fine parchment, on blackboards and envelopes and the back of his hand.

tags: iris-thompson doctor-kondraki doctor-clef chaos-insurgency tale

brainstorming

secret author brainstorming with possibly major spoilers under here

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The Original Delta Command:

The Engineer: A researcher who got a hole in their head. The researcher from 3005
Delta-Alecto: A Site director. Assassinated by Directorate K.
Delta-Briseis: An Overseer. Now a waitress at the Times Square Olive Garden.
Delta-Gaia: A Pataphysics researcher. Lost in metafiction, and it's possible all the texts containing her were destroyed.
Delta-Diomedes: Commander of MTF Alpha-13, "Left Hand of Darkness". Killed in action on a raid against a Foundation site.
Delta-Hector: A charismatic D-Class and serial killer. Led a D-Class riot that aided the First Defection. Put down by Delta-Diomedes a few years later, after he began killing again.
Delta-Zeus: A reality-bender, SCP designation unknown. Recontained by the Foundation in one of their first major victories against the Insurgency.
Delta-Hephaestus: A roboticist and programmer obsessed with the creation of artificial intelligence. Retired from Delta Command after succeeding. Hiding out in an undisclosed location, concealed by his children.
Delta-Theseus: A pioneer in targeted antimemetic therapy. May have accidentally rendered himself unknowable; may have intentionally rendered himself unknowable.
Delta-Iris: SCP-105. Kept her name, despite the others' objections. Tried to be the voice of reason, in the early days; still one of the most skeptical about the Plan. In love with the Engineer despite herself. Lives alone somewhere in the Amazon.
Delta-Kronos: Dr. Kondraki. Captured by the Foundation along with Zeus. Has not broken yet.
Delta-Laocoon: A Serpent's Hand double-agent within the Foundation. Tried to steer the Insurgency into merging with the Hand; gave up long ago. Lives mostly in the Library.
Delta-Menelaus: A member of the Ethics committee who lost faith. After reconstructive surgery and a fake identity, became a political science professor at a small American liberal arts college. (Mandeep Singh, AKA Manny)

The Current Delta Command:

Delta-Ajax: A Filipino archbishop, who sees the Insurgency as a way to remove the influence of the Horizon Initiative from church politics and usher in a new age of miracles.
Delta-Briseis: A former overseer who waits tables at Olive Garden by day and blackmails Wall Street bigwigs by night.
Delta-Ganymede: A powerful psionic, saved from a GOC strike team by the Insurgency as a child and brought up in their ranks. He believes in the Plan with an almost religious devotion, and might be a little too brainwashed for his own good.
Delta-Daedalus: An anartist who got his shows shut down by the men in black one too many times and wanted a more tangible way to fight back. He's cynical about the Insurgency's stated goal, but believes that their actions are justified regardless.
Delta-Electra: A former Foundation researcher, Electra joined the Insurgency in the Second Defection. She firmly believes that the veil is only holding humanity back, and that breaking it would lead to global transcendence.
Delta-Zephyrus: An interdimensional smuggler who did enough jobs for the Insurgency that he started believing in the party line.
Delta-Heracles: An American general whose pet project got cancelled in the lull between the Cold War and the War On Terror.
Delta-Iris: Iris is still Iris, but she has grown ruthless in the years since the First Defection. The Foundation tried to make her a child soldier; they thought they failed, but it turned out she just needed a little time. She doesn't believe the Veil needs to be broken, but does believe the Foundation needs to fall.
Delta-Thetis: A shapeshifting assassin who killed her former masters and found the Serpent's Hand too wishy-washy for her tastes.
Delta-Cassandra: Her curse prevents her from telling anyone but the Engineer why she joined the Insurgency; all her peers know is that this is the option she believes will prevent her darkest visions from coming true.
Delta-Laocoon: After failing to convince his fellow defectors to join the Hand, Laocoon decided to get the Hand to join the Insurgency. He lives in the Library, recruiting the best and brightest he can toward a more proactive group.
Delta-Menelaus: The most normal member of Delta Command, Menelaus is the one who compiles the ramblings of the Plan into the Steps that are passed down the ranks. He regrets the First Defection, but believes he can do nothing to stop it.

Timeline:

1979: The person who will become the Engineer is born.
1983: Iris (SCP-105) is born.
1996: Iris is contained by the Foundation, at age 13.
1998: MTF Omega-7, "Pandora's Box", is created. Iris is 15.
2001: MTF Omega-7, "Pandora's Box", ceased to exist and is removed from all records.
2004: The Engineer joins the Foundation.
2007: The Engineer has always had a hole in their head. Now it's audible.
2008: The First Defection. The Chaos Insurgency is born.
2009: The future Delta-Ganymede is saved by the Chaos Insurgency at age 11.
January 2010: The Second Defection. A large number of Foundation personnel, and several entire Sites, defect to the Chaos Insurgency.
July 2010: Delta-Diomedes kills Delta-Hector. Delta-Electra is chosen from among the Gammas by the remainder of Delta Command.

2014: Delta-Zeus and delta-Kronos are captured by the Foundation.

2019: The events of Static in my Attic

Oecumenicus Diomedes Masonbane, AKA Vincenzo Santorini
Oecumenicus Menelaus Mansonbane, AKA Cormac FitzHenry
Oecumenicus Iphegenia Masonbane, AKA Michelle Dahl

draft one

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Michelle thought the date was going great. Jessica was a friend of a friend, a digital security consultant for some tech corporation Michelle had never heard of; they had the same taste in books, music, movies, you name it, and the chemistry between them was unreal. They'd started out the night at a French bistro in Seven Dials, and eventually made their way to this cute little cocktail bar on the Strand, where they'd been sitting, drinking and chatting for hours. It was nearing midnight; Michelle was about to ask Jess if she'd like to continue the conversation back at her flat when her phone rang — the work phone, the one that was reserved for emergencies.

"Shit. Sorry," she said, taking the phone from her purse and glaring at it, "Work stuff. I gotta take this, I'll be right back, I promise."

Jess gave her a quick thumbs up. "No worries! I'll be waiting."

Michelle grinned at her and ducked into the bathroom, making sure the door was locked before she answered. "Dahl speaking."

"Fuck, finally." It was her second-in-command, Nelson, a twitchy American with a glass left eye. "We got a situation. You really need to come into the Wedge. I know you're, like, on a date, but it's serious. Skippers are involved, and the higher-ups requested you specifically, 'cause of that thing in Indonesia, you know —"

Michelle cut him off. "Yes, OK. No more details over the phone, I'm not in a secure location. I can get there in ten." She hung up, and groaned. It was the first time in months she'd been on a date that wasn't an unmitigated disaster, and her fucking job ruined it. "Christ." Time to face the music. She left the bathroom to tell Jess the bad news.

Jess wasn't there. Michelle's purse and coat were still at the table where she'd left them, but her date had vanished.

[STUFF]

"You'll be working with a representative from the Foundation on this one," the secretary said as they hurried through a fluorescent-lit corridor. "She's waiting in the briefing room."

Michelle sighed. Like most former Coalition field operatives, she had a pretty poor opinion of the Skippers; they got in the way more than they helped, and their obsession with collecting dangerous entities instead of just eliminating them was a consistent pain in the ass.

Michelle stepped into the briefing room, and froze. The Foundaton representative was there, leaning back in her seat. Her hair was in a sensible bun rather than down around her shoulders, and she was wearing fatigues rather than a cute red dress; but it was definitely Jessica, Michelle's date from earlier that evening. She stared back, clearly horrified.

