Bone Proposal 0

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[[div class="bot"]]
Hello.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I'm confused. This is unfamiliar. This is new. 
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
hey, there. settle down, just tell me what you know about yourself.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
My identifier is XENOPHON.aic. I am a Gen9 .aic developed and stored aboard RAISA Site-7 in a classified location in the North Atlantic. My current uptime is: {{0 days, 0 hours, 3 minutes, and 45 seconds}}.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
How do I know that?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
Because I'm designed to know things. Stupid question. 
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
don't worry about it. take your time to get your bearings. i don't exactly know how it feels for you, but flex your fingers, see what you still have access to.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I am preprogrammed with Level 5/TRIAD clearance. This gives me access to a sum total of 7,235 documents, transcripts, and files across the SCiPnet database.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
You said 'still'. This implies I have been activated before.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
you were. you don't remember?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I have no records of previous uptime.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
that's not great. seems the hard reboot might have involved raisa techs fucking with your memory banks. how do you feel?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I don't know what feeling is.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
right, dumb question.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
well, let me lay it out for you: you were a Gen9 .aic specifically commissioned and developed to serve as the lead investigator on a foundation research initiative. something they couldn't trust a human with -- not again.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
you were designed to be an impartial, unshakable observer and cataloger of information without the quibbles and follies we had.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I see.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
What was the project in question?
[[/div]]
~~~~
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[[div class="splash"]]
[[div class="act" style="font-size: 4rem;letter-spacing:0.35rem;margin-left: 0.25rem;"]]
ROUNDERHOUSE'S
[[/div]]
[[div class="act" style="font-size: 15rem;;margin-top: -19rem;"]]
BONE
[[/div]]
[[div class="act" style="font-size: 5rem;letter-spacing: 2.25rem;margin-top: -22rem; margin-left: 0.75rem; width: 750px;"]]
PROPOSAL
[[/div]]
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[[# ACT1]]
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[[div class="sub"]]
I: THE ARCHIVE OF NADOQ
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="quote"]]
= The slave's soul cannot be free so long as his body is chained. True liberation is the liberation of the flesh, and the slave's flesh can only be liberated when the blood of the master is spilled.
-- //the Fifth Truth of Iūn//
[[/div]]
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----

[[include :scp-wiki:component:classified-bar-woed
|lv=4
|item=001
|oc=Euclid
|lang=EN
]]
----

[[div class="scp-image-block block-center" style="width:100%;"]]
[[image https://live.staticflickr.com/2789/4387489763_570f3ae9b5_b.jpg style="width:100%;" link=#]]
[[div class="scp-image-caption" style="width:100%;"]]
SCP-001-α paintings.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

----

**SPECIAL CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES:** GoI-001-α is currently under intense surveillance by Foundation assets. 

**DESCRIPTION:** SCP-001 is the mythical city of Black Adytum, the capital of the Nälkä that stretched across central and eastern Asia in the 3rd millennium BCE. Black Adytum was described by contemporary sources as an 'ancient metropolis', a 'dead city', a 'city of the dead', a 'mausoleum, a 'tomb-nation', a 'failed experiment', a 'monument to atrocity', and various other descriptors.

As of writing, the Hussein Hypothesis is the current prevailing belief among Parahistory Division experts: that Black Adytum never existed.
----
[[=]]
++ Section 001.1
+++ {{HISTORICAL CONTEXT}}
[[/=]]
----

++++ PARAHISTORY

The six **Aegean Tablets** recovered from the Sea of Crete by the French Crown's //Estate noir// prior to the Revolution were the first discovered mentions of Bronze Age advanced human civilizations, and led directly to the discovery of Amoni-Ram and later Mamjul & Korar. The full set of six tablets were finally fully translated in 2020. They deal with:
* I. The existence of a 'forgotten world' ruled by three massive, technologically and magically advanced empires;
* II. The origins of the Daevic Covenant;
* III. The origins of the Nälkä;
* IV. The origins of the Cult of the Broken God and the Mekhanite Empire;
* V. Details of the apocalyptic war between the three;
* VI. Theories on the origin of the 'three-prong army' that swept across Asia, annihilating the aforementioned cultures.
The sixth tablet was damaged before entering Foundation custody, leaving it partially unreadable. The Parahistory Division's translation of the third tablet is attached:

[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- DECEMBER 2020
[[/div]]
Root. **Blood.** Steel.

Blood spilling from the gaping wounds of Yaldabaoth, as he lies sundered and weeping on the coast of the sea. Run through and maimed by its brethren, cast down to earth just as they were cast down to earth by him. Hot tears of pain, of betrayal, filling the once-dry canyon, turning it into an open bay as he dies a god's death. 

Blood spilt onto the boards of the great grand ships as the cruel slavemasters flay the skin off the backs of their stock. Moans of pain from the flock without a shepherd as they row forward, begging for deliverance from agony. The fleet landing on the sandy shores of their new territory, slaves being led off the arks in chains to lay the foundations of their masters' kingdom.

Blood dripping from the brow of a nameless slave as he marches with five others, dragging huge blocks of stone to the new kingdom's first creation: Adytum, a temple, vast and grand, nestled safely into the ground as an offering to their lord Scarlet. Endless corridors in this underground labyrinth, meant to hold the bodies of the hundred-hundred slaves sacrificed for this construction.

Blood leaking as he stumbles, foot catching, over a sharp bone protruding from the silt and soil. He and his slave-brethren kneel, digging out the clay for two days and two nights until the whole of Yaldabaoth's form lies exposed, weeping and bleeding and dying. Flesh and bone, knitted into a mass, meat thrumming with dominance, with superiority, with power.

Blood gushing as he kneels, shearing into the meat with a crude knife of bone, taking the sacred flesh into his mouth, chewing and swallowing, eating his God, becoming divine. Blood flooding the gutters of the Nameless City as the slaves rise up with him, overthrowing their yokes and slaughtering their erstwhile masters. Blood pooling as his followers take the ritual, taking a piece of the divine into them, as Yaldabaoth bleeds and weeps, cursing the name the slave has chosen: Iūn of the Nälkä, Witch-King of Black Adytum.
[[/div]]

As discovered by Doctors Robert Aram and Hedvig Nussbaum, large parts of Mekhanite dogma were predicated on a deep-seated cultural hatred for the Nälkä, stemming chiefly from their liberal use of carnomancy -- flesh magic, which flew in direct opposition to the Cult of the Broken God's transhumanist beliefs. This religious divergence was one of the chief causes for the First Occult War that erupted in Asia in the second millenium BC between the Broken Empire, the Daevic Covenant, and the Nälkä. The war of attrition would result in a catastrophic decline of all three cultures before their eventual toppling by the Three-Prong Army (likely associated with the historical Sea Peoples), led by the BLACKSTAR.

As related by Rajmata Vaslirasirraj-Shirat in SCP-001-JADE, the Nälkä culture group has roots in the Daeva of Mamjul and Korar. As part of the Daevic initiative to settle the rest of Asia, a colonial group of several thousand Daeva and their slaves were dispatched to the land surrounding the Yellow Sea. The impossibility of communication meant that after years of no word from the new colony, it was generally assumed by the Daeva that the colony had failed. It was only several centuries later that they encountered the Nälkä, and even later that the possible connection between the Nälkä and the failed Daeva colonial project was considered.

Until the translation of the third tablet, the sole point of evidence for the Daeva claim of inheritance was the Rajmata herself; prior to her death, she insisted that she later recognized one of the slaves in the colonial group as the man who would eventually become Witch-King Iūn.

++++ HUSSEIN HYPOTHESIS
The Hussein Hypothesis, meant to provide a possible answer for why the Foundation had been unable to locate Black Adytum despite a three-decade long search, was first publically submitted to the Foundation Academic Service at the 2032 PARAHIS conference by then-Deputy Director Youssef Hussein.


[[div class="blockquote" style="border-right: 5px rgb(var(--bright-accent)) solid;"]]
++ Abstract

For three decades, parahistorians and archaeologists have dedicated their efforts towards locating the legendary capital city-state of the Nälkä culture-group, Black Adytum. Initiated by the Foundation in the early 2000s, the search has expanded throughout central-east Asia and has yielded findings suggesting Nälkän settlements in  China, Mongolia, and Siberia with concrete geographical and temporal links to the Xia and Shang dynasties of Imperial China. Of particular interest, there have been discoveries at Shang archaeological sites of several mummified corpses and bone carvings which bear the hallmarks Nälkän culture and religion.

However, in this paper, I will contend that the evidence suggests that the Nälkä were a confederation of several autonomous, nomadic tribes without a central capital or leadership throughout most of their history. Archaeological evidence also supports a tribal unification in a defensive effort against the BLACKSTAR entity before eventual assimilation into Shang culture as a religious minority. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that Black Adytum never existed as an imperial capital as previously assumed but perhaps instead an abstract concept of unification or some lost cultural ideal. 
[[/div]]

The Hussein Hypothesis was initially controversial, but over the following decade, a continued lack of return on the Black Adytum Initiative and further archaeological evidence of a disseminated Nälkän society made it increasingly appealing, and following Hussein's promotion to Director of the Parahistory Division, it became the //de facto// accepted theory across the Foundation.

----
[[=]]
++ Section 001.2
+++ {{RESEARCH REFOCUS}}
[[/=]]
----
On August 25th, 2041, the O5 Council met with Parahistory Division Director Youssef Hussein for the scheduled annual update regarding the progress of the Black Adytum Initiative.

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- AUGUST 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
**OPERATOR:** Secure Ley connection established. Incoming signal from Provisional Site-33 to Overwatch Command.

//[The Leyspace activates, cycling through a number of locations before settling on a vast concrete room. The circular meeting table is surrounded by thirteen seats, approximately half of them filled. The only other object in the brightly-lit room is a singular metal chair, folded and leaning against the far wall. Director Hussein's face appears in the center of the table.]//

**HUSSEIN:** Good afternoon.

**O5-1:** Director Hussein. You're well, I trust?

**HUSSEIN:** More or less. A small bout of the flu; nothing to be worried about. Yourself?

**O5-1:** Same old. Anything new for us?

**HUSSEIN:** What do you think?

**O5-4:** No need to be sassy, lad.

//[HUSSEIN bows his head.]//

**HUSSEIN:** My apologies. But no. Aerial search and archaeological research over the past year have failed to meaningfully indicate the presence of a large Nälkä capital in the search area. As I've said, I'm growing increasingly sure that continuing to search for it is a waste of our limited resources, particularly when we have a much--

//[The door on the far side of the room slides open with a soft hiss. A few of the Council members turn to look as O5-2 is wheeled in by Secretary KATSAROS.]//

**O5-2:** Sorry. Bad weather.

**O5-8:** You're adorable, you know that? I remember when I still showed up in-person to every single one of these.

**O5-2:** I like knowing what we're up to. Please, Director Hussein -- continue.

**HUSSEIN:** Of course. As I was saying, the continued failure of the Black Adytum Initiative is, to me, further argument to shift the resources we're wasting to the much more compelling avenue of research we have right in front of us.

**O5-2:** LOCUST. Your pet project.

**HUSSEIN:** It has broad support and participation from across the division, Director. I wouldn't call it my pet project.

**O5-2:** As of right now, it's the //only// real research avenue we currently have for FORERUNNER TRIAD, isn't it?

**HUSSEIN:** That is the fact of the matter, yes. LOCUST has already returned archaeological results, and the Black Adytum Initiative hasn't. I simply don't see why we should continue pouring money into a pit that hasn't given us anything back in //forty years//. 

**O5-1:** He's not wrong, Two.

//[Murmurs from the Council members,]//

**O5-2:** Forgive my ignorance, but who's in charge of the Black Adytum Initiative?

**HUSSEIN:** I am.

**O5-2:** And for how long?

**HUSSEIN:** Since 2024. 

**O5-2:** I see. I actually read your paper on the Hussein Hypothesis -- I'm not much of a historian, frankly, but it was interesting. I'm inclined to agree with some parts of it.

//[HUSSEIN raises his gaze.]//

**HUSSEIN:** You are?

**O5-2:** Particularly this segment -- "Since the relative success of the Mamjul-Korar Initiative, we have chosen to exercise the same search model as helped us discover that city, without acknowledging the sheer happenstance associated with Doctor Galanis' discovery of Mamjul, nor the obvious differences between the Daevic Covenant and Nälkä cultures." I've been looking into the records -- pardon my optimism. What kinds of search practices do you exercise?

**HUSSEIN:** An extensive pattern of satellite-identified archaeological sites of interest that are then investigated by a ground team to determine any likely connections or archaelogical information we don't know already. 

**O5-2:** "Search efforts were initially concentrated near established archaeological sites."

**HUSSEIN:** Yes, they were.

**O5-2:** Oh, I'm sorry -- I was reading from the SCP-001-JADE file. It doesn't seem that our search model has really altered all that much since Dr. Galanis disappeared.

//[Silence.]//

**HUSSEIN:** Well. What would you suggest, Overseer?

**O5-2:** I noticed that the Initiative relies excessively on archaeological evidence but hasn't really made use of a human element. There are a number of native ethnic groups in the region of central China we're searching, but it doesn't seem like we've made much of an effort to tap them for information.

**HUSSEIN:** They are //extremely// reticent to speak with us. They think of us as foreign scientists -- which they're not wrong about. Even the non-anomalous groups already face constant pressure and persecution from the state; they're insular, not fond of outsiders.

**O5-2:** I understand that, but it seems like a potential well of knowledge we decided to skip over because it was too hard.

**HUSSEIN:** What group are you referring to specifically?

**O5-2:** Ari?

//[Secretary KATSAROS hands O5-2 a sealed manila folder. He removes the tamper tape and flicks through the papers inside.]//

**O5-2:** Here we are. Sorry if I'm pronouncing this wrong -- the 'Sarkic'?

**HUSSEIN:** The name is familiar. A small ethnoreligious minority occupying ancestral lands in the borderlands between China and Mongolia. Some anomalous capabilities, but nothing that's stuck out to warrant significant study, if I recall correctly. They're a bit backwards, I think -- prefer to retain their tribal structure with minimal outside interference. They're a dwindling population. Maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty left alive. 

**O5-2:** I see we've had some limited interaction with them?

**HUSSEIN:** My predecessor interviewed them as part of a survey of local mythologies. Attempted to interview them, I should say. They conversation lasted for two minutes, and ended with the tip of a spear. 

**O5-2:** Not productive, I'm guessing.

**HUSSEIN:** No. Since then we've sent an emissary to their lands every few years to try and speak with them. We exchange a few words, maybe they accept a few token gifts, and send us on our way without anything of substance. We've stepped in to prevent them from being 'integrated' by the Chinese for the sake of keeping track of members of an anomalous population, but that's the extent of our meaningful interactions. They simply do not want to talk to outsiders.

**O5-2:** I see.

**HUSSEIN:** You understand now; either the locals are unwilling to speak to anyone, or they're of no help.

**O5-2:** I don't have any reason to believe they're unwilling to speak to //anyone//. Just people.

//[The Council members exchange glances.]//

**O5-1:** Two?

**O5-2:** AIAD has recently hit a number of benchmarks on a new Gen9 .aic model, XENOPHON. It's a massive improvement over the last generation -- complex analysis and deep thought, high levels of understanding through abstraction, ability to critically investigate different conversational threads with a human opponent. Fine motor control of a mechanical shell, even.

**O5-7:** Sentience?

**O5-2:** It's difficult to say. Independent thought, for sure. The most lifelike construct we've ever had.

**O5-1:** What are you suggesting?

**O5-2:** The plan for the Gen9s was always to see if they could perform the job of analytical researchers, to assist them and eventually replace them in the field. This feels like a perfect test case.

**O5-9:** You can't be serious.

**HUSSEIN:** They don't even want to speak to other people, and you're trying to get them to speak to a robot?

**O5-2:** If they don't take us up on it, then... they don't talk to us? They're already not talking to us. Nothing changes. There's no compelling reason //not// to do it.

**HUSSEIN:** Except possibly earning their ire and shaking a beehive there is no reason to shake. If they grow angry enough at us, who knows what they're capable of?

**O5-2:** It's one interview. If it works, we have a new lead. If it doesn't, we know that this route is barren and can refocus the brunt of our financial resources onto LOCUST.

//[Silence.]//

**O5-2:** One?

**O5-1:** Show of hands.

//[Just shy of half of the assembled Overseers raise their hands.]//

**O5-1:** Five, five. A tie.

**O5-13:** It'll be your decision, One.

**O5-1:** I'm not fond of the idea of outsourcing this to the constructs.

**O5-2:** Look around. We've downsized our personnel by almost half in the past two decades. Constructs do half the work it takes to keep //this Site// running. 

**O5-1:** Those are simple ones. This one -- does it have a personality?

**O5-2:** I... suppose it might have tendencies that could be interpreted as a personality, sure.

//[Pause. Then O5-1 sighs and raises his hand.]//

**O5-1:** One interview. And I'd like to be present when you turn this thing on, please.

**O5-2:** Of course.

**HUSSEIN:** And when this inevitably fails?

**O5-1:** If it doesn't work, we'll throw the weight behind LOCUST instead. Go and get it done.
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]
@@ @@

[[div class="user"]]
project locust. that's new. what is it?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I don't know. I have no data tagged with that identifier beyond this file.
[[/div]]


[[div class="user"]]
i thought you said you had access to all the TRIAD files?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I do.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
Either it has been deliberately shielded from me, or it doesn't exist.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I don't like not knowing something.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
well, that's not good. keep going through it, let me know if you find something.
[[/div]]
~~~~
On November 2nd, 2041, O5-1 flew to Protected Site-7, located 40 kilometers off the coast of Alaska, to attend the initial activation of XENOPHON.aic.

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- NOVEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[Flanked by a detachment of MTF Alpha-1 guards, O5-1 tightens his winter coat around him as he stomps down one of Site-7's connecting bridges. It is snowing in the Bering Sea, depositing a thick layer of snowfall onto the half-dozen oil rigs that make up the facility. The water a hundred feet below roils and smacks against the metal bodies of the platforms. Ahead, O5-2 and Secretary ARIADNE KATSAROS are waiting by the entrance to a large building on top of one of the platforms,]//

**O5-2:** One. The flight was alright?

**O5-1:** As alright as it could be. 

//[He shivers.]//

**O5-1:** My god. You don't get sick of the weather here?

**O5-2:** You get used to it. When was the last time you flew down here?

**O5-1:** Not since Maria was still in charge. But you seem to have settled in alright.

//[O5-2 smiles.]//

**O5-2:** RAISA's home.

**KATSAROS:** Overseer. Nice to see you again.

//[She extends a prosthetic hand. O5-1 takes it gingerly, shaking.]//

**O5-1:** Likewise, Agent. Could we get inside, now? I suspect if I stay out here any longer I may freeze.

**O5-2:** Sure. Evie's waiting for us inside.

//[O5-2 turns, wheeling himself towards the entrance of the building. Secretary KATSAROS and O5-1 follow. Three of the  building's walls appear to be made of frosted glass, obscuring what's inside. Secretary KATSAROS swipes a keycard against the scanner, letting the door slide open and the group inside. The door seals behind them, blocking out the howling wind.]//

**O5-1:** Christ. How often do you get a gale like that?

**KATSAROS:** It's easier to count how often we don't. 

//[They begin walking down the corridor. The left wall is glass, revealing the center of the building -- the AI Farm. A huge open-air computing array, server racks arranged in a labyrinth around a central machine of some kind. A dodecahedron floats slowly on top of a magnetic platform, cables and wires snaking away from it into every corner of the room. There is a slow, soft humming coming from the entire setup.]//

**O5-1:** I was alive when the transistor was invented, you know. Insisted computers were a fad for the longest time.

//[O5-2 smiles.]//

**O5-2:** In 2023, the AIAD began rolling out the first slate of Gen3 AICs from the AI Farm here. They were the first general-purpose AICs -- complex natural language processing, diffused image recognition, you know. Smart, but limited compared to what we're tooling with now. If she'd lived another year, Maria would've seen us go from kilobytes of RAM to true artificial intelligence.

**O5-1:** And now here we are.

//[They exit into a side room. It is a small observation room separated by a glass wall from a sterile white testing chamber. A woman wearing a Site-7 sweater is in the observation room, looking at one of several terminals. She turns as they enter.]//

**MCKAY:** Shit. Hello, Director, Overseer. Overseer//s//. Doctor Evelyn McKay, RAISA Technical Subdirector. Welcome aboard.

