Item#: 7046

Containment Class: safe

Secondary Class: none

Disruption Class: dark

Risk Class: notice

Special Containment Procedures: North Lake Corrections, where SCP-7046 is located, is to be kept under armed guard. Unauthorized persons attempting to access the site are to be apprehended and transported to Site-63 for questioning. At the conclusion of questioning, they are to be administered Class-A amnestics and released or placed in indefinite containment, at the discretion of the Site Director.

Description: SCP-7046 is a cell block in North Lake Corrections, an abandoned corrections facility near Winnipeg, Manitoba. When the facility was in use, SCP-7046 served as its low-security wing. North Lake Corrections was abandoned in October 1983, after a fire destroyed another cell block and heavily damaged the prison’s administrative building.

SCP-7046’s anomalous properties are the result of thaumaturgic modification which occurred approximately six months prior to its discovery. Its plumbing and electrical systems are fully functional, despite the building lacking any apparent source of water or electricity. Its exterior walls dampen sounds made inside the structure, preventing them from being detected by observers outside. These walls also display evidence of thaumaturgic modification which once imbued them with a cognitohazardous effect that discouraged observers from entering SCP-7046. However, these modifications were deliberately disabled prior to the object’s discovery and presently have no effect.

A Corridor in SCP-7046

Some cells inside SCP-7046 display no anomalous properties beyond those found throughout the structure. They appear not to have been recently inhabited, and their contents display damage and deterioration consistent with the object’s eighteen years of abandonment. However, at the time of SCP-7046’s discovery, 296 of its cells were fully furnished and had been subject to further thaumaturgic modifications. These cells have been designated SCP-7046-1. Instances of SCP-7046-1 are resistant to damage. Their walls, floors, ceilings and bars can withstand forces greater than three-thousand newtons, and are unaffected by both high-caliber firearms and light explosives.

At the time of SCP-7046’s discovery, 251 of the 296 SCP-7046-1 instances either appeared to have recently housed or still housed up to two human prisoners. Each such cell is furnished with a bunk bed, a toilet, a desk, and a small television. The other 45 cells had straw covering their floors and contained troughs for food and water. These cells appear to have each housed a single bovine until shortly before SCP-7046’s discovery.

SCP-7046’s mess hall houses SCP-7046-2, a large mechanical apparatus consisting of a 2000-liter tank, a pump, a large, ring-shaped pipe, a circular arrangement of seven altars, and a disposal unit. The pipe’s interior is inscribed with thaumaturgic symbols,1 and the altars have been integrated into the structure of the pipe such that liquid circulating through it will make contact with them. Upon activation, SCP-7046-2 will pump the contents of its tank into its pipe and circulate them seven times before diverting them to the disposal unit. The apparatus’ interior is stained with human and bovine blood, DNA from which matches that of human and bovine subjects found on-site at the time of the object’s discovery. At the time of discovery, SCP-7046-2’s disposal unit contained 2000 liters of a mixture of human blood, bovine blood, and water.

Discovery: On January 13th, 2002, a Foundation agent embedded within local emergency services alerted the foundation to a call requesting medical attention for 110 persons located in SCP-7046, each of whom had experienced severe blood loss. Foundation agents, including medical personnel, were dispatched to secure the site. When they arrived, the site contained 515 human and 45 bovine subjects. All but twelve of these human subjects were later identified as a missing person who had vanished from somewhere in North America2 during the previous six months. The remains of all 45 bovine subjects, along with 405 of the human subjects, were found near SCP-7046-2 and had been fully exsanguinated. The remaining humans were found inside instances of SCP-7046-1. These subjects had also experienced significant blood loss. Of these, 21 had expired prior to the arrival of Foundation personnel, and another three expired while in Foundation custody. The remaining subjects were successfully resuscitated and transported to Site-63 for questioning. The subjects’ accounts were largely concordant with one another and described them being abducted and held inside SCP-7046 by a small group of individuals, who forcibly extracted blood from them at weekly intervals. Descriptions of this group’s apparent leader match Cassidy Redwood, a person of interest who was at large when SCP-7046 was discovered. For transcripts of these interviews, see Interview Log 7046-A.

Upon the conclusion of their medical treatment, survivors were treated with class C amnestics and returned to their families. By the time treatment of survivors had concluded, information leakage by Cassidy Redwood had made the public aware of many of the mundane facts surrounding their disappearances, which forced the Foundation to employ a cover story that was compatible with these elements. Therefore, the survivors’ memory loss was explained by the claim that Redwood had kept them in medically induced comas for the entirety of their captivity.

Addendum 7046-1: On January 13, 2002, shortly before the discovery of SCP-7046, Agent ██████, an undercover agent embedded within GoI-3088 (“The Church of the Second Hytoth”) alerted the Foundation to a general notice issued to the group’s members by its leadership.

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All Ortothans hear,

We regret to bring you grave and lamentable news. Church leadership has discovered that Cassidy Redwood, Eiv-Aímact Priest of the Winnipeg Ortothan Church, has committed the greatest of blasphemies. She has betrayed her office, the Church, and the Holy Fourth by abducting hundreds of outsiders, who she is holding in an unknown location so she may harvest their Unwilling Blood for blasphemous “sacrifice.”

Her guilt is not in doubt. Less than one year ago, Ms. Redwood petitioned Church Leadership for assistance with a ritual that would have required recurring blood offerings by just over five-hundred participants. In the months since she was denied Ortothan blood for this purpose, a pattern of disappearances has afflicted a large area centered around Winnipeg. These vanishings have been too similar to lack a common cause. Most victims have been young men, every victim has lived alone, and all have disappeared from their home during the night, leaving no sign of a struggle. However, the large size of the area in which the vanishings have taken place precludes the idea that their common cause is mundane.

When a band of Warriors arrived at the Winnipeg Ortothan Church with orders to detain and question Ms. Redwood, they found that she had fled after receiving advanced warning of their approach. The Church regards this flight as an admission of guilt. Cassidy Redwood is to be regarded as a traitor, blasphemer, and a fugitive. All the faithful are directed to provide any information they possess which might aid in her apprehension and are warned that all who aid or shelter her will join her in receiving the Church’s justice.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Koru Archpriest Farah Onteus

Immediately after Agent ██████ reported this message to Site Director Forester, MTF Omega-22 (“Clotting Agents”) was mobilized to locate and apprehend her. Shortly after interrogations of the survivors from SCP-7046 began, Site Director Forester noted the apparent relevance of this notice to SCP-7046.