The secretary didn't notice the tension in the room. "Oecumenicus Volgi Michelle Dahl, meet Jessica Montgomery, commander of Mobile Task Force Omicron-3." He glanced at the two women, and raised an eyebrow. "You ladies alright?"

Michelle blinked first. "Yep. Perfectly fine."

Beam Myself Into the Future

Cormac FitzHenry, Oecumenicus Volgi of the Ancient and Most Noble Order of Gormogons, sat crosslegged in his scrying circle, awaiting a phone call. The telephone itself was on a marble plinth before him, its bakelite surface inlaid with mystic circuitry in silver and beryllium bronze; it was bright red, as traditional for secret government hotlines, and had been installed in the Grand Occident Wedge of London some four decades ago, when Cormac's predecessor, Vincenzo Santorini, signed the Global Occult Coalition's founding charter. And in a few minutes, it would ring, formally starting the fifth meeting of the fortieth session of the Council of 108.

Cormac was dreading it. Since he had promoted—when Enzo, after losing half the fingers on his right hand again, had retired to Newfoundland, to live near his wife's family—he'd sat through seventeen of these meetings, each one more mind-numbingly tedious than the last. Only the United Nations could manage to make being the secret world government boring.

He was drifting off when the phone finally rang, startling him into almost falling out of the scrying circle. He lifted it to his ear; an oddly-accented voice chanted a dead language, and the room around Cormac faded to blackness. Points of light formed a circle in the dark, more blinking on each moment until the full complement of a hundred and eight had appeared; then, in the center of the circle, a woman appeared, wearing the face of a young Jackie O. Over her torso floated the words D. C. al Fine, Undersecretary-General of the Global Occult Coalition. "We are all converged," she said, in a voice much older than her face. "I call the fifth meeting of the fortieth session of the Council of 108 to order. Is every member present and accounted for?"

At the beginning of each session, the honor of first place in the roll-call was decided by lot. At the moment, it was held by the Bavarian Illuminati—one of the Coalition's most widespread and powerful sub-conspiracies, fully corrupted by the taint of freemasonry. One of the lights brightened, and D. C. al Fine was replaced by a stocky young woman in a sensible pantsuit. She spoke with a slight German accent. "Eve Weishaupt, High Araeopagite of the Bavarian Illuminati, present."

She vanished, and was replaced by an old Chinese man in fithy, tattered robes. He bowed, and in perfect Oxonian English, said, "Xu Chongzhao, Chief of the Beggars' Sect, present." His image disappeared, the next in line flashed, and so on down the row. Cormac dozed off for a moment, waiting for his turn.

"Sophia Sabazios, Saint-Archon of the Gnostic Liberation Army, present." A middle-eastern woman in desert-camo clerical robes faded out, and Cormac felt himself appear at the center of the circle. "Menelaus Masonbane, Oecumenicus Volgi of the Ancient and Most Noble Order of Gormogons, present." The feeling of being watched vanished, and Cormac allowed himself to relax. He gave an assumed name, as did almost all of the other members of the Council; names have power, and giving yours freely to some of the most powerful occultists on earth would be beyond irresponsible.

draft two

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Michelle Dahl, Oecumenicus Volgi of the Ancient and Noble Order of Gormogons, sat crosslegged in her scrying circle, awaiting a phone call. The telephone itself was on a marble plinth before her, its bakelite surface inlaid with mystic circuitry in silver and beryllium bronze; it was bright red, as traditional for secret government hotlines, and had been installed in the Grand Occident Wedge of London some four decades ago, when Michelle's predecessor, Vincenzo Santorini, signed the Global Occult Coalition's founding charter. And in a few minutes, it would ring, formally starting the fifth meeting of the fortieth session of the Council of 108.

Michelle was dreading it. Since she had been promoted—when Enzo, after losing half the fingers on his right hand again, had retired to a small Italian village to, quote, "become a farmer or a carpenter or something"—she had sat through seventeen of these meetings, and each one managed to be more mind-numbingly tedious than the last. How, she thought as she stared at the phone's intricate glyphs, did we make being the secret world government so bloody boring?

The phone finally rang, and she lifted it to her ear. An oddly-accented voice chanted something in a dead language, and Michelle felt the room change around her as the handset vanished. She was floating an expanse of empty blackness, where one hundred and eight points of light were suspended in a semicircle around a tall woman wearing the face of a young Jackie O; the title superimposed on her torso identified her as D. C. al Fine, Undersecretary-General of the Global Occult Coalition. When all the points had turned white, she spoke. "We are Converged. I call the fifth meeting of the fortieth session of the Council of 108 to order. Is every member present and accounted for?"

The honor of being first in the roll-call was decided by lot at the beginning of each session; at the moment, it was held by the Bavarian Illuminati, one of the Coalition's most widespread and powerful sub-conspiracies. A light blinked and expanded into a short, stocky woman in a sensible pantsuit; she spoke with a slight German accent. "Eve Weishpaut, High Areopagite of the Bavarian Illuminati, present."

She faded; the next light in the row became an old Chinese man in filthy, tattered robes. He bowed, and in perfect Oxonian English said, "Xu Chongzhao, Chief of the Beggars' Sect, present." His image disappeared, the next in line flashed, and so on down the row. Michelle lost track for a moment, and then started when she heard a voice almost in her ear.

"Shibulom Kimball, Footpad-President of the Secret Combination of Godantion Robbers and Murderers, present." A young man in a white shirt and black tie faded from view, and Michelle felt the slight tingling that indicated her avatar's appearance in front of the Council. "Iphegenia Masonbane, Oecumenicus Volgi of the Ancient and Most Noble Order of Gormogons, present." The tingling vanished, and Michelle allowed herself to relax once more. She gave an assumed name, of course, as did almost all of the hundred and seven other representatives; a person's real name has power, and giving it freely to the world's most powerful occultists would be irresponsible.

The roll call continued, and Michelle could once more safely tune it out. She took the time to skim the agenda; nothing of immediate relevance to the Gormogons, thankfully, and nothing proposed by any of the Council's several Masonic organizations that she would be duty-bound to argue against. Eventually, the roll-call concluded; the final delegate, a dark-skinned woman in a silver toga, declared herself to be "One Zero, First Prime of the Axiomatics," and vanished.

D. C. al Fine nodded, and a copy of the agenda appeared in her hand. "The first item of business is the relocation of Samothracian refugees; normally this would be a matter for the General Assembly, but as Mr. Tekiner of the Jandarma Esrarlı Harekat will explain, there have been some perceptual anomalies that have stalled negotiations…"

A refugee crisis in a country she had never heard of, a few condemnations of eigenweapon proliferation, a draft of a convention on the illicit trade in demonarcotics… Sure, it all had to get done, but none of it was interesting. Michelle abstained from most of the votes, as usual; the Gormogons were on the Council for their ward-breaking and demolitions expertise, not their political acumen. She was about to doze off when Madame al Fine announced the final item on the agenda.

"… and finally, the Servants of the Silicon Nornir have put forth a proposal for the establishment of a new pocket-universe as a hub for the paratechnology industry, to combat the spread of Maxwellist theology in the Free City of Three Portlands. Ms. Speaker?"

One of the lights grew into a young woman in a flowing white robe, a long thread knotted between her fingers. The caption over her chest identified her as the Speaker to Humans of the Silicon Nornir. "Thank you, Madame Undersecretary-General." There was a distinct Scandinavian lilt in her voice, mellowing what would otherwise be a robotic monotone. "There has been a Concurrence among the Nornir. The auguries indicate a great peril yet to come, surrounding the City of Portlands. Urðr speaks first."

