A fan fiction cross over of the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Legend. This piece won first prize for an alternative universe competition on deviantart.
The clash of plastic wheel against stone reverberated around the main hall; Aravi Croft had just deposited the last of the suitcases, a burgundy number, onto a small mountain of bags which held the equipment so vital to the bosmer's job.
"I think you're crazy." Alister Fletcher trotted down the stairs while straightening his collar. He was her research assistant and a brilliant historian. He did, however, lack a back bone.
Aravi knew what he was talking about. She lifted a sapphire blue glass amulet off her chest to admire it. Although slightly damaged and worn, it still maintained a strange reflective quality.
"Well, I hope this is all worth it." Zip joined in from his sofa by the fire. "Finland is cold. I hope you've all packed gloves." Of the two men, Zip had both brain and brawn. As the tech guru of the group, he was a master of all things geeky. In many ways, he was Alister's polar opposite.
Their destination was the remains of an underground temple, called Nazalkhul, in northern Finland. A month before, Aravi had received a package containing the amulet, some written instructions, and a claw made of bone with three animal symbols on its palm. The written instructions contained hand written coordinates and the name Nazalkhul. The coordinates lead to Finland and the name was a mystery. After hours of researching, they had found nothing related to the name. It didn't exist.
Which was exactly why they needed to find it.
"Let's get these bags into the Jeep." Aravi let the amulet drop onto her chest. "We don't have all day."
"Let's get inside already. I'm freezing!"
"Calm down." Aravi Synvir commanded through gritted teeth as she adjusted the quiver on her back.
Next to her was Brelania Mason, an acquaintance of Aravi's uncle, and an apprentice mage who had been looking for the opportunity to see the inside of an ancient nord tomb. Their trek from Whiterun to Dawnstar had been filled with near constant complaints and threats from the useless girl who was clearly not very fit.
Aravi concentrated on the staff she held instead of her infuriating companion. It was made of an ancient wood which felt like it would crumble at first touch, but in fact, it was indestructible. It was also the only way to open the door.
"You're the mage." Aravi said quickly, handing the woman the staff.
"What?" The staff looked awkward in her hands.
"Brace it against that symbol," Aravi pointed at series of circles and lines which represented an indiscernible creature, "and send a bolt of fire through the staff."
"Why do I have to do it?"
"Because," Aravi rub her forehead, "I don't know how to use magic, and I therefore can't use the staff. Is that simple enough for you?" She picked up her bow and taken a few steps away as the insufferable woman worked out how to use the staff. Already Aravi was beginning to shake, but it wasn't from the cold.
"Are you done yet?" Brelania's s face was reddened and she was puffing out her bottom lip. A bolt of fire eventually exploded from the tip of the staff.
They both stepped back as the door began to creak. Veins of red light faded into view as the fire from Brelania's spell worked its way through the ancient nords intricate door. A small tremor travelled through the stone floor which the girls could feel through the layer of snow and their damp boots.
"What is going on?" Brelania was about to run up the spiral stairs leading out of the barrow. To stop her, Aravi quickly swung around and clamped a hand on the woman's shoulder.
With a final moan, the door went dark as the red veins faded away, leaving the area in front of them as monochromatic as an average Skyrim winter landscape. The door clicked open.
"Now, before we enter, I want to get a few rules clear, you understand?" Aravi stepped closer to Brelania so that there were only a few inches between their faces. "When we are inside, you will do nothing unless I tell you to. Nothing! This tomb will be filled with traps you can't see and once they're triggered, you're dead. If you maim yourself, I will leave you. Am I clear?"
"Y… yes." She stuttered.
"Good." Aravi straightened herself while taken a step back, acting as if she had not just exploded at her assistant. "Now, let's see how much resistance Nazalkhul will greet us with."
"Are the visuals all right, gents?" Aravi asked as she tapped the small camera, which was attached to the microphone of her head set hovering above her right cheek. Zip and Alister wouldn't be in in Nazalkhul with her but at least they could still talk to her and see what she saw.
