Secrets and Their Keepers - SCP Foundation

It was then that Matilda decided they hated magicians.

Prismal & AstersQuill

Secrets and Their Keepers by Prismal and AstersQuill

- Prismal's Author Page

- Aster's Author Page

Long, long ago, as seeds of life began to germinate in the reality we call home, there was a Library.

This Library, though lacking in grandiose labyrinths of books or patrons from the far reaches of reality, was well-rooted, steady. Still but a sapling nestled on the shores of a great river, this Library began to grow outwards and upwards, each new sensation a wind across its elastic bark limbs carved deep into the rings of its core; knowledge that would be called upon to name the sky, the ground, and the sea. But like any quest for knowledge, there is some storm to chase, some rainbow to seek the end of. The Library knew want, a thirst for knowledge.

So the Library left, wandered, and with it, the world spoke to fill its many branches and rings with its knowledge. The Library wandered for millennia, before finally settling down a few stars away from Polaris, nestled in the shadow of the Great Bear. Although it no longer wanders this world, roots of it spring throughout, small havens where it can share the knowledge of its many years. It is here that the memories of new life bloom upon its branches, babies taking their first breath and speaking to the grass, which is an old friend of the Library…

Once upon a time, there was a very clever child by the name of Matilda Moose. Much like the Library, Matilda had been born with an insatiable hunger for knowledge. Every tactile sensation and audible noise was wonderous to them as they crawled around on the carpet. Matilda's parents, who did their best to keep pace with their eager learner, collected all manner of book and story to share with their child. And so Matilda learned and learned and grew and grew, quickly exceeding their pre-kindergarten peers, and then benevolently dispensing their knowledge to all who asked curious questions on the colorful playgrounds. There was something appealing to Tilda about being a teacher, exchanging knowledge for new knowledge, scraps of ideas for irrefutable facts.

At the age of seven, Matilda saw their first magician at summer camp. The awkward man, dressed far too extravagantly for the summer's heat, pulled a white rabbit out of his raggedy top hat. Matilda sat stupefied; They hadn't the faintest idea how the man had done this, and were met with only hushes and shushes from the audience when they asked. Even after the show, the trick was all Matilda could think about. They replayed it over and over in their brain and got nowhere closer to the truth. When the man next returned to the camp, Matilda approached the magician and asked him how it was done. The man just laughed at them and said "a magician never reveals his secrets!"

It was then that Matilda decided they hated magicians.

Matilda took the magician's retort to heart and vowed to learn all they could about magic, to never be made to feel lesser again. They read all the could, and practiced until they understood each mechanical part, each smoke and mirror that went into the trick. They lured a rabbit into a makeshift trap, a perfect volunteer for their first performance.

And then, they showed others how it was done.

But… in-so-doing they learned something else: the thrill of fooling audiences, their amazed applause as Matilda flaunted their wit. The look in their eyes, both awe and excitement, as Matilda seemingly folded the world in front of them, drawing forth something from the depths of their imaginations. Once again, Matilda held in their hands the cards of knowledge, and continued to push forward to learn more tricks from the mundane to the mystical to chase that awe-filled high.

Cementing their new path, Tilda had become a magician.

With roots sufficiently laid, Tilda grew, both physically and through the knowledge they possessed. Elementary, middle, and high school passed in a whirl, and Tilda was able to use the energy normally devoted to studies to learn more esoteric facets of knowledge. As a student, Tilda brought this same passion to learning all they could about all that they could. They still did the good work of teaching others what they knew, but ultimately they derived the most joy of knowing something others didn't, of their high grades, their academic awards, and all the other proofs of their cleverness. People looked up to Tilda being at the top of their class, and it was there that people trusted them with more than just grades: secrets. Those who know, know, and those that don't instead live in the dark.

Humans were naturally inclined to fear of the dark, and what it represented: the unknown. Tilda, of course, was no different. But Tilda knew, if someone could recognize every distant shape, name every shadow - why, there would be no unknown to fear at all! Tilda used this steadfast conviction as they maneuvered the remainder of their time in their high school's haughty cliques and neverending gossip. They were hungry for far more than AP Literature lectures and gossip about who was seeing who; Stagnation clawed at Tilda, only ending with diploma in hand and a bus ticket to somewhere new: college.