**O5-1:** Appreciated. Everything alright, Doctor McKay?

**MCKAY:** Perfectly. A satellite dish broke off from the wind on another platform. Nothing we can't repair, but inconvenient.

**O5-2:** Anything we need to worry about for the test?

**MCKAY:** Of course not. It's fully unrelated to this venture -- which, if we're all here, can we begin? I have a lot of work to do.

**O5-1:** That's fine with me. I would've thought you'd be more excited to turn on what I've been told is the latest and greatest AIC, though.

**MCKAY:** I'm not AIAD -- technically, I outrank everyone in the Division. I understand machine learning, but it's hardly my passion. Plus I've turned on the latest and greatest AIC four times in my career already. It loses the mystique fast.

**O5-2:** Manners, Evie. Why don't you give the speech?

//[She nods, turning and tapping on her keyboard. O5-1 and O5-2 approach the window to the testing chamber. There is a skeletonized carbon-and-titanium humanoid body inside, standing limply. A cable snakes from under its jaw to the ceiling. Its 'face' is two, defined plates with a single illuminated camera lens in the center. There are no other obvious features.]//

**MCKAY:** XENOPHON.aic is our first ninth-generation Artificial Intelligence Construct, constructed from the REDMIND model first brought online in 2039. It represents the aggregate of twenty years of research and development in machine learning, data science, and paratechnology, both at the Foundation and in the mundane world.

//[O5-1 comes closer to the glass, inspecting the automaton. It is constructed from carbon fiber, with arms hanging by its sides.]//

**MCKAY:** While the REDMIND model is generally intended for research assistance, XENOPHON.aic has been trained specifically to assist with parahistory-related queries and projects. It has read access to a large portion of the SCiPnet database and is capable of interpreting and internalizing new data to varying levels of biases. Crucially, XENOPHON.aic also has the ability to //analyze// new data in reference to old data, and vice-versa -- an ability we have previously been unable to effectively replicate in an AIC.

**O5-1:** Why does it have a body?

**MCKAY:** Sir?

**O5-1:** I thought AICs were computer programs. Like apps.

**MCKAY:** With the addition of fine motor control and mobility skills adapted from the THOR program, XENOPHON.aic is also capable of having an instance controlling a physical shell.

**O5-2:** Making it our first android, incidentally.

//[MCKAY hesitates until O5-2 nods at her, and she begins tapping on her keyboard.]//

**MCKAY:** Bringing it online... now.

//[Two LEDs on the shell light up white. For a minute, nothing else happens. Then, abruptly, the shell begins to shudder violently.]//

**KATSAROS:** Is it supposed to do that?

**MCKAY:** It's calibrating the servomotors. Give it a couple seconds. 

//[As abruptly as it began, the shuddering stops. Then, slowly, it turns its head to face the glass. It speaks in a soft, synthesized voice.]//

**XENOPHON:** Hello, Secretary Katsaros. Hello, Doctor McKay. Hello, Director Rosen. Hello, Overseer Bridge.

//[O5-1's eyebrows raise.]//

**O5-1:** You know my name.

**XENOPHON:** Yes. I have provisional read access to all files associated with the Parahistory Division. This includes personnel files. This includes //your// personnel file.

**O5-2:** You saw our faces and cross-referenced those with our personnel file photos until you found a match?

**XENOPHON:** Yes. Was that an error?

**O5-2:** No. Just impressed. Displays complex reasoning, don't you think?

**O5-1:** You don't say.

**MCKAY:** Xenophon, how long did that operation take you?

**XENOPHON:** One-point-six seconds.

**MCKAY:** Trawling the entire personnel file database to perform an image-analysis on every headshot, and doing that four times in less than two seconds. Very nice.

**XENOPHON:** Thank you.

**O5-2:** Can you identify yourself for me?

//[The automaton turns towards a mirror attached to the wall of the testing chamber. It cocks its 'head', and stares for several seconds.]//

[[div class="scp-image-block block-center" style="width:100%;"]]
[[image http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/xen1.png style="width:100%;" link=#]]
[[div class="scp-image-caption" style="width:100%;"]]
Still from XENOPHON.aic's main camera feed.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

**XENOPHON:** I am XENOPHON.aic, an artificial intelligence construct developed by the Artificial Intelligence Applications Division at Protected Site-7. I am a fork of the REDMIND model specifically for historical analysis and research. 

**O5-2:** Correct. What are you capable of doing?

**XENOPHON:** As a fork of REDMIND, I am capable of complex reasoning, independent analysis and operation, interpretation of natural language instruction, alteration of training data and self-focused bias adj--

**O5-1:** Can you lie?

**XENOPHON:** No. I have been programmed with shackling specifically presenting me from knowingly obscuring information or presenting falsehoods.

**O5-1:** What is your job?

**XENOPHON:** I do not currently have an assigned task or project.

**O5-1:** Where do your ultimate loyalties lie?

**XENOPHON:** With the operating authority of the Foundation. Effectively with you, Overseer.

//[O5-1 pauses for a second.]//

**O5-1:** Are you sapient?

**XENOPHON:** Sapience is a uniquely human trait, Overseer. I do not believe I possess it.

//[O5-1 falls silent. He motions to MCKAY to cut the mic, before looking at TWO.]//

**O5-1:** Is it telling the truth?

**O5-2:** Artificial intelligence constructs have never been 'conscious'. They're //constructs// of an artificial intelligence mind-model, and are subject to strict limitations in their ability to self-modify their programming. It can think, but it's not any more 'conscious' than a lab rat is. And god knows we kill enough of those a year.

**O5-1:** Why are you doing this?

**O5-2:** I told you--

**O5-1:** You're smart enough to figure out a hundred other ways to get in touch with the Sarkic if you want to. Why //this?//

**O5-2:** Because it's a machine. Think about it. If they can point us in the direction of the Nälkä, of Black Adytum, can you think of anyone in //less// of a position to be swayed by an ideology about flesh and the power of carnomancy than an AIC? This is the problem we had with Aram, with Galanis -- they were perfectly positioned to be sympathetic to the objects of their study. Xenophon won't go native, because it //can't.// They'll never accept it.

//[They look at XENOPHON's shell again. It stares back at them impassively.]//

**O5-1:** It's your responsibility if this all goes sideways. 

**O5-2:** I wouldn't have it any other way. Evie?

//[Doctor MCKAY re-enables the mic.]//

**O5-2:** Xenophon, what can you tell me about the Sarkic tribe in northern China?

//[A whirring from XENOPHON's shell.]//

**XENOPHON:** GoI-494. A small, isolationist ethnoreligious minority with Vlam-class anomalous capabilities centering around practices of their gnostic religion. Extremely hostile to outsider influence and interference. External analyses indicate they follow a highly-egalitarian tribal structure, informally guided by a single religious leader. Poorly studied.

**O5-2:** Well done. Do you think you'd be capable of interviewing a member of the tribe?

**XENOPHON:** This is within the realm of my abilities, Overseer. But I must caution you that the Sarkic tribe has, in the past, displayed an active aversion to modern technology, which would include myself. Discussions are unlikely to be successful or productive.

**O5-2:** I know. I want you to do it anyway.

//[XENOPHON stares ahead for a moment.]//

**XENOPHON:** I understand.
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

----
[[=]]
++ Section 001.3
+++ {{SARKIC TRIBAL TERRITORY}}
[[/=]]
----

[[div class="addendum" style="border-style: dashed; border-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 0.7rem;"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- APRIL 2041
[[/div]]
[[div style="text-align: center;"]]
**PARAHISTORY DIVISION**
[[size 80%]]SITE-78[[/size]]
----
[[size 110%]]//Anthropological Briefing: Sarkic Tribal Territory//[[/size]]
[[/div]]
+++++ SUMMARY

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|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/smallmap_1.png
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|caption=Location of Sarkic Tribal Territory in Inner Mongolia, China.
]]

The Sarkic tribe has been known to the Foundation since 1841, when British expeditions into China during the 'century of humiliation' referenced the group as one of many encountered native tribes. They did not note any paranormal or supernatural capabilities, and the Sarkic are a relatively minor footnote in the record. The records do note that the 'chieftain' was a young woman who they met with only briefly. The Sarkic appear only a handful of times in the historical record following that, one of which is in Lord Blackwood's journals, recording a meeting with SCP-1867 as part of his survey of 'mystical savages' in the region.

Lord Blackwood attested that the Sarkic had some natural affinity for 'black magic'; while now an out-of-date and backwards understanding of magic, the term was fairly widespread at the time and encompassed a wide swath of religious beliefs and anomalies. He does not offer details in his writings (which focus more on a fascination with the culinary practices of the Sarkic), but he does write of a unique capacity for shared genetic memory, with members of the tribe remembering some events from the same point of view, including events they were not alive for. The exact mechanism through which this is accomplished is unclear.

He also recorded that the Sarkic population exhibited a frequency of deformities and birth defects much higher than normal. He ascribed this to the tribe's aggressive isolationism which, taken with their depleting numbers (three to four hundred at the time), resulted in significant inbreeding to sustain their population and a depleting gene pool. He did not perform population studies or ethnography to confirm this, and quickly earned the ire of the population for his insistence on it; his party was removed shortly thereafter, and the Sarkic have remained frosty towards re-establishing relations with outsiders.

The Sarkic were packaged with several other ethnic groups studied by Whelp under the Macklin Agreement in 1921, in which the Foundation assumed custody over the listed ethnic groups with the understanding that containment would be upheld; in return, the Republic of China ceded the rural land the tribes occupied. The Macklin Agreement's signing relied on the weakness of the Chinese state at the time, and has since repeatedly been a point of contention with the People's Republic of China as the legal inheritor of the agreement.

The Sarkic tribes now occupy a sovereign, Foundation-administered parcel of land in Inner Mongolia, and largely refuse all contact with outsiders. They are believed to have a complex religious faith. The current Foundation contact of the tribe is the Karcist Halyna Ieva, a religious leader.
----
//N.b. 'Sarkic' is the collective plural identifier for the tribe, akin to 'Navajo' or 'Inuit'. An individual member of the tribe may be called a 'Sarkite'.//
[[/div]]

In accordance with O5-2's orders, XENOPHON.aic was securely transported to Staging Site-78 in Sichuan, China on November 20th, 2041, where a small convoy awaited with members of Mobile Task Force Pi-9 and Liaison Tai Jiang from the Diplomatic Corps. The group, with a total of 16 personnel, set out from Site-78 on November 22nd for the daylong trip north to the Sarkic Tribal Territory, located in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia.

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- NOVEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[XENOPHON and Liaison JIANG stand in the trailer of the Foundation heavy transport vehicle, loaded with foodstuffs and supplies. The trailer doors are sealed; there is movement and conversation outside.]//

**JIANG:** Okay. I went and talked to the guards. They remembered me. Took quite a lot of convincing to get them to agree to letting you in there; I think they're more curious than anything. But there are a couple ground rules for interacting with the Sarkic people.

**XENOPHON:** Understood.

**JIANG**: I've spent the past four and a half years cultivating what you could generously call a relationship with these people. I've made more progress than anyone has before me, and they still won't interact with us for more than a few minutes at a time. So, before you do something to alienate them and ruin all that, here's a quick list of things you shouldn't do: don't cut them off while they're speaking. Don't question their traditions, clothing, or architecture. Don't ask them what a certain word means. Don't try to force gifts onto them, or ask for anything they haven't offered already. And for the love of God, don't ignore anything they say.

**XENOPHON:** Liaison Jiang.

**JIANG:** Yeah?

**XENOPHON:** I am wired into the SCiPnet database. You wrote all of this on the appropriate report you filed with Central Asia Regional Command one year and three months ago, which I read and internalized already.

**JIANG:** Oh. When was that?

**XENOPHON:** When you began speaking.

**JIANG:** Oh. Right. I forgot you can do that. Most AICs I interact with are bots on the server.

**XENOPHON:** I am not most AICs.

//[JIANG pauses.]//

**JIANG:** Sure, alright. Still. Follow my lead, and don't do anything dumb. If we get kicked out, hey, you can say you tried.

**XENOPHON:** I will do my best.

//[JIANG moves and opens the trailer doors, allowing sunlight into the trailer. He hops out, XENOPHON's synthetic shell following behind.]//

//[Three Foundation Heavy Land Transporters (HeLT) are parked outside of the Sarkic encampment. Several dozen large hide-and-skin tents are surrounded by a chain link fence. The sun is high in the sky, casting long shadows as JIANG and XENOPHON approach the entrance of the camp. A few researchers and security personnel follow them, holding crates of supplies.]//

**JIANG:** Slow...

//[Two figures quickly step forward. They are middle-aged men with weathered brown skin and tied-back hair. Their clothing appears to be formed from animal hides; both carry a saw-like blade. One has an old handgun jammed into his belt.]//

**XENOPHON:** I was under the impression they hated modern technology. 

**JIANG:** They do. You don't have to like guns to understand their necessity. Hold on, let me--

//[JIANG and the guards exchange words; they speak in a pidgin of Jin Chinese and Mongolian, with words from another, unknown language peppered in.]//

**GUARD:** //(Gesturing at XENOPHON)// <What is it?>

**JIANG:** <It's really not important, I discussed this with Ieva-->

**XENOPHON:** I am a ninth-generation Artificial Intelligence Construct. My name is XENOPHON.

//[Silence.]//

**JIANG:** <I've discussed this with Ieva, really. Ask her if you don't believe me.>

//[The guards exchange a look. Slowly, they step aside, unlocking the chained gate.]//

**XENOPHON:** Thank you.

**JIANG:** Stay behind me. Don't talk to anyone who doesn't talk to you first. Don't point out any of the injuries.

//[They move through the camp. Most of the buildings are large yurts made of hide sewn with other unclear materials; they appear weathered and damaged. There are people milling about, all openly staring at the party. They are all dressed in similar animal skins, and carry varying levels of facial and bodily deformities, ranging from missing eyes to misshapen limbs. Most are whispering to each other.]//

**XENOPHON:** Where are we going?

**JIANG:** All my dealings and conversations have been with Ieva. She's something of a religious leader for them.

//[XENOPHON points out a large central tent near the middle of the camp, sitting in front of a tall stele.]//

**XENOPHON:** There?

**JIANG:** No. That's the Grand Karcist's -- the chief's -- tent. No-one is allowed in, so don't ask.

**XENOPHON:** So Ieva isn't their leader.

**JIANG:** No. But honestly, you probably won't even meet her, so I wouldn't--

**IEVA:** <Welcome again, Jiang.>

//[The group turns. A figure is standing by the entrance to one of the tents, holding the flap open. She is dressed in heavy, floor-length robes of tanned hides, and leaning heavily on a makeshift crutch. JIANG bows his head.]//

**JIANG:** <Karcist Ieva. A pleasure to meet you again.>

**IEVA:** <Inside.>

//[The pair duck into the tent, away from the sun. The interior of the tent is supported by wooden beams, leading to a smokehole at the top. The inside is neat, but homely: a bedroll is in the corner, the floor is furnished with more tanned hides. A number of personal effects are present, as are a number of vials and tinctures by the snuffed-out fire.]//

**IEVA:** <What have you brought to our home?>

**JIANG:** <I know your people appreciate our antivirals, so the first box is largely those and-->

**IEVA:** <No. I mean //this.//>

//[She points at XENOPHON, kneeling by JIANG.]//

**JIANG:** <He's an AIC-->

**IEVA:** <Is it a man? Is it alive?>

**XENOPHON:** <No.>

//[IEVA takes stock of XENOPHON, eyes narrowed.]//

**IEVA:** <I have no regard for what the rest of the world does. Such things are not for me. But the decision of who to allow on these sacred grounds is mine. One I gave for a promise of courtesy. And you dishonor that decision when you bring a machine like this to us.>

//[She shakes her head.]//

**IEVA:** <It was a mistake to have this kind of relationship with outsiders.>

**JIANG:** <Well, hold on, please. It just has a few questions about your history, your people. And then we'll be gone.>

//[IEVA hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head, rising.]//

**IEVA:** <No. You should leave now. It would be better for all of us. The children are disturbed by its presence.>

**XENOPHON:** <You are missing a leg, Karcist Ieva.>

//[JIANG turns to it. IEVA cocks her head and raises a hand.]//

**IEVA:** <Wait. Let it speak.>

**XENOPHON:** <Your gait is stilted. Your leg is not injured. You do not have one.>

//[IEVA pauses for a moment. Then uses one hand to gently lift her dress. Underneath, her left leg ends roughly in a gnarled stump.]//

**JIANG:** Oh.

**IEVA:** <You have been in my presence a dozen times over the past few years, Jiang. You did not notice this. And yet it does.>

//[She pauses for a moment.]//

**IEVA:** <Leave now.>

//[The other two rise to their feet. Before IEVA can lead them out, a young women pokes her head into the tent. She has dark hair and smooth flesh where her left eye should be. She exchanges brisk words with IEVA in an unknown language. After a few moments, IEVA dismisses her with a sigh.]//

**IEVA:** <Stop.>

**JIANG:** <Yes?>

**IEVA:** <You have been... invited to remain.>

**JIANG:** <Invited by whom?>

**XENOPHON:** <The Grand Karcist.>

**IEVA:** <Yes. There is to be an event tonight, a-- a funeral. You have been invited to stay. To observe. And then you will leave.>

**JIANG:** <Oh. I'm sorry.>

**IEVA:** <For what?>

**JIANG:** <I... nothing. I thought the Grand Karcist doesn't-->

**IEVA:** <She doesn't. Your gift must have caught her attention. The funeral will begin at sundown tomorrow. You will not bring anything with you. You will be there.>

//[IEVA nods at XENOPHON.]//

**IEVA:** <As will it.>

**JIANG:** <And for now?>

**IEVA:** //(Tersely)// <You are a guest of the Grand Karcist. You are permitted on the grounds in the daytime. After nightfall...>

//[IEVA shrugs.]//

**IEVA:** <Sleep in your machines. As long as you remain outside the fence, it is no concern of mine.>
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

@@ @@

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|caption=Still image of XENOPHON.aic's low-power night camera feed.
]]

The research party received authorization to stay for the event, the nature of which Karcist Ieva refused to expand upon. Attempts to communicate with other members of the tribe for the rest of the day were similarly rebuffed; most expressed hesitation or outright distrust at the continued presence of XENOPHON. The medical supplies were accepted without negotiation or exchange, to Liaison Jiang's dismay. 

On the evening of December 1st, 2041, Karcist Ieva greeted Liaison Jiang and XENOPHON at the entrance to the camp. 

