CHAPTER 2: CROFT MANOR TASKS

Miss Croft hopped on her motorcycle and took a long drive back to Croft Manor.

Okay, maybe she didn't drive clear from Calcutta, India to Croft Manor, England, but she drove clear from the airport to her home. Her hair flew in the wind as she drove, and you could almost say that everybody that was driving on the road waved at her. Lara was pretty famous, of course, which gave her some attention on the road.

After several winding roads and hedges, Lara pulled up at the front gate of Croft Manor. She hopped off of her bike and walked up to the keypad on the right side of the large, wrought iron gates. She pressed a button on the keypad and then said the words: "Lord Richard Croft." The gates swung open. The password for the keypad was the name of Lara's father, who had died in a dig in Cambodia long time ago. Lara had been sent to live with her evil aunt, and recently inherited the Croft Manor estate. She walked down a long terrace, through a hallway, and past a brown door. She traveled through the corridor, up the stairs, and opened the door leading into the large foyer of Croft Manor. It was 2:45 in the morning, but Lara didn't pay any attention.

A blazing fireplace sat along one wall, and in the center of the grand foyer was lots of furniture. At the far end was a stack of large, wooden crates. Lara had been unpacking when she moved into Croft Manor, but there were still some boxes that were left to unpack. She went over to a table in the center, where a note had been left. Lara read it:

"Miss Croft. Pardon the mess in the foyer, but a new shipment of antiquities has arrived. We'll plan on unpacking them as soon as possible. Zip should be able to help us. However, this isn't the only thing that's gone wrong. The lock to the trophy room has gone shut, and cannot be opened from the outside. You'll need to find the secret way in to unlock it. I have also placed your journal to your appointed hiding place in your room. Also, the music box that unlocks the music room is in the garden, and the only way to reach it is via a mechanism to operate. As if that weren't enough, the plumbers have been working on the poolhouse and have had to shut off the water supply. Unfortunately, the wrench that operates the water is missing… we'll have to find that as well. I'm sorry about all of these problems, but I promise that everything will be well when these tasks are taken care of. Faithfully in your service, Winston.

Lara raised her head and sniffed. Winston was the greatest butler in the world and Lara had no reason to punish him. He was just doing his job. Lara smiled and realized that she had some work to do before she would be able to go to Peru. Oh well. Turning around, she looked at the blazing fire.

"Well, I'll first need to get my journal. I will need it to find out how to reach that music box, as well as to turn on the water."

Lara rushed up the stairs, up onto the left balcony, and ran to the furthest door. She opened the door up and rushed to the opposite end of the hallway, past streams of moonlight that were coming through the windows. She opened the door at the far end and stepped inside of her bedroom.

Miss Croft's bedroom wasn't like many peoples. First of all, a pair of pistols sat on the tabletop. "Ah, I might need those," Lara said. Then she turned to her right and saw her outfit closet. "And some better clothes to wear in my house." Lara's tomb raiding outfit wasn't what she normally wore in Croft Manor. She took a peek inside of her closet and looked at the selection of outfits;

"Camouflage? No. Catsuit? I'm not in the cities. Wetsuit? Not until I find the location of the sunken Maria Doria." Then she spied the one that she was looking for. "Ah, yes! Sport! That will be very comfortable." Lara changed from her tomb-raiding outfit into the sport clothing. She then walked away from her closet, and when she stepped outside, Winston was standing on the right, looking rather guilty and upset. Lara tried to calm him down:

"Oh Winston. It won't take me but half an hour to fix up the manor."

"I know, Lara…" Winston looked at her in the eyes. "But I just received a call that you need to be off to Peru as soon as possible. The woman said that you were off on a mission to find the Scion of…Qualopec." His face dropped. "Don't harm yourself, Lara."

"I won't, Winston, I promise." But Winston wasn't satisfied.

"No…I don't want what happened to your father…and mother…to happen to you. I just can't let it happen."

"But Winston, you've seen me. You know that I have what it takes-"

"That's not the point. It's something worse. Yes, I am aware that you're perfectly capable of raiding tombs and dodging deadly traps and enemies. But…do you remember what happened to Amelia when she pulled the sword from the socket in Nepal?"

Lara thought back to that tragic moment from her childhood. After having a plane crash in the Himalayas when she was young, her and her mother had reached a Nepalese monastery…and sitting in a socket inside of the monastery was a sword. Her mother, Amelia, had pulled it, and had vanished in seconds. Lara knew what Winston was trying to get at.

