AN: Hello readers! I return for another installment in TR: G. As always, remember to read and review, and I will do the same to you.

DISCLAIMER: Tomb Raider and its characters belong to Eidos and Crystal Dynamics.

Chapter Six

Ascending

6:23 P.M.

Ethiopian Highlands, Ethiopia

Even though she was an avid climber, Lara had trouble ascending the steep embankments of Mount Zuri. The ground beneath her would slip and slide at each step. Rocks would tumble dangerously close to her, some as large as watermelons. She had many cuts and bruises on her legs and arms, but she kept going, even with an occasional smile on her face at the sheer madness of it all.

Lara stopped on a small space of stable rock to catch her breath. She wiped sweat from her brow, and noticed a buzzing in her ear. She looked upward and saw a helicopter flying towards the mountain top. Lara grimaced; whoever was on that helicopter would not survive. Mount Zuri was a volcano. Clouds of ash swirled around the top of it, blocking the sight of the summit. The ash would get into the helicopter's rotors and clog them. The pilot would not be able to land safely (if he even landed at all) due to the unstable soil. Lara shook her head and continued on.

Every so often, Lara would see signs of vegetation. There were green trees scattered about, clinging to the loose soil. Flowers and grass appeared occasionally. Yet she saw dead trees, some broken and fallen, more often than the healthy varieties. Lara was looking at one of these trees when her feet dropped out. Looking around, she surmised that she had fallen into a small path. It had steep sides and a rather smooth trail. Looking down it, she noticed it continued down around a corner. I wonder where this could be leading, she thought to herself. Walking down it, she noticed the path seemed to rise. Occasionally, she would notice small rocks tumbling down this incline, slowly increasing their speed. Eventually, Lara was met with the end of it.

Where the path ended, a massive gap interrupted. The path had been broken apart, the rest on the side of a mountain some feet away. Lara paused; she would have to find another way. That's when she noticed rocky ledges on the side of the mountain. There were numerous ones, a few inadvertently giving her a path to return to the rest of the road. Lara backed up, then jumped onto a lip.

Like the rest of the mountain, the lip of the cliff side was unstable. As soon as she had grasped it, it gave way. She plummeted several feet, grabbing a second ledge before she fell deeper into the gap. She only had one hand on the ledge, and heaved heavily to put her other hand onto the rest. Getting a footing, she shimmied across this ledge until she came to an unbroken piece of the first lip. Lara launched herself upward, her feet running up the side while she grasped the first lip. Eventually having a good hold, she shimmied towards her right, occasionally dodging small rock falls, until she came to the rest of the road. She leapt upwards, grabbed it, then pulled herself up.

So that's what happened to the helicopter, Lara thought. The sleek black metal of the helicopter was stained with mud and ash, the tail rotor idly spinning. It had landed on a tilt, the skis having twisted and contorted. Flecks of glass were scattered around it, some stained with a shiny red liquid. Lara sighed sadly for the poor souls in the doomed vessel then continued on the road. It no longer had the walls like in the previous path, except at the very end, where the road had broken off. Looking around, she saw the road stopped at another tall, dark mountain wall. In front of it was a dead tree with long, thick branches and trunk. Near this tree was a deep incision in the rock wall, wide enough to fit a large car. Above this was the remains of a thick crank. Lara was in the middle of hypothesizing what this could mean when she felt cold metal against her back.

"Hands up!" a demanding voice ordered. Lara raised her arms.

"Were you from the helicopter?" she asked, her tone sociable.

"Shut up," he said.

"Just trying to make friendly conversation," Lara said. The unseen hostage-taker grabbed her right arm and twisted it painfully behind her back, then forced her towards the helicopter. He threw her against the side, giving Lara the chance to look at the man. He was wearing a cracked helmet with muddy goggles on it, and had a suit covered with mud and blood. He looked very tired.

"Base, this is Chopper Four. Our helicopter is down on the southwest side of the summit," he said into a radio, which also had flecks of mud on it. "I have taken Croft hostage. Please copy, over." There was dead silence.

"I think your radio is broken," she said, her arms still over her head.