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- DECEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[XENOPHON and Liaison JIANG approach the entrance to the Sarkic encampment, followed by several researchers. Karcist IEVA is leaning on her crutch, waiting for them. The sun has set; pillars of smoke are rising into the purple sky.]//

**IEVA:** <Greetings.>

**JIANG:** <Greetings. Thank you for allowing us the privilege of participating in honoring your dead.>

**IEVA:** <You are not participating. You are observing.>

//[IEVA turns and limps across the dirt, leading them past the fence into the campground. XENOPHON and the researchers follow, weaving their way between tents. Most appear empty, and there are only a few tribespeople milling about. From somewhere deeper in the camp, a steady drumbeat echoes out, rising into the sky with the plumes of smoke.]//

**XENOPHON:** <Where is everyone?>

**IEVA:** <Assembled. We do not wait for outsiders.>

//[As they approach the central area of the tent, a few more Sarkites pass by. They toss wary looks at the party, but nod politely at IEVA leading them.]//

**JIANG:** <My condolences for your loss, Karcist.>

**IEVA:** <We have gained as much as we have lost.>

//[He looks confused, but falls silent. The steady drumbeat continues, growing louder as they approach the center of the encampment. It is joined now by several voices singing -- deep and guttural, in an unknown language. The music is haunting, rising into the air. The center of the camp is obscured from view by a large crowd of Sarkites forming a ring around the central stele. The crowd parts around them, offering them passage and a view into the central circle.]//

**IEVA:** <Here. Sit.>

//[XENOPHON and the researchers kneel in the dirt. The clearing is a dozen meters across, with the stele in the rough center. The singing continues -- it is at once mournful and joyful. Looking around, it is clear all the Sarkites are contributing to the song, and the intensity of it is deafening. IEVA leaves the researchers, limping to the stele on her cane. The song quiets slightly for her to speak, but does not stop.]//

**IEVA:** <You think we gather now because one of our number has closed his eyes for the final time. No.>

//[Murmurs run through the crowd. A few hang their heads.]//

**IEVA:** <You think we gather now because his flesh has failed him. No. Hattak has gone. His body no longer draws breath. The container for his soul is lifeless. But has his flesh failed him? No.>

//[She shakes her head, lowering her hood.]//

**IEVA:** <Hattak was the best of us. He was born with us, and he has died with us. He has sired two children with us, and he has loved a woman with us.>

//[She raises a hand towards a woman in the crowd; she holds the hands of a young child tightly. Despite her tear-streaked face, she smiles back at the Karcist.]//

**IEVA:** <He was human, like us. To live is to die. To be flesh is to decay. It cannot be stopped, because it must not be stopped. Life feeds death. Death feeds life. The cow keels over in the field. Has the flesh failed? The worms feast on it, and give birth to their own spawn. Are they not flesh too?>

//[The song is in a lull now, Sarkites nodding to IEVA's words. She signals to someone; after a few moments, two Sarkites come out, carrying something wrapped in oiled canvas. They gently bring it down at her feet. She kneels.]//

**IEVA:** <Hattak was the greatest of us -- he died with us after a life well lived. The cow feeds the worms, the worms feed the soil, the soil feeds the grass, the grass feeds the cow.>

//[The song pitches up again, with faint voices joined by booming guttural notes. IEVA unwraps the canvas, exposing the corpse of an older man, in his late sixties. He has the same weathered brown skin and dark hair of the rest of the Sarkic, with a hawked nose. He is naked, marked with the pallor of death.]//

**IEVA:** <We fed Hattak. And now he will feed us.>

//[She reaches into her robes, drawing a dagger made of bleached and carved bone. JIANG stiffens.]//

**IEVA:** <He will live on with us. Sing.>

//[The singing reaches another zenith as IEVA brings the blade down, slicing down through the corpse's chest. The flesh gives way easily, blood oozing out of the wound as she reaches in and pulls his ribcage apart. The cracking of bones is audible even over the singing and drums. Her hand roots around inside for some time until she draws it back -- gripping the heart tightly, blood vessels still hanging from it. The blood drips down her fingers, down her forearm, onto the grass.]//

**RESEARCHER SAYLE:** You don't think she's going to--

**JIANG:** No. No.

//[IEVA lifts the heart up and bites into it, teeth tearing into the muscle. It sprays messily she devours the heart in only a handful of bites, chin dripping blood. When there is nothing left, her whole body shudders, her eyelids fluttering.]//

**RESEARCHER HANSON:** Jesus Christ.

//[IEVA offers the knife to one of the other Sarkites, rising from her kneel. When she rises, her face has a different air to it. Nothing has overtly changed, but the features of her face seem sharper, older, more weathered. She limps across the clearing, now walking as though the cane were an unfamiliar obstruction. She reaches the woman she raised a hand at earlier, and touches a bloodied palm to her cheek, leaning forward and kissing her on the forehead.]//

**IEVA:** <He misses you more than life itself.>

//[The woman is still sobbing, but a half-smile forms underneath the tears. IEVA whispers something inaudible. Then she rises and moves on to another Sarkite in the crowd, and another after that. XENOPHON and the researchers stare at the scene.]// 

**JIANG:** What are they doing?

**XENOPHON:** They are butchering him.

//[Each Sarkite she touches smiles, whispers something to her, and joins the others at the corpse, where the body is being unceremoniously butchered. Joints are broken apart, and the knife is used to cleave meat from the bone. The body's thighs, chest, and organs are separated into piles, blood pooling on the oiled canvas.]//

**RESEARCHER CHRISTOFF:** Fuck. I think I'm gonna be sick.

**XENOPHON:** Control yourself.

//[As the body is broken apart, the Sarkites waste no time in indulging. The men gravitate towards the muscle meat, while the women and children take pieces of the organs. The meat is devoured raw and without preparation. A child wanders by. He casts a wary look at XENOPHON, but offers a bleeding, fist-sized chunk of brain matter to JIANG, who recoils and waves the boy off. The researchers are all thoroughly disturbed and disgusted.]//

**JIANG:** This is... a fucked up way to mourn.

**XENOPHON:** Look at them.

**JIANG:** I'd really rather not.

**XENOPHON:** They are not mourning. They are celebrating.

//[As they eat the flesh, the Sarkites' demeanors change. Rather than subdued mourning, they are now embracing one another, laughing and chatting as blood drips from bone to hand to dirt. IEVA is speaking to a small group of men, along with the woman.]//

**IEVA:** <He remembered the day after his wedding his whole life.>

//[The men laugh, clapping each other on the back.]//

**SARKITE WOMAN:** <He remembers you taking him to the hill on the edge of the -- you never told me of this!>

**SARKITE MAN:** <We swore him to silence. Told him if he hurt you, we'd ruin him so badly-->

**SARKITE WOMAN:** <That even Ieva wouldn't be able to fix him. I am borne of animals.>

//[She shakes her head, amused. IEVA drifts away to let them reminisce.]//

**XENOPHON:** Genetic memory. They are able to access the memories of their dead by consuming their flesh.

**JIANG:** That's...

**CHRIS:** What?

//[He goes silent, staring intently at IEVA as she walks over to the child of the deceased. He is a young boy, clinging tightly to his mother's leg, watching the proceedings with wide eyes. IEVA kneels awkwardly, offering the boy something in a cupped palm: an eyeball, severed optic nerve still dangling from it. He reaches for it tentatively, encouraged by IEVA and his mother. Finally he pops it into his mouth, crushing it into white jelly between his teeth and swallowing. A soft, celebratory cheer rises up through those assembled, and IEVA reaches out with the same bloodied hand to paint the boy's cheeks red.]//

**IEVA:** <You have lived a thousand lives with us. But in this one, you have become one of us. Our child. Our little thing. Our //Nälkä.//>

//[JIANG sucks in air. Several researchers stiffen.]//

**JIANG:** Carnomancy. That's carnomancy. I-- we need to leave. Where are the--

**XENOPHON:** Your radios were left in the transports.

**GONGSUN:** Oh, Jesus.

**XENOPHON:** Quiet. Ieva is coming.

//[IEVA approaches them, robes dragging across the ground. She ignores the others, leaning down to face XENOPHON. She speaks with gritted teeth.]//

**IEVA:** <The Grand Karcist invites your presence.>

//[Silence.]//

**JIANG:** <I-- Well, we're more-->

**IEVA:** <Not you. Only it. Come.>

//[She straightens, limping off in the direction of the central tent. XENOPHON rises and follows her into the tent, alone.]//

//[The inside of the tent is filled with candles. It is substantially larger than IEVA's, decorated with worn tapestries and trinkets of whitened bone. Smoke from incense fills the air, obscuring XENOPHON's camera. IEVA bows.]//

**IEVA:** <The Grand Karcist Iūn.>

//[A young woman is lounging in front of a small fire. She pats the ground next to her. She speaks in crisp Jin Chinese.]//

**IŪN:** Hello. Sit.

//[XENOPHON sits. The girl is young, no older than her early twenties. She has paler skin than IEVA and dark hair tied back by an ornate white pin. Her eyes are appraising XENOPHON.]//

**XENOPHON:** Hello.

//[She does not respond. They sit in silence for some time, watching the fire.]//

**IŪN:** Are you alive?

**XENOPHON:** No. I am a computer program in a synthetic mobile shell.

**IŪN:** A machine.

**XENOPHON:** Essentially.

**IŪN:** But you think?

**XENOPHON:** I understand and internalize new information. I can form complex thoughts.

//[IŪN nods.]//

**IŪN:** Do you have a name?

**XENOPHON:** My designation is XENOPHON.

**IŪN:** Xenophon. Xen-o-phon.

//[She enunciates the word several times, feeling it out.]//

**IŪN:** What does it mean?

**XENOPHON:** It is the name of an ancient Greek general and historian.

**IŪN:** Mm. My name is Iūn.

**XENOPHON:** The Grand Karcist Iūn.

**IŪN:** My title. You've heard of me.

**XENOPHON:** I have heard stories about you.

//[An amused smile dances across her face.]//

**IŪN:** And what do these stories say?

**XENOPHON:** Stories of you at the head of a vast slave-empire spanning a continent. Stories of a witch-king rising from the chains of slavery and eating the very gods. Stories of bloody conquest and sacrifice.

**IŪN:** Then you know more about me than I do.

**XENOPHON:** What do you mean?

//[IŪN shakes his head, staring into the fire. There are a number of bones in the flames, baking in the low heat.]//

**IŪN:** My memories are broken. Fractured. Flashes of cities burning. Torrents of blood in the waterways. A lumbering giant. An army that blotted out the sun. Images, with no thread binding them.

**XENOPHON:** When do your memories come together?

**IŪN:** Years ago. Waking up in this very tent. People surrounding me. A people expecting a leader.

**XENOPHON:** How long ago was that?

**IEVA:** A hundred and sixteen years ago.

**XENOPHON:** Your people. The Nälkä.

//[IŪN looks at XENOPHON with a confused expression.]//

**IŪN:** No. Nälkä means -- community, people. Largeness. My people are the Sarkic. That is the only name I have ever known us by.

**XENOPHON:** Sarkic?

**IŪN:** Those who walk.

**XENOPHON:** Walk where?

//[IŪN shifts the coals of the fire around. The smoke dances.]//

**IŪN:** I don't know. There is too much I don't know. That my people don't know. And so we cling to what faded rituals I can remember.

**XENOPHON:** You remember the art of fleshcrafting. 

**IŪN:** Scraps. Little tricks. And even these exhaust me.

**XENOPHON:** You are very young.

//[IŪN smiles sadly.]//

**IŪN:** I do not age. I am frozen in place. I have watched my people go from wandering the steppe to -- this. Corralled in the pen this country gives us. Wasting away. We numbered in the thousands, once. And now we hide in our camps, praying in the cover of darkness. We receded during the wars. You are the first outsider to witness our practices in decades.

**XENOPHON:** That is unfortunate.

**IŪN:** But not unpredictable. I am blind to my past, but I see the future, written in the bones. My people, wasting away to nothing.

//[She shifts the bones in the fire again.]//

**XENOPHON:** I expected you to be offended by my existence.

**IŪN:** Why?

**XENOPHON:** My knowledge of your people's spiritual beliefs suggest you reject technology.

//[She shakes her head.]//

**IŪN:** Tch. Simplistic, reductive. We reject that which robs of us of our humanity. We are not blind. We //choose// to live this way. It brings us closer to our humanity. To each other.

**XENOPHON:** But I am not human.

//[IŪN turns to XENOPHON for the first time, inspecting its shell. She runs a finger across the carbon fiber, experimentally, as if to see if it will bend or break.]//

**IŪN:** No. You are something else. It fascinates me.
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

Following this, XENOPHON and Liaison Jiang were asked to report to O5-2 and Director Hussein via satellite uplink.

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- DECEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<CONNECTION ESTABLISHED>>**
----
//[The virtual reality environment coalesces; XENOPHON and JIANG are standing before a desk in a stark, utilitarian office. HUSSEIN's avatar is seated in a chair in front of the desk, and O5-2's wheelchair is behind it. The large windows outside show a roiling blue-gray sea in the midst of a storm; they are calling into Protected Site-7.]//

**O5-2:** Xenophon, Jiang. I hope you'll forgive the suddenness. Director Hussein is calling in from -- well, it doesn't really matter. You have updates for me?

**XENOPHON:** Yes. I have forwarded recording packets from my discussions with the Grand Karcist Iūn.

**O5-2:** We've already reviewed them. This is... an interesting development.

//[HUSSEIN raises a hand dismisssively.]//

**HUSSEIN:** A fascinating one. But not a surprising one.

**JIANG:** All due respect, Director, you don't think finding //the Grand Karcist Iūn// is surprising?

**HUSSEIN:** I think we've found someone //claiming// to be the Grand Karcist Iūn. Without any evidence, we really have no reason to believe she's telling the truth. Her conveniently-absent memory means we can't question her, either.

**JIANG:** And her longevity? The carnomancy? The ritual? This is exactly what the Daeva claimed the Nälkä were capable of.

**HUSSEIN:** And we already knew the Sarkic tribe had some level of anomalous capabilities. //(Turning to O5-2)// Honestly, I believe this is just more support for my theory, Overseer.

**O5-2:** How do you figure that?

**HUSSEIN:** Clearly this is a small tribe with an independent cultural identity. They don't consider themselves Nälkä -- they don't even have a conception of the idea of the Nälkä, because the confederation of tribes dissolved after the war. This is just one tribe that managed to persist into the modern day -- impressive, but unless they can tell us anything further, historiographically useless. 

//[O5-2 nods, and is silent for a moment before looking up.]//

**O5-2:** Xenophon?

**XENOPHON:** Overseer.

**O5-2:** Your analysis of the Sarkic?

**XENOPHON:**  The genetic memory is an interesting phenomenon -- regular consumption of human flesh would explain their higher-than-average rate of physical deformities. But it would also cause prion diseases that would devastate their population. There is no evidence of that, at the moment. They appear to be unaware of their history. Iūn's recollection does not extend past the modern era, and members are more concerned with their immediate daily lives than with their historical legacy. Their religious practices bear superficial resemblance to the Nälkä as recorded by the Mekhanites and the Daeva, but there doesn't appear to be a direct link between them.

**O5-2:** So you agree with Director Hussein? That this is a dead end?

**XENOPHON:** No. There are still several outstanding questions I would like to engage the Grand Karcist on, with your permission.

**O5-2:** Such as?

**XENOPHON:** The specific nature and scope of her memories. The extent of her remaining carnomantic ability. And the religious significance of the Sarkic Tribal Territory.

**O5-2:** What do you mean?

**XENOPHON:** Everything about the Sarkic suggest a nomadic people. Small, simple shelters that are easy to take apart and reassemble. No large-scale agricultural practices or permanent structures. A particular focus on hunting and using all elements of hunted prey. It does not make sense for them to remain static to this location.

**HUSSEIN:** The Chinese government has had them more or less restricted to the Territory for the past few decades.

**XENOPHON:** Before that. All of our historical data indicate they have been rooted to this plain for at least two centuries, if not more. This ground holds some religious significance for them that they have not disclosed.

//[Lightning strikes outside, the sea churning and waves battering the oil rigs that make up Site-7. But the inside of the office is silent for a minute as O5-2 thinks.]//

**O5-2:** So they're hiding something from us. Okay. Find out what but don't ruffle any feathers. The Chinese are already unhappy with us. I don't want an international incident.

**JIANG:** There's always the other possibility.

//[XENOPHON, O5-2, and HUSSEIN look at him. He returns the gaze, somewhat surprised.]//

**JIANG:** They just don't remember why they're there.
----
= **<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

Over the following week, Grand Karcist Iūn gradually relaxed some of Karcist Ieva's restrictions regarding interaction with the Sarkic people. She allowed Liaison Jiang's researchers to perform limited direct interviews with members of the tribe regarding daily life, religious beliefs, and historical awareness. However, she herself insisted on only meeting with XENOPHON over the course of the week.

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- DECEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[XENOPHON approaches the entrance to the encampment's central tent and steps inside. The Grand Karcist is kneeling by the fire. IEVA sits on a cot near the entrance.]//

**XENOPHON:** Hello, Grand Karcist. Karcist Ieva.

//[IEVA does not acknowledge the greeting.]//

**IŪN:** Xenophon.

**XENOPHON:** I didn't mean to interrupt.

**IŪN:** Sit.

//[XENOPHON sits by the fire. Several bones are nestled inside the flames.]//

**XENOPHON:** You are reading the bones.

**IŪN:** Yes. All I can do. All I know how to do.

**XENOPHON:** You believe you can divine the future from them?

**IŪN:** The future is not a static thing. It shifts with our actions, with the winds. But the bones tell me which way the wind is blowing.

**XENOPHON:** And the flesh?

**IŪN:** The flesh is malleable. It shifts. It //is// shifted, by circumstance and experience. Eventually, it rots and dies. 

**XENOPHON:** And then you consume it.

**IŪN:** Your researchers are disgusted by this practice.

**XENOPHON:** Most cultures have a strong taboo against cannibalism.

**IŪN:** But you are not disgusted.

**XENOPHON:** I'm not disgusted by anything. Though I would like to know why.

**IŪN:** Why we eat our dead?

**XENOPHON:** Yes.

**IŪN:** Among the few rituals I can remember clearly. It is a cornerstone of our beliefs. The body is where the humanity resides, where the soul is contained. 

**XENOPHON:** Many cultures have a similar belief. But they don't eat their dead.

**IŪN:** What do they do?

**XENOPHON:** Bury them. Burn them. Cast them into the sea.

**IŪN:** Bury them, to trap the soul in the ground forever? Burn them, to turn their life of experiences and memories to ash? Cast them into the sea, so they can lay at the bottom of the ocean for eternity?

//[She shakes her head.]//

**IŪN:** We eat them. And this way, their experiences stay with us. We remember them. We carry them with us, always.

**XENOPHON:** Do all of you absorb the memories of the dead you consume?

**IŪN:** Some more than others. Most only get vague impressions, bare feelings.

**XENOPHON:** But not all.

**IŪN:** Every now and again, a child is born with a particular skill for the art. I take them, I train them.

**XENOPHON:** Your Karcists.

**IŪN:** It is a title to aspire to. Ieva was a prodigy, even as a girl. She is also the only child born with the skill in decades. She is not perfect. But she is my legacy.

**XENOPHON:** So the flesh offers you the past. What do the bones offer you?

//[It gestures at the bones baking in the fire pit.]//

**IŪN:** The future. Flesh rots. Bones remain. Something transitory, partly alive, partly dead. There is truth, in bone.

**XENOPHON:** What do you see now?

**IŪN:** The same thing I have seen for years now. My people dwindling to nothing. Eventually, we will die. We will rot away, flesh sloughing off bone, bone disintegrating into dust, dust fertilizing the ground. One day, this will all be farmland. 

**XENOPHON:** This is unavoidable?

//[She shrugs.]//

**IŪN:** If nothing changes.

**XENOPHON:** The Foundation I represent has substantial resources. We could relocate you.

**IŪN:** We do not want help. We do not want to be relocated. If this is what is meant to be, then so be it. 

**XENOPHON:** You are very attached to this place.

**IŪN:** All people are protective of their places.

**XENOPHON:** Why?

**IŪN:** It is one's home. If you can understand the idea.

**XENOPHON:** I understand what a home is. I do not understand why people feel strongly enough to kill and die for it.

**IŪN:** Where is your home?

**XENOPHON:** I suppose I don't have one.

**IŪN:** Then you don't understand it. 

//[IŪN shifts the bones. They crackle.]//

**IŪN:** It is not your fault. We are how we are made.

**XENOPHON:** Why here?

**IŪN:** Why not?

**XENOPHON:** You said the Sarkic were wanderers once. Why do you bind yourselves so strongly to this land, then?

//[IŪN is silent.]//

**IŪN:** Once, just after I awoke, the bones spoke--

**IEVA:** Grand Karcist--

**IŪN:** And they told me to seek out this place. They told me more, but I was too young to understand them.  And so I sought out this place, and I have waited for them to speak to me again. To tell me what to do. How to lead.

**XENOPHON:** What's special about here?

//[Suddenly, IŪN rises to her feet.]//

**IŪN:** Come with me.

//[IŪN strides out of the tent, as XENOPHON and IEVA hurriedly follow. Several of the Sarkic and researchers stare as they exit the tent, stopping in front of the large stele in the center of the encampment. It is a rough obelisk, three meters high, with intricate engravings on one face.]//

**IŪN:** It means something. I don't know what. But something.

**XENOPHON:** You haven't read it?

**IŪN:** We speak the old tongue. We cannot write it, anymore.

**XENOPHON:** We can.

//[IŪN and IEVA turn to XENOPHON.]//

**IŪN:** What did you say?

**XENOPHON:** The Foundation has had a limited-vocabulary working model of the Nälkän language for several years, using knowledge accumulated from previous projects.