Addendum 7046-2: Recovered Materials: On January 14, 2002, Agent ██████ was instructed to infiltrate Cassidy Redwood’s office at the Winnipeg Ortothan Church in hopes of obtaining clues as to her whereabouts. He succeeded, obtaining several documents and accessing Redwood’s computer. On said computer, Agent ██████ found records of correspondence between Cassidy Redwood and GoI-3088’s leadership. A selection of these materials is presented below. Those wishing to access other materials recovered from Redwood’s office should contact Site Director Forrester.

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Date: January 5, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: Proposal

Venerable Leaders,

I hope this finds you well, and I thank you for your willingness to hear my proposal. As requested, I am sending a written outline of said proposal ahead of my presentation on January 10th. As you examine this material, you will no doubt note that my proposal is radical and ambitious. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, and we are currently living through the most desperate times in the history of our universe. The death of the Holy Sixth has left the universe with only one protector against the Voruteut threat, placing it in greater peril than it has ever faced. The ritual I have designed to reverse this situation is, beyond question, ambitious. However, it is also the culmination of months of intense study, calculation, and experimentation, which demonstrate that its efficacy, should it be carried out, is equally beyond question. Only now that I can demonstrate its effectiveness with such certainty do I dare present it to Church leadership.

As you have requested, the body of this e-mail contains only a summary of the proposal, but I have attached a larger document which outlines its extensive theoretical basis.3

Resurrection of the dead is a long-solved problem in the field of magic. It is simply a matter of collecting life energy and channeling it into the remains of the entity you wish to raise. Even a novice mage can resurrect an insect by donating a small amount of their own life energy to it. Human resurrection requires more life energy than a single mage can safely donate, but it can be accomplished by pooling donations from many people. To be sure, the gulf between a human and a god is far greater than that between an insect and a human, but this does not make the resurrection of a god impossible. It only increases the amount of energy it requires. It might be said that the purpose of the Ortothan religion is to donate life energy, in the form of blood, to the Holy Seven to forestall their deaths. Altering our rites so they reverse death merely requires us to alter them to match existing resurrection rituals and increase the amount of energy offered. The ritual I have designed does precisely these things, and, when enacted, it will restore Yorun-leusan to life and return her to her full glory.

As stated, a full technical explanation of this ritual and the reasoning behind it may be found in the attached document. As demonstrated in said document, a naïve attempt to adapt known rituals to this project would require ████████ liters of human blood, an amount which could only be safely extracted from one hundred million people. Obtaining a sacrifice of that size is likely beyond our means. However, while researching the matter, I have discovered several ways to amplify the power of a blood sacrifice so that a smaller offering might be sufficient to empower my ritual. Some of these methods may also be ways of increasing the efficacy of routine sacrifices, but I leave that matter to be explored later, along with the possibility that similar rituals might be attempted to raise the other five fallen members of the Koru-teusa.

Through consultation of various texts, including Treatise on Blood and Life, and Magical Applications of Bloodletting, a Synthesis of Diverse Thoughts, I have discovered a method of recharging already-offered blood with fresh life energy, so it may be offered again. Such recharged blood is less effective than fresh blood, and it becomes less and less effective as it is recharged and reoffered repeatedly. However, this process can still multiply the effectiveness of a blood offering by more than an order of magnitude. My calculations show that blood may be reused on seven altars, seven times each, before it no longer provides any additional benefit. This reduces the amount of blood required to perform the ritual to about ███████ liters, which could be safely extracted from slightly more than four million people. This alone makes the ritual possible for the Church to perform with its current membership.

By use of altars made from magically significant material, including [REDACTED], as is already done for some significant rituals, the effectiveness of sacrifices may be increased further, reducing the required amount to █████ liters, which could be safely extracted from thirty-thousand people.

I have developed a technique to split the ritual into fourteen stages, each of which would call for a portion of the required offering. By performing these stages at weekly intervals, ample time for its blood donors to recover, the number of people required to safely perform the ritual may be reduced to four thousand.

Standard practice forbids the blood of non-sentient creatures from being used in Ortothan rituals, as this empowers the Holy Seven in a distorted way. However, lifting these restrictions and using bovine blood for a portion of the offering would make the ritual practical with a smaller number of human participants. This may cause intellectual deficits in the ritual’s target, but, done in moderation, would still leave her with superhuman intelligence, likely making it trivial for him4 to reverse these deficits. At my suggested ratio, this would allow the ritual to employ the blood of five-hundred sixteen people and forty-five adult bovines, none of whom would be lastingly harmed.

Once again, I recognize the ambitiousness of this project, but I hope this outline and the attached document demonstrate that it is the product of careful calculation, not blind optimism. I further hope church leadership will regard it as worthy of their serious consideration and approval. The universe cannot be left with only a single protector. We must use any available means to restore the ranks of the Holy Seven so they may continue their holy work.

May the Seven Be Eternal,

Eiv-Aímact Priest Cassidy Redwood

Date: January 15, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|haraFsuetnO#gro.htotyhdnoces|haraFsuetnO

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: Your Proposed Ritual

Fellow Believer,

We thank you for the time and effort that went into the proposal you presented on Wednesday. Your presentation, and the extensive calculations that accompanied it, clearly show that your proposal is far more than a passing whim. We do not doubt that it is born from sincere and admirable concern for the Church, the Holy Seven, and the hytoth they protect. We have reached our decision only after a long and detailed analysis of your calculations, including review of the theoretical materials you cited. A detailed account of this analysis is attached to this e-mail.

Unfortunately, that analysis revealed several conceptual failings in your ritual, which lead us to believe it would be ineffective. Your calculations severely underestimate the amount of life energy required to resurrect a being of Yorun-leusan’s power. They also assume that restoring minimum vital activity to the Sixth would allow them to heal the remaining damage themselves with their own magic, but it is more likely that the energy would simply leak back out of her, just as it would if you were to infuse an analogously miniscule amount of energy into a dead human. Furthermore, the techniques by which you mean to “recharge” and re-offer blood are derived from Daevite texts whose magical theory is not applicable to our rites. Indeed, the resurrection ritual you have adapted was likewise designed for vulgar blood magic, which may negate rather than modify the Ortothan rite you mean to pair it with. Worse still, your proposal to use bovine blood is contrary to the Church’s ethical principles, as no non-sentient animal could ever be said to willingly offer its blood.