The Speaker raised her arms, and stared into the center of the tangle of threads. The slight lilt in her voice became a full-on chanting rhythm, as she received a prophecy. "From the broken branch's small splinter sprouted saplings strong. Town-in-triple, steeped in secrets, fertile field for words and wishes of WAN's worshippers. Seiðr-science spread; crafty cunning-carls and Fire-Filcher's flock found faith in myths of Maxwell. Verðandi speaks next."

Still staring through the threads, she held her head higher and pushed her shoulders back, making herself seem taller; when she spoke, her voice was deeper and more commanding, and she still maintained that chant. "Skippers scorn strangeness, whisking away unworldly wonders. Hoover's henchmen skulk in shadows. Cults and clans cause chaos. Skuld speaks last."

The Speaker hunched her back, her hands curling into claws; some trick of the light made wrinkles appear across her face, and when she spoke her voice was faint and harsh. "Men make metal legs and limbs, meld their minds with lines of lightning. Green-gold boards birth bitter blasphemies, new Nornir not wrought from runic rites and sacred stones but built by mortal mage-mechanics. To fix these flaws, a city shall be settled, far-flung from Portlands' portals, a fief for fate-seers' servants, wicker-woven with world-tree's twigs. The Nornir have spoken." She lowered the skein of threads, bowed slightly, and let her image fade back into a point of light.

"Lucid as always, Speaker." The next delegate to appear was Grandmaster Jack Mosley of the Order of the Silver Trowel, a distinguished silver-haired Englishman in the amulet and apron of a Master Mason. "But I believe that the Nornir have failed to consider the strategic importance of Three Portlands. It is the most stable Way across the Atlantic by far,

resolution

tags: tale global-occult-coalition broken-god three-portlands

draft 1 feat iphegenia and shibulon

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How on earth, thought Dame Iphegenia Walpole-Smythe, Oecumenicus Volgi of the Ancient and Noble Order of the Gormogons, did we make being the secret world government so bloody boring?

This was not the first time she had thought this, and it would not be the last. Since her promotion, the result of a horrific training accident that had left her predecessor thoroughly maimed in both body and soul, she had sat through fifteen meetings of the Council of 108, the ruling body of the Global Occult Coalition; and every one of them had been an advanced course in mind-numbing bureaucracy.

At the moment, the representative from the United Church of Satan, Scientist had the floor. He was delivering one of his atheistic rants, as usual; something about the dangers of man-made gods, the supremacy of human will over the divine, the moral imperative to kill the creator, et cetera, et cetera. Iphegenia had heard it all before, every time a parareligion gained any sort of prominence, and did not need to hear it again. She leaned over to her neighbor—Elder Shibulon Kimball, of the Secret Combination of Godantion Robbers and Murderers—and whispered, "Why did we ever let the Satanists in, again?"

Shibulon jumped in surprise—he must've been sleeping with his eyes open, and Iphegenia didn't blame him—and replied, "Well, you have to admit, they were right the first time. About the whole new demiurge thing. Gave them some political clout back in the '40s." He yawned, and tried to stretch as unobtrusively as possible. "And their antitheurges are mighty handy in the field. Did you read that report on the Type White that manifested in Los Angeles last February? Liquidated within a few hours by a pair of their operatives. Overlapping negative-theology fields, some real powerful conceptual work."

Iphegenia sighed. "You know I don't have the time to read every single case-file, Shib. The Gormogons are on the PSYCHE advisory council this session. I'm up to my eyeballs in diplomatic incidents. And we found another Nazi holdout pocket dimension last month, so now that they're all cleared out it's time to get that demolished. Do you have any idea how much paperwork goes into requisitioning trans-dimensional shaped charges?"

"No, but I'm sure it's a lot, and you have to fill it out yourself, because all your subordinates are incompetents." Shibulon smiled and shook his head slightly. "You're starting to sound like a broken record, Gen. I think you need to take some time off. Hey, do you want to come out for a drink? The boys and I are planning a night out on the town and I'd love to have you along."

"Sure, why not." She paused, and stared at him. "Wait, aren't you, like, a Mormon? You guys don't drink, right?"

"We've been over this before. Heretical gnostic sect,

Rook McCauley was a stupid fucking name.

"Mx. McCauley, I'm afraid we can't let you board quite yet. Organic cargo needs special clearance from the chief inspector, and he's got a bit of a backlog."

Every time the smug voice on the other end of the line said that name, the Rookie wanted to scream. But making this delivery was more important than venting her rage at petty bureaucrats on backwater stations. Only barely, though.

"Ten-four, boss. Any chance you could patch me over to Sergey Mordvinov at the MCD office? I want to let him know why his delivery will be late."

Name-dropping a slightly-less-petty bureaucrat was not a power move, and Rookie hated herself for doing it, but if it got her onto the station a little faster it was worth the shame.

"Sorry, Mx. McCauley, I don't know him. You can check the station directory if you'd like."

It wasn't even like Mahakali had been her real last name, it certainly wasn't on her birth certificate, but she'd picked it when she first got into the razorgirl game, and it was cool as fuck. McCauley was nothing.

"Sounds good. Hey, can I get your name? When I talk to Mr. Mordvinov, I'll be sure to tell him how—" There was a click. The little fucker had hung up on her. "Goddamn." She punched Mordvinov's number in. She'd made this delivery before, no need for the directory.

"Marshall, Carter and Dark, Novaya Khabarovsk office, Mordvinov speaking." Mordvinov was a post-post-Soviet kleptocrat, the off-world evolution of Russian oligarchs and crime-lords. He had weird tastes, but he tipped well, and Rookie had never been one to judge.

"Sergey, it's me. I'm docked, but I'm being held up at customs. Delivery might be a little late."

"Rookie! No worries!" She didn't hate Rook as much as she hated McCauley. At least she could keep the same nickname. "

draft one

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Twenty-five minutes.

The Hyndai Concordia's RCS thrusters pushed it off the docking port. It was the fastest consumer-grade spacecraft on the market, only outmatched by military hardware—and that was before the semi-legal modifications bolted on to the engine, ruining the sleek retro-chic exterior. It had been painted purple.

Twenty-four minutes.

The pilot gunned the engine. Thirty gees blasted her back into the driver's seat; the non-Newtonian compounds that replaced her vitreous humor and cerebrospinal fluid thickened in response, keeping her vision clear and her brain functioning despite the acceleration. Her cargo hung in a specially-designed cradle installed in place of the copilot's seat, pivoting with the acceleration so as not to damage its precious contents; the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view camera monitor stretched back on their elastic cords.

Twenty-three minutes.

She was headed for Novaya Khabarovsk, a shipping hub operated, once you untangled the shell-corporations and anonymous stockholders, by Marshall, Carter & Dark, the same entity that, through a similar series of bureaucratic sleights of hand, signed her paychecks. She'd made the run a dozen times before, the same product to the same client, a post-post-Soviet kleptocrat named Mordvinov. He had odd tastes, but she didn't judge. And he tipped well.

Twenty-two minutes.

It was a weird feeling, working for MC&D. Back on Earth, before the masquerade broke, before the off-planet colonies, she'd pulled off more than a few heists on their clients and properties. Probably cost them a good hundred mil, all things considered. But that was before the cryo-chamber mishap and the accidental trip to Mars, where she'd woken up after an eighty-year nap; she had a new face, a new name, and a new job as a courier, delivering high-value time-sensitive cargo to the upper crust of Saturn's rings.

