You gently wipe your hand across the surface of the old device. There is a faint harmonic whine just inside your range of hearing, and a soft whirring.
"By Odom's beard, I think this thing works."
"It's so old, what can it possibly still do?"
You chuff in frustration, disturbing some dust.
Then, you see it - faint characters, in an ancient font, lit in ghostly green, dancing in the cross sections of motes. The light defies organization, illuminating wisps of strange characters.
"The dust! Get it into the air!"
A millennia's worth of dust is stirred airborne, amid your fanning and coughing and sneezing. Thru your watering eyes, like a menacing obelisk, you behold a tower of text in an ancient font.
You arch your neck up to read the first lines, and dig blindly into your pack.
"Put out that torch! Start writing it down!"
"What does it mean?!"
