The Warden-Scholar’s Last Research

The stone lid grinds aside, shedding a curtain of dust that tastes of chalk and old incense. Within lies a small gnome wrapped in gray ceremonial cloth, its embroidered dragons picked out in tarnished silver. Two skeletal guards rest at either side, their bronze weapons crossed over the wizard’s chest. As the final seal breaks, the chamber fills with the dry hiss of escaping air, and faint red script crawls across the inner lid before fading. Beneath the bones, the party finds a spellbook, a map marked with a warning, and a crystal fragment that warms against the skin. Somewhere below the ruins, something answers with a distant scrape, and the sound begins to rise.