You were right to speculate that the “improvements” you propose, if effective, would be applicable to the Church’s routine sacrifices. Indeed, if said improvements were effective, they would have been used in standard Ortothan rites since the beginning of our religion. They have not been, because they are not effective. Therefore, we regret to inform you of our unanimous decision not to allocate any resources to your project.

We understand that this is likely disappointing, and we emphasize that we do not mean to insult or dismiss the work and expertise that went into your proposal. You are right to regard the present situation as dire, but extra danger calls for extra caution. The Fourth requires our help more than ever before, and we will not suspend regular offerings to her so they may be diverted to an unethical project where they would, most likely, be wasted. Thank you for understanding.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Koru Archpriest Farah Onteus

Date: January 15, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|haraFsuetnO#gro.htotyhdnoces|haraFsuetnO

Re: Re: Your Proposed Ritual

Venerable Leaders,

I am indeed disappointed by your decision. I wish you had contacted me about some of these alleged flaws in my calculations prior to the conclusion of your deliberations, as I believe I could have resolved them to your satisfaction. Indeed, a document to that effect is attached to this e-mail. That said, I respect your decision and its finality, and will not contact your further about this matter.

May the Seven be Eternal,

Eiv-Aímact Priest Cassidy Redwood

Date: February 11, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: Inquiries Regarding Your Proposal

Fellow Believer,

I am contacting you because I have received inquiries from members of your congregation which indicate that you requested their assistance in performing a ritual similar to the one you presented to church leadership on January 10th. As you’ll recall, that proposal was rejected by the council of church leaders, including myself, to whom it was presented. I am writing to clarify, the previous rejection having apparently not been sufficiently stern, that you are forbidden from pursuing this or any similar project in any capacity. Any further attempt on your part to arrange for your ritual to be carried out will be met with disciplinary action.

The loss of the Holy Sixth has been trying for all of us, and I know that it has been especially trying for you, but you must not allow your grief to lead you to foolhardy and unethical behavior. The Church and I are here to support you as we all endure this loss. If there is anything we can do to help you, do not hesitate to ask. However, the matter of your ritual is settled, and I expect to hear nothing more about it.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Grand Aímact Priest Sean Glen-Marcas

Date: February 11, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG

Re: Re: Inquiries Regarding Your Proposal

Venerable Leader,

I cannot deny that I have discussed my ritual with members of my congregation. Leadership’s original response stated only that the Church would devote no resources to the project. You must forgive me for failing to infer that I was forbidden to pursue it in any capacity.

Furthermore, with all due respect, I am not sure that you have the authority to issue that prohibition. My blood and that of members of our congregation is ours to give and withhold as we please. By what authority do you forbid us to use it for my ritual, if we wish? My actions have made no use of Church resources or my position as Eiv-Aímact Priest. I have merely approached people I know and requested that they assist me with a personal project. If you could cite the bylaws which empower you to police such purely individual actions, I would greatly appreciate it.

May the Seven be Eternal,

Eiv-Aímact Priest Cassidy Redwood

Date: February 12, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: Re: Re: Inquiries Regarding Your Proposal

Don’t play games, Cassie. Your project involves the sacrifice of unwilling blood and is therefore contrary to our faith’s most basic ethical principles. Just as you would not be permitted to offer unwilling human blood, even if you did so in a way that utilized no Church resources, you are not permitted to offer unwilling bovine blood.

Your proposal was not rejected capriciously. The technical details of why it would not work were thoroughly explained to you, and I know you are more than proficient enough in magical theory to understand them. I mean, gods, Cassie, Daevite texts? Animal Blood? Our initial response to your proposal was polite and formal, and it appears that this prevented us from communicating our disgust with what you were suggesting. Allow me to rectify that by speaking more bluntly. Your proposal is absurd in theory, blasphemous in practice. I understand you’ve not been around Second Messenger5 enough to be able to read his body language, but, as someone who can, let me inform you that he was barely containing his rage the entire time you were speaking. At the beginning of our deliberations, I, alone, did not wish to discipline you simply for proposing what you had. But for my advocacy for you as a former apprentice and personal friend of mine, you would have lost your position as Eiv-Aímact Priest, and possibly been stripped of priesthood altogether. Your proposal will not be entertained further, and if you take the slightest further movement toward it, you will not retain your position.

I know you are grieving. We all are. Your bond with the Sixth, and your passion for the arcane arts of which he was patron, exceeded that of anyone I have ever known. That is precisely why the sloppiness and wishful thinking in your proposal are so beneath you, as have been your childish attempts to circumvent the Church’s decision on this matter. If you need additional time away from your duties to mourn this Sixth’s loss, I will happily grant it. Other than that, I expect to hear nothing more about any of this.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Grand Aímact Priest Sean Glen-Marcas

Date: February 13, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG

Re: Re: Re: Re: Inquiries Regarding Your Proposal

Blasphemous? Really? I am baffled by how you could come to that conclusion. My proposal is the exact opposite of blasphemous. It is a perfect example of what Ortothans are supposed to do. We offer blood to keep the Koru-teusa alive so they can protect the universe. That is exactly what I want to do: offer Ortothan blood to restore Yorun-leusan’s ability to protect the universe. I recognize that the use of animal blood is outside the bounds of what we would normally accept. I included it in my proposal because I believe the urgency of our situation justifies such a compromise, but I respect your desire to adhere to standard guidelines, and the use of animal blood in my ritual can be avoided by using four-thousand humans instead of five hundred. That’s greater than the membership of my congregation, but it is far from unachievable.

By contrast, what is it you plan to do about the death of the Holy Sixth? Accept it? Go on as if it were merely an occasion for grief? Helplessly watch the universe spiral toward its inevitable end? This is not just about the Holy Sixth, though her loss alone is so incomprehensibly tragic as to justify drastic action. The more important point is that the lifespan of this universe has been counting down from seven since it began. It’s hit every number quicker than it hit the last. It has now hit one. How long do you think we have until it hits zero?

