Chapter 6: The Last Action

The two continued down the stairs of the mysterious passage that was opened up. Lara was using her flashlight that was attached to her utility belt to help see. Vianca was helping a bit because she gave off a green glow, which helped light up some of the walls a bit. When they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, Lara cautiously pulled out one of her pistols. Vianca looked around hoping to see something of sorts. She couldn't see anything, but she felt something. This feeling she did not like.

"Lara, I don't know about this….this place it feels…..restless," Vianca said as she looked to Lara. Lara walked forward a bit, continuing to look around.

"We have to keep going Vianca. We have to know what went on here, or at least get another lead somewhere else," Lara said as they continued to walk. "As long as we don't touch anything we'll be good. We just don't need to activate any traps." Vianca looked forward a few feet and something made her grab Lara and stop her.

"Don't walk there," Vianca said as she stared down at Lara's feet. Lara looked down and sees she is at the end of a tile. It looked like an ordinary stone tile. Vianca got Lara to go around it and once she was at a safe distance, Vianca went back over to the tile.

"Vianca want are you doing?" Lara asked. Vianca didn't' answer. She stepped on the tile with her entire weight. The tile sank in and the floor began to collapse itself. "Vianca!" When the dust cleared, Lara looked to see Vianca floating above a giant crevasse that had opened up below her. At the bottom there were sharp spikes with what appeared to be dried up blood and skeletons. Vianca walked along the air and onto the stable ground in front of Lara.

"Danger is everywhere in places like this. This is meant to be sacred ground. There were places like this back in my time," Vianca said. "No one dared to go through them due to the fear of curses and demons that was rumored to be within. My father ventured into many to vanquish evils that threatened our kingdom. He told me stories of the challenges he faced." Vianca looked at Lara and sees the look of surprise on her face.

"Vianca, you just...did you not see…" Lara said pointing at Vianca's feet. "I mean I understand that you're technically a ghost, but did you not realize that you were walking on air?" Vianca looked down at her feet and the turned to the trap that she triggered.

"I mean, I knew that the trap opened up and I did expect to fall in with it," Vianca said. "I just knew that most likely I get sent back to the amulet if I got too far away. I realized that I was floating after the piece of floor under me went. I guess it's a good thing i'm a ghost, but I don't know how to control the floating thing yet." Lara's earpiece made some noise and she put her hand to it.

"What was that, Zip?" Lara asked as she waited on a response. Instead of Zip's voice, she heard a very concerned one.

"Don't you ever do that again, Vianca!" Said the familiar voice of Alister. "You nearly gave me a heart attack." Vianca smiled a little bit at the concerned voice and laughed slightly.

"Alister sit down," Zip said as the noise someone moving was heard. "Yeah, Alister nearly fainted when you did that, but I'll have to say you going to come in pretty handy if you can find traps like that, Vi." Lara smiled and looked at Vianca, who was still a little giggly about the concerned voice of Alister.

"Shall we keep going?" Lara asked as she smiled at Vianca. Vianca stopped laughing, but continued to smile.

"Yeah, let's keep going," Vianca agreed. They continued, delving deeper into the tomb. It felt like hours had past as they continued to go through, dodging traps, Vianca helping leading the way. They eventually came into a very large chamber, decorated to the brim with old artifacts of the past.

"This place looks almost like a throne room, or at least somewhere for very royal social gatherings," Lara said as they cautiously entered the room. Vianca walked around and looked at all the many tattered tapestries that hung on the crumbling columns. She walked ahead of Lara, but not so much to get out of range of her. Lara moved with Vianca a bit, so she could also look around, but she was also on guard. Vianca slowly came up to the throne. The throne itself was crumbling a bit as well. The fabric of the chair was torn and dirty, and there was stuffing of the chair that had come out. It was still a rather large throne.

"What is a throne doing at the bottom of a tomb?" Vianca asked as she looked over to Lara. "It just doesn't seem right."

"I don't know….what do you think Alister?" Lara asked as she put her hand to the earpiece again.

"It might have been a kingdom here once before and what we saw at the top was actually part of the castle," Alister said. "What if the castle, is buried?" Vianca looked back at the throne and then back the direction they came.

"It would seem that way," Lara said as she let her hand fall. "Well, we're in a buried castle where possibly some dark magic occurred." Vianca walked behind the throne to see if anything was there. She made a small sound of fear due to the fact that she got startled. Lara pointed her gun in the direction Vianca stood.

"No, don't worry. I didn't expect to find a skeleton behind here," Vianca said as she pointed. Lara came around and saw the same sight. A skeleton wearing a long dress with it's back against the throne. It had a stab wound to the chest. Vianca put her hand over where she remembers the sharp pain and the looks back at the skeleton. About a feet away from the skeleton, Vianca noticed a broken amulet; a similar one to her own. "Lara, this girl….she died the same way I did. That horrible witch tried to do it to her, or at least someone tried to do it. It just...didn't work."