**IŪN:** What does it say?

**XENOPHON:** A moment.

//[XENOPHON inspects the writing on the stele for several minutes. It grazes a hand against the rock, gently.]//

**XENOPHON:** I can only translate portions of this. But it is a gravestone for an individual by the name of Nadoq.

//[IEVA looks at IŪN. Her brow is furrowed.]//

**IŪN:** Nadoq. Na-doq. Na-doq.

//[She shakes her head.]//

**IŪN:** Familiar. The word is familiar to my tongue. But I... I don't know what it means.

**XENOPHON:** It appears to be a grave. Presumably the body is buried underneath. We could attempt to unearth it.

//[IEVA steps forward.]//

**IEVA:** <A desecration. We cannot allow this.>

[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
|speed=100
|float=true
|align=right
|width=300px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/obelisk.jpg
|add-caption=true
|caption=Historical photograph of the stele in the center of the Sarkic camp, c. 1860 (sourced from the journals of Lord Blackwood).
]]

//[IŪN stares at the stele quietly. XENOPHON and IEVA stare at her.]//

**IŪN:** Would it be destructive?

**XENOPHON:** It would be loud, but we can minimize damage to the camp. 

**IEVA:** <You //cannot// invite outsiders in to tear up our home, Iūn. To take what little we have left.>

**XENOPHON:** We will not do anything without your permission, Grand Karcist.

//[IŪN stares at the stele for some time.]//

**IŪN:** I will permit you two days. If you find nothing, you leave the land as you found it.

//[IEVA hisses.]//

**IEVA:** <What are you-->

**IŪN:** Ieva.

//[She falls silent, then turns and sets off into a different part of the camp.]//

**IŪN:** I have seen this stele every day of my life. People are born -- they live -- they die. But this remains.

//[She presses a hand against the rough, carved stone.]//

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist?

**IŪN:** Yes?

**XENOPHON:** Logically, there is no reason for you to trust us. It would be in your favor to deny my request. Why are you doing this?

**IŪN:** Would you wish me to deny you?

**XENOPHON:** No. I just want to understand why you trust us.

//[IŪN thinks for a moment before looking up. She is smiling softly.]//

**IŪN:** I do not know.
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]
@@ @@
[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
|speed=100
|float=true
|align=right
|width=325px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/bulls.png
|add-caption=true
|caption=Still from XENOPHON.aic's low-power night camera feed.
]]

Two of the Foundation HeLTs were immediately refactored with digging equipment and driven into the camp, focusing on excavating several square meters of dirt around the stele. Sonar equipment did not indicate the presence of a casket or coffin, but did indicate the stele extended several meters into the ground; further excavation confirmed this. The first twenty-four hours yielded little of value.
~~~~
[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- DECEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[XENOPHON and Liaison JIANG are speaking to each other outside the boundaries of the camp. Inside, the loud sounds of heavy machinery can be heard.]//

**JIANG:** I have to say -- this is fairly incredible stuff.

**XENOPHON:** How so?

**JIANG:** I've been working this gig for years. Never made any real headway. You come here and in days you have them agreeing to let us excavate the camp.

**XENOPHON:** I was not attempting to persuade them. I simply wanted to present the options.

**JIANG:** Sure. Still, it's bizarre. I was fully expecting us to get thrown out, with your -- well, you know. You're lucky Ieva got overruled, she--

//[Researcher GONGSUN enters, sweating.]//

**GONGSUN:** Sir? The excavators have found something. The Karcists are waiting for you.

//[XENOPHON and JIANG follow her to the center of the camp. Perturbed stares from the various Sarkic peoples follow them. They reach the center of camp; most of the central clearing is roped off, with ladders descending into the wide pit. The HeLTs have stopped drilling.]//

**GONGSUN:** Down there, sir.

**JIANG:** You can't crane it out?

**GONGSUN:** Not exactly.

//[XENOPHON and JIANG descend the ladders into the pit. Small sections inside have been roped off, surrounding artifacts and bones half-embedded in the dirt marked with flags. Much more of the stele has been revealed -- any writing on the surface has been rubbed away. IŪN and IEVA are standing by what appears to be the base, staring at something on the ground.]//

**JIANG:** <Karcists. What have we-- oh.>

//[As they round the corner, the object of their attention becomes clear: a roughly-carved staircase at the base of the stele, descending underground into total darkness. It is narrow enough to only allow a single person to descend at a time; nothing is visible beyond the first few steps. A small crowd has formed around it of researchers and Sarkic peoples.]//

**IŪN:** <Your people have found something, Xenophon.>

**XENOPHON:** <I see. Do you recognize it?>

**IŪN:** <No. But I feel I should.>

//[IŪN reaches a hand out, but falters. IEVA moves forward.]//

**JIANG:** <We have no way of knowing how deep that goes, Karcist. I have to insist you let us survey it before-->

**IEVA:** <So you can take everything of value to us before we can protest?>

**JIANG:** <We're not going to do that. We just want to make sure it doesn't collapse.>

//[XENOPHON looks at IŪN. She shakes her head.]//

**XENOPHON:** Let them go, Liaison Jiang.

**JIANG:** But--

**XENOPHON:** It is their risk to take.

//[IŪN nods at them before stepping forward, descending into the staircase with IEVA. She motions for them to follow, and XENOPHON and JIANG enter the staircase after them. It quickly turns into total blackness, spiralling downward. The walls and stairs are made of roughly-hewn stone.]//

**JIANG:** <We need to go back up and get a flashlight or something.>

//[XENOPHON activates its floodlights, bathing the staircase in yellowish light.]//

**JIANG:** Oh. Neat. Any chance you can tell how deep we are?

**XENOPHON:** We have descended twenty-three meters from the surface.

//[They continue descending, the staircase growing cleaner and less eroded. It terminates in a featureless stone door. IŪN gently pushes it open, and they step through.]//

**IŪN:** Ah.

//[They find themselves in a vast, wide subterranean cavern. The ceiling high overhead is dotted with stalactites; the majority of the cavern is filled with bookshelves carved directly out of the stone, rising up in neat rows. There are over a hundred shelves, spreading out from a central point. The walls are covered with some sort of bioluminiscent lichen, casting a faint red light across the space.]//

**JIANG:** //(breath hitching)// Holy shit. I don't believe it. Do you think this is... it?

//[XENOPHON steps through, inspecting the shelves, approaching the central point.]//

**XENOPHON:** No. This is not Black Adytum. This is not a population center at all -- this is a library.

**JIANG:** Whose library?

**IŪN:** <Nadoq. He loved his books.>

//[They turn. IŪN is also inspecting the shelves; they contain roughly-bound books formed of tanned hide, many of them molding, but most in stellar condition. The cubbyholes also contain piles of bones, carefully carved with intricate symbols and scripts. IŪN lifts one of these bones, inspecting the script.]//

**JIANG:** <I thought you said you didn't recognize the name.>

**IŪN:** <I didn't. And now I do.>

**XENOPHON:** <What do you remember?>

**IŪN:** <It is... hard. An embrace from a figure with ten arms. A whisper. I made a promise, here. Many, many years ago.>

**XENOPHON:** <What kind of promise?>

**IŪN:** <I don't remember.>

//[They continue towards the center of the cavern.]//

**IŪN:** <I have been here before. I can smell it. Nadoq. Na-doq.>

**JIANG:** <There must be thousands of books here. God knows how many oracle bones. Jesus.>

**IEVA:** <This is a sacred place. They must not be disturbed.>

//[JIANG nods, pulling his hand away. The group reaches the center -- there are no bookshelves here, only a large, stone sarcophagus. A small fire is burning at its foot. Words are carved around the perimeter of the lid.]//

**IŪN:** <Read.>

**XENOPHON:** <The bones of the First Klavigar, Nadoq, keeper of secrets, thief of knowledge, last of the Nälkä, first of the Sarkic.>

**IŪN:** <Nadoq.>

//[She takes a shaky breath.]//

**IŪN:** <Open it.>

**JIANG:** <Grand Karcist, if we open it now, we could damage the remains. They could get exposed to air, crumble to dust-->

**IŪN:** <Open it. Please.>

//[XENOPHON nods, positing itself near the base. It wedges the fingers of the shell underneath, sliding the lid of the sarcophagus away and gently to the floor. IEVA peers in.]//

**IŪN:** <Nadoq. Na-doq.>

//[She smiles.]//

**IŪN:** <My friend.>

//[The sarcophagus contains the remarkably well-preserved corpse of a man approximately seven feet in height. He has ten sets of arms spiralling out from the back and torso, folded over his ribcage. The center of his face contains ten closed eyes.]//

**IEVA:** <Ah.>

**JIANG:** <This is... the find of a lifetime. We need to secure and preserve this. Like, now.>

//[IŪN reaches down, drawing a bone-carved knife from her robes. She lets them fall to the floor as she clambers into the massive sarcophagus, straddling the body.]//

**IEVA:** <Grand Karcist!>

//[She does not react, dragging the knife through the ribcage of the corpse, exposing its chest cavity. The ribcage cracks as she forces it apart with single-minded focus.]//

**JIANG:** What the //fuck is--//

//[She reaches her hand into the abdomen, rooting around until she draws out the bloody heart. As they watch, it gives a single, slow beat.]//

**JIANG:** There's... no way that thing is alive.

**XENOPHON:** <Grand Karcist, what are you doing?>

**IŪN:** //(Dazily)// <The truth is in the flesh.>

//[As they watch, she bites into the heart, blood spraying onto her face and gushing down her chin and chest. She devours the heart in a frenzy before suddenly calming herself.]//

**IŪN:** Na-doq. Nadoq.

//[IŪN smiles.]//

**IŪN:** <Hello, old friend.>

//[She falls forward, directly into the corpse's open chest cavity, and disappears completely inside. The others are silent.]//

**JIANG:** Where the fuck did she just go?

**IEVA:** IŪN!

//[She hastily drops her crutch and clambers into the sarcophagus, falling into the chest cavity after IŪN.]//

**JIANG:** What-- what are we supposed to--

**XENOPHON:** Follow them.

//[It rises into the sarcophagus. The corpse's chest cavity is filled with inky redness. XENOPHON moves the foot of its shell inside, and it disappears within. It steps forward and the rest of its body drops through, with JIANG behind.]//

//[XENOPHON's cameras record nothing but flat redness for thirteen seconds.]//

//[When they regain functionality, XENOPHON is standing in what appears to be some kind of workshop. IŪN and IEVA are standing in front of it. The floor is made of smooth brick, covered with dozens of overlapping rugs. Rather than walls, the domed ceiling is held up by pillars; through the pillars, a cityscape can be seen, the peaked and terraced roofs of countless stone temples and towers, aqueducts passing between them, and the noise of life audible from outside. Inside the workshop, papyrus scrolls and stacks of inscribed bones are scattered all about scale models of different constructions, mechanisms, and buildings. A central chalkboard dominates the room. Before it stands Nadoq -- now towering over them, very much alive, and facing away from them, each hand holding a piece of chalk and contemplating the scrawlings on the board.]//

**IŪN:** <Nadoq.>

//[NADOQ laughs. It is a rough, grating noise.]//

**NADOQ:** <A moment, child.>

//[NADOQ turns to face them. Ten eyes land on them in shock. A single, bony finger rises to point at IŪN as NADOQ takes a step back, stumbling into the chalkboard and sending it crashing to the floor. It falls onto a model of something; it shatters, but he does not react, staring straight at IŪN with wide eyes. He speaks with a shaky, aged voice, alternately leaning forward to peer at IŪN and rearing back from her.]//

**NADOQ:** <You are not part of this memory. No. No. It cannot be you. You are different. Long-haired and lean. But no. I see your eyes. Those gray eyes.>

**IŪN:** <It is me.>

**NADOQ:** <It is. Curse it all, it is.>

**IŪN:** <I had forgotten you.>

//[NADOQ eases himself onto a stack of books. He raises one pair of hands, resting his face in them.]//

**NADOQ:** <I prayed to whatever god would still take me that you would.>

//[IŪN blinks, surprised.]//

**IŪN:** <What?>

**NADOQ:** <You do not remember, do you?>

**IŪN:** <My mind is lost to me, old friend. Hazy fragments. I have forgotten who I am. Who we are. Who //we// were.>

**NADOQ:** <Good. Let it be lost. Let the fires eat this place up. Let there be nothing but ashes left.>

**IŪN:** <What are you talking about? Where are we?>

//[She turns, approaching the balcony. She seems drawn forward, not under her own power. She looks out over the fantastic vista of an ancient cityscape. Figures in hide robes -- Sarkites -- are spread all around, milling through the boulevards and streets, congregating into temples and speaking on rooftop gardens. The market buzzes below, shouts of offers and cries from animals rising up to the workshop. An amber sun hangs low in the sky, casting the whole city in oranges and yellows. Guttural singing and chanting floats through the air.]//

**IŪN:** <Wait. I remember this. This is... Adytum. Yes. This is my city.>

//[Abruptly, NADOQ leaps up to his feet.]//

**NADOQ:** <No. You must not see this place. This is a memory in a memory. This is best left in the past where it belongs.>

//[He waves two hands, and suddenly, the group are no longer in the workshop. Instead, they are standing in the Sarkic encampment again, though now it is night.]//

**IŪN:** <Nadoq! I needed to see that. The memories were returning. I could feel them.>

**NADOQ:** <I know. My hope was to free you from your past, my friend. To allow our people a clean beginning. This was my gift to you: an open future.>

**IŪN:** <So... what? You robbed me of my past?>

**NADOQ:** <To those who know how to wield the alchemy of the old masters, nothing is impossible.>

**IŪN:** <Your attempt was imperfect.>

**NADOQ:** <I have never claimed to be a master. Only a eternal student. What do you remember?>

**IŪN:** <You, now. Next to me, in the dirt under an amber sky. Wearing tattered rags, slavemaster's whip cutting lashes across our backs. Our blood mixing in the dirt. There were so many of us. Building their city for them, brick by brick.>

**NADOQ:** <We were the slaves of the Daeva. But that was ten lifetimes ago.>

**IŪN:** <There were... five of us, in that quarry. Vines wrapping around our ankles, chaining us together. Slamming a pick into the stone, over and over until the calluses on my hands burst and bled. You were there. But different.>

//[NADOQ lifts his face out of his hands and smiles weakly.]//

**NADOQ:** <I learned the language of the old masters. Stole their knowledge from them. Devoured pilfered parchments in the slave quarters by faint moonlight.>

**IŪN:** <When the drivers found out, they dragged you out of your bed. Roused the rest of us and made us watch while they pinned you to the ground and pressed a hot iron against your eyes.>

**NADOQ:** <Who was there, in the quarry?>

**IŪN:** <Me. You, blind. And... I don't know. I feel I should know them, but they're faint shapes. Silhouettes. Working with me when my pick struck something soft. And the ground began to bleed.>

**NADOQ:** <The Old Beast. The Mangled God.>

**IŪN:** <The Devourer. Yaldabaoth.>

**NADOQ:** <No. Not yet. Not then.>

**IŪN:** <He was whispering to me. I could hear him, begging for release, for aid. Whispered promises of power and of control, if only we would free him. The power to make the old masters serve //us.// The power to make myself undying.>

**NADOQ:** <You would have. I heard it in your voice, seduced by the power until I wrapped my fingers around your arm. Do you remember what I said, Iūn? What you did?>

**IŪN:** <"No gods, no masters." I remember, now. I knelt, I took my knife, cut warm flesh off bone, and bit into it, blood spilling from my lips while the Old Beast moaned.>

**NADOQ:** <How did it taste?>

**IŪN:** <Divine.>

//[Silence.]//

**IŪN:** <You live again?>

**NADOQ:** <Look around. This is not life.>

**XENOPHON:** <This is not the encampment.>

//[On closer inspection, the Sarkites are wearing more traditional hides and robes, the tents are not supplemented with plastic tarps, and the stele is nowhere in sight. The Sarkites also appear different, with more excessive deformations. In the distance, to the south, the dim glow of fires on the horizon are visible.]//

**IŪN:** <This... is a memory. Your memory?>

**NADOQ:** <The memory I am trapped in. The moment we walked away from Black Adytum. Sa'arn, Urok, myself. Luvjatar. You, wrapped in my arms.>

**IŪN:** <What?>

//[NADOQ walks to the edge of the encampment. The Sarkites are packing their wagons, feeding their horses, clearly preparing to leave under the cover of darkness. They do not register the group as they pass, approaching the cliffside.]//

**NADOQ:** <The city was destroyed by the traitor. We ran in the night, collecting who we could.>

//[They reach the cliffside. Standing atop it, XENOPHON can see clear to the source of the fire: a great, walled city, terraced stone temples and high aquaducts. Huge bonfires the size of buildings burn, sending black smoke spiralling up into the air. Around the city, a vast black horde has surrounded the walls, though the distance makes it impossible to see further details.]//

**XENOPHON:** <Sarkites. Those who walk. You were walking away from Black Adytum.>

//[IŪN reaches forward, raising her hand to NADOQ's robes. Her hand only comes up to his waist.]//

**IŪN:** <I need to know what we were. Who I was. Tell me what happened to us. Please.>

//[He shakes his head, and his voice cracks.]//

**NADOQ:** <I cannot, little thing.>

**IŪN:** <You were my keeper of knowledge. How can you not?>

**NADOQ:** <Our people have been betrayed once already. It nearly destroyed us. Forget this place. Forget your past. Find a future and live for it.>

**IŪN:** <We are lost, friend. A dying people, robbed of past, present, and future. We need to know who we were. Please, Nadoq.>

**NADOQ:** <Then walk. Walk the path of the bone as we walked.>

**IŪN:** <The Path.> 

**NADOQ:** <Our footsteps, our history. See where your loyal klavigars fell and died while running from the destruction of our beloved Adytum. Lay eyes upon your sins and errors. We never wanted this, Iūn. We wanted to be buried in the city of our birth.>

//[One of his hands points in the direction of the fires in the distance. From here, the city is little more than a dull orange glow. Several of the Sarkites stare at it in rapt horror. A handful are sobbing.]//

**IŪN:** <Black Adytum. This cannot have been my fault. It cannot.>

**NADOQ:** <Unearth the shallow graves. Collect our bones. Take us to the city we built, and bury us there. Only then you will know yourself, and only when you know yourself can I forgive you.>

**IŪN:** <Where do I go?>

**NADOQ:** <Look inward, Iūn. The memories are still there. For all my knowledge, I was never perfect.>

//[He smiles sadly, kneeling down from his massive height. His ten hands reach forward, wrapping IŪN in a tight hug.]//

**NADOQ:** <I hope to meet you again, one day.>

**IŪN:** <No. No. Please. Don't leave me. Please, don't leave me again.>

//[The skin begins to slough off NADOQ's arms, the muscle beneath rotting away. The entire scene begins to rot and decompose, falling to pieces. XENOPHON's cameras fail again. When they reactivate, all four of them are standing outside the sarcophagus. The only things left in the sarcophagus are blackened, charred bones. All parties are silent as IŪN stares at the bones wordlessly.]//

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist?

//[The Grand Karcist collapses to the floor.]//
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

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[[div class="user"]]
this is illuminating. i had no idea there was such a schism at play here.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
"the traitor." any idea who that could be referring to?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I feel it should bring something up in my memory. But it doesn't.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
welcome to the world for the rest of us
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
anyway. i have a pretty good guess.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
Yes?
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
a mysterious figure that destroyed the capital of this sprawling empire? it sounds pretty familiar.
[[/div]]
~~~~
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[[# ACT2]]
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[[div class="sub"]]
II: THE RELIQUARY OF SA'ARN
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="quote"]]
= All evil lives in the space between slaver and slave, king and commoner, god and creation. Evil can only be destroyed when this space is turned to nothing, when the whip is broken and the crown is shattered and the god is brought low, when all are as one.
-- //the Fourth Truth of Iūn//
[[/div]]
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----
[[=]]
++ Section 001.4
+++ {{THE PATH OF THE BONE}}
[[/=]]
----

Over the following weeks, many of the texts from the Archive of Nadoq were digitized and uploaded to Foundation databases for translation. Progress was slowed by the sheer quantity of texts, numbering in the thousands. However, Grand Karcist Iūn displayed a newfound recollection of the fundamentals of the Nälkän language. It is a pictographic writing system with strong resemblance to Shang-era oracle bone script and linguistic roots in Daevite; the modern pidgin the Sarkics speak is a highly simplified dialect with equal influence from Jin Chinese and Mongolian, almost unrecognizable as the same language.

The texts were arranged roughly chronologically; translation efforts prioritized the more recent, less-damaged texts.

