Project MONUMENT 071: 14-15 October 2011, Paris
INTERNAL MESSAGING - LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE REQUIRED - EYES ONLY
To: O5-11
From: SCP-780
Hi so I got this email saying that I was supposed to report to you on projects from now on if Malus Sylvestris used to be in charge of them. Does that include Project MONUMENT? Because she had me doing some work on that.
INTERNAL MESSAGING - LEVEL 1 CLEARANCE REQUIRED
To: SCP-780
From: O5-11
AUTOMATED RESPONSE:
The Foundation greatly appreciates your service to the cause of advancing the understanding of paranormal phenomena and the containment of those entities and items that are deemed to be a threat to humanity. The knowledge you have provided to us through your participation in Project MONUMENT is truly valuable. However, the current circumstances and the present allocation of Foundation resources require us to suspend operations of Project MONUMENT on an indefinite basis. We will neither assign tasks to you related to this project, nor expect you to file reports concerning your activities related to the project. We hope you will use the extra time this has granted you in other edifying pursuits.
Please do not hesitate to contact the Foundation if we can assist you in any other way.
O5-11
INTERNAL MESSAGING - LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE REQUIRED - EYES ONLY
To: O5-3/780
From: SCP-780
I see.
Now that Robert finally had access to the belfry, he had a long night of spellwork in front of him. He sent Aðalsteinn (who had stayed behind to keep an eye on things) out to retrieve the tiny terra cotta soldier from the SCP box in the catacombs, and to take as many small-denomination Euro coins as he could find out of public fountains. When Aðalsteinn brought Robert these items, Robert used the coins to construct a magic circle around the terra cotta statue. He then began a massive ritual intended to transfer Roland's insanity from the drugs and the drug distillation equipment into the statue. After more than six hours of magical work, he had finally achieved his goal and knew that the insanity would stay contained in the statue for a little over a week. However, it was not a permanent solution since Robert knew that he was not magically powerful enough to destroy Roland's insanity. He also knew that the insanity ran the risk of "leaking" into anyone or anything that was near it for too long, and that the spell he had done would not undo the effects that were at work on anybody who had already taken a dose of the drug. Robert gave the statue to Aðalsteinn with instructions to keep it safe in the gold-hiding location for the time being. After Aðalsteinn did this, he went home and slept for the better part of the day, as did Robert.
At the same time, Bo and Roland (Souna had made a show of having a nice dinner nowhere near the others and then going to bed early) waited at Bo's apartment to find out if they would need to intervene in any way. Lazaro joined them after he saw that Robert's magic was going to take a long time and that he would not be able to observe it while it happened. All three hunters were dozing off when Roland's cell phone rang, showing a call from Tobias. Tobias reminded Roland of how Roland had asked him to come up with a hunt he could take Lazaro along on, and said that it seemed he had found one close to home. Before Tobias could explain, Roland heard Chrétien's voice in the background, ranting in Russian about strawberries and the KGB. Realizing that Chrétien and his friends had gotten their hands on of the last remaining doses of the changelings' drugs, Roland said that he would be there right away to handle the problem.
Bo, Roland, and Lazaro went immediately to Fire & Ice, where Tobias let them in and showed them to the VIP lounge, where Chrétien and his entourage were displaying increasingly erratic and Roland-like behavior. (Lazaro seemed partly shocked and partly amused by the whole situation.) Though Bo managed to get Chrétien's guns away from him, Tobias confirmed that many of the other Ashewood Abbey hunters were still armed with blades and had already displayed some aggressive behavior while under the influence of the drug. Roland said that they needed to find something to distract the drugged hunters from anything dangerous, and asked Tobias if they had been working on any sort of hunt recently, and Tobias said that they hadn't because Chrétien's record label was urging him to spend more time in the studio. This gave Roland an idea, and he piled everyone into "Sputnik Three" to take them to the recording studio.
Upon arriving at the studio, Roland found a complicated symphony and told Chrétien and his friends that there were enemy battle plans hidden in this music, and that Russia needed them to decode the coded message and compose a response. Chrétien and friends accepted this right away, and were soon analyzing the symphony for a message that didn't exist and composing an intricate quasi-gothic work of music in response. When it became apparent that this was going to be enough to keep the hunters occupied, Tobias said that he could keep an eye on things from here and that the others should leave and get some rest. Tobias thanked the subjects for their quick-thinking help, and even Lazaro admitted to being impressed by this creative solution. Then Bo, Roland, and Lazaro returned to their respective homes to get a little bit of sleep.
