Terra Nova Research Base, Antarctica.
RAIN-820: “El Caleuche”
Published in 1946 [updated in 1957]
When we began design of the Terra Nova Base in the early 1910s, we needed to take care of the needs of powerful artefacts that had pack-bonded between them. On this idea, water-based means of transportation (ships, boats and other related objects), marked the outline for the base and turned the design from just occupying the land below the Antarctic ice sheet, to the magically-created island mass under the dome we ended up with. Human and Magical museums tend to exhibit ships as just another museum piece, or on drydocks when they can, the artefacts need to be in contact with the saltwater from which they came.
Other thing that we have to mention is regarding a permanent question every single new member does regarding the reach of the Retrieval Department. During the entire life of Sophia as the artefact retrieval base and the first fifteen years of Terra Nova, we didn’t have the strongest presence in places like eastern Africa nor South America.
This is the main reason of why, if you look at the retrieval dates on the reports, you’ll find most of the artefacts that came from the African Horn, as the Ethiopian Empire, and countries like Peru and Chile, are marked as coming here in the last decade.
Case in point, El Caleuche, a ship that had caused more headaches than any other in storage here. Mostly due for it not really being in storage and being in it at the same time. It is, as Schrödinger’s Cat (RAIN-1369), something that has complete freedom of movement in disregard of how many security measures we put on it. A bit of history before we dwell into the headaches.
According to Chilote Mythology (Chiloe being a region in the southern region of Chile), the Caleuche is a ghost ship with a proper ghost crew and captain, which lingers in the coast at night and occasionally will take back people who’ve made deals with the captain.
Though there are two lingering legend regarding the existence of the ship, the reality lives, as always, in a mismatch combination of both. Local merfolk brought the Caleuche back into existence after its sinking in the early days of the 18th century, while a select community of necromancers (known as “brujos” on the area) gave the ship its crew. We only know from its former life it was a smuggling British ship, beyond that, is anybody’s guess. On grounds of the crew, it is commonly accepted they are people cursed to link the soul to the body even after dead; this is a practice mostly abandoned around the world, but has a few names linked to them, Jiangshi and Zombie being the most used depending on which side of the globe you are.
After rumours during the independence movements on South America, a team was dispatched to capture the ship in 1823. However, the political turmoil during the formative era made impossible to guarantee support from the central and local government. Chiloe, for example, was in the middle of the dispute between the recently stablished Chilean “Patria Nueva” and the decaying corpse of the Spanish Empire. This ended with a failure to even reach the archipelago, with the team stuck in the port of Valparaiso from late January to early February, when the former Supreme Director O’Higgins arrived to the port city.
Another attempt was made immediately after the War of the Pacific (1879-1884), but was quickly dismissed by the Chilean Government due to the relation between some members of the Library and the remains of the De La Plata Coven, as hostilities between Chile and the neighbouring Argentine were increasing, regarding the ownership of Patagonia.
Finally, as the eyes of the world turned to the carnage of the Second World War, we could strike a deal of cooperation between Terra Nova and the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda. The team coordinated by Margot Soleil, one of the three people remaining from the foundational years of the base, managed to capture the ship and bring it to Antarctica in October of 1940. It has been a glimpse of luck, since at the following year president Aguirre died and it would have taken us years to regain the status needed to proceed.
One could think the problems regarding the Caleuche would be over by the moment it was lodged on the harbour between the Octavius and the María Celeste. One would be completely wrong.
Since its arrival, the ship disappears every single night. We’ve put spells, hexes, used artefacts to keep it in place, and no matter what the hell we tried, the bloody thing keeps disappearing. As of the update of the report on June 7th, 1957, it has disappeared 6080 times, one for each night it has been here. Yesterday, however, finally we hadn’t got a breakout of the ship. This was due to the brief intervention of Ms. Alice, who came to deliver the Golden Horn Chain (RAIN-326) and recommended for it to be used to chain the ship to the port. Luckily, it worked.
Ariel Bonheur, Chief Archivist.
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