LightlessLantern

SCP-7264: Theatre of Divinity

Item No: SCP-7264

Containment Class: Apollyon

Render of a theatre passageway

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-7264 is held in a standard containment locker at Site-26, protected by a GAARDER Security Code. Page 257 must be read a minimum of once weekly, with personnel limited to a maximum individual exposure of one hour per session and 10 hours per year. Overseer Command has approved emergency measures for the imminent Tashkent-Class “Cross-Pollination” Scenario1 related to the anomaly.

Description: SCP-7264 is a small hardback book, 257 pages in length, describing the interior of Penmynydd Hall, a former home of the Tudor royal dynasty located on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales. Though SCP-7264 is visually similar to modern non-anomalous books, its pages are composed of vellum and have been radiocarbon dated to the late 15th Century. The contents of the initial 256 pages appear non-anomalous and are consistent with the current state of Penmynydd Hall. Though photographs and video recordings of page 257 show it to be completely blank, human observers report the presence of a large quantity of printed text, similar in tone and style to the non-anomalous pages.

Page 257 begins by describing a small red door in the basement of Penmynydd Hall. It states this door cannot be locked and, if closed, would eventually open, displacing any obstructions in its way. SCP-7264 then focuses on the passageway accessed through this door, eventually exiting through a yellow door behind the stage backdrop of a large theatre, stated to be located outside baseline reality.

The theatre and its contents are frozen in a temporary, though initially believed permanent, state of temporal isolation and contraction. Despite its extradimensional location, the building's construction and decoration share many aspects with the early European Renaissance, including a proscenium-style stage and multiple seating galleries. Physical examination of the temporally frozen entities occupying these galleries is impossible due to the theatre displaying and inducing abnormal internal geometries; discovered passageways exhibit self-intersecting hyperbolicity and extended exploration causes readers to develop severe organ distension followed by non-fatal transmutation of the intestines into partially fired clay and kaolinite.

The only readily accessible areas are the stage and the stalls. The former is empty except for a small pile of exsanguinated human corpses in the underground storage section. These corpses wear similar uniforms to those assigned to the founding cohort of His Majesty’s Foundation for the Study of Curiosities and Phantasmagoria, though with minor deviations; the embroidered warding sigils have been burned off and replaced with sacrificial binding runes. The stalls are empty of seats and only contain a set of four white wooden chairs, designated SCP-7264-1 through -4. These surround a large oval banquet table, positioned with the major axis parallel to the stage curtain.

SCP-7264-1 is on the side of the table farthest from the stage. It is the largest chair and consistently described as the designated seat for an extremely powerful monarch. The backrest of the chair is engraved with a coat of arms, unidentifiable due to heavy damage from several hooks embedded in the wood. Descriptions of SCP-7264-1 focus heavily on its use as a restraint, though fail to specify whether any entity is seated in it. At irregular intervals, SCP-7264-1 has been described as "broken" and "a failure", with little explanation except repetition to the point of unintelligibility.

SCP-7264-2 is stationed to the left of SCP-7264-1 and described as the seat of the monarch’s most trusted consul. In all readings, a thin, black-clothed humanoid entity has been seated in the chair, with attempts at further physical analysis causing the reader to develop large fungal growths within their lungs over the next hour. Consumption of extracted growths results in extended hallucinations of abandoned theatres similar to that described by SCP-7264, though testing is ongoing to confirm whether these effects are anomalous.

A minority of Foundation personnel have claimed that another four wooden chairs are present in the areas behind and flanking SCP-7264-1 and SCP-7264-2, with exact positions varying between readings. Detailed analysis has failed due to personnel suffering sudden convulsions while regurgitating large volumes of partially digested food and blood, neither of which are a match for the relevant reader's dietary habits nor genetic material.

SCP-7264-3 is positioned on the side closest to the stage, directly opposite SCP-7264-1, and is described as belonging to a nobleman, vastly weaker than the monarch seated in SCP-7264-1. The backrest of this chair is engraved with the coat of arms of the royal house of Windsor, though SCP-7264 has stated that it was originally engraved with the coat of arms of King Henry VII of England. A large sheet of vellum is placed in front of SCP-7264-3, fixed to the table by 30 large iron nails. Portions of the sheet have been damaged by the effects of SCP-7264-4, but the remainder outlines an agreement wherein an unnamed nobleman would receive monetary aid and weaponry from a beneficiary, in aid of fighting a war against a ruling king. In return for this aid, the beneficiary would be provided with the deposed king as a living tribute. If the nobleman should lose or become unable to fulfil the terms of his agreement, his life, descendants, supporters, and all land ever under his control would be forfeited to the beneficiary.

SCP-7264-4 is positioned in the centre of the banquet table, directly facing SCP-7264-1. A naked human male is seated in SCP-7264-4, with nails embedded in its wrists, ankles, and chest. The only other injury is a large branding on its upper right thigh depicting a crowned serpent devouring a greyhound while a boar kneels in front. Unlike the other injuries, this branding is believed to be self-inflicted due to its similarity to other known ritualistic methods of swearing allegiance to a powerful anomalous entity.

The back of SCP-7264-4 is engraved with the coat of arms of King Richard III of England, though additionally surrounded by a depiction of a large coiled animal, possibly a snake or worm. This engraving is covered with an unidentified red liquid which regularly seeps and flows from the wood, despite the theatre's contracted temporal state. Following reports of changes in the contents of page 257, researchers have determined this liquid to be the centre of an expanding sphere of temporal linearisation, causing exposed entities to be brought out of temporal isolation and become able to interact with their surroundings. This has already been observed with the vellum sheet and iron nails decaying and rusting due to the adverse effects of the theatre's geometry.

The human male has partially linearised and repeatedly attempts to communicate with the entities surrounding it, though appears to be unaware of the existence of the reader and the perspective of SCP-7264. Analysis of its statements and threats have confirmed previous suspicions regarding its identity. Investigation by Foundation personnel has been unable to determine whether the civilian exhumation of King Richard III's corpse represents a breach of containment or evidence of historical disinformation procedures by an external group.

SCP-7264 was discovered by Foundation agents during their exploration of a decommissioned British Occult Service storage building. Accompanying it were expurgated documents created by His Majesty’s Foundation for the Study of Curiosities and Phantasmagoria, detailing the creation and use of several powerful alchemical rituals at Penmynydd Hall following Henry VII's victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field and subsequent accession to the throne of England in 1485. The full contents of these files are stated as being historically restricted to the reigning monarch and their approved councillors. Whether similar restrictions are currently in force is unknown; investigation by embedded agents has found no mentions of Penmynydd Hall in the modern British Occult Service database.

No evidence exists to confirm the anomalous contents of SCP-7264. Foundation investigation has found no door under Penmynydd Hall, though excavation of the basement uncovered a printing press, heavily stained with blood from multiple persons and engraved with a lyrical exhortation for an unknown individual's permanent imprisonment. Extensive mould growth and insertion of metal hooks into internal portions of machinery have rendered the printing press permanently unusable.

Footnotes

1. Wherein the interaction between two anomalous objects of radically different type will result in an imminent alteration of reality or the eradication of all human life.