 Interview Log, 1867-23 Interviewer, Dr. Adam Bernstein Interviewed, SCP-1867 Forward During a standard checkup interview with SCP-1867, the subject, at the request of Dr. Bernstein, was asked to elaborate on the nature of one of the items found in his collection, an ornate brass baton. The baton, while showing no avert anomalous properties, caught Dr. Bernstein's attention due to the amount of dried blood still covering it. SCP-1867 complied enthusiastically. Begin log Good afternoon, SCP-1867. Please good doctor, call me Theodore. Very well, Theodore. I would like to ask you a few questions about this, show's picture of the baton. Oh, Yuri Dresnick's command baton, haven't seen it in years, interesting story behind that one. Would you care to elaborate? Certainly, I do enjoy telling a good story, and this one is so very full of excitement. Please continue. Well, it was the year 1855, and the Russian war was raging across the Black Sea. The Tsar was trying to take control of the Bosphorus straight from the Ottomans, using some daft argument some priests had in the Holy Land as an excuse. Our brave lads, along with the froggies, were given the Russians a right thrashing, despite a few minor setbacks like that unfortunate business with the Earl of Cardigan's Light Brigade. Great man, terrible tactical sense. I remember having a heated discussion with him about Scipio-Africanica's vertical spear formation. Focus on the baton, please. Alright, it was, I believe, late July. I was visiting an acquaintance of mine in London, and we were just discussed in the preparation necessary for an expedition he was planning to the East Indies. When a knock was heard on the door, and the man-server proclaimed it was a messenger from Lord Palmerston himself, who wished to speak to me at once. I made by way of the Downing Street 10 post-haste. The Prime Minister was waiting for me in his office. Theodore, he said to me, the Empire once again requires your services. The war in the Black Sea is turning in our favor, but we need to stick one final nail on Alexander's coffin if we want the Russians out of the straits permanently. We pulled out a map and pointed at a spot, Sevastopol. We've been besieging the thrice-damned place for almost a year now. If we manage to take it from the Russians, it's only a matter of time until they surrender and accept our conditions. Does this have anything to do with the baton? I'm getting to it, I assure you. As I was saying, the Prime Minister confided in me that he was planning a joint attack with the French of Sevastopol in late August or early September, but there was a problem. The Russians were rumored to have recruited a thaumaturge of great skill, Yuri Dreschnik, and he dared not order the attack as long as Yuri was there to muck things up with his magic. He wanted me to get rid of him. Why did the Prime Minister need you to get rid of this wizard? Thaumaturge, doctor. They are not the same as wizards. He needed me because I had experienced. I led the Great Warlock hunt of Austria in 1833 and had numerous encounters with various shamans and witchdoctors throughout my travels. I was quite the authority figure in the field, if I may say so myself. Carry on. The Prime Minister needed Dreschnik gone before the attack, and he knew I was the right man for the job. As a patriot, I could not refuse, and I was scheduled to board HMS Gallant, leaving for Istanbul on the following day. The journey was uneventful, save for a minor pirate raid near the shores of Libya, which was easily repelled. I arrived at Istanbul safely, then boarded another smaller vessel for the remainder of the trip. I arrived at General McMahon's command ship on the last day of August. And I traced in McMahon with a solid gentleman, if there ever was one, even if he was French. Always good for a laugh and a quick shot of brandy. I first met him in Algeria when he commanded the foreign legion in the 1840s. The man could smoke a hookah like no other, and that's a promise. I remember sitting with him in the chic of, focus please, SCP-1867. Theodore. Right. The Thaumaturge. McMahon told me he'd received credible information that Dreschenik was hiding in the Malikov itself. This massive stone tower overlooking the port, preparing some sort of foul ritual, as Thaumaturges are bound to do. I was to assemble a team from the very finest the Allied armies had to offer, and make a raid on the tower at night, disposing of Dreschenik before he could raise some nastiness to hamper the war effort. And how did the raid go? Oh, quite splendidly. Well, mostly so. There was the small matter of our boat-sinking halfway to the port, and our sniper tripping on some slick stones and breaking his ankle, and half the team getting discovered and riddled with bullets, but other than that, everything went perfectly. We finally cornered Dreschenik in his ritual chamber after a long chase, as the man was surprisingly fast for a portly middle-aged gentleman in long robes, but he would not go down without a bite. He pulled out some strange apparatus he was hiding in his sleeve, and pointed it at Sergeant Monroe. Poor man never stood a chance. What did the device do to Sergeant Monroe? Turned his skin inside out. The screens were quite terrible, not to mention the smell. He managed to do the same to Corporal Turner before he shot the device out of his hands, along with a few fingers. He wasn't done, though. Screaming like an Indonesian howler sloth, he sprayed the blood from his severed fingers on the corpses of my fallen comrades. The two inside-out bodies jerked and came to life, attacking what little reminded of my crew. They ripped a random roux apart with superhuman strength before I took them down with my trusty machete. Now it was just me and Dreschenik, and he was all out of tricks. His grand ritual was left unfinished as I brained him with his own command baton. The battle took place a week later, and we gave those Russian ambassadors a beating they wouldn't soon forget. That's how the baton came to my possession. So the baton is just an ordinary command baton? Though it found meturgic power to it? Of course not. I burned down his ritual chamber along with all of its tools before making my escape and swimming back to safety. You'd have to be quite daft to keep a thumb at Turg's belongings. They always cursed at things. I lost a cousin to a curse like that. He was turned into an eel. Could you imagine that? Being an eel? Treadful. I would think so. End log.