The Magnus Protocol 50 - Deep Trouble

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Hello everyone, it's Shahan, voice of Sam in the Magnus Protocol.

And today I'm here to advertise Hollow Disciple, a podcast recently launched on the RQ Network.

Hollow Disciple is a thrilling, dark science fiction podcast from the brilliant creator of Wake of Corrosion.

In the vast abyss of dying stars, lurks a forsaken vessel, silent and still.

Stumbling upon it, the scavenger crew of the L Peace begin an ill-fated rescue mission, convinced they have hit hit the jackpot.

But when the scouting party stops responding, their luck takes a dark turn, and the sinister nature of their prize and its unnerving history becomes all too apparent.

Holo Disciple has a deep lore, full of mystery and discovery.

Search for Hollow Disciple wherever you listen to your podcasts or go to linktr.ee forward slash holo disciple or www.rustyquill.com for more information.

Rustyquill presents

The Magnus Protocol

Episode fifty:

Deep Trouble.

Nothing

clear

clear

Quadrant Bravo Section fourteen clear

copy team three proceed to section thirteen

Copy.

So,

you hoping to find it?

Or miss it?

What do you mean?

Feels good to beg a horror, but this sounds rough.

So, would you rather get the credit or steer clear?

Depends how it feels about getting shot.

You might be in luck then.

Rumor is this one used to be human.

Rumor is this one used to be a very particular human.

Ah, you've heard that too, eh?

You believe it?

I don't know.

I hope not, but they're using the A-words, so it's definitely not nothing.

Hmm.

Seems like we'd know if you were back, though.

Like, it would feel

different.

Different?

Different how?

Like the world were ending again.

It doesn't feel like that to you?

I mean, I've never seen the zone this bad.

Not since right after Towerfall.

And even then, you could generally believe what you were seeing.

Now...

I don't know.

You recognize that door?

The one with the peephole?

Because I've patrolled this section for years, and I don't recognize it.

I'm not even going near it, because I know if I turn my head this way and back...

Yep.

It's gone.

Just another mirage.

So yeah, it does kind of feel...

Callum?

Callum, sit, rip.

Do you copy?

I'm down.

Callum, Christy.

Are you down?

Down below the waves that crash above and roiling the icy walls that are waiting for you.

ships.

Pocked steel stands between the crushing abyss and my tiny, shivering body.

And I do shiver as the pressure builds and the captain's voice drones from the squat speakers in the shadowed corners of every compartment.

It is distorted, cracking, but I know he is demanding loyalty over and over.

The sound vibrates the tinpot metal on my chest and blood oozes from the holes the pins punched into my skin when they stuck it there for my dutiful service.

My duty is on the bridge, the command deck, the wheelhouse.

I am to sit at the radio and call for help, call for orders, call for anyone to hear us through countless fathoms of dark water and infinite miles of empty air.

The captain will stare at me with his empty sockets, and when he tears the tanoi mouthpiece from his jaw for wet, tearing pop, he will swap to dictating messages through his bloody saliva.

Messages that will not be received and cannot be replied to.

Messages that make no sense and simply scream of Poseidon, of Neptune, of Mazu, of Leviathan, of Suzanneu, of wet and sightless water gods I do not know, but which tremble through my stomach when I am forced to repeat the names into empty radio waves.

The rest of the crew scuttle and crawl across their stations, doing their duty in the thick red light.

Sometimes one of them will approach the periscope.

They will put their faces to the hungry eyepiece and then they will begin to scream.

You cannot see their eyes behind the metal tube, but you can hear them being taken.

Then the skull begins to crack and implode gradually crushing itself into a thin pink paste as it feeds itself into the periscope.

Then the torso, shoulders, arms going all the way down.

The order is different each time, but it always ends the same.

with the gauged periscope dragging itself contentedly up into the dark, sated

for a while.

I do not know our mission, although sometimes the missiles whisper to me in my sleep.

They want me to come to them, to open them, to take their payloads into my heart.

They can help, they say.

They can keep me safe.

