[Choice A (mythandlegend): A tomb that leads to a world filled with creatures you only heard about in myths.]

"Miss? Miss?"

A boy's voice and an insistent jab in her upper arm dragged the woman from the depths of slumber. Golden sand cascaded from the folds of her clothes and slid to the ground as she sat up.

"Huh? What?"

Her lips felt dry and cracked, stuck together with sand and sweat. Disoriented, she scrubbed at her eyes and mouth with the back of one hand, which wasn't the best idea in hindsight. The sand scraped across the woman's skin like steel wool and she winced as pulled her wrist away, noting splotches of blood on the white cuff.

"Are you all right, miss?"

The woman turned around and stared up at a naked little boy, his skin browned from exposure to the sun. Looped around his narrow waist was a rope belt from which hung a crude sort of canteen.

Brushing off her cuffs, the woman gently wiped the remaining sand from her face and shook it out of her thick black braid. "Where am I?" she asked the boy.

"On the outskirts of Dashur," he replied promptly. He leaned close to the woman so their noses nearly touched. The woman pulled back as she smelled the boy; he reeked of some kind of farm animal.

Or was that her?

"I've never seen anyone like you before," the boy continued, oblivious to the woman's reaction. "What sort of clothes are you wearing?"

The woman blinked and glanced down at her arms and legs. She seemed to be wearing dark canvas trousers, sturdy brown boots with outrageous silver buckles, a white shirt with puffy sleeves, and a long dark blue overcoat that was becoming more and more insufferable as the seconds ticked by. Gasping in the heat, the woman tore the coat off and examined it. She put her nose to the fabric and took a deep breath.

The sea.

Why did it smell like the sea?

"Miss?"

"What?" she snapped at the boy, only to regret it. Her lips cracked and tore and she tasted copper on her tongue.

"Do you want some water?" he asked, offering the leather canteen.

A gaping hole opened up in the woman's stomach where there hadn't been one before. She snatched the canteen from the boy's small hand and greedily sucked down its meager contents. "Thank you," she gasped, handing the boy his canteen back.

He shrugged.

Fortified, at least for the moment, she asked, "Where did you say we were again?"

"Outside of Dashur, near the royal acropolis." He gestured behind him to an object in the distance.

The woman followed the sweep of his hand, slowly getting to her feet. The movement was unsteady, but she could stand without planting herself face-first into the sand. On the horizon, a dazzling white pyramid gleamed like a lighthouse in the desert.

The woman gaped. She might not know of "Dashur", but she knew that the only place that had pyramids like that was Egypt.

Egypt!

"Do you need more water, miss?"

The woman swayed on her feet. She needed a lot more than water. Something stronger, like beer.

Beer? She paused and blinked. Where did that come from? Wasn't she too young to drink? No, she was a grown woman of eighteen. And her name was ...

It was ...

What the hell was her name!?

Frantic, she grabbed the coat and dug around in its pockets, but came up empty. Nothing, not even a slip of paper with her name on it. With a cry, the woman dropped the coat and stared up at the sky.

The boy stared at her. "I think you better come with me, miss."

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The boy led her to his father, a dark brown man who was as naked as his son. The woman averted her eyes as he helped her into a cart pulled by a skinny brown steer. A flock of sheep followed the cart with the boy at the back as they slowly made their way to the bright pyramid.

The woman stared up at the pyramid, wracking her brains as to how she got here, who she was, and what time period this could be.

They paused next to the gleaming structure so the father could water the steer and the boy the sheep, the woman got out of the cart to stretch her legs. She wandered close to the ancient stone and fanned herself with the thin cotton shirt.

Suddenly, a great rumbling shook the ground. With a cry, the woman turned to run, but the desert beneath her feet opened up, swallowing her. She screamed as slid down a slanted chamber on a tidal wave of golden sand.

In the blink of an eye, the chamber abruptly ended, throwing the woman out into an open area beneath the tomb. She landed harshly on her bottom and cried out, pain lancing up her tailbone like lightning.

"Well, if it isn't the woman out of time," a rich, lustrous woman's voice announced.

Sand continued to spill from the chamber above her head and the woman rolled out from under it, each little movement making her wince and bringing tears to her eyes.

The sweet scent of flowers hung in the air and the woman looked up into a wondrous underground cavern filled with clean, running water that spilled down from four points into a massive, water-lily-filled pool. Thick, verdant plants that she had never seen before twisted around limestone pillars; massive flowers that bloomed in blush, purple, and white tones clustered together.

Bushes rustled at the far end of the cavern and the woman's heart contracted as a massive beast with a woman's face, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle emerged from the shadows. A crown of sapphires sat atop the beast's head, gleaming in the light that came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Behind the creature stalked others of its kind, male and female.

"Welcome," the sphinx greeted with a pointed smile.

The woman fainted.

[Purchased a lime at the Port Market to combat scurvy.]