Per 
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is to remain in the possession of Ethel W. Mercer until the time of her death, at which point it is to be transferred to Site-83's Practical Osteomantic2 Department as per the 2017 Goodfaith agreement. SCP-XXXX is presently contained by Ethel W. Mercer and her immediate family in the hamlet of Houts' Bay.3 Annual use of SCP-XXXX by Ethel W. Mercer for ceremonial purposes has been approved, on the condition that a member of the Foundation's Thaumaturgical Anthropology Department is permitted to attend and take written records of these practices.
Should Ethel W. Mercer or her immediate family display an unwillingness to continue amiably cooperating with the Foundation, or use SCP-XXXX for any unapproved purpose, the anomaly is to be taken into immediate containment and the aforementioned individuals detained and administered amnestics as appropriate.
Description: SCP-XXXX is a large millstone carved from burrstone,4 designed to facilitate the grinding of wheat and other grains for the production of various flours. SCP-XXXX's anomalous properties manifest when a sufficient amount of organic osseous material is ground by the millstone. Such osseous material is processed into a fine, powdery substance analogous to conventionally milled wheat flour. Testing suggests that the substance produced in this way can be substituted at a 1:1 ratio with typical wheat flour for most baking recipes.
Baked goods utilizing the substance produced by SCP-XXXX in this manner, hereafter referred to as SCP-XXXX-1 products, present additional anomalous effects. Notably, SCP-XXXX-1 products possess a significantly higher nutritional and calorific value than typical grain products. Approximately 200g of SCP-XXXX-1 products are sufficient to provide the daily calorific and nutritional requirements of an adult human. Additionally, digestion of SCP-XXXX-1 products at least once every 14 months affords the consumer an anomalously bolstered resistance to various communicable diseases and illnesses.
SCP-XXXX has been used annually by Ethel W. Mercer and her ancestors for the production and distribution of SCP-XXXX-1 products during an annual harvest festival held in Hout's Bay. As a result of this reoccurring event, an estimated 70-85% of the 370 person population of Hout's Bay have consumed some quantity of SCP-XXXX-1 products annually since the hamlet's founding in 1752. No notable health defects are noted as arising from this consumption.
The ongoing relationship established between the Foundation and Ethel W. Mercer was outlined in the 2017 Good Faith agreement, initially proposed by Dr. Paul Lindser.5
Addendum A-1: Memos Concerning Dr. Lindser's investigation into Hout's Bay Occult Community.
Addendum A-2: GOOD FAITH PROPOSAL - A report by Dr. Lindser concerning Hout's Bay.
On 04/10/2017, Dr. Lindser proposed the following arrangement for the containment of SCP-XXXX after personnel research and consultation with Ethel W. Mercer.
Director Barrett,
As per my earlier reports, while being assigned to Hout's Bay to investigate the osteomantic practices of the local Hezur-langilea, I encountered Madame Mercer: the matron of the Mercer family and chief practitioner of the aforementioned thaumaturgic art within the community.
She and her family have been amiable and forthcoming with me concerning the interests of our organization. They have alluded to a potentially prothetic expectation regarding the involvement of an outside party in their affairs (although they have not given the inclination of possessing any significant understanding of the nature of the Foundation, nor its scope and mission) and are willing to cooperate fully in maintaining the veil, provided certain requests are met.
Cheif amongst them is the retention of the Millstone, SCP-XXXX, for the remainder of Madame Mercer's life. Additionally, they have requested permission to continue producing and distributing bread to the community, through a series of osteomantic rituals, annually during an October festival.
