-The Temple
For the few steps Lara took within the temple, she noticed a few things that you wouldn't expect to see in a temple of this calibre. Immediately, Lara noticed that the texture of the ground has changed from a metamorphic stone layered ground from both the stairs and entrance way of the temple, to a grassy muddy and damp surface internal. Furthermore, as Lara took even more steps into the temple, it seemed bigger on the inside then it looks from the outside. But this might be due to it being too dark for Lara to see properly. Carefully and cautiously, Lara delved further into the temple, for what seemed to be more like a cave environment to her. 'I ought to be careful, there could be traps set up for intruders' Lara thought , as she scanned the area in every corner using her torchlight, being wary of what she may see or encounter.
She moved the light beam to what seemed to be like the ceiling of the temple. Again it looked like the muddy ground surface that Lara was standing on, but the difference being that rock was very well integrated into the ceiling, helping it being firm and supportive. It was that moment, that Lara sensed a horrible stench underneath her nose, she shone her bright light onto the ground. There! She was standing on the edge of a... SPIKE PIT!
It took Lara by surprise, as not only with its presence so near to the entrance was unexpected, but also by the amount of bodies of those poor souls who entered the temple lost or exploring, ending up in death and decaying away in this set up trap. A saddened tear dropped from Lara's face, as some of the victims to this trap would have been innocent people meaning no harm at all. A quick thought arose for Lara, and she was hoping that Illiat wasn't among those decaying bodies within the pit, but as she scanned the spike pit using her torch, she saw no signs of a new victim like no new blood had been spilt. This could mean that there may be a chance, Illiat may still be alive! Unsure, Lara moved on from the spike pit, carefully avoiding its slippery edge by manoeuvring around its edge as steadily as possible.
After safely passing the first trap, Lara moved swiftly along in the temple, using the light as a guide to light her way through. "Eek, Eek" a sound Lara heard from above, she shone her light at the ceiling once again, only this time it was being occupied by a family of vampire bats. They were flying around aimlessly causing no harm and ignoring the new presence, so Lara ignored them too and carried on with her path. After a few minutes of looking around, Lara was held back by a locked passageway barred by a stood out stone carved pillar door.
Using the flashlight, Lara looked around in her surroundings, but could not find anything that could help in this situation. She then decided to look above, and saw a ledge which could lead to an alternative way or have the solution to the locked passageway. She jumped and hoisted herself up onto the ledge, and saw that there was another path that was layered out in front of her. She shone her light to see the way through and began to walk across the upper path. It wasn't until she stopped near the end of this path and saw what looked like a switch. Lara being the adventurous archaeologist as she is was interested in what particular function it does. Firmly holding the ancient dusty switch, and pulling down on it, there was a shudder in the temple and then a sound and vibration of a moving door being driven upwards by a network of rusty cogs.
'Clever' Lara thought, and quickly jumped down from the ledge and retraced her steps to the previously blocked passageway. Next Lara was faced with a dead-end wall, the only way of preceding any further was exploring within a hole she found to the side of the dead- end wall. Making sure this hole was not a trick into another spike pit. Lara shone her light in the hole and looked at every angle into the darkness. There seemed to be no danger into the hole and she dropped down into the hole without hesitation.
As she fell into the black hole, Lara realised she made a rare mistake in her judgement to go down. When she got to ground, there was a sudden snap and hiss near her right shoulder and left shoulder, 'Blast! I have fallen into a snake pit trap!' With it still being dark to see clearly, she acted fast and reached for her backpack to grab the lighter and flares. Instantly she lit up a flare and dropped it onto the floor. Following this action, she drew her pistols ready for some action. Because of the brightness of the flare burning away, Lara was now able to see how many snakes there were. She counted out four surrounding her! Having to be quick to react and saving her skin from a vicious poisonous bite, Lara shot the first two snakes that were on her right side. Each successive bullet was tearing apart the snakes' long and huge bodies, as they both started to fall to the ground. As both snakes' fell to the ground, Lara rolled over to the right side, and finished off the remaining snakes' in the area, all hissing before they fell to the ground and did not move thereafter. Sometimes Lara regretted killing wildlife, but normally she has to do it for her own self defence. With the flare finally extinguished, Lara withdrew her pistols and brought out the torch once again for further exploration in the second floor of the temple.
