The Eighth Curse

Chapter Six

The rest of the evening, for the next five hours, Nisa worked in her tent on the newly discovered stone tablet. Oliver and the security team guarded the entrance to make sure Callahan didn't try anything. She didn't put it past him, so just to take extra precautions, Nisa and Susie worked together to gently wrap the stone tablet as they had brought it out. It was only after Nisa had brought it to her desk and sat it down that she finally uncovered it. After that, it was hours of work with her tools to carefully brush off all the sand, dust, and cobwebs that coated it in thick layers. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad; after all, she'd been able to read most of the Arabic and see the symbols written in the other languages perfectly fine, but she still wanted to make sure it was as clean as they could get it.

The next step was to take pictures of it and scan them into her computer, which she changed all the passwords of just to be safe. Whatever she did, she had to make sure Callahan didn't steal any of her discoveries, especially since they were so monumental, especially with the unknown language. Having languages to compare it to would not only help fully translate it and allow other artifacts written in it to finally be translated as well, but would be a huge stepping stone in the overall mystery that had been plaguing archaeologists and historians for decades.

Oliver slipped through the tent's entrance and other than the rustle the flaps made and the howling of the wind outside, Nisa wouldn't have noticed his arrival.

"Bea sent one of her workers to tell you that they've brought the lower half of the statue up for close examination. The worker told me since you weren't to be disturbed," Oliver said. He walked over to look over her shoulder and if it was anyone else doing it, Nisa would have felt more than extremely uncomfortable. But having Ollie near her made her feel comforted and in this case, it only added to her excitement.

"What's Susie's progress on the mummy we found?" Nisa murmured softly.

Oliver sat down in a chair next to her, glanced at the stone tablet, and then folded his arms on the desk. "She's working with her team to bring it up to the surface. The stand storm has gotten really bad. There's talk that it could close up the entrance to this place."

Nisa's eyes snapped up, immediately drawn to attention. "Wait... no. We're only just now getting this... To have to dig it all up again... that would set us back by weeks—maybe even months!"

Oliver nodded. "I know. We have a few options..."

Nisa pursed her lips and waited for him to continue.

Oliver cleared his throat. "You could leave the security team up with all the artifacts and send everyone down to keep working—to find as much as we can while we can. Then we can evacuate everyone as it gets worse. If we did that, there's still a risk of getting trapped in there, so it wouldn't be recommended. If anyone found out, you could be highly reprimanded. Even if you took volunteers. "

Nisa cursed, standing from her desk as she paced the room. How could she put people's lives in danger just to make more discoveries? But could she really leave the sand storm up to God and whether He covered the tomb back up? All her life, she had believed everything happened for God's purpose. That was true, but what if His purpose was to slow down their work? Should she just accept that?

The Christian in her said yes, but the archaeologist in her, the curious one that longed for answers, to honor her father's life's work... wasn't entirely sure.

"What do you think I should do, Ollie?" Nisa asked, turning around to glance at him.

Oliver leaned back in his seat with a sigh. Sand coated his blonde hair, making it look darker that it normally would have. "We've been in enough sand storms to know when they take a turn for the worst. If you work all night, I think it should be safe for everyone to leave the pyramid in the morning. It'll worsen and we'll just have to access the damage and see how bad it is."