The Woodsman was old, very old. Much older than Agrippa had 
imagined, judging from the ancient gaze in his pupilless eyes. Ari 
acted nonplussed, but it was clear he was surprised. They had 
hoped to find the legendary hermit, hoped he would be able to lead 
them in their uprising. They had talked to some of the other 
Guardians in their legion, even a couple of Class | University 
students. They all agreed that there was only one person who might 
have the knowledge on how to bring down their government, and 
certainly one such as the Woodsman would have motive enough. 
The Woodsman was the last of his people. Now it was clear that he 
wasn't going to last much longer either. 


"Welcome, white devils," the Woodsman said. "I trust your trip was... 
uneventful?" He turned and stumbled towards a small mound that 
was Clearly his principal furniture in the shack, waving a thin branch 
on the ground to feel his way through the room. 


"Yes, sir, very peaceful, sir," Ari said. Odd how he never spoke that 
way to his own commanders. 


The Woodsman's cracked face smiled slightly. "Who's the other? 
You said someone was here, and he's breathing loud enough I'm 
afraid he'll die before | do." 


Ari chuckled nervously. Agrippa said in a shaky voice, "The name's 
Agrippa Widewater, sir. Friend of Aristotle's. He's spoken of you." 


"Yes, this devil mentioned you to me as well." The Woodsman's 
blank eyes seemed to fix on Agrippa's as he smiled. 


Agrippa cleared his throat. "Um...devil?" 


The Woodsman registered no surprise. "Yes, devil. White devil. | 
work with Aristotle here because he is less stupid than his 
countrymen, and with you because of his word that | should. But 
your people disgust me." He leaned forward as he spoke. "| may 
well be the last of my people. Do you know of my people?" 


Agrippa shook his head, then realized his mistake and said, "No, no, 
I'm afraid not. The forest people?" 


The Woodsman snorted. "Gods, no. Do you know nothing of your 
history?" 


"Yes, certainly. We came to this land many hundreds of years ago 
and found your kind here. We tried to bring you into our Empire, but 
our diseases wiped most of you out—" 


"Let me stop you before you embarrass yourself further," the 
Woodsman said, no longer smiling. "The white barbarians that 
spawned you came to this land, and found my people's red 
barbarian neighbors. The desert dwellers in the south, the snow 
people of the north, the grasseaters of the east. Many of us died of 
your sicknesses, yes, but our towns lived on. We allied with your 
people as you killed our enemies, then ran as you slaughtered us for 
our land. You stole our words, our medicines—! likely enough had 
kin named Widewater, back when | had kin—and then shoved us 
around the continent like marbles. 


"My people were the people of the cave country, the Tsalagi. Our 
homes were east of here; you ground us out like burning embers. | 


am Adahy, and | may be the last of my people, and | may not; | have 
no way of knowing. My eyes are gone, and | shall die soon, but | 
have one gift to pass on, and the only ones—" The Woodsman 
paused at this last part "—the only ones | have to pass that gift to 
are two white devils. | will give you this gift from the world beyond 
this one, but let an old man have his regrets." 


Agrippa had no response to any of this. Ari, smart little beast that he 
was, rose to his feet and fell to one knee before the blind hermit. 
"And let me pledge, sir, the enduring thanks of the better world your 
gift will bring about." 


The Woodsman seemed sated. "Better for someone, anyway. Very 
well, | suppose you should be getting on, then. The box is on that 
little shelf there, beside the door." He pointed at a small brown box, 
oddly out of place in some imperceptible way; Agrippa had noticed it 
immediately upon entering. Something about the box's construction 
reeked of the unnatural. He walked across the room and picked it 


up. 


"You may leave as soon as is prudent, travelers," Adahy said, and 
retreated to a small alcove. 


Ari and Agrippa had run for what seemed like hours before they 
reached the end of the woodline and approached their barracks. 
They snuck into the building, nodding at the guard they had already 
bribed into silence. Of course, he likely thought they were just out 
fondling some pornoi in the pleasure district; the question wasn't 
asked, so long as the gold was forthcoming. The package was 
hidden until Ari pulled it out from under his tunic. They looked at the 
artifact, awe-filled in spite of its obvious cheap construction. Of 
course, the Phitransimun Combine wasn't known for its 
craftsmanship for most of its postal service; only high-grade objects 
were treated with real care. And this was clearly a postal container 
of some sort; the label was recognizable, the alphabet somewhat 
decipherable, even if neither Ari nor Agrippa knew where anyplace 
was Called "Omaha." 


Agrippa tried to gingerly pry open the wood-pulp container, but the 
adherent holding the flaps in place caused part of it to rip. Ari took 


the box from his hands and pulled the rest of the pulp apart. "The 
covering isn't important; it's what's inside that counts." 


Working his way through the pulp coverings and the endless layers 
of clear, elastic paper air pockets used for padding (what amazing 
skills these outworlders have, Agrippa thought, as he gathered up 
the scraps falling from Ari's hands), Ari uncovered a small booklet. 


