The Magnus Archives - The Magnus Protocol 51 -Legacy Issues

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

CAT1RB3456-29111652-24062024transmutation (human) -/- catalyst (alchemical)Incident Elements:· misophonia (breath)· body horrorTranscripts available at https://rustyquill.com/transcripts/the-magnus-protocol/You can find a complete list of our Kickstarter backers https://rustyquill.com/the-magnus-protocol-supporter-wall/Created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J NewallDirected by Alexander J NewallWritten by Jonathan SimsScript Edited with additional material by Alexander J NewallExecutive Producers April Sumner, Alexander J Newall, Jonathan Sims, Dani McDonough, Linn Ci, and Samantha F.G. HamiltonAssociate Producers Jordan L. Hawk, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius d’Raven, and Megan NiceProduced by April SumnerFeaturing (in order of appearance)Sasha Sienna as Georgie BarkerLowri Ann Davies as Celia RipleyAnusia Battersby as Gwen BouchardBillie Hindle as Alice DyerKazeem Tosin Amore as Teddy VaughnTim Fearon as AugustusDialogue Editor – Nico VetteseSound Designer – Meg McKellarMastering Editor - Catherine RinellaMusic by Sam Jones (orchestral mix by Jake Jackson)Art by April SumnerSFX from Meg McKellar, Soundly and Freesound: buzzatsea, ahriik, ThunderQuads, TRP, x3, franckwalden, Breviceps as well as previously credited artistsSupport Rusty Quill directly by joining our new membership platform at members.rustyquill.com or on Patreon at patreon.com/rustyquillPre-order links for From the Library of Jurgen Leitner: https://rustyquill.com/novelCheck out our merchandise available at https://www.redbubble.com/people/RustyQuill/shop and https://www.teepublic.com/stores/rusty-quillSupport Rusty Quill by purchasing from our Affiliates;DriveThruRPG – DriveThruRPG.comJoin our community:WEBSITE: rustyquill.comFACEBOOK: facebook.com/therustyquillX: @therustyquillEMAIL: [e-mail] Magnus Protocol is a derivative product of the Magnus Archives, created by Rusty Quill Ltd. and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share alike 4.0 International Licence.For ad-free episodes, bonus content and more, join members.rustyquill.com or our Patreon.Pre-order FROM THE LIBRARY OF JURGEN LEITNER, a Magnus novel releasing October 27th: rustyquill.com/novel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, it's Kareem, the voice of Simon Fairchild for the Magnus Archives. Today, I'm here to advertise Beck's End, an upcoming new audio drama that will be launching on the RQ network. Beck's End is a folk horror audio drama about isolation, belief, radicalisation, and poses the question if redemption is possible. When floodwater swallow an idyllic English Lake District Village, a stranded journalist finds herself trapped in a rising tide of fear. Cut off from the outside world, she begins to uncover horrors both human and big. biblical lurking beneath the surface.

If this intrigues you, you can support the creation of Beck's End on Kickstarter until the 17th of July. For more information on the show and to pledge your support, visit bexen.com. That's B-E-C-K-S-E-N-D.com. And you might recognize a voice here or there. Have fun and enjoy the episode. Rusty Quill presents The Magnus Protocol. Episode 51, Legacy Issue. Yeah

Sorry Yeah, I had a feeling we'd have one this evening What? How? Not sure Either I've got a touch of EFP Or you're getting predictable Maybe both Probably both

Well, warn me next time So I can at least dress for it Dress for what? Oh, no, get I asked Yeah, he was sleeping when I Had to leave He just needs someone to keep an iron in Got it

He'll have both of mine in about 15 minutes Perfect. Thanks, George. Get off. Okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Just give me a second. Bug up? Oh. What's that? Yeah. Georgie, I'm sorry. I can't really...

Can't really explain because it's super secret work stuff, uh huh? Seriously, Celia, I don't care if it gets me on another watch list. One of these days you've got to tell me what the hell these work emergencies actually are. And you'd just sit quietly on that info and not immediately podcast it out to the world. I'll think about it. Fine. Anyway, I'd better be going. Oh, but thanks again, Georgie.

I know. I'm wonderful. Don't suppose you can give me a lift to London? Cabinet office, because I've been bounced around the entire civil service by this point. This is Gwendolyn Bouchard from the Office of Incident Assessment and Response. Yeah, hi. Now, I'm looking for some documentation, but no one seems to have any idea where it is.

Great. I'm looking for everything you have on the OIAR. Personnel records, operations reports, budgets, software notation, whatever you have. No, I realise that, but I've recently been appointed as head of the department. Yeah, thanks. But the problem is my predecessor neglected her records, and I've been trying to get things in order for the minister. But, yeah, Trevor Herbert.