There was an opening at the end of the snake pit room, and it appeared to be a safe bet that this may be the right way to lead to Illiat's whereabouts in the temple. Lara with caution jumped down into the opening and suddenly felt her feet slipping away. She realized that she was on a slope sliding downwards into what seemed to be the core of the temple. Initially Lara thought this could have been another trap, but the slope ended and brought her to a massive chamber, though something was off-putting about this room. It looked like no other area Lara had encountered since entering the temple, it was a huge room filled with one of the biggest statues she hadn't seen for a while. Not only that, but it also had a different layout compared to the previous two floors Lara had just come through. The floor had changed into a stone layout, and the walls are in better condition than before. Furthermore the room was a bit brighter than the previous floors, so Lara didn't need her torch anymore to light her way through the complex.
Gazing at the statue that stood out in the middle of the chamber, Lara walked towards it, intrigued with what she had found. As Lara stepped towards the stairs, she looked upon the statue, it looked like an Aztec figure of importance and underneath it was an 'X' glowing bright white orb. She stepped further near it, and reached out to touch the glowing white orb. As she touched it something strange started to happen, and suddenly Lara was lit up in a light blue flame engulfing her body. Amongst the confusion, she also began to hear a gravelling voice in her head as she stared into the statues' gaze. 'FOOLISH INTRUDER'! 'You shall pay for your greed'. 'You have awoken the guardians of the temple and they shall not rest until you are DESTROYED'! The voice disappeared, Lara passed out.
Sometime later, Lara awoke from her unconsciousness, and quickly looked round at her surroundings. It had still been silent has before, but this time the area was now much brighter thanks to flames being ignited at the altar and other places that weren't lit up before. This allowed Lara to see more clearly within the temple and where she is. Furthermore, Lara spotted a trail of blood near where she had passed out, 'Whose bloods that?' She quickly examined her own body anatomy, to see if any injury had been inflicted on her while she was out, but couldn't find any sign. Curious and hoping it wasn't Illiats' blood, Lara decided to follow the trail of blood which led her away from the altar, where the cross white orb was still glowing.
The blood trail had led Lara into the way she came about into the altar room. However thanks to the area becoming brighter than before, Lara was now able to see that the blood trail had leaded into a small passageway at the left corner of the room. She walked towards it, and peered through ...nothing but darkness. It wasn't until she looked fully downwards and saw a slope that escorted into an underground area, also the blood stains were still strong enough to see. 'Well, there's only one way to find out what's down there' Lara thought and decided to carefully slide down into the underground hole.
The slope ended and Lara fell a quite a feat into a pool of water, the blood trail from before was gone. There was a landing edge on top of the water surface, Lara hoisted herself up onto it and looked around at her new surroundings. The environment had changed, this time instead of being a damp and muddy place like it was in the upper levels, it now had become richer. E.g. the grounded bricks had changed from a worn out, dullish, decaying cream colour into a more glossy, red jaded colour. Furthermore, the richness of the area also shows by the waterfall that was flowing where Lara had fallen into, 'where was the water source coming from?' she thought to herself.
It was an environment to admire greatly. But Lara remembered that Illiat still needed to be found urgently, so she decided to continue on the journey by walking upon the landing, carefully observing if any traps are nearby ready to set off. She stumbled across a ladder at the end of the landing, which would lead her further into the core of the temple. Turning round, she started her descendant downwards the ladder. The descendant didn't last long, and without delay Lara was faced with an approaching scorpion, but this was not any scorpion.
It looked different and behaved not like any scorpion she had ever seen before. This particular one was double the size of an average scorpion, it was in fact similar to the size of a small dog breed, and it looked vicious to the point of the pincers snapping continuously, ready for a piece of Lara's flesh. Quickly, Lara drew her pistols and shot the upcoming scorpion with two bullets into the body. Black fluid started to spill out onto the floor and Lara moved on from the encounter, without giving it much of a thought.
Again Lara came across a second ladder, which descended even further within the temple complex. But compared to the last one, this one seemed to be bigger. So she started to climb downwards on the ladder, and stumbled across another landing right behind in the middle of the ladder.
Interested in what secrets may hold in that area, Lara jumped and somersaulted backwards, so then she was able to grab the edge of the landing and pulled herself up onto it. At the end on the landing there was another ladder, but this time it was leading upwards, 'How many ladders could there be in this temple?' She climbed up and came across a pillar blocking the pathway. Making sure it was weak by knocking to see what kind of sound it would make, she decided to use her dynamite to allow her to continue pass it. Lara took out the dynamite out of her backpack, lit the cable, threw it near the pillar and leapt out the way of the explosion.