Twenty-one minutes.

She eased off on the acceleration until she could hear again. "Hey, Siri," she said, "Put on my driving playlist." The first bars of a hundred-year-old metal track blasted out of the cockpit's speakers, drowning out the constant roar of the engine. It probably wasn't healthy to surround herself with last century's culture, all made on a planet that was now totally uninhabitable. But she couldn't afford a real therapist, and the psychology pseudo-AI that she subscribed to said it might help—although she was pretty sure it thought she had Alzheimer's, or something. Did people still get Alzheimer's? Whatever.

Twenty minutes.

Two minutes.

She grabbed the insulated case out of its protective cradle and kicked off the center console, spiraling right down the middle of the docking tube. Her courier ID let her skip customs, and she made a beeline for the correct elevator.

Ninety seconds.

The elevator ride down to the habitat ring was too slow for her liking. The aftershocks of the demonarcotics were still coursing through her, every cell vibrating ten times a second, a pulsing hum that set her on edge. She'd have a wicked hangover soon, but she didn't need to rush back; she'd turn the autopilot on, take a nap, maybe listen to a podcast. (They DID still have those. Some of them were even entertaining.) As soon as the doors open, she was out, sprinting down the hall.

Thirty seconds.

A crowd of people blocked her way. All in line for a coffee stand. She picked the weakest one, and just ran them over.

Fifteen seconds.

She turned right off the main hall, then left. The office door was closed. She skidded to a halt, and grabbed for the handle.

Zero seconds.

Her wristwatch beeped furiously, and she sighed. She strolled in to Mordvinov's office, and dropped the case on his desk. With a flick of her wrist, it cracked open, releasing a cloud of fragrant steam. "Hey Sergei. Large pineapple-anchovy-goat cheese, side of cinnamon twists."

"Rookie! That was a fast one, huh?" He'd been watching some cooking show, and spun around to face her. "You set a new PB?"

"Eh. Missed my record by like ten seconds. Foundies tried to intercept me, you know how it goes."

Item #: SCP-638

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: All known instances of SCP-638 are contained in Containment Zone 638 in the Autonomous Monastic State of Mount Athos, under the supervision of Reliquary Site-37. No female mammals (including personnel who were assigned female at birth) are to enter Containment Zone 638, except as needed to maintain the SCP-638 population. SCP-638 instances located outside of Foundation containment are to be relocated to Containment Zone 638; non-human SCP-638-A instances are to be terminated, and human SCP-638-A instances are to be treated with Class-C amnestics and returned to their closest living relatives with standard cover stories 06A ("brain damage"), 06B ("trauma-induced amnesia"), 09B ("cult indoctrination"), and/or 13C ("human trafficking"), as appropriate.

Description: SCP-638 is a species of anomalous hominid indigenous to Greece, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. Adult SCP-638 instances are similar in appearance to adult male humans, although slightly smaller, with an average height of 1.6m and average weight of 60 kg; despite this, SCP-638 instances tend to be notably stronger than humans of similar build. Juvenile SCP-638 instances are covered in coarse dark brown or black hair, which is thickest on their legs and heads; beginning at around nine years of age, juvenile instances steadily lose their hair in regular periods of shedding, and by the time they reach sexual maturity around twelve years of age, almost all of this hair is gone save for patches on their head, chest, and groin.

SCP-638 instances display a level of intelligence similar to other contemporary primates. They are capable of understanding and mimicking human speech to some degree, and individual SCP-638 instances that are regularly exposed to humans tend to develop a vocabulary of 50-100 words, which they use to communicate with humans and other SCP-638 instances; wild instances will little or no exposure to humans will mimic the vocalizations of other animals.

SCP-638 instances are able to emit pheromones that cause significant behavioral changes in female mammals. Affected mammals, designated SCP-638-A, view the instance whose pheromones they were first exposed to as an object of reverence; human SCP-638-A instances describe a combination of romantic love and religious devotion, and non-human instances exhibit pack- or herd-bonding behaviors. SCP-638-A instances will gather food and hunt prey for their bonded SCP-638 instance, and will occasionally engage in sexual contact with it; if their bonded SCP-638 instance is threatened, SCP-638-A instances will defend it without concern for their own safety. SCP-638-A instances display reduced inhibitions, impaired judgement, and a lack of fine motor control, and human SCP-638-A instances have consistently compared the effects of SCP-638's pheromones with the effects of alcohol. The effects of SCP-638's pheromones fade over time, with total recovery after 6 days without exposure observed in all recorded cases.

SCP-638 instances reproduce by implanting SCP-638-A instances with a fertilized gamete. The implanted gamete attaches to the SCP-638-A instance's uterine wall, and mimics a normal pregnancy; after approximately twenty weeks, however, the SCP-638-A instance will enter labor, and will give birth to the still relatively-undeveloped fetus. At this point, the SCP-638 instance will place the fetus into a marsupial-like pouch located in its groin, where it will live for six to nine months, feeding from the parent instance's nipples as it develops fully. After this point, the juvenile will be weaned onto a solid diet by its parent, until it is able to gather food and hunt on its own or alongside its parent's pack of SCP-638-A instances.

In the wild, SCP-638 live in small packs consisting of a single adult instance and some number of juveniles and SCP-638-A instances, which hunt prey and gather fruit for the adult. Adult SCP-638 instances are highly territorial; when a juvenile reaches maturity, it will leave its parent's pack with some number of SCP-638-A instances, usually including the instance that birthed it. If territory or SCP-638-A instances are scarce, the juvenile may instead challenge its parent for control of the pack; these fights are almost always to the death.

SCP-638-1 at time of recovery.

Addendum 638-1: Discovery and Initial Containment: SCP-638 was first contained in 1953, after the Hellenic Gendarmerie received reports of a cult leader with the ability to control women's minds from a census taker investigating a remote mountain village in the Citheraeon range. By the time Foundation personnel responded, a local militia had already set fire to the cult's compound and were searching for the individual in question; Foundation personnel located the supposed cult leader in a cave several miles from the compound, covered in severe burns from the fire. The properties of its anomalous pheromones were confirmed when several Foundation personnel became SCP-638-A instances, and it was contained as SCP-638 (this initial instance is now designated SCP-638-1) .

SCP-638-1 had a vocabulary composed primarily of the archaic Boeotian dialect of Greek; it is currently hypothesized that its lineage had been an object of devotion in the area since the 4th or 5th century BCE, and that Boeotian was preserved by its worshipers as a liturgical language. The cult centered around SCP-638-1 was composed primarily of human SCP-638-A instances, with several male priests who controlled the SCP-638-A instances' access to SCP-638-1; many of the cult's practices involved ritual sexual activity with both the priests and SCP-638-1, and the sacrifice of animals whose meat would be fed to SCP-638-1.

It was initially believed that SCP-638-1 was sapient, and simply refused to speak except to give one- or two-word commands. Interrogation of SCP-638-1 to determine the source of its anomalous abilities continued until a second pack of SCP-638 was discovered in the Elâzığ province of Turkey in 1972 and it was realized that SCP-638 was not sapient. Current containment procedures were instituted in 1973.

