SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘LIMA’

Link to article: SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘LIMA’.

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[[div class="anchor"]]
[[div class="sidebox"]]
||~ SCP-6881 || **Project: SERAPIS** ||
||||= Supplementary Document ‘LIMA’ ||

||= [[image https://i.imgur.com/Q2TCZnd.png style="width: 150px;"]] ||
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[=]]
[[module Rate]]
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@@ @@

[[div class="meta-title"]]
SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘LIMA’
[[/div]]

[[div class="pseudocrumbs"]]
[[[scp-6881|Project: SERAPIS]]] >> Supplementary Document ‘LIMA’
[[/div]]

@@ @@

+++ ##900|► Play##

[[div class="blockquote"]]
[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** This is Agent Hector Gallio. The following is classified Level 5 under Project: SERAPIS -- O5 EYES ONLY.

The hypothesis that SCP-6881 is the same as the entity known as Mokosh, a powerful being masquerading as a Slavic nature deity, has yielded more than historical context. It is now known that research into Mokosh and its anomalous qualities was conducted by Professor J. A. Stockley, a Foundation-allied academic, in the 1920s. This fact has provided the link between the Foundation and SCP-6881, and allowed me to close in on the secret the Foundation has been hiding about the entity and the region of Shibbet’s Vale where it sleeps.

The evidence gathered by Stockley concerning Shibbet’s Vale was in the Foundation’s own archives all along. Previously it had been impossible to find without Stockley’s name and an approximate date to work with, but furnished with this information I located a box file that had been kept in long-term archival storage at Site-[[span class="terminal-span"]][REDACTED][[/span]] for a hundred years.

Stockley was employed by an early incarnation of the SCP Foundation to advise on psychological matters, and in this capacity was included in a task force sent to Shibbet’s Vale in the spring of 1923. The deployment of this task force was prompted by the Foundation coming into possession of evidence in the form of a film reel, which was recovered from among Stockley’s archived evidence. This reel was shot on the then newly released Cine-Kodak hand-cranked 16 mm camera. It was being used by Connor Hierens, a naturalist attempting to get footage of the black bears which are native to the region. The film has no sound, but the image is clear, if grainy, and responded well to being digitally enhanced. Stockley’s notes on the film also remain.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

+++ ##900|■ Stop##

@@ @@

= **SHOW FILES**

@@ @@

[[div class="evidence"]]
++ EX. 1 -- Hierens Film
[[/div]]

[[table]]
[[row]]
[[hcell style="padding: .5rem; background: hsla(53, 73%, 47%, .15); border: 1px solid black"]]
+++ AUDIO LOG
[[/hcell]]
[[/row]]

[[row]]
[[cell style="padding: 1rem; border: 1px solid black"]]

[[div class="notes"]]
(//Concomitant flickering sounds of a vintage projector spinning into operation.//)

**STOCKLEY (VO):** The film begins with a shot of coniferous forest, slowly moving through the trees towards a source of light and movement ahead. The camera reaches a view of a clearing and stops, with foliage near the lens suggesting the user of the camera is attempting to remain out of sight.

In the clearing are eight people, three men and five women, wearing simple white clothing. They are barefoot. Two of them carry lit torches. I am reminded of certain rites performed by adherents of Pre-Christian religions in parts of Scandinavia, Germany, and Russia, which though they have been revived imperfectly from incomplete historical evidence, still retain some genuine elements of past worship.

Suspended in a harness of ropes tied to the branches of the surrounding trees is a naked man, hung upside-down. Two of the participants dig a hole underneath the hanging man with spades, during which the man’s struggles show he is alive. This part of proceedings is unfamiliar to me; though, the concept of feeding the earth, such as with sacrifices of grain or a portion of other produce, is itself not uncommon.

[[div class="imagediv" style="width: 200px"]]
[[image Mokosh_symbol_red.png]]

||~ Modern recreation of a symbol identifying Mokosh. ||
[[/div]]

One of the men draws a knife with a long, thin blade. He cuts a series of lines into the man’s chest. Though the hanging man’s thrashing threatens to loosen the ropes around him, other observers step forward to hold him still. The symbol, when completed, resembles four squares in a diamond formation. One of the women then draws another symbol in each of the squares in the man’s blood.

This symbol is that of the Slavic forest goddess Mokosh, evidenced from the remains of temples in the Baltic region where Mokosh and the rest of her pantheon were primarily worshipped. The secondary symbols render it more complex than the more common versions of her symbol but are themselves common on the carved wooden posts used to mark the sacred boundaries of the pantheon’s temples. Together they form a constellation of meaning encompassing nature, birth, fertility, motherhood, protection, and the passage between the plane of the living and the plane of the dead.

The man with the knife then cuts the throat of the hanging man. Blood sprays from the wound into the hole dug beneath him. From the earth grow, at supernatural speed, winding and thorny vines that wrap around the man until only his hands and feet are still visible.

Bunches of white fruit, about the size and shape of pears, appear among the vines and the eight participants each pick one. They begin to eat these fruit as the view is obscured by out of focus foliage.