"But you must understand…Winston…I won't let it happen to me. I promise."

Winston shook his head and said: "All right. I believe in you." He smiled again.

Lara smiled, too. Winston had always been nice to her, and he always would be. She headed off for the wall of her bedroom where a locked opening in the wall sat. A dagger was on both sides of the lock, and Lara pulled each of them. The circular doors opened up and inside was Lara's journal. She packed it into her backpack- she'd need in throughout her journey. And off she went, back to the foyer. Once there, she made a voyage for the library, which was down another hall on the same balcony as the bedroom hall.

Opening the door, she arrived in another moonlit room. Books were spread everywhere, and a table sat at the far end. On here were various books Lara had been reading, and one of them was The Tomb Raider Times. Like the one that Larson had thrown to her in Calcutta, there was an article on the front, and this one read: LARA CROFT BATTLES THE FEARSOME YETI OF TIBET! Lara smiled at this one and walked up the library stairs. At the top was a balcony. There was an empty trophy case here. Taking a pistol, she fired it at the case and it shattered. Inside was a camouflaged lock on the wall, so she opened the lock and slid back the hidden door. On the other side was another wall, this one with a button on it. She pressed against the button with her hand, and at the floor level of the library opened a tall door. Lara smiled and walked back downstairs, inside of it.

The corridor beyond the opening was dark, but thanks to Lara's flashlight, the place was well illuminated. Along the floor on the way was a scurrying rat. As you know, Lara shoots at any live animal, so within a second, the rat had a bullet pumped inside of him and Lara was even more satisfied. It wasn't too often that she got to attack animals in her own home. :)

The door at the other end of the corridor had a button beside it. Lara pushed it and through the open door she went. Inside was the Croft Manor trophy room. This room was about the same size as the library, with open trophy cases on pedestals throughout the floor. A stairway & balcony was also in here, which led up to another room with trophy cases. Inside of a trophy case up here was the newest of Lara's artifacts: the Eye of Horus, an artifact that she had recovered last week from a tomb in Egypt. Horus' tomb, as you might guess. Lara may have had to break apart the mummified body of Horus, but she finally found the artifact in the center of his heart. I mean, you know Lara would do anything for an artifact, right:)

Lara ran upstairs to the trophy cases. "Hmmm… what's that inside of the case?" An object was gleaming inside of the one at the far right corner. She took her pistol and blasted a bullet at the case. The glass shattered, and behind it was an arrow-shaped object. Lara picked it up. "This belongs in the garden!" She pocketed it, but then walked over to the pedestal in the room. The small piece of paper inside of it read: "11, 2, 7." Lara thought that this was odd, but took note of the numbers and headed back downstairs. She unlocked the door that would normally be the entrance to the room and rushed back to the Croft Manor foyer, and then out the door she went, back to the hedges.

The arrow-shaped object that Lara picked up was supposed to be used in the large sundial on the courtyard in front of the hedge maze. Lara placed the object at the end of the sundial arrow, and then looked on the floor. There were Roman numerals carved into the stone, from I to XII. Lara knew that this sundial must be a puzzle.

"But how is the puzzle solved…"

Lara then remembered the numbers that she had picked up in the trophy room: "11, 2, and 7," she repeated to herself. She then realized that she needed to point the sundial at these numbers in order to solve the puzzle, and she had to do them in order. Within 20 seconds, the gates to the hedge maze rumbled open, and the puzzle was solved.

"This just proves that time never stops." And Lara looked at her watch. "OMG!!!!! It's 3:00 in the morning! Natla wants me in Peru by 1:00 in the afternoon!!!!" And then she added: "And I have to get the water supply going or else Winston and Zip won't have any water to use! And we all know that they won't find the wrench!" And with that, she rushed into the hedge maze to the first detour. Beyond the gate was the center of the hedge maze. Lara then thought: "Ah, I can easily climb this. No need to make my way through that dumb maze." She ascended up the wrought iron fences, and within 10 seconds, Lara dropped off of the top, onto the other side.

"Jeez!!!" Lara rubbed her ankle that she had hurt when she fell from the top of the fence. "My ankle has never been this bruised since those lions attacked me in India and tore it open!" But Lara didn't take time to use a health pack (and speaking of health packs, how does she manage to use one of those so quickly in the video game? It takes about only a second!). Instead, she rushed over to the edge of the stone fountain and grasped the metallic grapple that was sitting there.

