Jerome, Joy, and Willow eventually realized that no one else was around or in the house-at least not on the main levels. They decided that they would stay above ground and work on their own things. They were in Joy's room. Jerome took out the map he still had. They looked at it and studied it.
"So," Joy began, "all these routes lead to the same huge area. Which one should we take?"
"Hello?" Jerome asked. "There's three of us and three passages. It doesn't take much logic to figure that out."
"I just don't want to split up...but this map isn't enough. Sibuna is a way better mystery group, and all we have is a map."
"You don't just take a map to be a piece of paper, do you?" Willow questioned. "A map is a guide-yes-a map is a piece of paper-yes-but within a mystery, a map is always there, holding more secrets."
"That's a clever saying, Willow, but we need-"
Willow got up without letting Joy finish what she was saying. She grabbed an invisible-ink pen with the light that could reveal the writing. She flashed it over the paper, and surely enough, there was writing on the paper.
"Willow, you're genius!" Jerome exclaimed.
"Wait," Joy paused. "Shouldn't this be in Egyptian writing and not modern English?"
Willow lost her smile. She knew she was lying to them, for she had secretly written that on there earlier, just to give everyone a sense of hope. She felt like her teammates were losing faith, so she wrote that.
"I guess it shouldn't matter; that's just how it is," Joy suggested. Willow did a mental sigh of relief.
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Nina, Mara, and Eddie were in the room with the black sand. Once they stepped in, they automatically sunk to their knees. There was an echoing, robotic voice coming from somewhere in the room.
"This is the test. There will be three categories-one for each of you. The categories are: sports, fashion, and science. You have fifteen seconds to decide your assigned categories."
Eddie would do sports, Nina would do fashion, and Mara would do science. Then they found out the catch.
"Each time you get a question right, you will remain at your level. If you get it wrong, the room will flash red and someone(anonymous) will sink. You may not help eachother. We will start with fashion.
"First question. What did Ra wear, in order to symbolize his great power?"
"Umm..." Nina thought. "A crown?"
"Incorrect."
Eddie sank. All three of them were missing a ton of questions, and Mara was the only one who at least got a few right. At the last question, Mara was at her shoulders, Nina was at her chin, and Eddie barely had his nose sticking up from the sand.
The robotic voice announced, "This is the final question. It decides if you continue, or if you lose someone to the sand...What did the Egyptians event as make up? Eyeliner, blush, or lip stick? Nina?"
Nina thought for a bit. She began to think it was eyeliner, but then she started kneeling towards blush. "Blush?"
Mara cried out no because she knew it was wrong. It was too late. Eddie was swallowed under the sand. The door on the other end of the room slid open, and Nina and Mara were allowed to go through. When they got through the door slid back closed. Their eyes started watering.
"God, why did say that? I should've gone with my first answer!" Nina exclaimed, beating herself up with words.
"Now we have no idea where Eddie is!" Mara screamed. She couldn't handle pressure like this real well. "We lost him. Oh my god. Oh my god."
"Mara, we'll find him, I promise."
"How do you know?"
"Sibuna always wins."
"Sibuna doesn't seem like it's on track."
"We'll still find him. Sibuna." Nina placed her right hand over her right eye. But Mara didn't do the same.