“Come on. Let’s go somewhere a little more private,” Agent Gibson 
said. Wood nodded and soon Creed found herself being lead to a 
small clearing away from the stages where a deserted picnic table 
awaited them. She took a seat and looked at her two new friends. 


“| got to admit, finding UlUseless here is probably the biggest 
surprise of my day,” Creed commented, breaking the silence. 


"Will you stop calling us that?" Wood replied with a frown. "For 
starters, we caught your scrawny ass." 


“Fair enough." Creed shrugged. "How long have you guys known 
about this place anyway?” 


“The Federal Government has operated here since the Hoover era,” 
Wood replied. “I’d say welcome to the party, but the girls already 
jumped out of the cake, and everyone has had a slice.” 


“Cute,” said Creed. “And you never told us about a potentially 
massive breach of the Veil because...?” 


“We didn’t need to,” Gibson answered. “The fact that the Foundation 
is only just now finding out about this place should tell you how self- 
contained it is. Generally, this place operates under Vegas rules. 
What happens in Three Portlands stays in Three Portlands.” 


“So, what, you guys are detaining me?” Creed raised an eyebrow, 
and gesturing to her still handcuffed arms with her head. “Are you 
prepared for the fallout of that kind of action?” 


“Not detaining so much as stalling,” Wood chuckled. “We’ve had a 
protocol for this exact scenario prepped since the mid 60’s when the 
number of carts and cans in the Pacific Northwest started 
increasing. Right now, our director is probably on the phone with 
one of your big wigs. Telling them what’s what.” 


“Oh, they are going to tell us what’s what are they? And why are we 
going to listen to you?” 


Description: SCP-738 consists of three components. A matched 
set of mahogany furniture including one (1) desk currently labeled 
SCP-738-1, one (1) straight-backed chair currently labeled 
SCP-738-2, and one (1) ornate "throne" styled office chair labeled 
SCP-738-3, all with brass embellishments and royal purple velvet 
padding. 


The effect begins when a sentient entity sits in SCP-738-2 in ‘front’ 
of SCP-738-1 with SCP-738-3 resting behind SCP-738-2. Cameras 
show SCP-738-3 moving during the effect, frequently leaning back 
into a ‘relaxed state’ as well as moving closer to, or further away 
from SCP-738-2. Occasionally SCP-738-3 is moved in front of 
SCP-738-2. Furthermore cameras show papers and folders 
containing papers leaving SCP-738-1’s drawers. The papers are 
made of parchment. A quill pen and a bottle of ink emerge from the 
long drawer. The pen will write on the parchment. 


Audio recorders record a distorted voice speaking. This voice will 
make offers and promises, attempting to tempt the occupant of 
SCP-738-2. Meaning has been extracted from the spoken voice. If, 
in this time, the entity sitting in SCP-738-2 makes a request, then 
the tempting and offers will cease. There will be a pause and a price 
will be stated. This can be bargained with; however, the voice will 
insist on other prices of ‘equal value.’ Occasionally when a request 
is made the voice will respond by telling the requester that they ‘do 
not want the object enough’ or that they are ‘obviously requesting 
the object for someone else to get around paying full price’ in which 
case the request is not fulfilled. This occurs most frequently for 
requests that can affect other people, or can transfer possession. 


Accepting the deal causes the agreed-upon wish or command to be 
fulfilled to the letter, but not past the letter. Furthermore it will cause 
the occurrences stated in the price to be paid. The entity has 
actively stated that the occurrences in the price are intended to 
cause an amount of emotional and/or physical pain equal to the 
amount that the requester desires what they request. How parity is 
calculated is at present unknown. The price has also been stated to 
be independent of any pain caused by fulfilling the request. See the 
test log for examples of prices paid, and requests made. 


As a final note, personnel in the chair have reported seeing an entity 


“Because if you don’t, and treat this place business as usual, you're 
going to be making your job infinitely harder,” Gibson commented. 


“| don't follow..." 


“You ever wonder why the Pacific Northwest is so much quieter than 
other sections of the US in terms of the strange and mysterious?” 
Gibson sighed. “It’s because most of that activity gets siphoned into 
here. No need to risk magic and mad science in the real world and 
risk getting skipped when you can just move to a place where open 
practice is legal and the norm. You guys come in here and try and 
contain things, all that activity is going to spill back out again. | 
guarantee it. You'll only be making your job more difficult.” 


Agent Wood pressed two fingers to an ear, then looked as his 
watch, then tapped on it. Gibson nodded and removed Creed's 
cuffs. The Foundation agent rubbed her wrists as she watched the 
UIU agents take their leave. 