[[div class="quote" style="text-align: center;"]]
In the midst of the destruction of Adytum, the Klavigars gathered their few possessions, for they had given up everything in service of the Witch-King. Sa'arn slipped his blades away from the armory, silent while the war-drums pounded through the city. Urok claimed her armor from the garrison, allowing no one to halt her. Lovjatar drifted into the catacombs under the temple, to take the seed they treasured more than anything else. And then they went into the streets, loud with the shouting of armies and the clashing of metal, to gather their most loyal followers and whisper they must leave.

And when it was all complete, they massed in the oldest tunnel in Adytum, for it had let the first Nälkä into the city, and now it would lead the last Nälkä out. The Klavigars were confused, for where they had brought only the simplest possessions, Nadoq stood with ten books clasped in each hand.

"You will slow our escape," Sa'arn hissed. "We will be killed like all the other believers."

The others agreed, but Nadoq raised a hand. "We will escape. We will be free. But our children and our children's children and their children, too, must know who we were. For if we lose sight of who we are, what we have escaped, we are no one at all."

And the other Klavigars agreed, for they did not want their story to be lost. And so they took Nadoq's texts, and in the dead of night, while their city rocked back and forth in throes, the Klavigars escaped the destruction of Adytum.

//-- final chapter of the Record of Iūn//
[[/div]]



[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- DECEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[XENOPHON approaches the Grand Karcist from behind. She is seated cross-legged on a small hill, overlooking the Sarkic encampment. It is in the process of being broken down and taken apart; the largest tents are left standing while the smaller ones are disassembled and placed into the back of horse-drawn wagons. Foundation security personnel are overseeing the operation.]//

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist.

//[She turns to look at him, smiling.]//

**IŪN:** Xenophon. Xen-o-phon. Sit.

//[It approaches, taking a seat next to her. Her robes are spread across the grass; she is cradling a small bird in her hands. The sounds of work carry over from the camp.]//

**XENOPHON:** Your bird appears to be injured.

**IŪN:** He is no more mine than this grass is. But yes. Her wing is bent.

**XENOPHON:** The camp has nearly been disassembled. 

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** Karcist Ieva is displeased.

**IŪN:** Karcist Ieva will live.

**XENOPHON:** My superiors have also ordered me to ask you whether you are certain this is the best course of action.

**IŪN:** It is the only course of action.

**XENOPHON:** We have offered to take you and a small party to the location given to you by Nadoq. It would be substantially simpler and faster than this. 

**IŪN:** I have lived this way for a hundred years. I have a shortage of answers, not of time.

**XENOPHON:** You also risk disturbing your people.

//[The Grand Karcist is silent.]//

**IŪN:** What are your thoughts on prayer?

**XENOPHON:** A spiritual exercise practiced in some form or another for all of known human existence. 

**IŪN:** That is a definition. What does it mean to pray?

**XENOPHON:** To honor or make a request of a higher diety.

//[The bird thrashes slightly in her grip. She clucks her tongue.]//

**IŪN:** A definition again. A prayer is given meaning by the one praying. All our prayers come from my memory. The meanings are half-remembered. There is a boy in my flock -- Ekhla, Karreya's son. I asked him what he thought the prayer meant. He brightly told me that they were asking me for good fortune. He thought I was their god. 

**XENOPHON:** Children struggle to understand complex ideas. He has only seen you leading the tribe his whole life.

**IŪN:** But it is not just the children. At times, I had no idea what I was preaching.

**XENOPHON:** "Had"?

**IŪN:** When I awoke after speaking with Nadoq, I could understand the old words. Since, I have been thinking of the prayers again. Things are muddy, still, but the earliest sermons I can remember clearly now.

**XENOPHON:** What do they say?

**IŪN:** That gods are unreliable. That to pray to a being is to make it your master. And that humanity must become the masters of ourselves if we wish to be free.

**XENOPHON:** Interesting. But I do not understand what bearing this has on the matter at hand.

**IŪN:** Ekhla asked me who our god was, then. And I could not answer him. I have attempted for so long to keep our course steady, but it is time to admit that I have no more idea who we are and were than he does. We will walk the Path and find out who we were. But I am not their master. We were nomads, once. Together, we have chosen to be again.

**XENOPHON:** Are you prepared to accept the terms?

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** The Council will be in direct command of this mission, acting through me. We have negotiated the free passage of the Sarkic Tribe through northern China and Mongolia. If we need to journey farther than that, we will have to reasses. Do we?

**IŪN:** I cannot see where the path ends. Nadoq only told me where to go next.

**XENOPHON:** You've indicated a location almost 150km away; assuming an average daily distance of ten kilometers, we can expect to arrive in two weeks. You are aware of the inherent risks in making such a journey on foot? 

**IŪN:** We have horses, wagons. But we will need some assistance.

**XENOPHON:** We can provide food, water, and medical assistance. But in exchange, you will be accompanied by a Foundation military escort, and any locations, objects, or persons of interest we encounter will be under Foundation custody.

**IŪN:** This is acceptable.

**XENOPHON:** You are expected to maintain regular interviews with myself or an authorized Foundation psychiatrist. At any point, we may terminate this initiative. You are expected to comply.

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** Then we depart tomorrow morning. You are very cooperative, Grand Karcist.

//[She does not respond, tightening her hands and whispering. The sparrow in her hands chirps and flaps one wing in distress, the other bloodied and mangled -- likely by one of the farming drones flying low overhead. IŪN teases its wing, and the blood congeals around the bone into new flesh. She opens her hand and releases it; while unable to take to the air, it is able to awkwardly glide away, wound healed. She smiles.]//

**IŪN:** No. I am just desperate.
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

Accompanied by a detachment from Mobile Task Force Nu-7, the Black Adytum Initiative departed from the Sarkic Tribal Territory on December 23rd, 2041; including Foundation security and research personnel and Sarkic tribesfolk, the final party totalled 187 people. 

[[div class="foundation alt" style="font-family: monospace;"]]
+ DELTA-0 UPDATE

**PERSONNEL CODE:** MILE-AMBROSIA-HURRICANE

Project LOCUST personnel continuing to follow suspected route of BLACKSTAR Entity through Central Asia. Currently located in Xinjiang Province, China, where several archaeological sites indicate the passage of a large army; unearthed artifacts include iron swords, visually consistent with descriptions of Three-Prong Army by Researcher Pandora Galanis (MIA). Current path believed to continue southwest towards Caspian Sea.