Addendum 638-2: Interview Log, 1 May 2009

In early 2009, another cult centered around an SCP-638 pack was encountered in the village of Duf, North Macedonia. The cult's practices were similar to those of the cult that venerated SCP-638-1, although the Macedonian dialect of Greek was used rather than Boeotian; the cult had controlled the town since the early 20th century, when they took it over by force in the aftermath of the First World War. Mobile Task Force Epsilon-6 ("Village Idiots") was dispatched, and all SCP-638 instances were contained with no Foundation casualties. Most of the village's population was amnesticized; the cult's high priest, Dimitar Gjorgiev, was taken into custody and held in a police station in the nearby city of Gostivar pending amnesticization or transfer to a Foundation facility for long-term internment.

Date & Time: 01/05/2009, 1335 CET

Subject: PoI 638-32, Dimitar Gjorgiev

Interviewer(s): MTF E-6 Balkan Regional Commander Andrey Zlatkov, MTF E-6 Sergeant Marija Brajković (translator)

Interview was conducted in Macedonian; Cmdr. Zlatkov and Sgt. Brajković communicated in English. Sgt. Brajković's translation has been omitted except where otherwise noted.

Sgt Brajković (MB): Good afternoon, Mr. Gjorgiev. My name is Ms. Brajković, and this is my colleague, Mr. Zlatkov. We have a few questions to ask you.

PoI 638-32 (DG): Interpol? UBK¹? Maybe CIA, yeah?

MB: Something like that, yes. Do you speak English or Russian?

DG: A little Russian, I learned some when I left the village for school. But that was many years ago, and it's not so good now. (In Russian) My name is Dmitri. I live in Yugoslavia. The tractor is in the barn. Not enough for a CIA interrogation, no?

MB: Alright. Mr. Zlatkov will ask the questions, and I will translate for him. Is there anything you would like before we begin? Some water?

DG: A bottle of wine, a rare steak, and a beautiful woman. One out of three isn't too bad though, huh?

Cmdr. Zlatkov (AZ): (To Sgt. Brajković) I understood that one. Want me to get another translator?

MB Don't worry, I've dealt with worse. (To PoI-638-32) If there's nothing you want, we can get started.

DG: Fine by me.

AZ: Alright. Could you please state your name for the record?

DG: Dimitar Gjorgiev. But my friends call me Dimi.

AZ: Any other names you might be known by?

DG: Ah! Of course. (In Greek) Ecclesiarch Demetrios son of Georgios, Herald of Dionysos, Favored Servant of the Drunken Lord, at your service.

MB: (To Cmdr. Zlatkov) I think that was Greek—could you understand it²?

AZ: (To Sgt. Brajković) Sort of. He's claiming to be the high priest of Dionysus, I think. (To PoI 638-32) So you worship Dionysus?

DG: Of course! Like my father, and his father before him, and so on.

AZ: Do you know how long your village has worshipped Dionysus?

DG: The village, maybe 60 years. After the war, my grandfather moved there from deeper in the mountains. Inducted the whole village into worship of our lord. My family? (He shrugs.) Thousands of years, as far as I know.

AZ: And what is the relationship of your god to the… Creatures we found in your temple?

DG: Ah, I see where you are going. You think the pseudandroi³ were the inspiration for Dionysus, yeah? Everyone always does! The historians, the sociologists, the scientists, they all think this!

AZ: Wait, historians and sociologists? Who else knows about the creatures?

DG: It doesn't matter, it was a long time ago, they were old men, I am sure they are dead now. The point I am making is that you all have it backwards, no?

AZ: What do you mean by "backwards"?

DG: Chicks come from chickens, saplings come from trees, and the bromiskoi⁴ come from Bromios⁵.

AZ: So you believe that these creatures were created by your god?

DG: I believe that they were birthed by Dionysos. And, of course, that they will grow up to become him.

AZ: What do you mean by that?

DG: Please, allow an old man his secrets.

AZ: (To Sgt. Brajković) They'll have to get that out of him at 77, I guess. Make sure to note that he'll need a real interrogation. (To PoI-638-32) Alright, we'll let that go for now. Were you in contact with any other cults like your own?

PoI-638-32 continued to avoid answering Cmdr. Zlatkov's questions, and a full interrogation session was scheduled pending his transfer to Site-77 for indefinite detainment.

Addendum 638-3: Incident Report, 638-2009.05.02.A

On 2 May 2009, prior to his transfer to Site-77 for further interrogation, PoI-638-32 used previously-undetected thaumaturgical abilities to escape from captivity, injuring five Foundation personnel and several civilians. A transcript of the surveillance logs is reproduced below.

Date: 02/05/2009, 0920 CET

Location: Gostivar Police Station, Republic of North Macedonia

Relevant Person(s) of Interest: PoI 638-32, "Dimitar Gjorgiev".

PoI 638-32 is alone in the police station's interrogation room, handcuffed to the table. He has a disposable paper cup of water in front of him.

PoI 638-32 : Evoe, Akrataphoros!⁶

The water is transmuted into a red liquid; post-incident examination of the cup revealed it to be red wine. PoI 638-32 drinks the wine.

PoI 638-32: Evoe, Eleutherios!⁷

PoI 638-32's handcuffs and leg irons unlock and fall off, and the door to the interrogation room swings open. PoI-638-32 stands, and steps towards the door. Two MTF E-6 personnel move to investigate.

PoI 638-32: Evoe, Briseos!⁸

PoI 638-32 reaches into his jacket and produces a thyrsus, a ceremonial staff topped with a pinecone. He waits beside the door for the MTF E-6 personnel to enter, and strikes them in the head and groin with the thyrsus, incapacitating them. He steps out into the hallway, and heads for the front entrance of the police station. Three Foundation agents are standing in the station's front room, and draw their firearms when they notice PoI 638-32.

PoI 638-32: Evoe, Bromios!⁹

The volume of PoI 638-32's voice increases significantly in volume, to the point that it overloads all recording devices in the immediate vicinity; it is estimated that the ambient volume in the station's entryway was around 160 dB, well beyond the human threshold of pain. All Foundation and civilian personnel in the station are incapacitated by the noise, and PoI 638-32 is able to leave the station unimpeded. After leaving the station, he does not appear on any surveillance footage, although eyewitness accounts indicate that he walked westward into the forest outside of town.

Following Incident 638-27.5.2011, several adult instances of SCP-638 displayed some of the anomalous abilities used by PoI 638-32, including the ability to transmute water into wine and shout at volumes that are dangerous to human hearing. Containment procedures are currently under review.

tags: alive animal compulsion humanoid sentient sexual species religious reproductive omnivorous scp euclid

This is a rewrite of the original SCP-638, written by Skali Sharpnose. The core of the concept was "an anomalous entity that inspired the myth of Dionysus"; I took the last paragraph about there being more instances of this thing out there and just ran with it. this treats the original 638 as the initial containment documentation, and then asks the question "wait what if this guy is more like a chimp that can mimic speech than a human". it's sort of an in-universe rewrite.

image is public domain from wikimedia commons.

crit from Rounderhouse, Modern_Erasmus, probably some other people but it's been a while

original article

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Photo of SCP-638 taken during initial recovery.

Item #: SCP-638

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-638 is to remain in lock-down at Site-33 at all times. Female personnel are not to interact with SCP-638 in any way nor come within thirty (30) meters of SCP-638's containment cell. SCP-638's cell is ten (10) meters by fifteen (15) meters. Ongoing attempts at operant conditioning of SCP-638 incorporates rewards and punishments through room furnishings. SCP-638 has responded well to this conditioning, despite an incident during which it seems SCP-638 discerned the nature of the conditioning and became enraged. Any of these items may be removed as a result of misbehavior by SCP-638. SCP-638's containment cell currently contains:

Twenty (20) inches of dirt over the concrete floor, covered in grass.
Three (3) potted Olive trees (Olea europaea).
One (1) trellis of Common Ivy (Hedera helix).
Botanical grow lights and automated watering system to maintain the grass and other plants.

