Clerk of the Collapse

With a groan of stone and a whisper of rusted iron, the sarcophagus yields. Cold air spills out first, then the dry stink of tomb dust and old prison mortar. Something within the walls answers with a faint, excited chitter, as if the young of the titan have felt the disturbance and are tapping at the patched foundation from the other side. Inside lies not a kingly hoard, but the carefully kept remnants of a hard-lived official, half burial and half archive, preserved by habit, fear, and duty.