"Now why is this here…"

She then looked up at the statues in the courtyard. There was one in the center of the fountain (and remember, there was currently no water flowing through the fountain), which was missing some parts to it. And the statue on the right side of the fountain was holding something in its hand high above…the music box cylinder. But she didn't waste any time staring at it. She instead grappled open the gates to the courtyard and rushed clear back to the Croft Manor foyer. She rushed instantly to Winston, who was sitting in a couch nearby the fireplace.

"Winston!!!"

"Yes, Lara?"

"Have you seen the gear that you removed from the water fountain?"

"No…why?"

"I need it! And I need a bow and arrow, too! And quickly, so I can get the water flowing and then I can move to Peru quickly!"

"Oh… the bow is on the statue in the poolhouse, and the arrow is just behind the fireplace, in the secret safe. And your gear should be in the trophy room…"

"Argghhhh! I was just in the trophy room!" Lara dashed off to it, breaking a couple lamps along the way as she dashed down the halls, also shattering a display case in the trophy room. "I'll clean it up later…" Lara mumbled under her breath. And when she got the gear from the upper trophy room, she accidentally knocked the computer onto the floor. It crackled and ran out of juice. Lara cursed a bit and then ran back downstairs, gear in hand, and clear back to the foyer.

"Now I have to buy a new display case, new statues, a new computer…" Lara mumbled under her breath as she headed back for the fireplace. Above the fireplace was a small button, which was camouflaged. Lara pressed it to open the safe up behind the fireplace, and without asking Winston to douse the flames; she reached through the flames and pulled out the arrow as fast as she possibly could.

"Lara! You'll burn yourself!!!!" Winston cried in dismay.

"Oh, don't worry." Lara acted as though the burning hadn't stung a bit. "You haven't explored the chambers of Horus in Egypt, yet. Why, I thought those flames were going to turn me to ashes…" she ran over to the door leading to the Croft Manor gymnasium, opened it, and slammed the door behind her when she entered.

Since you probably don't know much about Lara's gymnasium, I'll give a quick rundown. The gym was full of ledges, pillars, rock climbing walls, poles, rings, slopes, posts, bars, pulleys, platforms… the list could go on. And straight above her as she entered was a gray platform. Lara then remembered that she had left the wrench up there when installing the platforms in the room.

Well, I won't tell you everything she said when she was going up to reach the wrench, but let's just say that not everything she said was appropriate for a T-rated story. Anyway, her ascent up the gym was a wild one, as she jumped from ledge to ledge, bar to bar, and pole to pole in order to reach that upper platform. She even grappled across rings, swung along poles, and climbed along vertical bars at the ceiling of the room. As she climbed across these bars, she nearly lost her grip at one point and almost fell… clear down below. This had actually happened before, but thankfully, Zip and Lara had been installing a new trampoline for the gym, and it happened that the trampoline was directly below Lara when she fell. Zip about had a heartattack, but Lara acted as though nothing had happened.

Finally, Lara reached the platform with the wrench.

"It sure is a good thing that I installed that trampoline…" Lara peered down at it far below, grabbed the wrench, and then hurled herself off the edge of the platform. She flew through the gym, and then landed foot-first on the trampoline. She bounced into the air, and then landed nearby the exit doorway, where Zip was just coming in.

"Careful, girl! You're gonna hurt yourself!" Zip exclaimed.

Lara didn't pay attention to his remark. "Why are you in the gym?" she asked. "You're the computer technician."

"I have to work out, too." Zip walked over to the weights at the edge of the room. Lara had recently hired zip as her computer technician- a.k.a., the man who operated the computers of Croft Manor and tracked down important things when Lara was on her missions. Lara and Zip had met in college, and had been friends ever since.

"OK, see yah…" and Lara headed back to the foyer. She bypassed Winston, who had a tray with food on it.

"Will you need something to snack on, Lara?"

"Not at the moment, Winston," and Lara rushed off for the manor courtyard. She went clear down the terrace to the opposite end, and to a gated section. She ran through the opening at the left side, to a large machine with pipes. She ran over to the knob on one of the pipes, and attached her wrench to it. Giving a large tug, Lara operated the water mechanism, and water begun to flow- in every fountain, terrace, and sink.

"Woo-hoo!!!" Lara cried. "Now I can finally get to the bow!!!!"