I am inclined to recommend we agree to these conditions. While I am aware of the atypical nature of this arrangement, there are a series of factors that I hope you will consider:
- The current dependency of Hout's Bay on SCP-XXXX-1 products. The removal of SCP-XXXX and/or restricting the annual distribution of its edible byproducts poses a severe health risk to the persons residing in Hout's Bay. When examining records of locals who've moved away from the hamlet, it is immediately clear that they are far more susceptible to a wide range of transmitted illnesses than their fellow Canadians across all equivalent demographics. Oral family stories concerning SCP-XXXX-1 products routinely present them as a miracle cure; I theorize that the sudden removal of such products from the annual diet of local residents will leave them uncommonly vulnerable to communicable diseases. While a gradual inoculation program ought to be implemented, it would take several years to come to fruition. As such, I believe the sudden removal of SCP-XXXX-1 products from the communal diet would be unethical and introduce an anomalous health risk to members of the general public.
- The opportunity presented by a collaborative relationship with members of the Hezur-langilea. In my brief conversations with Madame Mercer and her family, she has shared with me a great deal of knowledge concerning osteomantic practices and rituals, as well as histories of her own and associated occult cultures. Of particular interest at the moment is the parallels between the traditional ritualistic practices conducted by Madame Mercer's ancestors, and the operation of the sounding bones acquired from Jean & Jean Transporal. Furthermore, information concerning the historical relationship between the Hezur-langilea and Nälkä practitioners may very likely provide insight into the latter group (thereby assisting in recovering anomalous items and further developing our working understanding of carnomantic thaumaturgy across its various manifestations).
Due to these conditions, it is my recommendation that the Foundation establishes a working relationship, in good faith, with Madame Mercer, that upholds the Foundation's mandate while simultaneously minimizing potential threats to the residents of Hout's Bay and encouraging further dialogue and collaboration with the few know Hezur-langilea members. I thereby suggest SCP-XXXX be assigned the CERNUNNOS classification,6 until such a time that it becomes the exclusive property of the Foundation.
Additionally, one of Madame Mercer's adult grandchildren has expressed interest in our occupation. However, these matters are best addressed in a subsequent letter.
Your friend,
Paul Lindser.
Addendum A-3: Oral History of the Hezur-langilea.
Due to their isolated and secretive nature, Foundation records on the Hezur-langilea cultural group were limited prior to contact with Ethel W. Mercer. Historical records imply their existence along the Bay of Biscay since approximately 800 A.D. Additionally, encounters with the Hezur-langilea imply a familiarity with thaumaturgic practices involving the use and manipulation of osseous tissues for hunting, harvesting, construction, and communal-concealment.
On 07/11/2019, Vivian Mercer, the grandchild of Ethel W. Mercer, was approved to join the Foundation as a thaumaturgic advisor stationed at Site-83. She shared the following account of the Hezur-langilea upon request:
AUDIO LOG
DATE: 08/11/2019
NOTE: The following transciption details Vivian Mercer's description of the historical origin of the Hezur-langilea and her knowledge of SCP-XXXX.
[BEGIN LOG]
Okay, hello? I think this thing is on. Oh shit, one second.
The sound of a kettle whistling is heard and ends abruptly, followed by the pouring of a liquid. Approximately a minute passes before [Name's] voice is heard again.
Right, so I'm Vivian. I just started working here, at Site-83 this week - big place, going to be a while until I stop getting lost.
Okay, so they asked me to start by recording what I know about our history, the Hezur-langilea. Great chance for me to get paid to just make shit up.
I'm not going to do that though, just in case anyone's actually listening.
So it's kind of hard to know where to start. I've heard gran tell these stories a hundred times, but didn't really think I'd be the one sharing them, and not in a room to myself. But, uh, anyway - here we go.
I get to skip over the beginning stuff, as I'm sure anyone listening to this knows more about the medical sarkists in the south of France than I do. But quick recap: local aristocracy gets pretty keen on living forever, wind up as flesh-loving cannibals or something. I'm pretty sure the accounts I've heard are quite biased. Anyway, they oppress the peasants worse and worse for a few generations, until things get really bad; they keep needing more bodies for the blood-flesh-orgies (again, likely biased, I don't know).