A few hours later, Bo and Roland got up again because they still needed to find a way to get the motorbike in the changelings' garage back to its owner that day, or else Bo would start being run over by every motorcycle as per the terms of her agreement with the bike's spirit. In order to do this, they called Robert (waking him up, which he was not very happy about) and asked him to use magic to disguise them in a manner different from the night before so they could go back to the garage and drop Roland's own scooter off under the pretense of a tune-up. However, when they got to the garage they realized that Souna's overzealous destruction of the security system and computers the night before was going to make it very difficult to actually find the bike's owner. While Roland checked the bike in, Bo contacted the spirit of the bike once again and asked the name of its owner. It did not know its owner's name, but it was able to give them a few details to go on about the location of his home.
At a loss for how to proceed, Bo and Roland called Robert again and asked him to use magic to point them in the right direction. Exhausted, he came up with the owner's name, but it was a fairly common one and Bo and Roland could not narrow the field much further. Finally, Roland was forced to use his own hunter ability to find out who the bike was registered to. Bo called the owner and claimed to be an insurance investigator who had recently learned that the shop was overcharing him for the work they were doing him, and so she was cautioning him to reclaim his bike and contest the charges. However, the owner did not believe her and thought she was running some sort of scam until Roland grabbed the phone from her and convinced the owner that she was being honest. The owner agreed to get the bike right away, and Bo could finally rest easy knowing that she would not be run over by the next motorcycle she saw.
That evening, Robert went to his normally scheduled dinner and mentoring session with Damiane. This time, he had something very specific to ask her: He wanted her to make the spell he had cast on the terra cotta soldier permanent, thus removing Roland's insanity from circulation permanently. Damiane balked at this request initially, saying that it would require a correspondingly permanent investment of will from her that would decrease her magical abilities for some time. She told Robert that she could not do it for free, and suggested that as payment, he would take over some of her duties related to the Guardians of the Veil that would become more difficult for her to do as she worked to regain her power. Robert agreed that this sounded like a fair bargain.
After asking Aðalsteinn to retrieve the statue from the catacombs, Robert took Damiane to the belfry so that she could complete the spell more easily. Damiane looked at the figurine and confirmed that it contained all of Roland's insanity. She then made Robert's spell permanent and told him that the statue was his to do with as he pleased - though she recommended handing it over to someone within the mages' Consilium for safekeeping. Robert said he would have to consult with the other subjects about that, and called Roland.
Upon learning that his insanity was contained, Roland said that he favored sending it to SCP, thinking that they stood the best chance of containing it. However, Robert was not certain that this was a good idea, since he remembered from his conversation with Malus Sylvestris that there was apparently some political turmoil going on within the Foundation. He did not voice this opinion to Roland, and said he would place the figurine in the post office box along with a full report as soon as possible. Robert then arranged a meeting to let everyone know what had happened. When Lazaro heard this, he asked whether it meant that the subjects' hunt had been completed. When they said that it had been, Lazaro said he would meet with them at Le Clown Bar the following night to let them know what he had decided to tell to Malleus Maleficarum about their activities. The subjects then went their separate ways for the night.
Robert had already decided not to give the figurine to SCP when he went to the post office box and found the following letter within it:
To Whom It May Concern:
You are receiving this message because you have recently worked on Foundation projects with O5-3/780, or are currently working on such projects. Please direct any inquiries or correspondence related to O5-3/780's projects in progress to O5-11 until I tell you otherwise.
SCP Administration
Robert took this to mean that SCP could not be trusted to the same extent that it previously had. So he purchased a similar figurine and placed it in the post office box with a factually accurate report that he wrote the next day. He then contacted Damiane and gave the real statue to her. She applauded his decision, and said that she would pass it along to the Mysterium, an order concerned with magical knowledge, who would make sure that the statue and its contents were kept safe from anyone who might be harmed by them.
Some of the subjects spent the next day working with Dr. Freund to insure that the remaining drugs were converted into a mundane substance that could not cause any sort of intoxication, and then discarding them. On Friday evening, the subjects met Lazaro at Le Clown Bar as planned. But before he could say anything about his conclusions, his cell phone rang and he apologized, saying he needed to take the call. When Lazaro picked up the phone and began to leave the room, the subjects heard him say in Italian, "Yes, Silvio? Just one moment, please." Robert panicked a little at hearing this, since he had a very politically antagonistic relationship with Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, and feared that this meant that Lazaro was somehow involved with Silvio's agenda - though he conceded that the name could be a coincidence as well.
