Terra Nova Research Base, Antarctica.
RAIN-4959: “King Midas’ hands”
Published in 1918 [rewritten in 1991]
It used to be a non-spoken rule on the Sophia Library to not bring body parts as artefacts. One would assume this is a given, but in two hundred years we’ve had a couple of run-ins with these and it had become a norm. It wasn’t an issue of if or how we would store them, but because we weren’t under the protection of the Council back then, it has become a continuous problem with countries found a surprising influx of grave robbers in historically known areas. Yes, I know about a tenth of the artefacts are buried with someone, but it is very different to stole an object from a grave, than the entire corpse or even a part of it. Imagine going through life with Joseph Haydn’s head in your bag, wait, no, think of another example, because someone actually did that.
From time to time, however, there was an immediate need for waving the ban. When ancient tombs were open in archaeology digs, we send one of us, to make sure that, if the magical body of someone was inside, to not be disturbed or to take what made it magical for treatment back at the Library. “Treatment” here means deactivating it somehow, and then returning the piece or body to the proper place of rest. If it remains there, or if was taken to make “mummy brown”, was no concern to us.
As far as I can remember, only a handful of cases where the ban had to be waived permanently, which meant storage inside the Library and being labelled as artefacts with a classification number. It was the case on “Marie Laveau’s relic bag” (RAIN-07392) or “August Deter’s brain” (RAIN-0971), but the most infamous one is part history, part mythology, and a whole ordeal of problems. The subject of this report; King Midas’ hands.
He had been king of a small city-state during the intermediate Bronze Age, around 2000 BCE. Was known as the founder king and his life ins entangled with mythology, as much of the history of that era is until the modern era. Until today, for example, the truthfulness of the Trojan War is still disputed by reputable historians.
King Midas is most famous in the popular vernacular as the one blessed/cursed by Dionysus to transform everything he touched into solid gold. Depending on who told the tale, the curse is reversed or not after he surrenders to turning one of his daughters into gold. He spent most of his life being fed, since every time he tried, his food turned into solid metal before it reached its mouth. But his life wasn’t over yet, and, renouncing to the endless wealth he was causing, went to the forests to worship the wildlife deity Pan.
As it happens way too more times than it should be normal for Greek Mythology, he found himself in the middle of a dispute between two gods (Note: how on earth this has happened multiple times!?). A musical contest among Pan and the lyre god Apollo ended with Midas with the short end of the stick, and left the meadow with donkey ears instead of his. Humiliated, and with one more curse into his belt, King Midas killed himself by drinking ox blood; whether this was a quick method or not, I’m afraid I have no data at all.
Midas was buried under the Pactolus river, and his tomb went undisturbed until 1918. When it was discovered during an archaeological dig made by the British Board of Educators, the ruling magical body after the London Coven’s dissolution, after the digging in “Tomb of Midas” turned to be a decoy made by the ancient inhabitants of the land. It turned to be one great decoy, since from one point to the other there’s a distance of two hundred and sixty miles.
After getting wind of the discovery, Sophia in its last days sent Ms. Alice by herself while still sending things to develop Terra Nova Research Base, since she was one of the three people remaining on the task, also being the most experience one. Sending someone from Wales to the Ottoman Empire in the midst of a war, especially a woman, was an extremely risky situation; however, anyone who knew Ms. Alice was also aware that wasn’t really a problem for her.
According to the last testimony sent by her, it was easy to infiltrate the excavation with a forged recommendation from her father. It wasn’t the first time she used Daedalus’ magical signature, and we all know he agreed if she kept it at one per semester. With that, she was part of the dig during the diverting of the river’s course and the unearthing of the body.
She made herself the person who gave the first examination of the corpse, before any of the archaeologists can approach. She cut the hands, which were already inside a burlap bag tied together, and dropped it inside her equipment bag. She staged a dispute and left after this, thinking it would be safe for her to departure the country and back to the Isles before a new offensive. This happened in the late days of February and early March of 1918.
On March 21st, 1918, the German Offensive caused an absolute blockade in continental Europe. Alice, whose scape pan was, until the year before, to use her credentials to solicit asylum with her cousins in the Russian Empire. This plan was, obviously trunked by the Russian Revolution, and without other prospects. Still, the need of storing of this artefact was, in her eyes, more important than a war going on. She managed to disappear from the radar for a couple of months. After a radio communication from the Second Battle of the Marne, we managed to piece together she had been hoping from battlefield to battlefield as a nurse to make her way through Europe.
She managed to reach Calais on August the 15th, and sent a las communication through the War Office so someone would pick up her equipment. When we went to Dover, the ship came on time, but, while a couple of passengers came down, Ms Alice was nowhere to be seen.
Her equipment bag was there, and also the artefact, but she went missing for years after that.
Ariel Bonheur, Chief Archivist.
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