SCP-2480: An Unfinished Ritual. A strange
coastal town in Massachusetts filled with
odd locals that keep to themselves and the
site of a religious organization that consorts
with inhuman entities. This is the setting
for H.P. Lovecraft's story, The Shadow over
Innsmouth, but also the setting of scp-2480.
The lovecraftian influences and similarities
don't end there, as we'll see, but 2480 also
stands on its own two feet within the scp
universe by blending in elements of sarkicism.
If you haven't already viewed my video on
Sarkicism, I highly recommend doing so first
before continuing. This is a story in which
neither the GOC nor the SCP Foundation come
off as incredibly competent, and develops
into a much bigger problem than at first glance.
The first line of the description reads that
scp-2480 is speculated to be a dimensional
anomaly in a coastal Massachusetts town, meaning
that the foundation still hasn't confirmed
if that's the truth or not. There's a crossed
out section in which they blame the inept
and heavy-handed Global Occult Coalition for
creating the anomaly when they interrupted
a ritual in 1952, which had an unknown purpose.
This would seem to be no longer believed by
the foundation, but we'll have to keep reading
to find out what exactly is going on. They
do know however that the anomaly is centered
around a mansion in the town known as Bodfel
Manor, the previous home of a millionaire
industrialist with an interest in the occult
named Cornelius P. Bodfel the third, who coincidentally,
or not so coincidentally, died in 1952. A
footnote tells us that Bodfel was also known
as Karcist Sulkisk, revealing that sarkicism
was likely a key component of that ritual.
In the later years of his life, Bodfel was
the leader of a secret society known as Adytum's
Wake, named after the capital of the Sarkic
empire. The foundation looked into adytum's
wake in 1932, but dismissed it as another
decadent upper-class social club. Strike one
for the foundation.
None of the GOC operatives sent to interrupt
the ritual in 1952 survived, but the foundation
did investigate one of their nearby safe houses,
finding a number of burnt documents related
to their mission. Part of one was intact,
detailing a humanoid entity known as Grand
Karcist Ion, who we of course know as the
earthly leader of the sarkic cults. The GOC
were clearly not certain of much of their
info on Ion, and in fact, with their only
known photograph of him, they're unsure if
he's the humanoid in the forefront or the
manifested face in the background. Despite
their uncertainty though, it was the GOC's
mission to assassinate Grand Karcist Ion,
so they must have had reason to believe that
he was going to be present at the ritual site.
Foundation operatives were alerted to the
mission after intercepting a GOC distress
broadcast, sending in an investigation team.
The team discovered 36 bodies scattered across
the mansion, 5 of them being GOC operatives
that had shot themselves, the other 31 having
been killed through anomalous means such as
implosion, disintegration, and fatal physical
reconfiguration. The Foundation however did
not find Grand Karcist Ion's body among the
deceased, leading them to believe the GOC
ultimately failed their mission. They discovered
that the mansion was under the effects of
some sort of subtle dimensional anomaly, changing
room sizes in impossible ways and other similar
phenomena, usually only noticeable through
sustained viewing or while on perception altering
chemicals. The anomaly is marked as safe,
the foundation gets to laugh at the GOC for
being incompetent, and that's that.
Of course that's not that, as the foundation
did their standard investigation into the
manor, and that's when things started to spiral
out of control. They uncovered numerous journals
and photographs that detailed the parties
that adytum's wake had at bodfel manor, involving
rape, pedophilia, ritual human sacrifice,
and cannibalism: all par for the course for
sarkics. Guest lists however included members
of affluent families, respected politicians,
leaders of industry, and even those of religious
authority. It also became clear that this
was more than just classic secret society
fun, as they uncovered sermon notes and religious
scripture, including some sort of religious
tome written in an unknown language. A statue
in the main hall of the manor depicted an
entity with a lion's head and a worm-like
body, determined to be a representation of
the demiurge, which we known in the scp universe
as Yaldaboath, principal deity of sarkicism.
At the base of the statue, written in Greek,
are the words, "Desire is the measure of all
things. Be unbound from moral tethers. Do
as you will, to whom you will." This is a
common proverb among neo-sarkics, as the will
to power is the primary driving force of man,
and the key to achieving godhood, according
to them.