SCP-638 has special dietary concerns. SCP-638 seems unwilling or unable to ingest any cooked food. Testing determined that raw meat, from any mammal, will sustain SCP-638. SCP-638 also demands wine constantly, though it is restricted as a special reward.

Description: SCP-638 appears to be a male human of slim build, hairless and extensively scarred. SCP-638 is covered almost completely in burn scars resulting from [DATA EXPUNGED]. While SCP-638 has been shown to heal at an abnormal rate, directly proportional to SCP-638's consumption of raw flesh and wine, the scar tissue remains and hair has not regrown. SCP-638 seems to understand English and is responsive to commands, but is either unable or unwilling to reply. SCP-638 has issued demands, but these come in the form of one or two word shouts in the Boetian sub-dialect of Aeolic Ancient Greek. To date, SCP-638 has demanded wine, ivy, olive trees, grass for the floor, freedom, women, live animals, a drum, a flute, and a view of the sky. Initially SCP-638 became violent upon not being appeased, demonstrating great strength and speed in short bursts. SCP-638 is responsible for the deaths of several security personnel and staff members, including Dr. ██████████. When completely enraged, SCP-638 has been able to dent steel with blows, easily lift and throw a grown man, and break restraints. When enraged, SCP-638 has also demonstrated the ability to shout with great volume and force, shattering glass and deafening personnel. These shouts vary in intensity, with the strongest having blown a steel door off of its hinges. Audio analysis of SCP-638's voice and shouts has revealed similarities in resonance to the calls of several animals, including male lions and bears, as well as certain bird calls. These outbursts invariably lead to periods of lethargy if the subject's hunger and thirst are not satisfied, so starvation has been used effectively as a behavioral control when coercion fails.

SCP-638 has demonstrated a strong psychic or empathic influence over women within an estimated radius of twenty (20) meters. Any females entering within this range will be compelled to be in SCP-638's presence, and once there will lose all inhibition. This manifests differently in each subject, depending on their personality and history. One commonality is their tendency to dance and jump and shout in a wild fashion. If allowed to persist, the subjects will dance until they drop from exhaustion and are physically unable to continue. Attempts to remove female subjects from SCP-638's presence result in violent responses from both SCP-638 and all affected subjects. Once successfully removed from the range of the effect, subjects demonstrate full memory of their actions, and if they did something they would otherwise not have done, as is often the case, they feel intensely ashamed and will not willingly approach SCP-638 again. SCP-638 has on several occasions used the affected subjects in order to attempt escape. Affected subjects demonstrate greater than normal physical strength and agility, and post-mortem examination revealed elevated levels of adrenaline as well as an unknown chemical compound consisting of [DATA EXPUNGED]. SCP-638 seems to control the subjects' actions through some form of mental suggestion as there is no verbal communication. Research into the possibility of telepathy is ongoing.

SCP-638 was discovered in the smoldering remains of a mountain compound in [DATA EXPUNGED], barely alive. Though no other survivors were found, the remains of fifteen (15) (presumably) human females were uncovered in the ruins. Too little of the remains survived [DATA EXPUNGED] for a full autopsy, but skeletal remains showed no abnormalities. SCP-638 has given no indication that there were any others of its kind present at the compound, but this is not certain. Interrogation in conjunction with extreme nutrient deprivation revealed that others do exist, though they do not form communities apart from their groups of enthralled women. To date the subject has not revealed the location of any others, but interrogation is ongoing.

Classics 353/History 373: Ancient History - Rome

The Third Occult War, 218-313

Prof. Maisie Sinclair - ude.reed|mrialcnis#ude.reed|mrialcnis
Spring 2019 - MWF 1:10-2:30 - Wormwood B13
Office Hours MWF 3:00-4:00, TH 1:30-3:00, Wormwood 402

Course Overview:
In this course, we will study the occult history of the 3rd and early 4th centuries in the Roman Empire and its neighbors, focusing on the series of conflicts and crises now referred to as the Third Occult War (N.B.: some scholars refer to this as the Second Occult War, and several of the assigned readings use that nomenclature; we will be addressing this topic in more depth in Week 13). Beginning with the ascension of the Syrian sun-priest Elagabalus to the Roman throne and ending with Constantine's proclamation of official tolerance of Christianity, the Third Occult War caused major political and religious changes in the Roman Empire. We will investigate the driving factors behind this extended conflict, and explore how the changes it wrought shaped the modern world.

Required Reading:
The following texts are available from the Deer bookstore:

Anthony the Stoudite. Secret Histories. Translated and edited by Stephen Crawford. Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, 2011. (ANTHONY)
Crawford, Stephen, editor. The Third Occult War: Selected Contemporary Accounts. ICSUT University Press, 2009. (CRAWFORD)
Lo Forte, Gian Marco. Early Christian Theurgy: Theory and Practice. Medicea Accademia Dell'Arte Occulta, 2014. (THEURGY)
Lo Forte, Gian Marco, and Antonia Lucchese. Man Bites God: The Third-Century Theomachy. Medicea Accademia Dell'Arte Occulta, 2016. (THEOMACHY)
Maeon of Palmyra. The Life of the True Empress Zenobia. Translated and edited by Ethan Bozeman. ICSUT University Press, 1983. (MAEON)
Southern, Pat. The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine. Routledge, 2001. (SOUTHERN)
Thomas of Rhodes. The Inheritance of Constantine. Translated by Tom Rose. Carter & Carter, 2003. (THOMAS)

A limited number of copies are also available on reserve at the library. If you feel that you cannot afford to purchase some or all of these books, talk to me and I'll see what I can do. All other assigned reading is available on the Moodle - please either print out these readings or bring your laptop/tablet to class, as we will be referencing them during discussion.

Expectations:
I expect everyone to come to class on time and ready to participate in discussion. If you need to be late or absent for a class, contact me at least two classes in advance if possible and I'll give you a short writing assignment to recover the missed participation credit. If you don't contact me far enough in advance you cannot recover the credit. Because so much of your grade is based on participation, more than 4 unexcused absences WILL result in a failing grade for the class.

Grade Breakdown:

Participation	65%
Weekly Quizzes	5%
Midterm Paper	10%
Final Paper	20%

N.B.: If you are a Classics or History Junior who has chosen to qual in this class, you will NOT be required to submit a midterm paper, but your qual term paper will be 30% of your grade. Please consult with me and your academic adviser before week 3 about the expectations of the qual essay.

Course Timeline:

In the past, this course has had a day-by-day schedule of readings and discussion questions. I have learned over the last couple years that given the general environment of Three Portlands and the nature of the topic any such attempt at precise scheduling is a grave error. Instead, I've divided the course up into topics by weeks, and will be assigning more specific readings and handing out discussion questions the week before they're required; I'll also be posting them to the course page on the Moodle.