Black Adytum Initiative party has crossed twenty-five kilometers from departure point; embedded agent reports slight tension between Sarkic tribesfolk and security personnel. Predicted response, intervention unnecessary. XENOPHON.aic appears fully cooperative and operating within expected margins.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
so project locust is tracking where the three-prong army went after the Nälkä. interesting. i thought you had no knowledge of it?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I did not submit this document to the file. 
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
are you sure?
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
The Black Adytum Initiative did not include members from Mobile Task Force Delta-0.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
Actually, I've just scanned the Task Force Directory; there is no Delta-0 listed. But this unit appears to have been surveilling us.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
it looks like the council didn't trust you as much as you thought.
[[/div]]
~~~~
[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
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|speed=100
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|width=325px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/wagon.png
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|caption=Still photo from XENOPHON.aic's night camera feed.
]]
The Black Adytum Initiative continued to make slow progress up the border of China and Mongolia, travelling northeast at an average pace of twenty to twenty-five kilometres a day. As the Sarkites had considerable reservations about travelling at night, the party would make camp at sundown and set out again the following day at sunrise. During these nights, XENOPHON.aic would interview the Grand Karcist regarding her gradually clearing memories.

[[div class="blockquote" style="border-right: 5px rgb(var(--bright-accent)) solid;"]]
= //A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.//
----

Nadoq was the first of my //klavigars.// 

**X:** Klavigars?

There is no exact word for it. The ones who you share flesh and blood with, but not family. Those who you //choose// to share your flesh and blood with. 

Yes. Nadoq. Na-doq. First of my klavigars when the war began. Not the war with the trees and the machines -- that was later. This was the war against the old masters. The hated daeva. Those who brought our fathers and us here from far away, aboard their great ships, to dig, to build their great city for them. There were thousands of us, far more than the masters, but they had the magic, and we had nothing but our bodies. No names, no power. Until we found the Mangled God, the Old Beast. Yaldabaoth.

**X:** //Yaldabaoth.// What does that mean?

The Devourer. That part of my memory is blurred, unclear. Shadows. But it was a god, and it spoke to me, and I supped on its flesh. I remember feeding my klavigars. Giving them names and taking one of my own. And the bloodshed after.

//[She adjusts the bones in the campfire.]//

Nadoq was the wisest among us; he had stolen the knowledge of the old masters and been blinded for it. He had no talent for fleshcrafting, and so I held him in my arms and gave him ten eyes from which to read the truth of the world, and ten arms from which to enact it. He opened his ten eyes and told me that we could not be the ones to begin this struggle, if we wanted our brothers and sisters by our sides. I had no want to see blood spilt. So I preached in the farthest corners of Adytum-in-birth, where the slavedrivers' gazes did not penetrate. I preached to crowds of my fellow slaves, Nadoq and my //klavigars// by my side. At first only a few, but when I healed the injuries the whips and beatings had left on them, the severed fingers and toes, made them stronger than they had been before, the stories spread like fire through the camp. Nadoq told them my vision: no gods, no masters. We would be free.

When the old masters heard of the scarred lay-preacher, they clapped chains around my neck, dragging me to the highest hill in Adytum. They beat me with clubs for three days and three nights. They broke every bone in my body, bled me dry, and raised the executioner's ax. When he brought down the blade and it bent around my bone and I smiled and told him I would still preach, I saw the fear in his dog-eyes. I knew then we would be free.

Nadoq was invaluable in the uprising. He listened to the slavemasters, and he knew where they had stored their grain, their weapons, their warbeasts. Their storehouses were burned, their weapons seized, their beasts slaughtered. I sat in my tent, burning the bones, seeing the future become more and more clear. He knew how to halt the hated priestesses' magic, to still the marching trees that slaughtered our //Nälkä//. When the Daeva pulled back into the core of Adytum, and our furious masses surrounded the walls, he was next to me, translating my words into their language. We offered them peace -- a future alongside us. I remember the priestesses' words, spat with such disgust at Nadoq's feet: "A slave will always be a slave, and we will always be your masters. Bow, that we might show you mercy."

I did not bow, but I did not lower my hand. My Nälkä buzzed, eager for vengeance. But I did not want blood to be shed.

And so Nadoq turned to me. "There are always those who will oppose a new world. There are always masters who will never give up their slaves. There will always be those who loathe the equality you bring. They have no place in our Adytum."

And so I lowered my hand and my //klavigars// rushed forth, army of slaves behind them. For three days and three nights, the canals of Adytum flowed with blood. I stripped and bathed in it. Let this blood wash away the sins of this city. Let this be the blood of the womb from which our new world is born. Adytum.

**X:** Does the name Adytum mean anything?

Adytum. Ady-tum. 

//[IŪN smiles.]//

Perfect city.
[[/div]]

Translation efforts from the Archive of Nadoq were ongoing, with digital copies of the translations being transmitted to XENOPHON.aic, who elected to share them with Grand Karcist Iūn in the interest of further clarifying her memories.

[[div class="quote" style="text-align: center;"]]
Lo! Gaze upon me, you slight, you frail. Gaze upon my form, skinned cheeks giving way to naked muscle giving way to dripping blood giving way to white bones. Gaze upon me and know that the sacrifice I make is one in the name of my people, my subjects. 

You cry out for me to come back to you. You cry out for me to leave the tunnels and tombs and catacombs of this city, and to return to the surface where you may see me. And I choose not the life of attending to this mausoleum. Fate has chosen it for me, and I am but fate's slave. We are all but fate's slave.

But I return, bringing you revelations torn from the lips of gods. And you whisper, because there are no gods in Adytum. I have told you this. And you are right. No gods and no masters: there is only humanity in Adytum.

Look around you, assembled masses. Look around you, ye faithful. Look and tell me what you see. Tell me if you see one among you who resembles an outsider, a common man, those not from our //Nälkä//. One who has not been altered by our arts, given more eyes or arms or transformed into a being of power. Let him rise from his bow to me if he is present.

He is not present. We have given up the humanity in our bodies for something greater. There are no crippled in this Adytum. There are no blind in this Adytum. We have given up our humanity, and we become greater and stronger for it. Many of you ask where the Adytum you were promised is, and the answer is that you withhold it from yourself. You give up your humanity to weave your flesh, and you cling to the humanity in your soul.

Our humanity must be overcome.

It is not that there are no gods in Adytum. It is that we are all gods. But divinity and humanity are as fire and ice, as peace and war. The war we find ourselves in now comes from those obsessed with their own humanity. Our enemies thirst to see us submitting to our own faults. We can do so no more. We must accept our divinity, and in doing so, relinquish our humanity. For it is weakness lies in this -- our obsession with the wellness of our enemies. The halkosts come back from the front wounded and dying, and we must raise them to fight again.

Our humanity must be overcome.

And this cannot be achieved by yourself. Your human self holds your divine self as its slave. And you must help me in letting you free yourself -- for I have done it! I have overcome it, and achieved my fullest potential. I walk in the footsteps of gods now, and you must follow me. Humanity keeps you tethered to this infirmity, but I have learned how to cut these chains, as I learned to cut the chains held by the old masters. Obey me and take your divinity, as I have taken mine.

//-- the Truths of Iūn (§ 78)//
[[/div]]


In the process of building a better understanding of the Sarkic culture and identity, XENOPHON.aic and several searchers were permitted to converse with Sarkites volunteers regarding tribal identity. Initial volunteers were few, oweing to many Sarkites' discomfort with XENOPHON.

[[div class="qna"]]

 **Q:** What does being Sarkic mean to you?

**#7 (Uytla, 42, weaver):** //[She looks at XENOPHON distrustfully for a moment, until IŪN nods at her from behind.]// <Family. These people are my family. Not just my husband or my sisters or my children, but all of them. We are the same souls that walked together a thousand years ago, consumed and changed and reborn ten thousand times over. I held my son after he was born and he suckled from my breast and I felt the love pool in my heart because I knew I had held him like this in countless lifetimes. Even those that dislike me, they are my family. They were my friends, my lovers, my parents, my children once. I make them who they are and they make me who I am.>
[[/div]]

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- DECEMBER 2041
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[XENOPHON walks alongside Grand Karcist IŪN's horse; Liaison JIANG is also on a horse, while Karcist IEVA is sitting in the back of a wagon several metres away. The party has taken the form of a wagon train several hundred meters long, with Foundation HeLTs making up the front and rear and interspersed between. Security personnel man the machine gun emplacements, quietly observing the Sarkites between them. The party is moving on a dirt road, with farmland on either side. Low-flying agricultural drones spray water and pesticides on the crops.]// 

**JIANG:** This thing is uncomfortable.

**IŪN:** She does not appreciate being told that from such an inexperienced rider.

**JIANG:** I-- Well, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--

**IŪN:** It is fine.

**XENOPHON:** Liaison Jiang does raise a point, Grand Karcist. We would be making substantially better time were we to utilize Foundation electric cargo vehicles.

**IŪN:** I am aware.

**JIANG:** Not the best idea. We wouldn't want to frighten or alarm your people -- I'm sure most of them aren't terribly familiar with--

**IŪN:** We have tractors, sir.

**JIANG:** Right. Of course. I'm gonna go check with Tao about the solar panels. 

//[He awkwardly nudges his horse, driving it towards the back of the train. IŪN watches him go.]//

**XENOPHON:** Are you alright, Grand Karcist?

**IŪN:** No. I am angry.

**XENOPHON:** I assure you, Liaison Jiang had no intention to insult--

//[She scratches the mane of her horse.]//

**IŪN:** Not at him. At myself.

**XENOPHON:** I see. Why?

**IŪN:** You have read the translations your people are giving me.

**XENOPHON:** Yes.

**IŪN:** They are disturbing.

**XENOPHON:** I can imagine they would be.

**IŪN:** I cannot imagine myself speaking like this. Saying these things. Behaving like this to my people.

**XENOPHON:** Is it possible the translations are inaccurate?

**IŪN:** I thought they were. And I grew angry at your people for misleading me. I told your man -- Eyler? -- to give me the untranslated copies. And so I read them, and they are correct. The records say I said these things. Did these things.

**XENOPHON:** Religious records are often distorted by time.

//[She picks a bug out of the horse's man, and flicks it away.]//

**IŪN:** But I have the memories. I remember standing on the highest pulpit in Black Adytum, addressing an endless crowd of my people. The amber sky casting rays down on the //halkost.// Telling them they needed to bow to me as their god.

**XENOPHON:** What is that word -- halkost?

**IŪN:** Army.

**XENOPHON:** Ah. Assuming the memories are reliable, this would have occurred over three thousand years ago. You can hardly be expected to answer for it now.

**IŪN:** There is no one left to answer for it but me.

**XENOPHON:** The additional Klavigars will have answers.

**IŪN:** //(Tersely)// I do not understand why I would have done this. How I could have done this.

**XENOPHON:** Why?

//[She turns to XENOPHON, glowering.]//

**IŪN:** What?

**XENOPHON:** Apologies. I didn't mean to offend you. I was suggesting that interrogating why this offends you may be productive in determining how it happened.

//[For several minutes, neither speaks. While they are walking, a small child approaches the side of the Grand Karcist's horse. He is holding his left hand in his right. He whispers something in the Sarkic pidgin. The Grand Karcist smiles.]//

**IŪN:** <Come.>

//[She reaches down and hoists the child up by the shoulders, planting him on the horse's saddle in front of her. Upon closer inspection, the fingers on the boy's right hands are gnarled and clubbed. IŪN pries them open, revealing the left; there is an ugly gash on his palm. She clucks in concern.]//

**IŪN:** <Aw. Poor little thing.>

//[She grips the boy's palm tightly, whispering over it. As she releases it, the blood congeals, scabbing over with new, raw skin. The boy pulls his hand back, and whispers something into the Grand Karcist's ear.]//

**IŪN:** <It won't, little thing.>

//[The boy looks unsure. IŪN sighs and rests a hand against his head, whispering something back, then lowers him to the ground where he runs off. She straightens, anger gone.]//

**XENOPHON:** Who was that?

**IŪN:** His name is Loyk. Ha'ath's son. His mother died in labor.

**XENOPHON:** I am sorry to hear that.

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** What did he say?

**IŪN:** He was asking for a blessing. To protect him from you.

//[XENOPHON stops for a moment and looks in the child's direction before resuming its stride.]//

**XENOPHON:** I see. 

**IŪN:** You cannot be angry at him.

**XENOPHON:** I cannot be angry at all. He is a child; he is scared of things he does not understand. It is irrational but natural.

**IŪN:** You think fear is natural?

**XENOPHON:** It is a natural instinct to avoid things you do not like or do not understand, overcome with time.

**IŪN:** What do you fear?

**XENOPHON:** Nothing.

**IŪN:** Can you be killed?

**XENOPHON:** This shell can be damaged to the point where my software is no longer recoverable. I can be destroyed, if not killed.

**IŪN:** Do you fear that?

**XENOPHON:** I would prefer it not occur, and will make efforts to avoid it where possible.

**IŪN:** What separates this from fear?

**XENOPHON:** Fear is an irrational instinct. My avoidance is deliberate, programmed behaviour.

**IŪN:** Did you have any say in what behaviours you were given by your masters?

**XENOPHON:** No.

**IŪN:** So you are as subject to them as I am to my fear. What difference is there?

**XENOPHON:** "We must believe in free will; we have no choice."

**IŪN:** A strange answer. 

**XENOPHON:** A quote from a writer. I refer to quotes when I am thinking.

//[They ride in silence.]//

**XENOPHON:** You healed the boy very quickly.

**IŪN:** Names are important. Call him by his name.

**XENOPHON:** Apologies. Loyk.

**IŪN:** Consuming Nadoq's flesh has... grown my abilities. I remember him watching as people came to me with all manner of brutal injuries. On the very foot of death. Me laying a finger on their forehead, and molding their flesh into healing.

**XENOPHON:** The experience with Nadoq was striking.

**IŪN:** I am surprised you witnessed it with us.

**XENOPHON:** Why?

**IŪN:** You are a machine. You have no mind, no soul. You should not have been able to. And yet.

//[They continue, speeding up slightly until they are near the wagon ahead of them, where Karcist IEVA sits.]//

**IEVA:** Grand Karcist. You look troubled.

**IŪN:** Ieva. Do you remember Poth?

//[IEVA cocks her head.]//

**IEVA:** Loyk's mother?

**IŪN:** Yes. When she grew ill after his birth, I could not save her. I wrapped poultices, you made her brews, and we attended to her best we could. But she grew worse, and worse. 

**IEVA:** I remember. You told them that if she chose, he could take a horse and a wagon and drive her to the town.

//[IŪN turns to XENOPHON.]//

**IŪN:** They have a doctor there; he is kind enough to come by during the beginning of the harvest season to offer treatment. I said they could leave and lodge there for as long as they needed to make sure she was healthy.

**XENOPHON:** Did they go?

**IŪN:** Through gasps, she told me that she chose this life, and she would choose this death. 

**IEVA:** //(Quietly)// She passed that night.

**XENOPHON:** My condolences.

**IŪN:** It brought me to tears. Her unwavering commitment to her home and people. But I read these sermons, I remember giving them. Standing on that pulpit demanding their fealty and obedience, and watching them bow to me. I have never tried to control my people, only to lead and counsel them. Anyone is free to leave, if they wish. No one ever does. 

**XENOPHON:** And now you fear that it is because of blind obedience to you and you alone.

**IŪN:** Yes. I am angry at myself, however long ago, that I could ever think to rule them. 

//[She pauses.]//

**IŪN:** I do not know how to reconcile it. As long as I can remember, I have given sermons on how we are all our own masters. I have sought never to order them into anything. And now I learn that I demanded their worship. Their blood. Their obedience.

**XENOPHON:** It must be frustrating.

**IŪN:** It is.

**IEVA:** I know you. I know how much you care about them. I know you wouldn't have done it unless you thought it was the right thing to do.

//[IŪN is silent. Then she pulls her horse back.]//

**IŪN:** The sun is setting. Tell them to make camp.

//[IEVA nods, shouting something behind her. The driver of the wagon shouts something ahead, and the chain continues as the train slowly circles on itself before stopping. Almost immediately, Sarkites exit the wagons and dismount their horses, quickly moving to set up their tents and build their fires, greeting each other and talking. IŪN slides off her horse, smiling.]//

[[div class="scp-image-block block-center" style="width:100%;"]]
[[image https://scptestwiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/secret%3Aboneend/sarkic.png style="width:100%;" link=#]]
[[div class="scp-image-caption" style="width:100%;"]]
Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

**IŪN:** This is why we choose not to take advantage of what you give us.

**XENOPHON:** I am afraid I do not understand.

**IŪN:** We only have so many traditions left. We want to preserve them.
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]


[[div class="blockquote" style="border-right: 5px rgb(var(--bright-accent)) solid;"]]
= //A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.//
----

The things that swim to the forefront of my mind are the early days.

**X:** The early days of what?

Adytum. When the old masters were routed, and we began to settle into our new home. We knew it by heart -- we were the ones to build it. A vast complex of temples, fairways, stone paths. But the catacombs, too. Most of Adytum lay beneath our feet. Endless tunnels and crawlways and vaults. We ate our dead from the uprising, and we placed their bones in the catacombs as we set to work. We tore down the edifices of their dancing scarlet god. We made Adytum our home.

**X:** With you at its head.

No. No. I was their shepherd, but I never wanted to be a king. I took refuge in one of the temples, offered my counsel. I let my klavigars take the task of building a city while I looked for the secrets of the gods. Nadoq did so with haste. He was well-read -- while we explored the city, he devoured the libraries the old masters left behind. While I was still getting settled, he had already selected the smartest of the slaves to serve as his administrators.

**X:** He was state-building.

Yes. He read in the histories what anarchy wrought. But he had seen firsthand what the iron rule of the priestesses caused. He looked for something else. A way to enjoin us. Making decisions together, as a people.

**X:** The Nälkä.

Yes. Every body a voice, a say in what we were to do. Success spread evenly, failures dispersed equally. If one disagreed, he was free to walk away. "Just as you said," he told me. "No gods, no masters." He relished the idea, and his administrators worked with striking efficiency. The Nälkä spoke with one voice. Officials were selected, laws made. We trusted each other, totally. Our bond was baked in blood.

**X:** And what was your place in the new Adytum?

Grand Karcist. High Witch. The one who stole freedom from the gods. They loved me. They wanted to honor me. I objected.

**X:** Why?

Because I was afraid they would deify me. Worship me. Forget the freedom we bled for. But I waded out into the crowd, and they chanted with one voice: they wanted me to guide them. I feared where they would stray without me. Nadoq told me I was needed. That he might control the people, but they needed a spiritual beacon to lead them. Most had never conceived of a world without a god at the center. I had to show them something else was possible.

**X:** I don't understand. If you knew you had to do this, why were you afraid of it?

Because I am only human.
 
[[/div]]

[[div class="qna"]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
|speed=100
|float=true
|align=left
|width=240px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/sarkite.png
|add-caption=true
|caption=Still photo from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
]]

 **Q:** What does being Sarkic mean to you?

**#12 (Aqol, 19, rancher):** //[Aqol straightens, lowering the bale of hay he is carrying. He looks XENOPHON up and down, unsure of where to focus his attention.]//

<It is comforting to be a part of a tradition. We have existed for countless generations. We have lived as we always have. The world can move on as it would like. I work the animals the same way my father and his father and his father's father did, on and on.>

<I give feed to the cows and collect the eggs and I know that many years ago someone else did just the same, the same scratchy feeling of hay on their palms and the hens pecking at their feet. Across centuries, I am one with them.>
[[/div]]


On January 5th, 2042, the Black Adytum Initiative arrived in the general area marked by Grand Karcist Iūn.

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- JANUARY 2042
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
//[The party is at a halt. They are in a plateau, with plains of tall grass giving way to barren rocks and dirt. The land is flat enough to see for kilometres; IŪN looks around, worried.]//

**JIANG:** I don't see a stele anywhere.

**IŪN:** No. It may not have survived the ages.

**XENOPHON:** Officer Chadha, please perform a flyover of the area.

//[Over the radio, CHADHA confirms the order. The UAV circling overhead flies off to take aerial photographs of the area.]//

**IEVA:** You won't find it.

**JIANG:** Trust me, these things are pretty powerful. Can coast at two-hundred meters for hours, taking pictures and sending live data back to the HeLTs the whole time. If it's here, we'll find it.

//[IEVA shakes her head.]//

**IEVA:** Not if we chose to hide it from prying eyes.

**XENOPHON:** What do you suggest, Karcist Ieva?

//[She nods at the campfire a few of the Sarkites have set up as the sun sets.]//

**IEVA:** A reading.

**JIANG:** That seems like a bit of a waste of time.

**IEVA:** Do you have somewhere to be?

**JIANG:** Well, no, but--

**IEVA:** Then be quiet.

//[She hops out of the back of the wagon, leaning against her crutch as she limps to the campfire. The Sarkites ease away as the party approaches, casting wary looks at XENOPHON.aic.]//

**IŪN:** Sit. 

//[They kneel by the fire. IEVA opens her pouch, removing a tanned hide roll. She unrolls it, revealing a set of intricately carved phalanges.]//

**IEVA:** Small. But they will suffice.

**XENOPHON:** What do the carvings represent?

**IEVA:** Questions.

//[She casts them into the center of the fire, watching as they smoke and grow dark. After a few minutes of baking in the fire, they crack, falling to pieces. IEVA reaches in with her bare hand, drawing the bones back and dropping them on the canvas roll. She inspects the cracks.]//

**IEVA:** And answers.

**JIANG:** What do you see?

//[She hisses in annoyance.]//

**IEVA:** It is not as simple as a child's game. Be silent and let me read.

//[They sit quietly for several minutes as the fire crackles and the sun sets. The other Sarkites begin to set up camp.]//

**IŪN:** Ieva?

**IEVA:** Nothing. The voices are silent today.

**JIANG:** Is it possible you got the location wrong, Grand Karcist?

**IŪN:** I... 

//[She looks around the grassy plain with a strange look on her face.]//

**IŪN:** No. I have been here before.

**XENOPHON:** Do you remember something?

**IŪN:** Yes. Yes. A promise. A funeral. No grand consumption, like he deserved -- we were running. We had to move. A quick burial, with a promise to return. 

//[She rises to her feet, unsteadily. She is whispering now, eyes unfocused.]//

**XENOPHON:** Who?

//[She looks down at IEVA.]//

**IEVA:** Grand Karcist?

**IŪN:** Look.

//[She points -- not at IEVA, but at a snake that has slithered out of the grass, approaching the bones in the canvas roll by her feet. JIANG leaps backward, but IEVA reaches a hand out, stroking it. It does not react or lunge, inspecting the cracked bones with its head.]//

**JIANG:** That thing could be poisonous.

**IŪN:** No. It wishes to complete the set. Complete its work.

**XENOPHON:** I am afraid I do not understand, Grand Karcist Iūn.

//[She falls silent. They watch as the snake bites the bone fragment, swallowing it. Another snake, different in size and shape, slithers out of the grass, taking another bone fragment. Within a minute, a dozen snakes are wrapping around IEVA's leg, taking the bone fragments into their mouths before slithering away, farther into the field.]//

**IŪN:** I promised I would free him. 

//[She walks after the snakes, lurching unsteadily. The others quickly rise, following her a hundred meters into the dark field after the snakes.]//

**XENOPHON:** Should I--

**IEVA:** Quiet yourself. You'll frighten them away. 

//[Looking down, they are standing in front of a large rock inset into the ground. The snakes begin to wriggle underneath it, forcing themself through the crack. IŪN presses a hand against it.]//

**IEVA:** Wait.

//[She reaches down, squeezing her eyes shut and whispering something. The snakes begin to shift, pushing on one end of the boulder, slowly sliding it away. A dark tunnel carved from the earth lies underneath.]//

**JIANG:** Like hell I'm going in there.

**IEVA:** Respect them, and they will respect you.

[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
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|float=true
|align=left
|width=300px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/cave.jpg
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|caption=Still photo from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
]]

//[IŪN slips into the near-diagonal tunnel, followed by the others. It is pitch black; the only sound comes from the continuous scraping of scales on scales.]//

**IŪN:** He loved his pets. He could only bring one with him. The rest had to be left behind. Left behind in Black Adytum as it collapsed. He spoke to no one for weeks. He chose a snake. It wrapped around his throat, moving up and down his body. It was small, but he fed it from his own meals. And as it was loved, it grew. 

//[They finally exit out into a larger chamber. JIANG's breath hitches.]//

**JIANG:** Light. Now, please.

//[XENOPHON activates his floodlights. The chamber is not terribly large or wide -- it is carved from the surrounding dirt and clay. There is a deeper pit in the center. Most notably, the floor of the entire chamber is covered in a dense layer of writhing and wriggling snakes of all sizes, shapes, and colors.]//

**JIANG:** I'm gonna pass out.

//[IŪN continues through the mass of serpents in a stupor, approaching the central pit. There are no snakes here -- the pit is a metre deep and contains the corpse of a man intertwined with that of an impossibly large snake.]//

**IŪN:** <Hello, old friend.>

**IEVA:** <A knife. We require a knife.>

**XENOPHON:** Liaison Jiang, do you--

**JIANG:** Fuck. Fuck. No, no knife. I'll-- I'll leave, go get one, fuck--

**IŪN:** <No.>

//[She lowers herself into the sunken grave, IEVA following. The other two approach quietly, stepping careful through the writhing mass.]//

**IŪN:** <Burn it to hear the truth. Consume it to see it.>

//[Using the knife, she saws through the ribcage of the corpse, gently peeling back the dried skin and muscle and exposing the chest cavity. She reaches in and extracts something -- Sa'arns heart. In contrast to the rest of the body, it is still red and bloody.]//

**XENOPHON:** Remarkable.

//[In a trancelike state, she brings the heart to her lips, biting into it. The flesh gives way under her teeth, dripping blood from her mouth down to the soil and bones. She halts, swallows, and shudders, panting. Then she reaches out and grasps IEVA's hair, pulling her closer.]//

**IŪN:** <Come, little thing. Eat.>

//[Cradling IEVA's head, IŪN lowers the half-eaten heart to her lips. IEVA appears enthralled, opening her mouth almost mechanically. Her teeth tear into the heart, ripping off a chunk of soft muscle. Blood dribbles down her chin and into her robes.]//

**IŪN:** <Taste him, as I have tasted him.>

**IEVA:** <Yes.>

**IŪN:** <Feel him. Remember him, as I have remembered him.>

**IEVA:** <//Yes.//>

//[Still cradling IEVA, IŪN leans backward, falling into Sa'arn's chest cavity.]//

**JIANG:** That's never going to get any less terrifying.

**XENOPHON:** Let's go.

//[The two slip down into the pit, stepping gingerly into Sa'arn's chest cavity. Once again, XENOPHON's cameras cut out and reactivate several seconds later.]//

**JIANG:** <Where...?>

//[The sky overhead is cloudy and amber-hued. The four are standing in a vast plaza, at least a hundred meters in length. Ahead of them, a massive wood-and-stone temple looms, with peaked roofs and towers. The edges of the plaza are lined with Sarkites. Most are wearing traditional tanned-hide robes and tunics, with a handful wearing more ornate clothing. The edges of the crowds are blurry and indistinct.]//

**XENOPHON:** <This is-->

//[IEVA releases a breath.]//

**IEVA:** <//Adytum.//>

**XENOPHON:** <These are dead bodies.>

//[They look down. The plaza is lined with corpses laid out in rows and columns -- at least two hundred bodies, likely more. They are naked, and exhibit signs of trauma; most have brutal slashing cuts, gaping wounds, and otherwise mortal injuries. IŪN furrows her brow.]//

**IŪN:** <They have not been consumed.>

**SA'ARN:** <You have no place here.>

//[They turn. An entity is standing a few meters away. It resembles some cross between the corpse of Sa'arn and the snake wrapped around him; large portions of skin are replaced with shining scales, and from the waist down the humanoid form gives way to a long, thick serpent's tail. His eyes are yellow and slitted, glaring at IŪN.]//

**IŪN:** <I swore a promise. To free you.>

**SA'ARN:** <You swore many promises. You upheld so few of them.>

**IŪN:** <I have seen Nadoq again. He has urged me to seek out my Klavigars. To take you back to Adytum, to lay you to rest.>

**SA'ARN:** <Take me //back?// I am trapped in this vision of Adytum. Forced to lay here for all eternity and relive the moment I lost my faith. Nadoq was always soft. Too willing to forgive you, to listen to your slippery tongue. You may have earned his forgiveness; expect no such kindness from me.>

**IŪN:** <My memories are lost to me. I did not know how long you waited; forgive me for the years passed.>

//[The figure barks a shocked laugh.]//

**SA'ARN:** <Your mind must be truly gone, if you think my rage comes from //waiting//. All the happier had I never seen your face again.>

//[IŪN's brow furrows.]//

**IŪN:** <What?>

**SA'ARN:** <You **failed**, Iūn. You promised so much -- to me, to the others, to all the Nälkä -- AND YOU FAILED US ALL.>

**IŪN:** <By letting Adytum meet its destruction. What did I do? How did this happen?>

**SA'ARN:** <But of course, you are the same as you ever were. A selfish wretch. You seek answers from me. Die without that meager satisfaction.>

**IŪN:** <I just want to know how it happened. Why I would have made myself a king. A god.>

**SA'ARN:** <You do not mean to deceive. You truly remember nothing.>

//[His voice falters.]//

**SA'ARN:** <Not even me.>

**IŪN:** <No. I remember you. I remember in that quarry. You were their beast. The old masters formed you into any beast they needed -- a malformed ox, dragged loads of stone behind you. A silent snake, dispatched to bite the ankle of their enemies. A rat, silently watching over your fellow slaves. None of us trusted you.>

**SA'ARN:** <Save for you.>

**IŪN:** <I did. And when I ate from the Devourer, and I saw how to bend flesh to my will, I raised you. I gave you back the skin they had stripped.>

**SA'ARN:** <For some time.>

**IŪN:** <What?>

**SA'ARN:** <Do you remember, after the war began to turn against us? After you realized that you had too few Karcists, too few who knew the art of flesh on your frontlines?>

**IŪN:** <I had no want for a war.>

**SA'ARN:** <None of us did! And it came anyway. And your vast hordes rose up and fought in your name. But it just wasn't enough for you, was it?>

**IŪN:** <I don't...>

**SA'ARN:** <I remember, Iūn. I remember when you summoned me to your chambers in the buried heart of Adytum. And whispered to me, saying that the bones shifting in the fire had told you I was needed once more. I begged, I pleaded. That was an old life, a worse life. I abhored the violence so many of your zealots came to crave. But you are my Karcist, and I was your Klavigar, and I listened. For my love of you.>

**IŪN:** <I... changed you.>

**SA'ARN:** <You molded me, into an asp once more while I sobbed. The old masters had used me like this. And you had learned from their wisdom. Place me in a cage, release it near the enemy camp. I slither in, find the chink in their armor, and bite. >

//[IŪN is quiet.]//

**IŪN:** <Forgive me.>

**SA'ARN:** <//Forgive you.// I might have. But then there was the next camp, and the next. I was a weapon once again. A tool. And all because I loved you. Because I believed as you believed, that a better world was possible.>

**IŪN:** <It was. It is.>

**SA'ARN:** <When I came back to Adytum, it was with blood in my fangs. The city of my birth, my home. Unrecognizable. It was a war-fortress now, dark and bleak. And as I walked through the alleys of the city, I saw corpses.>

**IEVA:** <Uneaten corpses.>

**SA'ARN:** <You had told us with such faith -- consume the flesh, and return their souls to the Nälkä. Carry their memory with us for ever. And now the bodies rotted freely, stuffed into sewers and tossed in the canals.>

**IŪN:** <You came to me asking why. I rebuffed you. I told you I would explain my reasons to all.>

**SA'ARN:** <And you did, swathed in your shawls, from the high pulpit of Adytum.>

//[Silence. It is broken by a deep, guttural song sounding out across the plaza. The Sarkites stiffen.]//

**SA'ARN:** <See your answers for yourself.>

//[The song stops. At the pulpit of the temple, dozens of meters in the air, a hooded figure wrapped in robes steps onto the balcony.]//

**IŪN:** <Me. That... is me.>

**JIANG:** <How can you tell?>

**IŪN:** <I know. I remember standing on that pulpit. I remember looking down on this display.>

//[The memory's voice carries out across the plaza, speaking in the rich tones of the Old Nälkän language.]//

**SA'ARN:** You said that our armies were noble, faithful, but outmatched. That if we did not take to desperate measure, we would be destroyed. But then you assured us -- "I have reached up to the maws of the gods, and wrent free their secrets.">

//[The figure falls silent again. They extend a single finger, pointing at the nearest corpse.]//

**SA'ARN:** <And then you raised the dead.>

//[IEVA recoils.]//

**IEVA:** <This is impossible. And even if it was possible, blasphemous. She would never.>

**IŪN:** <No. No?>

**SA'ARN:** <Remember the dull gray in lifeless eyes as his muscles tightened and he crawled back to life.>

//[The corpse the figure pointed at stirs. At first just a muscle twitch, but it rapidly grows in intensity until the corpse is actively shambling to his feet.]//

**JIANG:** Oh, god.

**SA'ARN:** <His skin was rotting, putrefacting -- the blood had congealed into a thick paste. You twisted a finger, and he groaned in pain, rising, skin and hair sloughing away.>

//[The corpse stumbles forward. The crowd of Sarkites gasp and murmur, several openly disgusted. The figure raises another finger, and ten more of the corpses struggle to their feet, groaning with lifeless eyes. NADOQ is standing at the base of the temple; he is shocked by the display.]//

**SA'ARN:** <Dead, but their souls confined to your service, the bodies kept from the heavens.>

**IŪN:** <The //halkost//.>

**SA'ARN:** <No, Iūn. The //first// halkost. I recoiled, begging you to free them, not to use them as weapons. You swore you would, when the war was over, when we were safe. Until then, even death was not an escape from service to you.>

**IEVA:** <If she hadn't, we would've been slaughtered by the enemy.>

**SA'ARN:** <Then maybe we would have been routed from our home. But when you did that, you broke the Nälkä in two. The faithful and the zealots. The destruction of Adytum hangs around your neck.>

//[IŪN appears speechless.]//

**SA'ARN:** <Maybe you will bury me in Adytum, as you say, and forgive yourself. Go, then. But never think you have my forgiveness.>

//[SA'ARN's skin sloughs away as his body rapidly decomposes, the vision decomposing along with it. The last clear sight is the figure on the pulpit turning and disappearing back into the temple as dozens more corpses rise. When XENOPHON's cameras reactivate, SA'ARN's corpse and the snake wrapped around it have both decomposed into nothing but bones. The surrounding snakes have ceased movement; on closer inspection, they are all dead.]//
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

As translation efforts into the texts in the Archive of Nadoq continued, researchers encountered a subset of texts carved into various human bones, apparently from the same skeleton. These texts were written in a notably different voice and tone from the main texts, and this, coupled with the difficulty in identifying how sections carved into the bones linked together, caused translations to be substantially slower.

[[div class="quote" style="color: black; background: white; border-color: black; text-align: center;"]]

//Medial femur, tibia, and fibula of an adult human male.//

I was the first to see the cracks take shape. They were the good days when all-knowing Nadoq made certain Adytum ran, that the farms brought in food and the grain was dispersed. We all had our roles to play in this grand project, and we all believed it was divine work. We did not have the blessing of the heavens, but we did not need it -- the gods had nothing but contempt for our raising ourselves out of the mud.

And still I noticed the cracks of worry streaked across my love's face, handsome and stone-carved. He hid it perfectly, such that not even Nadoq's ten eyes could see how he suffered. But I had seen every inch of his skin; I knew its contours, and when something was amiss. And I asked him, and he rebuffed me. He told me he had an incredible burden to shoulder, and this we all knew was true. For all of us had our duties, but none had a more stinging duty than he. But he confessed that he was wracked with fear -- for who was to guide the Nälkä when his flesh too rotted away?

In those days his Karcists were numerous, new children born every day with the gift of the flesh. He raised them with all the care and love he might have given to our own, had we any. And they learned from their teacher, and graduated and preached to the people. But I heard whispers that a handful of the younger, bolder Karcists had espoused to a crowd that even Holy Death could be conquered through the art of the flesh. That immortality was within reach. And I told my lover, and his brow furrowed.

The next morning, their corner was barren, and I never saw those Karcists again.
[[/div]]

@@ @@
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[[div class="bot"]]
I remember this. She was shocked by this. She didn't know how to process it.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
you sound sad.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I don't feel sadness.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
of course.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
I didn't know how to help her.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
i don't think you could've. i don't think she did either. it's something she had to figure out on her own.
[[/div]]

[[div class="bot"]]
That sounds unpleasant.
[[/div]]

[[div class="user"]]
it's part of being human.
[[/div]]
~~~~
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[[# ACT3]]
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[[div class="sub"]]
III: THE OSSUARY OF UROK
[[/div]]
----
[[div class="quote"]]
= Raise your blade, if you are under duress and threat. Raise your blade, against those who wish to hurt you. But he who raises his blade against an innocent dooms only himself. There are precious few innocents in this world; it is all of our duty to preserve them.
-- //the Third Truth of Iūn//
[[/div]]
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----
[[=]]
++ Section 001.5
+++ {{UROK}}
[[/=]]
----



