stock in trade offensive and deplorable, and their clientele even 
more so.) But on this day, the windowless establishment was free of 
its usual throng of libertines and Bohemians, replaced by a handful 
of officers and men in the uniforms of the French, a handful of our 
own soldiers guarding the door. Servants and waiters, apparently 
relieved to be in our company rather than that of their usual 
employers, offered drinks and hors d'oeuvres to their guests. 


Besides myself, there were three guests of honour at the meeting. 
There was an American, Mr. Roosevelt, a young man who had 
made for himself already quite a name as a hunter of big game in 
the American west. There was Mr. Dukov, a Russian | knew of by 
reputation as a scientist and historian. Lastly, there was another 
Englishman, the same Mr. Harris whom readers of these pages may 
recall as he whom | matched wits with on the banks of the Nile in 
1855. | will spare the reader the excruciating details of our past 
intercourse; suffice it to say that Mr. Harris and | were schoolmates 
at Eton, that | regarded him then as little more than a common 
blackguard, and that what news | have heard of him since then has 
given me little reason to change my assessment of his personage. 


Col. D'Enfante, a short and middle-aged man who bore signs of 
great fatigue and worry, spoke briefly and elaborated on his reasons 
for calling on the four of us. The being that his government had 
come to call the Tarasque, he said, had first appeared the Sunday 
after Easter near the village of Tarascon (named, most 
coincidentally, for the mythical beast itself) and had destroyed the 
town utterly, claiming several thousand souls in the process. The 
handful of survivors who escaped the devastation had described a 
great lizard, nimble and merciless, that had charged directly into the 
town square and destroyed everyone and everything in its path, 
crushing, smashing, and devouring people, livestock, and buildings 
alike. One man, a farmer whose wife and children had been ripped 
to shreds by the beast, claimed that it spoke to him, in plain French, 
and told him of them; "Ils étaient répugnants." 


Since then, the Colonel said, three outlying villages and countless 
farms in Provence had fallen to the Tarasque. It attacked without 
mercy or reason, killed indiscriminately, and left only devastation in 
its wake. The army had sent men and horses and cavalry against it; 


there were few survivors, and those who lived claimed the beast had 
been struck directly by artillery and neither flagged nor missed a 
step, the hole in its chest seemingly knitting together as it charged 
their position. The entire region had been quarantined, citizens were 
being evacuated by the thousands, and the army and the press 
were passing stories of plagues and Prussian revanchists, but his 
government feared the worst would soon come to pass; Nimes, 
Avignon, and Arles were in danger if the beast continued to rage. 


The four of us, the Colonel claimed, were the finest hunters and 
scientific minds available and known to his government. He knew 
not if we were capable of taking down such a monster, but between 
our expert knowledge and unique access to the finest tools and 
weapons known to science, he hoped we could succeed where his 
own forces had failed. 


| left the meeting with a stack of papers; details of the army's 
knowledge of the Tarasque based on what reconnaissance they 
have to date endeavoured. On Saturday, the four of us will board a 
steamer across the Channel and travel to the epicenter of this 
pandemonium ourselves. Deeds, my loyal valet, has begun packing 
my bags, and is having the more "exotic" armaments in my arsenal 
prepared for shipping. | do not anticipate working with Mr. Harris any 
more than | anticipate shaking hands with the Devil, but Messrs. 
Roosevelt and Dukov appear to be of sound mind and fine spirit, 
and with luck, our motley quartet shall return to England with a 
fortune in our pockets and a story to tell. 


May 20th, 1883: 


We disembarked in Avignon after an uneventful trip by train from 
Calais. It may seem strange for a globe-trotter such as myself, but 
until this week-end | have never had occasion to travel to France; 
after all, it is a civilised place, lacking in the ancient mysteries and 
elusive game that is my passion (or so | would have thought). Mr. 
Roosevelt and | spent many hours sharing our tales of adventure; | 
find in him a true intellectual who understands what it means to be a 
naturalist. Mr. Dukov | found more difficult to talk to; he is a private 
man, who prefers the company of his books and his studies to that 
of his fellows. He proudly displayed a variety of his own inventions 
he intended to test against the Tarasque; a gun that fires beams of 


electricity, a jellied kerosene that burns without exploding, and what 
he described as his latest prototype - a large rifle on a tripod, fueled 
by refined pitchblende (which | suspect is not entirely different than 
Mr. Moth's destabilizing muskets, one of which | had brought 
myself.) 


| did my best to avoid speaking to Mr. Harris during the trip. | intend 
during our expedition to be no less than a gentleman, but the man 
leaves a sour taste in my mouth. When we boarded the train at 
Calais, | watched as he had a large crate loaded onto the train, 
which he told us contained his "secret weapon". He refused to tell us 
what the box contained, but viewing it made me uncomfortable - the 
air seemed to chill as it was carried by. In any event, it is too large to 
fit in our wagon - for now, we shall be leaving it in a bank vault in 
Avignon. 


