The Lost Hero of Calimshan Part 2

We return to the Calimshan excavation. A military presence has moved in to secure the dig site and prevent trespassers from wandering in. Dr Mesta is now joined by Commander Horus O'Neil, a Calimshan desert warrior commander in charge with making sure the digsite remains in the nation's hands, and not taken by foreign powers. It has now been labeled as a black site under the protection of the government in order to protect the wonderous secrets inside in the hopes that it could help defend the nation from the possible approach of Amn. to Calimshan, the only reason they have not intervened to try to take the country yet is it's strategic unimportance and the focus on Cormyr and other war fronts. If word were to get out about the technological marvels held within, it would be a very short time before the more powerful nations would move in to try and claim it, and the digsite represents a chance for Calimshan to both defend itself from the encroaching neighbor nations and take their place amongst the rising global powers.

Dr Mesta on the other hand remains more concerned with excavating the pyramid and uncovering more stories of this "Paisly Snyder" and her home plane of Ama-rica.

"I have continued to delve through the information device discovered by the dig team. The stories of this Paisley Snyder character seem to be incredible. Apparently long ago a portion of the land once ruled by Calimshan was taken up by a country once known as Espero. Apparently they were rivals with other ancient cultures at the time, such as the Talos regime or the empire of Bernancrantz. Espero however was ruled by some sort of mad elder being who had invaded the plane and used their strange powers to take over the surrounding land. This nightmare spawn referred to as Vortirackt was a sadistic monster who forced the population to regularly commit atrocities. Strange human sacrifice rituals to the favor of Vortirackt, regularly kidnapping and enslaving others from other nations to serve as a workforce and food source for the beast, and taking infants to be raised by outer forces and transformed into evil abominations under the command of this creature are just some of the twisted things the outsider had committed. Paisley had apparently arrived when the empire was at it's peak, and was looking to take on the rest of the world. However she led a rebel faction in order to destroy Vortirackt and free the people from his tyranny, culminating in the detonation of something called a new-clear bomb in the heart of his sanctum, an explosive device of unmatched potential. Judging from the description, the detonation of this bomb coincides with the Demon Sands, a long unexplored region in the desert long thought cursed because anyone who got too close to it would lose their health and die shortly after. The plans for creating one of these bombs is inside of the tablet, but they are impossible to comprehend, utilizing principles way beyond our ability to even understand. It will probably take decades for our brightest minds to even begin to wrap their head around what to do with these, but it is also a time frame that would probably be shorter for the rapidly advancing Cormyr and Amn. It would behoove nobody to get their hands on this information at the moment, so for now we are suppressing information on how to activate the tablet and shutting it off so that nobody can access the more sensitive information until we work our way up to it. In the mean time we will need to perfect our understanding of these easier to understand devices and work our way up the tech tree.

There is something concerning however. it seems even the new-clear bomb was only able to severely wound Vortirackt, not kill it. It was weakened enough however to be banished to another plane, possibly through this ring gate we have on hand. It is my recommendation that we do not experiment with the gate, but the government sees too much of an opportunity to get a leg up by becoming a nexus of planer travel, much like Sigil, or discovering new worlds never before seen by the relatively limited ability of our current planner mappers. However it is just as possible that we may open the door for Vortirackt to come in again. O'Niel believes we can handle it if it does show up, but I am just not sure."