Jerome, Amber, and Alfie ended up in a sandy, flatland area. The sun was high and blazing, and in a short distance was a small plateau. The rest of the land was pretty barren, but a city could faintly be heard and seen in the distance.

"Ok," Jerome swallowed, "let's find whatever we need to find and get out of here."

"Is the heat not good for the hair?" Alfie joked.

"Actually no, it's not."

Amber reread the riddle:

"Interred with bones,
Hidden within the tomb of a king,
A king of gods,
Protected by the god of good dreams,
Drowned deep in purity,
The Living image of Amun,
May he rest in peace."

"Dead guy. Great..." Alfie moaned.

"That plateau over there has an entrance, doesn't it?" Jerome pointed out, squinting through the heat.

They went to check it out and up close, they could see that it did. Inside, stairs led down further and further into the earth. It grew darker through the descent, so the only way to know what was down there would be to go down there.

"Looks creepy enough to be the right place," Alfie observed.

"So, is there a tomb down there?" Amber gulped.

Alfie stepped aside. "Ladies first."

Amber glanced back at Jerome. He just held his hands out, directing Amber down into the creepy (possible)tomb. Amber shuddered and slowly descended the steps, followed by Jerome, and then Alfie.

Once all the way down, they could see hieroglyphics and Egyptian artwork all over the walls. Gold and treasure was everywhere and two rooms were on either side of that room.

"If this is a tomb, this guy must've been rich." Alfie's eyes widened.

"Alfie, remember that secret name you had in high school when you kept messaging me right before prom?"

"King Tut?" Alfie replied.

"Amber, you're a genius!" Jerome exclaimed. "Beautiful looks and brains! This is King Tut's tomb. Buried in all his treasure. Like the riddle said, he was believed to be a king of gods. We should scout out the other room and find what we're looking for."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Alfie asked as Amber went over to the left room and Jerome to the right.

"A piece to the emerald tablet," Jerome reminded.

"What does that look like exactly?"

"Just look for something emerald, Alfie."

Alfie stayed in that same room, looking around. He whistled as he did so. He picked up some of the gold to examine it and was about to slip int into his pocket until Jerome called from the other room, "Don't steal anything, Alfie!"

Alfie dropped the gold. "Never thought about it," he lied.

In the right room where Jerome went in, he discovered the sarcophagus was kept in there, primarily gold with a few other colors as well. Outside of the sarcophagus was gold sitting down on the ground, still preserved after all its years.

Meanwhile, the room Amber had taken on the left was full of random things. There were pottery jars, woven baskets, old Egyptian game equipment, and tubes and beakers of unidentifiable fluids. Amber opened one of the pottery jars but immediately closed it after looking in it. The smell was revolting, and the sight was as well. She suddenly remembered something from high school about how Fabian said they used certain jars to keep organs in.

"Amber!" Jerome called.

Amber left the room and went to Jerome, Alfie deciding to tag along. Jerome asked to see the riddle again. He muttered the words under his breath as he studied them.

"Maybe what we're looking for is inside this sarcophagus," Jerome suggested.

"But there's a...dead person in there," Alfie whimpered.

"Just help me push the lid off."

The three of them worked together to push the lid off the sarcophagus. It was heavy considering it was hundreds of pounds of gold.

"Why did Egyptians have to do this?" Alfie grunted as he worked hard. "A nice, light coffin would've worked just as effectively."

They finally pushed it, but ended up pushing it too far as they heard it clang to the ground and ring throughout the chamber. Inside, King Tutankhamun was mummified. His hands were bent over his chest, and between his hands and chest, was exactly what they were looking for. Jerome reached for it and slipped it out of King Tut's hands, examining it.

Surely enough, it was emerald with some hieroglyphics on it. It was obviously only a piece to a puzzle since it looked broken off from something else. A portal opened up from the piece, seemingly leading back to Nina's apartment.

"Wait, shouldn't we put the lid back on the sarcophagus?" Amber suggested.

Alfie and Jerome glanced over at the heavy lid lying on the floor.

"I'm sure Tut needed some air anyway," Alfie excused and stepped through the portal.

Amber and Jerome followed him, officially completing their first riddle.

~~~~~
So, turns out that riddle led to Tutankhamun's tomb! And they found their first piece to the emerald tablet! But is it better or worse to find these pieces...

Dun, dun, dun!

I'm not giving away anything, but everything is questionable until the end.

Do you think they should be finding the pieces to the tablet?

What do you think will happen once they find all the pieces?