"There are twelve men in a shift. Each shift begins precisely at 
midnight or noon, Greenwich Mean Time. One hour before the shift 
change, the doors to the outer chamber will be opened, and your 
shift will assemble in the hallway leading to the outer chamber. A 
uniform and weapon inspection will take place at this time. Your 
uniform will be the Dress Black uniform, and it will be perfectly 
pressed and cleaned. Your grooming will be immaculate. Your 
weapon, an M1 Garand that was used during the Second World 
War, will be in perfect firing condition, it will be unloaded and safed 
(but a full clip of ammunition will be carried on your person), and it 
will have a fixed bayonet shined to a mirror polish. Failure to 
maintain standards may result in your dismissal from the Guard. 


"The shift begins with the changing of the guard. The shift that is 
coming off-duty will verbally report any changes in situation to the 
oncoming shift. The shift leader will relieve the prior shift of duty, and 
they will file out of the chamber at a measured and respectful pace. 


"The Guard has three duties which they must carry out. The first 
duty is to maintain the watch. At all times except during the first and 
last hour of the Shift, there shall be two Guards in the chamber of 
the Alpha Mausoleum. There is a three-and-a-half meter wide red 
carpet in the center of the mausoleum, and it is fourteen meters in 
length. 


"The patrol begins with two guards stationed on opposite sides of 
the carpet, exactly 13.75 meters apart: hashmarks have been 
placed on the carpet for this purpose. Beginning with the right foot, 
they will march at a pace of one 0.625 meter stride per second for 
twenty-one seconds, before halting and waiting 21 seconds. They 
will then perform a right face, take five steps forward, and wait a 
further 10 seconds. They will then perform a second right face, take 
21 steps forward, before halting and waiting 21 seconds. They will 
then perform a right face, take five steps forward, and wait a further 
10 seconds. They will then make a final right face, returning to their 
starting position. 


"If the circuit is performed properly, it should take two minutes to 
complete one full circuit. Twenty-five full circuits will be performed 
each hour, giving ten minutes for a changing of the guard. Each 
member of the Guard, except for the Shift Leader and Assistant Shift 
Leader, will perform this duty twice per twelve-hour shift: once while 
beginning their patrol in the inner position, and a second time 
beginning their patrol at the outer position. The Shift Leader will 
assign watches and be responsible for coordinating the changing of 
the guard. 


"In addition to maintaining the vigil at the Aloha Mausoleum, every 
three hours, beginning at one hour past the beginning of the shift, 
ten members of the Guard will perform the Patrol of the Grid. The 
Grid is a rectangular lattice of tunnels cut into the stone. Each tunnel 
is three meters tall and three meters wide. Beginning at the entrance 
to the grid, each member of the Guard will walk their assigned Patrol 
route. If all ten Guards walk their route perfectly, there will be no 
collisions, and all ten will return to the entrance of the Grid at exactly 
fifty minutes after the Patrol begins, in time for the changing of the 
Guard at the Alpha Mausoleum. 


"The second duty of the Guard is the maintenance of the facility. 
The first hour of the shift will be devoted to inspection and cleaning 
of the Alpha Mausoleum. Any dust or debris must be removed, and 
the Shift Leader will perform a white-glove inspection at the end of 
the hour, before the first patrol is assigned. 


"In addition, during the last hour of the Shift, all twelve members will 
inspect and clean a section of the Grid or outer Museum, assigned 


died on // from internal hemorrhaging resulting from the 
obstruction of feces caused by the closing of the rectum. 


/ / : 16-year-old Ella Pugh suffocated 8 months after infection 
due to the closing of the larynx after surgically locking her own 
mouth open with a home-made head brace. 


fae. 3 contracted SCP-651 7 months into pregnancy and 
died after 3 months. Autopsy revealed that the unborn child had 
fused with the sides of the uterus. 


« SCP-650 | SCP-651 | SCP-652 » 


by the Facility Supervisor. Again, any dust or debris must be 
removed, and the Shift Leader will perform a white-glove inspection 
at the end of the hour, before assembling to stand relieved and go 
off-duty. 


"Any damage to the Grid or Mausoleum is to be reported to the 
facility supervisor as soon as possible. 


"The third duty of the Guard is the protection of the facility. The 
Guard will remain ever vigilant against intrusion, mishap, or natural 
disaster. They will watch over the Grid and Mausoleum and will 
faithfully discharge their duty to our honored dead. 


"When not actively patrolling, Guards are allowed to rest in the 
lounge provided in the outer Museum. At all times, they shall act 
with decorum and respect appropriate to the hallowed nature of this 
facility. 


"Additional duties may also arise due to special circumstances, such 
as holidays or the interment of a fallen comrade. 


"Your vigil will be a lonely one. There are few visitors to this place. 
The sun does not shine here. The only light you will see will be from 
the light bulbs overhead. And this is where you will remain for twelve 
hours every three days. 


