Nate-X-oc Same-X-oc Most original characters will show there faces in this story one way or another, but it is mainly Nate,Sully,Same and 2 Oc's of story runs along the lines of uncharted 4, but of course some parts wont line up with the game because, well they are made up my me and some story lines wont be included. This will have violence, gore, cursing, and your typical amazing adventure! leave a comment if you wish me to continue! I also approve of helpful tips on what I should be writing. Want more detail? less detail? ect please comment~ I know some of the original game has time skips, but for my story it is all going to be linear time wise. And this chapter will be a lot longer then all the rest just because this is the very first chapter, and I want all of you guys to get into the adventure first.
The winds blew hot air, and the daily suns rays made it even worse as the panama country side bustled with dust and roaming hoards of people. It was a uncivilized region compared to the U.S. with dirt road, and what looked like sandstone bricks for almost any building that was within a 100 yard radius. It was the slums of the Panama town, still to hard to pronounce.A mission was in hand and in reach, but still to far away to call a victory. It was hard to maneuver the town that seemed to wind up and down at every turn, and stairs were the main ways of transportation to get anywhere outside the slums and into the high living, if you could call it that, and finally to the destination at hand. That cross would be theirs...
Chapter 1 The Panama Cross
All that could be herd was the bustle of rushing people, and the loud murmur of conversation from each and every individual that crowded the dirt streets of the slums. Dirt filled the air with every foot step as two forms could easily be seem through the crowds of Panamanian people, two obvious foreign girls dressed to the top in summer gear making there way through the city. Brushing the dark red strands of hair from her face, the one leading quickly pulled out an old and tattered piece of paper from a side pocket, while the follower quickly stopped to gaze over a shoulder, and read along with her companion. "Athena the tower is over there, on the cliff side. not through the high livings."
The girl spoke soft as she removed her finger from the map, light honey eyes that was once looking over her friends shoulder, shifted to look into the distance of the humongous cliffs that almost seemed to tower over the city itself. It was true, the map showed the tower directly to the left of were they were going, avoiding the higher livings area all together. That was if they wanted to scale the cliffs to reach it. Athena again brushed a strand of red hair behind her ear before placing the map back into her pocket, looking over the town to the same cliffs that towered over it. With a sigh she looked with bright icy eyes to the girl standing next to her, motioning a hand for her to lead the way.
"I figured we could cut through the other side of town so that we could avid climbing hours worth of cliff side, and just take the stair all the way up..." Athena gave her words a second thought as she glaces to Crystal, who was awaiting an answer while quickly tying her ebony black hair in a bun. "You know...on second thought lets climb the cliffs..." Crystal could all but laugh at Athena's remark, placing a nicely tanned arm around the shoulders of her partner as they made there way back through town.
It took a good 45 minutes for the duo to made there way through town, and then through a mile of thick foliage to reach the base of the sky high cliffs. They were both free climbers, and considered themselves experts at the job as they wasted no time in gripping a rock or hole in the cliff side to ascend themselves upwards. Both wearing backpacks filled with necessities, and it took a good while to reach the point were they were both above the tree line, finding a little ledge for a minutes rest before continuing there long journey up. They found that talking was the best way to keep each other moving, waiting so that one would no fall behind just in case of an emergency that could easily be the death of one or even both of them.
"You got it Crystal? The top is only a few feet away"
Athena spoke through her staggered breaths, obviously worn out from the long climb. But she new how far she could push herself, and this mountain was a lot easier then others she had climbed.
"No I got it, almost to your feet keep going." Crystal spoke through a grunt as she hoisted herself up a rather long ledge, gripping the hole in the rock before pulling herself up with a small jump so that she could reach the next. Gripping the rock harshly she began to pull herself up when the rock dislodged from the cliff side, and Crystal went sliding a few inches down before her hand cought on to one of the very small ledges. She cried out as she hung on for dear life with one hand, brown eyes looking down at the death defying drop. Quickly she swung around so that she could grab with her other hand and secure her possession on the rock. "Crystal! are you alright.." Athena shouted, icy eyes peering down the almost vertical mountain at her friend who almost fell to her death. Though it would not be the first time any one of them almost fell to there deaths doing this. Her heart was beating a million miles a second at that point and could only watch as her friend began to make her way up once more.