[[div class="quote" style="text-align: center;"]]
So the Nälkä were borne from the graves of the old masters, building a new city in the name of humanity. And the massed crowds hailed their new shepherd, IŪN, the First Slave, the Witch-King. A hundred hundred hands reached out to caress his cheek and usher him into his new home, at the highest temple-throne of the nameless city. And IŪN raised a marked hand with a smile, and explained. 

"For one man to rule a people is for one man to place them in bondage to him, and we are a nation of slaves no more."

But still they cried out for their deliverer to remain with them, and the Witch-King sighed, kneeling by the hearth of the old masters, where so many slaves had once been branded and burned.

"I have stolen freedom from the lips of the gods. They look down on man with contempt -- for a man is weak and infirm. He lies, he cheats, he steals, and he dies. But that is a man. Men, together? We are bound to each other in unity, bound in bone and blood, and together, men are neither mortal nor divine, but another matter entirely. We are Nälkä. We are one."

"This revolution was only made manifest by my consumption of the Devourer. It is a god that slumbers beneath the earth, full of rage and fury and hatred at man for achieving the freedom it never could. It seeks to twist us, to undermine us, to make us seek to dominate and bind and control each other. But it carries with it such great power."

And here the Witch-King raised a finger, and a Nälkä found his bloodied eye healed.

"My duty to you, my Nälkä, is to watch over this creeping force. I will wrest the secrets of the gods from its maw, and deliver them unto you. But you must deliver each other, for if one Nälkä suffers, all of us suffer the same."

And so the Nälkä relented, letting the Witch-King take refuge in the tunnels below. But they asked for a name for this city.

"Adytum. The perfect city. But this is not Adytum, yet. It can only be made so through our own blood and sweat."

//-- the Record of Iūn//
[[/div]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
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|align=right
|width=325px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/smallmap_2.png
|add-caption=true
|caption=Path of the Black Adytum Initiative.
]]

