Archive Report 6
Terra Nova Research Base, Antarctica.
RAIN-3981: “Hebe’s Cup”
Published in 1924 [rewritten in 1990]
It is by petition of our benefactors that we’ve agreed to use the original name in this report, instead of the one it is more commonly known. The requisition was made due to the familiar relation a couple of our benefactors have with the original owner of the artefact, Hebe, Goddess of Youth.
Hebe is known for two things, for being the cupbearer of the gods, and the only one who knows how to prepare nectar and ambrosia correctly. Her abilities imbedded the small goblet on which she made the preliminary preparations, so it became an artefact that could grant eternal life and youth. Without the proper ingredients, which will be obvious since the artefact is not in Mount Olympus anymore, this thing not so much grants eternal life and youth as it takes it from the people around the user.
The goblet has been known by a second name, thanks to the rise of Christianity in the first three centuries of the current era. As it was used in both the “Last Supper” and to gather blood of Jesus Christ, though the purpose of the latter is still unknown, the goblet forged the name of “Holy Grail”.
This is the first of what we have classified as a “vampiric artefact”, with the draining propriety the key characteristic. Historically, this artefact only has seven registered uses, all of which have been deemed confidential and will not be repeated in this report. Even with this classification, Hebe’s Cup have a second ability: to grant life to replicas of living things, as long as a blood sacrifice was met; this is the reason why it was included in the original manual of operations written by Alice Athenida. In an appendix regarding the “blood sacrifice”, Ms. Alice noted only a drop of blood was needed for each time, and could be achieved by the prick of a finger.
Regarding the retrieval of this artefact, this happened in 1870, and was the first case Ms. Alice performed on her own. In those days, we used to send people on their own, without support, opposite of the guidelines stablished in the last days of Sophia. The goblet had been part of the Vatican Treasures since the days of Alexander VI, though any relation to the mythic Holy Grail and the golden cup they had in the vaults were omitted (if this was on purpose or a mistake, I have no idea).
I will say that I disapprove of the method, though not the results. Ms. Alice took the habits momentarily, using the clothing of a nun to enter the walled city. Used the Wonderland Toadstool paste to reduce the entrance to the vault, stole the goblet and other half-a-dozen artefacts marked as “lost”, left everything like it was, and took the first train out to Rome.
With that performance, Ms. Alice broke two records stablished in Sophia at different points. She became the youngest person to ever recover an artefact (1702), since she had her 18th birthday three weeks before the mission, and was the younger member of Sophia since the creation of the Artefact Collection, and hasn’t been broken since. The greatest number of artefacts recovered in one mission (1823), the latter record being four from the Goff Gallery in Vienna. This one was broken in the intermission between the closing of Sophia and the opening of Terra Nova Research Base, with the retrieval of the objects from the Crowley Cabinet of Curiosities by Daedalus Athenida and Sir Murad Joshi in 1916.
Regarding again Hebe’s Cup, the object linked slightly with the people who used it. If we consider the continuous usage of this particular artefact, who do you think is the person who, during the golden age of Sophia, used it the most? Ms. Alice Athenida.
Given her particular genetic makeup, Ms. Alice could use the artefact without the repercussions most people would have, and, in the long run, was what made her age slower than everyone else. By the time she finished her work on the facility in 1918, year which coincided with her disappearance, she was 56 years old, but the artefact made her appear 30. She chose, however to age herself up when outside the facility, though a portrait of her, now exhibited in Terra Nova, shows her real appearance in 1917.
Hebe’s Cup is currently in storage at the facility of the Old BEARS Headquarters in New Guinea, while the research team works to annul the vampiric effect. It’s been in this base since October 17 of 1988, without a release date back to storage at Terra Nova.
Ariel Bonheur, Chief Archivist.
Note to the Overseer
Rutgers,
I’m fully aware this report doesn’t comply with the guidelines. If you have any problems with it, I suggest you take it with the Board of Directors and especially with Daedalus Athenida himself, since he is the one who ordered the rewriting to comply with his specifications. I know this is not how we do things here, believe me, I’ve been here longer than you, but this was a particular request.
Since you didn’t have any issue with amending the report regarding the pied pipe, to not include mentions of former US President “Ronnie”, I imagine you wouldn’t have any with this report either.
Ariel Bonheur.
Comments (0)
See all