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You decide not to waste time trying to find companions for your trip to the tomb. You feel like you work best alone, anyway. You collect your luggage from the steamboat and head to the Shepheards, the best hotel in town, for a good night's sleep.

You awake well-rested the next morning, ready and eager for your adventure. After a healthy but filling and delicious breakfast delivered to your room, you change out of your night clothes and into a practical outfit for your trip into the desert - light brown trousers, a white blouse, and black combat boots. You leave the top couple of buttons on your blouse undone to show off part of your ample breasts, wanting to have something of a feminine look in your masculine manner of dress. The darkness of your brown, tanned skin is really shown off next to the white color of your blouse, and the sleeves are rolled up to display your thick, muscular forearms. After packing some food, water, and other essential supplies along with your trusty weapons - a large-caliber revolver and a wickedly sharp sword - you're ready to go. At a local stable, you rent a camel.

You enjoy the ride through the streets of Cairo, watching as the scenery gradually changes from bustling cityscape to quiet houses to empty desert. Alone in the wilderness, with no sounds save that of the whistling wind, you find the familiar excitement and spirit of adventure flowing through you. This is what you live for, as a Van Helsing, to get away from all that is mundane, to do something different that very few people can do.

Carefully following the map, you make your way closer and closer to the location of the tomb. It's been hours since you've seen another human being. Finally, you reach the spot where the hidden tomb should be. Dismounting the camel, you begin looking around with your trained eyes, searching for anything that seems out of place.

You find it about fifteen minutes later, a small, crumpled pile of stone, mostly covered with sand, all that remains of an obelisk that once stood there. But that obelisk marked the entrance to the tomb. The entrance itself is merely a hole in the ground, with a rickety-looking rope ladder leading downward into darkness. You light your lantern and shine it into the hole. There is no sign of life.

Remembering the men who had been sent to explore this tomb and never returned, you make sure your weapons are sheathed and ready on your hips before descending the ladder. It is about twenty feet down, and at the bottom a single, narrow passage leads off into the tomb. After a couple of twists and turns, all natural light is gone, the only illumination coming from your lantern.

Soon the passage widens, and rows of large, bed-like shelves, carved into the stone, begin appearing on the sides of the tunnel. Some of them are empty, but others contain skeletons, bony grins frozen on their faces. Apparently these are ancient warriors, as they are buried with their weapons.

The passage narrows again, and the rows of skeletons end. You walk further, past more twists and turns, until you come to a fork in the tunnel. You shine your lantern into each new passage in turn. Both appear identical, and there is no sign of anyone - or anything - in either.

As you are trying to decide which way to go, you think you hear the faintest of noises behind you. You listen carefully, but the noise - if it was even there - does not come again.

*[[Go down the left passage]]
*[[Go down the right passage]]
*[[Investigate the noise behind you]]

[[Category: Lady Van Helsing]]