"Crystal." Zip confirmed.
Looking up, she could see the opening of the vertical cave she was stood in. The most mystical thing about her location was that, about a quarter of the way into the cave, the snow spontaneously turned to rain.
Never had Aravi seen anything like it. Once the falling snow reached the first quarter point of the cave, where the natural, un-carved rock made way to the tombs smoother, decorated walls, the falling snow melted almost instantly to form water droplets.
"That just defies the laws of physics." Alister had pointed out. "I wonder what's causing it."
"I haven't the foggiest." Aravi admitted. It was a rather casual conversation to have, despite Aravi being one hundred meters high.
By the time she had reached the bottom of the cave, she was very damp. Heavy snow fall had turned to rather heavy rain and Aravi's black fringe had stuck to her face while her ponytail rather graciously allowed the rainwater, or rather snow water, to drip down her back beneath her clothes. She pulled it out before it could do more damage.
"This is a spectacular find." Her voice was filled with awe as she looked around at the decorated walls. She was too awestruck to remove herself from her harness or the ropes; she just stood in the small eroded indent in the floor which was knee deep in icy water, surrounded by the rocky debris of the ceiling collapse long ago. Her right hand still held her abseiling rope while her left found the small, but powerful personal light source, aka, PLS, attached to one of the straps of her bag by her shoulder.
"The rest of the tomb might be flooded." Alister pointed out. "It looks extremely old, and this isn't the original entrance point. This room was never supposed to handle so much water. I wouldn't be surprised if the drains are blocked."
Nodding, Aravi moved towards the edge of the room where the water was less deep. She fastened the abseiling ropes and the harness to the remains of an old candle stick holder.
"I hope you're in the mood for a cold swim." Zip joked over her head set.
Ignoring his comment, Aravi splashed through the shallower water at the edge of the first room until she reached what looked like a broken and dilapidated metal gate.
She chose her footing carefully as she climbed over the metal which looked like it had just melted out of its wall sockets. The rocks which had knocked the gate down were covered in a green slime which looked...
"Damn," Aravi cursed as her foot slipped straight off a rock covered in green sludge. It had been obscured by darkness. A loose prong of the rusting gate had cut straight through her trousers and the skin on her toned calves, drawing blood with a vengeance. "I'm fine! Fine," She scrambled deeper into the cave using both hands to ensure she didn't slip. "I'm okay."
Clunk.
"Did you hear that?" Her attention shifted from the bag she was about to remove to treat her wound, to the partially flooded chamber she had just exited. A low grumble was beginning to form in the distance, entwined with the sound of steam escaping a kettle.
Her eyes widened.
Rushing in from what seemed to be complete darkness, was a huge wave of white water. It advanced with anger as the beast tripped over its self to escape from the invisible tunnel on the other side of the chamber.
Run, woman, run!
She headed deeper into the tomb, heedless and fuelled on adrenaline, into the second chamber, an open room with an eroded bridge only a meter wide in the centre. Cascading waterfalls lined both sides.
She was going to drown!
Breath in... Breath out...
Like many idiots before her, Brelania had walked straight up to the lever in the centre of the room and attempted to pull it. Luckily for her, Aravi had screamed so loud she almost caused the apprentice to faint, which had saved her from bringing the ceiling down on herself. She left the crying girl in the corner while the brains adjusted the animal dials into their correct formation before pulling the lever to successfully open the gate.
They were now in the next chamber which, despite its magnificence, done nothing to calm Aravi down. In a way only ancient nords could, the room was still beautiful despite being almost empty. The entire temple of Nazalkhul was built beneath an underground river system and the ancient nords had used it to their full advantage. The walls on both sides of the cavern were decorated with controlled waterfalls. Despite the magic that had been put in place to prevent water erosion, there was some evidence of wear. The amount of water flowing through the temple had increased since its construction and the edges of the pools were beginning to erode. Aravi imagined that thousands of years in the future, the large open space could soon wear away to a thin stone bridge.