"But as lonely as your duty is, it will be a sacred one. For you have 
been entrusted with protecting those of your comrades who have 
given their lives to protect humanity. Here are the remains of those 
who have died unknown to the ones they saved. 


"Carry out your duties perfectly. Make them proud. 
"Training begins at 0500 hours tomorrow. Dismissed." 


"Sequence" 
« Tempering | Return to GOC Hub | Diplomacy» 


"Tempering" 


Spider had been walking up the mountain trail for a good half hour, 
and her feet were starting to hurt. It didn't help that she was carrying 
a heavy backpack: she'd done long ruck marches in training, but 
she'd been out on rehabilitation for a long time and knew she was 
out of shape. Hopefully, the rest of this trip would help. 


Thankfully, she could already see the small log cabin up ahead. A 
thin stream of smoke emitted from the brick-and-clay oven nearby. 
The high, metallic sound of hammer on steel could be heard even at 
this distance. 


She hiked her backpack a little higher, took a drink of water from her 
camelbak, and forged on. 


Hopefully, the blisters would be worth it in the end. 


"So you've finally come down to visit, huh, girl?" 


Heinrich Guggenheim looked exactly like one would expect a dwarf 
to look: short, stocky, and massively built, with forearms the size of 
hams and fists the size of small kegs. He was a middle-aged, 
balding man with a neatly trimmed, white beard and intense, beady 
eyes, and his face and arms were marked with dozens of small, pale 
burn scars. He stepped back and looked Spider up and down once, 
and laughed out loud. "Looking good. You're wearing that new body 
well." 


"Thanks," Spider said, smiling. "Complete thaumatological identity 
reassignment will do that. Given that I'm gonna be spending a 
lifetime working for the Coalition, the least they can do is let me feel 
comfortable in my own body." 


"And now that you're settled in, you've come to visit old Guggenheim 
for those knives he promised you, huh?" The old man laughed out 


loud. "All right, girl. Let's see what | can do." 


Heinrich let out a low, impressed grunt as Spider unwrapped the 
heavy, silk-wrapped package she'd been carrying strapped to her 
backpack. "Is that real?" 


"Yeah," Spider said. "It fell over Siberia a few years back. I've been 
buying up as many pieces as | can." 


He picked up one of the fragments of meteoric iron and weighed it in 
his hand contemplatively. "High iron content," he said. "But are you 
sure it's going to be enough to make three knives?" 


"It doesn't have to be. We can fill in with regular iron if we need to. 
Sympathy and Contagion will transfer its properties over." 


Guggenheim nodded. "I've been saving a good solid ingot for you. 
From the days back when you were apprenticing with me. Got a lot 
of history behind it. We smelt it into blanks along with this, and it'll 
work out great. Which brings us to the question of payment." 


"You're not going to bring up Brisingamen again, are you?" 


"You said it. Not me. It does have the weight of tradition behind it," 
Heinrich smirked. 


"Unlike Freya, | have something better to barter with than gold." She 
opened up her backpack and pulled out two corrugated cardboard 
cylinders. 


"18 year?" Heinrich asked. 
"25. Two of the Yamazaki. And one 30-year Hibiki." 


"... yeah, that'll do nicely," Guggenheim laughed. "You could have 
gotten this done for 12-year, you know." 


"| Know. But | want it done quickly, before the Coalition calls me 
back up again. I'm technically on 'psychological rehabilitation,’ but 
the shrinks think that doing this will help my healing process. Even 
so, they won't let me stay for too long." 


"Yeah, | heard," Guggenheim admitted. "Good on you getting back 
into the game." He raised the bottles of dark amber liquid to the 
light. "For this? Yeah, I'll get it done fast. But you'll be helping me." 


"Wouldn't want it any other way." 


"So you're wanting the full set, then?" the smith asked. He sketched 
out the broad outline of three knives on a sheet of butcher paper on 
the roughly hewn table in the cabin's kitchen. "Athame, boline, and 
secespita?" 


"Yeah," Spider said, sitting down across from him. 
"Any particulars in design?" 
"I'll leave that up to you, as the expert." 


"Mmmm. Boline's easy. You want a hawkbill blade. Concave cutting 
edge. Well suited to cutting mistletoe and tree branches. And the 
athame... straight blade, double-edged dagger, with a broad fuller 
sO we Can carve in some runes. Secespita's the tough one. Some 
people prefer a clip point: gives you a sharper tip, but drop point's 
better in my opinion. Less chance of slicing open the guts if you do 
haruspicy." 


"Not much call for that these days." 


"Not much call for hand-forged ritual knives, either. But then again, 
you've always preferred the traditional methods." Guggenheim 
quickly sketched out the details of the three knives in charcoal, filling 
out the details. "The athame will be the largest. Boline and secespita 
will have at least partial serrations. Full tang wootz steel. You'll want 
sheaths too, right? Leather's the best material for sheaths." 


