A Puzzling Place
Lara walked through the doorway and entered a small room with similar-looking giant skull carvings along the bottom of the walls like the ones that lined the grand hallway behind her. A small square-shaped skylight was seen in the centre of the ceiling, which of course let in the light from outside. Then, Lara was suddenly forced to jump out of the way as two cleverly hidden dart traps reanimated and sent darts flying across the room. Her heart was racing at the sudden surprise.
"Well, those Incas are sure teaching me to take my time!" Lara said. "Hopefully it's not like this until I find the Tomb of Qualopec, because I'm eager to find that artefact. I guess I'll just have to go with the flow, wherever it takes me."
After crawling underneath the dart traps, Lara got back on her feet and walked through another doorway, emerging into a very large cave filled with jagged terrain both on the ground and on the ceiling. There were also patches of ivy dotting parts of the ground near a carved stone path that Lara found herself standing on. At the very end of the large cave where the stone path came to a halt, Lara could see a large building structure at the top of a grand staircase that was lined with two tall Incan statues. Another two statues were seen on the landing above the staircase next to the building where three doorways were present. Both the middle and the right doorway were blocked off by a stone door. The left one, however, remained open and seemed to lead down a hallway of some sort. The walls of the building were smooth and light grey in colour while the walls lining the doorways were covered in beautiful Incan pictograms and designs containing splashes of red and gold hues. As Lara walked closer, she saw that the two protruding grey walls on the very left and the very right of the building were structures in their own right, for they looked like two towers that went through the cave ceiling, which was much higher than where Lara was standing; she could even see a high balcony on each tower that looked down onto the middle roof as well as a ledge of rock running along the cave wall above it. The flat roof of the middle section with the three doorways displayed a distinct reddish hue.
"This place keeps getting more amazing the farther I venture!" Lara said as she approached the large building complex. "Now I really wish I brought a camera to take pictures with! I wonder what's behind each and every one of those doorways…"
Before Lara was able to contemplate what she would find next, she was startled by a pack of four wolves running straight at her. Taking out her dual pistols, Lara fired at the wolves as they tried attacking her, but failed miserably. Each shot that was fired sent loud echoes throughout the cave, which caused quite a stir for some of the bats that were situated on the cave ceiling. When the battle was over, Lara holstered her weapons and continued where she left off as she neared the grand steps to the large building.
"Hmm…Something tells me I have to open those two doors." Lara said as she studied her environment. "But, how? Certainly I can't push them open. Or can I?"
Lara went up to the middle door and tried pushing it open, but it would not budge. Then, she tried pushing the right door open, but got the same result.
"I guess I'll have to go through the left door." Lara said as she walked up the staircase past the two left statues. Lara pushed aside the ivy that was hanging in the doorway and started walking down a medium-length hallway that had a small staircase leading to another hallway going left. Lara followed it until she reached another left turn, where it emerged into a tall room with a large pool at the bottom where Lara stood. The walls were light grey and broken by two sets of Incan pictograms that were gold and bluish grey, as well as two sets of intricate red and white line patterns that ran all the way around the room about a third and two-thirds of the way up. Looking up, Lara could see two platforms with the same design leading to a doorway up above about one-third of the way up and two more platforms even higher up that were directly across from each other, each connected to a doorway leading somewhere different. The bottom of the pool had the same blue and yellow tiled appearance as the pool near the central plaza area of Vilcabamba and the ceiling was the same bright red colour as the roof above the three doorways.
"Well, it looks like I have to go up." Lara said. "Too bad there wasn't a ladder I could use. Oh well. I'm pretty sure my jumping skills can handle obstacles like this."
Lara took the small staircase to the left pool and stood on the edge of the platform before jumping up to grab the platform that was above her. With her super strength, she pulled herself up and was able to see that the larger platform ahead of her was not very far from where she stood. As a result, Lara was able to jump across with ease to reach the doorway above it and found it to lead to an upward-climbing staircase. Lara followed it and shortly reached a point where the ground levelled off and then re-emerged into the tall pool room from a vantage point located on one of the high platforms. Looking ahead, Lara knew it was just a matter of jumping across to the other side; that is until a pesky bat suddenly caught her off guard and started attacking her. Luckily, Lara was able to keep her balance and shoot the bat down with one shot from her right pistol.
"That was too close." Lara said. "I guess the animals here are eager for me to fail too. However, I'm not going to let that happen anytime soon!"
Lara continued towards the edge of the platform and backed up to get a running start. Then, she ran to the edge and jumped across the room and easily landed on the other side, after which she continued up another set of stairs through a grey hallway that made two right turns before emerging into another room. The room was much smaller with a low ceiling that had a skylight and the walls displayed a prominent gold colour that greatly contrasted the dull grey Lara had already seen. Just ahead was another doorway which opened onto the left balcony overlooking the rest of the building from the top of the left 'tower'. Looking down, Lara could see the top of the middle building as well as the grand staircase with the four statues at the very bottom of the giant cave about a hundred feet down. The other balcony that protruded from the right tower could be seen straight across from where Lara stood. All in all, the overall view was breathtaking.
