Bryce stared blankly at the screen before him. Yes, he had heard Ilse before- it was a biblical name meaning God's word. The confused tech scratched his head, hoping that some answers would pop out of the newly itched areas. Bryce felt defeated, but he searched for the Amulet one more time.

Slowly, he typed in 'Amulet of God's Word'. Hundreds of search options appeared before him, things such as: Biblical psalms, advertisements for church sermons: "Let God save your soul every Sunday and Wednesday night!", and some scattered nonsense about plastic amulets for children.

Bryce sighed dejectedly. "There's got to be something." Nonchalantly, he scrolled down the page looking at the highlighted words that the search engine thought would be useful- none of them were. Until...

Wait, Bryce heard inside of him; he stopped sharply. He had found something.

Alex woke up to a harsh burning sensation all over his body. He stirred abruptly and settled as he realized where he was- he had fallen asleep in the shower. How long had he been there? looking down at his bare feet, he saw that they had been 'pruning' for some time now. West hoisted himself up and turned the clear knob until the shower ceased to flow. Sliding the door away from him, he immediately was embraced with cold air.

His naked skin prickled, hoping to preserve heat as Alex walked out of the bathroom and towards his bed. Not bothering with clothes, West plopped down on the silken sheets and fell right to sleep.

The worried butler held Lara gently as he carried her to the med room. Carefully, he placed her down on a high table and lifted her blood soaked shirt just enough to expose the worst of the damage. His eyes filled with sadness as he looked over his employer. Lara and him had become very good friends, and he couldn't bear to see her like this. In fact, he had never seen her like this! No one had ever wanted to kill her as badly as the recent intruders did. Something was definitely coming; Hillary could sense it, but he didn't like it.

Gingerly, he ran his hand over her wounds with some antiseptic and washed away the cache of dust and blood from her limp body. Now he studied her face. She had a few short scratches on her chin and cheeks, but some long ones dared to try and fault her complexion. Although bruised and sufficiently battered, Hillary admired Lara for her determination. She was the bravest person he knew, and still the most beautiful. No one could take anything away from Lara; she held everything too close.

No matter how many lashings she was to receive, Lara would still retain her beauty. No matter how many people she had to kill, her heart would remain as it had always been- warm and carefree. Yes, Lara was a piece of work.

Quietly, Hillary continued mending her wounds when he stopped suddenly. A small black mark on Lara's hand had caught his eye. This was an unfamiliar tattoo to the butler, so he turned her hand to examine it.

No, this wasn't a tattoo; it was a brand mark.

The disheveled tech hastily clicked on the link that he had found and waited until the page completely loaded. Scanning over the title quickly, Bryce knew that he had found what he was looking for. Excitedly, he sat up closer to the screen and trailed his eyes over the text before him.

'The Amulet of Ilse is a Biblical object with unusual powers. In Hebrew, Ilse means: God's Word. This Amulet has been rumored to contain God, himself, and his will to create or destroy. Although, this information is only in theory, and the Amulet itself has never been found. In legend, the misuse of Ilse's power would lead to the total devastation of the world. What really does the damage however, is the Tables...'

Bryce kept reading and could not believe what he had found. Did Lara know what this Amulet did? He wasn't sure if she knew either. But now, he knew about it, and he would be the one to receive the credit of telling everyone else. It took about another ten minutes to read the information on the page, but Bryce quickly finished and wrote everything down. Tomorrow, he would tell everyone about his great discovery!

Lara stirred and groggily opened her eyes. She had a splitting headache and felt very weak. She could remember the fight and she knew that she had lost a decent amount of blood, but she didn't remember ever coming into this room. Lara looked around and was relieved as she saw Hillary in the corner. Somehow, she only came into this room unconscious. Never did she ever walk in here on her own free will. She watched as Hillary stirred in the corner and look at her with glee in his eyes.

"Lara! Good morning! We were quite worried about you." Lara smiled at him and took his outstretched hand.

"Thank you, Hillary," she said, clumsily lifting herself off of the table.

Lara had to balance herself for a minute before she could walk, but she managed. She put a ghostly hand to her temple, as her headache was a trifle more than intolerable. Hillary glided over to her and offered her his arm. She smiled warmly at him and graciously accepted. Together, they made their way into the main room where the bodies still lied in the most awkward and frightening positions. Lara's cast-iron stomach had to kick in as she walked towards the stairs.

Suddenly, she felt a soft grip on her hand and she turned around. She furrowed her eyebrows at Hillary in question as she watched him lift up her own hand; she looked at it in disbelief.

"Hillary," Lara managed to get out over her rising level of astonishment, "how did this happen?"

Hillary looked her dead in the eyes and shrugged his shoulders. "I found it while I was cleaning you up. I do not know how it got there."

