The Magnus Archives - MAG 128 - Heavy Goods

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

Case #0180303Statement of the surviving half of the being calling itself ‘Breekon and Hope’, regarding its existence. Statement... extracted from subject 3rd March 2018. Content Warnings for this episode are at the end of the show notes.Thanks to this week's Patrons: Ever Anon, Nicole Fry, Meagan Waltz, Mike Nutter, Sean Frohling.If you'd like to support us, head to www.patreon.com/rustyquillEdited this week by Elizabeth Moffatt, Brock Winstead & Alexander J Newall.Performances:"The Archivist" - Jonathan Sims"Basira Hussain" - Frank Voss"Breekon" - Martin CorcoranSound effects this week by alegemaate, Yap_Audio_Production, LG, viznoman, mshahen, Suburbanwizard, Jamitch2 and previously credited artists via freesound.org.Check out our merchandise at https://www.redbubble.com/people/rustyquill/collections/708982-the-magnus-archives-s1You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast software of choice, or by visiting www.rustyquill.com/subscribePlease rate and review on your software of choice, it really helps us to spread the podcast to new listeners, so share the fear.Content Warning for:body horrorhuman remainsattempted suicidespidersknife violencedismembermentcannibalism Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hi everyone, it's Kareem, the voice of Simon Fairchild in the Magnus Archives, or the eternal tavern keeper in Chapter and Multiverse. Today, I'm here to tell you about What Happened in Skinner, a new fiction podcast on the RQ Network. In late 2021, an obscure YouTube channel became the most talked about mystery on the internet, after its hosts were violently attacked during a livestream. But when investigative journalist Marlo Verne goes to the island of Skinner, Oregon in search

of answers, what she uncovers is bigger than anyone could have possibly imagined. What Happened in Skinner features vast interactive world building that goes beyond the traditional podcast featuring augmented reality game elements. Visit www.whathappenedinskinner.com to play along with this mysterious ARG. Or you can find What Happened in Skinner at rustyquill.com or search for What Happened in Skinner wherever you listen to your podcasts. Have fun. See you later. Hi everyone. Alex here, director of the Magnus Archives and voice of Martin on the show. Have fun. See you later. in order to catch a killer, and made a decision that ultimately cost him his career and his reputation. It's written by Oscar-nominated and BAFTA award-winning writer Jeff Pope, and stars Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton, and Siobhan Finneran, so if you're a fan of true

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Sean Froling Thank you all. We really appreciate your support. If you'd like to join them, go to www.patreon.com forward slash Rusty Quill and take a look at our rewards. Rusty Quill Presents The Magnus Archives Episode 128 Heavy Goods Don't say a word. John, don't turn on the light. Go get Melanie, quickly. It's alright, Basira. I know he's here.

So what are you doing? I imagine he's here to deliver something. Thought it might need signing for. That's right. Just wanted... to... to drop off a package. Right. Look, what the hell is this? Did you bring him here? No.

Is he here for revenge? I don't know. Ask him. Like he's going to answer me. Fine. Are you here for revenge? Yeah. Just like when we... When I fed the copper to the pit. Easy, Becerra.

What pit? In here. Realise that I'm not tied to it anymore. Not on my own. Thought you could have it. Pay your respects, like. Daisy's in there. That's his name.

Then sure, it's in there. Whatever's left. Find out if you like Would you please drop that ridiculous voice Apologies, he's preferred like so Christ, that's worse What is your real voice? Nicholas said you were funny Didn't believe it

What do you want? Why are you here? Why are you here? Dunno. It's not right. On my own. Not right. No point in doing it on my own.

Dunno what happens now. Thought I might kill you. Missed my chance. Thought I might just deliver something. So here's a coffin. In case you want... to join your friend. Get out. Sarah. Get out.

Sarah. Get out. Make me stop. What are you doing? John, what are you doing? What are you... Stop it. Stop it.

No. Enough. Stop looking at me! John? It's fine. Get me a pen. Please. Statement of the surviving half of the being calling itself Brecon and Hope. Regarding its existence. Statement extracted from subject. 3rd March 2018. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims,

the archivist. Statement begins. We started in a plague. Not like the nasty crawlers, but like bringing any other doom. We had a cart of corpses, faces twisted, screaming, leaking pus, knock on doors and cry roughly to bring their dead to us. I tended the shrunken mangy mule and he took the remains on shoulder, slinging them onto the stinking pile. I remember it clear, the fear on their faces as we rolled towards their hovels. I remember it clear, the fear on their faces as we rolled towards their hovels. Mud-caked peasant or bloated lord, every one of them saw us coming and trembled. It wasn't the plague they feared, it wasn't the death that waited in our wagon.

