Evelyn rushed into the stone room before anyone else could process what had just happened. She stopped just in front of the pedestal, reaching a hand out to the necklace, but drawing back at the last second, as if afraid to touch it. "It's beautiful," she murmured, looking at the inscription engraved on the side. "Hmm. Interesting."
"What's interesting, exactly?" Said a voice behind her. She looked up to see the rest of the group crowding around her. "Oh, just the inscription, here. In most of the books I've read on the subject say that-"
"It's magnificent!" Clay interrupted, shoving her aside and staring at it himself. "Everyone will know my name once they hear that I found it."
The rest of the people in the room stared at him, except for Rick, who rushed over to make sure his wife was okay. Which she was, of course.
"I mean... How we all found it. Together. As a team." He coughed nervously.
Evelyn composed herself, and brushed off the mix of dust and sand from where she'd hit the wall. She walked back over to the pedestal, and looked at it closer.
"What does it say?" Lisa asked.
"Well, it says 'anyone who-"
"Yeah yeah, very interesting," Clay said loudly, opening the satchel on his side. "But this shiny, expensive baby is mine," he made to lift the necklace from its position.
"It most certainly is not!" Evelyn smacked his hand away from the priceless piece of jewelry. "Technically it doesn't even belong to you!"
"Oh, I'm sure Cleopatra won't mind me taking it!"
"Still, the necklace should stay where it is until-"
"I don't care about any fancy things you need to do with it!" Clay snapped.
"Stop interrupting me! And if it isn't handled properly something could happen to it." Evelyn insisted.
"I agree with Evelyn," Alexis said without looking up from her notepad.
"Me too." Travis said. And slowly, everyone else in the room agreed with her to.
"Fine." Clay held his hands up on defeat. "Fine." And he stormed out of the room.
"Finally," Rick muttered.
After he left, the group split up and started to explore the room. Alexis sat on the floor and wrote, Nicholas started another sketch, and Travis, Alice, and Jane started recording some of the other artifacts in the room, and Jonathan and Rick listened to Evelyn explain the small painting on the wall.
They were all paying attention, but not to what was important.
While no one was paying attention, Kaitlyn silently lifted the necklace off the pedestal, and walked quickly out of the room to the other side of the hall.
"Kaitlyn, what are you doing?" Lisa cried as Kaitlyn pulled down the lever behind the statue, trapping everyone inside the room.
Clay stormed down the hall, heading for the exit. Or at least where he thought was the exit was, he didn't really have any idea where he was going. He stopped at a fork in the tomb. Left or right? Clay thought.
Oh this was just pointless! There was no use in getting lost in here when he could have an easier way out. Nicholas would know the way out of the tomb. Clay turned around and headed back to the tomb, intent on finding Nicholas.
"There's no use," Rick grunted, as he, Travis and Steve again tried to open the stone door. "It's too heavy. We can't open it."
"We're going to be trapped in here forever!" Jane cried.
"No we're not! There has to be a way out! We just have to find it." Evelyn insisted.
"I'm too young to be trapped in an Egyptian tomb," Lisa cried. "This is certainly not how I planned on going."
"Everybody calm down. We'll find a way to get out of here. Have you found anything, Evy?"
"Nothing," she called over her shoulder. "Or at least, nothing to indicate another entrance. But these paintings-"
"That's great, great." He said. "Now what are we going to do?"
"There's nothing to do." Travis said, dejectedly. "We're stuck in here."