Eventually, this old man comes round the villages and starts preaching. He tells the peasants that their flesh is their soul; that's why it rots away when you die, you've gone somewhere else. Those ruling classes, he claims, are perverting their flesh and consuming the souls of others, and that if this is left unchecked, people are going to suffer everlasting torment. Now I suppose that for these peasants, who've been toiling in the mud while their family members are being kidnapped and taken to the castles, pretty much the only thing to look forward to was dying and not having to deal with this any longer. So hearing this gets them pretty riled up and they decide to do something about it. The only problem is they aren't really equipped to go to war. So the old man reveals the hidden mass graves where their family and friends were buried and teaches them to form the bones into weapons. So now they're an armed mob intent on storming the noble's castles.
This goes very poorly for them.
Turns out some bone spears wielded by untrained folk don't do too well against experienced knights, especially when they're riding 8-legged, maw-covered abominations, and the riders are able to shoot spikes, grow extra arms, and regenerate from most injuries.
So they get driven back, but the aristocrats decide they need to make an example of them: start chasing them down as they flee, burn the villages, massacre those hiding. They're doing a great job of it, manage to chase the peasants all the way to the shores. At this point, they could likely have just finished them off, but for whatever reason, they pull off. Whether they were just going to let them starve on the dunes or to come back later, who knows.
So the peasants are all there on the beaches, having been chased across the country for days, no food clean water, any of that. That's when she comes; they see her on the ocean first, rowing towards them: an old woman, alone, rowing a hallowed-out tree trunk. She makes landfall as the crowd gathers around her, and tells them that she can save them if she'll let them.
There were three things she taught the gathered crowd.
The first was how to hunt the beasts of the oceans. She would take them out on the tree-boat, and show how one could call the beasts to them, calm them, and then kill them. Apparently, they would let it happen. These massive whales would come up alongside the truck and let themselves be lanced through the heart, eyes, lungs. They'd swim off onto shore and strand themselves, staining the shorelines red with their blood.
Next, she taught them how to flense the bodies. She showed them how to use the bone knives to pull apart the flesh and blubber, tearing through layers of muscle and sinew, scrape by scrape until only the skeleton remained. That was hauled onto the shore. Teams of men and women were disassembling the ribs and jawbones, laying them on the sand, and scraping the last chunks of gristle off. The flesh was thrown back to the sea, to the swarms of fish and birds that had gathered. Then those bones were set up around the dunes. They'd have dug holes a few feet deep in the sand, before hauling the pushing the bones upright until the ivory towers encircled them. These rings of these curving monoliths encircling them in concentric circles. It took days, but when they were done she told them that no enemy would ever find them, so long as the bones stood.
Then, for her last teaching, she told the crowd to gather wood and dig pits on the beach. When they were done, she pulled two great stones from the boat and laid them upon one another. She told the crowds that they would eat, but it would require a sacrifice. Those weapons, the bones of their families, would need to be cast down and ground upon the stone for flour. And that from this, she would teach them to bake bread that would offer them health and substance.
There was silence for a moment until a young man who had lost his family in the fighting offered her his spear. Then others came forward, and those weapons that had failed them became their salvation. They offered up their ancestors to sustain them, and the woman turned the wheel and ground the bones. Then she gathered the meal and mixed it with the seawater, creating a dough she showed others how to knead and bake. That night when they broke bread they felt they were safe. In the morning the woman was gone, but the stones and the tree and the knowledge remained.
So, yeah. That's most of what I know. I'm going to end the recording here. Let me just-
[END LOG]
PENDING: Proposed Addendum A-3:
You are viewing a proposed revisional draft. The following documentation has not been officially approved for addition to the file of: SCP-XXXX
PROPOSED ADDENDUM - A3
Director Barrett,
I've been digging through records at the library up in Hout's Bay for the last few weeks. There's a collection of material here that's worth a closer look at. But that will need to wait.
I've added this to the drafted version of XXXX's file in the meantime. You may want to call up Dr. Lindser. I suspect he'll recognize a familiar face.
Suffice to say, we may not be getting XXXX as soon as we hoped.
— Andrea Mits, Field Archivist - Site-83.