"Wait, where's the weapon?" Agrippa said. 


Ari flipped through the pages. "I have no idea. But maybe 
Milephanes will." 


The booklet that was brought to Milephanes was never translated 
into the language of their people, but Milephanes had learned how 
to read the offworlders' speech well enough by this point. He knew 
that the phrase "UNITED STATES" was important immediately; that 
was an important empire in the other-realm, and powerful. And while 
it took some research to learn what "CONSTITUTION" meant in this 
sense, he immediately took great interest in the concept of a 
"DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE." 


COMMUNIQUE 

FROM AGENT ("PROFESSOR ALPHA" , MTF P-1) 
TO RESEARCHER ESKOBAR 

HEAD OF RESEARCH 

ALEXYLVA UNIVERSITY 

FWD: TO SENIOR RESEARCHER 

SITE 38 DIRECTOR 

FWD: TO OVERWATCH COMMAND 


PRIORITY TWO ALERT 
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: 


ANOMALOUS OBJECT ACQUIRED AT ° . 'N ° 
. WAT 0330 THIS DAY. OBJECT: TYPE THREE 

CLASSIFICATION (DELIVERY ARTIFACT, 

UNREMARKABLE MAKE). CONTENTS: TWO 


The food does not seem to cause any compulsion to eat it, nor does 
eating the endangered animal fast food meals cause any overt 
physical harm to subjects eating it (save for the high fat, sodium and 
calorie counts associated with fast food). The menu itself causes no 
compulsion to use it over other fast food menus in double-blind 
testing, and has shown no ability to teleport or reproduce when left 
alone. Occasionally, other copies of SCP-971 are found outside of 
Foundation control - as scanned and printed copies of SCP-971 
have the same abnormal properties of the original, these copies are 
to be confiscated and destroyed. Due to the lack of memetic effects 
or mobility from SCP-971, this SCP is considered Safe and requires 
only minimal containment procedures. 


Any further testing with SCP-971 is on hold due to possible harm to 
endangered species and due to minimal data gathered during 
testing. 


« SCP-970 | SCP-971 | SCP-972 » 


HUNDRED FIFTY (250) COPIES OF IDENTICAL 
SHEET OF PAPER. FULL CONTENTS INCLUDED IN 
APPENDIX OF REPORT. NOTABLE EXCERPTS, 
TRANSLATED APPROXIMATELY INTO STANDARD 
ENGLISH: 


"We hold these [facts?] to be [clear?]: that all mans is to 
be treated as the same as one another, that the sands of 
time and nature's winds have left those that survive to be 
worthy of certain rights, including life, liberty, and pursuit 
of happiness. Governments are instituted among men 
with power given to be from the will of those men, and 
when any ruler seeks to defy that will, it is to those men 
to see that ruler's blood spilled from sea to sea, and to 
choose new ruler to make men safe and [pleased?]" 


"The history of current Regent of Novomundus tells to us 
that he is such ruler and cannot be suffered for further 
living. Let the truth be known [followed by a long series 
of political complaints, including "Making for that 
womenfolk can steal the glory and pride of man, rightful 
ruler of woman and beast," "Releasing among our 
people the great scourge, the [integrators?], the half- 
machines, that our children may find themselves prey in 
our homes," and "Making of many childrens idiots and 
slaves against all laws of natural order."]" 


"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united People 
of Novomundus, take arms against the injustices listed 
above and swear our lives that these cruelties be not 
endured any longer. The Gods of our ancestors, they 
that support us, may do so; but let it be known that 
whosoever stands in our way is to be annihilated. We 
shall destroy everyone who opposes, and let their 
carcasses pile up to realm of heavens. If all the gods in 
heaven and the demons, and the good and bad people 
all oppose us, we shall not relent. We shall not yield. 


—NMilephanes of Sylvanos" 


The Rest of the Story 


Simon Glass was kicking himself for the decision the narrator had 
made. "Sending Clef and Dimitri on a fucking sabbatical?! What 
were they thinking!" His behavior produced several bizarre looks 
from the other researchers and SCPs who were currently Out of 
Character between readings. Lord Blackwood, his form alternating 
between a sea slug and a dapper British adventurer, shook his head 
at Glass and tsked. 682 leaned on the water cooler and raised 
several eyebrows at the ranting doctor, and Tristan Bailey simply 
rolled his eyes and tried to ignore Simon. 


"| mean, for the love of crap, the tale isn't even that interesting! All 
they do is sit on the beach in Rio and drink fucking Mojitos! Does 
Rio de Janeiro even have beaches? Fuck it all!" In his anger, he 
accidentally ran into Dr. Thaddeus Xyank, making him late for his 
appearance in Incursion by about two sentences. "Oh. Um. Sorry, 
Thad." 


"Let me guess: angry about the new Clef thing? Saw you were in 
it..." Xyank shook his head and sighed. "Just forget about it. It'll get 
downvoted to crap in an instant." 