As expected the blast impact made the pillar crumple and fall, all in which cleared a new pathway for Lara to explore. As she was about to walk through where the pillar was standing, she saw another slope in front. Lara looked down to see where it would lead to and saw two spike pit traps, with a small landing above in between them. On the other side of the second spike pit trap, was another ladder leading upwards onto a ledge where more secrets can be explored. Deciding quickly whether to dare the trap or not, Lara moved and slid downwards on the slope.
It was more slippery than expected and if she had fallen onto her backside, death would await her at the end. Lara managed to keep her balance on the slope, and as she got nearer to the edge of it, she used all her strength and jumped from the slope of the ledge. It had been quite scary leaping over a spike pit, as anything could have happened, and Lara could have fallen to her death just like that if the timing wasn't right. But Lara being the adventurer as she is, has got some good experience in perfect timing, and as well as being a skilled gymnast was able to successfully make the jump and got onto the landing.
Next was another jump to the ladder, this one may prove to be trickier than before, as Lara observed, you had to not only make the jump, but also grab the steps on the ladder too. It was best for Lara to do a running-jump, as the gap between the landing and the ladder was longer than before. Another spike pit trap was ready below for anyone who failed the challenge. Readying herself Lara had taken a step back, took a deep breath then ran as fast as she can along the landing and jumped the ledge. Stretching and reaching out for the rusty ladder steps, she made sure not to look down at the mouldy spikes underneath her.
She made it successfully, likewise without hesitating grabbed onto the steps and hoisted herself on the ladder. In a split second, she was climbing up on the worn out wooden surface. Climbing it didn't take long and Lara made her way on top of the landing, there she saw a switch similar to the one found in the upper levels to open a previous passageway.
Curious of the functionality of this switch, Lara pulled it back and she was met with two things, first she was met by a small rumble as the ground started to shake. Next she heard the sound of passageway being opened up not too far away. Then looking over to her left she saw that another trap was set up for when an intruder presses the switch.
This was a dart shooting gargoyle and it started to shoot darts straight into Lara's direction. Having to react fast, Lara ducked as the dart shot passed her around mid height 'Phew!' Lara sighed 'That was close'. The last she heard of the dart was a thud when it hit the wall on the other side. Still being very wary of the dart shooter, Lara rolled to the end of the landing and saw what seemed like very impressive architecture, during when she was travelling through it. The shape of how the brick work was layered like a twisted snake shape, Lara was admiring the quality and the advancement it would have been when it was built many centuries ago. She got to the bottom of the well- crafted architecture and found herself stuck in a situation, which was not allowing her to progress any further.
There was no further pathway to go on! It just seemed to be a bottomless pit of darkness, 'I wouldn't try it', and once again Lara scanned around at her surroundings to see if there had to be any way to get through. Then she spotted it. While looking up, she saw some vines that were hanging from the ceiling. These looked strong enough and climbable, similar to the monkey bars Lara uses at her mansion in her gym to allow her to get from one side to the other. This may well have been another trial to test the intruder, so Lara jumped and grab on one of the vines. One by one, she grabbed each one as they came by in a style of a monkey.
Lara managed to get the end without any hassle and was able to safely drop onto the landing on the other side. She was quite pleased with herself that she was able to do this, as it was a difficult skill to master. Next Lara faced another dropdown, but this time it had been safe to just drop into it without any danger or injury, so that's what she did. Now, at last she was glad she had pulled down the switch from earlier, as this was the doorway which had opened up.
Progressing through the doorway, there were four arched doorway passageways she could take 'These must all be linked in some way or other'. So Lara decided to start from left to right 'No doubt I will be returning here anyway', she entered the far left passage. As she was walking within the passage, Lara was met with a damp wet floor. Curious to see what lay ahead, Lara jogged and found an underwater tunnel, and she was staring at the entrance hole of it.
Since Lara wasn't prepared for any sort of swimming, she hadn't brought along her swim gear which would have been more suitable. Lara tooted to herself and started readying herself to dive in and explore with what she had on. The underwater passage was fascinating, as it was designed as if it wanted to hide something. It was filled with spiked pits at the bottom, and electric eels ready to attack those who ran out of air or who have fallen from exhaustion.
Lara swam through carefully missing both the electric eels that sounded and looked threatening, and the spikes staged at the bottom, when she saw them not too far into the depths of the tunnel. She had only been there for a couple of seconds, until she reached a blocked way 'Darn!' This was situated right underneath the underwater tunnel, so quickly Lara swam upwards gasping for air one, two, three...she found it.
