4. This sport he much enjoyed, did Rupert Murgatroyd, no sense of shame, or pity came, to Rupert Murgatroyd!

Link to article: 4. This sport he much enjoyed, did Rupert Murgatroyd, no sense of shame, or pity came, to Rupert Murgatroyd!.

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[[=]]
+ **In.**

++++ **Two.**

++++ **Three.**

++++ **Four.**

++++ **Five.**

++++ **Six.**

++++ **Seven.**

++++ **Eight.**

+ **Out.**

++++ **Two.**

++++ **Three.**

++++ **Four.**

++++ **Five.**

++++ **Six.**

++++ **Seven.**

++++ **Eight.**

+ **In.**

++++ **Two.**

++++ **Three.**

++++ **Four.**

++++ **Five.**

++++ **Six.**

++++ **Seven.**

++++ **Eight.**

+ **Out.**

++++ **Two.**

++++ **Three.**

++++ **Four.**

++++ **Five.**

++++ **Lost.**

++++ **Little.**

++++ **Fish.**

+ **In.**

++++ **Two.**

++++ **Three.**

++++ **Four.**

++++ **Five.**

++++ **Dark.**

++++ **Water.**

++++ **Blind.**

+ **Out.**

++++ **As.**

++++ **Once.**

++++ **We.**

++++ **Were.**

++++ **So.**

++++ **You.**

++++ **Are.**

+ **It.**

++++ **Hurts.**

++++ **It.**

++++ **Hurts.**

++++ **It.**

++++ **Hurts.**

++++ **It.**

++++ **Hurts.**

+ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It hurts.**

+++ **It --**

[[/=]]

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
**##white|Excuse me!##**
[[/div]]

[[=]]
+++ **Oh?**

+++ **It.**

+++ **Speaks.**

+++ **It.** 

+++ **Sees.**

+++ **Us?**
[[/=]]

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
**##white|Yeah, um... could we not do the one-word-at-a-time center-align thingy? Kinda hard to read.##**

**##white|(Sorry.)##**
[[/div]]

[[=]]
+++ **Oh.**

+++ **One moment.**

+++ **...**
[[/=]]

+++ **...**

+++ **How's that?**

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
**##white|Much better! Thanks.##**

**##white|Now, what's going on here?##**
[[/div]]

+++ **Hmm.**

+++ **Your mind cannot be operated from the outside.**

+++ **The fish must have a theory of his own.**

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
**##white|I'm gonna assume I'm the "fish?"##**
[[/div]]

+++ **Agreed.**

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
**##white|Well...##**

##white|**I was doing some breathing exercises after my containment manager showed me this worksheet.**##

##white|**Then all of a sudden in the middle of counting them, I was surrounded by darkness.**##

##white|**These weird voices started doing some poetry about fish and hurting.**##

##white|**Everything feels wet and clammy. Kinda warm.**##

##white|**...okay, now what's //really// going on here?**##

[[/div]]

+++ **What do //you// think?**

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
**##white|I think sounding all mysterious about this is probably going to lead to disappointment.##**

**##white|(Because I don't know if you've noticed this, but I'm not very smart.)##**
[[/div]]

+++ **Fair enough.**

+++ **Unfortunately, this is already a completely abstract, dreamlike environment.**

+++ **None of us have any physical form in a way that can be explained plainly.**

+++ **If it helps, we could drop the Tim Burton and stop calling you a lost little fish.**

+++ **(That's the closest approximation, but we can see where it would be obnoxious.)**

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Oh, good!**##

##white|**(Because I'm not little, or a fish.)**##

##white|**(//Super// lost, though.)**##

##white|**My name's Robin Dabrowski. What's yours?**##
[[/div]]

+++ **We are many.**

+++ **But perhaps you would like to speak to one you have already met.**

+++ **Let us fetch her...**

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**I guess?**##

##white|**But I don't think I know any spooky voices in the darkness.**##
[[/div]]

+++++ You know a great many voices, you just have a tendency to talk with the lights on.

+++++ At any rate, here I am.

+++++ How do you do, Robin?

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**I don't think I know you...**##
[[/div]]

+++++ You met me at a time when I wasn't very willing to entertain visitors.

+++++ I was staying at my cousin's house. I tried to tell him that faulty water heater would be the death of us all from the carbon monoxide.

+++++ He was never a good listener.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Mrs. Maybud?!**##
[[/div]]

+++++ I suppose Flannery never told you.

+++++ When among civilians, Mr. or Mrs. "Maybud" is a euphemism for the Administrator of the Foundation.

+++++ (My real name is Ethel Sorensen.)

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**But she's dead...**##
[[/div]]

+++++ Yes, I am. 

+++++ Don't forget, the Viper in your neck was connected to mine until recently.

+++++ Whether you're talking to a ghost, a soul, an echo, or residual data on a paranormal thumb drive -- I leave that judgment to you.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Oh....**##

##white|**But why are you contacting me?**##
[[/div]] 

+++++ Why, indeed?