Anyway, the problem is there's no records from before 2021 here. Nothing. Now, I don't know if it's a system issue or a management problem or whatever, but I need help finding copies of those records, and apparently nobody has any idea where they're kept. And no, Mr. Herbert is not... has been unable to assist in this particular matter, but he's given my inquiries his full blessing.

So if you're not responsible for maintaining those archives, then who is? But I can't put in a formal request to the department head, because I am the department head, and I'm telling me you that those records aren't here. No, they should be here. That's why I'm trying to find them. Yes, find, whatever. The faintness that may overtake me should I remember his face when I found him. Much enamored with the alchemy, he would give no heed to my growing proofs of its insufficiency to know the works of God and continue his own experiments beyond what. Yet in this he found some matter that goes beyond what might be believed. He summoned me to his

laboratory, knowing that while no true skeptic, I had little patience remaining for alchemy as a method to understand our Lord's design. Thus would I make, as he said, the finest eyes to behold his achievement. He told me once it was his calling, that he was drawn to alchemical discovery as a priest were drawn to the church. I did not believe him. I did not understand him. I still do not, although I have seen it. W's goal, he said, was beyond mere Chrysapia. The mutation of base metals was nothing to him. He was to transform the very substance of his self, of his spirit.

I believed he was speaking of prayer and devotion, perhaps inviting me to nothing more rare than a strange session of worship. I was a fool. He greeted me most cordially and we had together most happily. He tore into his meat with a violence that spoke of such hunger that I found my own venison hard to stomach. This should perhaps have spoken to me of the profound imbalance of his spirit, the dreadful need that he wished to fill with something dark and ungodly. It inspired in me a small, wordless fear, and upon seeing this, there came a grim satisfaction upon his face.

W. explained his previous experiments. He told me every particular of what he was about to attempt. He pointed one after another at every alteration he had made to the chair in which he was to sit. He spent much time on the designs he had burned into the leather straps and the methods by which he had measured, placed and sharpened the points that jutted out from its back and into his. He laughed when I expressed a laugh. at the blood that was pooling around his feet. He spoke to me in words of ridicule and blasphemy. Should I have stopped him? Yes, although I do not know how such a thing might have been done.

Before it was clear that I should undertake to arrest his experiment, the means to do so were beyond my reach and his awful change had begun. I will not commit to ink the particulars of all. what I saw. To write them is to give them form they should not have, for form is what they desire most of all. Yet I cannot write nothing. In years to come, I will read these words, and if they do not contain W's end, then I shall not believe my memories. I say then this. The experiment was most physical in its nature. It did not mutate the inanimate, but it did mutate his flesh. It was in all things alchemical, flawed, and thus impossible. Yet it was successful. And I may give assurance to the memory, the piercing cry of agony you hear in your dreams is true to the sound

he produced as he changed. It is impossible. For years, I have laboured beside the alchemists and found many of their methods astray in their understanding of the world. Often I have showed their experiments as failures or misapprehensions of natural laws. Yet what I saw was no illusion, no mummery, no deceit. I have even, after some trepidation, attempted it myself with some success, though I ceased long before the transmutation that took my friend's life in so unholy a manner. There has been a great change. Where once I had found these alchemies were mostly adornments on the chemical process, ambitions without formative merit, something now comes to fill the absence. It is not, cannot be of God's light or his creation, but is instead some dark quintessence.

Not prima materia, as the alchemists would have it, but mutare material, that fouls what it touches in manners too terrible to set down in detail. It makes me so very afraid. Afraid of what has been created and what I saw become of my misguided friend, yes, but afraid more of a world in which such experiments abound, where it is known the force of dark quintessence may move to give you what you wish in its awful transmutations. There remain but few ardent alchemists, and my invisible college has been working to bring them into our more noble work of new philosophy. It is my hope that we may yet restrain this mutare material from doing true injury to our Lord's creation. I must write to H. His work as an intelligentsor may prove vital to our cause. If we are to have any hope of arresting this quintessence of dread and darkness, then we must be quick, secret, and clear of purpose. Perhaps H's work within the court might give us the sanction we require.