Lazaro soon returned, and told the subjects that his final conclusion about what he had seen was that he needed to observe them further before he could really know what to think. They were shocked and dismayed and asked him why he still had concerns. Lazaro pointed out that during the entire course of the hunt that he had observed, the subjects had (in Lazaro's view) relied almost completely on Robert's magic to solvetheir problems. This introduced entirely new issues that required more study before a full report could be provided. Having a mage as the de facto leader of the group was another issue entirely as far as Malleus Maleficarum was concerned, since it asked the question of whether hunters who follow a mage so thoroughly could really be said to be independent or whether they were just subservient to magely interests. In light of this, Lazaro asked for the group's permission to continue to observe them to see whether the previous hunt had been a fluke, or part of a larger pattern. As always, the subjects were welcome to refuse Lazaro's request - but he warned them that if he returned to Rome and reported on only the facts of what he had seen, he could not promise that Malleus Maleficarum would not react in a way that would end poorly for the subjects.
The subjects asked Lazaro to leave them while they debated. Some of the subjects, Bo in particular, were violently opposed to Lazaro's continued presence, and favored taking their chances with whatever he told his conspiracy. But Roland continued to take a more measured approach. He argued that in his many conversations with Lazaro, he had gotten the sense that Lazaro was actually on the subjects' side and wanted them to succeed - that is, he wanted to prove to Malleus Maleficarum that a group like theirs could succeed. In the end, Roland's arguments combined with the fact that nobody wanted to bring Malleus Maleficarum down on their heads right now caused the subjects to grudgingly agree to allow Lazaro to stay. However, they also agreed that certain aspects of their hunter-related work (such as changeling politics, and the torch) should continue to remain secrets from him.
So the subjects called Lazaro back into the restaurant and told him he should stay, and that they would contact him when they had decided what hunt to take on next. Lazaro left, and the subjects made plans to take some time to recover from the wounds sustained in their recent fights, and figure out what to do next.
Doing this early again since I have some other things to take care of on Sunday. This session was really just a "tying up loose ends" kind of thing for everything that had come along before, so I don't have much else to add. The players (both IC and OOC) seemed to think that Lazaro's arguments were a big load of BS, which they certainly may be. Though I find it hard to look at this summary and the ones before it and refute his statement that they rely a lot on magic to do things the way they do them...
What is this?
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/599798.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth:
To: O5-11
From: SCP-780
Hi so I got this email saying that I was supposed to report to you on projects from now on if Malus Sylvestris used to be in charge of them. Does that include Project MONUMENT? Because she had me doing some work on that.
INTERNAL MESSAGING - LEVEL 1 CLEARANCE REQUIRED
To: SCP-780
From: O5-11
AUTOMATED RESPONSE:
The Foundation greatly appreciates your service to the cause of advancing the understanding of paranormal phenomena and the containment of those entities and items that are deemed to be a threat to humanity. The knowledge you have provided to us through your participation in Project MONUMENT is truly valuable. However, the current circumstances and the present allocation of Foundation resources require us to suspend operations of Project MONUMENT on an indefinite basis. We will neither assign tasks to you related to this project, nor expect you to file reports concerning your activities related to the project. We hope you will use the extra time this has granted you in other edifying pursuits.
Please do not hesitate to contact the Foundation if we can assist you in any other way.
O5-11
INTERNAL MESSAGING - LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE REQUIRED - EYES ONLY
To: O5-3/780
From: SCP-780
I see.
Now that Robert finally had access to the belfry, he had a long night of spellwork in front of him. He sent Aðalsteinn (who had stayed behind to keep an eye on things) out to retrieve the tiny terra cotta soldier from the SCP box in the catacombs, and to take as many small-denomination Euro coins as he could find out of public fountains. When Aðalsteinn brought Robert these items, Robert used the coins to construct a magic circle around the terra cotta statue. He then began a massive ritual intended to transfer Roland's insanity from the drugs and the drug distillation equipment into the statue. After more than six hours of magical work, he had finally achieved his goal and knew that the insanity would stay contained in the statue for a little over a week. However, it was not a permanent solution since Robert knew that he was not magically powerful enough to destroy Roland's insanity. He also knew that the insanity ran the risk of "leaking" into anyone or anything that was near it for too long, and that the spell he had done would not undo the effects that were at work on anybody who had already taken a dose of the drug. Robert gave the statue to Aðalsteinn with instructions to keep it safe in the gold-hiding location for the time being. After Aðalsteinn did this, he went home and slept for the better part of the day, as did Robert.
