Wormsign Actual - SCP Foundation

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H. Issue Summary for Assistant Director Review – Operation BIRCH CREEK revealed shortcomings in analysis, equipment, and locale-specific training that must be fixed to establish deterrence against far-side Coalition elements. Hurdles to improving throughput include:

1. FB 202.4 designates DSU#31 as a low-significance area of operations, constricting flow of resources, personnel management requests, and budget flexibility; update to FB 202.4 is lagging in OVCOM despite promises to expedite.

2. ODSUS policy restricts gap transit of anyone cleared above L2 to maintain general OPSEC. Authorizing components are slow to issue exceptions due to DSU#12 activity.

3. Offices with concentrations of former MTF Alpha-85 personnel are unwilling to commit budget toward re-issuing lapsed NSRE certifications. Schedule slips imply seconded personnel may be unable to resume work in a timely manner.

As of writing, extensive interdepartmental communication has proven unable to resolve these issues.

This is how it comes undone:

Gunpowder shifting through fingers that once cupped fragrant soil. Wires stripped by sharp teeth and soldered in forges barred from craft. Sparks illuminating a serenity found only in crossing the line from fascination to action. Enchanted rings—for good fortune, for good health, for luscious hair and clear skin and every other trifling concern imaginable—offer nothing compared to the detonator's tantalizing what if?

A guardhouse known to inhale conscripts burns in the night, smoke made greasy by the communications relay stashed there. In fizzles and pops, in hissing most aggrieved, those foreign systems scream of rebellion to anyone listening. And what city is complete without ears aplenty? Severed limbs repay severed cable in the morning, accompanying a different strain of scream that reaches far beyond the public square.

Adventurers' guilds receiving a flood of requests laundered through intermediaries who make little effort to hide their intent. Coins change hands to hunt pack leaders and strew their remains across border regions, to sprinkle this power or that flask into wells found at crossroads. Perhaps Cynria Keenheart knows why she pacifies windborne spirits on a day where NUZ-21s later streak from Allaingar to Tellech. Perhaps Tyrg of the Seventh Spring has divined which cutouts exploit his mastery of ancient stone portals for what purpose. Perhaps it differs less from normal adventuring than the uninitiated expect.

The Combined Paranormal Intelligence Apparatus (CPIA) assesses with a high degree of confidence that the Foundation has established an efficient flow of materiel and combatants into GENEROUS FIG aimed at a fait accompli in its heartland. SIGINT shows elevated traffic between departments that managed its past efforts to undermine stability in the region. Local partners report that sleeper cells planted during drawdown were recently activated, while HUMINT and rough IMINT from forward camps show gains are being solidified via fortifications in unfavorable terrain.

Given the denial environment, a long-range strike capability is not sufficient to achieve stated objectives. Local partners are not sufficiently trained, equipped, or motivated to contest Foundation operations without direct support. CPIA assesses with a moderate degree of confidence that displays of force against Foundation targets within GENEROUS FIG will deter rulers from deepening partnerships while pressuring supply chains that otherwise operate freely.

Finally, CPIA assesses with a high degree of confidence that signaling for another drawdown is being done in bad faith or without full understanding of the situation.

Pollen's haze clings to a mountainside village so remote that it barely appears on any map. A single road. Sod-topped homes. Fields irrigated more by snowmelt than rainfall. Soldiers clad in clean suits sweep through, rebreathers heaving and rifles drawn, covering every angle hidden from whirring drones as muzzles trace paths through biosmog. There is no threat though, no bodies. Nothing. Only blooms sprouting fast across every surface.

Pitched fighting over the wyrmskull distorts battle lines on the Ryeseol front. From its myriad sockets—all absent the golden orbs which once granted prescience in sum—extend barrels of whatever guns suit hands practiced with bow and sling. From between monolithic fangs, lenses glint like a trove of their own. Fire returned from Foundation forces doesn't leave a scratch on ancient bone; grenades, MURSRs, and worse all fail to scorch a frame birthed by inferno. It seems invincible until a blade that scatters leaves is drawn anew.

