Day 10.- The Temple of Mist
An unrelenting fog clouds the sight of Ms. Croft. She has reached the top of the Tower, or at least of that level of the Tower. And top is bottom for Croft, as the Tower she's in is upside-down. She can feel the floor moving strangely around her. But this feeling… it's familiar. There's a dim light warming her feet. The light that brings light to the inverted Tower. She ducks, and touches the floor with her hand. Running water. She grabs a bit and drinks it. Pure, sweet, drinking water. "Abzu," Lara says. "The layer of water that separates this realm with the deepest underworld."
And also, it's the water what causes the mist. "But where do I go next?" she asks herself. She can't see beyond, and if there's any trap whatsoever, she's screwed. The sound of water running quietly is soothing, and the warm heat of the luminous floor, it all makes Lara relax and yawn. She lies a bit on the floor, and only sees the mist above, and then she looks at her side. She can see her arm. That was impossible before. "Could that be the secret?" she asks herself. Is she supposed to totally submit to An?
She commando crawls and tries to aim towards the light. She's squeezing her eyelids hard, even with the sunglasses on. Yet she strives to head towards the blinding light, towards the Torch of An. And she arrives at a shrine where the Torch is guarded by two statues of Lamma. Fog does not accumulate there, so she can see brightly. "The bull of Sumer," Lara says. "Usually confused with a lion, and the Torch of An."
The Torch's flame is stale. As if it were a stone rather than an actual flame. Yet she has never seen such a stone. "It reminds me of the Divine Source," Lara thinks. "But this is something else. An… The Lord of Lords, god of the Heavens. Could this be a meteorite rock? But if so, why is it guarded here?" Indeed, the rock is strange. It does have the form of a flame, and thus is held on a torch. Its colour is a deep blue, with red cracks in it, and it lights the whole shrine.
But when you wander around too much, and over appreciate tombs, you can even lose the race to a turtle. So, Reed, without any caution, picks the Torch of An. He is immediately blinded by it, both in eyes and mind, and the roof gives way to an upper section of the inverted Tower of Babel.
A long scream is followed by a dive. Lara has fallen to a chamber of salt water. It hasn't evaporated in the slightest. The chamber is cylindrical, and shows a statue of a rather pretty woman, who is integrated to the soil in a spiral carved cone, and chained to four ends of the chamber.
Above her, floats Colonel Reed, blinded by the Torch of An, and veiled by a mist of fire. "I have ascended!" he rejoices. "Want to join me?" Lara completely ignores him, as she swims towards the end of one the chains, which is underwater. Reed gets mad at Lara, so he starts throwing fireballs at her. "Fool!" he says. "I'm more powerful than you now. Surrender and submit to me!" Lara dives and pries the end of the chain with the axe, which causes the water level in the chamber to rise.
A bit of the primordial sea touches the tip of Reed's toe, where the flame of An subsides for a while. The woman in the statue looks at Reed and emits a deafening roar. "THIEF!" she says. Reed perceives the animosity of the imprisoned lady, and aims fireballs at her. In response, she deflects with water balls. This makes Lara's task harder, as she now has to dodge shrapnel of God knows what instead of poorly aimed fireballs.
Still, she makes it to the second end of the chain, pries it, and the water level rises yet again.
And the flame of An starts to dwindle as it is put off by the primordial sea. Reed focuses his attention back to Lara, but he forgets he is fighting against the lady in the statue, and she turns off his fire for a while with a water spring. Lara takes profit from the chance, and throws an arrow at Reed, whose body seems to have been strengthened by the Torch of An.
So Lara dives again, and goes for the third chain, while the lady in the statue covers her from incoming Reed attacks. And yet another arrow is shot at Reed, who still is alive. It isn't until the fourth chain is released that the water fills the chamber. The floor is locked, hence, Reed cannot but sink with Lara. However, Lara is kept alive in an air bubble, while Reed is left to drown in the primordial sea. The Torch of An floats to its shrine, and then the floor is flipped with the roof of the other level.
The lady in the statue manages to chain herself again to the chamber, and the water level drops to the level before Lara entered. Reed's corpse floats to Lara's feet. He's blind and dead. Lara closes his eyelids, and then the corpse is vacuumed into the salt, into the body of the lady in the statue. "Time to go home," Lara thinks, as she starts to climb back into the mist filling Tiamat's chamber.