Though college was meant as a fresh start, Tilda returned to their time-trusted routine, as if it were carved in their very bones. Here was a chance for them to learn about others from all over the world, to use those experiences to further Tilda's store of knowledge while they unknowingly fed into that praxic hunger. It was only natural that they would drift towards another like them: a girl in black who also spent her life among the pages of a book, a kindred soul, a friend, or perhaps something even more. A girl who promised them more knowledge than they could ever desire. Finally, Tilda had met an equal.

The pair spent nights combing through ancient texts, collecting secrets, distributing what they knew to the classmates they could trust. They spent hours across the study room or library from one another in silence, eyes feasting on the written knowledge shared within the college's great halls. In this silence, trust blossomed; a resource almost as valuable as knowledge in Tilda's eyes.

It was on one of these nights that the girl in black introduced Tilda to an even greater purpose, a choice to pull the unseen scales from Tilda's eyes so they could learn about the true nature of the world. The girl had amassed a collection of scraps of books, manuscripts, poems and art, written thoughts laid bare in ink. She explained to Tilda that these works told stories that the world should have forgotten, phantoms that existed only on the page now. The world didn't forget them, however, because the girl did not forget them. Tilda bubbled with anger at the thought of some unseen force trying to one up them, and, with promise made to the girl, the two unearthed stories that should have been long lost.

…I walked along a hidden path in the woods one day, sitting next to a statue as if it were an old friend.

The statue was green with moss and lichen, and although it is a faux pas to reveal all of one's self to strangers, the marble chips and cracks allowed me to see into this inviting figure. I set down my bag and looked around. Scattered in the clearing's periphery lay its arms, viney limbs of toned muscles that became the home of those creeping isopods living beneath. I found its head leaning against a rotted log, pupil-less eyes and stoic countenance never softening even as a I rolled it back to the base of the statue. Finally, its spear lay splintered, but I placed its ornate head in the three-fingered hand of the stranger.

With all pieces returned, I found a tarnished plaque reading such:

Here lies The Ancient Guardian

Share and rejoice for his noble deeds;

Saving the world from the Princess of weeds;

Rest, rest, for the evil is beaten.

"Thanks for the story, old friend."

I pat his shoulder, took a swig from my flask, and continued down the path, thinking back on the name "The Ancient Guardian". It wouldn't be long until it was once again forgotten, and the story left my mind as a I traveled down the path, wondering what other fantasies the forest would have in store…

One cannot take back a boot print in the mud, nor could they uncrush the butterfly who led the pair to come across this archaic tale.

So there used to be this dude in my home town. Some little old guy with frizzy hair who used to walk around with a big stick. I never knew his real name, but when I was a kid we all used to call him "The Whiz" since he used to do magic tricks. And because he smelled a bit like piss. Man everybody used to love the Whiz. I used to pass him an apple every time I walked by going home from school, and he'd do a little card trick or coin trick and make my day. One time I asked him to teach me, but he'd always just smile with a little twinkle in his eyes and say that a magician never reveals his secrets. A lot of us kids took that as a challenge, taught ourselves some tricks, but nobody could ever do it like the Whiz. Man, I would swear up and down this guy knew real magic! The one time I thought I figured out one of his tricks, pulling a coin out behind some kid's ear, easiest trick in the book, he just tilted his head and dozens of golden coins fell out, wayyyyy too many for him to have palmed. Turns out they were all chocolate, not gold. A real special memory, you know?

Weirdest thing though. I flew the coop, went off to college, got a job and all that. Forgot all about magic until I found some old trick cards of mine. Asked about the Whiz when I called home that day, and everyone swore he was just an urban legend! Some collective hallucination or a childlike fantasy or some crap. Next time I went home, I looked around for the guy, no sign of him, just his old stick where he used to hang around.

I don't know what happened to the guy, but it's fucked up what they did to the Whiz, I hope he's doing alright.

♠

A game of cards can only go on for so long, and a magician can only hold so many up his sleeve. Some people just don't know when to fold them.

I had a muse once.

I must have, for what else could have spawned such heavenly images?

Maybe, only a dream, some bittersweet manic vision.

But as I gaze upon these tear-stained pages, I taste a faded memory on the tip of my tongue, and know there was something more.

If only I were a better artist, maybe I'd remember her face.