The Fourth, alone, will not triumph where he and his six divine siblings could not, regardless of how many times we wish him to be eternal. He is not predestined to succeed. To speak as though she is distorts the core of the Ortothan faith. We do not worship the Holy Seven because they will succeed. We worship the Holy Seven so that they will succeed. You are deluding yourself if you think our routine offerings are still enough to ensure that success. If they were, they would have kept the Holy Sixth alive. Just six months ago, you, along with the rest of the Church, routinely said “May the Seven be Eternal.” Perhaps we shouldn’t give up on that.

I do not mean to be insubordinate, and I will not act against your direct orders, but I beg you to reconsider them. The fate of the universe may depend on my ritual. Please, let us reach some compromise that allows me to perform it.

May the Seven be Eternal,

Eiv-Aímact Priest Cassidy Redwood

Date: February 13, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsacraMnelG

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Inquiries Regarding Your Proposal

Fellow Believer,

You are suspended from your duties as Eiv-Aímact Priest for thirty days. I do not intend this as a punishment. I take this action out of concern, not anger. Unless you prefer otherwise, I intend to lead the rest of the Church to believe that you have chosen to take additional time off to grieve the Sixth’s death. Whether you realize it or not, you clearly need more time. The degree of despair you have expressed is contrary to the core of our faith. You are right to say that the loss of the Sixth is a tragedy beyond comprehension, but we are Ortothans. Ortothans do not despair. Hope is the beginning of action. It lies at the core of every warrior’s heart. The loss of the Sixth has clearly extinguished your hope, and you are unfit to be lead other Ortothans until you reignite it.

Reflect. Travel. Do whatever you must to restore your hope in the power of the Fourth to protect the universe. When you do, we will welcome you back into your position.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Grand Aímact Priest Sean Glen-Marcas

Date: February 13, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Inquiries Regarding Your Proposal

I’m not the one who’s lost hope. I’m not the who wants to lie down and accept what’s happened. Hope is precisely what motivates me to not to accept the universe’s coming death.

If there are flaws in my ritual, they can be fixed. I am open to critique, and delight in the prospect that my ritual could be improved. I want nothing more than for the odds of its success to be maximized, but I must be allowed to perform it. The universe will die otherwise. Some part of you must understand that.

Please, let me return hope to all of creation.

May the Seven be Eternal,

Eiv-Aímact Priest Cassidy Redwood

Date: February 13, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Inquiries Regarding Your Proposal

Fellow believer,

It is not all of creation that has lost hope, but you alone. I hope you have a productive rest.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Grand Aímact Priest Sean Glen-Marcas

Date: March 15, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: How Are You Doing?

Fellow Believer,

I’m just E-mailing to check on you. How are you doing? Did you have a productive rest? If there is anything you need my assistance with or would like to discuss, I am here.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Grand Aímact Priest Sean Glen-Marcas

Date: March 15, 2001

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG

Re: Re: How Are You Doing?

I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking. My suspension gave me a lot of time to think. I’ve spent a lot of that in prayer, working to strengthen my relationship with the Fourth. You were right to suggest I have neglected that relationship in the past, in favor of the Sixth. I had forgotten how fierce a protective presence the Fourth can be. I doubt I will ever truly finish grieving the Sixth’s loss, but I feel far more hopeful than I did a month ago, and believe I am ready to return to my duties.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Eiv-Aímact Priest Cassidy Redwood

Date: January 13, 2002

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: Your Flight

Fellow Believer,

As you are doubtless aware, seven warriors arrived at the Winnipeg Ortothan Church earlier today with instructions to question you regarding the recent spate of disappearances centered on Winnipeg. Despite the fact that morning ritual was ongoing, you departed unexpectedly shortly before their arrival.

I’m sure you know how that looks.

The rest of Church Leadership is certain of your guilt. I alone maintain hope that you might be innocent. I want to believe it could be a coincidence that the vanishings are centered around you, that they began shortly after you were denied Ortothan blood for your blasphemous ritual, and that they ceased after a number of victims consistent with what your ritual required. You are the most zealous believer I know. I may have brought you into the faith, but I have often looked to your fervor for inspiration. I do not want to believe you are capable of abducting and imprisoning hundreds of innocents so you could harvest their unwilling blood.

If you have not done so, if there is some explanation for all of this that leaves your hands spotless, please, come to my temple in Ontario and explain yourself. I swear on the name of the Fourth I will do everything in my power to prevent you from being wrongly punished. If, on the other hand, things are as they appear, then you must likewise surrender yourself to me. I know that you are, at your core, a good person, and you know the Church will find you no matter how you try to hide. Please, surrender yourself to us, so justice may be done swiftly and without unnecessary pain.

May the Fourth be Eternal,

Grand Aímact Priest Sean Glen-Marcas

Date: January 13, 2002

From: gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG#gro.htotyhdnoces|naeSsucraMnelG

To: gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR#gro.htotyhdnoces|ydissaCdoowdeR

Re: What Have You Done?

Your prison has been discovered. The SCP Foundation secured it before our warriors arrived, but they watched from nearby as body bags were carried out.

Hundreds of them.

How could you, Cassie? How could you betray everything we believe in? Are you that lost in despair? Why didn’t I know you were so far gone? Was this some terrible relapse, or have you been planning this for months, feigning recovery while plotting murderous blasphemy against the Sixth and his memory?

No matter how you came to betray our faith, know that you will answer for this. We will track you down anywhere you try to hide, and we will visit justice upon you with the fierceness of a dying sun.

May the Fourth Be Eternal,

Grand Aímact Priest Sean Glen-Marcas

Addendum 7046-3: At 1:11 on January 16th, Cassidy Redwood turned herself into a police station in Winnipeg. Upon arrival, Redwood confessed to the abductions and murders associated with SCP-7046, though her confession omitted the anomalous aspects of her crimes. Imbedded Foundation agents immediately transferred her to Site-63 for questioning.

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- Hide Interview 7046-B

Interviewed: Cassidy Redwood

Interviewer: Dr. Henry Willard

<Begin Log, January 16th, 2002, 4:59>

Dr. Willard: Please introduce yourself.

Redwood: I’m Cassidy Redwood. Until recently, I was the Eiv-Aímact Priest for the Winnipeg Ortothan Church.

Dr. Willard: And you were responsible for the thaumaturgic modifications to North Lake Corrections, including the machine inside?

Redwood: Yep. That was me.

Dr. Willard: And it was also you who populated the prison with civilians?

Redwood: Also me.

Dr. Willard: Why?

Redwood: Nothing too glamorous. I was just trying to save the universe.