Lara ran clear back to the foyer, nearly knocking Winston to the ground, and rushed to the poolhouse. The poolhouse was currently under construction, which explained why the water had been turned off. Scaffolding was everywhere in the poolhouse, and boards covered up the (filled) pool. But hanging above the boarded pool was Lara's objective: a statue that she had recently bought, and planned on installing in the poolhouse, was hanging above. It held a bow in its hands, the same one that Lara was after.

"Let's see how my targeting practice has been going." Lara drew one of her pistols and aimed it at the first rope supporting the statue. She fired it and the bullet impacted the rope, but didn't quite split it. "Shoot!" Lara exclaimed. She aimed again, but this time she didn't even hit it. Instead, she hit one of the glass panels on the ceiling, shattering it to bits so it fell to the boards of the poolhouse. The third time wasn't a charm, either. Lara hit the rope again, but it didn't come loose or anything.

"If fourth time isn't a charm, I'll wring the person's neck that's closest to me…"

Zip walked in the room just as Lara fired another bullet at the rope. It hit the rope again… but it was just dangling by a thin strand. Lara turned around and lunged for Zip, just as the rope split and the statue came loose. Zip had so happened to standing right beneath the statue, and as Lara tackled him, Zip spotted the statue above instantly rolled away. Lara rolled in the same direction as him, and the statue plummeted through the floorboards beside them. Lara stood up and stared into the hole.

"Sorry about that, Zip… want to go swimming?"

Zip had an angry look in his eyes, and then responded: "Don't you have a bow to get?" Lara smiled and then jumped into the water. She swam down to the broken bits of the statue. She grasped the bow that the statue had been holding, and then swum out. She climbed up, sopping wet.

"Looks as though you'll be needing a change of clothes before you go," Zip commented.

"Did you really think that I would be going to Peru with this on?" Lara responded. Zip smiled and walked away from the poolhouse.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find out more about the Scion of Qualopec."

"All right… suit yourself." Lara walked off behind him, back to the foyer, and then back outside, clear to the sundial, and then into the hedge maze fountain. She walked up to the statue in the center of the fountain. She placed the bow in one of his arms, the arrow in the other. She then walked down to the front of the fountain, opened a panel on the side, and inserted a missing gear. She then closed the door, walked over to the large lever, and gave it a tug. The next thing she knew, the statue of Gilead drew back its bow and aimed it at the statue with the music box in its hand. The arrow flung towards the statue's chest, spearing it. The statue's arm dropped down, releasing the cylinder. Lara ran over to it and picked it up.

"What a gruesome display, yet so satisfying." And with that, Lara ran out of the hedge maze, back to the terrace. She sprinted along it, and ran clear back to the foyer, where Winston was talking with Zip, in a mumbling conversation:

"Is she crazy?" Zip said. "I've heard that that Natla woman is a tough piece of candy. I once worked for her at Natla Technologies. I filed one wrong paper and she got extremely upset. I even saw a red glow in her eyes."

"I know, I was about to tell her that, too, but she didn't want to talk much." Winston shook his head in dismay. "And I've heard that she betrays everyone who finds riches for her. Take Alex West, for example. He retrieved the Amulet of King Tut for her, and as he was headed back to her, Natla sent a mercenary to get the amulet and then kill him. And he did die."

"But nobody proved it," Zip said.

"I believe that it's true, though." Winston then saw Lara walking towards them and calmly signaled to Zip to stop talking.

"Hello, gentlemen. Something interesting that you were talking about?" Lara questioned.

"Uh…no Miss Croft." Lara eyed Winston suspiciously, and then he backed up his comment: "We were just discussing that we were going to… um… unload all of your antiquities while you were away to Peru."

"Very well, then." Lara could tell, though, that the two weren't talking just about the antiquities. But she didn't take it to her head. She walked upstairs, up to the right-hand balcony, and opened the door furthest along it. Following the moonlit hallway, she inserted the music box cylinder in the socket, which unlocked the door to the music room. Stepping inside, she looked around, and then returned to her bedroom. It was time to head for Peru.

"And I won't be wearing these clothes…" Lara went for her closet to change back into her regular raiding outfit.

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Phew! What a long chapter! Well, I hope to start on the Mountain Caves soon enough. Thanks for reading and keep tuned in! And I would really like it if you reviewed this story and gave me some suggestions. I've tried to be humorous in this chapter, but it doesn't seem to work the way I want it too…

Anyway, look forward to chapter 3!