Item #: SCP-7715
Object Class: Argus
Special Containment Procedures: After deliberation, containment of SCP-7715 has been partially transferred to GoI-33412 ("Plumbers"). Members of the Plumbers are consulted as necessary on necessary updates.
Currently, the only necessary containment procedure is to shoot a single bullet of at least 95% lead into SCP-7715 daily.
Special Containment Procedures (Superceded): SCP-7715 is immobile and is contained on-site. A 2 meter gap must be maintained around the perimeter of the structure containing SCP-7715. No structures are to contact SCP-7715. Manned exploration must be conducted in teams of at least three (3) with full safety lines and GPS tracking. Any protrusions from SCP-7715 must be capped and sealed immediately.
No hand or power tools are allowed anywhere within SCP-7715. No repairs or maintenance are to be done on SCP-7715. No aggressive actions are to be taken in SCP-7715.
Description: SCP-7715 is a mass of pipes, vents, boilers, and other plumbing apparatuses completely filling a defunct Acroamatic Abatement1 testing site in the Scottish Highlands. The site was abandoned as an Acroamatic Abatement facility upon the manifestation of SCP-7715, which can be traced to minor procedural imperfections in the routine Abatements performed within.
SCP-7715
Originally, SCP-7715 was believed to be a manifestation of the same phenomenon as SCP-015 due to superficial similarities between the two. In both anomalies, the pipes appear to grow when not under active observation, attempting to connect to nearby structures via sewer systems and underground plumbing. Both currently contain over 200 kilometers of pipes between 0.5 cm and 3.0 m in diameter, though SCP-7715 had, at one time, over 1000 kilometers worth of pipes.
Recorded materials for the pipes in SCP-7715 have included human bone, calcite, bitumen, octopus tissue, pyrite, and unmelting ice.
If approached aggressively or by individuals holding tools, pipes in SCP-7715 will burst and spray liquid or gas on the aggressor. Pipes have been reported to contain seawater, sewage, crude oil, sulfuric acid, steam, goat's blood, and red wine vinegar.
No personnel were lost in the initial containment of SCP-7715 due to early discovery and implementation of similar containment procedures as SCP-015. However, roughly 6 months after initial containment, persistent children's laughter and mooing was reported from the inside of SCP-7715. Towns within a 20 kilometer radius began reporting higher-than-placebo levels of spectral manifestations (e.g. hauntings, mysterious faces in mirrors, sensations of hands reaching from toilets); this radius expanded to 30 kilometers over the course of 5 days. Social media posts in the Scottish Highlands also included a statistically significant uptick in wanderlust and interest in bathrooms.
Shortly after, the SCP-7715 containment team received a message from GoI-33412 ("Plumbers"), a known affiliate of the Global Occult Coalition.
To our esteemed colleagues at the "SCP" Foundation,
The Global Occult Coalition has received reports of a failure of your methods in the Scottish Highlands. After reviewing corroborating reports from our Temporal-Ontological Idiosyncratic Leakage & Effluvia Telemetry (TOILET) system, the PHYSICS division has elected to delegate the Threat Entity management in this case to our society, the Plumbers.
Our group has been attempting to open a dialogue with yours for the better part of a century. Your in-house "Acroamatic Abatement" procedures ignore centuries of precedent in both safety measures and interactions with the divine.
The ancient philosopher Thales of Miletus knew that all was water. That from water we all come, and to water we shall return.
Your practices have disrespected the water in all things. You have neglected the time-known division of running and still, mixed your effluvia in large-scale scatological microritual.
Retreat from your ignorance, and give unto us your Scottish Highlands mess. We're the Plumbers. We're used to dealing with shit.
C. Martinet
Plumber, 32th degree
Broadwick Lodge
Plumbīs Producere
Hi Dr. Cattenach
I got this email I'm not sure was meant for me. They claim to be from the GOC, but it seems to be some kind of joke — I'm not sure I've ever heard of "the Plumbers" before?