Things were quiet for a number of years after
this initial investigation, with a small foundation
facility set up nearby to monitor bodfel manor
and the town. Bi-annual reports were sent
every year for decades, all of which reported
no changes of any kind on the dimensional
anomaly. In 1988 however, the head of the
facility at the time, Simon Oswalt, failed
to send a report on time. At first, the foundation
just assumed it was some sort of bureaucratic
error, probably not a big deal, but after
attempting to contact the site and receiving
no response, two agents were sent to personally
investigate. In classic horror fashion, they
were never heard from again. Since something
was almost certainly wrong, mobile task force
epsilon-6, "village idiots" was sent in to
reestablish contact. They integrated themselves
into the town as new residents and tourists,
and we're provided a log of their encounters.
Six days after arrival, an agent writes that
he detects a certain wrongness in the town,
something he can't quite put his finger on.
He saw a man mowing his lawn at midnight,
and a man at the fish market that simply stared
at him without blinking. He also mentions
a subtle, pungent smell, of neither fish nor
the sea. 11 days in, another agent complains
about the hotel he's staying in, writing that
people run about all hours of the night. The
night before, he looked out the peephole from
his room and saw a face, and the person immediately
began to slam their head against the door
over and over. 16 days in, an agent writes
that they know their target is bodfel manor,
but for some reason command is not letting
them go in. A drunk man approached her and
asked if she was a fed. After lying and saying
yes, the man began talking about monsters
in the fog who screamed their secrets, and
it's been like this for over forty years.
They apparently found him dead the next day,
with the locals claiming he drowned. The agent
isn't convinced. 20 days in, another agent
remarks that the town possesses a rather miserable
appearance, covered in fog and always raining,
with even the trees looking sad. The majority
of locals keep to themselves, rarely smile,
and look tired and sickly. The agent came
across a group of kids in the street gathered
around something, who scattered once he approached.
He discovered that the children had been taking
bites out of a partially flayed dead dog.
30 days in now, two of the agents went poking
around an abandoned building in town, discovering
the interior covered in various symbols and
gibberish. They also found a tv that looked
like it came from the 50s or 60s, and a set
of four tv dinner trays with half-eaten meals
still sitting there. They caught a glimpse
of someone and chased them upstairs, finding
no one. One of the agents thinks they were
chasing their own shadows, perhaps literally.
7 days later, an agent writes that they haven't
heard from one of their fellow agents for
7 days. They went to where he was staying
and found all of the doors and windows locked,
found only the agent's fingerprints, and the
tv was still running. It's as if he ceased
to exist.
39 days in, another agent recounts his attempts
at gaining information from a local dive bar.
He conversed with an old fisherman, who began
crying about how Bodfel had taken two of his
sisters and a brother. The agent can't get
a straight answer on whether he meant the
millionaire or the estate itself. He says
the fisherman was delirious by the end of
the conversation, going on about how the town
has a god-shaped hole in it. You might remember
that phrase from my video on the Hanged King,
although I'll leave it to your speculation
if that's a meaningful connection. The final
log comes from 40 days in to the investigation,
written by an agent that was having a few
beers with a fellow agent at the docks, while
comparing notes. The other agent said he felt
like he was being followed, his eyes bloodshot
from lack of sleep. This is the agent that
couldn't sleep in his hotel. Suddenly, the
agent's eyes go wide as the air begins to
smell of a thunderstorm, and in the next instant,
he implodes. The agent says that he was killed
by some sort of invisible force, turning him
into slurry, and he claims to have felt a
presence the entire time. He says that it
felt like something wanted him to know that
it could do that to him as well at any moment.
Fans of Lovecraft's works might find this
death similar to Abdul Alhazred's, who was
said to have been devoured by an invisible
monster in broad daylight. A crowd of locals
had seen the agent's demise, with some of
them smiling, but they simply went on with
their routines. The agent finishes the log
by wishing that they could just raze this
place and be done with it.
We're then given a series of logs from a dr
that has been studying scp-2480 and the surrounding
town, named Dr. Calixto Narvaez. A number
of unusual observations have been made regarding
the town. It seems that the locals excessively
procreate, with the average household having
twelve children, and 80% of these children
lack birth certificates or social security
numbers. The doctor suspects religious reasoning
for this. Many residents also appear to have
difficulty with memory retention, mental fatigue,
and subtle hallucinations. The use of hallucinogens
among the town folk is non-existent though,
although they consume 200% more alcohol than
the statewide average. Another record they
set in Massachusetts is the number of disappearances,
the highest in the state, although this has
been blamed on the dense forests and marshlands
around the town by law enforcement agencies.
Both local residents and transients are involved
in disappearances, reported and unreported.
There are also many suspicious deaths within
the town, with anomalous causes, although
this is inexplicably dismissed by law enforcement.
