Terra Nova Research Base, Antarctica.
RAIN-371: “Coffin from St. Mark’s Basilica”
Published in 1924 [no further updates]
There is a plethora of ways to categorise the artefacts we now have in the Base, one of those is how many purposes the same artefact can have. While we are accustomed to perceive them in a dual light (with the idea of an upside and a downside), we can accurately classify this interaction as a single purpose. There are simple-purposed, dual-purposed, and, because someone decided their job ended there, multiple-purposed. Among these categories, the first group is the most prevalent by a landslide, then the multi-purposed ones with a single digit percentage (5-8%), and the scarcest, with less than one percent, are the dual-purposed ones.
Single-purpose artefacts are straightforward in every way possible. Their pattern of behaviour is the same no matter the outside conditions of which it is subjected. For example, Gil Perez’s helmet works on the basis of threat and transportation; it doesn’t distinguish between threats, nor the place of which transports the user. In this sense, the neutralization of this type of artefact is simple: relays on the annulation of the stimulus. No stimuli, no reaction.
Multiple-purpose artefacts work on the exact opposite manner. Behavioural pattern is limited to work in a specified set of actions regarding their correspondent stimulus. In this sense, one of the artefacts is the most known for its proprieties; the Synodus Horrenda. Depending on the nature of the person who wields it, this artefact can return people from the death (though just for a short span of time), force confessions, and cause people to irradiate power. However, these are the only artefacts that have downsides of side effects related to the usage of them in each use. In this sense, the aforementioned Synodus caused people to quickly fall into madness.
The main problem with the dual-purposed artefacts is that they rely mainly in who is interacting with them, but its behaviour seems randomized. To face the artefact and not knowing which side of it the coin’s going to land, even if you know how to approach either of them, is to play a very dangerous game of chances. One side might have the upside, which is the reason it was created, while the other is the downside, caused by the continuous interaction of persons with the artefact itself.
Let’s look a couple of examples, before focusing on the one that is our main attraction here.
RAIN-498, Mel Blanc’s cue lines, is imbedded with the voice actor’s ability to change voice to mimic other with perfection and an innate predisposition for comedy. The downside to this is quite predictable; you will be stuck with outpours of fake voices coming from your throat, interrupting you and talking for you. These are usually either the ones you’d been using, or the ones Mr. Blanc did while doing his artwork.
RAIN-1892 is the intact chimney taken from the British Board of Educators Building, at Belgravia, London, back in the year 1892. When installed in a building, it protects the place from any kind of harm or damage, either from outsiders or people on the inside. In layman’s terms, creates a construction that’s virtually impervious to all types of damage. However, the downside is that gradually fixates the place in time. It doesn’t age, not even a day, which utterly affects the people who occupy the building in which was installed; locking them also in the loop, which can span from a day (which resets at midnight) to a year (which resets from the point of which the chimney was activated). It also forbids the occupants to leave the limits of the construction, erasing memories of the outside world.
Alas, the artefact this is supposed to be a report on, if it weren’t for the fact that we are still processing the testimonies related to it. However, the primary knowledge regarding this artefacts, and the other three associated to it, was gathered before the recollection.
When we talk about the coffin under St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, we need to have in mind a couple of key points before proceeding. As with all the other evangelists, its artefact is imbedded with the ability to remember and record everything while on use. The downside of the coffin was that you were permanently trapped in a random memory, with no way out. It was after the trapping of the Doge of Venice, Orso II Participazio, in a perpetual remembering of the time he was kidnapped, that the counsellors of the doge decided to burn the coffin.
Nonetheless, the ashes preserved a mild version of the original powers, so they were stored with the real body of San Marco, inside a secret passage between the basilica and the Doge Palace. In a place they could call a permanent home, the ashes unleashed what was left of their power to protect themselves. They created a trial composed of the worst memory of each person who dares to enter, in a way to dissuade them of moving forward.
Currently, the ashes are not in possession of the Terra Nova Research Base, but the recently formed Bureau, while we are still processing what happened in the last month.
Ariel Bonheur, Chief Archivist.
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