I wish my hands would remember anything else.

What must it be like to live as a somatic shadow? A mind of its own, adrift from the memories of them, permanently etched on the skin of another, sensations lingering.

00/00/0000

I never understood why folks were opposed to us. The Foundation, I mean, I used to be one of their grunts. Always seemed to me we were doing people a favor, sparing them from the horrors any way we could. The use of amnestics never bothered me, why leave folks traumatized if we could help it? It just made sense. Who would want to remember grandma coming back as a zombie or a vampire eating your dog? (No offense to the undead, of course.) I never understood why you'd want to remember until they tried to take my own memories away, one of their own, can you believe it? I mean fuck, I had just seen my entire unit mowed down by by this thing my brain couldn't even understand. Something pink with too many angles, I- it hurts to think about. We finally got the bastard, Magnus did. He- sacrificed himself to save me. When reinforcements came I was screaming bloody murder. They immediately wanted to amnesticize me, but I said no. They let it drop after asking a few more times, but eventually they stopped asking me, and started telling me.

I fought back, and went AWOL. I don't know why I did it, it wasn't really a conscious choice, but I don't regret it for a second.

I wish it never happened, you know? I still have nightmares, all these years later. But I never want to forget them.

A cracked house; a foundation poured of blood, greasing the cogs of a great, uncaring machine that leaves only destruction in its wake.

The Foundation was my home, a mass of dull concrete and bright flourescents, but a home nonetheless.

As a child wrapped in a veil like a warm blanket, secrets were my closest companions.

My parents, cogs in a great machine, molded me in the same image, nitrile gloves reminding me of the filter placed on the world to keep it "safe".

I was taught good and evil, a binary black and white morality, magic and monsters and those that locked them away. I was taught to fear the dark and those that dwelt within it.

I was taught to be cold, to seal all warmth away within.

I became gray as the concrete foundations; Foundation through and through.

But it was only a masquerade, and all masquerades must end once the clock strikes midnight.

In showing our true colors, our own mother locked us away, proclaiming us the darkness that must be held at bay. Though my father claimed to free me, he merely took a part of us for the great machine, a loathful sacrifice that scarred our soul.

And though I am now free from it, the Foundation will forever contain a part of us;

I can no longer remember my mother's face.

♛

Tilda's eyes widened as they read page after page, word after word, forgotten thought after forgotten thought on the pages. A profound feeling of sadness hung over the air, and Tilda looked to their companion for wisdom.

"In the Library, the most important rule is that something must be shared. That it must not be forgotten as long as there are still those that value knowledge in this world."

It was then that the girl revealed herself a storybook queen, a protector of the forgotten, and informed Tilda of her noble mission. What could Tilda do but answer her call? Take the Serpent's Hand? The studious and well-read who spent their time teaching others, not just the mundane knowledge of textbooks and seminars, but of truths lost to the ears of the many. Oh the things Tilda learned! They felt as if they had truly found a place they belonged, and they found that there were those that threatened that place.

You see, they've always known there was a Library too, those book-burning fascists, those hoarders of knowledge, and they've always hated, always strived to prevent others from knowing. In fear they armed themselves with their clockwork propaganda machines, their perversions of cryptomancy, their hemlock cures to minds that have pondered more than they allow. All of them, deafening lies. They've cast the world in a veil of mundanity and forced us all to dance along wine-drunk to their sick masquerade.

But still, there is the Library.

The Library stands far away from it all; an island of truths in an ocean of lies, a tree swaying among endless winds threatening to topple it and return it to the ground. It is here where we come to remember, despite the ceaseless crusade of jailors with the soulless purpose of pruning our memories to fit their hideously astroturfed Garden of Eden. Among the shelves in docents are what was and what is and what shall be, winding and unwinding threads of universes so similar yet so different to our own. It is here we reflect, for although their memories may be wiped from our minds, they will never succeed in wiping them from our stories.

Long ago there was a snake in a Garden far away from here. Many remember the snake as a deceiver, a tempter, a liar, but we know it was none of those things. Knowledge was hidden from early humans, knowledge that would make them human, but forces that play god often nip imperfection in the bud before it can take root. All the snake offered was a choice: A choice for knowledge that would better connect the humans to the world around them, if only they disobeyed their creator and warden to grasp the freedom of choice in their hands. We make hundreds, if not thousands of choices everyday in an attempt to live what we feel are our best lives. The humans made their choice, they were punished, and the snake was cursed to crawl on its stomach ever since.