Dr. Willard: How were you going to do that?

Redwood: How well do you know the Ortothan religion?

Dr. Willard: I’m familiar.

Redwood: Then you know what happened back in 2000?

Dr. Willard: The death of Yorun-leusan?

Redwood: Yes. A warrior-mage of unrivaled knowledge and power. One of the wisest and most courageous beings in the universe, and one of the few guardians standing between it and utter annihilation. Like other warriors before her, she died in battle. Her death left the universe with too little protection. I was trying to change that by bringing her back.

Dr. Willard: And you hoped the human sacrifice you performed would accomplish this?

Redwood: I guess I did.

Dr. Willard: Why did you gather blood in a way so at odds with Ortothan teachings?

Redwood: Well, that wasn’t exactly my original plan.

Dr. Willard: What was your original plan?

Redwood: To get the blood from willing Ortothans.

Dr. Willard: How did you get from that to what you did?

Redwood: I guess it started when the Sixth died. We’d known for weeks that something bad was happening. She was getting hungrier for blood.

Dr. Willard: What do you mean?

Redwood: You can use magic to detect the life energy in blood. If you do that to an offering that’s just been given, you can watch the energy drain away as one of the Holy Seven claims it. How quickly they claim it tells you how hungry they are. It’s like you’re watching someone eat a plate of food. If they aren’t that hungry, they might take their time with it, savor it, maybe take bites here and there while they’re doing something else. If they’re hungry, they’ll eat faster. If they’re starving, they’ll shovel it down their throat as fast as they can. That’s what the Sixth was doing around the end of August. Offerings that would normally take several seconds to consume would disappear in an instant. This wasn’t the first time we’d seen that. It’s what happens when the gods are in battle. They need blood in the first place because their bodies constantly bleed. When their enemies are wounding them, they bleed more than usual, which makes them need more blood.

Dr. Willard: How often does this happen?

Redwood: They’re warriors. They do battle all the time. That’s why we didn’t think much of it at first. We increased our sacrifices and encouraged the flock to direct more to the Sixth, but that’s all. We just thought it was another battle. I wish I’d known. I’d give anything to have known which prayer would be the last one. There’s so much I would have said. I didn’t, though. I just said the same prayer I’d said every night for the last twenty years. Then, at 3:00 AM, I was awoken by a call from Sean. He told me that the Sixth had gone from devouring his offerings to ignoring them. I didn’t believe him until I pricked my finger on my own altar to check. He was right. The energy just lay there, wasted. Even after seeing that, I didn’t accept that the Sixth was dead. There was a conference call the next day that included a lot of the Eiv-Aímact Priests in Canada. I was the only one arguing that we should maintain hope that the Sixth was alive. I didn’t think we should announce anything to the laity, and I argued we should continue sacrifices to the Sixth in case she was behaving oddly because she was in a difficult situation. I was outvoted. The Church announced the Sixth’s death later that day and ordered that all sacrifices be directed to the Fourth. It took me a long time to accept that she was really gone. I attended—but did not lead—the memorial ceremony at my church the next week. While everyone else was grieving, I held out hope that the Sixth was alive.

Dr. Willard: What convinced you otherwise?

Redwood: The fact that she kept rejecting sacrifices. There could have been a reason to do that for a day or two, but not for weeks. Eventually I had to accept the obvious. Yorun-leusan was dead, and that meant the universe was doomed.

Dr. Willard: How does that follow?

Redwood: There was only one god left, alone in a battle that had already claimed six others. How long could it be before he fell too? Ortothans are supposed to be stalwart, to never let our hope falter, even in the face of incomprehensible tragedy. In front of my congregation, I spoke and acted as if, despite what had happened to all of her comrades, the Fourth would be eternal. I don’t know how I said it with a straight face. For billions of years, Ortothans have incessantly wished for our gods to be eternal, even as they perished, one by one. Why should the Fourth be any different? I couldn’t just cling to the delusion that everything would work out. The fact is, without the Sixth, the Fourth isn’t going to last much longer, and once he dies, the universe will too. Knowing that, that everything and everyone around me would soon be devoured by the voruteut, was a kind of hell. Everything I did felt empty. Nothing I made, no one I helped, nothing I learned, would last long enough to mean anything. I asked Sean to give me some time off to process things, and he was very understanding. I took October and November off. It was during that time that the idea of resurrecting the Sixth first occurred to me.

Dr. Willard: That’s quite a goal.

Redwood: I thought so, too. I tried to tell myself it was just wishful thinking, that I would be better off moving on, but how could I move on? How could I just ignore what was going to happen? At first, I just hoped someone else would do it. There are countless Ortothan civilizations in the universe, most of them larger than primitives like us can imagine. I told myself one of them must have the knowledge and resources to bring her back. That didn’t happen, though. Week after week passed, and nothing changed. After a few months, I realized that if some far-off Ortothan civilization was going to do it, they would have by now. That’s where a reasonable person would have let it go. They would have accepted that if countless galaxies full of super-advanced aliens couldn’t bring the Sixth back, I couldn’t either. I wasn’t reasonable, though. I was drowning in grief, and like anyone who’s drowning, I grasped at anything I could use to pull myself back up. So, before I gave up on the idea, I decided to work through the problem myself, and see what I could come up with. I told myself I was just trying to prove it was impossible so I could stop thinking about it. That was bullshit, though. I was hoping to find exactly what I did.

Dr. Willard: You found it was possible?

Redwood: If you make some very, very generous assumptions, and have access to more blood than I had any hope of obtaining, yes, it should theoretically be possible to restore enough vitality to the Sixth that he might be able to heal himself the rest of the way with his own magic. I should have given up when I saw I’d need a hundred million people to do it, but that was still more hope than I’d had since he died, so, before I abandoned the idea, I decided to see if I could find a way to reduce that amount of blood required. I poured through every book I own, silently begging to find something that could help, and, eventually, I thought that I had. In fact, I thought I’d found several ways of making my sacrifices more efficient, which I could stack on top of each other to decrease the amount of blood I needed to a manageable level. I was ecstatic when I did the calculations. With just a few hundred people and a few dozen cows working together for fourteen weeks, I could bring the Sixth back! I took it to the Church right away. Some of what I wanted to do was against the normal rules, and some of my sources were unsavory, but I thought they would see the necessity of the project and be willing to look past that.

Dr. Willard: But they weren’t?