The holder of the camera moves away from the clearing and walks more briskly through the trees away from the clearing, until the film ends with a view of the dense coniferous forest.
[[/div]]

[[/cell]]
[[/row]]

[[/table]]

[[div style="margin: 4rem 0"]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** Hierens’ film came to the attention of the Foundation through the Scarslow Police Department. The dead man was identified as Walter Weldon, a worker in the town’s textile mill who had gone missing four days prior to his death. None of the ritualists could be identified from the film.

Stockley combined his own research into Mokosh with the investigation into Weldon’s death and generated a hypothesis that a cult dedicated to Mokosh was operating in Shibbet’s Vale. This was prior to the Foundation’s use of dedicated Mobile Task Forces, so a mission was assembled with a Foundation agent in charge and Professor Stockley consulting. The troops were drawn from the 170th Infantry Regiment of the United States Army, led by Captain Van Hassel. Most of these men were veterans of what was then known as the Great War and had seen action at the Battle of the Marne. Along with a company of troops, the force had a pair of tractor-towed 6-inch howitzers.

The mission records together with Stockley’s after-action reports give a thorough understanding of events.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[div style="margin: 4rem 0"]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="evidence"]]
++ EX. 2 -- Mission of March 3rd
[[/div]]

[[table]]
[[row]]
[[hcell style="padding: .5rem; background: hsla(53, 73%, 47%, .15); border: 1px solid black"]]
+++ ANNOTATED VIDEO LOGS
[[/hcell]]
[[/row]]

[[row]]
[[cell style="padding: 1rem; border: 1px solid black"]]
**DATE:** 3 March 1923

**NOTE:** Portions of the transcript, highlighted in ##B6A207|**YELLOW**##, are after-action voice-over annotations by Professor Stockley.

**PREAMBLE:** The force arrived via truck at Shibbet’s Vale at 1:00 a.m. MST. After setting up the howitzers, the force was mustered ready to advance into the forest at dawn.
[[/cell]]
[[/row]]

[[row]]
[[cell style="padding-left: 1rem; padding-right: 1rem; border: 1px solid black; text-align: center"]]
[[span class="terminal-span"]][BEGIN LOG][[/span]]
[[/cell]]
[[/row]]

[[row]]
[[cell style="padding-left: 1rem; padding-right: 1rem; border: 1px solid black"]]

[[div class="blockquote" style="margin-bottom: 0"]]
(//Quiet. Only the swaying of tree branches is audible.//)

**VAN HASSEL:** We move at 0600 hours. We have the best chance of catching them unawares, with enough light to fight by.

**JOHNSON:** If I may, Captain Van Hassel, it may be advantageous for the men to don their protective gear before then.

**VAN HASSEL:** You’re expecting to use the guns, agent?

**JOHNSON:** I don’t expect anything, Captain. But I am used to the strangest outcomes, and in being prepared for them. Anything to add, Professor?

**STOCKLEY:** I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. You will be our Foundation friend, is that correct?

**JOHNSON:** The name’s Agent Johnson.

**VAN HASSEL:** Of course it is.

[[div class="imagediv" style="width: 250px"]]
[[image j-a-stockley.jpg style="border: 1px solid black"]]

||~ Professor J. A. Stockley c. 1919 ||
[[/div]]

**STOCKLEY:** Well, agent, in my experience, members of esoteric religious movements tend towards the delusional and paranoiac. They typically believe they are uniquely knowledgeable about the world and that they are under threat from malevolent forces.

**VAN HASSEL:** I dare say they’re right about the second part.

**STOCKLEY:** Be that as it may, they may not be forewarned about our presence, but they will still be expecting enemies to assail them. They might even believe we are a form of supernatural foe. In short, they will fight to the death.

**VAN HASSEL:** Rather extreme an assessment considering we’re on US soil. My men are not used to firing in anger on their fellow countrymen.

**STOCKLEY:** Were you witness to the aftermath of the mass suicide at Devil’s Hook? A force of armed police marched on fifty devotees of the Red King. They burned their compound and ran among the police on fire, setting them ablaze in turn. Or the twelve souls who polluted the waters of Deresford with their own bodies, and poisoned two hundred men, women, and children? Should I go on?

**JOHNSON:** You don’t know the kind of enemy we’re facing, captain. We do. They will die before they surrender, and they’ll always try to take you with them.

**VAN HASSEL:** Very well, but rules of engagement will apply. Stockley, you’ll be with me behind the action. I need you on the spot but not in the front line. Agent, I understand this is your show, but these men are under my command.

**JOHNSON:** You know the Foundation’s objectives. As long as you pursue them, do it your way.

**VAN HASSEL:** Good.

**JOHNSON:** But if it goes south, I reserve the right to make a decision. That includes using the big guns. And the gas shells, if needs be.

**VAN HASSEL:** Not while we have men who can fight, agent. If people have to die, so be it. But I will not be a party to that barbarism.