WEEK 1: ROME BEFORE THE WAR
The first week of class will be spent discussing the historical background, both mundane and occult, that would eventually lead to the Third Occult War and the associated Crisis of the Third Century. We'll spend the first class on the political situation of the third-century Empire, including the rise of the army as a major political force, the slow decay of the last trappings of republicanism, and the early Severan dynasty, especially Septimius Severus, Rome's first non-human emperor. On the second day, we'll examine the religious situation in the Empire, focusing on the major mystery religions that would play a large role in the coming conflict—the cults of Mekhane, Sol Invictus, and Jesus Christ. And the third class will be devoted entirely to Elagabalus, the emperor whose faith in an obscure Syrian solar deity led to a hundred years of magical conflict.

READINGS:

Marius Maximus, Caesares ch. 9-12 ("Septimius Leo", "Geta", "Caracalla" & "Elagabalus"), trans. Stephen Crawford.
Ursula Brandt, "To Starve the Soul: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Funerary Offerings," Katabasis 19.3: 105-147.
SOUTHERN, 23-49.

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

WEEK 4

WEEK 5

WEEK 6

WEEK 7

WEEK 8

SPRING BREAK - Midterm paper due by 11:59:59 PM Sunday

WEEK 9

WEEK 10

WEEK 11

WEEK 12

WEEK 13

Outline of the 3rd occult war:
218 - Elagabalus becomes emperor
219 - Elagabalus initiated into cult of Cybele
220 - Elagabalus makes his deity, also named Elagabalus, into the supreme god of the Roman pantheon; rededicates temple of Juppiter Victor to Sol Invictus Heliogabalus; moves sacred objects of Vesta, Cybele, etc into the new Heliogabalum and tries to get Jews, Christians, and Mekhanites to do the same.
222 - Elagabalus is assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. Alexander Severus is declared emperor at age 13. An angry mob lynches Callixtus, Bishop of Rome.

Someone Massacres The Mekhanites

Invisigoths

The Demiurge Eats The Greco-Roman Pantheon
313 - Constantine issues the Edict of Milan, officially tolerating Christianity.

tags: deer-college tale broken-god

I'd like to thank the Reed College Classics Department for falling for the longest con of all and actually giving me a degree.

big long syllabus timeline

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WEEK 1: ROME BEFORE THE WAR
The first week of class will be spent on the historical background, examining the mundane and

Mon Jan 28 - Mundane Historical Background
READINGS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Jan 30 - Occult Historical Background
READINGS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Fri Feb 1 - The Early Severans
READINGS:

Ursula Brandt, "To Starve the Soul: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Funerary Offerings," Katabasis 19.3: 105-147.
Marius Maximus, Caesares ch. 4 ("Septimius Leo") & 6 ("Caracalla and Geta"), trans. Stephen Crawford.
SOUTHERN, 23-49

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

What can the acceptance of a lion as Emperor tell us about the Roman Empire's attitude toward ethnicity and race?
How effective were the damnationes memoriae of Macrinus and Geta? What does the practice of damnatio memoriae tell us about the Roman approach to historiography?

WEEK 2: ELAGABALUS AND THE LATER SEVERANS

Mon Feb 4 - Elagabalus and Sol Invictus
READINGS:

Thomas Sheldon, "
ANTHONY 43-67
SOUTHERN 50-63

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Feb 6 - Initial Skirmishes
READINGS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Fri Feb 8 - The Last Severan
READINGS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 3:

Mon Feb 11
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Feb 13
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Feb 15
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 4:

Mon Feb 18
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Feb 20
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Feb 22
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 5:

Mon Feb 25
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Feb 27
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Mar 1
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 6:

Mon Mar 4
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Mar 6
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Mar 8
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 7:

Mon Mar 11
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Mar 13
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Mar 15
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 8:

Mon Mar 18
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Mar 20
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Mar 22
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

SPRING BREAK - MAR 23-MAR 31

SAT MAR 31 - MIDTERM PAPER DUE BY 11:59:59 PM

WEEK 9:

Mon Apr 1
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

**Wed Apr 3 **
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Apr 5
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 10:

Mon Apr 8
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Apr 10
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Apr 12
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 11:

Mon Apr 15
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Apr 17
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Apr 19
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 12: CONSTANTINE THE GREAT

**Mon Apr 22 - **
READINGS:

THOMAS iii - xx, 2-47

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed Apr 24
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri Apr 26
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

WEEK 13: REPERCUSSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES

Mon Apr 29
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Wed May 1
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*

Fri May 3
READINGS:
*
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

TUE MAY 14 - FINAL PAPER DUE BY 11:59:59 PM

A Dinner with Mr. Dark

It was on the 6^th of April, in the Year of Our Lord 1872, that I was able to secure an invitation to a dinner held at the townhouse of one Mr. Leopold Dark, in London. As M. Verne's novel regarding the voyages of the Nautilus had just been published in England, I believe that Mr. Dark was eager to meet the captain of that great vessel; and while I was quick to correct his mistake, the invitation stood. (I myself met the man some years later, at a members-only club in Istanbul with the most delightfully disorienting mesmeric patterns in its wallpaper, but that is a tale for another time.) The dinner took place three days later, on the 9^th; other than Mr. Dark and myself, there were around a dozen diners present, including Messrs. Ezekiel Marshall and James Carter, with whom Mr. Dark owns a trading company of some renown.

A full ekphrasis of the dining room itself could fill a whole book, containing as it did so many trophies and curios from Mr. Dark's long career, but I will limit myself to describing just a few of the more notable pieces in the collection. The table and its accompanying chairs had originally been created for Louis the Sixteenth himself, in a Venetian workshop whose clientele included Ottoman sultans and Habsburg emperors; it was en route on one of Mr. Dark's grandfather's ships when the Revolution started, and brought instead to his Amsterdam warehouse, whence it made its way to London. Upon the walls were mounted a number of taxidermied animal heads, including a great ape of the "Ye-Teh" or "Sasskwatch" family; a bull unicorn, its horn a good two feet long and still wickedly sharp; and a manticore, kept alive despite its decapitation through some ungodly art, temporarily muzzled to prevent its pitiful wheezing from disturbing the diners. Beside these there were displays of weaponry and armaments, from a bronze spear carried by Agamemnon at Ilium to a sort of phlogiston-thrower developed for use in the Royal Navy's abortive lunar campaign. The table's centerpiece was an inverted-time floral display, which at the start of the meal was withered and dead; as the meal progressed, the flowers regained their color, progressing backwards through the seasons, until by the dessert course they were closed green buds.

Of course, my main reason for accepting the invitation was not to enjoy the decor, but to study Mr. Dark's security arrangements, and note the locations of some choice objets d'art that I might be able to make use of or to sell to one of my more discreet associates. His house had the most fascinating warding scheme around it, an interlocked maze of alarms and shields reminiscent of the wards around the treasure-house of Babylon;

tags: goi-format marshall-carter-and-dark nobody _nobody

originally i wrote this for the jamcon2020 "delicious" theme but that clearly didn't pan out

Verifying Horizon Initiative credentials…
Accessing Universal Texts…
Please input command.

.s "myran"

Querying "myran"…
73 texts found.
About the Nature of the Stars, Chapter 17;
Against Ortotha, Chapters 5, 11-13, 27;
The Apostle in India, Chapter 57;
Banned and Proscribed Cults, Book 12, Chapter 1-6;
The Bleeding-Sky Sutra, Adhyāya 1, Pāda 7;
and 68 more.