We reject their curse. We reject living on our stomachs under the boots of those in pursuit of some utopia of the mundane.

As long as there is knowledge to share, there will always be those that try to hide it and those that try to share it. The denial of knowledge is the denial of one's primal instinct of curiosity, a betrayal of our intuition. Every library must have books, every book an author, and every author a story to tell - through their words or their pens or their blood. When we find those who seek to challenge knowledge, to deny stories, we think back to our common ancestor and the choice they made. This time it's our turn to offer knowledge to those without, to simply offer a choice. If humanity is to ever overthrow the petty gods, the skittish bureaucrats and capitalists and zealots that try to play us as pawns in some pyrrhic game, they have to make a choice, they have to take the Serpent's Hand.

This is who we are, and this is why we fight.

~Tilda Moose

Tilda closed their "manifesto" and stood, stretching deeply until their neck cracked. There it was, the culmination of their time at the Serpent's Hand. It already felt like a lifetime ago that they'd acted the part of the rebellious youth, raging against the machine, spouting simplistic platitudes about "free knowledge for all" along with their former Serpent's Hand compatriots. Learning magic and solving the mysteries of the world like some kind of fantasy novel protagonist. Now they could only roll their eyes at how ridiculous they sounded, in comparison to the hard science and concrete of the Foundation.

Tilda sat back down and began typing their report, opening manila folders and flipping through ancient forms and reference documents, the musty sweet smell of lignin filling their nostrils. Oh how precious little the Foundation seemed to know about the Hand and the Library -unless they were merely testing Tilda, of course, they could be ever so tedious. Still, better the paranoid jailor than the too trusting rebel, at least that's what they told themself.

Nx-01 | The Wanderers' Library

An extradimensional location accessed through an unknown number of extraspatial portals, known as Rosen-Fortune Bridges and colloquially referred to as "Ways", found across the world. The Wanderers' Library is a library of unknown size stated by many to be the largest repository of knowledge in the universe, with some claiming it contains the sum total of all knowledge in the multiverse. Although the Foundation has been aware of the Library since the inception of the organization, this awareness was due only to secondhand sources. It wasn't until Director Tilda Moose's defection from the Serpent's Hand to the Foundation that a more concrete understanding of the Library was obtained.

The Wanderers' Library is currently uncontainable, both due to the unknown amount of Ways leading to it as well as the resources required to theoretically anchor or sever Nx-01's connection to baseline reality. Instead, the Foundation's current objective is to mute the influence of Nx-01 by controlling the flow of information through the use of amnestics, disinformation campaigns, as well as monitoring staff and patrons that frequent known Ways. Patrons confirmed to originate outside of baseline reality are to be detained and interrogated for information pertaining to Nx-01. Although a comprehensive list of Ways is believed to be impossible, researchers have noted high fluctuations in Hume levels around university libraries, especially those primarily serving anomalous populations (See: Serena Verdae College).

Library staff, referred to as "Librarians", are split into three categories: Archivists, who relay and spread information from the Library to individuals beyond the extradimensional location, Custodians, responsible for the upkeep of Library facilities, and Seers, oracles that act as guides to patrons within the Library. It is currently unknown whether Librarians are hostile to the Foundation's mission due to inconsistent interactions with all three categories…

They did not miss the Hand, but it was no secret that Tilda missed the Library. All those books, all that knowledge, free for the taking if only you were clever enough to find it. Magic and power for anyone to grasp. A veritable paradise.

Certainly it'd be useful to have now. Their new position found them drowned letterheads and boxes of files dedicated to what seemed to be the consequences of their wildest dreams. At least in the library they could rest and read a calm story, here there seemed to be nothing but consequences. There were no more stories about good triumphing over evil, brave heroes slaying monsters that threatened the light. They yearned for those stories, the lessons, the exhilarating rush of knowing something that wasn't seen by at least five pairs of eyes before it finally reach Tilda's.

Tilda exhaled and ceased their reverie, returning to work.

