Day 14. Glacial Pathway III
Lara Croft saw the Raven cross the Glacial Pathway into the New World. Kukth, who picked up the land and raised it in Kamchatka, was then creating pods, and from them raised men, men of the Raven living in frozen land. To such inhospitable lands Lara Croft has travelled. Anciently, they were guided by the Spirits - good and bad -, who were drawn away by the light of Christ, or so is the tale narrated by the missionaries.
Now, the huts and igloos have been replaced with trailers and modern houses able to withstand the cold. Among these locals stands an outsider, towering and frightening, due to the blinding luminous aura emanating from him. He and his predecessors had escaped from the darkness in which the Old World, the Christian West, had been suffering after years of unsuccessfully dealing with Gnosticism and Alchemy. It had transmuted into the shadows of Christianity to the point everyone had lost the original God Image.
Bits of that light lie in the pockets of the towering blond man, a priest of German descent, praying in a cold Church in Alaska. He's incredibly sensible to the forces of light and darkness, and thus senses an impure soul enter through the doors of the Temple. It's a woman in an orange thermal jacket and sunglasses. "Take your glasses off child," the German priest says. "I sense evil in you."
Lara Croft takes the sunglasses off. "I don't feel anything strange, Father," she says. Father Heissturm picks the girl's head, to put Lara's head aligned to his height. "Well, you're losing an eye," Father Heissturm says. "I don't understand…" Lara says. Father Heissturm asks Lara to wait for him, as he brings a mirror with which Lara can see herself… "My eye!" She screams. "What's going on?" The eye had gone full red, no Iris, no blood. "I will need to exorcise you," Father Heissturm says.
Lara puts her sunglasses back on. "Whatever you do, don't use those daggers in your pocket," Lara warns. "You will end up killing innocent people. I have been shown that in my search for Kukth." Father Heissturm takes a step back. A bit of hesitation. She's not supposed to know about the Periapt Shards, but someone had shown it to her. "You are under the influence of a bad shaman," he says. "You should not be following after a spirit, but have Christ in your heart." Lara kneels to Father Heissturm. "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned," she says. "But I believe I'm not after a spirit but something akin to your daggers. Something that could be mistaken with a spirit or God."
The exorcism begins. Lara is put into a table, and tied in her extremities, should the devil or the demon manifest itself in Lara. But she is in a higher state of peace in spite of all of the anger she has felt in her life. Globetrotting has given her further insight on the mysteries surrounding this world and has made her humble. With the light of Lara and Father Heissturm the evil spirit is easily contained within a bottle. It longs to escape, so the bottle vibrates.
"Kurtis!" Father Heissturm orders. "Release the girl." A teenager near his adulthood, probably the Father's son, starts untying Lara, and feels a bit aroused by it. Lara feels it in his breath. But more the arousal there's fear. Lara's body is quite different to that of other women. It has matured into untrodden paths, the path of survivors. "What do you do for a living?" Kurtis asks. "I raid tombs, and you?" she replies. "I hunt demons!" Kurtis says. "I will hunt the one Father trapped in the bottle right now."
"Don't get cocky!" Lara says. "That's not an evil spirit - it's a possessed one. Behind it there's a man. Kill him and dwell into darkness at your risk. If you want to be impure, so be it. But you'll lose the ability to hunt demons." The boy shows a disk floating in the air, akin to a shuriken, guided by an orange light. "Kurtis, stop!" Father Heissturm says. "The girl is right. This is no demon, or evil spirit, but one haunted by man. You haven't been trained to face such men. Let the woman take her risks."
The bottle works as a compass guiding Lara into the Alaskan wilderness, where the wolves howl. She enters into their territory in search of a possibly evil shaman. Using the trees as cover, and the bow as a silent hunting tool, she manages to make the wolves back down. Even wolves run away when the presence of a menace is felt. And then, Lara feels him. The shaman is asking her with visions to come before him.
"You must not kill the Raven!" the shaman says. "You will end our life." Lara hands him the bottle. "Release the spirit!" she orders. "Let it rest in peace." A Roman phrase indeed, but easily understood by the shaman. The spirit is so released, and the tension in the air subsides. The shaman attempts to curse Lara, but she shoots him to death. She then lets the eagles do their work. They eat the dead shaman, letting him become one with nature. Lara kicks a tree in frustration. "Not the shaman I'm looking for!"