Writing Exercise: Lost Languages

This writing exercise deals with artifacts featuring cryptic inscriptions.  Surely there's a story in that ...

1) Read this list of "10 Mysterious Undeciphered Scripts."  Pick one.

2) Imagine that this script came from:
* an alien race,
* a native race that once existed but is now extinct, such as Neanderthals, werewolves, faeries, etc.
OR
* another universe, dimension, timestream, or other world-variant.

3) The inscription contains the key to something precious, such as a treasure, cure for a disease, secret of eternal youth, blueprints for super-technology, summoning ritual for a deity, or the like.

4) Your main characters are chosen from the following: the best modern linguist, a flaky expert in dead languages, a nurse from a family with 'odd' traditions, a rich sponsor fascinated by exotic artifacts, a geek, a police officer who is an ancient weapons buff, an archaeologist in a wheelchair, a wilderness adventurer, an anthropologist of color who is brilliant but snubbed by racist colleagues.  Pick any three.

5) The team must figure out what the inscription says and how to use it...

6) ... but one or more entities involved with the creation of said artifact want it back.  (They do not have to be precisely 'alive' in the current time, just active.)

7) Write the result.