"Yea..im fine... that was a close one" Crystal could only laugh as she realized her life was hanging in the balance only moments ago, but thus the life of free climbers like herself and Athena, there was no certainty they would come back alive in the first place. The top was in sight and Athena was the first to make it up, gripping the edge with a sigh of relieve before pulling her body up and over onto solid ground once more. Sweat was dripping down the side of her face and neck while she panted, leaning over slightly so that her arm hung down off the ledge and Crystal could grab a hold to hoist herself up as well. There muscles burned long after they reached the top, feeling almost like melting jello neither one wanted to move, but they both new they needed to get a move on before someone got there first. Not that they were in competition with anyone that they new of, but you never know who was secretly looking for the same thing. Crystal was the first to get up, groaning a little as she leaned up to scan the open world bellow the cliff they just scaled. The sun was setting behind the clouds as a deep pink hue spread over the light blue sky's, the forest bellow seemed to spread out for miles as it touched the bottom of the sun as it sank. It was truly a sight to see. But good things could not last forever as she finally hauled herself to her feet and turned to look at the scattered trees before her. Athena too stood up after a moment of gazing and took out the map from earlier.
"So,we are here. That means the tower should actually be visible right about now..." Athena and Crystal both began the hunt for the seemingly camouflaged tower, eyes scanning side to side before finally a hint of gray seemed to peek out from the vines. The tower was covered in overflowing foliage, almost completely hidden to the outside world, and it was no wonder to either of them on why it was rarely found by others. Without a single word they both took off on a slight jog, brushing past the trees and branches that seemed to hand almost to the ground itself, making there way quickly to the tower.
The tower itself was surrounded by tall stone walls, thick with layers of brick and an iron rusted gate sealed shut by chains and the rust that clung to it. Bricks were everywhere near the base as holes and cracks littered the surface, even the tower had one whole side knocked out of it along with a caved in roof. Trees and the all around jungle attire seemed to grow in every spot it could along the bricks, it was as if nature was taking back the land man had distorted to build such a place. Crystal stopped to admire the handy-work of such an old building, it must have took at least a year to build such a large place. Looking to Athena who was quickly putting her long red hair into a messy bun, she got very curious on the details of the tower. Athena was the history geek of the pair, she new everything about almost every place they went, Crystal had a little incite mainly from Athena, but she was more of the down and dirty type. She was the fighter, the steelier, and the killer of the group.
"So this tower was a prison right?"Crystal asked as she once again took a gaze all the way up to the top of the large tower, squinting a little against the setting sun. Athena loved explaining things to people, so giving her the chance made her even more exited about the whole thing.
"Yes it was a prison. Used to well you know what a prison is for. It is stated that Henry Avery's First mate Burns, was hung for treason at the very top of the tower were his cell use to be. Avery gave him something, something very important that could possibly lead us to were Avery hid his treasure." With that they both began to servey any possible way in, the gate was useless, and the only large enough hole to get into was at least 10 feet off the ground. That was when Athena carefully climbed up onto a portion of the fallen wall at the back of the tower, rubbing her hand together before leaping out and gripped an old broken board that stuck out from the flooring. It creaked under her weight as she swung once more from the plank to the edge were the wood seemed to cave in, It instantly snapped off from the force as she lifted herself up into what seemed to be the first floor of the prison tower. Due to all the holes in the stone, she easily walked back outside and jumped the small gap between the tower and what was guessed to be the guards post, a flat stone floor that over looked the top of the wall.