"Shut up," the mercenary said again, then continued his transmission. Lara heard a crack from below her. She turned her head and saw large fissures beneath the helicopter that seeped outward towards herself and the mercenary. There were dim red glows coming out from beneath these cracks. Her eyes widened; they were on top of a chamber of magma. She looked back at the man, still trying to call for help, and said, "Listen to me. We're standing on unstable rock. Beneath us is a chamber of magma. This rock is going to give way in a few moments, and we're all going to fall into the chamber."

"What are you babbling about?" he said, looking up from his radio.

"We're going to die if we don't get out of here," Lara said urgently.

"Right, which is why I'm calling for help," the man said, his tone irritated, and talking like he was trying to tell something obvious to a five-year-old.

"No, you don't understand. Unless we get out of here in the next few seconds we're going to--"

The loud sound of cracking interrupted her. Lara and the mercenary looked towards the helicopter and saw a massive crater forming, swallowing it up. Lara broke into a sprint away from the helicopter and towards the tree. She heard the horrifying groan of the helicopter as it fell into the lava pit, followed by the terrifying scream of the mercenary as he followed. Lara jumped and grabbed the thick branch and began spinning on it like a gymnast. On every rotation she would see a blur of dark red and orange as the roots of the tree hovered over the ever-growing pit. Lara jumped and grabbed onto the rocky mountainside and quickly climbed it, feeling this rock was giving way too. She eventually made it to the top and ran away from the side, noticing that with each footfall rocks tumbled behind her. She leapt onto a large bolder and sat atop it, gasping for breath. Behind her was a massive heap of rubble and craters where land had simply fallen into the mountain. Coughing a few times and resting for a few minutes, she climbed off the rock and proceeded onwards towards the summit.

The sun had gone down and the moon had come up. Using faint beams of moonlight, she navigated the treacherous path of the summit. Fog surrounded her every few feet, making her go in circles a few times. Eventually, however, she came to her entrance. In front of her was a massive crater, leading down into the mountain. She had reached the top of Mount Zuri. She smiled in relief, then proceeded to set up climbing gear so that she could descend. While doing this, Lara noticed broken slabs of concrete and brick circled the hole. Pondering this, she strapped on the proper equipment, then began descending into the mouth of the mountain.

Lighting a flare, she noticed how the inside of the crater was oddly formed, in which there was a slanting drop, followed by a sheer fall, then another slanting drop. Beyond there, she could not see. She slowly went down until she felt a violent jerk. She looked up and saw the rope sliding downwards. Within seconds, she heard the quiet chink of metal, which meant that the anchor she had placed had given way. Dropping the flare, she fell downwards onto the first slant. The rock here was slippery and unsound, which gave Lara's grip no purchase. She slid down the incline quickly, her pony tail flying behind her, pebbles hitting her. She fruitlessly grasped for something to save her, but to no avail. She flew off the slope and began falling down the large drop to the second slant. Reaching out, she was able to save herself by grabbing the sheer wall, which proved more stable then the first slope. She held on tightly, catching her breath. I don't think I'll be trusting climbing gear again, she thought to herself. Looking around her, she saw a small ledge she could grab beneath her. She leapt and snatched it, small rocks falling around her, similar to her climbing exploits of earlier. Below her was another ledge, which she proceeded to grab again. This continued for the next few minutes until she was only a foot above the second slope. She leapt from this and slid, her pose similar to a surfer, along the slope, until she came to the final small drop.

She jumped from the final slope into soft ground. It wasn't mud, but it felt cushy, almost like freshly dried wax. Lara looked around her and noticed this ring of ground stood over another large hole. She lightly kicked a stone into the hole, and heard the splash of water. She lit a flare and looked into the hole. Sure enough, she saw her reflection in water. What surprised her, however, was a large, distant shadow that stood in the pool. Lara dove into the cool water and resurfaced to see something surprising.

A large stone tower sat like the rod of a sundial in the water. It had many small turrets and windows, which had large planks and cranks that emitted from them. Lara found this very surprising and curious, and would have entered it, had she found an entrance. Swiveling her head to her right, she found an archway on a ledge of the pool. She climbed out, and noticed the ledge came from a winding staircase that was connected to the layer of ground she had just occupied. Lara sighed. Well, at least my way was more interesting, she thought. Turning back to the archway, she noticed something written in archaic Hebrew:

Take heed, all ye who enter King Solomon's Mines