ITEM #:

6529

CONTAINMENT CLASS:

SAFE

SCP-6529 in containment.

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-6529 is to remain within Site-184's Anomalous Art and Artifacts Secure Storage Wing. Under no circumstance is the central compartment of SCP-6529 to be opened. A Foundation-Certified, Class C1-Zosimos Thaumaturge is to examine the binding seals and protective runes inscribed upon SCP-6529 bi-annually: occurring on both the Summer and Winter Solstices. Should any degradation of the aforementioned thaumaturgic wardings be detected, the existing inscriptions are to be repaired or bolstered as necessary.

Description: SCP-6529 is an ornate box initially designed to contain a variety of writing and art supplies. It is composed of a series of auxiliary drawers located around a central compartment. These drawers have been thaumaturgically enhanced to possess significantly larger interior dimensions than the outward appearance would suggest. The central compartment of SCP-6529 is mechanically and thaumaturgically locked, preventing access to its interior space.

Items recovered from SCP-6529 suggest that a conceptual entity - suspected to embody or represent notions of 'lengthening' and/or 'elongating' - is currently tethered to a physical totemic body, contained within the sealed central compartment of SCP-6529.1

Addendum - 6529_A1: Primary Documents Recovered from SCP-6529.

The following documents were recovered from the auxiliary compartments of SCP-6529. They appear to be written by Magnus Kinslow, a recorded thaumaturgical practitioner employed by the The Commission on Unusual Cargo during the late 18th to early 19th century. The recovered documents are presented in presumed chronological order:

Dear Jonathan,

My sincerest apologies that I have not written you sooner. You, more than most, know the challenges one encounters in our line of work. I also apologize that I cannot respond properly to your inquiry into my current location; suffice to say I am making ample use of the scarf your dear Mary gifted me before my departure.

On the note of kind gifts, I must thank you again for lending me Valdemar's Chest. It is a beautiful piece and more useful than I could possibly have imagined. I ensured it was well stocked before I departed. I intended to deepen certain artistic skills upon my voyage as well as continuing my research (which, I might add, would not be possible without the extra storage you have provided to me! My crewmates would be hard-pressed to see value in such books, or anything heavy they could not eat, drink, or smoke!).

One particularly hefty tome, whose accompaniment you have helped secure upon this journey, is a chronicle of old Norse legends and arcana, compiled by the Icelandic poet and naturalist Jonas Palmason. His writings are extraordinary. He weaves a yarn that draws together teachings on rune-crafting, fabulamancy, and their Gods that is both educative and thrilling. So far my reading eye has been more taxed than my artistic one.

Alas, so far there is little to sketch here aside from the ship, its crew, our cargo - so neatly stored in bland wooden boxes, and the passing ice float. Of these subjects, Joséphine is the most patient. She appears to have become quite taken with me, or at least some of the herbs I use to freshen my small quarters aboard the ship. When not mousing, she sits upon my bed and has become an affectionate companion. Indeed, she possesses a few notable traits I've become quite fond of - including one missing amongst a great number of my fondest friends (you included!): she is content to listen to my musings, rather than interrupt!

Fondly,

Magnus Kinslow

John,

I'm more likely to burn this than send it, but I feel as though someone should know of our ill luck - at the very least, writing may free it from my thoughts before rest.

We had adjusted our course Northward. An item of cargo is kept subdued by the cold, and it appeared to be getting active. We plotted a course along the ice and kept pace for most of the day. That was until my late supper was interrupted by a groaning reverberation that pitched us forward and to the side. The rest of my day soon followed the course of that meal: ruined.

I was tasked to examine the cargo, while the ship hands worked to free us of our predicament. Hours of methodical examination followed as I poured over each lock: mechanical and arcane, and double-checked the location and condition of each item. After several exhausting hours, I fled the darkness of the cargo hold to assess our predicament beyond. What I encountered has given me no cause for hopefulness. The men endeavoured to free the ship, to seemingly no avail. I was resolved to document this Sisyphean effort until its completion, or the lack of light rendered my vision insufficient. Alas, I forgot that the sun never dips below the horizon in this cursed place, and it was the aching of my blue fingers that drove me to shelter.

