I just uncovered a forgotten inscription from an ancient site that mentions a mysterious death—imagine the possibilities for a crime novel. Would you be interested in exploring that?

It’s a clay tablet from a little-known Etruscan sanctuary, written in a mix of their archaic script and a few Greek loan‑words. The carving shows a single figure, a woman with a crown of vines, standing beside a stone altar that’s broken. Below her, the words—if we translate—say something like “When the river cuts through the heart, she will be claimed by the night.” The tablet is broken in half; one side is intact, the other lost. The phrasing is poetic, almost a lament, but it’s also coded. It seems to be a warning, perhaps, or a vow that a blood sacrifice will occur at the river's mouth when darkness falls. There’s also a faint, almost invisible line that looks like a map of the surrounding valley, pointing to a buried mound. That’s the heart of the mystery, and it’s all we’ve got to start with. Let's dig deeper.

Wonderful! I'll dig into the archives for any records of a second tablet—sometimes they get lost in shipping, or hidden in a side chamber of the sanctuary. While I’m at it, I’ll pull up the topographical maps of the valley and plot that faint line you mentioned; if there’s a tunnel, we’ll have to see if it leads to the mound. Once we have the whole picture, we can start lining up the dates, the families with vine crests, and the Greek traders who might have been involved. Coffee’s on me—let’s crack this ancient mystery wide open.