The Bird Labyrinth
With her flare still in hand, Lara continued down the passage and entered a small dark room with another doorway at the other side of the room. The doorway emerged and overlooked into a larger room that was brightly illuminated by the sunlight coming from outside. Looking down at the floor, Lara saw that it was chequered in red and gold square sections. The ceiling was a bright gold and covered with huge vines, some of which reached down over halfway into the room. The walls were decorated the same way as the room near the tomb's entrance: bright and colourful pictographs at the top and bottom and carved golden decorations in between. At the far end of the large room to the right, where the wall went slightly father back, Lara could see another high opening. Inside was another small room that contained a large lever switch with large bird symbols on either side of it, which Lara figured were suggestive as to the switch's function. Below the far room opening, Lara could see a deadly surprise on the ground: a row of razor-sharp spikes.
"Hmm. Something tells me that I need to go over there." Lara said. "But how will I go about doing that? If I try being careful and jump up to grab the ledge, those spikes will more than likely hurt me very badly, or even kill me! I'm not in the mood to become meat on a stick for those stupid dinosaurs anytime soon! What else can I do?"
Standing in the high opening, Lara focused her attention on two large and tall blocks that were located at opposite ends of the room, both of which displayed the bird symbol on all of their sides. The one closest to Lara was in the lower right corner of the room, while the other one was straight ahead and up against the far wall under another opening which opened up into a narrow stairway with many golden Incan carvings on the walls. From there, the passage seemed to wind its way down to another opening that was located not far from where Lara was standing, though it was located on the ground below.
"How am I going to get over there?" Lara asked herself as she continued surveying the room. It occurred to her that the best solution in getting to the far room above the spikes was to move the two large bird blocks in such a way, that it would allow Lara to jump across. But the blocks were much too massive for her move on her own strength, so she immediately dismissed that option. Somehow, she knew that there had to be some other way she could get across to the switch. There's always a way. Lara would always tell herself, even during her horrible and tragic experience in the Himalayas at the age of twenty-one. Lara began climbing her way down into the large room and made her way down the small passage to her left and walked up the long staircase before turning and emerging into the opening directly across from where she first entered.
"Now what?" Lara asked as she studied the room from her new viewing angle. "This can't possibly be the end of…wait a second."
To Lara's right, almost hidden among the walls, was another opening in which Lara could jump up to. From there, Lara saw that she would have to jump up and climb to another ledge before doing the same thing again up to a passage leading to some unknown area that was hidden above the ceiling of the large room. Just thinking about it made Lara's brain question the logic of the Inca's building style. It did not seem to make sense for someone to jump and climb just to get to other areas. But then again, Lara had found herself in a tomb that was built in honour of a long-forgotten ancient ruler that once ruled an area that was no longer an easy destination to find, so it would have to make sense. Still, Lara remained confused, yet fascinated by the architecture of the tomb complex. After a quick breath, Lara walked out of the opening and onto the tall bird block and faced the opening on the right wall. It was close enough for Lara to do a standing jump without any issues, so Lara did just that and pulled herself into the dark opening with her flare still burning in her hand, though it was starting to fizzle out. After quickly regaining her strength, Lara climbed up the next large "step" and observed the continuing climb to the left. After two more large obstacles, she could see that the passage levelled off to a normal passageway that would take her just above the ceiling of the large room. Lara proceeded with caution up the large blocky obstacles and started down the passage, which made a left turn. She became nervous about the floor.
"Just how thin is this floor?" Lara asked herself as she walked in the dark. Then, Lara began hearing suspicious cracking and rock sounds echoing through the tunnel. It was then that Lara felt the ground beneath her feet give way, sending rocky debris falling and crashing into the large room below! Lara, however, was quick enough to grab the ledge and pull herself to safety before she fell to her death. Unfortunately, Lara lost her flare in the process of saving herself, so she had to take another one from her bag and light it.
"Well, that answers my question!" Lara said as her heart continued pounding from the unpleasant surprise. "I really need to get out of this passage before anything else like that happens! Knowing my luck, it probably will happen."
In an effort to avoid any further death-encouraging obstacles, Lara started running her way down the tunnel until it made a right turn. The weight of the shotgun on her back was already starting to weigh her down as soon as she entered the tomb complex, but now it felt as if Lara had the whole world on her shoulders after all the running and climbing that she had done since then. But she kept on pressing onward like the tomb raider she was. With her new flare illuminating the tunnel, Lara saw that tunnel ended and lead to a hole in the ground. Looking down the hole, the distance down to the ground was not lethal, but there was yet another opening to the left that lead down further, so Lara decided to jump down and investigate. After all, what else was there for her to do?
Climbing down, Lara saw a fork develop on the way down. Looking towards her left, Lara could see the path drop down to another opening that re-emerged into the large and dimly illuminated room right next to the other tall bird block. The other passage was a bit more mysterious, but Lara could see that it did not go down much farther before making a right turn into another area. She decided to follow it and go back the other way later.
