Jocasta felt her professional interest stir and in truth was happy enough to have something to take her mind off Buri, who presumably had been left alone in the underground. Perhaps that was not such a worry for a dwarf but she didn't like to think that he was standing by that lake thinking the two humans were dead. With a whispered spell she conjured a flame in the form of a dancing naked pixie. Beren cocked his eye at her.

"Really?" he enquired.

"Some spells you pick up on the cheap aren't exactly designed by arch-mages," she informed him tartly, then leaned forward to study the writing.

"Oh, it is old Pharonic," she said, tracing her finger along the script. The ancient tongue was much studied back at the University because it was argued that many old and powerful magics had begun in that tongue and been transmitted to the younger races who peopled the North. Jocasta had never been particularly convinced of that, but courses in it had been very expensive and access had been limited. That hadn't stopped her doing a certain amount of clandestine investigation of course and she could read and speak some of the tongue.

"Kessirai Kessirai, salamani da-ai, zuska Narturn ta-daei t'nakalya praseo, gamara taladis signum hrave" she read. There was a sudden rush of wind and ancient dust stirred around their ankles. It seemed to flow like water, making disturbing suggestions of skulls and scorpions. Beren cursed and stepped back, sanding on some raised stones to avoid the mist.

"What did it say?" Beren demanded.

"A warning traveler that they who speak the name of the accursed Narturn release him from this binding and he shall visit plauges upon the earth. Or maybe, he was bound to end up a plague to his mother? The syntax is a little unclear, its possible its also a dirty joke about..." Beren reached down and scooped her out of the mist as it flowed past heading down a passageway with a slightly upward angle.

"I'm pretty sure the first translation was right, why would you read that?!" he demanded. Jocasta crossed her arms and nearly fell back into the mist but was saved by Beren's grip on the back of her tunic.

"Well you told me to!" she snipped defensively, "plus why would they write that, if I had words that could unleash some ancient evil, I'd maybe shut the hell up about them!"