"I didn't realize I was that far above the ground!" Lara said as she turned left. "What is this?"
It was a large, ancient pulley switch that went through the ceiling and seemed to be connected to something else as far as Lara could tell. When she pulled the rope, a large mechanical click echoed throughout the cave, followed by the sound of scraping stone that came from the ground. It was obvious that the pulley had done something, but Lara was not quite sure as to what it was. However, she hoped that it did something to where she could access one of the two closed doorways down below.
"I think I'll take the easy way down and jump down onto that rock ledge and then jump onto that roof and drop to the ground." Lara said. "I'm not in the mood for backtracking."
Lara backed away from the balcony and carefully dropped onto the natural rock ledge protruding from the cave wall. The impact was a little strong, but Lara managed to stay standing as she readied herself for landing on the red roof. This time her landing was much better, though her ankle could still feel the after effects of the previous drop. Finally, Lara carefully climbed down and dropped back down to the ground in front of the three doorways. To her amazement, Lara saw that the right door was now open.
"This place just seems to get weirder the farther I venture as well!" Lara said. "I feel like I'm in a giant puzzle!"
Lara continued through the right doorway and made a sudden sharp right turn down a small hallway leading to another tall room with a pool at the bottom. The room was the same size as the other tall room and was decorated the same way with the same colours and patterns. The only differences in the room were the presence of just one doorway near the top of the room and the sight of thin, unstable-looking stone slabs that connected the thicker more durable platforms on the lower and middle levels of the room. Lara walked up the small set of stairs and started walking across the uncanny stone walkway above the pool of water. She immediately started to feel the stone crumble beneath her and tried jumping back over to the small set of stairs, but splashed into the pool of water along with the rest of the stone walkway. Now Lara had to jump up to the sturdy platform ahead without the assistance of a solid surface beneath it. She climbed out of the water dripping wet and started back up the small set stairs and prepared herself for a running jump.
"You can do this, Lara." she said to herself as her eyes focused on the ledge ahead. "You've got everything under control."
After a few seconds of preparing herself, Lara leaped forward and reached for the higher ledge as she soared through the air. She was able to grab the ledge and pull herself up onto the sturdy platform. Looking around, Lara found herself confronted with a choice. She was on one of two platforms that were on the same level, both of which were protruding below one of four corner platforms that were low enough for Lara to jump up and grab. The other platform was closer to the doorway at the top of the multicoloured room, but was also on the other side of large unstable landing that connected the platform with the one Lara was already standing on. Lara decided to be conservative by taking the safer route, so she jumped up and grabbed the platform above her and pulled herself up.
"If the water was a little warmer, I wouldn't mind falling back in for another swim!" Lara said. "However, I have places I need to go."
Lara was now nearing the top of the room and saw that there were four more platforms scattered along the upper walls of the room. One of them was conveniently placed just above Lara and was clearly low enough for Olympic athletes like her to grab. She wasted no time jumping and pulling herself up and traversing across the other platforms before reaching the doorway. After walking up another staircase with two right turns, Lara found herself in a dark empty gold-walled room that was connected to another room with a similar colour scheme.
"I should be getting close to another pulley switch, I believe." Lara said to herself as she neared another doorway leading onto the right balcony looking down into the large cave. Just like the other high balcony, the right balcony offered a fantastic view of the overall architecture of the underground Incan building structure. Sure enough, when Lara turned right, there was another switch for her to activate.
"Wow, I'm so smart!" Lara bragged to herself. "Hopefully, this pulley will open the middle door below. Let's see if my intelligence paid off this time too, just like in the caves."
Lara pulled the switch and became excited as she once again heard a loud click followed by the sound of scraping stone.
"Yes!" she said to herself. "Now I can finally move on to the next area!"
Just like from the left balcony, Lara took the shortcut down by jumping down onto the protruding cave rock and then by jumping onto the roof of the smaller building and then finally dropping back down onto the ground. She turned around and focussed her attention on the middle doorway, which opened to a long, dark and narrow hallway leading to another room.
"This is where I need to go." Lara said. "I sure hope that I'm getting closer to my destination."
With little patience, Lara started walking down the small hallway and was surprised to see two perpendicular hallways branching out from each side of the hall before it opened up into a bigger room with a gated doorway. Somehow, she knew they were not hallways. As she approached the first of these miniature 'hallways', Lara was suddenly greeted by an unpleasant SWOOSH! as a large swinging blade trap tried to kill her. The only thing that saved Lara from certain death was her cat-like reflexes.
"This place must be riddled with traps!" Lara said, her heart racing uncontrollably. "I knew I should've listened to my instincts earlier! At least I know what to expect now."