She would love to be alive to see such a transformation.
"I want to go back!" The woman cried out. Aravi just started walking across the chamber.
They couldn't go back, even if they had wanted to. A well hidden pressure plate had been stepped on after they walked through the gate and it had triggered the narrow tunnel to collapse. It crushed the gate, nearly crushing the two women, and blocked any escape.
"The only way is onwards. Let's just hope it is also the right way."
"So you're not worried that we are blocked in? Not at all?"
Aravi swung around to face the mage with such a ferocity, the smaller woman stepped back in haste, tripping over her own feet to land on the ground.
"First, I am not worried because Ancient nords were always very suspicious that their dead would return to life in the future. They always had a second exit close to the main burial chamber. If we can make it that far, we will get out. Secondly, I am more worried about the lack of coffins and sarcophagi. We've been here for ten minuets already and I've not seen a single one. It's suspicious." The final sentence was spat out. To calm herself, she taken a deep, unsteady breath.
They walked on.
Aravi began to feel guilty for being so cruel to Brelania. She had never seen anything of the world, never been sharpened or accustomed to it, yet Aravi had just expected her to be, well, more amenable.
"Why did you want to explore a tomb if you knew you'd hate it so much?" Aravi couldn't refrain from asking. She was very curious, a quality she always hated.
"I wanted to study how magic was used in ancient nord tombs. I just never knew it would be this dangerous."
Aravi sighed. "You'd want to keep intruders out of your tomb at any cost, wouldn't you? In the ancient nords minds, we aren't scholars. We're tomb raiders." Brelania fell silent. Her intentions wasn't as honourable as she had thought.
The rest of the walk to the hall of stories was painfully quiet.
Aravi let Brelania push open the wooden door which lead to the long hall, which should be decorated in the tales of the dead who were suppose to be buried there. Their absence still worried her.
"Ah, god!" Brelania turned away, hastily covering her mouth and nose as the re-pungent smell of hundreds of dead hit them like a hurricane. Festering flesh and putrid infection over powered the women's minds and senses, sending them reeling backwards.
While Brelania wretched her guts up in the corner, adding an acidic tang to the ensemble of competing stenches, Aravi tried to focus on what she saw rather than what she smelt.
There were rotten and dilapidated wooden coffins stacked ten high up to the ceiling, head to foot, so that the only clearance around the coffins was the narrow corridor between the stacks on the right and left. It was just big enough for three people of medium build to walk shoulder to shoulder.
"What is this?" She asked the empty air. Why dump all of the dead in massive stacks to decompose instead of giving them proper coffins or even placing them on shelves. Also, why would there be corpses in an ancient nord tomb not old enough to have decomposed fully.
"Come on." Aravi grabbed Brelania with the hand which wasn't clamped over her mouth. "We need to get to the door."
As Aravi dragged Brelania into the corridor, which seemed a lot more cramped when they were actually traversing it, they were assaulted by a detestable swarm of disturbed flies. A bloated, disgusting arm, green with infection, poked out of a broken coffin in front of the girls, spilling light brown maggots onto the floor when Brelania knocked it. Her shock pulled Aravi backwards. She had to squeeze her eyes shut for a second before she could continue. She felt each maggot crunch under her boot.
When finally at the end, Aravi deposited Brelania on the floor against the pass coded door. She threw up again, narrowly missing Aravi's boot.
Resisting the urge to vomit, Aravi removed the dragon bone claw from her small satchel. She struggled to make out the markings.
She began sliding the first circular panel when it happened.
Her fingers dislodged a large clump of dust which fell onto Brelania's head. She sneezed.
Every single coffin burst open to unveil a small army of undead.
Aravi Croft, very wet and quite shaken, was still alive.
"Are you all right?" Alister asked. His shouting had been very distracting while she was trying to out run the wave, but once she was safe, it was a relief to hear from him. It meant that she was fine.