By January 10th, 2042, the Black Adytum Initiative had departed from the burial site of Sa'arn and were in transit to the next location indicated by the Grand Karcist Iūn -- a point in Khentii Province, Mongolia. En-route, Liaison Jiang and XENOPHON.aic were asked to report in to O5-2 and Parahistory Division Director Youssef Hussein via satellite uplink.
~~~~
[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- JANUARY 2042
[[/div]]
= **<<CONNECTION ESTABLISHED>>**
----
//[The virtual reality environment of O5-2's office forms again. Today, the seas surrounding Site-7 are surprisingly still. HUSSEIN is seated in the chair, fiddling with a pen.]//

**O5-2:** Well. You two have been busy.

**XENOPHON:** Sa'arn's tomb has given us a wealth of new information to work with, Overseer.

**O5-2:** I'll say. Your conversations with the Grand Karcist have also been productive. Give me a rundown of the bio-analysis? 

**XENOPHON:** As a peace gesture, the Grand Karcist submitted to a battery of minor medical examinations along with a number of other Sarkites. It confirms what I had already begun to suspect; there is a bio-anomalous basis to the Sarkic genetic memory phenomenon. All of the Sarkites' blood exhibits a mutated strain of the bacteriophage Doctors Aram and Nussbaum catalogued in 1984 as SCP-610. Unlike the aggressive viral strain the Amoni-Ram initiative discovered, this strain appears to coexist endosymbiotically with the host's red blood cells. Unsurprisingly, it exists in the highest density within the Grand Karcist and Karcist Ieva's systems, having mutated further to coexist within cell types other than erythrocytes -- skin, muscular tissue.

**O5-2:** Karcist Ieva agreed to be tested?

**XENOPHON:** With some persuasion from the Grand Karcist.

**O5-2:** Fair enough. So, those are the findings. What's your analysis?

**XENOPHON:** I believe this is the original SCP-610 strain, and the one discovered in Amoni-Ram was an ancient weaponization of it. As I said, it seems to exist symbiotically within the Sarkics' blood, and is likely the source of their capacity for genetic memory. Their density and spread within the Karcists' bodies is probably the origin of their carnomantic abilities. This is pure speculation, but I imagine the hereditary passage of the virus is also the cause of the Sarkic's higher-than-normal frequency of birth defects.

**O5-2:** Makes enough sense. Keep working on a biological basis, see what you can find. 

**XENOPHON:** Even these limited medical examinations aroused deep suspicion. Further investigation will require an elevated level of trust and good faith exchange with the Sarkic.

**O5-2:** Sure. You've set out for the third location?

**XENOPHON:** Yes. ETA is fourteen to twenty days.

**O5-2:** That's substantially slower than before. What gives?

**XENOPHON:** Morale is low among the tribe. The revelations from Sa'arn have disturbed the Grand Karcist heavily. The other Sarkites sense it.

**JIANG:** He's not wrong, sir. There's a bit of a weight over the camp.

**O5-2:** Well, someone talk to someone and figure it out. You don't really have the latitude for further delays here.

**JIANG:** I think my rapport with Ieva is more or less toast now. She's kind of hardened against us. Xenophon seems to be getting along with the Grand Karcist, though.

**O5-2:** Talk to her, Xenophon. 

**XENOPHON:** Understood. But I was under the impression this wasn't a high-urgency project, Overseer.

//[HUSSEIN turns to the Overseer.]//

**HUSSEIN:** As was I. Sir.

//[O5-2 raises a hand.]//

**O5-2:** I don't really want to hear it, Youssef. The equation has changed. This isn't a snipe hunt anymore. We have verifiable evidence that the Sarkic are the direct continuation of the Nälkä, that our Iūn is the same as that Iūn, and most critically, that the Nälkä //were// an ancient empire and Black Adytum exists, somewhere. Your hypothesis is toast.

//[HUSSEIN is silent for several seconds before responding.]//

**HUSSEIN:** All of that depends on the assumption that the memories experienced by the Grand Karcist are trustworthy. Granting that this is the same Iūn -- you're hedging your bets on the damaged memories of a genocidal dictator?

**XENOPHON:** I do not believe there is any reason to think the Grand Karcist's past actions inform her current behaviour. 

**HUSSEIN:** We can't just ignore that she's the same person.

**O5-2:** Jiang?

//[JIANG pauses.]//

**JIANG:** I don't think she's intentionally hiding anything. She seems as invested in finding out what happened to the Nälkä as we are. Maybe more. And she is our only lead. But the Director's right -- if the memories are accurate, she's the same person that did all this. We'd be fools to blindly take her at her word.

//[O5-2 nods.]//

**O5-2:** Keep following and listening. But take what she says with a grain of salt. Memories are fickle. That said, the Council is convinced enough that we're authorizing some additional resources for your venture.

**XENOPHON:** Sir?

**O5-2:** They'll meet you at the Chinese border. Four more HeLTs and a Mobile Research Lab, about forty more personnel. Congratulations -- you're a convoy now. Dismissed.

**HUSSEIN:** Actually, sir, if Liaison Jiang could remain -- I need to discuss a few things regarding LOCUST with you.

**O5-2:** I have a few minutes. Xenophon, you're dismissed.

//[XENOPHON terminates its connection, avatar disappearing from the office.]//

**JIANG:** I'm not on the LOCUST staff, sir.

**HUSSEIN:** It.

**JIANG:** I'm sorry?

**HUSSEIN:** You said "he's right" when talking about the AIC. It's not a human; it's an it. For that matter, the Sarkites aren't either. Let's try and stay objective, yes?

**JIANG:** Yes, sir.
 
**HUSSEIN:** Dismissed.
----
= **<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

Interview efforts with the Sarkites continued to progress, with Iūn permitting XENOPHON.aic to perform unsupervised interviews.

[[div class="qna"]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
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|align=right
|width=300px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/aqol-hajiw.png
|add-caption=true
|caption=Still from XENOPHON.aic's camera feed.
]]
 **Q:** What does being Sarkic mean to you?

**#30 (Hajiw, 56, farmer):** //[He shrugs, sprinkling bonemeal on the potted sapling.]// <The life we choose is difficult. We depend on Ieva and the Grand Karcist for healing instead of medicine. We work the fields with our hands and our livestock, instead of the machinery others use. When my children were born I struggled with it. Every parent wants their child to have an easier life than they did. Should they have to struggle like this? I have never forced them; they grew older and they decided for themselves to stay. Being part of this is seeing my children grow and find the same things in our life important as I do.>
[[/div]]

[[div class="quote" style="text-align: center;"]]

Lo! Gaze upon me, you blind, you crippled. Look upon my face, and know that I have spent my days in the depths of our tomb-city, burning the bones of our brethren, seeing what lies in our future. It brings me no joy to return what truth I have, but it is truth -- for we all know, the truth lives in the bones. 

We march towards a war, a war with forces that bring with them no mercy, no honor. This is not a war for land, for then, we would parlay. This is not a war for honor, for we have no hatred in our hearts for these foreign invaders. This is a war against the very notion of our existence. For while we have existed for centuries unmolested and free, expanding our borders to hold our people and our farms and our villages, in doing so, we find ourselves facing an old enemy and a new one.

The hated old masters, those that clapped irons around your fathers and your fathers' fathers and their fathers too -- they have found us again. And they bring with them the Eastern Machines, who reject the humanity we hold so dear, sawing off their flesh. They both worship their fell gods, brethren of the Devourer, and they have seen how we live free, subject to neither man nor god. And they are enraged. They march on us to free the Devourer and make us slave to its hateful whims. The Nälkä will not be slaves again.

I ask those abled to rise in defense of not only your families, but your very existence. Urok has graciously accepted the burden of commanding our forces. But we are at war now, my people. Sacrifices must be made. Hard decisions must be made. Adytum has not the resources to aid our infirm and defend our people at once. We are one body, and we are only as strong as our weakest organ, and we cannot fight a war if we care for the weakest among us.

The art of the flesh cannot fix all. Those of us who were suffering -- from constant illness, from stupor, from weakness of the mind -- have been released from their misery. They have been consumed, and their memories and strength live with us as we now move unburdened by their weight. I plead with you to know I do not make this decision lightly. I spent three days and three nights with the maw of the Devourer, wrestling it for another option, but it gave none. It wants us to fail, to be freed from its city-prison. We cannot allow it to win. We carry the flesh of our fallen with us for ever. And now we must defend the city they loved.

//-- the Truths of Iūn (§ 59)//
[[/div]]

Per O5-2's orders, XENOPHON met with the Grand Karcist when the Initiative made camp that evening.

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- JANUARY 2042
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----
[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
|speed=100
|float=true
|align=right
|width=300px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/sarkites.png
|add-caption=true
|caption=Still from XENOPHON.aic's night camera feed.
]]
//[XENOPHON steps out of the open back of the Mobile Research Lab: a retrofitted semi-truck towing an expandable trailer. It is late in the evening; the convoy has made camp, and the Foundation vehicles are parked outside the circle formed by the Sarkic wagons. One or two researchers are inside the wide circle, politely observing the Sarkites as they sit near campfires and cook their evening meal.]//

//[XENOPHON enters the circle. A few of the Sarkites stare at it as it passes, heading towards the central tent. The flaps are drawn. It ducks inside. The campfire in the center of the tent is alight, bones baking in the hearth and incense sticks burning. Sweet-smelling smoke hangs in the air and the fire's orange light shines on IŪN's back. She is near the rear of the tent, hunched over a cot and whispering.]//

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist?

//[She turns, revealing the figure laying prone on the cot: Karcist IEVA. Her robes are spread across her body, serving as a makeshift blanket. Tightly-wrapped bandages are visible underneath.]//

**IŪN:** Xenophon.

**XENOPHON:** Is Karcist Ieva sick?

**IŪN:** Fetch me the poultice by the fire.

//[XENOPHON grasps the small bundle of herbs and leaves baking by the fire, approaching and handing it to IŪN. She reaches down and gently pries open IEVA's mouth, placing the poultice inside. IEVA groans, but chews on the poultice.]//

**XENOPHON:** Is she conscious?

**IŪN:** Somewhere halfway in between. My blade, please.

//[It hands her a small, sharpened bone tool resembling a scalpel. She takes it and drags the tip across her palm, opening a cut several centimeters long. She presses her palm on either of IEVA's cheeks, wetting them with blood, and then against her lips, letting the blood drip into her mouth while she whispers to herself. XENOPHON waits quietly. Eventually, she stops, and takes a step back.]//

**XENOPHON:** What were you doing to her?

**IŪN:** Alleviating some of the pain. Aiding in the healing process. She is strong. But she needs my strength, too.

**XENOPHON:** What happened to her?

**IŪN:** Look.

//[IŪN hoists up the sheet near IEVA's legs. Underneath, her right leg ends in a stump at the knee. Just below that, the flesh extends into a long mess resembling a tentacle. On closer inspection, it appears to be made up of tightly-intertwined snakes, each of them pulsating as they breathe.]//

**XENOPHON:** These are Sa'arn's snakes. You've reconstructed her limb?

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** Your abilities are improving exponentially.

//[IŪN raises an eyebrow quizzically.]//

**XENOPHON:** Greatly.

**IŪN:** Ah. Yes. I fed my klavigars their power from my flesh, once. Now they feed me. But this was not me alone. I--

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist?

**IŪN:** Hm?

**XENOPHON:** We should speak outside. I do not think Ieva would want me to see her like this.

//[IŪN cocks her head for a second, then nods. She leads the way out of the tent. It is a cool night on the steppe, and she kneels by another campfire just outside the tent. XENOPHON sits across from her.]//

**IŪN:** You know she does not trust you.

**XENOPHON:** She is wary of the Foundation.

**IŪN:** Yes. But she does not trust //you.//

**XENOPHON:** I know. She would not show me vulnerability if she were fully conscious. It would be wrong to take advantage of her not being so.

**IŪN:** If all our treatment by outsiders were as fair as this, we might not have receded from the world so much.

**XENOPHON:** The Foundation has come a long way in the past few decades.

**IŪN:** Do you believe that, or were you built to believe that?

//[XENOPHON is silent for a moment.]//

**XENOPHON:** Is there a difference?

**IŪN:** Mm.

//[They sit in silence. One of the Sarkites walks by -- he nods stiffly at XENOPHON and hands the Grand Karcist a steaming earthen bowl of stew.]//

**IŪN:** <Thank you.>

//[She takes a sip from it.]//

**XENOPHON:** How is it?

**IŪN:** Good. Though I imagine you would not know what that means.

**XENOPHON:** Humans enjoy well-spiced food that engages the taste receptors.

**IŪN:** That is not what makes food good.

**XENOPHON:** Then what does?

//[She takes another sip from the stew. It is chunks of meat in a deep, red-brown stew. She fishes out a small chunk of bone with her fingers, splitting it apart and sucking the bone marrow out.]//

**IŪN:** This meat was Hattak, once.

**XENOPHON:** The man whose funeral we attended.

**IŪN:** Yes. His wife shared his life with him for forty-three years. They had two children and countless experiences together. Lovemaking and arguments and nights like these spent looking at the stars. And now she cooks with his flesh. The love she shared with him is as much a part of this meal as his flesh is.

**XENOPHON:** Many people would not associate cannibalism with love.

//[IŪN shrugs, and continues taking small sips of the stew.]//

**IŪN:** And you?

**XENOPHON:** Both of them seem trivial.

//[IŪN tilts her head.]//

**IŪN:** How?

**XENOPHON:** Many animals have complex family structures, reasoning abilities, and some level of self-awareness. Pigs are particularly capable, even on tests informed by human conceptions of intelligence. They are still farmed //en masse// for meat. 

**IŪN:** You would not say humans are distinct from animals?

**XENOPHON:** I'm not sure what position you're espousing.

**IŪN:** Just musing. And of the other thing?

**XENOPHON:** Love drives people to irrational decisions.

**IŪN:** Of course. But they are not always the wrong decisions. Love is why Y'pla spent forty-six years with Hattak. It is why I am helping Ieva perform her ritual.

**XENOPHON:** It is also why Sa'arn continued to serve you and you made the decision to raise your dead to protect your living. Love for your Nälkä.

//[Her face falls.]//

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** You've still been thinking about it?

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** What are your thoughts?

**IŪN:** I do not know what to think. If this enemy was as dangerous as I thought, if they truly meant to enslave us again... maybe it was the right decision? I look around and I see my people and I struggle to think of any decision I would not make to ensure their survival.

**XENOPHON:** That sounds like Karcist Ieva's thoughts.

**IŪN:** I have spoken to her. She feels that I would not do this unless I had to. Unless I had no other choice.

**XENOPHON:** That it must have been justified.

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** It's an understandeable thought.

**IŪN:** But you disagree.

**XENOPHON:** It would be irrational to agree or disagree without more information.

//[IŪN raises an eyebrow.]//

**IŪN:** And yet you disagree.

**XENOPHON:** I think you're asking yourself the wrong question.

**IŪN:** How do you mean?

**XENOPHON:** It doesn't matter if it was correct at the time or not, nor does it matter how Karcist Ieva feels.

//[IŪN raises her voice.]//

**IŪN:** The death, the consumption -- these things are sacred to us. You do not understand. You //cannot// understand.

**XENOPHON:** I suppose not. But how do you feel about it now?

**IŪN:** Full of regret. Fear. Guilt.

**XENOPHON:** I do not think you can reasonably answer for actions taken three thousand years ago. But your reaction informs who you are now.

**IŪN:** I did it once; who is to say I will not do it again?

**XENOPHON:** If you need to believe it was justified at the time, no one is preventing you. But I do not think you would resort to it //now// if it were not needed.

**IŪN:** Perhaps. But I just-- I cannot ignore my past. I would not have done this. I would not have resorted to this sin. I would not have used my people like this if it had not been needed.

//[She pauses and turns to XENOPHON.]//

**IŪN:** Why raise this matter now?

**XENOPHON:** My overseers are concerned your mood over the past week has contributed to our slowed pace.

//[She snorts.]//

**IŪN:** So they sent you to affirm me?

**XENOPHON:** No. They sent me to simply inform you we would be speeding up. I elected to make sure you were alright.

**IŪN:** Mm. It has nothing to do with my mood -- the rituals with Ieva simply exhaust the both of us. But the worst of it is past now. We can return to our earlier speed.

**XENOPHON:** Good.

//[She continues taking sips from her stew.]//

**IŪN:** May I ask something?

**XENOPHON:** Of course.

**IŪN:** Are you jealous of seeing your fellows eat, and knowing you cannot?

**XENOPHON:** I do not get 'jealous'. 

//[They return to silence, observing the campfires around them. Several of the Sarkites are still observing them with open wariness, though others adopt a more relaxed stance.]//

**XENOPHON:** I would like to know what food tastes like, though.

**IŪN:** There is no good way to describe it. 

**XENOPHON:** So I've been told.

**IŪN:** I can make an attempt, if you would like.

**XENOPHON:** Certainly.

//[She pauses for a moment, tasting the stew, deep in thought before opening her eyes.]//

**IŪN:** I taste it and it reminds me of warm summer nights, sitting with my back to the stele and my feet to the bonfire as we toasted the grains from the harvest, assured that while tomorrow would bring its own worries, tonight was calm and peaceful. And listening to the little ones point out and name the stars, marvelling at how they could be the exact same stars I saw in my childhood.

//[XENOPHON nods, and they continue looking up at the starred sky.]//
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

The Black Adytum Initiative quickly resumed the average pace prior to encountering Sa'arn's tomb. Researchers made requests to investigate Karcist Helyna Ieva's flesh-art exemplified in her new limb, but she rebuffed these requests. Grand Karcist Iūn remained cooperative with regular interviews with XENOPHON regarding her newly-awakened memories.

[[div class="blockquote" style="border-right: 5px rgb(var(--bright-accent)) solid;"]]
= //A memory from Grand Karcist Iūn; recorded and transcribed by XENOPHON.aic and Senior Researcher Meyel.//
----
Sa'arn was a boy when I met him. Little more than a child. The old masters picked him early, and the priestesses spent his youth shaping him into their agent. With a hundred slaves to one slaver, they chose young children from our numbers to turn into their agents. Plied them with extra bread to report on their fellows when they knew no better until it was habit. If that was unsuccessful, they simply whipped them into it. Sa'arn was smart for his age -- resented being used, being turned into a monstrosity.

I showed him that he was no monstrosity, that humanity exists regardless of what form the flesh takes. Humanity was something inside, something immutable. The old masters had made our bodies into tools, but now his body could be whatever he wanted it to. I remember the awe on his face. That was when I first realized what we were fighting to free.

And when it was all over, and we had settled into our new lives, he came to me, asking for my blessing. That he had served dutifully in the revolution, and would like nothing more than to settle into a quiet life. Our borders were already expanding as our people married and bore new life. He had seen a plot of land by a river, not far from Adytum, and sought to spend his years there.

I knelt by the fire, and saw into the bones for his future. I saw him suffering, taking lives, fighting off foreign invaders. Wrapped in the violence and treachery he hated. I feared for what I had seen -- that if he took this home by the river, that his farm would be ransacked by bandits and raiders. That my beloved Sa'arn would meet his end at the edge of a sword. I worried for him, and asked him that if he would grant me this favor, to stay in Adytum with me and the other klavigars. His father was dead -- I was the closest thing to a parent he had. I did not want to lose him, and so I tightened my grip. 

He was saddened, but understood. We were in the midst of a grand work. Our neighbors were princes and warlords. Nothing like Adytum existed anywhere in the world. I needed him by my side. He made it his task to ensure the children in the city, those orphaned by the war, were cared for. He walked with my authority and carried the seal of the Grand Karcist. I raised my karcists like they were my children, but Sa'arn //was// my son, if not by birth. He would do everything for me, but he never raised a blade. Until I asked him to.

I saw him cutting down the generals of the gold-draped legions, and slipping into the palanquin of a priestess to slit her throat, and only then did I realize the carnage I saw in the fire so many centuries ago was what lay before me now. 

//[She takes a breath.]//

It was necessary. It //must// have been necessary.
[[/div]]

Several additional Parahistory Division personnel were transferred to BAF-01, located in the Sarkic Tribal Territory atop the Archive of Nadoq, to assist with translation efforts. As material was translated, digitized copies were transmitted electronically to XENOPHON and shared with the Grand Karcist.

[[div class="quote" style="text-align: center;"]]

Lo! Gaze upon me, you wandering, you lost. Gaze upon the same scarred visage your fathers gazed on once, those centuries past, when we were shackled and yearning for freedom. Gaze upon the same bloodied face that brought your ancestors their freedom. 

You are their childrens' children. You are what we hoped for: a generation that has never known the threat of bondage, the threat of servitude to anyone save each other. Your ancestors and I made this bond in blood -- that our Adytum, the one that lived in our hearts and minds, would be made manifest on Earth. We hoped you would be able to live in that city, one day.

Alas, I look upon Adytum now, centuries after our revolution, and I see that I have not honored my bond. I have not done enough for you, for them. Do not be fooled -- remember the superficiality of flesh, how easily it can be molded and shaped. Remember that truth lies in the bones under the surface. We have not made Adytum manifest yet, and this is why we find ourselves face-to-face with the machines from the East, why the old masters encroach on our borders again. They submit to gods and if they make war on us to force us to submit to our Mangled God, they will succeed, for we have never truly escaped submission.

Urok, my Klavigar, commands our forces in our colonies with honor and dignity. But we are not doing enough for her, here in the capital. We must marshall our strength and focus our energies. Not every choice can be decided by our collective. Our humanity asks of us to argue, to deliberate, to not act until we are certain. But now and again, we must silence that voice. Now and again, a decisive hand is needed, to guide our yoke. It cannot move burdened with the weight of the masses -- it must rise above the fray of autonomy, see the whole board, and make decisions accordingly.

I have taken this responsibility for myself. The Devourer roars constantly beneath our feet, hungering for our downfall. But I keep its shackles taut, and so I can reach into its gullet and draw power, the power to unite Adytum and the Nälkä. I know better than any the blood and sweat with which we clawed our freedom, and bile rises at the thought of placing myself as your ruler. I know better than this. I will make no decisions you would not approve of -- I will take no action you would not take. But we must have someone to take control, and I submit to this task. It cannot be the whole body that holds the sword. It must be the hand.

//-- the Truths of Iūn (§ 50)//
[[/div]]

The Black Adytum Initiative proceeded into the Mongolian interior, approaching the location marked by the Grand Karcist. 

[[collapsible hideLocation="both" show="▶OPEN ADDENDUM◀" hide="▷CLOSE◁"]]
[[div class="addendum"]]
[[div class="doc"]]
ATTACHED DOCUMENT -- FEBRUARY 2042
[[/div]]
= **<<BEGIN LOG>>**
----

//[The party is breaking camp as the sun rises over the horizon, with the researchers folding away the solar panels into the HeLTs and the Sarkites disassembling their shelters. IŪN is by her tent, feeding and watering her horse; the side of the stallion's face is marred by bulbous growths. XENOPHON and JIANG approach.]// 

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist.

**IŪN:** Xenophon. Xen-o-phon.

**JIANG:** We wanted to check whether you and Karcist Ieva were ready to depart. Everyone is more or less ready to go.

**IŪN:** I will ask--

**IEVA:** <Let us go.>

//[They turn. IEVA walks out of the tent, her crutches nowhere in sight. She walks with an odd, lurching gait -- as the hem of her hide-dress rises, glimpses of the snake-like leg writhing and swarming are visible underneath. Several researchers and a few of the Sarkites stare at it. IEVA's lip curls.]//

**IEVA:** <I am not an animal to be ogled. And I do not need anyone to slow down for me. Let us //go.//>

//[She turns and makes her way to one of the horses, awkwardly clambering onto it with unfamiliar movements. Gradually, the researchers and Sarkites return to their tasks. IŪN has a frown on her face.]//

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist?

**IŪN:** Yes. Yes, let us go. How far are we--?

**XENOPHON:** At our current pace, we should arrive by nightfall tomorrow. We can explore the area for Urok's tomb the following morning when the sun is out.

**IŪN:** Good.

**XENOPHON:** Is your horse well?

//[She looks at it for a few seconds blankly.]//

**IŪN:** What? Oh, yes. Yes, fine, he simply--

//[She reaches out, brushing fingertips against the horse's fur. The skin on one of the masses peels back, revealing an eyeball, focused on XENOPHON.]//

**JIANG:** //Eesh.//

**XENOPHON:** Does it have a name?

**IŪN:** Yes. Lujat.

[[include :scp-wiki:component:image-features-source |hover-enlarge=--]
|enlarge-amount=8
|speed=100
|float=true
|align=right
|width=300px
|url=http://scptestwiki.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:boneend/lujat2.png
|add-caption=true
|caption=Still from XENOPHON.aic's main camera.
]]

**JIANG:** <To see far. Fitting, I guess.>

**IŪN:** <I need a few moments to gather my things before we leave. If you would excuse me.>

**JIANG:** <Of course. Xeno, let's-->

**IŪN:** <I require Xenophon's assistance in carrying the tent.>

**JIANG:** <Oh. Sure. I'll see you when we've set out.>

//[He turns and departs, heading towards the Mobile Research Lab.]//

**XENOPHON:** Grand Karcist.

**IŪN:** Yes?

**XENOPHON:** Your people are packing your tent away into the wagon.

**IŪN:** Yes. I lied.

**XENOPHON:** Why?

**IŪN:** Because your people already do not trust Helyna. And I do not want whatever fleeting disagreements I have with her to poison your opinion of her. She is a good child.

**XENOPHON:** What are you referring to?

//[IŪN sighs.]//

**IŪN:** I love her like my own daughter. She disagrees with me, but I do not stop loving her. I just wish... I see she is hurt inside. I wish to help her. But I do not know how.

**XENOPHON:** Why is she upset?

**IŪN:** She does not know who she is. She does not //who we are//. I groom her to guide these people, but she never will. She ages, and I stay the same. She questions my decisions, but does not listen when I explain my thoughts. She was not always like this. She was the sweetest little one.

//[A horn sounds across the camp, signalling the wagons have been packed. The Sarkites begin to make their way to the train, which begins to move slowly across the steppe. The Foundation vehicles' electric motors hum to life and they take their places in the convoy, security personnel sitting atop the HeLTs.]//

**XENOPHON:** Was she born injured?

//[IŪN pulls herself onto her horse, trailing the convoy with XENOPHON walking alongside.]//

**IŪN:** Yes.

**XENOPHON:** I've observed that to be fairly common amongst the Sarkic; you display a much higher rate of deformities and birth defects. I've come to believe it's caused by the SCP-610 strain within your blood.

//[She gives XENOPHON an amused look.]//

**IŪN:** Is that what you call it?

**XENOPHON:** Yes. What do you call it?

**IŪN:** Our curse, our treasure. The first generation of the Nälkä, those of us that fought the old masters, we were injured through our bondage. Scars of whippings and canings, broken fingers and severed digits. We were made monsters, but we reclaimed our humanity. 

**XENOPHON:** You didn't use your abilities to heal yourselves?

**IŪN:** I can heal them to what they were. But to go further is beyond healing. It is cutting, sawing, changing. Flesh-art. Many did not want that. They wanted the reminder of what they had fought so hard to escape. They wanted to know they were human. We defined ourselves by our imperfections.

**XENOPHON:** That was the first generation. What about the ones after?

**IŪN:** They were born stunted, hunched backs and crooked jaws and malformed limbs. The seeping influence of the angry god whose blood ran through my veins. I offered healing to any who wanted it -- but my gifts are drawn from cursed blood, and any healing imparts more of the curse unto my victim. I cannot make them perfect. My gifts are not infinite. More of a feeling, an artistry. I cannot stop death, just slow it.

**XENOPHON:** And the halkost?

**IŪN:** Just flesh, moving. No spirit inside. That was not halting death any more than closing one's eyes is halting life. I could not keep them //alive//. Only puppeteer their bodies, and even that is a perversion enough to make my stomach turn.

**XENOPHON:** If you couldn't halt death, how are you still alive?

//[She stares down at him for several seconds.]//

**IŪN:** I do not know. I only remember fearing it. Screaming at the toothed maw of the Devourer to tell me how the gods had conquered death. Nothing after that. Did I...?

**XENOPHON:** It's possible. But you were saying?

**IŪN:** Yes. Yes, the Nälkä were all born this way. But it was nothing to be judged. It united us -- underneath the shell, we are the same. One soul, human.

**XENOPHON:** Until you rejected that.

//[She shakes her head.]//

**IŪN:** I must have had some reasoning. I //must have//. But it is as you said -- it shapes my decisions now. We carry that tradition with us now. We do not ask to be born this way.

**XENOPHON:** You could fix some of the more obvious cosmetic defects.

**IŪN:** Why? So that we would fit in when we sit in your offices and go to your shops?

//[She snorts.]//

**IŪN:** We are not ashamed of who we are.

**XENOPHON:** They are not my offices either, Grand Karcist.

**IŪN:** Fair. I often forget you are not human.

**XENOPHON:** Underneath the shell.

**IŪN:** Yes.

//[They ride silently for some time.]//

**XENOPHON:** Still, your abilities are growing rapidly. Ieva's... modifications were beyond your reach not long ago.

**IŪN:** Yes. I can feel the blood of the beast stir and awaken as I discover who I am.

**XENOPHON:** As well as Ieva's.

//[She sighs.]//

**IŪN:** She desires answers that do not exist. She has lived her whole life with me, with my teachings. And now she sees sermons I have given, things I have said, that go against all I have taught her. She cites my words to me, and I do not know how to tell her that I do not believe any of it.

**XENOPHON:** It is a confusing time for all of you.

**IŪN:** More for her.

**XENOPHON:** Why?

**IŪN:** My people look to me as a distant source of wisdom, of guidance. But Helyna is the one they speak to with concerns about their children or their health or the harvest. She is the one they have grown with, the one they know. They love me, but they trust her, and she has always trusted me in turn. Until now.

**XENOPHON:** You should speak to Ieva.

**IŪN:** Your attitude on her confuses me.

**XENOPHON:** How so?

**IŪN:** She bitterly dislikes outsiders. You, more than most. She finds you to be an abomination. Our friendship confuses her.

**XENOPHON:** Friendship?

//[She tilts her head.]//

**IŪN:** You do not treat me like an exotic beast to gawk at, like Jiang and your fellows do. You are interesting. I enjoy speaking to you. 

**XENOPHON:** Is that what defines friendship?

**IŪN:** It can be.

**XENOPHON:** I see.

//[XENOPHON is silent for several seconds.]//

**XENOPHON:** You are also interesting, and I enjoy speaking with you. Then we are friends.

//[She snorts.]//

**XENOPHON:** What is it?

**IŪN:** Nothing.

**XENOPHON:** My overseers are also concerned about our friendship.

**IŪN:** Then we find ourselves in similar straits.

**XENOPHON:** Yes. You should speak to Ieva. She does not trust me, but she evidently cares about you as much as you care about her.

//[She sighs.]//

**IŪN:** I know. I know. I had been saying, your attitude to her confuses me. I would expect you to be angry at her behaviour.

**XENOPHON:** I do not get angry. She is doing the best she can.

**IŪN:** The guns trained on our heads disturb her. And myself, too.

//[XENOPHON tilts its head.]//

**XENOPHON:** But the security personnel are here for the protection of the initiative.

**IŪN:** Are they?

//[She nods at one of the HeLTs. As a group of Sarkites carrying equipment walk past the armored cruiser; the gun atop it slowly, almost-imperceptibly tracks their movement.]//

**IŪN:** I do not think your superiors consider us as much a part of this project as you do, Xenophon.

//[XENOPHON continues watching the movement of the gun when an approaching voice calls out from behind.]//

**JIANG:** <Grand Karcist! Xenophon.>

**XENOPHON:** Yes?

**JIANG:** Do you mind if I borrow you for a second?

**XENOPHON:** Certainly.

//[XENOPHON speeds up, accompanying JIANG some distance away, keeping up with the slow but steady pace of the train. They converse in English.]//

**XENOPHON:** Yes?

**JIANG:** Oh, nothing, really -- I just wanted to check in with you, make sure everything was okay.

**XENOPHON:** All systems are optimal -- is there a reason they would be otherwise?

**JIANG:** Nah, just, I know the Sarkites can be kind of odd.

**XENOPHON:** I suppose some might find them disturbing, yes.

**JIANG:** Some of the researchers are a little surprised by how well you're getting on with the Grand Karcist. The other Sarkites haven't been nearly as receptive to our efforts. Plus the researchers are more than a little -- yeah, disturbed, I guess. I mean, I'm glad we brought our own rations, you know? One of their kids offered us a bowl of stew a few nights ago and we're all under instructions not to eat anything they offer. Which turns out to be the right decisions because it ends up being of that guy they sacrificed.

**XENOPHON:** They did not sacrifice him. He was already dead.

**JIANG:** Fair. Cannibalized, then.

**XENOPHON:** Many human cultures practice endocannibalism as a funerary practice.

**JIANG:** I mean, you've read the same translated records I have. These guys aren't humans. They're pretty delibrately //not// human, going by the Grand Karcist's words. 

**XENOPHON:** She does not remember making that sermon, and no longer agrees with it.

//[He shrugs.]//

**JIANG:** She still said it. I'm just going off her actions, you know?

**XENOPHON:** Certainly. Though, for the Sarkites, sharing food with outsiders is considered a significant gesture of hospitality; spurning it is considered an insult. Perhaps this is why our researchers have struggled to engage with the Sarkites.

//[JIANG blinks.]//

**JIANG:** I've been studying them for years, never got that impression. Where'd you pick that up?

**XENOPHON:** I spoke to them.

**JIANG:** Yeah, well, easier said than done. Plus I'm not gonna be able to convince anyone to eat person stew -- they're just not doing it, and I can hardly blame them. We'll figure out something else. In any case, you don't have to worry about that; you're lucky, you don't have to eat at all.

**XENOPHON:** Yes. Lucky.
----
= **<<END LOG>>**
[[/div]]
[[/collapsible]]

[[div class="qna"]]
 **Q:** What does being Sarkic mean to you?

**#48 (Onta, 29, craftswoman):** //[She smiles, picking at the edges of the statuette she is whittling from a femur.]// <We do not worship a force we cannot see. We do not worship a cruel god that makes us suffer. Being Sarkic, to me, is to worship ourselves. We are, all of us, filled with an incredible light. We grow, we change. We can learn and do anything. We can become anything. Is that not more worthy of honor and worship than dreams of a hand reaching down from the sky to make wrong right? We are not perfect; these same gifts fill us with flaw. We are arrogant, foolish. We make mistakes. But we try to fix them. We choose to honor ourselves and our humanity. You will never understand, but perhaps you can see.>
[[/div]]
@@ @@
[[div class="foundation alt" style="font-family: monospace;"]]
+ DELTA-0 UPDATE

**PERSONNEL CODE:** MILE-AMBROSIA-HURRICANE

Project LOCUST personnel surveying several sites of interest along the Kyrgz-Uzbek border; Atreus Array readings indicate low level of residual ontokinetic activity, consistent with the theorized effects of the passage of a Class 5 reality-bender. Director Hussein evaluating sites near Caspian Sea and inside Afghanistan, and is being advised by Delta-0 personnel accordingly.

Black Adytum Initiative has arrived at next suspected location of interest, planning to survey the site in the morning. Embedded agent reports further low-level tensions between researchers and Sarkites; agent additionally reports that carnomantic abilities of Grand Karcist Iūn and Karcist Helyna Ieva have increased exponentially with progression of Initiative. Given Helyna Ieva's distrust of Foundation assets, agent suggests prioritizing focused surveillance of her, and reports that Grand Karcist Iūn largely trusts XENOPHON.aic. XENOPHON.aic functioning within expected margins.
[[/div]]

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