I want to believe them, but my flesh melts when I embrace them, and it sticks to their holes when I pull myself away.

When we reach our destination, the mission will begin, and we will do something terrible, something unforgivable, something that will scar our souls in ways that will leave us other than human.

But unless someone answers my hopeless calls for new orders, the only thing that can stop us is a mine or a depth charge.

If that happens, a terrible, wounding vibration will shove through the submarine, the sound deafening inside and echoing through the water outside.

Those closest will be killed instantly to the envy of all.

The rest of us will flee in this sealed tube crying out for mother's love and salvation as the pressure spikes and water tears and the doors buckle from the icy fist of the deep ocean.

Doors that stay just sturdy enough to imprison those who fell behind, who'd lingered for a second too long in morbid fascination of their doom.

Not sturdy enough to muffle their cries for help that linger long after they have drowned and frozen and pounded their heads to pulp upon the wheel lock.

Where there is not water, there is fire filling the rusted oven of warped and twisting metal.

It feasts on the sparse oxygen yanking the very air from your lungs to burn it in front of you.

Again, if you look it, you catch fire and die in the brightness, with your own fat burning like candle wax.

Otherwise, the darkness of the seabed awaits.

This time, I'm in my cell, my bunk, my bed.

As the depth charge hits, I see the bulkhead metal twist and bend, but not break, instead, pressing in, folding and squeezing its rivets popping, my rivets popping, and no more air can reach me.

Anything?

On the gun?

Even as I breathe my last breath, fear floods my soul.

I know I cannot call for help.

I still don't know.

When I don't know, I don't recognize any of this.

It's just life, after all.

Stop like Cathy.

It feels like this

for everyone.

Callum!

Callum, no!

What do we do?

I don't.

Georgie, I need you.

We keep hunting.

Callum knew the risks, and God, have you ever even held a gun before?

I did grey pigeon on a statue once.

Right, well, rule one, keep it pointing away from your mates.

Rule two, you need to hold it properly.

Tight to the shoulder, otherwise you'll break your arm.

Better?

Georgie?

This isn't right.

What do you- Georgie, look out!

What?

Behind you.

Wait.

No, wait, it's gone.

I was certain I saw.

That's what's wrong.

Everything's getting mixed up.

Old passages with new dead ends, new doors in old ruins.

Georgie!

So is that really Melanie or?

Over here!

Bazira, I told you to watch the perimeter!

I'm not one of your wardens.

Don't get to give me orders.

Besides, Melanie needed an escort.

And what is Melanie doing out here?

We've been trying to get you on the radio, but Callum has been jamming every frequency.

What's happened?

It's that girl you brought in.

Alice, she's gone.

What do you mean, gone?

I mean she's gone.

She wasn't a prisoner, so she just walked out while we were distracted.

Christ.

It gets worse.

I've been trying to correlate the positions people have been reporting.

And?

And they don't make any sense.

And no one else seems to realize.

Nobody is where they think they are.

Melanie is the only one who doesn't seem to be affected.

I think it might be because.

You know.

You can say blind, Vasira.

It's not a rude word.

Look, the point is that nobody can trust their eyes in here.

I think the archivist is using them.

God damn it.

We're not prepped for this amount of bullshit.

All wardens, mission aborted, fall back.

I repeat, all wardens, we are falling back to base.

Enemy is using visual manipulation to follow only known routes.

And if you see a female civilian wearing a medical gown, call it in, but do not approach.

Copy.

Copy.

What about us?

We follow Melanie.

You're welcome.

So if the Archivist can control our eyes, does that mean he can see out of them?

I really hope not.

I'm not doing that Elias shit again.

What?

Ignore her.

Things are confused enough as it is.

Shut your eyes if you're worried about it, Sam.

It's not like they're helping.

Um, you all felt that, right?

Because I have my eyes shut, so Georgie, I think we need to

move.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I'm alright.

Mostly.

What happened?

We fell.

London always had a warren underneath it, and after years without upkeep, you can fall through.

Especially if the zone is agitated.

Where are the others?

Good question.

Georgie!

Masira!