I don't know what that bit about Thales and "running and still" means, but I think it would be unwise to let them anywhere near SCP-7715.
Duncan McDonald
Junior Researcher, BS Chemistry/FMS Ageometric Architecture
SCP-7715 investigation team, Foundation
Researcher McDonald,
RAISA flagged and forwarded your email to me.
The Plumbers are real, and yes, they're affiliated with the GOC. They're on the Council of 108. Somehow. They claim to be descended from Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian groups and somehow ended up with a bog-standard Western European lodge system.
That bit about "running and still" comes from "Modern Plumbing Parascience". Our Acroabate people claim that water storage standards shouldn't apply to abatement because we don't use water in more than half of it. Their people claim it doesn't matter — because there's water in all things.
We had to abandon the original 7715 site as an active acromatic abatement area because the procedures we were using had a 98% average efficacy instead of the usual 99.5%. After that — well, how do you clean up a clean up site? You can't. Not easily.
Accidents happen in our line of work. I'll handle the rest.
Henrik Sturmatem
Janitor
Foundation
Plumber Martinet,
This has been a long-standing point of disagreement between our two groups. None of our sites follow Modern Plumbing Parascience guidelines, but our in-house guidelines lead to adverse outcomes just as rarely. In fact, decade-by-decade, Acroamatic Abatement is so successful as a science that waste disposal is entirely a non-issue for the Foundation, while Modern Plumbing Parascience regularly runs into problems that fall outside of its framework and must be adapted post-hoc.
This incident is, from our point of view, unprecedented. However, it is also extremely similar to the hundreds of other unprecedented events we deal with from week to week.
We made our own mess, we'll clean it up.
Respectfully,
Henrik Sturmatem
Disposal Engineer, Foundation
The rate of expansion of SCP-7715's zone of spectral influence was determined to be increasing; the Department of Analytics projected that if left unchecked, it would encompass all of England within a month. When consulted, the Departed Department deferred the matter to the Department of Tactical Theology; the DoTT was capable of containing localized manifestations of spectral phenomena ("Butt Ghost", "Bloody Mary", etc.) via applied traditional folk remedies but did not believe it had the ability to effectively intervene with SCP-7715 directly.
Three days later, the Plumbers contacted Janitor Sturmatem again.
Dr. Sturmatem,
Please excuse my colleague's rudeness. He's been working here for a long time. He wrote the book on Plumbing Parascience — literally. We want this problem taken care of as much as you do.
You've made a mess, but we've managed to convince the PHYSICS division not to nuke your site from orbit; there's a good chance it wouldn't work. The TOILET (Temporal-Ontological Idiosyncratic Leakage & Effluvia Telemetry) suggests to us that this isn't some run-of-the-mill Type Red Regenerator as we in the GOC would call it. There are disruptions to the fabric of space and time — something that I hear your people are all too familiar with.
I know you don't believe the claims about parascience, but I've done tours of duty on submarines and boats. When you're out there in the middle of the ocean, you might as well be in the depths of space. The ocean itself is alive, quiet, waiting. Gentle from a distance, but with that undercurrent of wrath waiting to be awakened.
Water holds character. Water holds power.
There are places hidden in this world, where disposal and rebirth meet. Where waters, sullied or soiled mingle with those fresh and new. Where sustenance becomes sacrifice, and the stench of human effluence mingles with false flowers.
I think — based on the TOILET readings — that something you did, unintentionally or not, opened a gate.
To the Bathrooms.
C. Pratt
Plumber, 20th Degree
Manhattan Lodge
Plumbīs Producere
Are you talking about the FUCKING BATHROOMS WIKI?
Henrik Sturmatem
Disposal Engineer, Foundation
That's one of the foremost recruiting tools of our day for our organization. It's how I joined up. You a fellow bathbro?