A woman was found with her body structurally
inverted, and police concluded that this was
self-inflicted. Overall, a general malaise
and apathy blankets the local populace, which
is pretty clear at this point. The doctor
goes on to say that they're dealing with an
anomaly that exists beyond their normal human
senses. In 1976, he was sent to Brazil to
investigate a similar community, and he came
across an indigenous tribe in the amazon that
were aware of the anomaly. He discussed things
with the tribe's shaman, learning that they
commonly referred to entities that lurked
beyond human sight as "None Stand Where They
Do". These entities apparently were responsible
for an affliction they called soul sickness,
and they blamed it on colonists wounding nature.
The shaman gave the doctor a plant-based concoction
that contained the chemical N,N-dimethyltryptamine,
DMT, a powerful psychedelic drug. The doctor
experienced the world as they saw it, but
dismissed it as a hallucination. He goes on
to say though that DMT can enhance one's perception,
allowing one to perceive reality for what
it really is. He requested access to to DMT
to further investigate scp-2480, which is
approved. To go back to Lovecraft, this is
essentially the plot of From Beyond, with
a drug instead of a device.
Dr. Narvaez enters the town connected via
video and audio to his assistant outside of
town, and intends to observe his surroundings
before administering the DMT. Either he didn't
notice anything unusual or he was simply impatient,
as the next line in the log shows him taking
the drug. He immediately notices colors growing
more vivid, and a yellow fog cloaking the
town. He also now notices a number of robed
figures walking through the town, their outfits
seemingly stitched together from leathers
and hides, although he can't see their faces,
and feels instinctively that he should not
look upon them. The locals also don't make
eye contact with these figures, but they do
move to avoid them. The doctor's assistant,
who can only see normal reality through the
video feed, notes that the buildings in the
town look normal to him, but the doctor remarks
that they appear to be in a state of ruin,
covered in a pulsating fleshy material. He
also sees a black fluid with an amber sheen
flowing through a drainage system, as well
as a black ziggurat in the center of town
where the church should be, but his assistant
can't see either. A number of the robed entities
prostrate themselves in front of the ziggurat,
and the doctor also sees an abnormally tall
one holding several odd creatures by a leash
that resembles intestines. The creatures move
about with a frenzied pace, showing pale but
muscular flesh and rows of needle-like teeth
in their mouths. The assistant says he sees
a teacher with young students, and then sees
a few of the students bullying another, but
the doctor sees the creatures ganging up on
the runt of the group and ripping into it
with talons.
The doctor also looks and sees tall spires
composed of some sort of organic material
towering over the town, but he still must
acquire proof that this hidden world is real
and not just a hallucination. He returns to
where he saw the black fluid and fills a bottle
with it as the effects of the DMT wear off.
The bottle appears to be empty, but he can
feel the weight of the liquid inside of it.
He ends his first log by remarking that he
also recalls seeing black banners with a yellow,
spiral-like symbol on them, feeling as if
he's seen it before but not sure where. After
being removed from the town, the liquid became
visible just as the doctor saw it, and after
initial analysis seems to be a semi-gelatinous
substance containing structures resembling
mitochondria with high levels of unidentified
fatty acids. Basically, the foundation has
no idea what this goop is.
The doctor goes back for further investigation
alongside two members of the MTF. They re-enter
the house that was occupied by the agent that
vanished, and the doctor takes some more DMT.
He then perceives the house as it truly is,
covered in blood and excrement, describing
the experience as like what he imagines biting
into a rotten tumor would feel like. Above
the couch he sees words written on the wall
reading, "HE IS DREAMING WAR
ADYTUM WILL RISE", alongside indecipherable
symbols. As they search the cellar, the doctor
sees a large spiral painted on a wall, and
approaches it. As he does so, the wall disappears,
leaving the spiral floating in the air, and
he finds a staircase behind it. The assistant
informs him that he walked into a wall and
the camera went black, but what really happened
is the wall never existed in the first place,
just an illusion for human eyes. The agents
close their eyes and walk through the wall
to join the doctor, and the three descend
the stairs. They lose contact with the assistant,
their gps signal goes out, and the walls are
leaking a sap-like substance. The tunnel they're
walking in branches out into many different
directions, and after continuing down a branch
for a few minutes, they come across a rotted,
wooden door. They walk through it, and emerge
outside in a field on the other side of town.