"hear Crystal, climb up hear and Ill pull you up." Athena shouted as she appeared up on the top wall, laying down on her belly to await her companion. Crystal quickly started to ease her way up, gripping onto almost nonexistent crevices as to try and reach her friend, only able to climb a couple feet up before the path stopped. That was when she would have to jump and rely on Athena's strength to pull her up, so that she would not fall and break something. God she loved free climbing. With that she counted and threw herself up into the air with an outstretched arm, feeling Athena quickly grab a hold of her wrist to pull her up. Crystal did the same as she grabbed the top of the wall with her other hand, helping hoist her body weight the rest of the way up. That was one problem solved as they both stood to brush the dust off there clothes, looking at the tower for a more safe route up to the top. Jumping back over to the first floor Athena a crystal had it a bit easy as the stone staircase that spiraled all the way up was mostly in tact, with a spot here and there they would have to jump or shimmy there way across, but that was mere child's play compared to what they just went through. Reaching the top of the stairs the original walls that held in Burns were all but destroyed, leaving the room itself almost rubble. The walls were mostly intact as both girls stopped to look at them, carving of weird symbol's and check marks littered every piece of clean stone. He was in this building for years before his death, and Athena couldn't but help get chills from the thought.
"Being in hear for years..I could not imagine..." Crystal stated at a low tone, as if speaking would crumble the rest of the standing tower."Lets look at your journal and see what we can find" Athena nodded a reply before taking out her book to look at what she drew about the tower before they left, showing the same symbol's that were carved into the stones.
"These symbols Burns carved are the same ones we found on the map. They are all Latin words and roman numerals.."Athena spoke as she was reading through her own mind, along with the journal in hand. The whole room was carved up with them, but two that stood out was a sun and moon carving.
"Hold on, The sun and moon carvings over there...they are zodiac symbols not Latin." Athena explained as she carefully took a few steps over to the fine lined carvings. "They are Sagittarius and Scorpio.." Crystal chimed in as she too followed after, searching her mind for any answers as Athena turned to look at her. " Sagittarius and Scorpio represent X and II in roman numerals. Or 10 and 11. And all of these carving are roman numerals." "So lets just find the one that is XII" Crystal yet again chimed in after her friend, who smiled at her once more before placing the book back into her back pocket. Quickly they both searched each and every carving on the wall, up and down, even behind the rubble until Crystal whistled a signal for Athena to come over. And so she did as they both peered at the one large brick that had the carving XII on it, Athena cupping her hand so that her fingers were together and dug her fingernails into the stone as hard as she could, shimmying it a little out at a time. Grabbing the other end she was able to pull the brick fully out, and tossed it across the room. Both looked at each other with a moments hesitation, neither wanted to stick there hand in a dark hole were anything could quickly chop there arm off, or worse. But Athena took the lead and slowly stuck her hand in to feel around, jumping a little when her finger tips brushed across something smooth and cold. Quickly she grabbed it and pulled back her arm. "A cross...But pirates were not religious were they?" Crystal asked as both sets of eyes were staring at it with intensity. Athena slowly flipped the cross over as the setting suns light glinted off the brass, seeing a Latin phrase carved in the back. She quickly red it out loud as Crystal grabbed it, taking a look for herself.
"I dont know, but it says Digna Factis Recipimus... We receive the due reward of are deeds." Neither of them have gotten so close to solving something like this, most of it was diving or scaling to reach something of worth, but not treasure hunting. Not until know.
"Its a cross of sorts but from hear it looks like st. Dismas's cross." An unfamiliar voice sounded behind both girls who almost jumped out of there own skin, turning around as quick as they could to see who was behind them. Athena quickly placed a hand to her hip were a large knife lay rest in its holster, while Crystal took a couple steps behind. It was a man standing in the only exit out, tall and one could say handsome as he leaned against the entryway out of breath. He was dressed in an all blue uniform, a prison uniform, from a prison that just so happen to lay right beside the tower.