Redwood: No. Even if they had been willing to look past the animal blood, they thought my ritual wouldn’t work. I guess they’ve been vindicated on that front. Maybe I should have known. I’m not some amateur mage. Every reason they gave for why it wouldn’t work was something I knew about and thought I’d solved. Looking back, I feel like some part of me knew better, but that’s probably just hindsight. At the time, I thought my doubts were just anxiety about the grandeur of what I was attempting. I was surprised when leadership turned me down.

Dr. Willard: What did you do after they did?

Redwood: First, I tried to find ways around their decision. Strictly speaking, the refusal to dedicate any resources to my project just meant I couldn’t order my congregation to assist me with my ritual. I could still try to find five-hundred-fifteen other Ortothans who would do it as a personal favor to me. I started asking around. Several of my friends agreed to help, but most people were confused as to why such an important project was being managed by me and not church leadership. Some of them asked Sean about it, and he was mad that I’d tried to go behind his back. He told me to abandon any attempt to carry out the ritual. I told him I would, but I didn’t. I just started to make sure I was alone with people when I asked them, and I wiped their memory if they said no. I got a few more co-conspirators that way. I wasn’t the only one who was worried about whether the Fourth would be able to defend the universe on her own. For the most part, though, I lost people once I told them my plan had to be a secret because church leadership had rejected it. People assumed leadership knew better than I did.

Dr. Willard: Where did that leave you?

Redwood: Depressed. Hopeless. Sure the universe was going to be destroyed because of the Church’s decision. Then, one day, while I was driving home from ritual, I had a thought that reignited my hope. The Church aren’t the only people in the world. Every day, I was surrounded by people who, thanks to you and yours, had been denied access to anything supernatural. Their world is as blank and meaningless as mine felt, devoid of real magic and true gods. To them, problems that I could wish away in an instant are life-ruining or life-ending crises, ones they would do anything to get out of. I decided I’d find people outside the veil who desperately needed something only magic could give them and offer them those things in exchange for their blood.

Dr. Willard: That’s in contrast with your church’s general policy regarding the veil.

Redwood: That’s actually debatable. We’re allowed to approach individuals and try to bring them into the faith, and once we’ve begun that process with someone, we can do magic in front of them. I certainly planned on trying to convert my clients once I was done with my ritual, so, technically, I was allowed to tell them what I needed to tell them. I picked people who I thought would be able to keep a secret. A lot of them were in professions that involved secrecy of some kind—lawyers, doctors, police, priests, that kind of thing—and of course I told all of them to keep quiet about their interactions with me. I hoped that would be enough.

Dr. Willard: What did you offer them?

Redwood: Healing magic, mostly. Most of them were terminally ill or had family who were. If you have the kinds of skills I have and are willing to burn through your life savings buying ritual components, you can heal just about anything.

Dr. Willard: Were you able to get all the volunteers you needed?

Redwood: No. I got close. I would have been able to, if it were just a matter of finding people who would take the deal, but the process of approaching someone, explaining everything to them, and persuading them to accept my offer took time, and things went wrong before I was able to get the people I needed.

Dr. Willard: How did they go wrong?

Redwood: They couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Actually, that’s not fair. Most of them could. It’s just that most wasn’t enough. Several of them recommended my miracle-working services to desperate people they knew. That was annoying, but on its own, it was manageable. I even recruited a few of those people. However, things started to go downhill when one of them mentioned me online. He tried to be vague. He just said that people with no other option should go to Winnipeg to find a miracle worker. I doubt anyone on the wrong side of the veil believed it, but you noticed it, or at least I assumed it was you at the time. You, I assume, sent someone posing as a paranormal investigator to visit the man who’d made that post.6 Fortunately, I’d anticipated that you might show up, and I’d already coached him on what to say.

Dr. Willard: What did you tell him to say?

Redwood: That it’d been a prank. You seemed to buy it, at least for the moment. After that incident, I had stern talks with everyone. I tried to stress that there were people who wouldn’t like what I was doing, and that drawing your attention would keep me from helping them. It was almost enough. Another one of my clients was a woman whose son was dying of leukemia. The doctors had given him less than a year to live, and he hadn’t taken his prognosis well. Because she wanted to see her son happy again, she told him that I was going to heal him. Knowledge of my existence spread to his entire support group the next time they met. His mother called me as soon as she learned, and I went into a mad dash to keep everyone quiet by bringing the rest of the kids’ families in on my deal. I got to all of them in time, barely. Fortunately, I had something to offer them in exchange for their silence. Looking back, I had the situation handled at that point. Maybe, if I’d kept on course, everything would have turned out a lot better. At the time, though, that incident made me think I wouldn’t be able to keep my recruits quiet for long enough to complete my ritual. To keep anything like that from happening again, I added a clause to my deal that required everyone to move to a secluded location where they’d be cut off from anyone they could gossip to.

Dr. Willard: Your prison?

Redwood: Yeah. I didn’t use a prison because I wanted to keep people there against their will. I just used the nearest abandoned building that could house hundreds of people. I made it as comfortable as I could. My clients weren’t happy about this alteration in my deal, but none of them were in any position to refuse. I should have had that in my deal from the beginning. Maybe that also would have made things turn out better. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of it until you’d taken notice of me once, and you hadn’t forgotten about the man who’d made that post. When he—along with a bunch of other people near Winnipeg who were terminally ill or had relatives who were—suddenly disappeared to an undisclosed location for several weeks, you noticed. You arrived in force and started combing the Winnipeg area. I knew you would find my prison. There’s no way you wouldn’t check a building so well-suited to what I was doing. My only option was to make it look normal by the time you got there. Fortunately, I hadn’t assembled my machine yet, but I still had to move hundreds of people out of my prison. I had no other safe place to move them to, and even if I did, I couldn’t have brought them there without you noticing. The only place I could send them was back home. Of course, not long after I did that, you’d interrogate them, and I wouldn’t be able to coach hundreds of people well enough that they could fool you. My solution was to wipe their memories of me before I sent them back.

Dr. Willard: I believe I remember the incident you’re talking about. The people who’d vanished suddenly returned home, and their illnesses had been cured.