**JOHNSON:** That is the Foundation’s call alone. We know what is at risk if your men cannot get it done.

**VAN HASSEL:** The Germans used gas on us at Chemin des Dames. Not everyone got their gas masks on in time. It burned them. Burned their eyes. Blinded them. Their lungs blistered up. Agent, you cannot understand what that means until you see it. Hear it.

**JOHNSON:** If your men do their jobs, Captain, I won’t have to.
[[/div]]
[[/cell]]
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[[/table]]

[[div style="margin: 4rem 0"]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** The assault began at 6:15 a.m. After approximately 20 minutes of moving through the heavily wooded ground, a squad led by Staff Sergeant Thorpe made contact with the enemy. Professor Stockley was some way behind the advance but witnessed the initial contact at a distance.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

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[[/div]]

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[[div class="blockquote"]]
(//Boots of soldiers in the brush.//)

**THORPE:** US Army! Come out into the open! Keep your hands where I can see them! Do it!

**[[[scp-6881-supplementary-document-hotel|BONE TREE WARRIOR]]]:** There is no war here, soldier.

**THORPE:** Natural gas leak. We’re getting everyone out of the area. Leave your possessions and come with us.

**BONE TREE WARRIOR:** No gas lines, either.

**THORPE:** I said come out in the open! Everyone! How many are you?

**BONE TREE WARRIOR:** More than you.

**WASHBURTON:** (//Muttering.//) Jeez, sarge, what’s with this guy’s face?

**THORPE:** Can it, Wash.

**WASHBURTON:** His skin looks like it’s coming off in handfuls. These must be our guys.

**BONE TREE WARRIOR:** I am no danger to you. But leave our land or that will change.

**THORPE:** Army doesn’t take real well to threats.

**BONE TREE WARRIOR:** Last warning.

**THORPE:** Ok, Washburton, Ames, cuff this bozo. The rest of you, fan out and bring the rest at gunpoint.

**WASHBURTON:** I get all the dirty jobs.

**THORPE:** Follow orders or I’ll cook up a few more. Get to it.

**WASHBURTON:** Hey! You! We’re gonna slap these on you and if you struggle it ain’t gonna end well!

(//Low-pitched creaking, as though a tree is being uprooted. WASHBURTON continues.//)

**WASHBURTON:** Is that a knife? Guy’s got a knife, sarge. What do we--

(//Wood erupts into motion. WASHBURTON yells, unable to fire in time. A sharpened, narrow shaft pierces straight through his torso.//)

**THORPE:** Wash! Wash!

(//Screams erupt from one side, and gunfire from the other.//)

**BONE TREE WARRIOR:** Brothers and sisters! The ground gives back! The garden sustains us!

**THORPE:** It’s the trees! Get away from the trees!
[[/div]]

[[div class="notes"]]
**STOCKLEY (VO):** It was far away, but I heard his words clearly. ‘Get away from the trees.’ They were in the middle of the forest, how were they supposed to do that?

Washburton, I understand, was the first man to die. The rest of his squad, the survivors, saw it happen more clearly than I could. Some said it was a tree root, others a branch. Either way, it tore right through him. Ripped him wide open.

Thorpe, to his credit, didn’t just run. He tried to retreat his squad in decent order as the trees picked up more of his men and pulled them apart or dashed them against the ground. I saw the Bone Tree between the trees. Their skin was ivory white, and they were misshapen. There was a lack of the essential symmetry of the human form. They were humanoid in shape, arms and legs and a head, but with a distortion that rendered them utterly inhuman.

The one who spoke had black eyes and a mouth that took up most of his face. I saw it for just a second through the field glasses, but I cannot forget it. Lined with teeth, like a shark’s. The eyes wide, raw pits lined with ragged skin, as if they were just holes drilled into the front of the skull. 

There were others in the trees. Some were skinny as ghosts. One was huge and lumbering like a pale, two-legged cow. It was dark beneath the boughs, with the dawn only just breaking, and I thought I saw men with three arms, men with no legs and the lower body of a snake dragging themselves through the mulch, men up in the trees with bows and spears. I do not know what was real, except that men were dying in front of me.

I did not fight in the Great War. I was too old, and besides, the Foundation saw to my remaining in England to do my work on their behalf. I had read of awful things, of course. I had seen the aftermath of a few, and they had stayed with me. But this was the first time I saw it unfold in front of me. Red, bleeding chunks hanging from the branches that used to be men. One soldier leaning on another, because he had lost a leg to the tree roots ripping out of the ground. Three or four of the pallid forest men leaping on a soldier and the spray of red against their white skin.

Captain Van Hassel was nearby. One of his men had laid a field telephone cable behind us and he used it now. I heard him relaying the situation to Agent Johnson. I cannot recall his exact words. He said the enemy was ready for them in force and they had what he called an ‘environmental advantage’. Words to the effect he was trying to fall back in order and regroup.

The gun fire was everywhere. Bullets buzzed past my head. Bits of shattered bark pattered against the protective smock I wore over my clothes.