The bed calls to me. I hope for better news ahead.

I woke today to a nightmare.

An unearthly wind echoed through the ship and stirred me from my slumber. I dressed quickly and called out. None answered me below. I climbed the steps above, losing count at how many times I stepped upwards, before being met with a haunting sight. The masts towered above me, vanishing to imperceptible points in the white sky. As I brought my gaze down across the ship, I saw impossible forms scattered about me. Like dolls with wooden legs, extended to long points. Each form stretched beyond my fearful eyes, receding into the series of lines. Only when I focussed on them closely could I identify the twisted human shape of my shipmates. Their bodies switched in focus, between here and there, present and infinite. I was driven back into the darkness below deck.

As I caught my breath, I felt a nudge against my thigh. Joséphine, looking towards me with saucer eyes. I was resolved, I must take us from this place. Within my room I gathered my things, stuffing the enchanted compartments of Valdemar's chest full of all I could reach: ink, quills, charcoal, and foodstuffs; Only half-aware, I grabbed several unappealing meals of dried meat, pickled fish, and cheese. I found some piece of splintered wood to lean upon, and a sack to store the rest in. I scooped Joséphine under my arm and went upwards, keeping my eyes trained downwards upon the deck.

I stumbled over something: one of the men, fallen and slashed along the shoulder to neck. The wound did not flow or pool, it congealed. I realized it was not the wind I had woken to, but his inhuman shrieking, drawn-out and unbroken.

I blundered off the boat, onto the drifts and the ice. I have been walking. I have not dared to stop for some time.

Although I have not yet suffered these effects, I cannot say why - whether some arcane warding has buffered it, or I am the recipient of divine luck. I fear I am the cause, that it radiates from me.

The ground is treacherous: slick and uneven. Joséphine pads along behind me; our pace along the ice seems not to bother her so much as I.

Looking behind, at her and the ship in the distance, hurts my eyes. There's a stretching of space between myself and the wreck that causes the head to throb. The distance is collapsed, squeezed. I can still see those masts, extending into the horizon.

I am the center of this circle; the effect extends away from me, distorting shapes into jagged lines retreating from my view, beyond my capacity of knowing. I hope that distance will dull its grasp and give those on the ship another chance.

Looking ahead is easier, the lines are less fierce. The even landscape is broken only by a snowy rise or icy protrusion. It took me some time before I realized what was wrong with it. I cannot see the sea, just this brumal expanse.

Occasionally I will stop and sit for a moment, searching for some landmark before me, to know if we have drawn nearer. The water in the canteen has frozen, but I've yet to grow thirsty or hungry. Perhaps that is for the best. The chest, wrapped in a canvas sack, sits heavily upon my shoulders. Regardless, I do not wish to discard it. Even though our food supplies do not dwindle as I expected them to, its contents offer a welcome distraction on break such as these. I read to my feline friend today from Palmason's mythos.

I do not know how long I have walked along the slick, uneven ice. I feel myself move forward with each step but grow no closer to the uncertain horizon before me.

All those cues that once marked the passage of hours and days have abandoned me; their meaning dragged apart to insignificance. The sun circles like a vulture overhead, never letting me slip from its predatory gaze. I crave no food or rest. My body draws substance to carry onward from what? My fallible will itself?

Time does not keep us bound, it serves us. We did not yield to it - we broke it to suit our needs, and now I am without it and all company, save for the cat. She follows, dutifully, step by step with me. Us two marching our steady pace across this wasteland. I can see her face but looking beyond her shoulders hurts. A tethering extension, an impossible distortion, binds her to the ice-clad wreck. To think about it, to see it, seems to close the distance, yank us backwards, and so I focus on her whisker-clad face and forepaws.

God deliver us from this.

I saw a corpse in the ice: a withered, wind-blasted thing. I did not know it was myself for some time. I put its semblance to paper; I don't want to forget again.