“Anyway, enough stalling, contact's been made," Wood called back. 
"You enjoy the rest of Vortex, alright skipper? Try to catch the 
Jacob’s Ladder set if you can. They aren't half-bad.” 


Creed watched as Wood and Gibson vanished into the crowds 
within the park. She sighed and got up, making her way back to the 
shadow of the tree her and Phineas came in through. As directed, 
she knocked seven times, then made five counterclockwise circles. 
She felt the wind get knocked out of her again, as her vision went 
white, then faded to black. 


When her senses returned to her, she was standing in the warm 
summer sun, near the large Douglas fir within Milo Mclver State 
Park. Her fellow Foundation field agents surrounded her, each 
bearing a concerned expression. 


“Creed? What happened?” Agent Stuart asked, taking off his rose- 
tinted glasses as he looked her over for injury. 


“You hit your major anomaly bead. Is everything alright? Where is 
the anomaly?” Agent Philips questioned. She kept one hand on her 
can of amnestic spray, and one eye on the crowd. 


“You completely vanished! Where the hell did you go?” Agent Ferrell 
inquired. His head bobbed back and forth as he looked around the 
tree, as if some great discovery was merely hiding behind it. 


She held up a finger as she caught her breath. 


“Debriefing,” Creed finally managed to say. “I need a debriefing. 
Now!” 


November, 1971 


Sunny days in Three Portlands were few and far between. From 
pouring rain to simple overcast, the pure blue of the sky rarely 
became visible for the city's residents. Even rarer, however, was the 
sky being clear at sunset, the vanishing sun painting a vibrant 
canvas of reds, oranges, purples, and yellows across the sky. 


Agent Josephine Creed sat a park bench, watching the sun go 
down. She hummed a tune to herself as a familiar man in a long 
brown coat sat next her, holding a briefcase on his lap. 


"Agent Creed," he said as he too looked at the sky. "Welcome back 
to Portlands." 


"Someone | met on my first trip here said that no one stays away 
from here for too long," Creed replied. "Nice to see you again as 
well, Agent Gibson." 


"True words." Gibson nodded in agreement, flipping open his 
briefcase and looking at the contents. "So, you guys are finally 
starting to keep an eye on the Northwest, huh? Sticking around for a 
while?" 


"Given the potential for Three Portlands to someday spill out into the 
real world, we deemed it wise," said Creed. "Did you bring it then?" 


"All cataloged Ways into Three Portlands, and where they connect 
to baseline reality." Gibson handed her an unmarked booklet. "If you 
guys are going to be keeping an eye out and making sure the 
oddities stay in their cage that kind of information will be crucial. 
Note we aren't telling you what the keys are. You don't need to be 


able to open a door to see who goes in and out of it." 


Creed nodded and placed the booklet in her bag. She then handed 
him a large sealed envelope in return. "As promised, five minor 
anomalous objects with anti-thaumaturgic properties, one of which 
just so happens to be a Richard Nixon bobblehead." 


"And what does that one do?" Gibson asked with a chuckle as he 
placed the envelope in his briefcase. 


"Thaumaturges in its presence can't lie." 
"Clever." 


"I'll say," Creed laughed, then turned her attention back to the 
sunset. "It’s funny, Tom McCall sponsored Vortex to get the 
hippies out of Portland because Nixon was going to attend that 
American Legion gathering. Then Nixon ended up canceling his 
appearance. Had Nixon decided to not appear at all from the 
beginning, Vortex wouldn't have happened, and we never would 
have found out about his place. So, in a way, you can blame the 
President for this little breach." 


"Tricky Dick does it again." Gibson laughed as well. He then placed 
two fingers to his ear and tapped his watch. He frowned, then stood 
and prepared to take his leave. "Since you and your colleagues are 
probably going to be here for a while, | should give you a little 
warning. Be careful. This place sticks to you. You don't want to lose 
touch with reality because you're lost in all the wonder." 


"You're serious..." Creed raised an eyebrow. "Wow..." 


"As cancer," Gibson replied. His smile turning to a frown. "Too much 
of a good thing and all that jazz." 


"Thanks for the heads up," said Creed. "It’s appreciated." 


"Don't mention it," Gibson gave a small salute. "Not so UlUseless 
after all." 


"Far from it," Creed chuckled, and watched her contact vanish. 


She then turned her attention back to the sunset and took a deep 
breath. The smell of pine trees and sea salt filled her nostrils. In the 
distance, a group of people flew through the skyline on broomsticks. 
Nearby, a friendly looking pair of young men were putting on a 
magic show for a group of children, fantastic figures of light and 
sound dancing around for the little one’s amusement. Distant music 
could be heard among the hustle and bustle of people of all sorts 
enjoying the dying light. 