The captain yelled for the guns. The absurd thought occurred to me that I had been so wrong about war and battle until that moment. I had thought of regiments of men moving in disciplined squares and generals surveying the battlefield as if with the eye of a god. Now I understood what any fool should have known all along. That battle was chaos, utter cruel and random bedlam, and there is no more plan or discipline there than in the throes of insanity.
[[/div]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
(//Gunshots and the occasional splintering of wood.//)

**VAN HASSEL:** Our position is A7 to A9! Target to our front!

**STOCKLEY:** Captain, should we fall back?

**VAN HASSEL:** Stay put, professor, by me! Agent, target to our front! Fire!

(//Firing howitzers nearby rock the forest with explosions, and again with thumping as shells hit. There is a pause in the chaos.//)

**STOCKLEY:** Did it work? Did it get them? I can’t see through the smoke.

[[div class="imagediv" style="width: 250px"]]
[[image van-hassel.jpg style="border: 1px solid black"]]

||~ Captain Van Hassel c. 1916 ||
[[/div]]

**VAN HASSEL:** That’s not smoke. That bastard used the gas. Masks! Masks, everyone!

**STOCKLEY:** We put them on when we set out, captain.

**VAN HASSEL:** Some fool always takes his off.

**THORPE:** Captain!

**VAN HASSEL:** Good god, Thorpe, you’re alive.

**THORPE:** Shells came down right on top of them, sir. I can’t see a damned thing now, but that gas is rolling right over the enemy.

**VAN HASSEL:** Then advance. Forward! Advance, keep order! Stockley, stay by me!

(//A Bone Tree warrior scampers near, choking.//)

**VAN HASSEL:** Stay back, Stockley, this one’s still alive. My god. Just like Chemin des Dames.

**THORPE:** What do we do, sir? Prisoners?

**VAN HASSEL:** I don’t know.

(//Gunshot. The Bone Tree gurgles in a death rattle. Silence.//)

**THORPE:** He was coming right at me, sir.

**VAN HASSEL:** Yes, sergeant, of course. Very good.

**THORPE:** Trees change up ahead sir. They’re like… god, I don’t know what.

**VAN HASSEL:** Take the right, Thorpe. Sergeant Morse, on the left! Stay in sight, in good order!
[[/div]]

[[div class="notes"]]
**STOCKLEY (VO):** The ground was littered with the people of the forest. I had no other name for them but that. Followers of Mokosh, perhaps. The gas was Lewisite, I learned later, a replacement in the armories for mustard gas. But the effects were as awful. They writhed in the yellowish haze, their eyes streaming, vomiting or drooling as they hacked up the fluids filling their lungs. It burned on the inside, and the outside. We had full protective clothing and masks. They were practically naked in comparison.

I saw their deformities up close then. Their skin was like wet, white clay. Their bodies and limbs were lumpen and asymmetrical. Some had three arms, or one arm withered away. I saw one with a single black eye in the middle of its forehead and no nose, but a lipless slash of a mouth. Some had bundles of fat white growths, like clusters of strange pale buboes, blistered up from their flesh, and they looked for all the world like clusters of fruit growing in their bodies. I have never seen the like of those people, and even in my work for the Foundation I have heard of nothing so appalling to any soul who celebrates the natural or the pure.

The soldiers shot them dead as they fought to breathe, and god forgive me, I can find no condemnation in my heart for their actions.

The trees were like enormous fungal growths. The ground underfoot was spongy with rubbery masses like the caps of huge mushrooms. White particles, spores perhaps, fell in drifts from the altered flora, mixing with the awful fog of the gas.

The remains of wooden buildings were scattered around here, with a few partially made of stone. Most were collapsed or had been broken through by the enormous fungi. Overhead were bundles of fruit, like clusters of white, vastly oversized grapes, and I realised with a lurch that the growths on the followers might be fruit after all.

But that was not all the Garden of Mokosh had to show us.
[[/div]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
(//Soldiers pace noisily through muck.//)

**THORPE:** Captain, are you seeing the same thing I am?

**VAN HASSEL:** I wish I wasn’t. Are they captives?

**THORPE:** Have to get up close to tell.

**VAN HASSEL:** Professor, Have you seen anything like this?

**STOCKLEY:** I’ll take a look. Watch out for… well, just watch out.

**VAN HASSEL:** Hold here! Keep him covered.

**STOCKLEY:** I can’t make out much through this damned mask. I don’t think it’s a captive, it looks like one of their own. The tree has grown up right through his body, going in through the thigh and out through the shoulder. Branches through the torso. The stomach is… distended. I’m not a doctor. But there’s something inside that shouldn’t be. Good god, it’s moving. I can see it through the skin.

**THORPE:** What is it?

**STOCKLEY:** I don’t know. It’s like… an eel. It has a spine. I see a brain. Vestigial limbs. God in heaven.

**THORPE:** There must be twenty of the poor bastards. Thirty. The Krauts had flamethrowers in the war, we could do with a couple now. Captain, what do we do with them?

