T-040 Blood Coin
Threshold Institute · Case file T-040
- Number
- T-040 in the catalogue
- Kind
- Object
- Class
- Class I: harmless while it is left alone
- Found
- Year 38, month 2, day 3
- Where found
- The rift, on the trader's (T-026) cloth, among its goods
- Status
- Contained, in a sealed cell, in a lead dish
- Now
- At the lab and in the rift
Containment procedures
Section titled “Containment procedures”The coin is held in a locked drawer in the quartermaster's office, not in a cell. It is used no more than once per run, on one container, with a medic present and a dressing ready (not the Mending Jar, T-036). It is never used in a room that holds more than one container. Any member of staff found with the coin outside these rules is taken off the runs.
Description
Section titled “Description”A heavy coin of dull, dark metal, about the size of a thumbnail. Its back is smooth. On its face is a hand, open, palm up.
Pressed into the palm and closed in a fist, the coin draws blood: a cut opens in the palm, deep enough to fill a cup. Then whatever lies in the nearest crate, cupboard or box is no longer what lay there. The tins are other tins; the cartridges another calibre; once, in a ruin in the rift, a stoppered jar of green glass the same as the Mending Jar (T-036), dry. What comes is not better or worse on the whole. Testing in the stores found one pattern only: the more blood, the more often it came out in the holder's favour.
Discovery
Section titled “Discovery”The run had come to barter for medicine, which the Institute had learnt to throw away before it turned. The coin lay face down in the middle of the cloth. When Rehn reached for a tin beside it, the trader set a finger on his wrist and turned the coin over, face up. It was the only thing the trader would not sell. The coin was not bought. It was in the pocket of the quartermaster, Sven Aalto, when the team came home, and he did not know how. The trader's camp was gone when the next run went.
Addenda
Section titled “Addenda”Addendum T-040-A
Section titled “Addendum T-040-A”Incident report
Year 39, month 1, day 17. Surveyors Ilja Korhonen and Mats Ekholm took the coin from the drawer and used it alone in an empty object cell, on one supply crate, eleven times. They were found together, pale and unable to stand, beside the crate. It held nothing but other coins, several hundred, each with a hand on its face, closed.
Addendum T-040-B
Section titled “Addendum T-040-B”Interview
Surveyor Ilja Korhonen, interviewed by Mara Okafor, Year 39, month 1, day 22.
Okafor: Why eleven times?
Korhonen: The first time it gave us tins. The second time it gave us rounds for the rifle. We wanted to see what it gave if you kept going.
Okafor: And what did it give?
Korhonen: It kept giving us more of itself. Mats said it was paying us back in its own money. After the eighth he couldn't open his hand.
Okafor: Did you see the trader?
Korhonen: No. But the crate was set out on a cloth when we came round. We hadn't put a cloth there. The other coins were burnt in the furnace and did not melt. They are held in the cell where they were found, which is now sealed.
In the file
Section titled “In the file”- People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Mats Ekholm, Ilja Korhonen and Sven Aalto.
- Places: The cells and The land beyond the rift.
In the game
Section titled “In the game”The note you find in the game:
Year 38, month 2, day 3. Found among the trader's goods beyond the rift, face down, by a run sent to barter for medicine. When Tomas Rehn reached for a tin beside it, the trader set a finger on his wrist and turned the coin face up: the one thing it would not sell. The coin was not bought, but it was in the quartermaster Sven Aalto's pocket when the team came home, and he did not know how.
A heavy, dark old coin with a rusty red rim, warm to the touch. Thrown at the nearest container within 2 tiles of the bearer inside a raid site, it empties what is left and fills it anew from the same kind of loot, once per container. Each throw takes 500 ml of the bearer's blood. It will not fall for a bearer it would bleed to death, nor at home, in a town or in the open.
Status: contained, in a sealed cell, in a lead dish.
Today it is found at the lab and in the rift.
It is an item you can carry: Blood Coin.
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