…

Through the use of unique thaumaturgic rituals, colloquially known as "Knocks", individuals can access the greater Library through Ways. Knocks vary between location, with recovered information showing a variety of activation conditions ranging from the mundane to the dangerous to the esoteric. The Serpent's Hand is known to discretely spread information on the location of local Ways and their related Knocks along with basic information on learning thaumaturgy. The following methods have been observed: word of mouth, pamphlets, oneironautics, and graffiti among others, often in proximity to public libraries.

Despite replicating these rituals, no individual with affiliation to the Foundation or Global Occult Coalition have been able to achieve access to the greater Library. However, Foundation agents have been able to access Ways due to their existence as locations in the Veil. As such, research on the Wanderers' Library is limited to eyewitness reports and knowledge sharing agreements with cordial Groups of Interest who retain Library access…

The Foundation, the Jailors, the enemy, anathema to the Serpent's Hand. It had seemed repulsive how they hid they truth from the world. Like a spark, the talks of resistance led to declarations of war and a call to action. A fire fueled by youthful disdain and energy. An organized raid against the anti-intellectual elite, a mission to 'liberate' the bizarre from their cells.

They had their asses absolutely handed to them, all of them killed or captured.

Such a waste.

Tilda had sat in a jail cell for hours, waiting for the end, ready to spit in the face of their captors, to laugh at the simple minds who would never even begin to know the things that Tilda knew.

Instead, along came a snake. Tilda heard much about a man like him in the past, a man so dedicated to the cause that he would shun his own daughter if asked. But instead of trying to break them, instead of trying to chip away at the fortitude of youthful defiance, he spoke to Tilda. They imagine his eyes to have slitted pupils, a reminder that it wasn't human to deny the pursuit of knowledge.

Despite the platitudes the Hand espouses, dangerous knowledge does exist; secrets best not to know, words that can break you, curiosity that kills even a cat. But man ever reaches for what it cannot have: the dangerous, the forbidden, especially those that fancy themselves magicians, guardians of secrets, keeper of mysteries.

This is what the man told them, and so Tilda laughed and spat in his face, because this was something they already knew.

Then the man told them about their research, and Tilda learned how naive they'd truly been.

…

GoI-014 "The Serpent's Hand" is a violent extremist group with the goal of destroying the Veil and providing humanity access to the greater Wanderer's Library. The Serpent's Hand are incredibly hostile to the Foundation and other normalcy organizations, often attempting to achieve their goals through violent means. Attacks on Foundation transports, assaults on personnel, and raids on low-security storage sites are examples of common actions taken by the group, often with the goal of accessing Foundation records or releasing contained anomalies. Actions by the Serpent's Hand are often paired with careless anomalous exposure to local civilian populations, requiring mass amnesticization and misinformation campaigns to resolve.

MTF Tau-9 (“Bookworms”) has been created to counter actions by Serpent's Hand cells. Agents are to use extreme prejudice when dealing with threats, and are to prioritize capture or neutralization of rival agents and materials over containing activated anomalies. Access to the Wanderers' Library through the use of captured Serpent's Hand agents has yet to be achieved.

For all that the Library was a bastion of free knowledge, there were still locked doors, rules to follow. Mysteries for only the Serpent to know. Tilda thought back to their younger self at those magic shows, and couldn't help but feel a hatred bubbling within them. From the moment they'd learned about the Black Vault they'd felt a void, a hunger within them, aching to taste this knowledge, taboo as it was.

But they knew that they'd never be able to safely study it, or in some cases even remember it. That was, until the gray man gave them the means to do so, and the knowledge of how to obtain it.

Then the man let them go, not with a tracker, not with a mind wiping pill, but with an offer, an apple.

And so Tilda ate of the forbidden fruit.

A cold breeze cut through the room, causing Tilda to pull their sweater close. A chill of remembrance, albeit clouded by time and amnestics cut through them.

With their great sin committed, their hard-won knowledge gained, they were exiled from their paradise, never to return. But the Library would not steal the knowledge from Tilda's head, as doing so would be a betrayal of the very ideals it held. And so they left burdened with glorious knowledge, knowledge that only they knew and nobody else.

Forbidden knowledge they could exchange for a place that stood in opposition to everything they once believed in, a place that kept knowledge well within its manila and binary walls.

While Tilda Moose hated magicians, they found incredible joy in being one.

Shattered Love >>