"They have to go onto tactical webbing. Maybe | should see if the 
armorers can adapt the sheath from an OKC-3S or something." 


"Nylon ruins the purity. Leather's better." 


"There's no proof that storage in plastic or synthetic fibers can 
disrupt the EVE signature of a ritual device," Spider pointed out. 


"You want my help, or don't you? Leather sheaths. You can attach 
your nylon loops and stuff to them if you must, but the part that 
touches the blade must be leather." 


"If you insist. Do you have any?" 


"| do, but for these knives... hmm." Guggenheim leaned back in his 
chair and ran a hand over his balding pate. "Can you still handle a 
bow and arrow?" 


Spider knelt at the base of the tree, arrow nocked to her bowstring, 
and took a deep, cleansing breath, clearing her mind of all 
distractions. She could feel the cool air of the forest all around her, 
caressing her face and throat. It was soothing. Calming. Still. 


Memories of a childhood spent in the woods. Trudging through the 
forest following her father's orange vest. Listening to him give advice 
on how to stalk the prey, how to hold perfectly still, how to respect 
nature and all its living things. The pride in his eyes when she'd shot 
her first buck: single rifle bullet through the heart. A good Kill. 


Remembering her father's eyes reminded her of worse days. Angry 
voices and narrowed eyes. Raised voices. A slamming door. 


She hadn't heard from her family in years. Not that they would 
recognize her. She'd changed too much since then. 


She sometimes wondered if they thought of her. She wondered if 
they'd declared her dead yet. 


She wondered if her father had forgiven her. 


The sound of a snapping twig roused her from her thoughts. She 
opened her eyes very slowly, careful not to move from her crouching 
position in the bushes. 


The stag was an old, powerful buck, with twenty-point antlers and 
greying fur at its muzzle and throat. It scanned the treeline warily 
before emerging to dip its head and nibble at the berries and salt 
she had laid out in the clearing. 


Spider slowly raised the bow and drew the arrow back to her ear. 


She released the string smoothly, and the white-fletched missile 
leaped from the string with a sharp hiss. 


It struck home with a dull thud, penetrating right behind the shoulder. 


The deer leaped away, bellowing in pain and terror. It turned to run, 
but collapsed within a few steps and lay still on the leaf-strewn 
ground, sides heaving. 


Spider drew a second arrow from her quiver and got to her feet. 
Approaching quickly, but carefully, she advanced to around ten feet 
and fired a second, precise arrow through the dear's heart. 


The beast quivered once and then lay still. 


Grabbing the dying animal by the antlers, she drew the blade of her 
hunting knife across its throat. 


Warm blood spilled over her hands and pooled underneath the 
animal, staining the fallen leaves bright red. 


She took a moment to cut a sprig from a nearby tree and place it in 
the animal's mouth. Breaking off a twig from that branch, she dipped 
itin the blood and put it into her hair as a souvenir of the day's hunt. 


Then, working quickly, she used the knife she'd cut the deer's throat 
with to draw a circle around the carcass. 


She wondered if she should do this next part skyclad. She decided 
against it: the weather was far too cold to be gallavanting about 
naked in the woods, no matter what the ritual significance. 


She removed the arrows and put them side: one of them was 
reusable, the other had broken when the beast rolled over onto it. 
She then turned the deer onto its back and, starting with the 
sternum, opened up its belly with a slow sweep of the hunting knife. 


The intestines spilled out, warm and steaming, onto the forest floor: 
she lifted them in her arms and tossed them to the south, trailing out 


of the deer's belly like a long cord. The lungs she pulled out through 
the ribs, spreading them open like eagle's wings. The liver and heart 
she kept, putting them aside for later. 


lt was long, bloody, tiring work, and the sun was setting by the time 
she finally got to her feet. The skin, head, haunches, and much of 
the meat she took with her. The rest she left for the wolves and 
scavengers to return to the earth. Wiping a few flecks of blood off 
her face, she bowed once to the setting sun and turned to make the 
long hike back to Guggenheim's cabin. 


Guggenheim poured some of the deer's blood over the chunks of 
iron, glass, sand, and charcoal inside the clay crucible. He tossed 
the heart onto the charcoal before sealing up the clay-and-brick 
oven and igniting the flames. 


They dined that night on venison steaks and potatoes, after Spider 
had cleaned the hide and set it in a barrel with salt to cure. They 
would stay up all night pumping air into the oven through the great 
bellows, keeping the flames alight. 


Dawn came, and with it came the opening of the oven, and the 
removal of the crucible. Guggenheim smiled as he saw the glowing 
ingot emerge from the slag and clay. "Good steel," he said. "It'll 
make good knives." 


"The best," Spider agreed.