C. Pratt
Plumber, 20th Degree
Manhattan Lodge
Plumbīs Producere
Janitor Sturmatem did not reply to Pratt's message at the time of receipt, instead contacting MTF Zeta-9 ("Mole Rats") to determine their familiarity with the extradimensional location known as the Bathrooms and contingencies they had for its exploration. The leader of MTF Zeta-9 stated that interest in the Bathrooms was a disqualifying trait for prospective members, that recovery from the location was viewed as impossible, and that Zeta-9 could not assist.
Over the course of the next three days, the Department of Analytics noted there were 15 unexplained disappearances in a 70 km radius of SCP-7715. Furthermore, Foundation internet crawlers noted the formation of a "TikTok trend", in which Scottish Highland youths would gather in groups of 7 and go cow tipping, which the Department of Mythology and Folkloristics noted as having potential mythic significance.
Internal discussions were ongoing when the Plumbers contacted the Foundation again.
Mr. Sturmatem, Researcher McDonald, Dr. Cattenach,
You are dealing with a Threat Entity, but not any "threat entity".
The original THREAT ENTITY: The metaphorical specter of the son of Pasiphae. The rejected spawn of the Minoan royal family, cast originally into Daedalus's Labyrinth. 14 Athenian youths and maidens were fed to this beast as gory sacrifice. This weight of disposal, this agonism of heroism and hunger, the minotaur resting in its own urine and feces for long and dark decades transmuted the labyrinth from physical construct to myth.
The Bathrooms are not the Labyrinth of Minos. Nor are the beasts within the minotaur. But it is a useful framework for cultural context.
My fellows and I have a tendency to wax poetic, in part because metaphor is a necessity to our line of work. But it is an unerring fact that since the dawn of the human race the call to adventure has been steeped in some deep shit.
Your waste disposal methods are sufficient 199 out of every 200 times. I can't deny that. But this one time, I believe you messed up badly enough to open a gate to the Outer Bathrooms — the physical and unseen structure that necessarily undergirds the existence of a structure of the Bathrooms. The Bathrooms are tile and mirror, flickering lights and urinal cakes. The Outer Bathrooms are the pipes that fill the toilets and sinks, even when they stand in the middle of a plain rimmed by mountains a hundred miles away. They are the electricity that powers the distant sodium sun and the HVAC that keeps the air muggy.
And they are infinitely more dangerous.
We lost good men to the last Outer Bathrooms incursion. To the pipes, water is water, whether vapor in the air or blood in the veins. The light in your eyes is enough power for the creaking eldritch Outer Bathrooms to devour. Take one wrong turn when running from it, and you will go from Outer Bathrooms to the Bathrooms proper, where there is no escape.
What concerns me most here is that this outcropping of the Outer Bathrooms into our reality is opening doors to the Bathrooms proper, doors easy enough for a child to step through into a world where the light is sodium and the air is muggy and the flushing is endless. We lose a few Plumbers to the Bathrooms every year. It's an inevitability, for those who spend their lives with muck and water. But that should be the fate of those who live and breathe sanitation, who have fought the dirty undercurrents of the world, who understand the siren song of the final adventure before choosing to truly give in. Not the bright-faced youths who hear the gurgling call to adventure and follow it as if in a dream.
Your people are the same. You understand this as we do.
Together, we can fight it back.
L. Mario
Plumber, 33rd Degree
International President
Roman Lodge
Plumbīs Producere
Following the receipt of this message, Janitor Sturmatem recommended the SCP-7715 containment team engage in formal diplomatic cooperation with the Plumbers.
Plumbers-Foundation Meeting Minutes
Speakers:
Henrik Sturmatem, Janitor, Foundation
Duncan MacDonald, Junior Researcher, Foundation
Elspeth Cattenach, SCP-7715 Containment Head, Foundation
Luigi Mario, International President, Plumbers
Jr. Rsch. MacDonald: Thanks to you all for coming. I'm Junior Researcher Duncan Macdonald. I've been working on the 7715 project for about a year now. On our side we've also got Dr. Elspeth Cattenach, who spent time on SCP-015 before working on 7715, among othe projects, and Henrik Sturmatem, who… is a janitor.
Janitor Sturmatem: I do what I can around here.