At the same time, Bo and Roland (Souna had made a show of having a nice dinner nowhere near the others and then going to bed early) waited at Bo's apartment to find out if they would need to intervene in any way. Lazaro joined them after he saw that Robert's magic was going to take a long time and that he would not be able to observe it while it happened. All three hunters were dozing off when Roland's cell phone rang, showing a call from Tobias. Tobias reminded Roland of how Roland had asked him to come up with a hunt he could take Lazaro along on, and said that it seemed he had found one close to home. Before Tobias could explain, Roland heard Chrétien's voice in the background, ranting in Russian about strawberries and the KGB. Realizing that Chrétien and his friends had gotten their hands on of the last remaining doses of the changelings' drugs, Roland said that he would be there right away to handle the problem.
Bo, Roland, and Lazaro went immediately to Fire & Ice, where Tobias let them in and showed them to the VIP lounge, where Chrétien and his entourage were displaying increasingly erratic and Roland-like behavior. (Lazaro seemed partly shocked and partly amused by the whole situation.) Though Bo managed to get Chrétien's guns away from him, Tobias confirmed that many of the other Ashewood Abbey hunters were still armed with blades and had already displayed some aggressive behavior while under the influence of the drug. Roland said that they needed to find something to distract the drugged hunters from anything dangerous, and asked Tobias if they had been working on any sort of hunt recently, and Tobias said that they hadn't because Chrétien's record label was urging him to spend more time in the studio. This gave Roland an idea, and he piled everyone into "Sputnik Three" to take them to the recording studio.
Upon arriving at the studio, Roland found a complicated symphony and told Chrétien and his friends that there were enemy battle plans hidden in this music, and that Russia needed them to decode the coded message and compose a response. Chrétien and friends accepted this right away, and were soon analyzing the symphony for a message that didn't exist and composing an intricate quasi-gothic work of music in response. When it became apparent that this was going to be enough to keep the hunters occupied, Tobias said that he could keep an eye on things from here and that the others should leave and get some rest. Tobias thanked the subjects for their quick-thinking help, and even Lazaro admitted to being impressed by this creative solution. Then Bo, Roland, and Lazaro returned to their respective homes to get a little bit of sleep.
A few hours later, Bo and Roland got up again because they still needed to find a way to get the motorbike in the changelings' garage back to its owner that day, or else Bo would start being run over by every motorcycle as per the terms of her agreement with the bike's spirit. In order to do this, they called Robert (waking him up, which he was not very happy about) and asked him to use magic to disguise them in a manner different from the night before so they could go back to the garage and drop Roland's own scooter off under the pretense of a tune-up. However, when they got to the garage they realized that Souna's overzealous destruction of the security system and computers the night before was going to make it very difficult to actually find the bike's owner. While Roland checked the bike in, Bo contacted the spirit of the bike once again and asked the name of its owner. It did not know its owner's name, but it was able to give them a few details to go on about the location of his home.
At a loss for how to proceed, Bo and Roland called Robert again and asked him to use magic to point them in the right direction. Exhausted, he came up with the owner's name, but it was a fairly common one and Bo and Roland could not narrow the field much further. Finally, Roland was forced to use his own hunter ability to find out who the bike was registered to. Bo called the owner and claimed to be an insurance investigator who had recently learned that the shop was overcharing him for the work they were doing him, and so she was cautioning him to reclaim his bike and contest the charges. However, the owner did not believe her and thought she was running some sort of scam until Roland grabbed the phone from her and convinced the owner that she was being honest. The owner agreed to get the bike right away, and Bo could finally rest easy knowing that she would not be run over by the next motorcycle she saw.
That evening, Robert went to his normally scheduled dinner and mentoring session with Damiane. This time, he had something very specific to ask her: He wanted her to make the spell he had cast on the terra cotta soldier permanent, thus removing Roland's insanity from circulation permanently. Damiane balked at this request initially, saying that it would require a correspondingly permanent investment of will from her that would decrease her magical abilities for some time. She told Robert that she could not do it for free, and suggested that as payment, he would take over some of her duties related to the Guardians of the Veil that would become more difficult for her to do as she worked to regain her power. Robert agreed that this sounded like a fair bargain.
After asking Aðalsteinn to retrieve the statue from the catacombs, Robert took Damiane to the belfry so that she could complete the spell more easily. Damiane looked at the figurine and confirmed that it contained all of Roland's insanity. She then made Robert's spell permanent and told him that the statue was his to do with as he pleased - though she recommended handing it over to someone within the mages' Consilium for safekeeping. Robert said he would have to consult with the other subjects about that, and called Roland.