The same yellow fog blankets the area, and
the doctor takes another dose of DMT. The
remainder of the log is written after the
fact, as it seems disaster struck at that
point. The doctor saw a silhouette of a massive
humanoid, over 4 meters, or 13 feet, in height,
shambling out of the fog. It had pale, flabby
flesh, a large tooth filled mouth, three fingers
on each hand, and no visible eyes, ears, or
nostrils. It's teeth and hands were seemingly
covered in blood. A footnote implies that
this is just one of many similar entities,
referred to now by MTFs as Behemoths. The
behemoth charges at the group, grabbing one
of the agents with one hand and disemboweling
him with its teeth. The doctor and the remaining
agent attempt to run through the fields back
to the shed so they can reenter the tunnels,
and the doctor looks down at the ground to
see that they're walking on what looks like
diseased flesh instead of soil. With each
step, the ground splinters and gushes like
an infected, puss filled wound, and suddenly,
the agent is grabbed by some sort of red tendrils
coming from the ground, an entity now referred
to by MTFs as a Snatcher. The snatcher pulls
the agent into a small hole, crushing her
bones in the process as she is forcibly dragged
underground. The doctor runs without looking
back and manages to escape.
This is clearly a bigger problem than just
a weird town, and so we're introduce to project
Sitra Achra, aramaic for Other Side. A letter
from an O5 informs us that left unchecked,
scp-2480 will cause a change in the dominant
species of life on the planet by the year
2030. The dimensional anomaly in massachusetts
is allowing some other world to bleed into
ours, operating on a different level of perception
than our baseline reality. Genetic analysis
of these entities has revealed that they are
mostly human, but the foundation has no idea
where they came from or what caused humans
to change in such a way. They are able to
cloak themselves in a version of our reality,
which is what the town resembles to an average
person, but their true forms are deeply grotesque.
They've named a number of the entities, including
behemoths, snatchers, jabberers, and fiends,
and the MTFs are capable of killing them,
although first month survival rate of active
duty on 2480 hovers around 55 percent. We
then learn that Sitra Achra is a joint operation
between the SCP Foundation and the GOC, a
rare situation where the two groups work together.
MTF Psi-9, Abyss Gazers, was formed as a joint
task force of battalion-level strength, trained
in unconventional warfare and the use of heavy
artillery, DMT, and counter occult strategems.
It took this super team of elite soldiers
twelve years to reclaim bodfel manor and the
former foundation facility, and they suffered
heavy casualties in the process. They also
managed to apprehend the head of that facility,
Simon Oswalt, and the document claims that
this has greatly diminished or possibly neutralized
the threat of scp-2480, as Oswalt was believed
to be controlling the entities through pheromones.
A vivisection of Oswalt revealed the absence
of all internal organs except for his brain,
lungs and heart, and the pineal gland in his
brain was 8 times larger than normal, again
possibly a reference to From Beyond.
Oswalt seems to suffer no pain from the vivisection,
nor does he seem to be affected by it at all,
so of course an interview is done with him.
He begins by saying that he would prefer to
be called Karcist Karvas, and refers to the
interviewer as an unwashed one. He goes on
to explain that he kept a number of people
in town so that they could continue to breed,
as fresh materials are always in demand. He
was apparently known among the foundation
as a dullard, and so he was the perfect choice
for a deadend position of monitoring scp-2480.
Soon after taking the position however, he
was apparently approached by Grand Karcist
Ion, who he says saw his full potential. His
body was altered, and he became fully loyal
to the sarkic cults. The interview is cut
short when Oswalt threatens to nail the interviewer
to the wall, and to make him dance like a
meat puppet. He then amputates his own arms
as he breaks his restraints, and squirms along
the ground before being restrained again.
The final addendum simply reads, "On 11/24/2014,
anomalies similar to scp-2480 were reported
in Romania. Investigation is currently ongoing."
There's a lot left unsaid with scp-2480, in
true lovecraftian fashion, but it's pretty
clear that it represents a rather dire threat.
Although the document claims that the entities
ceased to be a threat once Oswalt was captured,
they didn't exactly stop the dimensional anomaly,
as that existed prior to Oswalt's betrayal.
Additionally, the fact that other dimensional
anomalies just like it are starting to pop
in other places is certainly a very bad sign.
The major threat of sarkicism has often been
considered to SCP-610, the red death, but
they seem to have many more tricks up their
sleeves. If it took twelve years for a super
team of operatives to reclaim one site of
these anomalies, it's going to be quite a
struggle for the foundation to contain them.
The story of sarkicism is an ongoing one,
and it remains to be seen whether there will
ultimately be a grand conclusion or it will
simply continue in some form for the rest
of time. Either way, scp-2480 is a very interesting
modern take on lovecraftian horror combined
with the resources and capabilities of the
scp foundation and the threats
they face.
