A Most Unfortunate Reunion - SCP Foundation

Dr. Matthew Eggers, special assistant for sapient animal research at Site 19, sat at a bare table in Interview Room C, a notepad in his hand. In front of him, crawling back and forth across the table, was the creature that had occupied so much of his time for the last six months - SCP-1867, a telepathic, English-speaking sea slug that claimed to be Lord Theodore Thomas Blackwood, a 19th century British gentleman and explorer in a severe state of denial about his physical form. "Lord Blackwood", as he insisted on being called, was relating yet another fabulous and improbable tale of his adventures, and as he had done three times a week for months now, Eggers was taking down the self-proclaimed scientist's words on his notepad. Thus far, the Foundation had yet to decisively verify a single one of his anecdotes - but if even half of his claimed encounters with other contained objects were true, then there was a wealth of information in the slug's head that would be of great use in the Foundation's work.

"There I was!" Lord Blackwood exclaimed. "Thousands of feet above the forests of Baden, my eyes level with the peak of the Feldberg itself, my legs wrapped for dear life around the neck of an Austrian green dragon, one hand feverishly clutching the reins as I struggled to bring myself about. The saddle had fallen to the ground when I cut it loose, taking the beast's Prussian rider with it. I had expended my last rounds of ammunition fleeing Count von Zeppelin's airborne war machine before it caught aflame and fell to the Earth. I managed to cajole the dragon into turning back towards the east, and that's when I caught sight of a truly massive dragon - one of the rare Grand Romanov breed, imported from Russia - bedecked in burnished steel armor that shone impossibly bright as it caught the last rays of the evening sun. There, upon its back, I saw my quarry - Kaiser Frederick III himself. On any other day, I would never have dared to test my prowess against the man who was after all the husband of our dear queen's daughter. But now that the Eye of Lakshmi itself - that famed Hindustani amulet with the power to carry a man's soul into a new body after death - was in the hands of the Second Reich, I was left with no recourse.

"I drove the dragon straight at the Kaiser's and called forth from its lips a burst of flame that the Hun barely evaded. As I turned about to make another pass, I saw him blow into a massive hunting horn that echoed across the mountains and valleys of the Schwarzwald - and to my horror, another half-dozen dragons rose out of the opaque canopies below, fresh and ready for the fight. I was outnumbered and outgunned - the last of England's finest drake-men had been felled by von Zeppelin's contraption, our fusiliers on the ground forced to retreat by the German cavalry advance. I had only one hope to win the day. Holding on to the reins for dear life, I reached into my pack and carefully withdrew the oddly-shaped red vase that housed the most unusual of benefactors…"

"I'm sorry, Lord Blackwood," Dr. Eggers interrupted, "but I'm going to have to cut you off there. It's going to take me the rest of the day to translate all this from the shorthand, and the rest of the week for the staff to go over it. We'll have to finish the story during the next interview. Alright?"

"Dash it all!" Lord Blackwood replied. "I was just getting to the good part. Very well, I suppose I'll have to leave you in suspense for another week."

"I'm glad you understand," Eggers said, as he rose from the chair and made his way to the door. "Just wait right there and Dr. Andrews will be by in a few minutes to take you back to your tank."

"About that, my dear boy," Lord Blackwood said. "Do you think you could finally see your way to draining all that excess water out? I appreciate a good swim as much as the next fellow, but my skin has become far too wrinkled as of late."

"I'll pass that on to the director," Eggers said. The door closed behind him and Lord Blackwood was alone - or so he thought. From the air vent near the ceiling of the room, an interloper had been observing in secret the conversation between the doctor and the slug, waiting for exactly this moment. As Lord Blackwood turned his back to the vent, idly crawling about and humming "Land of Hope and Glory" to himself, he made his move. Slowly and silently, he exited the vent and made his way down the floor and to the table. Inch by inch, minute by minute, the unexpected guest made his way across the wooden surface, following Lord Blackwood's slime trail until he was almost right behind the slug at the table's edge, and then…

"OI! TOMMY!"

Lord Blackwood had moved on to singing bits and pieces of "The Pirates of Penzance" when the silence was broken by a loud cry in a vulgar London patois. The nudibranch half-instinctively attempted to reach for his hip before recalling that he was not carrying a gun, and instead turned himself around as fast as one in his condition could do so and found himself face-to-face with the last thing he had expected so rude a call to emanate from - a common snail, its pulsating eyestalks fixated directly on him.

