When writing an Uncharted story, the only appropriate thing to say to writer's block once you've whipped it is "Kitty got wet!"

Also, a disclaimer: I fully intend to keep this story within the "rated T" range, but from here through the end of the story there will be some elements which may be slightly intense/disturbing. I don't think it's too much... not necessarily more than you'd get with the games, but I give you fair warning...


"This is really, reeeeeeally wild, Nate..." Chloe said softly as she panned her light over the formations of lava rock that surrounded them. "I mean- how does this even happen?"

The group of treasure hunters was wading through knee-deep water left behind from the sudden flood they had let through the gates and making their way deeper into the city. Nate hummed in response as he walked. "Well," he began thoughtfully. "When the outside of a lava flow cools really quickly, it can harden and insulate the lava beneath it and allow it to continue flowing. Then the molten lava on the inside empties out of the cooled lava and forms a tube." He looked around at their surroundings and considered the sheer size of the pocket between earth and rock in which they currently found themselves. "They're not normally this big though. There must've been some really colossal forces at work to make this."

"Colossal, as in- an earthquake, tidal wave, and an eruption together?" Cutter volunteered, meeting Nate's eye. "Remember what we were saying back at Xu Fu's barque, mate? I'm thinking this place got swallowed in lava and then deluged with water, and this is what turned up at the end."

Molly snorted, playing her pocket-sized flashlight across a particularly strange outcropping. "And to think this is all supposedly an act of the gods," she mused, her voice trailing off. "Seems a little excessive."

Sully chuckled darkly. "Maybe whatever was in here was just real hard to kill..."

As comments and speculation continued in dampened tones, Chloe clambered out of the deep puddle they were in and slowly turned a circle as she walked, moving her light up and down the walls of the cavern as she did. "Amazing," she breathed. The light traced along bizarre shapes along the ceiling and walls, and she stared at them with fascination.

Then it suddenly fell on the shape of a creature lunging at her from the rock wall.

She screamed and took a quick step back, but immediately tripped and fell. Ripping her gun from its holster as the other four whirled around to help her, Chloe kipped to her feet, holding both her light and her gun trained on the form before her.

In relief, as if frozen in place while emerging from the very face of the volcanic rock, was the shape of a stony face, with one arm reaching out, while the rest of the body remained hidden within the rock. Slight indentations where the eyes would have been stared out with an empty gaze, and a larger indent showed where the mouth had been, now open in an silent, eternal scream. "What the-" Chloe took another step back and flicked her flashlight down to the floor, only to see that the object she had tripped over was a similarly petrified hand reaching up from the floor, only visible down to just below the wrist. She sucked in a sharp, horrified breath and continued backing up. "Oh my god," she breathed.

The light from Sully's Zippo flickered on his face, casting eery shadows as he examined the figure. "Sweet Mother Theresa..."

"What the bloody hell?" Cutter growled, his eyes narrowing. "What is this?"

Nate swallowed, his eyes taking in the disturbing sight. "They got trapped in the lava."

"It's like a whole 'nother Pompeii," Sully said.

"Except creepier," Molly added.

Charlie scoffed. "It doesn't make any sense." He flashed his light around. "How did they get trapped like that? Did the poor bastards just stand there and let the lava harden?"

Nate shrugged. "I don't know." He continued staring for a moment before finally tearing his gaze from the unsettling sight. "Maybe we'll figure it out if we keep looking."

"Well, I don't know about you guys," Sully began, turning around to look further into the cavern at the bases of the buried buildings, "but this isn't exactly what I pictured when I thought of Atlantis. If this is all that's here, we might not be turning up much of anything."

"Maybe there's more to it than we can see?" Molly asked hopefully.

"But where, though?" Nate asked as he moved away from the petrified individual.

Cutter was silent, but, holding his flashlight in an underhanded grip, shifted the beam of light up and to the side with a slight movement of his wrist, his eyes following along with it. "Maybe we should check that portico over there."

Nate spun on his heel and looked where Cutter's light pooled dimly on a dilapidated structure made of a half a dozen marble columns with an ornate stone roof over it. The columns on one corner were crumbling, causing the roof to sink down at an angle on one side, which in turn had caused a large split up the end of the marble, and the whole structure was only just barely visible over a mound of igneous rock about twenty yards away. "Good eyes, Charlie. Let's, uh... check it out."