Lara inspected the brand-mark and her eyes widened as she realized what it was. Carefully, she reached inside of her pocket and grabbed the chain that she had put in there the afternoon of the invasion. Pulling it out, she let it dangle at her eye level as she saw what had given her the awful black mark upon her hand.

"It was this," she whispered, "this symbol engraved itself into my skin." Lara thought for a moment then walked over to one of the corpses that littered her floor. She took a lifeless hand and held it close to the chain. A mark was on him as well. The tomb raider looked around and noticed.

"They all have them."

Bryce awoke in his trailer and yawned. Scratching his head, he yawned some more. In fact, he was still quite tired from the long day of blood, gore, and research that he had witnessed and done the day before. What was that annoying sound? Bryce looked around and found an alarm clock. He threw a wrench at it and it stopped; well, really, it broke, but he didn't mind. Why had he set his alarm?

"Oh yeah!" Bryce remembered and hastily pulled on a pair of jeans from the floor. He quickly ran out of his trailer and up to the manor where he assumed everyone was awake. He was going to be the bearer of good news! Well, it was news anyway...

Lara's head shot up as she watched her tech run wildly into the room from the front door.

"Lara! Lara!" She heard him yell as he ran up to her, almost out of breath.

"Bryce, what is it?" She thought there might be something wrong with him, but he smiled goofily at her and she calmed her nerves.

"Lara, I know exactly what the Amulet does. I found the information on it last night." Lara smiled at Bryce and let him have his fun. No reason in telling him that she knew most about the Amulet anyway. The only thing she really didn't know is that other people knew about it. That's why she wasn't expecting an attack.

She followed Bryce as he plopped himself on a step and began avidly explaining what he had learned.

Bryce cleared his throat before he began to speak. He watched gleefully as he acquired Lara and Hillary's full attentions.

"Alright, Ilse means 'God's Word'." He paused for a moment and was about to continue until Hillary interrupted him:

"Is that all you've found?" Bryce glared at the condescending butler.

"If you would listen, you bloody prat, you'd find that I've researched quite a lot, thank you." He watched as Hillary shut his mouth and found a seat next to Lara on the steps.

"Anywho, the Amulet is said to contain the actual spirit of God, even though that is just a theory. But, it just might contain God's will. That means that if this Amulet was to fall into the wrong hands..." He shrugged his shoulders.

"World domination," Lara supplied shortly.

"Exactly."

Bryce began his explanation again:

"It is said that to activate the Amulet, you would have to put it on." Bryce hoisted himself from the stairs and began to pace in front of them. "Naturally, when you do so, God's Word would be your own, making you "God" or at least the one that makes the final decisions. In a way, you'd be controlling him- the whole world. If God made the world, you would be able to undo it. It would be simple." Bryce smiled, as he still retained the attention of Lara and Hillary.

"But there's more complications. See, the fool who tries to use this bloody amulet starts the turning of four wheels. Each wheel is assigned to a special "trait"- you could call it- of God. The first wheel begins to spin on the first hour, when the fourth hour comes, the second spins, and then so on and so forth. The wheels turn for a total of forty- eight hours. The first spins for all of that time, the second a little less, etcetera. But then after each table has begun to turn, each one starts to move backwards simultaneously. Now, the last table is the only one that does follow the others. This table is the one that would cease everything if it were turned backwards. Sure, it makes its way to copy the others, but not as fast. The tables only need to move a minute way past where they had been set, and total chaos would break free."

Bryce stopped for a moment as he watched Lara take in a breath as well as what he had said. "See, it takes half the time for the tables to turn backwards as it does forward. So, twenty-four hours is all the time it would take for the world to be completely destroyed."

Lara nodded her head, she had heard most of this before, but she didn't know how Bryce had acquired the knowledge. So, the stunned look on her face as she listened to her tech's speech wasn't completely false. She shook her head and looked down at her feet. This was not going to be a pleasant event. She had yet to find out who wanted the Amulet and why. She also didn't know how to destroy the Biblical artifact properly.

There was always some tricky way to do things. The Triangle of Light was easy enough to dispense of; getting it was the problem. All Lara had to do for the Amulet, was find a hidden tomb, avoid some spitting arrows, more booby traps, grab the amulet, and outrun a boulder on the way out. Quite simple for something which held so much power.

Lara looked up at Bryce again for he started to talk once more. "I don't know what the Tables are named, however. I was lucky to find the information that I found. But there was another thing... something about a brother Amulet..."

Lara's eyes grew as this newfound information flowed into her ears. There was another Amulet. That was the last piece of the puzzle. She didn't own the other, but she had a good idea that whomever tried to kill her was the other possessor.

"Lara?" Lara heard her name being said and she looked at Bryce.

"The tables stand for: Innocence, Life, Salvation, and Energy."