It was us. Two strangers rolling towards them, unstoppable and uncertain, wearing faces they would only half remember, bringing a fate they would beg their god to forget. They could not hate us any more than they might have hated the rock that falls on them from a crumbling cliff. They did not know us, but they knew what we might do to them, what we might bring them. And we did. Villages that might have no bodies for us when we arrived would pile high our cart before we left. We did not kill them, did not lift a finger. We were the bringers of their awful fate, not its executors. They knew this and feared us in kind, and we drank it down, the taste of it sweeter than the food that now rotted on our plates or the drink that curdled

in our cups, and we both tasted it together. When we left our destination, the mule whining at the new weight behind it, he would reach behind us and find a face, sagging, sloughing off its skull at the new weight behind it. He would reach behind us and find a face, sagging, sloughing off its skull, and would pull it to him. He'd place it over the one he wore already, and he would laugh and laugh and laugh. Sometimes it fell off, sometimes it stayed for weeks. I kept the face we chose, but I loved him for our levity, and the corpses piled ever higher. We served aboard the Robert Small, bodies of the time crammed into uniform as sloppily as any would expect. Enlistment wasn't needed, nor was drafting. We were on the list for any crew that deserved us,

and we were fitting deckhands for the Robert Small, as it made its slow and mournful passage to Australia. The quartermaster was too precise, though, and in counting out the rations saw us for what we were. I ate the quartermaster's pen, he ate the quartermaster's tongue, and that was that. The journey was magnificent. No waiting, no searching for a delivery. Every moment moved us towards, towards the completion of the task and the culmination of our charge's terror. Poor wretches who emerged from Millbank with tales of Australia and its cruelties on their lips, bundled into the cramped and creaking ship that would drag them away from everything they loved,

and towards everything they feared. That was the first time we saw what would become this place, the Eye's pedestal. But we were drunk on the dawning horror of transportation and took no heed of it. A young man named Jack tried to leap overboard. When he caught the lad, there was such begging and pleading as you've never heard, just to let them drown, allow the sea to take its due. But he just laughed and laughed, and Jack died on dry land as they had always been meant to. We were conductors on a train, prim suits and scowls, a relentless beast of steam and iron that never seemed to get you exactly where you wanted to be

unless there was something dreadful waiting for you. We punched tickets, ignored questions, and threw off those that looked like they were having too fine a time of it we didn't like this job too many sat aboard dreaming sweetly of progress and the future too few alive to the truth of dirt and struggle in front of them we woke those we could but too many stepped off with a smile. We had some luggage once, a thrumming silk-wrapped thing of the spider hiding away in an old steamer trunk. We stepped heavy through the dining car and found an old woman near the caboose. Something strange in the luggage car, he said,

and I finished as was our way. You should come and see it. She stood and walked with us readily enough, though tears flowed silent down her cheeks and patterned onto the faded carpet. The spider's always an easy job. No fuss, no complications. Everything planned and prepared. It knows too much to truly be a stranger, but hides its knowing well enough to endure.

We knew she wouldn't scream as she was hollowed out and drunk, but still he thought best to cover the sounds with a laugh. He was always our humour. I remember our first automobile, black and reliable, just about presentable for the London auction houses we served. He squeezed its first owner until they stopped and dumped them in a river, and I stayed with the second until they didn't know who they were any more than they knew what they were. And then we had a car. It was noisy and it juddered,

but the name on the wooden siding was respectable, and now it was ours and good enough for Sotheby's. We moved a lot of things in those years, some of them even harmless. My favourite was the old knife, rusted from the trenches and lied about by a barking auctioneer. We delivered it to a leering banker who knew the second they saw us what they'd done. Sweat dripped from under their bowler hat as they took the knife from its dented metal case and screamed. They lunged at me, stabbing me over and through, then moved on to him. But he just laughed as the blade went in and out and no blood flowed from the holes they cut.

And when the banker had screamed all the curses they had learned from German gas attacks, the knife turned back again and cut them piece by piece. We delivered it back to Christie's and that was the end of the auction jobs. Then were the good times, the circus times. We always take what jobs are before us, deliver whatever will bring that fear and misery, but there is no joy in carrying meat, in shifting writhing spiral things. But with the circus we were among our own kind at last. They all had names, true enough, but none would dare pretend that names were real. Faces changed more often than clothes,

and nobody truly knew who anybody was, save for their function within the show. We carried and lifted and helped the circus move towards its next destination, the next doomed town. Sometimes we joined the show, lifting weights and things that looked like animals. Sometimes we lifted members of the audience. Sometimes we even put them down again. Even in our stillness, people were afraid.

