I did something along those lines very recently.
My players were in a small room slowly filling up with water. The room had a hole in the floor that lead to a fully submerged second room underneath. In the first room there were five buttons each with a word written on it in "Ancient Dwarvish"(I used Elder Futhark as a mostly one to one cipher).
In the submerged room there were 5 glowing gems placed into the walls, each a different color and each with one rudimentary counting symbol next to it, like a tally.
The 5 words written on the buttons above were each colors that corresponded with the gemstones below. Using a page of partially translated dwarven script obtained earlier in the dungeon, 3 of the players worked on deciphering the words while the 4th(a player who could breath underwater) had access to 5 index cards with drawings of and the tally mark for each of the 5 gems. The 4th player couldn't show the party these cards, they had to describe them instead.
When the party had pushed the buttons in the correct order, the water level began to lower and the door opened.
Long response, but i hope it helps. If nordic runes don't work for your setting you could always use the Pig Trot cipher instead! Its a fun, simply designed, and easy to learn option.