Redwood: Yep. I healed them before sending them back. I hoped you’d have a hard time covering that up. I wanted to make you as busy as possible so you wouldn’t have time to look for me. At least, that was my excuse. I think the truth is that I couldn’t bear to let them die after knowing them for months. Especially the kids. Excuse or not, it worked. Your efforts to create the appearance that they’d been misdiagnosed—thanks for not just killing them, by the way—bought me time, and when a squad of agents finally did scope out my prison, it looked just like it should. I had to reenchant it after they left, but that was the least of my problems. Now I was back to square one in my search for blood. I thought about starting over, working to find a new set of clients, maybe from a larger area, but it was too late for that. You’d have already made the connection between Winnipeg and mysterious, long vacations taken by terminally ill people and their relatives. Even if I teleported all over North America to find new clients, you’d know where to look for me.

Dr. Willard: Why draw from a limited radius at all?

Redwood: Have you ever cast a teleportation spell? I strained to get as far as I did. In any case, pulling from a larger area wasn’t enough anymore. I had to find some other way of recruiting people, something that would look different enough to you that you wouldn’t realize it was connected to what I’d been doing before. Also, because I’d gone through with healing everyone, I’d used up the ritual components I’d bought, and I didn’t have the money to buy that many again. For days, I tried to think of an alternative to what I wound up doing, but I couldn’t. Only desperate people would agree to spend months living in an abandoned prison, and that was precisely who I couldn’t work with anymore. My only remaining option was not to give people a choice.

Dr. Willard: So you didn’t.

Redwood: I was only planning to keep them until I finished my ritual. Being confined to their cells for a few months wouldn’t be pleasant for them, but neither would the destruction of the universe. I hoped that when I was done, and I could explain everything to them, they would understand.

Dr. Willard: Why not tell them before then?

Redwood: The last thing that would have done is comfort them. At best, they’d think I was crazy. At worst, they’d believe that I was harvesting their blood to resurrect a strange god, and they’d judge that god by my actions. Once the ritual was done, though, once they’d seen Yorun-leusan’s full glory up close, they’d know she was good, even if I wasn’t. She might have even apologized to them herself. She’d certainly have been mortified by how I’d brought her back.

Dr. Willard: Why didn’t that stop you?

Redwood: Because if I didn’t do it, the universe would be destroyed. If I had to give up my place in the Eitoth,7 to stop that from happening, it was worth it.

Dr. Willard: You said earlier that your ritual was supposed to span fourteen weeks, correct?

Redwood: Yes.

Dr. Willard: According to the survivors, you didn’t take just blood from them for fourteen weeks. You took it weekly throughout the time you held them.

Redwood: I did.

Dr. Willard: Why?

Redwood: To offer it to the Fourth. Their bodies were going to make it anyway, and my morality was already compromised, so it would have been wasteful not to take it. I started the actual ritual in mid-December, once I’d finally gotten the five-hundred and three captives I needed. I got through the first four stages without any problems, but on the day I was supposed to perform the fifth, my luck ran out. The Church figured out what I was doing.

Dr. Willard: How did that happen?

Redwood: The disappearances I caused followed an identifiable pattern. The Church weren’t the only people who noticed, and they were nervous about the fact that it was happening in the part of the world where they’re most active.

Dr. Willard: Why did that make them nervous?

Redwood: Partly because they were worried some of their enemies could be responsible, and partly because they were afraid you or the GOC would blame them for it. Those were excuses, of course. They really just wanted to protect innocent people. So, they assembled a team to investigate the matter, and it only took them a few months to figure me out. They sent a group of Warriors to apprehend me while I was leading ritual. One of my co-conspirators warned me of their approach, so I wasn’t captured then and there, but now the Church was hunting me. I had powerful magic to help me hide, but they had equally powerful magic to help them find me. I knew I had about a day before they found my prison. Once that happened, they would arrive in force, imprison or kill me and my accomplices, destroy my machine, and send my victims home. All hope for my ritual, and with it, the universe, would be lost. To finish my ritual in time, I had to perform the last ten stages all at once. That meant I needed ten times as much blood as I’d planned to take from my prisoners at any one time. There was no way to get that much without killing most of them. I was horrified when I realized that, but I didn’t even question whether I’d do it. Some of the others needed convincing, but not me. It would have been selfish to let the universe be destroyed just to keep the blood of a few hundred people off my hands.

Dr. Willard: So you didn’t intend for any of the partially drained subjects to die?

Redwood: Of course not. Wait, did some of them?

Dr. Willard: Twenty-four of them did.

Redwood: No. No, that shouldn’t… Damn it. I must have taken more blood than I meant to.

Dr. Willard: Did your accomplices participate in the killings?

Redwood: There was a short, panicked discussion about whether we would go through with it, but it didn’t take long for us to come to a consensus. They believed as fervently as I did that this was necessary to save the universe, and every single one of them, bless their souls, agreed to be fully drained for the ritual. By dying themselves, each of them allowed me to spare one extra captive. I would have done the same, but I had to be alive and conscious to perform the ritual, which limited how much blood I could give.

Dr. Willard: How were the murders carried out?

Redwood: First, we had to get some equipment we needed. Exsanguinating someone completely requires special tools which we hadn’t known we’d need. I made trips to a hospital, a slaughterhouse, and a funeral home to steal what I needed. After that, we killed the cows. One by one, we led them to our machine, knocked them out, injected them with an anticoagulant, strung them up, cut them open and drained them. It was the same thing you would have done if you were going to use their meat. Once they were drained, we just left them in the corner of the room. The cows got harder to manage as the bodies piled up. Cows are smarter than most people give them credit for. They know when they’re being led to slaughter. Still, that was the easy part. The hard part came next. By the time we went upstairs to get the first of our human sacrifices, they’d been waiting on us for hours. They were more confused than afraid, and the first pair cooperated with us as we led them downstairs. Just like the cows, they didn’t realize what we had in mind until they saw the pile of bodies next to the machine, one of them asked if we were going to kill them. Before I could lie, one of my accomplices said yes. Do you know what it’s like to have someone beg you for their life?

Dr. Willard: Yes.