**VAN HASSEL:** We’ll decide later, once we’ve secured this place. We don’t even know how far it goes.

(//Distant soldiers fire, shouting.//)

**THORPE:** That’s Morse’s squad.

**VAN HASSEL:** Get back, Professor! Thorpe, find out what the hell is going on!

(//Repeatedly, trees shatter and break, killing their prey, accompanied by blood-curdling screams and more gunshots.//)

**THORPE:** You! You! With me, the rest of you hold here!

**STOCKLEY:** Did some of them survive the gas?

**VAN HASSEL:** I hope so. Otherwise, it’s something else.

(//A woman sings in a flowing soprano as though from all directions, echoing through the brush.//)

**STOCKLEY:** That sounds like something else.

**VAN HASSEL:** See that? Drifting through the trees? Men! To our front left, open fire! Shoot it down! Shoot it down!

(//Singing continues, becoming momentarily shrill.//)

**STOCKLEY:** It’s still coming.

**VAN HASSEL:** Fall back! Fall back! Thorpe, Morse, fall back and regroup!

**MOKOSH:** You bring poison to my garden. My people. My children.
[[/div]]

[[div class="notes"]]
**STOCKLEY (VO):** The moment the mists rolled back, and I saw her properly, I knew it was her. From above us, among the boughs of the trees, it was difficult to judge her height, but I believe she was not much less than twice the height of a man. She was naked save for the flowering vines wrapped around her body. Her flesh was pale green with dark veins running through it. The dawning sun made a halo around her as it shone through the cloud of spores and gas trailing behind her.

The plants around her flowered, wilted, and budded anew as I watched. Petals and leaves fell from her, and those fat white fruit dropped from the vines. The sound that came with her was something like music, something like the awful droning of a swarm of insects or the ringing of one’s ears.

[[div class="imagediv wider"]]
[[image Makosh_Kaluga.jpg style="border: 1px solid black"]]

||~ Many-colored recreation of Kaluga embroidery, which depicts Mokosh (center) being flanked on each side by birds and horsewomen. ||
[[/div]]

I knew it was Mokosh. In ages past her worshippers had depicted her crowned with flowers, sometimes with a ball of thread or a spinning wheel in her hands, or a bird on each shoulder. Her images could have both female and male characteristics, she could be old or young or have the swollen belly of an expectant mother. But in spite of all this variation, I knew I was looking at her then, the being I had studied and came to fear might be a flesh and blood entity rather than a myth long since destroyed by the spread of Christianity.

She looked down at us from on high, and I swear to god she saw right through to the dread in my heart.
[[/div]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
(//Mokosh's droning song fills the forest.//)

**MOKOSH:** Captain Van Hassel, I forgive you. I see so much pain in you. You are afraid. It suffuses you. There is no room for anything else. But I am a compassionate god. I will banish your fear. All you have to do, Captain Van Hassel, is breathe.

**STOCKLEY:** Captain! Captain, what are you doing?

**THORPE:** Keep your mask on, Captain! It’s the spores! She wants you to breathe in the spores!

(//Van Hassel inhales harshly, tearing off his gas mask. It hits the ground.//)

(//He chokes, heaving.//)

**MOKOSH:** Do you see? Now there is no room for fear.

(//Van Hessel makes a low, wet sound. He collapses, dead.//)

**THORPE:** Prof, where’s the field telephone?

**STOCKLEY:** Captain? Captain, can you... Can you hear me?

**THORPE:** He’s gone. The field phone! Where is it?

**STOCKLEY:** Here. He left it by me.

**THORPE:** Agent! No, this is Sergeant Thorpe. The Captain’s down. We need a salvo on this position.

**STOCKLEY:** Oh my god, he’s getting up. His face… his face is gone…

**MOKOSH:** There will be no more fear. Breathe deep. You are all my children now.

**THORPE:** Grid B8! No, now! Right now! Not the gas, blow it all to hell!

(//The body of Van Hessel locomotes. A long, moan-like noise escapes his throat.//)

**STOCKLEY:** They’re all getting up, all the dead ones.

**THORPE:** Fall back! Everyone fall back! The Captain’s down, everyone retreat!

(//From all sides, whines of the newly deceased intensify. The remaining soldiers scramble away in desperation.//)

(//Shells shoot overhead, whistling, breaking foliage. Great explosions mark the impact.//)
[[/div]]

[[div class="notes"]]
**STOCKLEY (VO):** The last I saw of that battlefield was Captain Van Hassel on his feet again. His face had imploded, leaving just a huge dark hole. The flesh inside was bubbling up and sprouting into wriggling red vines. He stumbled towards me with his gun still in his hand. Sergeant Thorpe grabbed me by the arm and dragged me after him as he ran. The rest of the men still alive and sensible followed as the shells fell overhead.

The thunder of those guns deafened me in an instant. I know now why so many men came back from the war shell-shocked. It is more than a noise; it is a wall of force hammering against one’s soul. I could not even think, just plunge heedlessly forward without even knowing where I was headed. It was providence alone that kept me heading away from that cauldron of fire and not shambling blindly back into it.