From atop the Saltmade Throne, Her Immortal Majesty, Defender of the Realm, Executor of Seven Sacred Wills, Bearer of the Peregrine Blade, from whom all boons and blessings flow, dreams with a mind forever locked beyond her skull by sodium. There, thoughts trace neuron paths through ichor despite its freedom from every binding that bodies impose:

This is the runespell named Grand Burial for how its pronouncement inverts firm soil and solid stone.

This is the runespell named Mass Disjunction for how its victims' bodies set themselves to separation.

This is the runespell named Serene Contagion for how its touch spreads by touch, by sound, by sight, plagued minds made numb to every atrocity.

This is the runespell named Abjure Causality for how its utterance severs the ties marrying action to reaction, cause to effect.

This is the runespell named Imperial Edict for how its–

FROM: gro.nes.limp-co.nu|nikrib.enilorac#gro.nes.limp-co.nu|nikrib.enilorac

TO: gro.nes.limp-co.nu|nossredna.ile#gro.nes.limp-co.nu|nossredna.ile

SUBJECT: Unaccounted for INGMasSENTs

Attachment: KREL_2687923_260726_arch.jpg

Eli,

Our latest attempt to brute force drones through the denial zone produced some useful intel. Attached photo seems relevant to your office. At least you won't need to prioritize finding that rogue pilot or her robots anymore (but better pray nobody asks how to take it intact).

Yours,

Caroline Birkin | Effects Coordination Specialist

Cherin's Defiance. Wormhold. Tower Carved from Night. Cannon Spire. LoI-91. The Tall Place. The Tallest Place. Nestegg. LARK POSSESSED. Shadow Cast o'er Lonely Lands. The Hazefort. Dirtmound. Haven. Home. These names and more cling to the fortress rising from Cherinmark's overgrowth. What were once aspirational walls have been realized, dozens of stories tall and built doublethick; spires now loom beyond any schematic's demand or prediction, black stone fortified with metal plates both foreign (stripped from selves at no small cost) or domestic (pounded into shape by tired hammers). It defies charting as fiercely as the land beneath.

Indeed, this is the incoherent fort, the cancerous castle, swelling in fits and starts as its architects' energy drives annex after annex, battlement after bailey, saying nothing of dry moats and portcullises spread throughout. Cellars fill with unwanted, unneeded treasure drawn by the gravity well its mass creates. Silos bulge at their seams. Within a maze of corridors interlinking empty chambers rest the bioreactors plucked from their bodies by gentle-if-giant hands, outputs flowing first into weapons dragged from the walls of Fort Gräd. Elsewhere are the speakers that scream, the guns that chatter, the pieces of Aster's extra lives that she forfeited in pursuit of a more fearsome form.

Even more cherished are its cannons—their cleaning a prayer, their loading a sacrifice, their rare firing a prophecy fulfilled. Engineers and operators thus form a cult that respects the monks who gather around glowing reactors without understanding them. Just as alien is the loose amalgamation of armies that follow an ever-violent churn, carried by horseback, brandbeast, or rattling technical. Goblins in armor follow humans in hides. Dwarven nationalists conspire with orkish rebels. Bodies ride out past bodies dragged in. Even those prove useful in the fortress' depths, dragged lower by workers wearing ventilators, fed en masse to a few reactors suited for rancid cultivation.

All transpires beneath midnight banners bearing the wormsign.

SCRAMBLE 012-1683154-OA1

Objectives:

Escort JUNIPER SPRIG package to DSU31/LoI-91 and protect during transmission

Liquidate FID#990941 if needed and erase all evidence of affiliation

Retrieve SCP-7636-13

Additional leeway:

Permission granted to deploy SCP-7636-2, -5, -9 with current wielders

Permission granted to disregard EGRESS protocols and ODSUS policy as needed

Engagement parameters to be set at GECOM discretion.

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