In all his years of adventuring, Lord Blackwood had never encountered so bizarre a thing as a talking snail. Nonetheless, he took a deep breath and gave the creature a stern glare of his own as he replied, "Who the Devil are you and how do you know my name?"

"Oh, come on, Tommy," the snail replied in a dialect that made Lord Blackwood cringe. "Surely you 'aven't forgotten the face of your dear old 'friend' Georgie, 'ave ya?"

"George Phillip Harris the Fourth," Lord Blackwood sneered. "I should've recognized that guttural nonsense you have the audacity to call English right away. What are you doing here? Need to borrow money? On the run from the Swiss Guard? Perhaps you've concocted another ridiculous scheme to defraud the Americans out of the territories?"

"You and I got some unfinished business to settle, Tommy," Harris said. "You killed me back in '55! You think a man just forgets a thing like that?"

Lord Blackwood rolled his eyes. "Not this rot again. I thought we settled this after that business in Patagonia."

"And yet, 'ere we are," Harris said. "'Ow many times 'ave I gotten meself turned inside-out because you were too busy 'ogging the glory to save your old pal from Godolphin 'ouse?"

"I'll tell you the same thing I told you then - you brought all of that upon yourself when you decided to try and smuggle the Crown of Sutekh up the Nile."

"You're a pint o' bitter if I ever seen one." Harris spat on the ground. "And where were you when 'alf the mummies west of the Nile were after me? 'Alfway back to London to kiss the Queen's knickers?"

"I was in Alexandria helping the Patriarch, the Coptic Pope, and the Grand Mufti arrange the biggest exorcism conducted in Egypt since the fall of the Abbasids!" Lord Blackwood responded, the impatience in his voice mounting. "Were it not for what we pulled off, Africa itself would have been lost to the British Empire because of your foolish attempt at larceny."

"We've played this game before, Tommy," Harris said. "Every time I let you tag along on one of my grand expeditions, you wander off and get me killed, and the next time you come 'round askin' for me 'elp to line your pockets with foreign gold you've always, always got some cock-and-bull story about 'ow it's not your fault. 'You shouldn't 'ave let the Sumerian god-man out of his casket', 'You shouldn't 'ave tried to kill the golem of Prague with a Derringer,' 'You shouldn't 'ave seduced the Gypsy King's sister.' I've 'ad it up to 'ere!" Harris swept his eyestalk in a line above his head. "You and I are gonna settle this 'ere and now like real gentlemen."

Lord Blackwood sighed and swore under his breath, struggling to keep his composure. "Only one of us is a gentleman, Mr. Harris, and while the years have not been as kind to me as I might have hoped they would, you are hardly in any state to fight me. I walloped you soundly every time we met in the boxing ring back at Eton - and as I recall, you had not at that time been transmogrified into a snail."

"A snail? A bloody snail? 'Ave you lost your mind?" Harris threw back his head and laughed. "I'm as fit as I've ever been - and I ain't been turned into no bleedin' sea slug, either."

Lord Blackwood puffed himself up with rage. "So! I should've known you were the blackguard spreading these foul slanders about my being a sea slug! I demand satisfaction, and I demand it now, Harris - recant these lies at once or I shall be forced to give you what for!"

"Alright, alright, Tommy, don't get yer pants in a twist," Harris said, grinning slyly. "You're right, you're right. You ain't no sea slug… but your mum sure is."

Lord Blackwood cocked back his right eyestalk and swung.

ADDENDUM: On ██/██/20██, a Roman snail (Helix pomatia) with anomalous properties similar to SCP-1867 was found in Interview Room C after SCP-1867 had briefly been left unobserved following the conclusion of Interview 1867-238. At the time of discovery, SCP-1867 and the snail were observed face-to-face on a table attempting to "headbutt" each other and strike each other with their eyestalks. In subsequent interviews, the snail has identified itself as "George Philip Harris IV", an individual referred to as an associate of SCP-1867 beginning in Diary 1867-3. The snail is currently being housed in a 40x70x30 cm specimen tank adjacent to SCP-1867's until such time as further examination and classification can be made.

"Oi! Tommy!" Lord Blackwood turned his head and did his best to ignore Harris' shouts from the tank next to his. "Did you ever 'ear the one about the man who thought 'e was a botfly? Got nicked for indecency after 'e started runnin' up to ladies and biting 'em on the arm. Said 'e was just lookin' for someplace to lay 'is eggs!"

"By Jove," Lord Blackwood thought to himself, "what I wouldn't give for an elephant gun right now."