You don't know what else is listening!

Sorry.

Now, if you're done trying to get the attention of every monster in the zone, I need your help.

Okay, it doesn't look too bad.

But it's going to need a sling.

Bear with me.

Thanks.

Do you think you can still get us out of the zone?

I don't know.

Above ground, maybe, but

down here.

Do you feel that?

Yeah.

Can you see anything?

I don't.

It's here.

Get away from me.

John.

John.

Is that you?

Archivist,

archivist.

Answer me.

Are you.

Were you once a man named Jonathan Sims?

Sims.

But I have an amazing story.

Huh?

I guess I owe Georgie a drink.

So, if you're not Jonathan Sims,

then who are you?

When I was five years old, my mother took me to a zoo.

I don't remember the name of it.

And afterwards, she wouldn't tell me.

It smelled wrong.

Get away from him!

I was so-

I hear something.

Here!

We're over here!

Maybe.

Who's asking if you're

a story?

It is told.

And tired.

Sorry to disappoint

Sam.

I found him.

And

there we go.

I hate this medical shit.

Most people would kill to have access to all this medical shit.

You're lucky it was only dislocated.

It could have been a lot worse.

It was.

I'm sorry.

If we'd found you earlier, maybe.

I know she wasn't my Alice, but she was still Alice.

And I.

There was nothing.

She didn't deserve that.

No one ever does.

Listen, I know we're hurting.

I know we just want to call it a day and lick our wounds, but we still need to figure out what we're going to do about the Archivist.

Georgie?

No.

She's right.

You're sure it wasn't him, Melanie?

Positive.

It actively denied it.

And besides, that voice.

It's not him.

Right.

Well,

I'll take that as a win for now.

But we still don't have a way to track it or kill it.

And with all these new powers in the zone, we're going to struggle.

Yeah.

That's not our only problem.

More bad news.

I noticed something as we were coming out.

I didn't trust my eyes, so I had a couple of wardens confirm it later.

What?

You know that slight warping effect at the edge of the zone?

The shimmer, yeah.

What about it?

It's moved.

What do you mean it's moved?

It's at least a meter beyond the fencing already.

It's the archivist.

It has to be.

Yeah.

I think the zone has been growing since it arrived, and now.

Oh, fuck.

The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by RustyQuill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International license.

The series is created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J.

Newell and directed by Alexander J.

Newell.

This episode was written by Jonathan Sims and edited with additional materials by Alexander J.

Newell,

with vocal edits by Lo Rianne Davis, soundscaping by Tessa Vroom and mastering by Catherine Rinella with music by Sam Jones.

It featured Shahan Hamza as Samama Khalid, Sasha Siena as Georgie Barker, Lydia Nicholas as Melanie King, Billy Hindle as Alice Dyer, with additional voices from Beth Ayer.

The Magnus Protocol is produced by April Sumner with executive producers Alexander J.

Newell, Danny McDonough, Lynn C.

and Samantha F.

G.

Hamilton, and associate producers Jordan L.

Hawke, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius DeRaven and Megan Nice.

To subscribe, view associated materials, or join our Patreon, visit rustyquill.com.

Rate and review us online, tweet us at The RustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us at mail at RustyQuill.com.

Thanks for listening.

Hello everyone, it's Shahan, voice of Sam in the Magnus Protocol, and today I'm here to advertise Hollow Disciple, a podcast recently launched on the RQ Network.

Hollow Disciple is a thrilling, dark science fiction podcast from the brilliant creator of Wake of Corrosion.

In the vast abyss of dying stars, lurks a forsaken vessel, silent and still.

Stumbling upon it, the scavenger crew of the L Peace begin an ill-fated rescue mission, convinced they have hit the jackpot.

But when the scouting party stops responding, their luck takes a dark turn, and the sinister nature of their prize and its unnerving history becomes all too apparent.

Hollow Disciple has a deep lore, full of mystery and discovery.

Search for Hollow Disciple wherever you listen to your podcasts, or go to linktr.ee forward slash holodisciple or www.rustyquill.com for more information.