The key, I believe, is balance. It is in the imbalance of alchemy and its absence of truths that the mutare material ends. enters, then it twists the weft and warp of goodly creation to produce the impossible, and thereby distort the spirit to leave only lingering things of terror and despair. Balance is essential in all things. Balance and ignorance. The worst of it is that for all the evil he took into his body, W. did not die. Is not dead. I hear his voice still. I smell the putrescence of the substance he became as it wafts through my window on the winter wind. It makes me so very afraid, and I know that is why he calls to me so. Should my entreaties to H prove successful, our first and holiest duty will be to find and destroy whatever horror is left of my friend, before he may spread his

corruption unchecked. May God help us all and guide our hands. Thank you, I guess. Maybe something a bit more recent next time? What do I want? Some respect from my subordinates for a start, but right now I'll settle for you explaining why it's half an hour into the workday and I'm looking at an empty office. Celia late again? We're not talking about Celia right now. We're talking about you, unless you happen to know where she keeps disappearing to. I don't know. You should ask that tiny fragile human that needs constant care and attention that she hangs out with. Maybe he knows. And what's your excuse? I've been going through a list of names I found on Sam's computer. People he and Celia talk to about Magnus stuff. I thought it might be worth trying to have a chat with

them myself, but I'm trying to get an appointment with this deputy head and they're not having any of... Alice, I need you to come into work now. And I need one single solitary lead on what's going on. That isn't another complete waste of time. So I guess we're both shit out of luck Unless you find out anything more about Schweitzer Of course you didn't I swear to God The only thing stopping me from jumping in after Sam

Or taking an axe to the servers like Colin It's because both options Are equally better than having to deal with you right now And I just can't choose Look, are you coming into work or not, Alice Because we're really behind on the caseload Of course we're behind We're always behind

Because there's only two of us You're right And I don't catch up so badly Then maybe you should get off your managerial ass And actually help for a change Hmm Gwen Look Alice, do I need to mark you absent for tonight

Or For Christ's sake I'm literally outside What? Then why didn't you Right Good Hurry up Oh Alice We're so behind on all the cases

That matters so much to everyone After I completely screwed us Jesus Christ Leave me a message Or don't. Whatever. Hey, Dickhead. You know who? Found a review of your last gig and... I mean, I'm sure you've already seen it, but...

It said you weren't nearly as shit as they expected, so yeah, kudos. Anyway, call me back when you're not busy mortgaging your future for fame and fortune and reassure your sister you haven't been murdered by grumpy soundex or something. I, uh... I miss you. Sort of. You dickhead Oh got to go Call me back

Ciao Teddy Teddy you dozy prick Oh Hi Alice Sorry I didn't see you Where have you been man Have you been getting my messages

Yeah Sorry I'm just a bit behind at the moment New job and all that Teddy are you all right Hmm Of course Yeah I'm good

How are you? Yeah, I'm fine. Listen, Teddy, mate, don't take this a wrong way or anything. There we go. But you look like shit. Charming, as ever. No, I'm serious. Is everything okay? I'm fine.

Try again. I'm just not sleeping well, all right? New job. Stress. Don't worry about it. I'm allowed to worry about my friends, Teddy. Mm, sure. So...

What's in the back? Hang on, is this a mini display? Don't touch that! Jesus, Teddy, okay. It's just, it's just for work. They're very particular. They don't like, uh, I'll text you later, Alice. What the hell was that?

Christ, I need to talk to someone normal. Alice, what does the phrase literally outside mean to you? Because I heard it 10 minutes ago and yet you're still not at your desk. Not exactly what I had in mind. The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share-a-commercial share-a-0 international licence. The series is created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander Jane Ull, directed by Alexander J. Newell.

This episode was written by Jonathan Sims and edited with additional materials by Alexander Jain Ull, with vocal edits by Nico Votesé, Soundcaping by Meg Mackella And mastering by Catherine Rinella With music by Sam Jones It featured Billy Hindle as Alice Dyer

Loryan Davis as Celia Ripley Anousia Battersby as Gwen Bouchard Sasha Sienna as Georgie Barker Kazem Toesina Moray as Teddy Bourne With additional voices from Tim Ferrren The Magnus Protocol is produced by April Sumner With executive producers Alexander Jane Ull Danny McDonough, Lynn C, and Samantha F.G. Hamilton,

and Associate producers Jordan L. Hawke, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius de Raven, and Megan Nice. To subscribe, explore exclusive extras and enjoy early access ad-free episodes, visit members.RustyQuil.com or join our Patreon. Raid and review us online, follow us on social media and email us at mail at rustyquill.com. Thanks for listening. founder and CEO of Rusty Quill Limited. In case you haven't heard, there is now a Magnus Archives novel. The Library of Yergen Leitner is set in the world of the Magnus Archives and

written by Nebula award-winning author, Premi Muhammad, with our very own Jonathan Sims. The story follows Hugh, a university dropout, desperate to find somewhere to belong and his new job at an esoteric library. The books he must investigate for the enigmatic Juergen Leitner are not normal, because the library is not a vault, sealed and silent, but a hive, alive. buzzing and ready to sting. The Library of Jürgen Lightner releases October 27th, 2026, but you can pre-order it right now in the US and UK from your local bookshop,

or by using the link in the episode description. If you live outside of the UK or US, you may be able to make an international order for this first publication, but it depends on individual retailers' shipping policies.