“Can't imagine why anyone would want to stay here,” Creed said to 
herself with a small smile, then began her journey back to her Way. 
She needed to report in to the new Foundation site with her 
findings. 


Operation LLEWYN DARK 


OVERVIEW OF OPERATION 


LLEWYN DARK 


Overview 


On July 19th, 1982, Prometheus Astrotechnologies' first in-house 
Geas Switchboard Communicator satellite, the PSAT Setanta, went 
rogue due to an unforeseen malfunction in its demonic circuitry. The 
satellite had been functional for over 9 years at the time the incident 
occured, and it was estimated that it would continue to operate for at 
least another 10 years without further interference. 


Following a collision with a meteoroid, the demonic circuitry the 
satellite used was heavily damaged, resulting in the discharge of 
several demons and the subsequent malfunction of the Setanta. 


While an initial repair team was promptly dispatched, several 
members of the team were possessed by the free demons, who 
then proceeded to further complicate the situation by introducing a 
large amount of free thaumic energy, rendering the satellite 
effectively irreparable. 


Operation LLEWYN DARK is the designation for the attempts to 
contain the fallout that resulted from the meltdown of the Setanta, 
and the ongoing attempts to maintain geas safety when used in 
paratechnology. 


OVERVIEW OF GEAS 


What is Geas? 


Geas (pronounced "g-i:es" or "ge-ass") is a general term for a set of 
procedures that, when completed successfully, make the parties 
subject to the geas unable or significantly less able to wilfully 
disobey the restrictions placed on them. While Irish lore describes 
geas as no more than a taboo, modern forms of geas render the 
subject completely obedient of these restrictions thanks to advances 
in memetic engineering and quantum physics. 


Geas typically consist of three parts — a contract, a memetic carrier, 
and a probability field. The contract itself specifies the conditions of 
the geas, while the memetic agent is used to carry the probability 
field and bind the subject to the geas once the contract is signed or 
otherwise agreed to by the subject. The probability field effectively 
warps the state of the subject's consciousness such that it becomes 
more and more difficult to perform actions which would contravene 
the restrictions of the geas. 


These bindings may be removed by eliminating the memetic carrier 
from the subject's mind, which may be done by the contract itself 
(usually after a set restriction has been fulfilled), or by collapsing the 
probability field through the unwilful breach of these terms and 
conditions (see the section on Cuchulainn syndrome below.) 


History of Geastechnology 


Memetics and Geas 


During the burgeoning years of paratechnology research, the 
investigation of folklore and legends for their basis in reality was a 
common practice, resulting in the discovery of demonics, 
petrification, and skinwalking technology. As such, the lreland-based 
Langford memetics team began investigating the phenomenon of 
geas and how such a binding agreement was created — if not 
discovering the basis behind the myth, then finding how to replicate 
it. 


Several investigations of the geas phenomenon were conducted 
throughout Ireland, with the most notable and productive being the 
Gyffe expedition of 1929. From the binding materials recovered from 
the expedition, Robert Langford successfully managed to reverse- 
engineer the memetic agents used in these materials and published 
his seminal paper, "Geas as Eigentechnology — Memetic 
Composition of Geas Binders" a year later. 


Binder Generation 


In 1932, Ava Berryman successfully generalised Langford's findings 
to encompass a larger set of memetic agents and used her 
previously developed Berryman memetic composition method to 
develop a method to create custom geas binding agents. Realising 
the potential use and commercial opportunities for the creation of 
these memetic agents, Berryman took out a patent on a set of curve 
sketching tools which could be used to compose an overall binding 
agent. These Bezier-Berryman curve sketching sets are still sold 
and owned by old hands in the memetics business and collectors 
worldwide. 


However, with the Occult Warfare Act of 1939 and the start of the 
Seventh Occult War, both Langford and Berryman were instructed to 
develop geas bindings which could bind a human mind to an 
abstract concept. With their successful development of the first 
mind-abstract binding agent in 1940, British conscription documents 
from that year onwards featured this agent, effectively binding 
conscripted occult agents to the British government and killing any 
potentially traitorous members of the department. 


The use of these Berryman-Langford agents in hiring documents 
became a widespread practice following the end of the Seventh 
Occult War and the declassification of their research. Normalcy 
preservation agencies such as the Global Occult Coalition, MI666 
and the Unusual Incidents Unit continue to use these agents to this 
day — the Foundation, however, has partially relaxed their stance on 
this topic, due to the interaction between memetic agents and 
complex geas. Geases are also widely employed to hide the use of 
other geas in order to maintain the integrity of the veil protocol. 


Cuchulainn Syndrome