"I'm all right." She took a deep breath and attempted to squeeze water out of her ponytail while she began to regain her breath.
She started walking deeper into the tomb but her progress was slowed by an increasing amount of broken wood.
"Looks like someone had a party without you." Zip pointed out.
"It looks ancient." Aravi bent down to examine it. "Wait... what's that?"
In the corner, slumped against the wall, was a human form. As Aravi moved closer, her PLS began to illuminate it. The closer she drew, the less and less human it looked.
"What is this?" She asked the two men on the other side of the radio. It was dead, all right, but what should have been just bones, judging by how old it was, were leathery muscle wound as tight as a drum, encased in nordic armour. It's eyes glowed the same pale blue as the necklace. "He's incredibly well preserved. Even mummification couldn't have kept him in a condition as good as this, and look at those eyes."
"Man, that is freaky. Maybe you should bring him home. Sit him outside like a guard dog."
"Not funny, Zip." Aravi reached out her gloved hand to touch its neck. She pulled back as its jaw began to move.
"Fus... Ro Dah!"
The barrage of magic hit her in the face and upper chest, sending her flipping backwards to land violently on her head and back. Upon landing, her arms flew to her head to try and subdue to spinning and temporary blindness that had over come her.
Once her vision was restored partially, she could see the mysterious corpse standing over her, raising a tomahawk over its head.
As fast as lightning, Aravi rolled sideways to avoid being killed. Metal clattered against stone as the axe made contact with the ground where she had been laying.
While her assailant recovered, Aravi reached for one of her pistols. She had drew and flicked the safety off by the time her attacker was preparing for an other strike.
Aravi aimed and took her shot. The explosion was amplified by the echoes produced by the tomb, which worked to Aravi's advantage. Her head was still spinning, resulting in Aravi hitting the corpse in the shoulder and knocking it to the ground. It wasn't the clean shot she would usually have, but the noise, foreign to the beast, startled it. Using its confusion, Aravi rose to one knee, aimed again, and felt a rush of warm relief flood through her as the bullet forced its way through the skull at point blank range.
She collapsed back to the floor as Zip and Alister began voicing their confusion and fear down her headset.
"Quiet!" She ordered, squeezing her eyes closed as an other wave of pain worked its way through her head. "I don't want anyone to talk until we figure out what that was." Aravi had experienced worse in her life time, unearthing strange creatures with seemingly magical properties, but never before had she felt such a strange magic. A metallic taste was stuck in her mouth and her entire body felt like it had been in a wind tunnel.
She allowed herself a minuet to recover from her attack before she examined the body. Even though most of its face had been blown away, she could see that the blue lights of its eyes had been extinguished.
Worried that a gun shot would awaken more if she needed to defend herself, she picked up the tomahawk from the corpses. It looked ancient, but it was sturdy enough. She had sheathed her right pistol and held the axe in a death grip. She kept her left pistol held close to her chest.
"Jesus," She muttered as she used the closest wall to stand. Her legs were unsteady, but capable of movement. She dragged herself forwards. "Keep an eye out for any more of those things."
Only a small while later, Aravi began to come across more of the corpses. All of the ones she examined had expired, having no lights in their eyes.
As she rounded a corner, she became basked in light from light torches on the walls. She switched off her PLS to conserve battery and to avoid detection. She crept around the corner then stopped dead as she reached a long corridor light with not just torches, but a dozen pairs of blue eyes.
"You could always turn back," Alister whispered, interrupting her concentrated trance. There was no point in whispering. Only Aravi could hear the head set.
There was no way she could be sure that the wave hadn't completely flooded any of the previous chambers she had ran through. The thin eroded bridge she had darted across looked dangerously fragile. If that wave had picked up any large stones or debris, it might have been completely obliterated. She couldn't turn back.
The only way to convey her answer without words was to shake her head. The boys would see the camera movement. She took a step forwards.