I recall little of our return to the location of the guns, where Agent Johnson was already limbering the guns ready to depart Shibbet’s Vale. Of the eighty men who went into the forest, a little more than fifty returned. I have no doubt several of those lost souls were caught in the barrage that fell on the very place we had been standing a few moments before, and though the thought sickens me, in Sergeant Thorpe’s place I could not have countenanced any other decision.

We were silent in the trucks that carried us back through Scarslow. We did not look back. We left many men in that forest, and not a little part of ourselves. I have sought knowledge all my life, but that day I learned what war truly was, and on that subject, I would give anything to remain in ignorance.
[[/div]]

[[/cell]]
[[/row]]

[[row]]
[[cell style="padding-right: 1rem; padding-left: 1rem; border: 1px solid black; text-align: center"]]
[[span class="terminal-span"]][END LOG][[/span]]
[[/cell]]
[[/row]]
[[/table]]

[[div style="margin: 4rem 0"]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** The Foundation had yet to fully develop its modern-day creed of Secure, Contain, and Protect. Destruction was an acceptable outcome for an anomaly on the scale Stockley witnessed. Nevertheless, the after-action reports included in the archives show that Agent Johnson, there referred to by his real name of Senior Field Agent David Karlssen, was severely disciplined upon returning to his home site. Deploying Lewisite on an unsecured location was considered an overstepping of his authority. He was transferred out of field work and into site security.

Information security was also laxer in that earlier incarnation of the Foundation. There is no record of amnestics or other measures being employed to keep the US Army soldiers from communicating what they had witnessed at Shibbet’s Vale. Professor Stockley was evidently left free to write of his experiences. Compared to the current level of procedural oversight, there was a definite lack of…

(//Sharp knock at the door.//)

**GALLIO:** Come in.

**???:** Good evening, Agent Gallio. Working late?

**GALLIO:** Almost finished. I take it you’re representing the O5 Council today?

**O5 REP:** You are correct. And fortunately for you, I am from the faction that approves of your research project here. I understand you have chased the trail back to an old operation in the 1920s.

**GALLIO:** You keep a close watch on me.

**O5 REP:** Did you expect anything less? We were hoping you could share your conclusions.

**GALLIO:** There’s not much more to sift through here. I’ll have it for you soon.

**O5 REP:** How about a sneak preview? The Council is not renowned for its patience.

**GALLIO:** This is it. The reason for Project: SERAPIS. This is what half the O5 Council is scared of. Mokosh was already under Shibbet’s Vale, it had been there since the 12th Century, but the 1923 operation is what the Council members are covering up.

**O5 REP:** So, what is your smoking gun, agent?

**GALLIO:** Agent Johnson. Or Karlssen, whatever we call him. He sent a salvo of artillery shells onto the target and then got out of there. He’d committed a pretty serious breach of protocol in using poison gas. He must have been worried of causing any more havoc there than he already had. That’s when he made his mistake.

**O5 REP:** Which was?

**GALLIO:** He didn’t confirm the kill. Mokosh had survived the Northern Crusades and made it across the Bering Straits. It had survived for the best part of seven centuries. One artillery salvo wasn’t enough to be sure it was dead. But Johnson didn’t turn back. Didn’t get eyes on the body. So, it sunk into the ground again and healed up, getting stronger and stronger until today’s Foundation kicked in its front door.

**O5 REP:** Quite the cover-up for a single agent’s mistake. Agents get it wrong every day. What is special about Johnson’s screw-up?

**GALLIO:** Nothing. It’s about Johnson himself. After Shibbet’s Vale he was transferred to site security. That’s not much of a glamour posting but it’s long-term and safe. But there’s no record of him being promoted or transferred, nothing on him dying or being compromised. I think his history was scrubbed. The mission details were all that remained.

[[div class="imagediv" style="width: 250px"]]
[[image agent-johnson.jpg style="border: 1px solid black"]]

||~ The only known photo of "Agent Johnson". Date unspecified. ||
[[/div]]

**O5 REP:** Which means?

**GALLIO:** Johnson’s O5. Maybe he’s died off since, maybe he’s still alive. Either way, a member of the O5 Council was responsible for a monumental foul-up that left an active anomaly to recuperate and corrupt the area like it had always been. Whoever knew about it would have a hell of a bargaining chip in the politics within the Council. I don’t know much about the members, but I do know they don’t like being vulnerable. Whoever Johnson became, whoever counts him as part of their legacy, they want the Shibbet’s Vale mission kept hidden.

**O5 REP:** I see. That does give us a great deal to think about, agent. Certain elements of Council politicking make a great deal more sense in the light of your theory.

**GALLIO:** I thought that might be the case. Like I said, I’m almost finished here. Just need to put the rubber stamp on it and call Project: SERAPIS complete.

**O5 REP:** As much as I hate to fill your inbox, there is another reason the Council sent me. This was just recovered from the site of the Mobile Task Force mission at Lake Apesawa.

