Day 27. Go With The Flow
Stone faces in pillars follow with their sight every step of hers. She's near a turbulent gorge, where a greenish species of bipedal lizards with spikes in their back flourish. "By now I have become a better cryptozoologist than an archaeologist," she mocks herself. Lara is dodging not only their frontal attacks but their spit. Their saliva looks dubious. Such a species might better be extinct.
A temple has been crafted into the gorge, so to get in Lara will have to navigate it. "Rafting it is," Lara thinks. "But where do these people store boats?" Beyond, a cave with carved stone faces points Lara the way. A treacherous path indeed, as fire and poison traps are set to prevent her from advancing. "These never get old, don't they?" Lara thinks.
The cave clears into a waterfall that feeds the gorge. At a running jump's length is the opening to yet another cave. Lara tries it, and bingo! Training's yielding good results. She grabs without the aid of an axe. A dock is built into the cave, but the gate's closed. Some more mutant lizards guard the underwater lever. Lara attacks them, and opens the gate.
"And now, it's rafting time!" Lara thinks, while she pads the canoe in the dock. The gorge runs at great speed. Lara can only attempt to slow down while dodging rocks and other dangerous elements. The current finally leads Lara into a cave with a gigantic stone cork covering an underwater passage. The existence of a chain connected to the cork gives Lara hopes that she can activate some mechanism into the passage.
Lara climbs the chain to the roof of the cavern, but from there she can't access wherever the mechanism is. She simply starts climbing overhang, as there are some salient rocks she can hold to. She follows the paths of the faces on the cave roof, which exhale toxic fumes. "Wherever these nice faces take me, I shall go!" Lara thinks.
And so, Lara arrives at a dark hall, full of pillars with carved faces. She hears those steps. They cannot be confused. "Some mutant lizards again…" Lara thinks. This time, they are a tad harder to spot. As they spit acid and hide. She throws flares into the dark, and starts hunting them. One by one, they fall by her hand and then…
The passage is now open, so she boldly steps into a big underground temple, where manyfold traps await her. First, a room with a big rod with rotating blades that is propelled by the convex shape of the hall, which alternates between red and black floor tiles. Second, a slowly descending spike roof. Third, a succession of boulder traps. "Big balls!" Lara shouts while running away. Fourth, the temple guardians, shooting poisonous darts. "How are they still alive?" Lara asks herself. And in the end, the God of the Islands, Puna, who wields the Ora Dagger, the fourth and final meteorite rock.
Puna sits on his throne, facing Lara backwards. He shall not reveal himself to her - the intruder wielding the three other stones. "Why do you reject their power?" Puna asks. Lara shoots at him, but bullets are deflected by a force field. "I certainly don't want to end up locked down six feet underground, and faceless," Lara jokes. But that just infuriates Puna, who attacks Lara with lighting strikes and energy blasts. All these lousy - yet deadly - aiming is dodged with lateral flip jumps.
Puna, aware of Lara's survival, rotates his throne to look Lara in the face. He raises an army of lizards that surround Lara, but she's quick to shoot Puna in the head. This creates a lightning blast that Lara dodges by going commando crawl, while all lizards are killed by the overload of the Ora Dagger. Puna and his throne vanish into thin air, and only the Ora Dagger is left behind. "Time to grab my cold gear," Lara says to herself.