"Aravi, wait!" Alister shouted with urgency. "I've been looking up Nazalkhul and I found something. It's an old journal of a history student. He interviewed someone who claimed to have woke in the tomb with no memories. He called the walking corpses draugr and said that they had an ancient power called the thu'um, the ability to use words to inflict various damage on others by shouting certain command words.
"The thing is, the man who lost his memory was an avid cave explorer called Ramir Stallis. He also received a bone claw and a blue necklace from a supposed relative. Sound familiar? Well, fifty years ago, he entered Nazalkhul. When he was found again, he was dressed in armour, medieval armour, and he had no idea what year it was, who his family was or anything. He kept ranting on about draugr and nordic tombs and people taking arrow's to the knee."
Zip laughed. "He could have just went crazy and took the armour off one of those dead things. People do that."
Alister ignored him. "Ramir Stallis didn't recognise his second name. He thought he was called Ramir Bone Breaker and it the historian discovered that he knew two languages which aren't found anywhere on Earth. He also somehow learnt how to fight with a sword. Ramir Stallis only knew Finnish before he left for Nazalkhul and he had no idea how to fight. He dropped out of elementary fencing lessons because his twelve year old daughter was better than him. Now he is a fencing world champion."
That gave Aravi something to think about. She placed the tomahawk on the ground and reached for the amulet.
Touching it made her feel reassured, like continuing on was the right thing to do. She shook her head again to convey to Alister that she didn't believe the story.
Without giving him a chance to say anything else, she charged forwards, tomahawk and pistol raised, to meet the small hoard of draugr.
The charge had fuelled her with adrenaline, and she used it as a third weapon. The first draugr went down when he took a Tomahawk to the face. The second had visibly damaged legs, so she was kicked over then beheaded while she was on the ground. Aravi almost growled when she rose and took out three of the closest advancing draugr with her pistol with chest and head shots.
Five of the closest were down. Aravi charged to meet the remaining seven who were deeper in the hall. One, which was armed with a colossal black battle axe, used the strange magical power, the thu'um, as she approached.
"Zun Hall Viik!" Forewarned is forearmed, as they say, and Aravi used it to her advantage. She leapt to her right as the circle of blue magic approached, but she wasn't fast enough. Her left hand, wielding the pistol, was caught in the blast, which ripped the weapon out of her hand. There was no time to reach for her other pistol so the charged forwards, grabbed the massive draugr around the throat with her left hand, constricting its airways so it couldn't shout again, raised her tomahawk, and struck it in the top of the head. Its skull cracked and its eyes died out.
Tugging the weapon from the brittle skull, Aravi noted the positions of the remaining six draugr. The two at the end of the hall were guards, she could tell, from their lack of advancement. They appeared to be glued in position by some strange magic or command. They wouldn't attack unless she grew too close. The rest were advancing slowly.
To make her fight easier, Aravi backed up a few paces, carefully avoiding the dead draugr on the floor. The four mobile draugr advanced upon her. Aravi had time to remove her other pistol from its right holster and move it to her left hand.
The first draugr to reach her held no weapons, but he still posed a threat. A sword had been stuck into its back and it protruded through its stomach. It knew that it could cause serious damage if it got close enough.
Its bony arms were faster than she had anticipated, and it managed to grab and immobilise both of her wrists. It started to tug violently on her arms, desperate to impale her on its stomach sword. Determined not to die and noticing that one of the advancing draugr had stopped to begin a shout, Aravi, gritted her teeth and, using its strong grip on her wrists, raised one leg and then the other to rest on its chest. She pushed with all the strength she could muster away from the draugr. She felt her opponents weakened wrists begin to break. As it lost its grip on her arms, she pushed harder with her legs, tucking her her arms and legs to form a back flip away from the draugr.
"Fus... Ro Dah!" The other shouted. Aravi had flipped out of the shouts path. The hand-less corpse was thrown sideways.
