The Rusalka's Wake (Flooded Tomb Clearing)

The party forced their way into a low, waterlogged burial chamber where a rusalka had been drawn to the grief of the dead and six sickly stirges nested in the rafters of algae-slick stone. After the rusalka's mournful song was silenced and the stirges were beaten from the air, the water settled and revealed what the flood and centuries had hidden. Most valuables are water-ruined or bio-encrusted: trinkets pulled from pockets, freshwater pearls grown in the tomb's silt, bits of chitin from fed-upon stirges useful to a tinkerer, and a few intact pieces of personal jewelry and tools that survived the long immersion. Among them are potential clues — a wet scrap of ledger with a scrawled map and a tarnished locket still warm with a lock of hair — that hint at why the rusalka lingered here. The finds are modest but meaningful for a low-level party: enough coin for supplies, a healing salve cobbled from algae, and components that a craftsman or alchemist might prize.