CHAPTER 3: THE MOUNTAIN CAVES
"Vilcabamba continues to elude us. I have researched time after time and still can find no new evidence that the city can be found. Jenkins simply refuses to accept the possibility that Atlantis is the foundation of all known civilizations. I would be an honor to discover the lost city. Additionally, I find that it is Lara alone that has faith in me… Amelia would be so proud if she learned how hard Lara was working. If Lara should find this journal someday, I hope it inspires her to go off and search for Vilcabamba again…"
Lara closed her journal after reading her father's entry from long ago. Lara gazed off away from the Peruvian mountain, where she stood. It was 2:00 in the afternoon, and Lara had just recently gotten a plane ride to the mountains, along with her Spanish guide. Lara could speak a bit of Spanish, but she found that the guide seemed to have no clue what to do most of the time, and nearly fell off of a bridge when crossing over a chasm.
She then turned around and spied the guide clambering up a wooden ladder. Lara could tell that it was unstable, but the guide hadn't taken the clue of it. He climbed clear to the top, and just as he was clambering up, the ladder collapsed. Fortunately, the guide managed to get up onto the mountain platform. He then said in Spanish:
"I'm sorry; I didn't bring any more rope."
Lara responded, in English: "Not to worry. I'll find another way up."
As you already know, Lara is very acrobatic, so finding a way up wasn't very difficult. Here's how she got up: she threw her grapple at the stone edge of the platform where the guide was standing, and then rappelled up the wall, onto the platform- easy enough. From there, Lara walked forth to her guide, who was standing next to the large doors leading into the caves.
Lara said: "Have you any idea how to open these doors?"
The guide shook his head in confusion.
"Oh, sorry." She forgot that the guide only spoke Spanish.
"Have you any idea how to open these doors?" she said, in Spanish.
The guide shook his head and responded, once again in Spanish: "I'm only the guide."
"You're more than a guide," Lara responded.
"Hey, I'm just doing this because Natla said that you'd need help." The guide turned away from Lara.
"Figures…" she said, in English. The guide turned around and watched Lara. "I can't believe that she sends me a guide who knows absolutely nothing about where he is, what we're doing, or where we're going. For all I care, I can throw him off the mountain. He'll only cause trouble…" Lara climbed up onto a rock ledge, and then jump to an upper one. Still mumbling, she leapt from the side of the rock platform towards the doors, and on the underside of the platform above the doors was a ring. She instantly threw her grapple at it, and went swinging through the air, towards the other end. The guide, unfortunately, was standing right in Lara's way when she went swinging through the air, so Lara kicked him in the face as she went flying across.
The guide shouted a couple of curses as he fell to the ground, but Lara merrily responded: "Oops!"
The rest of the ascent was simply easy. Up some ledges she went to the platform atop the doors. Walking over to the wall, she spotted a button on one of the symbolic carvings above the platform. "Hmmm… what could this do?" Lara gave the button a press, and the doors below her slowly creaked open, revealing a darkened hallway beyond. Lara didn't jump from the platform but instead peered down below, to where her guide stood, staring into the pitch-black darkness.
Suddenly, the in the darkened cave, 4 sets of eyes appeared.
The guide looked harder, but it was too late: the four sets of eyes were actually four wolves, and each one came charging from the tunnel, towards the Spanish guide.
"Ahhhhhh!!!!" yelled the guide.
Lara, who was always ready for something to shoot, leapt from the platform to the ground below, pistols drawn. Within a second she had downed one wolf with a quick flurry of bullets. The second wolf came up at her from behind, but it didn't take long for him to get eliminated, either, because Lara did a flip in the air and came behind with guns blazing. The third wolf was a bit trickier, as it jumped on Lara and knocked her to the ground. Lara quickly shot a bullet at its face before it gnawed on her. The final wolf attacked the guide just as Lara was getting up from her knockdown. The guide had already had some serious wounds, but the last wolf ultimately dispersed the guide. Lara managed to shoot at it quickly, though, before it could come after her, too.
Lara kneeled down beside the fallen guide, and gave a short sigh. Alas, Lara wouldn't have a guide in the mountain caves, but that only made her tomb raiding easier. She stepped into the darkness beyond the open doors, and just as she was taking off her glasses, the doors behind her closes. Lara's eyebrow raised and she turned on her flashlight.
"Any more puppies ready to fight?" she said with a smirk.
At that very moment, a dart came down the tunnel, going straight for Lara. Before the dart could even hit Lara, she dived off to the side and drew a pistol. Soon, another dart came flying by, and then 2 more, and then a bunch more.
"It's funny that there are flying darts in some abandoned caves." Lara stepped forward, passing by the darts as carefully as she could, and she followed the tunnel until it opened up into a larger, snowier cave. Lara drew her pistols and advanced forward. The cool air of the tunnel made her cheeks turn red, but this didn't stop her from pressing on. And pretty soon Lara heard some "squeaking" noises behind her. Lara turned her back and aimed her pistols into the darkness. Unfortunately, the bats weren't in front or behind Lara: they were above her, and some of them got into her hair as she cocked her pistols towards the tunnel.