Needing to dispatch of the shouting female draugr fast before she could do any damage, Aravi wasted no time in shooting her in the face. She recovered quickly enough to jump out of the way of a powerful sword swing from one of the two advancing draugr. She managed to swing around, catching the sword wielding draugr in the back of the neck with her tomahawk. She severed the spinal cord, decapitating it. The last draugr was dispatched by being shot in the leg then cleaved in the face with her axe.
The two door guarding corpses had yet to make a move. Aravi found the hand-less draugr which had recovered from the shout and killed it quickly with a swift swing of her tomahawk. Laying close to it was the pistol which had been disarmed in the first shout.
After tucking the tomahawk into her belt, Aravi took aim with her pistole's and quickly dispatched of the door guards at range to prevent any further damage to herself.
"That's how its done!" Zip shouted down the head set, elated at her victory. Alister just breathed very deeply, relieved that Aravi was alive.
Aravi placed her pistols back in her holsters.
"It was their fault for not staying dead." She replied frankly. Senses on high alert, she approached the door. She began to notice human bones, clean of leathery muscles.
"You think someone else tried to get through here?" She asked. The bones were scattered with lots of distance between each one. One femora was held by a dead draugr proper up against the wall. It looked like he had been using it as a club. It was hard to tell if they were the remains of one or two people.
"Very likely. Those bones definitely didn't belong to a preserved body. They were very likely not draugr's." Alister sounded disgusted at the thought.
Aravi removed the bone claw from her bag and admired it.
"I think I have to rotate the panels so they match the symbols on the claw."
"Sounds about right."
The panels were stiff and hard to move, especially now that Aravi had spent so much of her energy attacking the draugr, but she managed. Placing the stone claws fingers in the holes then rotating it anti clockwise gave her a strange sense of satisfaction. She knew this was nearly over.
Aravi slumped down against the closed nordic door and squeezed her eyes shut.
Brelania was gone.
She tried to run backwards, away from the door, when the attack began. Knowing the undead like the back of her hand, Aravi knew she would have time to at least open the door before the attack began. She took advantage of her suddenly free hand after Brelania had pulled away to get hold of the claw. She yanked the panels in place before the first undead had dragged his half rotten and bloated body out of his coffin.
As soon as the door started to open, Aravi threw her bow through the small gap at the top of the door, then equipped her sword. That was enough to keep the few undead at bay before she could jump over the lowering door.
There was no sign of Brelania, so she activated the switch that closes the door immediately. Five undead had tripped through, but they were all killed before they could get up.
Stand up. Advance. Get out alive.
Aravi stood up, re-sheathed her sword, and picked up her bow. The smell had faded entirely, giving her nose a well deserved rest. She was able to explore the room with a clear head, which was a welcome change.
In the centre of the circular room was an oval outline made of stone, held to the wall and floor with metal chains. The chains were attached to stone disks on the ceiling and floor which slowly rotated the oval.
There were three stands forming the vertexes of a triangle. The two closest to the door shone blue light which occasionally met the stone outline of the oval. The third which was on the other side of the room, shone no light.
There was also no exit.
She should have known. Nazalkhul was no burial tomb, that much had been clear from the start. The corpses had probably been placed there to scare away any intruders.
With no other options, Aravi committed herself to discovering the meaning behind the room.
This must be where the necklace comes into play. She thought.
Removing the necklace, Aravi studied it. Instead of focusing on the blue gem in the centre, she turned her attention to the golden metal around the outside. After some fiddling, she found a hidden switch which popped out five small handles. She carefully examined one.
Aravi managed to twist it despite its ludicrous size. When it had completed a full turn, the necklace split in half.
Whoa! She thought as she almost dropped the two pieces. Her temporary confusion subsided as she realised she was suppose to split the amulet completely. Twisting all five handles was extremely fiddly but she managed in just under a minuet.
Now what?