The winter in Russia was cold, and in the icy air the absence of our breath was clear for all to see. I could taste their discomfort, but none ever mentioned it. We didn't like the puppet when Orsonov began to carve it. It seemed wrong to us to try and bring one like us about, to create or remake it in such a solid, static shape. We were wrong, of course, and when Orsonov carved into the thing that had once called itself Bramaldi, and fed the pieces they didn't need to the shuddering organist, even we found ourselves impressed. And when the faceless puppet peeled its creator and moved itself with their tendon strings,

he looked at me, and laughed, and laughed. We followed her a while, but she was unpredictable, while we are things of point and laughed. We followed her a while but she was unpredictable, while we are things of point and purpose. When she lost the ancient skin we went our separate ways and found ourselves a lorry, long and dirty grey. We drove the motorways and country roads and took great crates of nothing to and fro, driving towards a different sort of terror. It wasn't our cargo that brought fear then. We brought fear to our cargo. Smiling, waiting, patient by the road, with cardboard signs of gentle hopes.

In they went to the back, that silent, heavy place, with boxes that seemed too big or too warm. violent, heavy place, with boxes that seemed too big or too warm. They usually screamed as we drove and drove, fear thick in the air, and sometimes they died. Some tried to leap from the back into the road, and one even made it through. Most stayed, getting weaker and weaker, their cries fading away as hunger and thirst and despair took their final hold. But we were not content. He didn't laugh like he used to. Driving aimless, waiting for the call, sat badly with us,

who were meant to know our destination. We were meant to have a cargo and an address. So it was we found a man named Breakin, and we took everything they were until there was nothing left but the sweet taste of a broken soul's disquiet and confusion. We took the van and started to deliver once again, but we were reckless, desperate for the surety we had not felt since leaving the circus. And so we took the casket, a hungry thing of the earth, a crushing, choking tomb that will not let you die because it is too much what it is for death to find you there, within its mocking

shape, buried alive. It was one like us that found it, a thing of shifting names and déjà vu. A fool that believed because it found the coffin in chains it would be an easy thing to control, to bargain with. But there was no remorse when the test finally failed and it fed on the thing that considered itself the master. No face to change in the cold dark earth, no eye to fool where it is now. But there was no mention of us in the deal, no thought to what might happen should a victim pass the test. And what happened was, we were stuck with it. It was still our cargo, nowhere to take it, no address or destination. So back in the van it went. A long time we've carried it, keeping it as close as it wants, not listening to it sing in the rain. Even when the mannequin that now called itself Orsinov

came back to us, told us we could help the world unknow and fear again the coming of strangers, still we had to drag it with us, an unclaimed package. But I suppose it was worth it in the end, when that hunter killed him, when she took her violence of mindless instinct and unleashed it on us. It was there, it was waiting. I fed her to it. She took him from me. Made us a me. And she doesn't get to die for that. She gets to live, trapped and helpless and entombed forever.

No prey, no hunt, no movement. We failed, but I have at least that comfort. I am without him now. I am. I can feel myself fading. Weak, no reason to move, nothing to deliver. But I am no longer tied to the casket, so you can have it. You can stare at it, knowing how your feral friend suffers, knowing how powerless you are to help. And when you can't bear it any longer, knowing that you can climb in and join her.

bear it any longer, knowing that you can climb in and join her. I have never known hate before. I have never known loss. But now they are with me always. And I desire nothing but to share them with you. Statement ends. Here. Thank you. Was it worth it? I don't know. Maybe. Did you at least learn anything?

Daisy's alive. In there. Right. But Sarah, we can't... Yeah, I can read. Right. So why give it to us? I don't...

I don't know. To taunt us? To lure us in as well? Hmm. I saw that thing's mind. It's lost on its own. No partner, no purpose. I honestly think it just wanted to do another delivery.

And there's no chance more of the circus survived the explosion? I don't think so. At least, Brecon didn't think so. Where does the coffin lead? The buried. Right. Right. Keep it safe. I'll be gone a few days. I have some leads I need to follow up.

Sorry? You heard me. Don't ask about them. And don't know about them either. I can't exactly control that. Learn. I'll do my best. You can trust me, Basira. Stop saying that. Do you know how I survived that... the unknowing?

I... no. No, I don't. No powers, no magic or help. I was trapped in that place, and so I tried to figure it out. And I did. A little. So I kept doing it. I kept going through until I got out. I reasoned my way out of that nightmare.

Good lord. Then everything ended and Daisy was gone. And you were gone. And Tim. And then I got back to the institute and Martin sent me to meet the new boss. Then I stood alone in an empty office for more than an hour. I can trust me, John. That's it. I'll try and be back in a week or two. Don't think about me. Right. And don't open the coffin.

It is addressed to me. Yes, all right. All right. To be continued... Today's episode was written by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newell. To subscribe, view associated material, or join our Patreon, visit RustyQuill.com. Rate and review us online, tweet us at TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us at mail at RustyQuill.com. Join our communities on the forum via the website or on Reddit at r slash the Magnus Archives. Thanks for listening.

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