Lora had been approached almost a month before by an older, charismatic man with a black mustache and goatee grown and trimmed like you would expect to see on a picture of Satan. He was very calm and very self-assured, just shy of being cocky. He had approached and hired the famous explorer to search for a relic called the Dungeon Heart. This man, who called himself Alverid, warned her that this relic was, according to the legends, protected by demonic creatures and powerful magic.

Now Lora had been told these kinds of things before. Most times, it's just hocus pocus, but there have been those other occasions. She spent a couple weeks researching the area that the entrance was supposed to be, then a couple weeks preparing, and then she found herself walking down a dim, torch lit passage descending into the earth.

It was nearly a mile in when Lora came to a branching of the passage, forward, left, and right in perfect angles. All three directions were sealed with a solid wood door reinforced with steel bands that wrapped around the entire door. Before stepping into the area between the three doors, Lora glanced around the area and immediately noticed the bottom of a glass vial in the ceiling.

With a flick of her wrist, Lora extended the collapsible baton strapped to her forearm and carefully prodded at the stones on the ground between the doors. Finding the loose stone, she adjusted her angle and pushed down, depressing the stone into the ground. The instant Lora heard the click, she jerked the baton back and watched a smaller rock break through the glass vial and heard the sounds of acid as the liquid contained within splattered the ground. Silently she waited until the sizzling had ended, then tested the rest of the stones before stepping forward to begin checking the doors for traps.

Satisfied with the doors, Lora opened the door on the left and began to travel down the new opened corridor. Twenty feet down the left passage, the hall opened into a thirty foot by thirty foot room with racks of polished metal weapons of medieval design. Swords, axes, halberds, and crossbows lined the walls as well as several suits of armor. Walking up to the first rack, Lora pulled a curved scimitar from the scabbard and examined the weapon.

Quietly she whispered to herself, "No rust, and no dust. The leather scabbard is…new." Suddenly she realized that the quiet dungeon was not supposed to be this quiet. Glancing around again, she saw a creature that was so ugly it was cute hiding behind a bench. The creature was only about three and a half feet tall, dark skin the color of brown, tanned leather, with a large pack strapped to its back and huge black eyes. The eyes reminded her of a horses eyes, where the pupil was simply so large that the rest of the eye was impossible to see. The creature was watching her intently and then squeaked and began to shiver when it realized Lora had seen it.

Squatting low, Lora held out her hand to the creature and whispered, "Easy there, I'm not going to hurt you."

Suddenly a door on the far side of the room was thrown open and one of the ugliest men she had ever seen came strutting in. Once it was closer, Lora realized that this thing couldn't possibly be human. Its jaw was more pronounced with a pair of short tusk like teeth jutting up from the bottom jaw. Its nose was short and wide with long slits for nostrils, the ears were long and filled with hair, and the skin was darkened gray colored. This thing was humanoid, but definitely no human.

"Ho!" It bellowed out, "What Mistress doing in Guard Room?"

Calmly Laura stood and faced it, "Simply looking around."

This seemed to satisfy the guard, and it grabbed an axe off the rack, rested it on his shoulder and began to walk towards the door. Suddenly it stopped and turned to face Lora, "Mistress is dressed funny."

Lora replied with a smirk, "My leathers are being cleaned."

"Oh." It said simply and turned back to resume its patrol.

Lora sighed as she watched the large humanoid walk away, and then turned back to the small creature she had seen before. There it was, more out in the open, standing next to a bench looking at here expectantly.

"Can you take me to the Heart?" she asked softly.

The creatures head bobbed then it turned and its short legs were suddenly pumping quickly as it shot through the room to the door on the other side of the room. At the door, the little thing turned back and waited. Lora ran quickly to catch up, and then followed behind the creature as it zoomed through the tunnels.

With the practiced ease of the experienced explorer that she is, Lora memorized the path that the critter took her. As they travelled, she saw many creatures that simply could not be understood. A large lizard that looked like an overgrown salamander, some huge, fat, round thing with horns sticking out of the side of its head that had no legs and used it's long arms to move, a very lithe looking man with onyx skin, white hair, and pointed ears. Another odd thing that she noticed as they travelled was that the further in they got, she could feel a deep rhythmic pounding sound like a huge drum. It took a few moments before she realized that the pounding was like that of a heart beat.

It was several rooms and several passages later that her guide finally opened a large double door. The heart beat was almost too much to bear now, and then Lora saw why. In the middle of a large upraised platform was a huge globe surrounded by gold ornamentation that held it just off the ground. Inside the globe a red glow pulsed with the Heart Beat of the dungeon. She looked at the large globe simply mystified at its size.

Around one the left side of the Heart stepped Alvarid, his facial hair still shaped like the Devils, but now his eyes glimmered with an inner light. His business suit had been replaced by a blood robe with gold embroidery symbols and the shoulders of the robe were even shaped to arc up to resemble spikes.

Behind her, Lora heard the foot fall of something large, very large, and sheathed in metal. Turning slowly, she looked up two feet and into the eyes of a demon. Nothing else could be used to describe it. Standing eight feet tall at least, red thick skin, metal covered feet, an evil smile that revealed a mouth full of six inch canine teeth, yellow glowing eyes, and a set of horns that extended its height a full foot further, and in one hand it carried a blood stained scythe.

Behind her, Lora heard Alvarid laugh maniacally. "Welcome, 'Tomb Raider.'