Item #: SCP-1689
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1689 is currently under restricted access in Area
██ medium-size artifact storage, Compartment ██. SCP-1689 is to be stored tied shut
with its mouth facing upwards at all times.
Access is limited to Level 3 personnel, with the exception of site cooking staff.
Exploratory access to SCP-1689-A requires approval from a Level 4 personnel.
All expeditions must be documented with a complete manifest of equipment and staff to
enter.
Enzymatic Compound 13 has been developed to aid in exploration of SCP-1689-A.
Proposals to establish a mobile site in SCP-1689-A are currently under review.
Description: SCP-1689 is a burlap bag of potatoes.
In its stable state, SCP-1689 weighs 40-50 kg and contains approximately two hundred
(200) common agricultural potatoes (tubers of Solanum tuberosum).
SCP-1689 is made of brown, roughly woven jute.
The interior of SCP-1689 is vastly larger than its exterior, and is designated SCP-1689-A.
SCP-1689-A is a large extradimensional space of undetermined volume (measured to be at
least 10,000m3, but believed to be much greater) completely filled with potatoes.
Exploration of SCP-1689-A is largely incomplete, due to the high degree of obstruction; for
more information, please see Addendum-1, Exploration Log 1689-I.
Potato recovered from SCP-1689 in an early stage of growth
When portions of SCP-1689-A are empty, nearby potatoes experience an abnormal form of growth
characterized by tumor-like bulges emerging and eventually splitting into fully-sized
independent potatoes.
The rate of growth is roughly exponential with a doubling period of approximately two
hours.
This effect also applies to normal potatoes introduced to SCP-1689, as well as similar
edible tubers or roots such as yams and sweet potatoes (although none have been found to
occur within SCP-1689 naturally).
Addendum 1689-1: SCP-1689 was recovered from Krysovo, a small village of approximately
two hundred (200) people in northern Siberia.
A Russian official reported on 2 June 201█ that Krysovo had made no outside contact in
four decades and had no surrounding farmland.
The reports were confiscated and investigated by the Foundation, at which point it was discovered
that the village had been using SCP-1689 as its sole food source for well over a century.
As a result, the villagers were suffering from extreme calcium and iron deficiencies.
No one in the village was able to recall how they had come into possession of SCP-1689,
only that it had been there "since before the Reds" and that it was "a gift for working
hard."
SCP-1689 was subsequently transported to Area ██, its current location.
Addendum 1689-2: Currently, only one fully equipped expedition into SCP-1689-A has taken
place.
Authorized personnel may view the Mission Log of Captain Cameron Wells: Exploration
Log 1689-I.
Opening statement: Exploratory Mission 1689-I was scheduled for 8 August 201█, with an
exploration team of four led by Captain Cameron Wells.
The team was informed of their upcoming assignment on the 2nd.
For more information, see document Mission 1689-I Equipment Manifest.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day -6 They told me today I was going to be leading
Fredrick, Carlen, and Xander into a sack of potatoes.
Okay.
Apparently it's bigger on the inside or it's a pocket dimension or it's a portal or something,
to somewhere full of potatoes.
At this point, nothing surprises me.
Oh, and this is supposed to be an official log, so I'm supposed to call them Agents Meryle,
Ozols, and Peterson.
But no one checks these.
So I fucking won't.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day -1 They gave us the rest of our gear, and got
us ready for tomorrow.
The plan is to be in there by noon.
Labs produced this really cool liquid for us to use.
It's some kind of acid or enzyme that dissolves the potatoes into a starchy paste.
It mostly drains away, but then some of it sort of hardens to make this nice tunnel ceiling.
It's actually scary how fast it works, and we have to wear skin protection so it doesn't
get on us.
With spray nozzles we can carve our way straight into potatoes.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 0 It was pleasant to find that they had already
cleared out a small room on the other side of SCP-1689, made of plywood.
It was certainly weird, crawling into a bag and coming out in a totally different room,
but again, nothing surprises me.
We actually didn't see any potatoes, right away.
Then we opened up the excavation door and yep, wall of potatoes.
Potatoes above, in front, and below.
We decided to cut a roughly 2 by 2 meter tunnel straight forward.
Compasses don't work here, but there isn't a very good chance of getting lost because
we can always find our way back from the radio signal.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 1 Excavating's slow work; we can clear out about
30 meters an hour.
That sounds glacial, but it's 120 cubic meters of potato, and that's a kilometer in two days
if we make good effort.