"Oh my goodness, I hoped that I would never have to see that sight again, but I guess some things can't be helped," Lara said as she holstered her gun. Vianca sat down near the skeleton and looked at it.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you. I know you cannot hear me, but if you somehow can, I hope your at ease," She said sorrowfully. Vianca noticed something sticking out from behind the girl's back. She reached over and grabbed the object. When she pulled it out, she noticed that it was a journal. "Please, pardon all these intrusions, but this may help us." Vianca stood up and looked at Lara, handing her the book. Lara took it and opened up the leathery journal. The pages were yellow and some of the ink was slightly smudged, but readable. Lara flipped to the last entry of the journal and read the following aloud:

"March 25th 1874,

I finally found the proof I need to prove to my father that she is evil. I found her in her chambers and I... saw her. I saw her using someone as a sacrifice last night. She took blood from the corpse and put in clear phials. I don't know why she would even think to collect the blood, but I do know that one phial of the stuff is enough proof to my father that she is a witch. Once I get that phial, I can truly give her what she deserves."

"I'm going to guess that she didn't get very far with her plan," Lara said as she looked to the skeleton. Vianca looked down at her feet with sad eyes. "Oh, there's more." Vianca looked up and awaited for possibly an answer.

"I have to write this fast due to my life leaving and coming to an end. I managed to snatch a phial of the liquid, but it wasn't the blood. I accidently grabbed one with this black substance instead, but it is still enough. I can tell that this is still something she shouldn't have. Now, it doesn't matter. My father was already dead. I got hurt while I ran from the witch. She kept yelling at me about being a thief and to return the phial. I knew she needed whatever the phial was. I managed to escape, but I know my time is short. I hide the phial in this room. If anyone reads this, then stop the witch before there is no way to stop her. This will be my final farewell." Vianca looked back at the skeleton lying on the ground and Lara carefully close the journal back up.

"This girl was killed just like me, Lara," Vianca said as she bent down to the skeleton's level once again. "Except, she figured out who this 'witch' really was but wasn't fast enough." Lara placed a hand on her shoulder.

"We'll catch this woman, Vianca. Don't you worry," Lara said, reassuringly." Well, maybe we can find that phail that she hid. That way we may have a lead." Vianca slowly nodded and stood up. They began to search around the room for this phial of black liquid. After a few moments, Lara accidently bumped a chair, knocking it over. The chair fell, hitting the ground hard. As it hit the ground, something fell out of the fabric of the chair and rolled over to Vianca's feet. Vianca bent down and picked up the item. It was clear phial stained on the inside with this black liquid.

"Lara I think this is it," She said as walked over to her and held out the small bottle. Lara took it and examined it.

"Well, I guess she wasn't kidding when she said she hid it," Lara said with a small smile. "Let's get out of here. Maybe we can learn more about whatever is in here. It could lead us to a another piece of the puzzle." Vianca nodded and they both turned to head back the way the came. The place began to shake. Vianca fell onto a chair next to her due to loss of balance. The entrance to chamber started to crumble and fall apart until there was nothing but rocks and debris in their way.

"Well, it looks we won't be getting back that way." Vianca said as she stood up again. "I guess this place wasn't as stable as we initially thought." Lara looked around and noticed a sizeable crack in the wall. She walked over to it, Vianca following behind her. Lara peered down the crack. She saw what appeared to be the flicked of fire hopefully from a torch mounted on a wall.

"Do you think it might be a way out?" Vianca asked. Lara looked back at her and nodded.

"It looks big enough for me to fit through," Lara answered. "You may want to go back in the amulet for this Vianca." Vianca nodded, knowing that while Lara wore the amulet she couldn't really disobey. Vianca disappeared back into the amulet again and Lara began to slowly make her way through to the other side. It was still a tight fit, but she was managing. She had stop every now and then to re-position herself to continue going through. Eventually, she made it. She entered the hall of the ruins and looked around. Lara soon realized that she and Vianca had been in this hallway before. Vianca reappeared and looked around as well.

"I remember this place. If we just go this way, then we should get out," Vianca said as she began to walk down the hallway. Lara smiled and followed Vianca with no hesitation. They walked for a while until they came to the large gap of the floor that caved in.

"Alright, I know how to get across this," Lara said with a confident nod. "Vianca, you go ahead and head back into the amulet, next thing you'll know is that we'll be back at home." Vianca nodded and did as she was told. Lara unhooked the grappling part of her belt and threw it up onto a bar that was hanging from the ceiling. She pulled it tight and swung across the gap. She made the landing on the other side and retracted her grapple. Lara smiled at the gap and made her way out of the ruins.

I'm so sorry about all the typos and the sentence structures that were in this. I went back and fixed all of my errors. I hope you all can forgive this. I plan to proofread my documents before submitting them from now on. I understand that this is fanfiction and grammar truth be told doesn't really matter, but when even the one whom wrote the piece can't even make sense of it then we have a problem. I hope this helps those whom got confused while reading this.