Hell's Report

Yukatan Exclusion Zone is an anomalous zone of unknown origin, contained within a pocket dimension on Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Several attempts to research were made (both by The Ascending Path and Erithian Catholic Church), all of them however ended up in disasters of various magnitudes.
This particular ‘report’ (dubbed 'Hell's Report' due to it's very disturbing contents) is composed of a variety of random sketches and notes of an unknown expedition conducted in the early 20th Century by a group affiliated to Erithian Catholic Church. No records of said group exist outside of that report, with its head and author of the report (thaumaturgist Adam #####) confirmed dead in an unrelated accident prior to expedition date).
The report itself was discovered within a sealed casket (dated to late 19th Century) in erithian part of Vatican Library. What's more, the words and grammar used by the writer matches neither himself nor the believed time of the expedition. The same can be said about mentioned techmaturgical devices. What's more, the report references a captured 'black magician', while the last one was confirmed burned in late 14th Century.

Document Structure

Publication Status

Raport was extensively researched and, after it's (relative) authenticity was confirmed, immediately made secret. Big parts of it, however, were leaked due to less-than-perfect security in pre-Great War Erithian Catholic Church.

Historical Details

Legacy

It is believed that the leaks from this document were responsible for the creation of at least two modern heterodoxy movements within the Church. Attempts to recover full text (and artefacts that were sealed in the casket together with it) were made, but to no avail to this date.

Read the Document

Hell's Report

Everything in italics was noted on the margin.

13.05.19##

We’ve reached the entry to Yucatán Exclusion Zone. We are establishing a base camp in a separate pocket dimension to avoid prying eyes. Our plan is to send prisoners inside, equipped in a variety of cameras, voice recorders and magical scanners. We can pull them back from that place at a moment’s notice because of special magic developed by me precisely for this mission, which should increase their survival odds. 
According to explicit orders from the patriarch, we took all ‘explorers’ from the ranks of those awaiting executions for a variety of crimes (with serial murderers being most frequent) and offered a chance for a pardon. We told them exactly what we expect from them, including the odds of surviving. Because of the nature of the Exclusion Zone, their past might be a major detriment, because of which... [CENSORED]

16.05.19##

First experiment. Prisoner: a serial rapist. Remained inside for seven minutes and forty-two seconds, which was enough to drive him insane. According to his extensive interrogations, he ‘walked through a temple made of shattered glass’, with ‘something’ following him. Prisoner expressed great relief (despite losing sanity) that he was pulled back before ‘it’ closed the distance.
Equipment suffered massive malfunctions, we’ll try to fix it before tomorrow. The prisoner showed symptoms of extreme paranoia, rapidly worsening after returning (we should interrogate future explorers as soon as possible). He was shot to death after attempting to attack a member of the staff.
The mana gauge went off the scale, we need to get higher

19.05.19##

Second experiment. Prisoner: a child rapist. Remained inside for four minutes and five seconds. Remained sane (mostly), and his answers were coherent. Subject expired twenty-four minutes after getting pulled out.  
Prisoner vividly describes ascending the stone pyramid, with a great number of bodies (with ‘most’ of them being human) in a various state of decomposition. There was also a black, ‘scorching’ rain which turned out to be a cause of death: according to autopsy it was composed mostly of tar, lead and [CENSORED]. Equipment date partially corrupted, the rest supports his descriptions.
The subject did not reach the top of the pyramid. However, the description seems to indicate its Aztec origin. With Aztecs never reaching this far east, it must be a remnant of altered timeline which might suggest that the theory of original Aztec empire being corrupted by Yucatán anomaly might be true.
protective suit, with a gasmask and so on

22.05.19##

Third experiment. Prisoner: terrorist responsible for an attack that left twenty-eight people dead. Pulled back after four minutes and thirteen seconds. Returned with his head, left arm, right leg and genitals missing. Despite that, the body remained responsive (and with symptoms of extreme pain and distress). The subject was killed approximately thirty seconds after reemergence. Data from his equipment corrupted.
people seem better than machines here if only they didn’t break so easily

25.05.19##

Fourth experiment. Prisoner: captured black magician, with four victims of his experiments confirmed. Pulled back after four minutes and twelve seconds in a state of stupor. Extensive examination seems to indicate big parts of his mind missing. 
One of my assistants suggested that it’s not the mind itself that’s missing: something ‘ate’ certain concepts out of him, including, it seems, concepts of movement and consciousness. Chances for recovering were deemed non-existent, so the subject was killed.
Equipment lacked any data. The attacker might have eaten the concept of recording as a whole.
I need to promote him after we return, creative thinking is a rare trait

