The Redgrave-Ningishzida-Caduceus Statue

A free-standing statue in an overwhelmingly ancient Mesopotamian style, about four or five feet high, depicting a male figure believed to be Ningishzida, Physician of the Anunnaki, He of the Red Groves. The figure’s “legs” are hidden under what looks like a segmented coat or cloak, the segments making him look a bit like a half-worm or snake. The torso of the statue wears a mantle and girdle that is lined with stone representations of gems and filigrees. From the figure's shoulders sprout two horned serpents that eventually intertwine in a kind of halo/caduceus above the statue's head. And the statue's head and face differ significantly stylistically from the rest of the statue. It is lifelike in a Greco-Roman style and the face is very clearly Marshall’s.

In order to be used, this statue must be placed in an interior room or a bounded outdoor area (some sort of man-made boundary must be present: a ring of stones, a fenced-in area, a paved area in the midst of grass or bare earth, etc.) The statue affects an area roughly the size of a typical temple atop a Sumerian ziggurat, roughly 75 x 50 feet. The statue's dedication to the underworld/vegetation/healing deity Ningishzida creates a healing aura, which grows more powerful with the more human beings remain within the area of effect.

At least three people must be within the aura for the healing effects to begin; it does not matter if those within the aura are wounded, fatigued, or in perfect health. For every 3 human beings within the area of effect, all people within the aura recover 1 HP every hour and 1 FP every five minutes. Therefore, if a group of 12 human beings remain within the zone for an hour, all 12 people will heal 4 HP and recover up to 4 FP every five minutes. While healing, those inside the aura feel an ineffable, penetrative sense of joy, contentment, safety, and love radiating at first from the statue ... and then, eventually, from their fellow-worshippers for a prolonged period of time after exposure to the statue.

All conscious human beings who spend more than five minutes within the area of effect gain the following Disadvantages for 1d days (each person rolls separately for duration):

• Sense of Duty (to the other people who were in the aura of the statue)

• Berserk (only triggered when one of the other people who were in the aura is harmed)

• Infatuation (with the other people who were in the aura, mechanically equivalent to the Lecherousness Disadvantage but not necessarily sexual; the psychological draw between those who were inside the aura can be one or more of a combination of a sense of awe, duty, familial love, puppy love, and/or sexual attraction; basically those who were healed by He of the Red Groves have experienced the touch of a god; something no other mortal could obviously possibly understand.)

Specific Study (both this and the Redgrave Cassette): First, the cassette. Charley first analyzes this mysterious object from the St. Francis with her ordinary Shard Study and gets all the information on its ability to "program" the victim who watches the tape. The images on the tape, which Charley sorts through with her Data Retrieval ability so as not to fall victim to the videocasette's hypnotic power, allows her to see how the promotional film for the Mission slowly turns into a horrific display of mind-controlled loyalty to the Anunnaki. Charley delves deep into the origins of the images on the tape and the tape itself using Specific Study, curious as to what series of circumstances led to the St. Francis reality temblor creating this weird object.

Charley never got a chance to see the Special Ones' room at the St. Francis in situ (she was busy speaking with the dead and being flung back to her past life as Léontine), but she knows this tape and the Redgrave-Ningishzida-Caduceus Statue were created there. The Specific Study seems to indicate it was the Special Ones' intense memetic devotion to Marshall that created these, well, cult objects of devotion. But there's also an explicit History B tinge to both these objects. An opportunistic warping of this belief energy by the Enemy? Sure, but why there specifically in the Special Ones' suite, and why around Marshall? The Specific Study gives some vague clues to this puzzle. Yes, the belief energy around Marshall was intense; yes, the Enemy found an opportunity to twist that belief energy on the part of the Special Ones. But it wasn't the Special Ones who were memetically infected with belief in the Enemy, and it doesn't seem like it's Marshall per se who was favored by the Enemy for this ploy; the appearance of Marshall on both the tape and in the person of the statue seems incidental to the objects themselves under further Specific Study.

What Charley's Specific Study suggests to her is that the Enemy is interested in the Mission itself.

Take the images on the videotape, showing the grounds of the Mission being turned into a place of worship of the Kings. And the function of the Redgrave-Ningishzida-Caduceus Statue; to create a healing temenos that would heal people and bring them together in a specific, Sumerian temple-sized space, just like the common areas at the Mission. It's almost as if someone designed these objects to be used at the Mission, by someone with few moral scruples, and thus to eventually concentrate belief in History B there, to trigger a subduction there specifically.