Our weapons and provisions have been loaded onto a wagon and 

horses have been readied for us. Tomorrow, Colonel D'Enfante will 
escort us to the edge of the quarantine zone. From there, he says, 

the four of us shall be on our own - he can spare no more soldiers, 
lest the beast attack the fortifications directly and break loose. 


May 21st, 1883: 


| have seen the horrors of war often enough in my years. | saw the 
wrath of the British Empire first-hand when | lead troops in the 
Opium Wars. In Africa | have seen native tribes fight to the last man, 
destroying everything in their path. In the Crimea | barely escaped 
with my life as thousands of men fought and died and cities were 
laid bare. The destruction | saw there pales in comparison to what | 
have beheld in the Tarasque's wake. 


Avignon itself looked like a city at war - soldiers patrolling the 
streets, barricades at the edge of town. Not far outside the city we 
reached the edge of the quarantine zone. Soldiers had been hard at 
work digging trenches, erecting fortifications. The young men 
keeping watch looked battle-scarred, as though they had seen 
indescribable horror. A constant stream of evacuees made their way 
out of the area - women and children, some with little more than the 
clothes on their back. Many looked confused and agitated, as if they 
had no clue why they were being removed from their homes. On the 


faces of others, there was no doubt. | asked on passing if any of 
them had yet seen the Tarasque. Only a few - the scouts and 
lookouts - had seen it from a distance, | was told, for nobody who 
had engaged the beast at close range was still alive. It had not yet 
dared to attack the perimeter the army had erected - but two days 
prior, a watchman told me, he had spotted it a mile from the front 
line, seemingly staring back at him. Mr. Harris grudgingly agreed to 
ride out alone and scout for the beast, while Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. 
Dukov, and | followed the road to Tarascon to learn what we could 
of the nature of our quarry. 


Tarascon itself was a scene of utter ruination. Bodies lay by the 
score in the streets where they had fallen. Much of the town had 
been consumed by fire; the town's famous castle, and other stone 
buildings, dashed to rubble and massive holes torn in the walls that 
remained standing. We saw not a living soul - no man or woman, no 
livestock, nor vermin, nor birds or beasts of the field. Even the 
greenery of the town seemed to have been destroyed. | began to 
feel pangs of doubt in my stomach as we surveyed the scene - could 
one creature have truly wreaked such destruction? 


We set up camp on the edge of the dead town. Mr. Harris returned 
by evening and informed us he had spotted the Tarasque to the 
southwest, near the village of Bellegarde, in the act of destroying a 
farmhouse. Its route, he said, had not been difficult to trace, for a 
swath of barren land seemed to lay a trail; even the grass itself was 
not safe from the Tarasque's wrath. Tomorrow, we will follow the 
trail, and engage the beast. 


May 22nd, 1883: 


We have met the Tarasque this day, and we are lucky to have 
escaped with our lives. 


We traveled southwest to Belleville, which we found in a state of 
destruction not unlike that of Tarascon itself. From there, we 
followed the creature's trail as it meandered south, then west, then 
northwest through the farmlands, drawing uncomfortably close to 
Nimes. Shortly after midday, we spotted the creature in the distance; 
it was stationary, seeming to nap in the afternoon sun. It was a 
massive thing, longer than a whale and taller than a giraffe, and it 


looked to outweigh either. Its scales glistened in the sun and its 
teeth, massive and shining, were bared as it rested among the 
chaos it had wrought. Had it wings, | would have called it a dragon. 


With our weapons in tow we stealthily approached the beast to a 
range of less than a hundred feet. Mr. Dukov set up his pitchblende- 
gun, which he claimed would take some time to charge before it 
could be fired, while Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Harris prepared their 
elephant guns and | readied my particle destabilizer. Behind a short 
fence demarcating one of the now-abandoned farms, we drew 
straws and it was agreed | would take the first shot at the 
abomination. Steadying my gun against the fence, | took careful aim 
for the sleeping Tarasque's head, | held my breath, made my final 
adjustment, and fired. 