Examining the three stands around the oval, she noticed that there was space for the thin slices of the necklace to be attached. Grinning at her revelation, she slipped one of the amulet slices into one of the light emitting stands. Slotting it into place revealed that the light was focused into a narrow beam. Aravi hurried to place an other slice into the other light emitting stand.
Looking hard at the edge of the oval, she noticed that where the concentrated light met the edges, there were two slots for more amulet slices. She filled them quickly, almost dropping one in her eagerness.
Acting on a whim, she placed the second last slice into the stand the furthest away from the door. Then, just for a second as the light aligned with the amulet slices on the oval, the light beams refracted to meet the slice she had just placed, which then reflected the beam straight through the centre of the spinning oval.
Then it was gone.
Aravi was amazed at her progress, but quickly came to the conclusion that the sixth slice must be used to manually redirect the light to some sort of acceptor, judging by the lack of slots. She moved and looked through the spinning oval, aligning her face with the beam of light, then searched intently for any potential acceptors.
About a meter above the last stand, there was an empty black soul gem. With no other ideas, Aravi waited for the oval to rotate. She stepped forwards, aligned the final slice with where the beam met the middle of the oval, and waited.
It took exactly three rotations until Aravi worked out the exact angle to hold the final slice. She waited intently for the final rotation to make the correct alignment.
Three, two, one... She counted down.
The beam of light shot through all the slices then met up with the soul gem.
Everything went white.
Zip and Alister, viewing the monitor in the back of their minivan, had to look away from the monitor.
"God, that's bright," Alister complained.
They waited in silence until the screen darkened.
"Wow!" Zip explained as he viewed what he thought was one of the most spectacular things he had ever seen.
The oval had stopped spinning and some sort of purple portal filled it. Lighting the black gem had revealed an assortment of light beams hidden in the back wall. They all shone purple streams of light into the back of the portal.
"That's incredible." Alister's voice was filled with awe as he finally looked at the screen.
"Aravi, are you all right?" Zip asked, worried about the woman's eye sight. If it had been bright for them, it must have been worse for her.
"I'm all right. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
"Indeed we are."
The two watched the screen move as Aravi looked around. Through the portal was a slightly tinted, massive room filled with mist. The trio were so busy examining the portal they didn't realise the door beginning to close behind Aravi.
"Run!" Alister yelled, making Zip flinch side ways at the volume.
Aravi ran, but it was too late. The door closed and sealed before she could even get there. They were silent for a very long time.
The chamber shook and water began falling from the edges of the ceiling.
"Give me a break!" Aravi moaned.
"So now what?"
She sighed, knowing her only option.
"I go through the portal."
"Don't go through a door if you don't know where you will end up, Miss Croft." Aravi remembered her fathers words, spoken so long ago.
Sorry, father.
She drew both pistols and stepped up to the portal.
"You don't need to do this, Aravi!" Zip warned. "Lets not be irrational."
"Waiting here until I drown is irrational." She pointed out. The water was rising fast and it covered her boots already.
"Here goes nothing." She said.
"Aravi, please!"
"Think about this!"
She ignored them as she stepped through.
Her earpiece went static. Where ever she was, there was no signal.
Water started splashing through the oval as it reached the portals height. Aravi ripped out her ear piece and placed it in her pocket.
She slowly began to advance through the mist. After a matter of seconds, he began to hear noises. They noises were getting growing louder and Aravi could swear she could hear her own voice.
"Hello?" She called. She received no answer.
She moved on, curious of what was making the noises.
She stopped dead as something began to materialise in front of her through the mist. She raised her pistols and gripped them tightly. If something was hunting her, she was going to take it down no matter what.
A few meters on front of her, a figure began to emerge. Aravi's stomach dropped as she realised it was of a similar height to her, with what appeared to be a drawn bow, aimed right at her.
This is it, She thought.
Something was wrong with the figure that was approaching.
"No," Aravi muttered.
The figure approaching through the mist was the splitting image of herself.
"No!" Denial.
Neither woman lowered their weapons.