The group trekked over to the little structure and gathered at the mouth of a square opening cut into the ground below it. As every light source they had was turned to shine down into the shadows, a set of stairs paved with slabs of grey-blue stone was illuminated, sinking about fifteen feet into the earth before leveling off into a passageway.

Charlie looked over his shoulder at Chloe, who was leaning forward on her tip-toes to see over him. "Oi- this the fourth creepy staircase we've found on this adventure, or only the third?"

"At least there were no doors with trick levers to open on this one," Sully pointed out.

"...unless you count those huge-ass gates with the weird key back there," Chloe said dryly, nodding in the direction of the entrance to the city.

"Tough crowd," Sully said as they all started down the stairs. Five sets of footsteps echoed in the hallway as the treasure hunters ventured cautiously into the subterranean passage. The lights revealed that the slate-like paving slabs continued after the stairs, and the walls were made of square-cut stone blocks, with niches set into them every so often. As they rounded a corner in the hall, they passed a stone bowl in the corner, filled with some kind of liquid and sitting on a pedestal in front of a highly polished bronze disk on the wall.

"Hey, at least they made these tunnels pretty wide," Nate said in an attempt at optimism as he admired the handiwork of the Atlanteans.

"Eh, they could use a maintenance crew, though," Sully said as they stepped over a pile of debris where the wall had caved in a little.

"Maybe if we look around, we can find the city planning department and let them know," Chloe added wryly.

Cutter scoffed. "While we're at it, let's ask them if it would've killed 'em to put the whole city above ground, too."

"Judging from the way the city up top looked," Molly interjected as they turned another corner and began to descend again, "I think that, this time, it actually might have."

"Good point," Nate said.

Another twenty feet and the tunnel was completely full of water, forcing them to dive and swim through to the other side. They came out on an incline going up again, and at the top the hall broadened into a long room about fifteen feet wide, with a row of support columns down the middle and multiple doors in either wall, as well as one on the end. As the five adventurers took a moment to gaze in awe at the architecture, Cutter's flashlight flickered a couple times. He smacked the head of it with the heel of his hand and the light came back on, but it was clearly beginning to dim.

"Damn it," he cursed. "Bloody thing's startin' to die."

"Oh, lovely," Chloe said, sarcasm thick in her tone. "Maybe we can all get stuck down here with no light. That would be about par for the course on these things."

Molly wandered over to a bowl like the one they had passed earlier, this one sitting on a stand in the middle of the room and also filled with liquid. Looking up, she noticed more of the of the polished bronze disks spaced around the perimeter of the room. "Hey, guys? I think this might be worth checking out."

Nate peered over at her find. "Yeah, I saw one of those earlier. What do you think is in it?"

"Probably just water," Chloe speculated as she came over along with the others. "Clearly whatever natural disasters have happened to this place left it with a lot of residual standing water and a major drainage problem."

Sully shrugged and nodded. "Could be a chamber pot."

Nate's brow furrowed and he looked up at the older man incredulously. "A- chamber pot?"

Sully gave another nonchalant shrug. "Just sayin'. You never know."

One eyebrow raised in disbelief, and Nate retorted, "You think they, like, jumped or something?"

"I mean, maybe they just-"

"Children, children!" Charlie cut in, holding up his hands to quell their bickering. "As absolutely riveting- and mature- as this conversation is, I think it's actually some kind of fuel in that thing. You know, like it was meant to be lit?" He leaned forward and gave a tentative sniff. "Smell it."

Now it was Sully's turn to wrinkle his brow. "I'll take your word for it. I am not smelling what's in that bowl."

Nate scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Just give us a light, yeah?"

Sully held his Zippo out at arm's length and attempted to hold it to the substance in the bowl. When the flame came within a couple inches of the liquid, a huge flame suddenly shot up with a whoosh, causing him to jump backward. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed, looking from his forearm to the flame that now reached all the way to the ceiling. "I think I just burned all the hair off my arm!"

"It could only be an improvement," Cutter muttered.

