Kingdom Without End
“Two years ago, when you discovered this site, you thought your career was made. Publications, interviews, tenure…you even got a Ministry grant, which was pretty extraordinary, considering the wars.
But while you painstakingly excavated the past, confirming your theories about underground mystery cults in the Kharuen city-state, the future kept getting worse. The new National Board seems to regard these ancient monuments as civic embarassments, relics of a primitive and superstitious past. Archaeology and mythography are suspect endeavors now.
You lost your grant three months ago, and then they revoked your permit to excavate, just when you’d uncovered the secret chambers deep below the old shrine. You suspect this is where the last philosopher-priests conducted their most sacred rites.
If anybody knew about your secret explorations, you would probably lose your license to practice historiography. But the catacombs await…”
Kingdom Without End, by Shannon Cochran