"Ow!" Lara shrieked as the bats mangled her hair. Very quickly, though, Lara shook the bats off and instantly fired some quick rounds at the flapping bats. This quickly eliminated Lara's first enemies in the mountain caves.
"Darned bats."
Lara pressed on through the mountain caves. Let's just say that the mountain caves are very boring, and there are only two other things to talk about: Lara's arrival in the bridge chamber, and Lara's encounter with the bear in the pit.
In the bridge chamber, two bridges spanned the cavern. At the floor level was more snow, and a small den in the side. Out of that den came two, growling wolves, and as any Lara fan knows, Lara enjoys shooting things from her own level, so she hopped into the pit and instantly fired some rounds of bullets. Unfortunately, she missed at nearly every shot, and the wolves came charging.
"Argggghhhh!" Lara yelped.
The two wolves knocked her off of her feet, onto the ground. Before you could say, "ouch," a wolf had come and bitten Lara on the ankle, so hard that blood oozed from the wound. Leaping to her feet, Lara fired some more pistol shots at the wolf that had bitten her. The second wolf came in from behind, knocking her to the ground again, but this time, Lara was ready. She rolled across the ground, firing some rounds of bullets at them as she rolled along the ground. The wolf that had attacked her first fell to the ground, but the second one wasn't down yet. Lara leaped to her feet, fired some more rounds, and then hurled herself at the wolf. Knocking it and her to the ground, Lara cocked a pistol at the wolf's face, and then a loud BOOM initiated.
"Phew," Lara gasped. "That doesn't happen to often.
The other memorable moment of Lara's journey through the caves was the bear pit. When Lara came across this, it looked like nothing but a regular, uninhabited pit, with a rope that so happened to be dangling above it. Lara took a jump to grasp the rope, and carefully swung on it, so she could jump to the other side.
"This is almost to easy," Lara remarked as she was swinging.
That is, until then. A loud SNAP occurred, and before Lara could see what had happened, she had fallen to the bottom of the pit. "Oh well," said Lara, "I'll just climb back out." But then she heard a growl from the tunnel in the wall. A huge, hulking bear came trotting through the tunnel, and was headed straight for Lara. "OMG!!!" Lara shrieked, and she ran away in peril.
The bear came trotting to the bottom of the pit, but Lara had a pretty ingenious plan of escaping. She rolled away from the bear, and hurled herself towards the side of the bear. She nearly knocked the hulking beast to the ground, but she instead leapt up to the back of the bear and braced herself on top of him like he was a horse. She then raised herself up, as there was a platform ledge just above her. The bear growled and nearly knocked her off, but Lara quickly leapt up to grasp the ledge below. Dangling by both feet, the bear looked up at Lara. He growled, and then attempted to bite at Lara's feet. It was actually quite entertaining to Lara, as the bear would jump up every time he attempted to chew on her feet.
"Big animals have small brains," Lara remarked.
Climbing up onto the platform, Lara continued into a huge, massive chamber. There was a puzzle to solve in here, too, but let's just say that this is a bit boring and I don't want to waste your time with it… or mine. Anyway, Lara opened the fabled doors to Vilcabamba by unlocking two stone locks, and then she continued on to the city of Vilcabamba.
Meanwhile, in Natla's office…"Larson!?!?!?" Natla shouted.
Larson Conway, the same man that introduced Lara to Natla, came trotting into Natla's office.
"Yes madam?" he responded.
"You have to go after Croft." Natla's eyes wavered. "I have the feeling that she won't be returning the Scion of Qualopec as fast as I'd like her to."
"I thought that you were assigning me to work with Pierre in finding the Scion of Tihocan."
"Never mind those plans. Just go to Peru and follow Lara's trail. Don't worry; she'll have it all cleared out for you. You just have to steal Qualopec's Scion piece from her, and then, if you'd like, just kill her. I don't care. Just get that piece."
Larson nodded. "Not that I'm complaining boss, but what makes you so sure that she isn't gonna bring it back herself?"
"Lara would never part with the Scion; she's far too obsessed with it. Just like her father." Natla smiled and turned her head from Larson.
"All right, then…" Larson walked away. One thing that you don't really know about Larson is that he had a bit of a crush for Lara Croft, which pretty well determines that he wouldn't be so fond of killing Lara Croft. But after all of the times that he had previously failed Natla in her missions, he couldn't afford to fail this one.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Well…that's chapter 3. This chapter may have been boring, but I trust you, everything gets better once we get into Greece, Egypt, and Atlantis. I promise. Please give me more reviews! Thanks! And stay tuned for chapter #4, where Lara explores Vilcabamba!