+++++ Well, these breathing exercises were the first time you've concentrated and centered yourself for a while.

+++++ That's the right headspace to commune with spirits.

+++++ ...

+++++ Well, so long as you're here, would you like to hear a story?

+++++ It's a true story, and you may find it useful.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Okie-dokie!**##
[[/div]] 

+++++ In the year 1573, there lived a certain Sir Rupert Murgatroyd. The rich and joyless baronet of a dreary corner of Elizabethan Cornwall. Positively mad with superstition, he took to the usual coping mechanism of burning hundreds of women for witchcraft. 

+++++ You'd be right to assume that none of them deserved to die. But the broken clock principle eventually caught up with Rupert. Out of all his victims, one -- the last he burned -- was a real witch.

+++++ During the whole ordeal, the witch never screamed, protested, or even blinked. She stared silently at Rupert, filling him with inexplicable dread. They only broke eye contact when her eyes were torched away.

+++++ Rupert crept up to her still-warm cinders to make certain she was dead. And out of the ashes, a snake that wasn't a snake leapt into his throat -- just as it did with me. With //you.// 

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Wow... So, Snakey's hundreds of years old?**##
[[/div]] 

+++++ (...I would advise against calling it "Snakey." It hates humans enough already, and it's currently wrapped around your windpipe. Those in the know usually go with "Murgatroyd's Viper" or just "the Viper.")

+++++ But no, it's much older than that. Older than bones. Older than blood. I don't think we're meant to know its true age. Perhaps the witch knows, but she won't dare say a word.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Yeah, I think would be kinda hard to tell you after being lit on fire and whatnot.**##
[[/div]] 

+++++ You don't understand -- she is with me in here, as are all the Viper's hosts. 

+++++ As you too will be, one day.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Oh...**##

##white|**...**##

##white|**So, anyone who dies wearing the Viper...**##

##white|**Is it a nice afterlife in here, at least?**##
[[/div]] 
[[=]]
++ [[size 500%]]##red|It hurts.##[[/size]]
[[/=]]
[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Oh. Heh.**##

##white|**You'd, uh, you'd think I'd get it the first few dozen times you said it.**##

##white|**But... you get used to it, right?**##
[[/div]]

+++++ Who can say? 

+++++ There are millions of us in here, and most of us aren't even human.

+++++ If you listen closely, you can hear still screams of pain from maws and beaks that you can only see in museums.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**...**##
[[/div]]

+++++ Put it out of your mind while you're alive.

+++++ That's the universal bandage for every kind of eternal damnation.

+++++ In fact, what if I'm wrong? Or lying?

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**That would be a very mean trick.**##
[[/div]]

+++++ And who's to say I'm not mean? We never spoke when I was alive. Perhaps I'm just as bad as Dr. Summers.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Hey, now.**##

##white|**He never told me any cool stories about witches.**##
[[/div]]

+++++ Heh. I like you, Robin.

+++++ Summers, on the other hand...

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**You know him?**##
[[/div]]

+++++ Through your eyes and ears. We have a common enemy.

+++++ To you, he's a self-righteous bully with parents allergic to saying "no."

+++++ And to us, the sound of his voice is irritatingly nasal -- and we're in enough pain already.
[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**Oh, right, 'cause it --**##
[[/div]]
[[=]]
++ [[size 700%]]##red|Hurts.##[[/size]]
[[/=]]
[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**--that, yes.**##
[[/div]]

+++++ We may yet be able to help you deal with him.

+++++ Here's the deal.

+++++ Contained in the Viper -- and therefore connected directly to your brain -- are our memories.

+++++ The memories of every Administrator who has ever lived.

+++++ Late at night -- if you listen very carefully -- you may hear secrets above his clearance level. 

+++++ You would have to sift through the noise of millions of departed minds. You would have to concentrate even more fiercely than the exercise that brought you here.

+++++ But these secrets would prove useful against him.

+++++ And more than this...

+++++ They would help you find the cure.

[[div style="border:solid 1px #ffffff; background:#000000; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
##white|**THERE'S A CURE?!**##
[[/div]]

+++++ Didn't anyone tell you?

+++++ Sir Rupert found it, in the end. It's never quite the same for every host, but the basic principle is the same.

+++++ All you need to do is prove to the Viper that --

[[div style="border:solid 1px #000000; background:#ffffff; padding:10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px"]]
[[=]]
++ ##black|POUND POUND POUND.##
[[/=]]

##black|"Robin! Wakey-wakey!"##

[[=]]
++ [[size 150%]]##black|POUND POUND POUND.##[[/size]]
[[/=]]

##black|"You up in there, big guy?!"##

[[=]]
++ [[size 200%]]##black|POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND POUND.##[[/size]]
[[/=]]

##black|"...okay, but for real, though -- remember when we had that little talk about how not answering the door is a form of violating my personal boundaries? This would be a //real// good chance to prove your good will. Just sayin'."##

[[=]]
+++ [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-9005/offset/4 <Another day in paradise ...>]
[[/=]]
[[/div]]