Pres. Mario: Thank you for having me. I am Luigi Mario, International President of the Plumbers. I have been working with the Plumbers for the better part of 30 decades.
Jr. Rsch. MacDonald: Is that a codename?
Janitor Sturmatem: Oh Jesus Christ.
Pres. Mario: Unbelievable. Unbelievable! I come here, take time from my busy day, and for what? Some pup out of college says I have a codename! My dear brother, he tells me "Oh, Luigi, if these video game guys name their plumbers after us we bring about a new age of Plumber glory" and then he ups and vanishes into the Bathrooms on a heroic dose of shrooms, leaves me to pick up the pieces! Simply unbelievable! Now the kids don't even think my name is real!
Janitor Sturmatem: This is why we don't put Junior Researchers on diplomacy detail.
Dr. Cattenach: Alright, Mr. Mario. Sorry about that. He's new here. We really appreciate that you took all that time to fly here from Rome on such short notice, though I'm wondering why you insisted on this being in person?
President L. Mario gestures to one of his underlings, who hands him a briefcase. Inside is a stainless steel scepter. The top of the rod is an open-shaped bowl.
Pres. Mario: This is the Paranormal Locus Undine Neutralization and Generative Energetic Relay. The latest in Plumber practical engineering, it siphons away excess energy to reveal the source phenomena, and once it does so it can push them out of our world, through whatever blockages may be keeping them here. I can have a crack team of Plumbers canvassing the Scottish Highlands for any Bathrooms incursions, and they can seal the gaps. I've brought this PLUNGER here as a show of good faith and that we are more than willing to keep working together, though I understand you would prefer to avoid complete destruction. That's a-okay. Modern Plumbing Parascience has built-in guidelines for how much the Outer Bathrooms can be allowed in our world and stay safe. But it's a matter we can work together on.
Janitor Sturmatem: And how do we do that? Throw bodies at the problem? Set fire to the building and hope it stays contained? A ritual purification? It tries to kill anyone who brings a wrench in there, how do you know it won't do the same with that "PLUNGER" of yours?
Pres. Mario: Our ancient Roman predecessors knew how to slow the stirring of spirits. They built it into the bones of Rome herself, built it as the pipes that carried water from the aqueduct to the fountain. And as the imperial office hoarded artifacts to glorify the Imperial Cult, we were there, laying pipe.
Jr. Rsch. MacDonald: So… do we have to go in there and replace the pipes?
Pres. Mario: Let me finish. We were there, keeping Rome quiet and free from rambunctious fountains and whatnot. No fame, no glory, just duty. But we were damn good at our jobs, even if it had some public health issues. Fresh water and no disease was well worth the cost of lead poisoning. And the fact that it took care of the fountain spirits as well? Cherry on top.
Dr. Cattenach: …You can't be serious. Lead poisoning?
Pres. Mario: I'm deadly serious. Lead is as bad for souls as it is for bodies.
Janitor Sturmatem: So, what. We mix some… lead acetate into water or something and spray down 7715?
Pres. Mario: Oh, no. Nothing that convoluted. We just need to apply lead. In elemental form at 300 meters a second.
Following this discussion, Dr. Cattenach requested the assistance of MTF Nu-7 ("Hammer Down") in the containment of SCP-7715. This request was granted. MTF Nu-7 deployed a division specializing in anti-materiel weaponry and reduced the pipe mileage from over 1000 km to the now-current 200 km.
Following this reduction in size and the associated Plumber activity, spectral phenomenon associated with SCP-7715 ceased. The current containment procedures were deemed sufficient to maintain SCP-7715 at current levels and put in place.
Update: After the successes of partially transferring containment of SCP-7715 to the Plumbers, discussions were initiated to consider the transfer of SCP-015. Overtures were rebuffed with the following message:
Elspeth, Henrik,
I know of what you speak.
With all due respect, we're not touching that with a 10 foot pole.
That thing is an abomination. It defies everything I know.
Luigi
No updates to the SCP-015 containment procedures have been made.