And it isn't that hard; two of us spray, and two of us shovel away the goop.
Every hundred meters or so we put up some support beams.
Whoever invented this enzyme is a genius.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 2 God I hate the odor of this stuff.
I actually like the smell of potatoes, but because of the enzyme this place smells like
vomit.
I'm sick of it already.
Fuck.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 5 We accidentally spilled some enzyme on the
ground today, and turns out we were only like a meter off this concrete floor.
Command's really surprised; this is the first thing other than potatoes they've found.
Cool.
We decide to just start going on the floor.
It's not too inconvenient, and it's nice to have solid footing.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 8 Did you know that the word "spud" comes from
digging with a "spade" to make the hole you plant them in?
Carlen did.
And she made sure we all did too.
And then she repeated the word "spud" to herself all day while we were excavating.
Sigh.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 9 This is hardly even Agent work.
Why don't they have D-Class doing this?
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 11 Tomorrow we're on our own.
It's becoming too inefficient to resupply us every few days, so Command's providing
us with two months of MREs and tanks of more than enough enzyme to last that long.
If we haven't found anything after that, they say, then the mission will be abandoned.
Obviously we'll still have radio contact.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 12 It's nice being alone with the team.
At night, it's almost like camping.
Yeah, camping in a weird cavern.
Made of spuds.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 16 Out of the blue, something interesting happened.
We found a wall today.
It's made of the same material as the floor.
The base floor, not the starch stuff.
Concrete.
It runs at an angle twenty degrees to our tunnel's perpendicular.
Command told us to follow it, as it's not like there's anything else interesting going
on.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 19 So, concrete floor and concrete walls, today
Fredrick got thinking, and sure enough, concrete ceiling.
This whole time its been about three meters above us.
Which means that the whole time we've been inside of a building.
A huge building.
If we can map it out, we can probably find the exit, and discover where in the world
this potato hell is.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 28 Xander says it po-tah-to!
What the fuck.
How have I not heard him say it until now?
It's been four weeks, surrounded by potatoes, and he hasn't said the word until now.
He's the first person I've met who actually says it like that.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 36 It's been longer since we started following
the wall than from the wall to the start.
Xander thinks it isn't going anywhere, but Fredrick wanted to press on.
Command deferred to me, and well…
I don't want the last month to have been pointless.
We'll go for another three kilometers, at least.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 38 Today we decided to blow a fucking hole in
the wall.
Carlen had charges in her pack (god knows why), so why not.
The wall wasn't going anywhere.
We all stood clear, and blasted.
It took a long time to clear all the mashed potatoes away, but we sure enough created
a three-meter hole.
Guess what was on the other side.
Potatoes.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 39 We started excavating through the hole we
made, and turns out it actually is different, outside.
It definitely is outside: the ground is dirt and extremely dead grass.
That means this thing isn't anywhere on earth.
I guess the building was some kind of gigantic warehouse.
We've been hearing these sort of faint rumbles ever since we blew the charges.
Xander's starting to go wily about it, but as far as we can tell, nothing's happened.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 43 How high up do these potatoes go?
If we're outside, then there's no vertical clearance.
So does it go all the way up into the atmosphere?
Is this whole universe filled with potatoes?
It's so weird thinking we're outside.
It doesn't feel any different from being inside the building.
It's like we're underground.
Well, I guess we are.
It's just the ground is made of potatoes.
Mission Log, Captain Wells, Day 44: We found an actual tree!
A dead one, surrounded by potatoes, but a tree rooted in the ground nonetheless.
We had to be careful about it, because the enzyme chews it up, but we managed to fully
uncover it.
Its branches were sort of weird, splitting at these perfect thirty-degree angles, but
overall it looked pretty normal.
The lab had me collect a bark sample.
It totally made the "outside" fact real.
What is this place?
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 48 Xander was worried about the rumbles we've
been hearing, so he turned back to look.
Turns out, about a hundred meters of our tunnel is caved in.
Command didn't know either.
They said they'd start digging us out from the other side, and that it was my choice
if I wanted to keep excavating.
Fredrick and Carlen want to continue, so continue we do, listening to Xander complain.
"I didn't sign up for this shit."
Yeah, no shit.
The Foundation didn't exactly know you were going into The Realm of Taters when they recruited
you.
It's not the kind of thing you put in the fine print, just in case.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 51 We keep finding more weird shit.
Fredrick uncovered this twisted bicycle, and got super psyched about it.