Nate stepped back to get a better view around the columns in order to see the whole room. "That's incredible!" he said, looking around the now well-lit space. "Those bronze panels are mirrors that are positioned to reflect the light! The way they're placed in the tunnels must make it to where you can illuminate long stretches of the halls with a single fire!"

"Sooo," Chloe drawled. "No getting caught in the dark after all?"

Nate grinned. "Looks like we're safe... at least for now."

"Lovely," Cutter said, impatient to keep moving. "Now which way do you figure we should go from here?"

"I vote for the door on the end," Molly said.

"Cheap guess," Chloe sniffed.

Molly shot a glare at her. "Anything better to offer, Frazer?"

Chloe shrugged. "Not particularly, no."

They made their way through the door and down the tunnel and lit the bowl they found at the corner, brightly illuminating the hallway ahead. As Nate expected, another bronze mirror carefully positioned at the next bend kept the light going even past the turn of the hall. Another small cave-in partially blocked the way just around the bend, and as they climbed over the rubble, Sully spoke up. "Say... How do we know this whole joint's not gonna come crashing down on us at any moment?"

"Yeah," Cutter seconded the sentiment. "If I'm going to die down here, I'd at least like to be immortalized in lava relief."

"Me too," Sully agreed. "Then my charming and ruggedly handsome features could be preserved for posterity."

"Oh yeah, I can see it now," Nate quipped. "A giant stone mustache sticking out of the wall!"

From the back of the group, Chloe's voice drifted to them. "Ugh, now I'll definitely be having nightmares tonight."

Sully sighed as he hopped off the pile of debris. "Always with the facial hair grief."

Soon, they had ventured far enough that the light from the last fire was growing dim. "Alright," Nate said. "There should be another of those bowls coming up soon." They turned a corner and immediately saw the pedestal broken down and the stone vessel smashed on the floor nearby. "Oh. I guess that's a bust." He turned and looked at the others. "Looks like we'll need any flashlights we still have till we make it to the next one."

Chloe and Molly's flashlights flicked on, illuminating another door about twenty feet ahead. As the group of treasure hunters walked through it, the two women shined their lights around, revealing a room with a high ceiling and a grid of evenly spaced columns standing like a forest of stone trees. As Molly looked on in wonder, her light fell on a large statue of Poseidon standing in an alcove with an arched top set into the wall. "Whoa!" she said, letting the light linger on the sculpture. The columns between her and the Olympian cast shadows across the god's stern features. "Look at this!"

"There's another over here," Chloe said, her light shining on the opposite wall. "Looks like Zeus on this side." She moved down the wall and found a third alcove holding a figure with a three-headed dog. "...Hades."

"Athena?" Molly said, having found a fourth, female statue in the other corner of the room. "Maybe Demeter..."

In the quick glimpses Chloe and Molly's lights had given him as they flashed around the room, Nate had spotted a bowl and pedestal in the center of the room, as well as multiple strategically placed mirrors around the perimeter. "Hey, Chloe," he called. "Shine your light over here a minute?" Sully was standing next to him, and Nate casually grabbed the lighter out of his hand without asking.

"Hey!" Sully protested.

"I'm just borrowing it," Nate assured him, and began walking toward the pedestal with Chloe shining her flashlight for him. Just before he reached it, a faint, almost metallic sound made him pause. "Did you hear something?" he asked, his brows knitting together.

"Nothin'" Sully replied.

Nate glanced quickly around and hummed uncertainly. Not seeing anything in the prevailing darkness, he kept walking and reached the bowl, then opened Sully's Zippo with a snap. He flicked the striker several times, but it stubbornly refused to catch the wick. "Hey, I think your lighter's out of fluid!" he called.

"Nah," Sully said dismissively. "I just filled it before we left the jeep. Sometimes it just needs a couple tries."

As Nate continued to fiddle with the Zippo, Chloe moved her light to the ceiling to admire the ornately carved capitals over the columns, leaving him in darkness as a result. "C'mooonn," he breathed in annoyance as spark after spark leaped up from the flint but never caught a flame. Finally the wick caught, at the same time as he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a strange noise like heavy breathing behind him. A chill ran down his spine and he froze on his way to lighting the bowl. "Chloe?" he asked apprehensively. "Is that you?"

