XIV. Inner Chamber

The three women stepped into the dark inner chamber. The air was stale and full of dust from the collapsed wall. Sunlight shone in through the haze of dust, giving pale light to the wall of hieroglyphs that stood before them. The three looked upon the breadth of the writing and upon its intricacy, awed by the sight before them.

"If only I could time travel with this in my hands." Lara said with an awed sigh, "It's the stuff that archeologists and linguists fall in love with."

"Well maybe you can find a nice Chozo paleontologist and settle down." Joanna said, aiming a sarcastically blissful grin at Lara.

"Can you translate it?" Samus asked.

"Maybe…" Lara replied, looking at her. "…if I had a month."

"Creto, see if you can…Creto?"

Samus suddenly turned and walked out of the chamber. Lara and Jo glanced at each other and then looked to Samus. After a moment, Samus came back inside.

"I'm having trouble maintaining communication with my ship inside these walls." She stated. "It's probably the metal in the rock that's causing interference."

"Probably best we don't separate then." Jo suggested.

"Agreed." Samus replied. "I sent an image of the wall to my ship. Creto may be able to translate some of it based on what Lara's already done." Noticing Lara examining a particular spot on the wall, she asked, "Did you find something?"

Lara blew on the wall, causing a small cloud of dust to envelope her. She waved her hand, coughing as she replied.

"There's a crack in the wall here." She said. "It will probably separate if given the proper stimuli."

"Stimuli?" Jo mocked. "What, is it an experimental rabbit?"

"What would you suggest?" Samus asked.

"Let's see." Lara said as she began running her hand along the hieroglyphs. "if we find the right symbols…in the right order…ah!"

She pressed her hand against a particular symbol which subsequently receded several inches into the wall.

"Fire." She mumbled as she resumed searching the symbols. Finding another, she repeated her action and mumbled, "Light." Again she searched and found another. "Water…and…way."

Pressing a final panel, she backed up as it slid into the wall. The three held their breath. The air was still and silent. Nothing moved. No sound was heard. They stood there, pensive, not knowing what would come. After several moments of nothing happening, they began to relax a little.

"Hmmm." Lara muttered, putting a hand on her chin. "Maybe it was-"

Large spikes suddenly sprang forth from the wall, their pointed ends halting millimeters from the three women who had reacted with startled fright. Just as suddenly, the spikes receded into the wall, leaving it as they had found it. The three women stood there breathing heavily, eyes wide and limbs weak at the nearness of their deaths. Lara suddenly began laughing. Turning to the other two, she said, "Well I guess that wasn't it."

Jo gave her flabbergasted look, displaying her unbelief at Lara's light-heartedness.

"Oh, come off it." Lara stated, still smiling. "The nice thing about traps I've encountered is if you trigger them, you usually don't have time to worry about it. Now let's see. Ah! Silly of me. It was 'way', THEN 'water'.

Joanna and Samus stepped back further as Lara began pressing symbols. Pressing the last, Lara leapt backwards to join the others. Again, they stood there, waiting.

No spikes shot out, but neither did anything else happen.

"Well?" Jo said rather pensively. "Now what? I'm not going to stand here all day and wait to be skewered by a spike or something worse."

"We must be missing something." Lara replied. "Let's see…"

Her mind began working back over the lore Samus had quoted.

"Samus, how well do you know the Chozo language?" she said at last.

"Fluently." Samus replied.

"Can you spot the Chozo symbol for time on this wall?"

"I could, if it was here. But I've scanned this entire wall, and it's not anywhere on it."

"Blast." Lara muttered, crossing her arms.

"What about that symbol?" Jo asked, gesturing vaguely at the center with her gun.

"What symbol?" Lara asked, trying to see what Jo was pointing out.

Jo pointed a finger at a symbol set dead center in the wall.

"That one. Right there. Isn't that the same one as on the tablet?"

Lara and Samus looked and saw the familiar pose of a bird-like figure sitting in the exact center of the wall. Both felt rather dull for not having noticed it before. Tentatively, Lara approached, reached out, and pressed the symbol.

Immediately, a rumbling was heard as the symbol slid in and disappeared and the wall separated down the middle. Dust fell in piles causing clouds to form as the two sections slid into their adjacent walls. At last the rumbling ceased and the two women stood still, waiting for the dust to settle. When it did and they saw the sight before them, Jo's heart sank.

They stood before three separate tunnels, each seeming to be the exact same size as the others. And each angling off to go in separate directions.

"Wonderful." Jo muttered. "Why can't I just keep my big mouth shut?"

"Well, the riddle said to follow the narrow way," Lara offered. "So one of these has to-"

"They're all equal size." Samus interjected.

Lara looked at her.

"Exactly?"

"Down to the nanometer."

"Crummits."

"Alright." Joanna said with a sigh. "Let's get this over with. I'll take the one on the left."

"If we split up, our communication will be cut off." Samus warned as Jo walked over to the left passageway. "We'll be on our own."

"I'm always on my own." Jo said, coldly, checking her clip. "See you in a bit."

She then switched to her nightvision lenses and disappeared into the passage.

"Joanna, wait." Samus called out, moving to stand in the doorway Joanna had entered.

"What?" Jo asked, half-turning to look over her shoulder.

"You may encounter some strange doorways that are primary in color, and semi-spherical in shape. Blue will only open with an energy blast. Red must be opened with a concussive blast. Green needs a severe concussive blast. And yellow will need an explosion of tremendous force. I wouldn't recommend trying that one."

Joanna stood silent a moment, a thought pricking her mind.

"What happens if I encounter a door with no color?" she asked.

"Then get ready for a fight." Samus replied.

Jo nodded.

"Right." She said. "Thanks for the heads-up."

The young agent then continued on into the dark tunnel.

Samus walked back over to the tunnel on the right.

"You get all that?" she asked as she passed Lara.

"Sounds like a jolly good time." Lara replied.

Samus stopped at the doorway and turned to face her.

"You aren't the least bit afraid are you?" she asked.

"Are you kidding?" Lara replied, pulling a flashlight from her backpack, "This is what I live for."

She then flashed Samus a smile, clicked on her flashlight, and headed into the middle passage. Samus lingered a moment, wondering at the difference between the two ladies, and wondering greater how she came to be paired with them. Shaking away the thought, she turned to look into the dark passage before her. So familiar was this scene, so frightening was this same first step.

"No objections, Adam." She muttered.

Her visor then flashed to solid green and she disappeared into the passage.

Author's note: Sorry this chapter is so short. The next one's going to be rather long and this was a good stopping point. May be a little longer before I get the next one posted due to its expected length as well. Thanks for all those who are hanging with this one. Much appreciated.