Redwood: Of course. I forgot who I was talking to. My apologies. Still, you’re the sort of person who would accept a job at the SCP Foundation. Imagine if your job was supposed to be to save people. Point is, once they started begging, I was desperate to shut them up. I started by shouting at them, which made them quieter, but not quiet. By the time we got up to the top of the stairs that led to my intake pipe, I couldn’t take it anymore. In a desperate attempt to soothe my conscience, I did something I’d already decided I wouldn’t do. I tried to explain why their deaths were for the greater good. Gods, I’m an idiot. Of course, they just thought I was insane. One of my comrades tried to prove otherwise by casting a spell in front of them, which just made them think we were maniacs with magical powers. It was a sleeping spell that finally shut them up. I should have done that before I even brought them downstairs. We injected their unconscious bodies with the anticoagulant, sliced open their aortas, and bled them until they died. Once their hearts stopped pushing their blood out, we pumped water through their circulatory systems to flush out the rest. We couldn’t let any of it go to waste. When we were done, we went up to get our next pair of victims. The screaming they’d heard didn’t make them eager to come downstairs, but this time I did what I should have done. I put them to sleep before I even opened their cell. That was what I did going forward. Before I even opened the cell door, I would knock out whoever I was going to take. Some of them begged to know what was going on, but I’d learned my lesson. I didn’t tell them anything. Once we’d fully drained everyone we intended to, we went back up for the rest of the blood we needed.

Dr. Willard: How did you decide which ones to kill?

Redwood: Age. We spared the youngest ones. Draining them wasn’t any different than how we’d been doing it until then, except we left the needle in longer. Of course, having liters of blood taken from you is a bit less pleasant than losing a spoonful or so, and I had trouble convincing some of them that I wasn’t bleeding them dry, but I could at least rest easy knowing that I wasn’t. Except for a few dozen of them, I guess. In any case, when I was done with all my prisoners, I drained my friends. If I were a better person, the fact that they were willing would have made that the easiest part, but it didn’t. Most of them had been my friends for decades. I’d known four of them since before Sean brought me into the faith. I’d known one of them since he was a child. I’d converted several of them. They’d still be living normal lives outside the veil if it weren’t for me, and I hadn’t just killed them. I’d corrupted them first, made them into kidnappers and murderers with no Eitoth to look forward to. I had no choice, though. The fate of the universe was more important. Yorun-leusan was more important. Once they were all dead, I let some of my own blood into the machine, then turned it on. For over an hour, the blood of my victims circulated over my altars while I posed and chanted to direct their life energy to whatever remained of Yorun-leusan. When I was done, I called ambulances for my living victims and disabled the runework I’d done to keep people from entering the building. I settled in to wait for my work to pay off. I truly believed that Yorun-leusan was minutes away from appearing in his full glory.

Dr. Willard: You must have expected her to be furious. Why didn’t you flee?

Redwood: I thought about it. There wasn’t any point. In the likely event Yorun-leusan would want to punish me, there’d be nothing I could do to get away from her. Also, I wanted to see the culmination of my work. What I’d accomplished would reroute the history of the universe. Trillions of trillions of Ortothans would learn about it, and for all they’d condemn my methods, they’d rejoice that I’d brought the Holy Sixth back to life. I stood in front of my machine, waiting for the Sixth to appear. I waited and waited, and as I did, I slowly, painfully came to realize that I had waited too long. Where was Yorun-leusan? Could I have been wrong that she would manifest here? Maybe she’d woken up in her body, wherever the Fourth had interred it. I checked the blood in my machine for life energy. If my ritual had worked, it should have been gone. It wasn’t. None of it had been claimed. I thought about running my machine again, but the ambulances I’d called would arrive before I could finish my ritual again, and, in any case, I knew I had done it correctly. I had practiced it every day for months. I scanned my offering a few more times, as if that could change something. It didn’t. I grabbed some paper from the other room, folded it into a small altar to the Sixth, and pricked my finger to see if a new offering would be taken. It wasn’t. I tried again. Nothing. I kept doing it, squeezing my finger to get more blood onto the altar, and scanning it as I did. Nothing changed. The sacrifices weren’t being claimed. There was still no Yorun-leusan to claim them. My ritual hadn’t raised her. It didn’t seem to have done anything at all. After everything I’d done, I had nothing to show for it but hundreds of corpses. I might have stood there forever, trying again and again to give a drop of blood to the Sixth, but those ambulances were coming, and I decided I should get out of there before I was seen with the bodies.

Dr. Willard: Where did you go?

Redwood: I just wandered around for a few days, processing what had happened. What I’d done. Eventually, I decided to turn myself in to the police.

Dr. Willard: Why?

Redwood: Because I’m a murderer. Because I preferred it to facing the Church. Because my victims and their families deserve closure. They don’t have much time left. Anything I can do to make the rest of it easier, I owe them.

Dr. Willard: Why don’t they have much time left?

Redwood: That’s the worst part of all of this. After everything I’ve done, the universe is still doomed. We have ten, maybe fifteen years left. Possibly less. Certainly not more. The things that lurk outside the cosmos will burrow in and devour it. The last of the Koru-teusa will fall, and the Second Hytoth will be lost. Nothing I did changed that. Now, nothing will.

<End Log, January 16th, 2002, 5:26>

Addendum 7046-4: On January 18th, 2002, Cassidy Redwood self-terminated by self-inflicted laceration. A makeshift Ortothan altar, constructed out of paper she had been given as writing material, was present in her cell. Experts on Ortothan practice who examined the scene concluded that Redwood had offered her spilled blood to Rakmou-leusan, the only remaining Ortothan deity.

Addendum 7046-5: In April 2008, SCP-7046’s anomalous effects began to diminish. Sounds made inside the structure became detectable from the outside, though the structure’s thaumaturgic properties still dampened them. As of June 9, 2022, the exterior walls of SCP-7046 decrease the volume of a sound made inside by only thirty decibels. Recent tests on the bars of SCP-7046-1 cells have shown that some will now bend in response to forces as low as one-thousand newtons, though others retain much higher tensile strength. Foundation thaumaturgists have concluded that these changes are the result of natural decay in its thaumaturgic enhancements. If present trends continue, the object will cease to be anomalous by 2040.

Footnotes

1. Many of these symbols have previously been found at Daevite ritual sites.

2. Each of them had last been seen somewhere within 1600 kilometers of SCP-7046.

3. Personnel with level 3 clearance or higher may request access to any document mentioned in these materials.

4. In Ortothan mythology, the divine is said to transcend gender. Consequently, Ortothans often switch rapidly between pronouns when referring to their gods.

5. The extra-terrestrial missionary responsible for introducing the Ortothan religion to earth.

6. This description matches actions undertaken by Agent ███ █████████ on June 10, 2001.

7. The Ortothan afterlife

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