I knew there had to be humans here before because of the building, but it didn't really
occur to me until I saw the bicycle.
Jesus.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 55 Fuck.
I'm an awful captain.
There was another big rumble today.
A huge cave-in.
We nearly got crushed, but somehow we all managed to take safe refuge under the tree
branches.
This time we lost contact with command.
We can still detect some faint radio transmissions, but it's too static-y for correspondence.
Obviously, I made the call to turn back, but we have no idea how bad it is.
It could take weeks to get out.
Fuck.
I should have turned back.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 62 Fredrick told us today that we should have
brought an Irishman.
I told him that he was an asshole.
He was chuckling about it all day long.
What an absolute prick.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 65 We ran out of food rations today.
Xander freaked out and started saying we were going to starve, until I told him he was a
fucking idiot.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 67 We should've brought a god damn spice kit.
Carlen actually had cooking equipment in her pack (god knows why), so we can prepare the
potatoes a couple of different ways.
But it's still potatoes.
My taste buds are starting to shut down.
This is going to take forever.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 68 It's too hard to clear out the original tunnels
we made.
It'll be quicker to just cut straight to the bag, anyways.
Tomorrow I'll tell my team to just start carving a new tunnel.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 69 Fuck.
We ran out of enzyme today.
Sure I noticed the supply dwindling, but it doesn't really work to ration it.
So we just kept using it like normal, and now we're out.
Okay, so the good news is that we were inside the building when it happened.
That means we can shovel our way out, as there is a ceiling.
It's five meters from top to bottom, and I can't imagine we could make a tunnel any narrower
than a meter and a half.
That's going to be slow, but we should get there.
The real digging problem is space.
Where are we going to dump the potatoes?
The best we can do is about five meters behind us, so we have a little bubble of space that
we just sort of move through the building.
This is going to take a long time, but I'm honestly not sure what we'll run out of first.
Food is covered.
And they've actually got enough water in them.
The oxygen is starting to get stale, though.
I don't know how much is able to fit in the cracks between the potatoes.
I don't even know what to do for morale.
I've told everybody that Command is probably digging from the other side, and is going
to find us, but they're all depressed.
This was supposed to be a 65-day mission, max.
Fredrick made a joke about the word "tuber."
I don't remember exactly what.
It was stupid anyways.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 70 Maybe it's because we were just melting them,
but there's something none of us noticed before.
The potatoes are real ugly-looking.
They've got these bulges which sort of wiggle and grow, slowly.
Absolutely disgusting, and they're our only meal.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 71 I hate the smell of potatoes.
I'd have the vomit back, just for the smell.
Fuck.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 72 It's fucking smaller.
Our bubble of space is smaller and it's because of more fucking potatoes.
Our area wasn't precisely dimensioned, or anything.
But Carlen was the first to mention it when we woke up, and then suddenly it's obvious
to everyone.
The whole area has shrunk a good ten cubic meters.
What the fuck.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 73 I was paying attention today.
Those ugly bulges?
They actually get big fast.
And when they get to be the size of a potato, they split off.
That's where all of the potatoes are coming from.
Our area got even smaller today.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 74 We're running out of space and time.
There's barely enough room to work any more; we're knocking elbows and shoulders while
we shovel.
Fucking taters.
Fucking spuds.
Fucking yams.
Fucking tubers.
Fucking roots.
I swear they'll kill me while I'm sleeping and I'll have a potato fucking stuffed down
my throat.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 75 All day long Xanders whining shut the fuck
up.
I hate the dark too.
We all hate the dark and the yellow lamps with the brown potatoes and the tasteless
food we all hate it okay?
OKAY?
It's not like I can yell at the team.
I keep them all going.
I'm the captain.
Captain Wells, Potato Commander.
I keep it together and vent it all in these fucking logs.
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 76 I cant breath.
I cant fucking breath and theres no room to shovel fuck fuck fuck
Mission Log, Captain Wells: Day 78 I feel like I'm breathing inside someone else's
lungs, who's already exhaled so there's nothing but carbon dioxide.
No one can even speak while we're working.
We're dead within the week.
Death by potatoes.
Concluding Statement: On 3 Nov 201█, Mission Captain Wells and Agents Ozols, Meryle, and
Peterson connected with the secondary excavation team.
Although they were suffering from oxygen deficiency and in a deteriorated mental state, all team
members fully recovered within three weeks.
Captain Wells declined to write a post-mission summary.