**GALLIO:** Iota-28’s operation? That’s what started all this off. Did the clean-up crew bring it in?

**O5 REP:** No clean-up crew, not until a containment procedure for SCP-6881 can be developed. We suspect this was left there deliberately, for our attention. And now, for yours. One final entry in Project: SERAPIS. I hope it won’t make this too late a night for you.

**GALLIO:** I didn’t stick with the Foundation for the regular hours. I’ll go through it and get it logged.

**O5 REP:** Then I am done here, for the time being. The O5 Council thanks you for your exemplary research work, Agent Gallio. Some of them, at least.

**GALLIO:** Good to know.

**O5 REP:** We’ll be seeing you.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[div style="margin: 4rem 0"]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="evidence"]]
++ EX. 3 -- Lake Apesawa Recovered Footage
[[/div]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** The item recovered from Lake Apesawa is a video cassette tape, of a design common in the early to mid-1980s. It was found on the lake shore, close to the poured concrete plug blocking the entrance to the cave complex used by MTF-Iota-28. The plug was placed there after contact with Iota-28 was lost, with the intention of keeping any anomalies inside from reaching the surface. If the tape originated from inside the caves, this containment measure was ineffective.

The tape shows the image of a cave with the ceiling an estimated four to five metres high. The cave is full of vegetation resembling oversized mushrooms and small fruiting trees, which are not consistent with naturally occurring underground biomes.

The image pans across to show a lone figure walking into the cave, carrying a flare which is the scene’s only light source. Analysis confirmed this figure to be I-28 Abbot, the last member of MTF-Iota-28 known to be alive. The light falls on an enormous worm-like creature in the cave, three metres high and at least forty to fifty long, with a segmented body of dark brown chitin and eight or more eyes arranged around the circle of its mouth. Matching the audio with [[[scp-6881|Iota-28 Abbot’s last transmission]]] confirms this creature is **SCP-6881**.
[[/div]]

**ABBOT:** It’s… oh my god.

**ABBOT:** It’s a worm.

**ABBOT:** It’s the size of the goddamn Red October. It has so many eyes… so many eyes…

(//There is a deep rumbling; just the beginning of a large organism moving.//)

**ABBOT:** Its mouth is opening…

[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** The worm-like entity opens its mouth, revealing a ring of teeth around a central passageway in which can be glimpsed a group of humanoid figures. They are poorly lit by the flare, but as they walk out of the worm’s interior, they become more distinct.

The central figure is approximately three and a half metres tall and resembles a human woman. It has pale green skin with darker-coloured veins and long fern-like leaves in place of hair. Flowering vines are wound around its otherwise unclothed body. This entity is consistent with Professor Stockley’s description of the being he called Mokosh. This entity has been given the provisional designation **SCP-6881-2**.
[[/div]]

**ABBOT:** Who the hell are you?

[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** The rest of the figures emerge from the worm. Four of them appear to be pre-teen human females and are wearing sweatpants and t-shirts that read ‘Camp Apesawa’. They match the description of Sally Aspinall, Roberta Little, Pearl Krause, and Margaret Pendlemore, the four girls who [[[scp-6881-supplementary-document-foxtrot|went missing from Camp Apesawa in 1974]]]. If they are these same girls, they have not aged since the time of their disappearance. They have been given the provisional designations of **SCP-6881-3**, **4**, **5**, and **6**, respectively.

Another figure resembles the corpse of a human female moving via animated growths, resembling the roots of trees, emerging from its torso. It has a slender build and appears to be in its late teens. It has long blonde hair and wears the remains of a white dress, tattered and bloodstained. This figure is identical to the last appearance of Polly Pozniak, from [[[scp-6881-supplementary-document-golf|the events filmed at the Children of the New Dawn compound in 1968]]]. This entity has been given the designation **SCP-6881-7**.

The final figure appears to be a human female wearing breeches and a checked shirt. It has short red-brown hair and appears to be in its 20s, though the age is difficult to determine because the face and upper chest are covered in blood. Though very few  photographs or physical description exist of Faye Weaver, the clothing and evidence of violence match the events described in [[[scp-6881-supplementary-document-juliett|the journals of Professor Milton Douglass Fitzwilliam in 1933]]]. This entity is designated **SCP-6881-8**.

The camera moves, further suggesting it is a video camcorder. It is placed on a rock to give a better view of I-28 Abbot, who appears transfixed by the entity in front of him. The person carrying the camera now walks into frame. It appears to be a human female with long brown hair, wearing a plaid skirt and a cardigan. Though it is seen primarily from behind, this figure closely matches [[[scp-6881-supplementary-document-delta|photographs and film of Rebecca Valenti at the time of her disappearance in 1986]]]. This entity has been designated **SCP-6881-9**. As with SCPs 6881-3 through 8, none of the other entities appear to have aged, or changed at all, since the time of their disappearance.

