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Registered Phenomena Code: 784
Object Class: Alpha-White
Hazard Types: Transmutation
Photograph of The Memoirs of Elizabeth Báthory from an auction in 2011.
Containment Protocols: RPC-784 is to be stored in an Alpha-class storage locker in an undisclosed location. No personnel are allowed to access its contents under any circumstance. The location of the original manuscript of The Memoirs of Elizabeth Báthory can only be disclosed to the one bearing Level 4-784 access.
Individuals under the influence of RPC-784 are to be reported to MST Tango-99 "Calling Your Bluff". Further information regarding neutralization is restricted to Tango-99 personnel.
Description: RPC-784 is a leather-bound book titled The Memoirs of Elizabeth Báthory, believed to be authored by the late Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, a noblewoman in Hungary and supposed serial killer.
RPC-784 itself is non-anomalous in composition. However, it features a currently unidentified memetic element that causes the skin of the beholder to carry anomalous properties that, when consumed by a pregnant woman, imprints the child with the memories, personality, and some physical characteristics of the affected.
The specifics of this process have not been fully recorded, as testing with RPC-784 is prohibited.
Addendum 1: Discovery
RPC-782 was first brought to the attention of the Auctoritas in 1795, when a French noblewoman spoke to police officials about her husband's ritual practices on their daughter. The police investigation soon led to Auctoritas intervention through agents in the French police. However, due to the National Convention's expulsion of all Auctoritas personnel from French territory, there could be no official involvement.
Nonetheless, Auctoritas member Chantae Benwurst accompanied local police as they broke into the residence of a "Mr. Thorzo", who was found lying dead on a balcony, holding the child. Benwurst was able to acquire RPC-784 before it was seized as evidence and fled the scene. Police transferred the child to a local orphanage. RPC-784 was contained within a now-defunct site within the Kingdom of Austria-Hungary, but in the aftermath of the First World War, the anomaly and the site were lost.
In 2011, RPC-784 was located at a private auction house in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was acquired for ███,███ from Welkard and Farenight, a discontinued book dealer based in Swansea, United Kingdom. Since its acquisition by the RPC Authority, RPC-784 has been in the possession of [REDACTED].
Addendum 2: Excerpt from the Testimony of Ildiko Hunor, Servant of House Báthory
The following are excerpts from the testimony of Ildiko Hunor, a servant of House Báthory, during an investigation by György Thurzó in October 1610, who was the Palatine of Hungary at the time. Mrs. Hunor was the wife to one of the Countess' aides, and was pregnant while under her employ.
I do not recall when exactly the Lady had called me to her table, but I do remember thinking it was terribly late for dinner, and I had already eaten. But I had learned long ago not to refuse her requests for company.
When I made my way down to the hall, I found the room empty of life besides the roaring fire and the Countess sitting at the opposite end, eerily still. Her frozen position was broken when she gestured toward a bowl of soup atop the table. This would not be the first time the Lady had offered me food, but I pray each night that it was the last.
She looked frightfully deep into my eyes as I ate from the bowl. I wasn't sure what was happening then, but now I'm quite sure she was sizing me up, the way a farmer examines an animal.
"How is the child?" The voice was a little too high-pitched, and awfully forced, like her grin.
I nodded and swallowed. "The midwife checked in not too long ago. She seemed to approve of my condition then. I feel wonderful, my Lady."
Her smile started to look like a grimace now. "The child, girl. How is the child?"
"Oh, healthily growing. I think it's a boy."
Lady Báthory's fingernails dug into the table. Her mouth drew tight like a string was pulled somewhere to bring her lips together. Her eyes twitched.
"A boy, you say?"
I nodded again, this time slowly. "Just a mother's intuition, I suppose."
She pried her fingers from the wood and returned to her posture, and she did not blink once in the time I stayed rooted in that spot. I would not dare to move as that hateful emotion on her face remained fixed on me. I do not know if she was breathing.
I believe it was then she decided to kill me. Or at least, to kill the baby. She was able to take him as I ran from her. It was the fall down the stairs.
Addendum 3: Excerpts from RPC-784
The following excerpt is taken from page 49 of the original text, provided by Doctor Benwurst.
I was thirteen years old, and I suppose my parents couldn't hear me crying. I have never cried so fiercely since. I don’t think I can anymore.
The servants never looked at me the same way. Neither did my parents. I don't know how they knew what had happened, as the man warned me not to say a word, or else he'd eat me.
It never occurred to me then that they let it happen. I never considered it because I assumed if they wanted this they wouldn't hate me for it. That they wouldn’t stare at me as though I was the one to blame.
What should I have done differently? What did they want me to do? Die?
I should have.
The child came several months later. My mother watched with strange fixation as the midwife drew the thing out from me. It hurt.
Before the pain overcame me, I saw the thing squirming in the midwife's arms. It didn't cry, though. It flailed, but for a moment it seemed to be testing itself. It stared at its arms, its legs. It then looked at me. Its eyes were barely able to open but it was a look so malicious I knew right then what it was. Who it must have been. It giggled, and then I was unconscious.
I was trapped on that bed for a week. I think I died there. At least, in some capacity.
It was a two months before I had seen the child again. It was sitting still atop some bed. It didn't laugh. It didn't move, pardon the breaths it took and the slow turn of its head as it mocked me with its gaze. The creature resembled the man from before. Despite there being barely a hair on that bulky head or a trace of a jaw, I knew it. I could see it in the color of the thing's eyes. That terrible shade of near-black, surrounded by milky white.
It smiled the way a man does. At that, I seized the child, and once I was finished it was forever quiet.
I still see him. A vagrant passing through the hamlet may have a familiar gait before I can get a good look. A creature in a woman's arms may coo in a fashion I had heard before. I make sure to keep a good track of these. I don’t believe most of them are him, if any. I don't think it matters. But I have seen him before any of this. Before I had met the man, I had met a young boy, barely a toddler, at some gathering or other. Something about his appearance shook me. That feeling rose up from deep inside me. That boy’s name was György Thurzó, and he had the same horribly dark eyes.