"Is what me?" Chloe asked. Nate gulped as he realized her voice was too far away for her to be within reaching distance of him. Her light dropped back down to shine on him, and she screamed suddenly, "NATE, LOOK OUT!"

Nate turned to see an armored man carrying a bronze shield and a sword that was raised high in his right hand. "Oh, CRAP!" he squeaked, then dropped and rolled just as the sword cut through the air where he had just been standing. It struck the side of a column with a crash, then the man used his shield to deliver a vicious backhand to Nate as he was coming up out of his roll. Nate flew backward, the lighter flying out of his hand, and he skidded across the floor until he smashed into the base of a column.

"Ugh," he groaned, shoving himself up on one elbow. "This just might be the trip that finally convinces me I need to see a chiropractor."

The scene in the statue room became immediately frenetic: flashlight beams dipped and bobbed with frantic motions, animal-like snarls and crashes of metal against stone rang out and echoed around the four walls, and a confused jumble of curses and shouted warnings came from Nate's four companions, all bearing witness to a fight that was otherwise unseen as it was waged in near-blackness. Every now and then, Chloe or Molly's lights would catch a flash of the armored man; these brief sightings were invariably followed by shouted profanities and the sounds of a scuffle. After seeing the strange soldier in Molly's light, Nate lunged forward to join the fray, only to be immediately knocked down again by another figure to his right. He landed painfully on his back, and a moment later he saw the flash of bronze and felt the weight of a person landing on top of him. "Shit, there's another one!" he shouted. As the new arrival let out a guttural snarl and raised his weapon, Nate slid his Para-9 out of his holster and fired twice into the man's abdomen, causing him to fly backward.

"Oh, you've gotta be kiddin' me!" Sully roared from somewhere else in the room.

"We've got to get the lights on in here," Molly cried breathlessly, "before we all end up shooting each other."

Nate pulled himself to his feet again and rested his hand against the smooth stone of a column. In the erratic glimpses the dancing flashlights afforded, he spied a brief flash of tarnished brass from Sully's Zippo laying on the floor before it was once more lost to shadow. Gotta get that lighter! he thought. He took two running steps and then dropped into a baseball slide, his tan denim pants scraping on the rough stone, and extended his arm to the side to sweep as big a swath across the floor as possible. He felt the small, square object catch in the crook of his arm and quickly snatched it up with the opposite hand, then shoved himself off the floor again. He stumbled as he transitioned from his slide back into a run but quickly cleared the short distance to the pedestal, praying that the Zippo would be more merciful this time. Once more there was the old, familiar clack of the lighter's case opening, then Nate's thumb struck the wheel and a flame sprung up. Immediately he put it to the contents of the bowl and was rewarded with a huge fire leaping up to the ceiling, filling the room with light by way of the bronze mirrors.

"That's it, kid!" Sully shouted encouragement.

Nate whirled around to see Cutter, Chloe, and Molly all dodging the attacks of the first warrior as he pursued them across the room. He took a step toward them to help, but the point of a spear suddenly emerged from behind the column to his left and thrust across his path, coming within an inch of running him through. He reigned himself in and, without missing a beat, wrapped his arms around the shaft of the spear and pulled back on it, using the column to his advantage to leverage the weapon out of his attacker's grasp. Rushing forward, Nate was shocked to see it was the same soldier he had just shot. "How the hell is this guy still alive?" he shouted as he used his newly acquired doru to beat him over the head. The soldier fell backward, losing his helmet in the process, and Nate froze once more as he gawked at the face he saw beneath it. With ashen, grey skin that peeled and flaked off, deformed features, and large patches of hair gone from his head, the soldier was hideous, even a little horrifying. The man snarled up at him, and Nate saw that many of his teeth were also missing.

"What in the-?" Nate didn't get more time to think or form words, as the warrior lunged at him again with a sword this time. He dodged the attack, then pulled out his gun again and shot several more bullets into the man, only to have him scamper away wounded but obviously far from dead. Behind him the sounds of the other skirmish continued, and Nate looked back just in time to see Cutter land a solid straight kick to the center of the other soldier's bronze breastplate, pushing him back several steps. Before the warrior had time to recover, Charlie pulled out his gun and proceeded to empty the entire clip into the narrow slit in the man's bronze helmet, and the man fell to the ground.

