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 2 August 201█. 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.