A cracked, water-warped leather journal. The parchment is brittle, edges flaking with age, and many passages are smudged or illegible. Whole sections are unreadable where mildew has seeped into the pages. On the inside cover, faint but visible, a stylized raven clutching a crescent moon is embossed in flaked silver ink. Beneath it, in a steady but faded hand: Kaelen Deymour

“I have come too far to turn back now. The others would not follow—their hearts quailed at the whisper of ancient stones. But I must know… ruins older than dwarves or elves. They wait in silence, untouched by time.”