The shot hit square and true, and we watched with delight as the top 
of the Tarasque's head was shorn clean off. The beast slumped to 
the ground and | breathed a sigh of relief. In one shot, the beast that 
had killed thousands and menaced a nation was dead. Mr. Harris let 
out a cheer - and the dead beast came to life. It rose to its feet and 
turned in our direction. Blood, brains, and gore oozed from its skull 
as a head missing an eye stared us down and let out a blood- 
curdling roar before it charged at us faster than a bull elephant. Mr. 
Roosevelt and Mr. Harris barely had time to fire a round each at the 
beast before we were forced to scatter. Harris tossed aside his 
elephant gun for a smaller repeater he had been carrying and 
discharged a magazine into the Tarasque's flank - and we watched 
in horror as the wounds it took sealed themselves within seconds. 
Mr. Dukov was forced to shut down his pitchblende-gun before it 
could fully charge, and fired his electric rifle three times into the 
monster's open wound, stunning it for long enough for us to reach 
our horses. By the time we were on horseback, the beast was up 
again and charging us, and flesh and bone was knitting anew over 
the open cavity in its skull. | fired the particle destabilizer again at its 
foreleg and took it off entirely, hobbling it as it tried to chase us on 
three legs. We rode in four directions and agreed to meet behind the 
quarantine line. | saw the beast attempt to take off in pursuit of Mr. 
Roosevelt as the stump of its leg began to grow and take new form, 
but he was able to elude the goliath and by nightfall we were among 
the soldiers at the barricade, our prides injured but otherwise in 


Is the geography of the surrounding area any different 
today than when the city was populated? 

There has always been the sea, but the city has not 
always been drowned6. 


Our radio interference has been getting louder over the 
past few months. Do you have an explanation? 
The sun will take back its creation. 


1 'The people’ refers to a specific ethnic group or tribe 
SCP-900-1 was a member of. They considered 
themselves separate and superior to other groups. 


2 The ‘sun’ is called this for lack of a better word in 
English. | can sum up the actual meaning as roughly 
personification of spiritual and intellectual 
enlightenment.’ Nonetheless, the 'sun' has many 
properties of the real sun ascribed to it, such as the 
ability to burn things. Both the real sun and this figurative 
sun are represented as discs on Temple 1's walls. 


3 [DATA EXPUNGED] 


4 | don't have an exact translation for this one - 'eyes' or 
'fire' may be the most plausible, but it could also refer in 
an oblique way to a particular star or a dagger. 


5 Could also mean 'shadow.' 


6 Could also mean 'clouded.' When this word is applied 
to a person, it could also mean ‘strangled.' 


« SCP-899 | SCP-900 | SCP-901 » 


good health. 
May 28th, 1883: 


Luck and providence have provided; thus far, the Tarasque has 
made no effort to escape the quarantine area, and has proven 
content to ravage the abandoned farms of Provence and feed 
liberally on the animals and plants left behind. After our second 
attempt to attack the Tarasque on the 28rd proved no more 
successful than the first, we have come to a conclusion that the 
beast cannot be killed simply by gunshot, or electrification, or setting 
it aflame, for the rate at which it heals its injuries is so great, and its 
tolerance for pain and mutilation so high, that even the mighty 
broadsides of the Royal Navy would have little chance of destroying 
it before it could take their lives in trade. To slay the Tarasque, we 
determined, we would have to immobilize it, and deal such 
destruction upon it that it would be utterly annihilated before it could 
free itself. We discussed for several hours how such a thing could 
be achieved, before an old sergeant who had been manning the 
night watch begged our ears. The sergeant had, he said, fought in 
Viet-Namh when the natives there attempted to rebel against the 
French in sixty-eight, and had seen them make use of a trap that 
was elegant, easily disguised, and deadly. Mr. Roosevelt and | 
talked over the fine points of the idea well into the night, and the 
next day the four of us traveled into the field to lay our trap. 


We prepared our trap in the fields near Graveson, a village between 
Tarascon and Avignon that the Tarasque had yet to lay waste to, 
and where the water table was amenable to our task. By careful 
observation we had judged that the beast stood about nine feet at 
the shoulder, six feet wide, and thirty feet long. With the help of a 
few soldiers whom Col. D'Enfante had grudgingly conceded to 
parting with, we dug a long trench in the field wide and long enough 
to contain the beast, and deep enough to stop the beast climbing 
loose before the damage could be done. In the bottom of the pit we 
mounted steel rods, sharpened to a fine point, by the hundreds, 
each tipped with a noxious poison | had acquired in the Orient. 
Running lengthwise through the center of the pit, we built a wooden 
bridge, large and sturdy enough to accommodate a man on 
horseback, but not so sturdy that it would not break and shatter 


under the weight of the Tarasque. Four days we were involved in the 
earthwork; the digging done, we laid a net across the top and it was 
covered with grass and leaves. From a distance, it looked to all the 
world like an ordinary patch of open land - beneath which, laid 
doom.