SCP-6881-2 speaks.
[[/div]]

**SCP-6881-2:** I am she you banished from one land, and tried to murder in this one. You killed those who followed me and drove me out, and beneath the ground I slept to recover. You dropped fire on me, but I wove this cocoon to give me shelter, and healed once more. Now you come to kill me again, and this time I was ready.

**ABBOT:** Wait! Wait. We didn’t know what was down here. All the stuff that’s happened up there in Shibbet’s Vale, we had to find out what was causing it. All the deaths and disappearances, all the crazy shit, we had to find out why. You can’t blame us for coming down here. Our people died too.

**SCP-6881-2:** And what do I care about your people? I am not one of them. I am far older, from very far away. You to me are as insects are to you, until I bring them to my bosom and make them my children. It is my children who have suffered most of all. You have exterminated them again and again. But they always come back. My daughters. My handmaidens. In me they found a mother and a god.

**ABBOT:** Okay, okay, we treated you bad. I get that. But it doesn’t have to go on. The people I work for -- the Foundation -- they just want to be safe. We can both be safe, yours and mine.

**SCP-6881-2:** But I do not want you to be safe.

**ABBOT:** Then what do you want?

**SCP-6881-2:** What else could I desire? For my fellow gods who fell. For my children who were butchered. For my world denied my embrace. I want revenge.

(//Stalagmitic trees rupture and lurch forward, bursting as they enter ABBOT's body, who screams a prolonged wail. His voice echoes throughout the cave.//)

[[div class="blockquote"]]
**GALLIO:** I-28 Abbot is torn apart from the inside by rapidly expanding plant growth. A tree festooned with torn flesh erupts from his body, and white fruits blossom on its branches. The image declines rapidly in quality, and the tape ends.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[div style="margin: 8rem 0"]]
[[/div]]

**GALLIO:**

This concludes the research and analysis of information on anomalous events at Shibbet’s Vale gathered under Project: SERAPIS. This information is classified Level 5, for O5 eyes only.

Project: SERAPIS is now sealed.

Agent Hector Gallio, signing off.

@@ @@
@@ @@
@@ @@

----
++ [[span class="terminal-span"]][FILE SEALED][[/span]]
----

@@ @@

[[div class="pseudocrumbs"]]
**| [[[scp-6881|Return to Project: SERAPIS]]] |**
[[/div]]

@@ @@

[[div class="footing"]]
[[/div]]

@@ @@

[[=]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box
|author=Ben Counter, Pacific Obadiah, & edited by LordStonefish, Lt Flops]]
[[<]]
=====
> **Filename:** [https://i.imgur.com/Q2TCZnd.png Q2TCZnd.png]
> **Name:** Overwatch Command Logo
> **Author:** [[*user EstrellaYoshte]]
> **License:** [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)]
> **Source Link:** [[[/desk-of-junior-designer-s-yvonne|Desk of Junior Designer S. Yvonne - SCP Foundation]]]

> **Filename:** Mokosh_symbol_red.png
> **Name:** Mokosh symbol red
> **Author:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%C3%86o Eckhardt Etheling]
> **License:** [*https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98592850 Public Domain]
> **Source Link:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mokosh_symbol_red.svg Wikimedia Commons]

> **Filename:** Makosh_Kaluga.jpg
> **Name:** Makosh Kaluga
> **Author:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%D0%9B%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B2_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80 Лобачев Владимир]
> **License:** [*https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)]
> **Source Link:** [*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Makosh_Kaluga.jpg Wikimedia Commons]

> **Filename:** van-hassel.jpg 
> **Name:** PLATTSBURG RESERVE OFFICERS TRAINING CAMP. U.S. ARMY OFFICER
> **Author:** [*https://loc.gov/pictures/collection/hec/ Harris & Ewing Collection]
> **License:** [*https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/140_harr.html No known restrictions on publication]
> **Source Link:** [*https://loc.getarchive.net/media/plattsburg-reserve-officers-training-camp-us-army-officer-cab946 Library of Congress]

> **Filename:** j-a-stockley.jpg
> **Name:** Dr. J.R. Angell
> **Author:** [*https://loc.gov/pictures/collection/ggbain/ George Grantham Bain Collection]
> **License:** [*https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/274_bain.html No known restrictions on publication]
> **Source Link:** [*https://loc.getarchive.net/media/dr-jr-angell-a839f2 Library of Congress]
> **Note:** Edited by [[*user Lt Flops]]. Cropped off the lettering at the top, and adjusted the levels.

> **Filename:** agent-johnson.jpg
> **Name:** Reid, G.H.
> **Author:** [*https://loc.getarchive.net/collections/cm-bell-studio-washington-dc C.M. Bell Studio, DC]
> **License:** [*https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/c-m-bell-studio-photographs.html No known restrictions on publication]
> **Source Link:** [*https://loc.getarchive.net/media/reid-gh-82b531 Library of Congress]
=====
[[/<]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]
[[/=]]

@@ @@

SCP-6881 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT ‘LIMA’

Module Styles

Inline Styles

Includes

CSS Classes

Page Source