By Jacob Busby, ©1999
To all cells: The following communiqué was found by accident by a Friendly during a financial audit on CHT Scientific Equipment. CHT Scientific Equipment is a subsidiary of a larger consortium, whose main shareholder is NWI, an organization believed by some to have links to the Mythos.
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Title: Preliminary notes regarding object 318JB/Request for additional funding.
File: 1654/W76/AS1
Author: T. Merrick
Analysis Follows
Object 318JB is a belt made of a substance not dissimilar to hardened bladderack treated with plastic coating. The buckle is made of an unknown alloy, similar in many respects to electrum. From it’s size it is clear that it would only fit the largest of humans. Our benefactor was imprecise about its exact origins beyond “a small island in the Pacific Ocean”.
Both belt and buckle appear to have curved grooves centering around the front. The grooves would appear to be some variety of language, bearing symbols from a bastardised amalgam of Ancient Mayan and Egyptian. Quite how segments from these two quite different languages should have been found together has yet to be discerned. Of greater significance, whilst translating these languages one of the researchers happened to murmur some of the text aloud which caused the belt to produce unexplainable vibrations. The belt itself has no input device and it has yet to be determined precisely why and how these effects occur.
Whilst in this state the belt shows an odd chemical reaction with sea-water, desalinating it and leaving a colourless and analytically unrecognizable chemical pollutant, composed of Chlorine, Carbon and at least two unknown elements. Current tests would estimate that it absorbs Sodium, Hydrogen, Oxygen (and possibly several other elements) from salt water at a rate of 1:4:8 molar units per inch of belt per hour, producing the molar equivalent in pollutant. Each “ignition” of the belt lasts for a varying period of time (on average about 10 1/2 hours) but demonstrates a strong correlation between the length of time and the person who uses the audio input. Test have been performed, recording the phrase and playing it in front of the belt, but have no discernible effect.
It’s almost as if the device is sentient and that it prefers certain users to others. Further analysis proves that the odd chemical reaction is a by-product of the belt’s main effect – a jamming device. Whilst reverberating the belt caused interference in the use of laboratory oscilloscopes, X-ray machines, even the stereo we had tuned to the local radio station. This is a localized effect, centered on the belt, which radiates to a variable distance, no more than thirty meters. Obviously the ramifications of this and its uses are both widespread and profitable.
We have not been fully able to test the strength of the belt at present due to a flu epidemic leaving the facility short-staffed. We are therefore forced to request additional manpower funding to investigate this highly lucrative device within current timescales.
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Simulation Data:
The belt is a device which creates a field that makes the wearer invisible to sonar whilst in salt water. The invocation costs no SAN but 7 MP to use and lasts for a period of time equal to the user’s POW in hours. The field has a range of POW * 2 meters. As a side-effect of the “pollutant,” humans using the belt or in its vicinity lose 1D6 CON, which are recovered at a rate of one per day.
The belt was developed by Deep Ones for their raiding party. Larger such devices can be found adorned on Deep One cities. Theoretically the belt could be used to jam radar and radio waves, provided one could keep it completely immersed in salt water for the period. The SAN loss for probing the secrets of the belt is 1/1D4.