29.05.19##

Fifth experiment. Prisoner: serial killer. Pulled back after three minutes. If there was a single part of his body that remained in the right place, we didn’t find it during the autopsy. Subject killed right after returning, it seems like one of the guards panicked when a prisoner attempted to communicate with him (I can’t blame him, the photograph of the prisoner’s body - prior to autopsy, not after it - attached to the report).
After the autopsy, a group of my assistants had a word with me. They suggest that the decreasing time of survival inside might mean that ‘something’ is hunting the explorers - and it’s getting closer and closer to the place we use for entry. As a test, we’ll delay another experiment for a few days, and use another entry.
Data mostly corrupted. Surviving bits are too incoherent to understand.
we’ll try to improve the devices but I don’t expect a success

9.06.19##

Sixth experiment. Prisoner: a serial rapist. Pulled back after five minutes and twenty-two seconds. Described seeing a group of knights (‘hundreds’ of them, exact number unknown) marching towards what he perceived as a deeper part of the Exclusion Zone. His description seems to fit the missing knightly order of [CENSORED]. 
The prisoner survived with both his sanity and body relatively intact. According to the contract we’ve signed prior to the expedition, his death sentence was changed into lifelong imprisonment with a chance of parole after twenty-five years. In the meantime, he will remain incarcerated and monitored.
Because of the easy and safe visit inside, we can safely assume that my assistants’ theory was right. Equipment worked well, with data confirming the prisoner’s story. We’ve stopped using the mana gauge, as despite increasing the scale five times already, the readings are still way beyond it.
patriarch will be overjoyed to hear all of them committed suicide like that, I’ll try to have somebody else deliver the news

15.06.19##

Seventh experiment. Prisoner: child rapist. Pulled back after five minutes and two seconds. He claims to have seen a single (heavily wounded) knight fleeing towards the entrance, with a box-like object in his arms. Description of the crest on the armour seems consistent with the one seen during the sixth experiment. 
The prisoner (unfortunately) survived, so his death sentence was changed to lifelong imprisonment with a chance of parole after twenty-five years. Data in equipment consistent with the story.
It’s also possible that the knights picked the most stable way in and out (how did they know??) and that’s the reason for the decrease in deaths.
I hope the box was worth it

18.06.19##

Eighth experiment. Prisoner: another terrorist. Pulled back after seventeen seconds. Something crudely vivisected him. Most of the readings corrupted. The voice recordings are composed of about twenty-seven years of the prisoner’s screams, far surpassing the device’ capacity. 
Moving to another potential point of entry.
I hope this was just a malfunction
We’ll try to get in closer to the center

25.06.19##

Ninth experiment. Prisoner: serial killer. Pulled back after seven minutes and fifty-five seconds. Returned successfully. Target vividly describes the time he spent inside as ‘peaceful’. I would dismiss that as lies, but the recordings support his story. Absolutely nothing happened to him, and while the area surrounding it was of obvious supernatural origin (sun normally isn’t so big, to begin with, and everything seemed to not move at all, as in stasis or something like that). 
According to the contract we’ve signed prior to the expedition, his death sentence was changed into lifelong imprisonment with a chance of parole after twenty-five years. In the meantime, he will remain incarcerated and monitored.
how, just HOW

29.06.19##

[CENSORED]
well, that was awkward. also - giant reptiles? how far back she went?

12.06.19##

Eleventh experiment. Prisoner: woman responsible for the murder of her children, diagnosed as an imbecile. Returned (without our help) after three minutes, not only untouched but with her mind fully healed. Because of the complete corruption of every device she carried, we only have her words. 
She described the same scenery as in the ninth and tenth experiment, only this time it was moving. ‘The sun’ wasn’t a sun - which it proved when it fell following a sudden ‘explosion of light’ (that seems to have healed the prisoner). As it was falling, its light faded fast. The prisoner also emphasized the feeling of ‘existential dread’ (how did she even know such words?) that was growing with every passing second, proportionally to the speed of the light fading. 
Halfway in she saw several animals (a variety, consistent to what the tenth experiment showed) fleeing from the falling sun. A few seconds later, when the light faded enough for an entity inside it to be briefly visible, she joined them, though she fails to describe what she saw and what made her flee.
What followed its impact was an explosion, powerful enough to cause her ejection from the Exclusion Zone even before the shockwave reached her. It might have also been the reason for Zone's existence in the first place.
Because of the prisoner’s sudden healing, we’ve withdrawn the agreement, and instead of changing her sentence for lifelong imprisonment we’ll apply for a full pardon. Since we ran out of prisoners (sending the survivors inside again is a no), we will return to Europe. I believe the expedition to be a great success, due to gaining new knowledge about [CENSORED], the Exclusion Zone as a whole, and [CENSORED]. It will take years to go through everything we’ve found.
We will begin our journey back tomorrow.
if that ‘falling sun’ was what I think it was, I think we might have made the history’s biggest discovery

Close

Photograph believed to have been taken during this expedition.

Note the almost supernatural level of details, deemed impossible by the current level of photography, even improved by magic.

Type

Report, Scientific

Medium

Paper