It was there staring at Lara, the switch to open up the doorway to find what is being 'protected', Lara got out of the pool and headed over to the switch. Another rumble happened, and Lara re-entered the underwater tunnel to see if the doorway had now opened up. To her delight it did indeed. Also on the newly shown floor was a blue handle bar, which had just been dumped on the surface. Lara picked up the blue handle and swam back to the entrance of the passageway. She started to examine her new finding. It was similar to a bar of gold, but this wasn't the case as it was coloured in sapphire blue, quite weighty too. She placed it in her backpack and since there was nothing else of interest in the far left passageway anymore, Lara decided she will move onto the next one.
The passage on the second left lead Lara to what seemed to be a corridor, but it was infested with a lot of booby traps, this time darts were firing from the ceiling. It was too dangerous to pass, as each row seemed to be shooting one by one, 'there must be some way of getting pass this trap', and this is where it struck Lara. She would spot to see if there is any pattern in the way each one fires its associated dart, then apply that pattern in how she should dash pass through.
By watching each dart being fired, Lara saw a pattern, the first one fired then the second, then the third etc, and when the last one has been shot (sixth one), it always restarted back to the first one. The way Lara approached this was by waiting for the first dart had been shot, then approach and wait for each one being done etc. 'Last one!' Lara had progressed through the dart trap. She proceeded onwards and now there had been vampire bats ready to attack her!
She dodged one which was coming straight at her, its mouth wide open wanting to bite. This was when she decided to draw her pistols and kill the threats, BANG, BANG, BANG! Each vampire bat fell to the floor, unmovable. Whilst walking further in the passageway, Lara noticed something strange about the ground she was on, it didn't feel stable. Just then she got to a dead end, and a thought struck Lara, 'What if I set dynamite to the floor, and have a look underneath?'
Comparable to last time, she got out two pieces of dynamite from her backpack, lit each one and threw them onto the unstable floor that she had just walked upon. BOOM! The ground started to fall and became a rubble on top of the real ground. Lara searched throughout the rubble to see if she can find anything, and there it was. Another handle similar to the blue one, but this time it was coloured yellow, she stored it into her backpack. Lara then managed to avoid the dart trap at the entrance once more, by repeating the same process as before, only inversing the method instead.
The third passageway didn't have any traps, so Lara causally walked through to search around more thoroughly. She stumbled across some stairs leading up to a huge glass dome standing in front of her, as the passageway had led her into a big shadowed room. She looked through the glass, and saw a stand holding what look like a gold bar piece. Next to the dome in the room were three slots. Lara examined these slots and each one were coloured differently, one was red, the other was blue and the final one was yellow. 'Those must be the handle slots, keys for the glass dome', Lara inputted the two handles she had already collected into their appropriate slots, waiting for something to happen. However, nothing happened. 'Blast, I still have to find the red handle... of course the final passageway', Lara rushed to the final passageway hoping to find the red handle with ease.
The fourth and final passageway leads Lara into what seemed like a hall, but not just any old hall. The floor was already booby trapped with spikes, but these weren't any old spikes that she had faced before. These particular ones were hidden underground and after a few seconds they shoot up above the ground, and then retract back down, only to repeat the process again. Lara hadn't seen anything like this before. The mechanics of this were incredible and amazing.
On the other side of the spikes, there was a doorway and upon the wall of the hall were different landings. There was no doubt that each one of these landings would inevitably lead to another opening above in the hall. Lara was intrigued to see what findings she would see up above in the hall, so while the spikes were stationary underground, she jumped onto the first landing and observed around. The next few landings weren't too far off Lara's jumping range, so she pounced upon each one until she reached to the last one.
Right in front of her was a ledge and a switch, without a doubt for the doorway on the ground floor. She hopped over and pressed the switch. She heard the doorway moving upwards and then silence. Quickly Lara returned to the ground floor, being careful not to drop upon the spikes below. She had made it, and there was the red handle pass through the doorway. Lara grabbed the red handle and made her way back to the dome room.
There she inputted the final red handle into its associated slot and had initially expected the dome to have been lifted or something. But this wasn't the case. Suddenly dangling boulders from the ceiling started to fall! Lara rolled out of the way and the boulders fell onto the dome, first cracking and then breaking the glass all around it. 'Well that's one way of bringing down the dome'.
Lara step forward onto the stairs, and began to walk upwards to observe her new discovery. The golden bar wasn't a gold bar at all. What it seemed to be is a panel piece of some sort, she picked it up, slowly inspecting the material. It wasn't heavy at all and it was a dark yellowish colour. All of a sudden, the ground started to shake violently, and Lara began to fall downwards 'A Trap Door!'