"Stay down!" Cutter commanded, his eyes narrowed grimly. A moment later, the Englishman's expression changed to some mixture of wonder and horror as the fallen soldier peeled himself off the floor and, with a final look a the five treasure hunters, scurried after his partner through the opposite door.

"What in the goddamn hell?" Sully said slowly as he stared after the two figures.

"It's like- it's like they can't die!" Chloe exclaimed, equally shocked.

Cutter clenched his teeth until his jaw muscles stood out, then swallowed and looked over at Nate. "Nate?" he said in a low voice. "What do you think those things were?"

Nate drew a deep breath, then stooped and picked up the fallen helmet, examining it's distinctive design. "Look. It's a Corinthian helmet," he said, tossing the item to Charlie.

Cutter looked it over, then lifted his eyes back to Nate's. "So they're the descendants of the League?"

"Orrrr," Molly interjected, "they're the originals." She glanced around at her partners' quizzical looks. "Don't forget we're looking for an artifact that supposedly grants eternal life."

Nate's eyebrows shot up at that, and he frowned and looked away.

"I just don't get it," Sully said. "Why'd they run off? Seems like they could've taken us. It's almost like they were scouting us out or something."

"...which means there's more of them still to come," Chloe added.

Cutter scoffed. "There's a thought to brighten up the day."

Nate continued staring down and to the side, deep in thought as the others continued talking, until finally he was pulled out of his musings by Sully speaking to him. "Nate. What are you thinking kid, you've got that 'look'."

Nate's head snapped up. "Huh?" He made a face and tried to brush it off, "Psh, what 'look', Sully?"

Sully shook his head and put his hands on his hips. "You know what I'm talkin' about kid, don't give me that. You're thinking something."

"'The Look'," Cutter joined in. "You know, that real brooding, intellectual, Auguste Rodin's 'Thinker' kind of look." He waggled his fingers in the air as he spoke. "It's a certified trademark of yours by now, I think."

Nate looked scornfully at Charlie, feeling betrayed. "Alright, fine," he sighed. "I was just thinking that if those things can't die, that really explains the catastrophe that happened to Atlantis." Looking around at the puzzled looks he was getting from his comrades, Nate continued. "Just think: suddenly you have this whole group of people on your hands that can't die, which means there's really no way to keep their society in check. You can't kill them, you can't punish them, and all that's left is to smother them." His eyes burned with realization and urgency as he continued. "So the 'gods' send an earthquake to sink the city, then a volcanic eruption to cover it in lava, and then a flood to cool and harden the lava before any of them can claw their way out and escape anyways. Once the city was sealed in like that, the problem was solved, at least until Xu Fu's crew came along. Then they maybe excavated it a little, found the stone, and then the whole thing happened again."

"Waitwaitwait," Chloe held up a hand and stepped forward. "So you're saying- those guys back there we saw just inside the gates- aren't really..." she faltered. Nate raised an eyebrow, daring her to finish the thought, and her face fell. "Oh, god, I think I'm going to be sick."

"So the gods," Sully began, waving a hand, "covered up this city of immortals to protect the world from them, and now we came traipsing along and just opened it wide up, right?"

Nate swallowed. "Yeah. Pretty much."

Cutter looked between Nate and Sully and again set his jaw in determination. "We've gotta keep going. We need to find a way to stop this from getting out."

"Yeah, we do," Nate agreed. "Maybe if we find the Philosopher's Stone we can figure out a way to reverse the affects, or destroy it, or something."

"Not to mention keep the Mad Scientist and the Viking away from it," Sully added grimly.

Nate side-eyed him. "That too." Looking around at the others, Nate said, "It's going to be dangerous, though. Probably really dangerous."

Looks were shared between all present, then Molly smiled ruefully at him and said, "When has it ever not been?"

Nate stared back at each of his friends in turn, taking in their determined faces, and he gave a small laugh in spite of himself. "Alright. Let's go."