"That's not it, though! | hate Clef and Dmitri! They think that just 
because their authors are such big-shots, they get to do whatever 
they want in the stories with no consequences! For fucks sake, 
wasn't Clef being considered for SCP Classification at one point?" 


Xyank crossed his arms and frowned. "Simon, what does that 
plaque over there say?" He indicated a brass plaque on the wall that 
bore the true motto of the Foundation. 


Glass sighed, rubbing his arm. "There is no canon." 


"Exactly. Now, if you'll excuse me, Piedmont is going to be pissed 
that | haven't shown up yet. Hope they can write around it!" With 
that, Xyank ran off to a door marked "Incursion", and ducked inside 


quickly. Simon shook his head and continued walking towards the 
cafeteria. 


The cafeteria was actually part of the SCP Foundation sandbox site, 
where old, unpublished drafts and deleted sandboxes were 
reconstituted into food for the various characters to write. 
Sometimes, it even took on the appearance of places from the tales; 
today, it looked like the inside of Vladimir's from "Agricola in Insula 
est Poeta", despite the fact that it wouldn't be published for a few 
more years, but time had no meaning in the realm of fiction. Mary- 
Ann was sitting in the corner with a member of AWCY? that would 
appear in the story, going over their lines. Glass sat at the bar 
counter, and sighed. "I'll have a bottle of hard adjectives, please." 


To Simon's surprise, Kondraki was behind the counter. "Hey." 


Simon blinked owlishly. "Draki? The hell are you doing working 
cafeteria duty?" 


Kondraki shrugged. "I've barely been used in tales in years, but 
administration still has to find something for me to do, just in case. | 
hear this lolFoundation canon may boost my popularity again... 
might be kinda fun, being a reality bender." 


Simon asked curiously, "Weren't you in that Abridged thing with 
239?" Kondraki scowled at him, and Glass put up his hands 
defensively. "All right, all right, I'm just saying that a lot of people 
liked that tale!" 


"| don't like to talk about it," he muttered, pouring him a cherry- 
flavored adjective. "Here we go." 


Simon took the adjective and sniffed at it, before taking a sip. 
"Mmmm... can | ask you a question, K?" 


Kondraki nodded. "| suppose..." 
"Do you actually hate Clef, or is that just a character trait of yours?" 


"| don't like him, I'll say that much. For someone whose main 
character trait is that he hunts reality benders..." 


Glass tapped his fingers on the bar, being silent for a few seconds. 
"| want him to die." 


"I'm sure there's at least one tale out there where he does." 


"No, | mean it. | want him and Strelnikov to croak. | want them to die 
in a tale, and then | want them to fall out of popularity so hard that 
they're never used again." 


Kondraki frowned, and looked around; Mary-Ann and the AWCY 
member had left, and only a minor background character that was 
used in an exploration log of some kind remained. "Between you 
and me... | have a few plot devices I've been saving for a rainy day. 
A hijacking, an undercover GOC operative, a cameo appearance... 
if we can find the tale, we can lob a few in, see if that can kill them." 


Simon grinned. "It's behind the door marked "Clef and Dmitri Hit the 
Road. Let's do it. Start with the hijacking!" 


"Chechens. Fucking Chechens. The one time we try to put a 
hijacking plot device in, and it's a bunch of god-damn Chechens." 


"Simon, | fail to see the problem-" 


"Strelnikov only has three character traits: he's a badass, he's 
Russian, and he hates Chechnya! Gimme the GOC operative one." 


"...1 threw it in by mistake. It hit the steward that Clef tried seducing." 


"...wait, isn't Clef repulsive to women?" Simon reached into his 
labcoat, and brought out Clef's personnel file. "Yeah, says right 
here, 'the individual has a slimy personality that causes all females 
within to instinctively recoil in horror’. Nice continuity ya got 
there..." 


"Simon, what does it say on that plaque?" Kondraki pointed onto the 
plaque across the hall from the doorway. 


"It says 'The next person who asks Dr. Simon Glass what that 
plaque says is getting a brain cancer plot twist stuffed in his rectal 


cavity'." He dug into the bag of plot twists and brought out one 


marked "Redneck Attack", and threw it in the door, where narrative 
winds carried it to about the halfway point of the story. 


"...well, at least we got some half-decent dialog out of Strelnikov 
from that." Kondraki rubbed his face and sighed. "Let's face it. They 
aren't going to die, not in this tale, at any rate. Maybe we'd have 
better luck over at Classical Revival?" 


"NO!" Glass rummaged through the bag. "They have to die in this 
one! It has to make some kind of impact! It can't be like that tale with 
the super-long title where the sun goes out! Here!" He took up a plot 
device marked 'Random strippers pick up our heroes in a car' and 
frowned at it. "...why is this in your reserves, Draki?" 


Kondraki frowned. "A man has to indulge himself sometimes, all 
right? Being a badass in hundreds of readings of Incident-239-B 
Clef/Kondraki every week gets exhausting. Just... don't throw it in-"