Upon learning that his insanity was contained, Roland said that he favored sending it to SCP, thinking that they stood the best chance of containing it. However, Robert was not certain that this was a good idea, since he remembered from his conversation with Malus Sylvestris that there was apparently some political turmoil going on within the Foundation. He did not voice this opinion to Roland, and said he would place the figurine in the post office box along with a full report as soon as possible. Robert then arranged a meeting to let everyone know what had happened. When Lazaro heard this, he asked whether it meant that the subjects' hunt had been completed. When they said that it had been, Lazaro said he would meet with them at Le Clown Bar the following night to let them know what he had decided to tell to Malleus Maleficarum about their activities. The subjects then went their separate ways for the night.
Robert had already decided not to give the figurine to SCP when he went to the post office box and found the following letter within it:
To Whom It May Concern:
You are receiving this message because you have recently worked on Foundation projects with O5-3/780, or are currently working on such projects. Please direct any inquiries or correspondence related to O5-3/780's projects in progress to O5-11 until I tell you otherwise.
SCP Administration
Robert took this to mean that SCP could not be trusted to the same extent that it previously had. So he purchased a similar figurine and placed it in the post office box with a factually accurate report that he wrote the next day. He then contacted Damiane and gave the real statue to her. She applauded his decision, and said that she would pass it along to the Mysterium, an order concerned with magical knowledge, who would make sure that the statue and its contents were kept safe from anyone who might be harmed by them.
Some of the subjects spent the next day working with Dr. Freund to insure that the remaining drugs were converted into a mundane substance that could not cause any sort of intoxication, and then discarding them. On Friday evening, the subjects met Lazaro at Le Clown Bar as planned. But before he could say anything about his conclusions, his cell phone rang and he apologized, saying he needed to take the call. When Lazaro picked up the phone and began to leave the room, the subjects heard him say in Italian, "Yes, Silvio? Just one moment, please." Robert panicked a little at hearing this, since he had a very politically antagonistic relationship with Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, and feared that this meant that Lazaro was somehow involved with Silvio's agenda - though he conceded that the name could be a coincidence as well.
Lazaro soon returned, and told the subjects that his final conclusion about what he had seen was that he needed to observe them further before he could really know what to think. They were shocked and dismayed and asked him why he still had concerns. Lazaro pointed out that during the entire course of the hunt that he had observed, the subjects had (in Lazaro's view) relied almost completely on Robert's magic to solvetheir problems. This introduced entirely new issues that required more study before a full report could be provided. Having a mage as the de facto leader of the group was another issue entirely as far as Malleus Maleficarum was concerned, since it asked the question of whether hunters who follow a mage so thoroughly could really be said to be independent or whether they were just subservient to magely interests. In light of this, Lazaro asked for the group's permission to continue to observe them to see whether the previous hunt had been a fluke, or part of a larger pattern. As always, the subjects were welcome to refuse Lazaro's request - but he warned them that if he returned to Rome and reported on only the facts of what he had seen, he could not promise that Malleus Maleficarum would not react in a way that would end poorly for the subjects.
The subjects asked Lazaro to leave them while they debated. Some of the subjects, Bo in particular, were violently opposed to Lazaro's continued presence, and favored taking their chances with whatever he told his conspiracy. But Roland continued to take a more measured approach. He argued that in his many conversations with Lazaro, he had gotten the sense that Lazaro was actually on the subjects' side and wanted them to succeed - that is, he wanted to prove to Malleus Maleficarum that a group like theirs could succeed. In the end, Roland's arguments combined with the fact that nobody wanted to bring Malleus Maleficarum down on their heads right now caused the subjects to grudgingly agree to allow Lazaro to stay. However, they also agreed that certain aspects of their hunter-related work (such as changeling politics, and the torch) should continue to remain secrets from him.
So the subjects called Lazaro back into the restaurant and told him he should stay, and that they would contact him when they had decided what hunt to take on next. Lazaro left, and the subjects made plans to take some time to recover from the wounds sustained in their recent fights, and figure out what to do next.
Doing this early again since I have some other things to take care of on Sunday. This session was really just a "tying up loose ends" kind of thing for everything that had come along before, so I don't have much else to add. The players (both IC and OOC) seemed to think that Lazaro's arguments were a big load of BS, which they certainly may be. Though I find it hard to look at this summary and the ones before it and refute his statement that they rely a lot on magic to do things the way they do them...
What is this?
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/599798.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth: