Stuck In Time

Chapter 3: 'Sand.. Everywhere..'

17th of February, Cairo, Egypt, Magical Excavation Campsite

Another day had passed and it was slowly getting dark in the desert. The temperature dropped a little bit as well, the more the sun was setting. Noah was very busy inside his tent chatting with Assem about rescheduling the excavation to accomodate for the exploration of the tomb and its possible contents. He also told Assem about his little visit to the capital to ask around about the Tomb of Asesa, but unfortunately not many people could help him. However, he did find out that 8 other people have entered the tomb before, but they never were to be found again. There were some newspaper articles about it and Noah, luckily, was allowed to take the articles with him for further research. He had been busy all afternoon with analyzing the articles and taking some little notes on them. The investigator started yawning a little and his stomach started rumbling a bit as well. A deep sigh escaped his mouth and he ran a hand through his hair, before he continued writing, hoping deep down that Thalia and Elisabeth would arrive sometime soon. Little did he know that his hopes were becoming reality that very same night.

Thalia was the first one to arrive at the campsite, by using apparition, with a grey suitcase in her hand. Of course she was wearing her signature outfit: A white blouse, black trousers and of course her unmissable red leather jacket. Her fiery red hair danced in the breeze as her green-greyish storm-like eyes darted around a little bit. She glanced around and let her gaze glide over the varying tents. She noticed some people wandering around the campground. Most of the people looked like investigators or travelers. She walked around a bit and tried to spot Noah in the crowd. Pink hair couldn't be missed, but to her surprise she couldn't spot him anywhere. Thalia was quite the impatient person, so without thinking about it twice she started to yell.

"Yo Hufflemuts! Where are you? I didn't travel all this way to not receive a welcome from you." her voice ran through the air and a few people turned and stared at her in confusion, before simply shrugging as they continued doing their own thing.

After his chat with Assem, Noah had continued taking some notes on the Tomb of Asesa as Assem continued preparing the dinner for that night. Suddenly he heard a voice coming from outside. His head perked up almost immediately, before he got up from his desk and left his tent. He suddenly saw his- well, not quite friend, but more so frenemy, or so the youngsters called it-- Thalia Darkthorne. Her flaming red hair reflected in the setting sun as she spotted and approached him with a fierce demeanor.

"Evening, Ms Darkthorne," he greeted teasingly, "Thanks for coming so quickly."

Thalia quickly rolled her eyes a little bit and crossed her arms, clearly examining Noah's new outfit, before a soft scoff escaped from her bright red lips.

"Yeah, yeah, I bet.", the redhead shot back, "Where's that tomb you talked about?"

A sharp sigh could be heard from the investigator as he shoved his glasses a bit further up on the bridge of his nose.

"Right, we'll leave tomorrow morning, I've still got some things to attend to here at the site and I wanted to give you both some time to freshen up. I could fill you in on the details later today, give you something to work with, perhaps?" he explained, before seeing how Thalia got a little impatient.

Nothing he couldn't handle. He was used to it after all those years of studying together with Thalia.

"Have a look around the campsite! Make yourself at home, I'll see you in a bit." Noah said as he quickly fixed the suspenders that were attached to his pants a bit.

Thalia nodded a little bit, before she did as Hufflemuts told, which was also a first time, and started to have a look around at this strange excavation site.