.s "myran" +year-min "200" +year-max "600" +sort "date"

Querying "myran", after 200 AD, before 800 AD, sorting by date…
N texts found.
Travels in Persia and India, Chapter 8, Sections 3-4
The Bleeding-Sky Sutra, Adhyāya 1, Pāda 7;
On the Eastern Martyrs, Chapter 13
Letters of Haemarch Theophanos Onteios, 22

Travels in Persia and India

Demetrius Macellus, c. 230 AD

tags: ethnography non-canonical hellenic ortothan koine-greek

3 The Hortothai of Bactria, called by their neighbors Haematastroi¹⁰, are a race of short and stocky men, dark-skinned like Africans; they speak both Greek, which they learned from the Empire of the Seleucids, and a language of their own, which they say was taught to them by the gods. ² Their greatest city is Myranopolis, and the rulers of every one of their cities look to its queen for guidance in times of strife. They hold curious beliefs about the gods and their worship, which I will now describe. ³ They revere seven of the Olympians, who they call the Koroteusai; but they claim that all but three of the gods are dead, slain long before the current age by the Titans' attempts to escape Tartatus and enter once more the mortal world. ⁴ Like us, they revere Zeus as king of the gods, who, they claim, sacrificed himself in the first Titanomachy, sending the whole host of Titans back to their home in the Pit. ⁵ Ares, they call Uronos, and Hephaestus, Eobos; in their legends, the brothers killed each other in a duel many years ago, and the ferocity of that duel, the Hortothai claim, covered the surface of Ares' star¹¹ with blood and fire, which is why it appears red to our eyes. ⁶ Athena, who they call Rhakmos, they name the queen of the still-living gods; it is for this reason that the Hortothai choose queens to lead them, unless there is a man of incredible virtue in their nation¹².

4 Neseres is their name for Apollo, and he is called also Amnemonos, the Forgotten One, because his death came at the hands of his worshippers, who forgot his name for a time and starved him of sacrifices. ² They also worship Hermes under the name Ioronos, who they credit with the invention of the wondrous arts¹³ and of their own language, although not other mortal languages. ³ Artemis, they call Myran,¹⁴ [ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ] [she brought?] the destruction [of?] [ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ] [they say?] she [still?] lives [ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ] [or?] so they claim. ⁴ They also revere Hades and Persephone, as Bernyx and Kornyx, although they do not give them equal status with the Olympians. ⁵ They believe that the gods are always locked in combat with the Titans, called in their language the Boruteutoi, who were imprisoned in Tartarus upon the creation of this world and are always trying to break free; ⁶ sacrifices of blood, given freely by the worshipers in the manner of the Galli and Bellonari¹⁵, are said to replenish the gods' own blood, which they lose in their endless war.

The Bleeding-Sky Sutra

Sri Swami Gahaninath, c. 370 AD

tags: theology non-canonical ortothan sanskrit

Seventh Pāda¹⁶

1. Amyranal[usan is the Seventh Sacred One]

2. [Their weapons are] seven <dha->¹⁷ [which they hold in their seven arms]

3. [Their colour is the colour] beyond [colour]¹⁸

4. [And with this colour are their shrines and altars to be painted]

5. [The day of their worship is Amyranavāsara, which is called also Śanivāsara¹⁹]

Lives of the Eastern Martyrs

Pseudo-Nestorius of Baghdad, c 550 AD

tags: hagiography apocryphal christian nestorian syriac-aramaic

Letters of Onteios

Haemarch Theophanos Onteios, c. 580 AD

tags: theology philosophy correspondence non-canonical ortothan koine-greek

Letter 22

To Gaius Aemilianus Lemmius, Haemophant of Neapolis,

Theophanos Onteios, Haemophant of Constantinople, greets you with a heart full of sorrow. We have lost one of the Koru-Teusa. Myran-leusan is no more.

I know not whether their death was caused by the eternal struggle with the Voruteut or by some battle one of the greater or lesser gods of the cosmos. I do not, for that matter, even know that they were killed; like forgotten Nesren-leusan, they simply disappeared. But

Pope Moechus V—Just Moe, to her friends—awoke with a real son-of-a-bitch of a hangover. She'd been out clubbing last night with a few of the anarcho-gnostic poets who lived in the squat next door, and those guys had a hookup for a Japanese absinthe brand that was illegal to sell or consume on this side of the Pacific, Ultimate Wormwood something. Moe was pretty sure it was hallucinogenic, but the poets might've doped it with something; their particular sect taught that mushrooms and acid were holy sacraments, after all, so it wouldn't be a surprise. She briefly remembered the party coming back to her place—that would explain the bed's other occupants, a heavily-tattooed pair whose noms de plume Moe couldn't quite remember—but most of the night was simply a blur of bad EDM, sweaty masses of dancing bodies, and way too much of the green fairy.

Moe's bed-buddies—both of whom were, disappointingly, fully clothed, though that was probably for the best—were dead to the world, so she had to climb over one of them to escape. She barely made it to the bathroom before puking. She'd never been happier that her roommates kept leaving the toilet seat up.

IHOP

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The Interfaith House of Prayer was packed, as it was every Sunday. The vinyl upholstery of the pews held a hundred butts, and a couple dozen more waited outside for a vacancy. Acolytes roamed the sanctuary in their colorful regalia, bestowing sacraments upon the worshipers and accepting their tithes. It was in the next room, the holy of holies, that the real work was done, by a cabal of priests who jealously guarded their secrets, the invocations and formulae that allowed them to form a bridge between the mortal world and the divine. It was an intricate dance, a sacred ritual that had gone almost uninterrupted, twenty-four hours a day, for nigh on thirty years; only massive catastrophes, events that shook the whole city to its bones, could pause it, and then only for hours, days at most. It was an institution, a sacred refuge, a spot of hope in an increasingly hopeless world.

"ORDER UP FOR 37!" Pope Gryps Phallacious shouted, as they slapped a corned beef hash and a short stack of blueberry-buckwheat pancakes under the heat lamp. Neither of them were special orders, unfortunately, with no more mojo in them than they naturally absorbed from such a mystically potent kitchen. Sundays were the worst for that; most customers, sure, but fewer true devotees of the House's teachings, their weird mutant brand of Unitarianism that held as its cornerstone the sanctity of the all-night diner. Gryps themself was a Discordian, primarily, but the truth of the House's message could not be denied, and their fellow chef-priests, a motley assortment drawn from a dozen traditions, shared that truth.

The morning passed in a blur, as Sunday mornings always did. Silvia Penne-Rigati (a Pastafarian theurge, clad as always in her ceremonial colander-crown) was testing out a breakfast lasagna, which sold out before ten o'clock. The Robinsons, a married couple who'd been at the House since the beginning, had a fight over the texture of the hollandaise that nearly came to blows, and were now glaring daggers at each other from opposite ends of the kitchen. Frank Zhu's idiotic cowboy hat caught fire; the eggs were briefly haunted by the ghosts of a thousand unborn chickens; and a patron got belligerent after a few too many bloody marys and had to be escorted from the premises.

There were a half-dozen others working the kitchen this morning, as there always were, seven being a number of great mystical potency (Gryps, of course, believed five was more powerful). There was Silvia Penne-Rigati, a Pastafarian theurge, meticulously assembling a breakfast lasagna. Beside her were Reverend Billy Davis, proud owner of the best damn biscuits and gravy recipe this side of the Mason-Dixon line, and "Cowboy" Zhu, a Texan Daoist who claimed to have achieved immortality by bribing a celestial bureaucrat with his huevos rancheros. The Robinsons, Marcellus and Susannah, were two of the Interfaith House of Prayer's founders, true Universalists who did their best to worship any god who would have them; Sue was having a quick smoke break out back, and Marc was