When the timing was just right, Lara was able to run past the swinging blade, only to find that there were two more swinging blades, each going in opposite directions to each other, waiting for her down the remainder of the hallway. She carefully waited for the blades to swoosh past her before she ran past each of them and emerged into the small room at the end, where the doorway was blocked by a gate. Lara looked into the next room and saw that it was large. In the middle was a pool of water that had perpendicular line patterns going around it on the dark floor. Sunlight coming in from the ceiling caused the water to shine the reflected light onto the walls of the room. On either side of the room were four large square columns, each set supporting a large second-floor balcony where more columns were seen and the walls displayed more ancient grey and gold pictograms. Looking straight ahead, Lara could see another gate with a carved slot on the wall to the right of it. Behind the gate was another door made of stone and had a gold picture on it that looked strikingly familiar. Lara took out the gold idol from her backpack and knew exactly what she had to do.
"This artefact goes into the slot next to the door." Lara said. How in the world am I ever going to get into that room?"
Her question was answered at the sight of a lever switch just to the right of the doorway where Lara stood. She pulled it and was suddenly dropped into water as a trapdoor opened up beneath her. Once again, Lara body was soaked and chilled as she swam down a large hallway with huge arches that contained large Incan carvings of human faces. Although her eyes were burning, Lara could see light coming down into the middle part of the underwater passage, so she swam up past a smaller underwater opening until she surfaced into the large two-story room. She was about to pull herself out of the water when she caught sight of a large brown bear roaming around the pool, waiting for her to get out so it could eat her.
"Damn!" Lara said in a frustrated tone. "Why can't any of this be easy? Oh well. I guess it wouldn't be fun if it were easy."
As if the bear were listening to Lara's monologue, it gave out a huge roar and stood on its hind feet.
"Oh shut up you filthy animal!" Lara said as she continued trading water. "You'll be dead here shortly!"
Ignoring the bear for now, Lara focused her attention on the small opening that she swam past just a few moments earlier. She dove down into the water and started swimming her way through it into another large underwater hall with carved faces. It was not long before Lara was able to swim up and surface into another room that opened up to a large staircase leading up. Lara pulled herself up onto the landing and started walking up the staircase where it turned right into a golden hallway that eventually brought her to the right second-floor balcony of the larger room. Looking down, the large bear was still looking into the pool, wondering where Lara had vanished to. The bear saw Lara standing above him on the balcony just briefly before something loud rang through the room and hit him in the head a few times before he found himself laying on the ground giving his final breath.
"Now, you won't be a nuisance to me." Lara said putting her pistols away. She started walking around the balcony and admired the sight of more ancient pictograms. There was a skylight like the one in the main part of the room which illuminated the bright colours of the room, especially the bright red colour of the ceiling. After briefly taking in much of the scenery, Lara began looking for some sort of switch that could possibly open one of the two doors that lead out of the room. Her search ended very briefly when she found another pulley over on the side of the balcony that was closer to where she first looked into the room.
"I think I know what this will do!" Lara said in an excited tone as she pulled the rope that was somehow connected to a locking mechanism. Lara went back over to the edge of the balcony between two square columns and saw that the gate had been opened. All that was remaining was the stone door behind it with the huge gold idol symbol on it. Lara decided to take the shortcut and safely drop back down to the ground below. But before Lara went over to the gold idol slot, she took the time to thoroughly explore the rest of the area by seeing what was underneath both of the balconies. The roof underneath the right balcony with the pulley switch was rather empty and did not contain anything of significant interest. From there, Lara went back into the main hall and made her way to the room underneath the left balcony. Unlike the other room, the left room had a staircase leading up to a square-shaped room with a skylight connected to the main room. There was another doorway on the left that connected to the rest of the left balcony area, which had the same look and feel as the other side. Once Lara finished exploring, she headed back down the stairs and approached the slot next to the doorway with the locked stone door and took out the gold idol artefact she had just found. She fitted the artefact into the slot and watched as the stone door miraculously opened, revealing a small natural-looking tunnel that went down for a bit before making a left turn.
"I wonder where this tunnel is going to take me." Lara said. "I think I'll grab the gold idol on my way out. It's just too beautiful to leave behind! Hopefully this door stays open when I take it out." She took the gold idol from the slot to keep as another souvenir for Winston upon her return home, making sure that the door stayed open. When Lara could see that it was safe, she ventured down the dark tunnel and followed the sound of running water just ahead.
Larson, meanwhile, was just entering Vilcabamba and saw that the place had just been raided by Miss Croft. It was a sure sign that he was on the right path to finding the Scion as well, though he knew that Lara was beating him. Frustrated, yet relieved, Larson continued down to the central plaza of the ancient city, where the pool of water stood, and started scanning his environment. He had no idea where to go next, so he ventured down one of the smaller hallways and started searching the perimeter of the city.
"I know you're here, Lara." Larson said. "I can see the trail you left behind!"
And so conclude the events that unfolded in the City of Vilcabamba... Lara is now about to enter the Lost Valley! I haven't really decided how I'm going to break that level into different chapters, but I guess I'll figure it out as I go. It'll be an adventure! :)
Larson has just figured out how to get into the City of Vilcabamba, and it may be a while before he even reaches where Lara is now currently located which will ultimately give her the leeway needed to reach the tomb before he does, though she doesn't know Larson is after her. Either way, there will a confrontation between the two characters later on! See you in the next chapter :)
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