There are many kinds of sacrifice. I've seen a man aflame leap from a tall building, choosing one death over another. I watched a woman shove her child from beneath a chunk of falling masonry, saving the girl but not herself. I have no one to save but myself and the cat.

The Codex, as I have grown accustomed to thinking of that Icelander's musings, weighs heavy on my thoughts. It talks to me of heroes, beasts, strange magics, the wills and conflicts of gods. It whispers to me, through the sealed, arcane wood of the chest I carry, of Óðinn's sacrifice for knowledge. My life has been an engagement in the frantic pursuit of power through truth, I have learned little, only enough to bring me to this biter end.

A different understanding is needed. I shall walk the elder paths, trodden through the snow by those before me, to the same or disparate ends, to power or death. I have no spear but this penknife, no tree but this staff, no noose but this scarf. They shall do.

I am not dead.

Beneath the orbiting sun, on what I told myself was morning, I carved my eye from its socket with my knife. There was red against the white of the snow as the warm trickle upon my face froze fast, mingled with my anguished tears. The howling cries were torn from me by the chilling wind.

I tightened my scarf, tied it to the walking stick, and planted it in the ground. Already it lurched upwards, growing above me, from me, into the infinite sky. I could feel the fabrics stiffening against my neck as I was dragged after it. The cold aches that plagued my legs subsided as I left the ground, replaced by burning panic and fear. I could not breathe. My vision clouded as the pressure built and the trickle of blood from my eye became a torrent. Pain wracked my body, as Joséphine's mewling cries grew fainter.

I do not know for how long I hanged. I watched the glacial expanse below me spread across the horizon as that pale sun spun, its baleful light reflected from glowing towers of ice that pierced the sky. I felt myself come apart and spread across a quiet world of white expanse. An eternal world, still and unmoving, until that star itself faltered, and cast all into darkness.

In that eternal night, I felt a presence - constricting itself around me, to me, through me, winding across time and space. It was a comforting warmth, there at the empty culmination of all things. The cat, Joséphine, was with me. From behind her shoulders stretched infinity, expanding continuously into the abyss beyond thought. But there, before me, was she: purring, alive, and warm.

Look to the center, I had been taught. 'See from whence it radiates.' Foolish man. I had always been self-centered.

With that revelation it collapses, this vision. I found myself sprawled upon the ice. The scarf was torn asunder, one half rippling in the breeze upon the stick. Joséphine nudged my face and licked the blood from my cheek.

I knew then what I was to do.

The undertaking is complete. Wielding an unreal blade of thought, honed to a razor's edge, I cut through the abdomen - leaving no trace of my incision but a void. I had prepared Valdemar's Chest ahead of time: turned its center in upon itself. I formed from it, with magics I had not known, a boundless cavity hungering for matter. To that suckling abyss I brought the incised back end of my companion. There was a great flash and folding of space across the landscape. At that moment, I sealed that distortion: the extending of all things that infected my friend, within the chest I had carried.

When I looked downward, Joséphine was beside me, her frontward half steady upon two legs. She seemed content, or at least balanced well enough to follow me to the ship. It did not take us long to reach it. The crew were dazed, but alive. Their gazes slid away from me, and none inquired about the appearance of myself or my companion. We have both lost something from this, but I do not intend to be parted from her.

I have seen this world's end: an empty, abandoned wasteland littered with the ice-white bones of that which once was. I will not let this come to pass.

We shall need something new, beginning with names. I myself am no longer the man I was, and 'Joséphine' seems overly long to me now.

Addendum - 6529_A2: Additional Documents Recovered from SCP-6529 - Context Unclear.

The following additional items were also recovered from SCP-6529. They have been identified as belonging to Lauron William De Laurence's The Illustrated Key to the Tarot published in 1918. It is unclear as to how and when these items were added to SCP-6529.

The additional detail included in the center-left item: 'The Hermit,' mirrors iconography employed by Jean & Jean Transtemporal Shipping. An investigation into the connection between this now-defunct organization and SCP-6529 is pending approval.

Footnotes

1. For additional information, see Addendum - 6529_A1.