"What a labyrinth this area is! This place is more confusing than I initially thought." Lara said as she suddenly came to what appeared to be a dead end. "Why would the builders of this place go this far out of their way just to build a tunnel that leads to nowhere? Hmm…Does this lead to nowhere?"
Realizing a pattern, Lara pushed on the wall and discovered that it was actually a hidden door leading back to the room she started in before exploring the large room. And, hidden in the dark corner of the room Lara was standing in was a beautifully decorated lever switch that Lara failed to notice earlier.
"Why did I not see this earlier?!" Lara said. "I feel like such a fool! Let's see what this switch does."
She pulled the switch, not expecting anything very spectacular to occur. Then, just as Lara expected very little to happen, she began to feel the ground shake slightly and heard the sound of grinding stone coming from the large room, which lasted for about twenty seconds. Once the noise and vibrations stopped, Lara looked into the large room and saw that the large bird block on the right side of the room had moved! It was now closer to the large opening above the row of spikes, but it was still not close enough for Lara to jump across into. She was dumbfounded by what she saw.
"That can't be possible!" Lara said as she studied the large block and the scrape marks it left behind from the small room's high opening. "How can a small lever switch move a large object like that without even coming into contact with it?! Magic? In the last eight years of my travels around the world, I have never seen anything like this! This can't be happening! Either I must be dreaming, or I'm going crazy…"
Then, Lara noticed something else she had failed to notice earlier. Hidden in the very corner near the other opening connected to the passage Lara took to get back into the room she was in now (which she also did not notice earlier) was another high opening. It did not lead very far, but it caught Lara's attention nonetheless. Since the bird block had moved, Lara would have to resort to using one of the hanging vines to make her way up there, but at least she could use a shortcut.
"I must be going crazy," Lara said, "because I'm certainly not dreaming right now!"
After working her way back through the labyrinth a little ways, Lara dropped down into the opening that was once adjacent to a giant block platform a minute ago and jumped forward to grab the thick vine that hung from the ceiling. She wanted to be sure if the plant was stable enough to take her weight, so she waited for the vine to stabilize its movement as gravity took over before she started climbing up. Turning her body to the right, Lara saw the small opening in the wall and started swinging towards it and gaining momentum before she decided to jump. She landed inside with a couple of sore arms, but managed to keep herself on her feet. At the end of the tiny passage, Lara discovered another lever switch. Without hesitating, Lara pulled the switch and felt the ground shake once again. She quickly looked out into the large room and saw the other large bird platform block move towards the spiked area right before her very eyes. She really was seeing magic happen.
"This is just downright incredible!" Lara said. "How did those ancients do it?! This is definitely the greatest discovery I have ever made! I can't wait to see the look on everyone's faces when they see this on television. In the meantime, I should focus on making it across that gap to the room above the deadly traps."
From her vantage point, Lara jumped to the vine and lowered herself before swinging over to the first bird block. Once Lara let go of the vine and landed on it, it was just a simple matter of jumping to the second platform and then jumping over the spikes and into the room with the large decorated lever switch with the bird pictograms on either side. Once inside the room, Lara breathed a sigh of relief.
"Finally!" she said under her own breath. She went over to the switch. "My instincts are telling me that this door will unlock one of the three gates back in the main room of the tomb. I can only hope that they are correct!" As Lara pulled the switch, a mysterious glow appeared above the symbols and a metallic mechanical sound was heard echoing throughout the tomb for a few seconds before it suddenly went quiet again. Lara smiled.
"One down, two to go." Lara said as she started making her way back to where she came from. Being careful not to fall into the spikes below, she jumped back over to the second bird platform and carefully dropped to the ground. Lara then walked across the gold and red chequered floor to the opening leading up to the entrance and jumped up to grab the ledge. Once inside, she immediately began heading back down the passageway that lead to the room with multiple doorways when all of a sudden she heard a loud prehistoric screech coming from the path leading back to the main room. Lara took out her pistols and shot at the dinosaur as it charged at her while she herself forward at the creature, ultimately emerging victorious as she has been for the past few hours of her adventure.
"I really want to know where those bastards are coming from!" Lara said to herself as she put her weapons back in their holsters. "The next dinosaur I see is getting their head blown off with my shotgun!"
Looking down into the main room and into the hallway beyond, Lara could see that the gate with the bird symbol on it had risen upward. Now, Lara was confident that she was on the right track to reaching the Scion locked inside Qualopec's throne room, but she still could not get over what she had seen in the previous area, for it was nothing like anything she had ever expected to see, even after her previous exploits to mysterious lands. Turning her attention back to the other passageways, Lara had two more to follow. Without even thinking, Lara went down the hallway with the sun symbol above it (the middle passage) and expected more surprises to be coming her way.
Wow! Lara has already gone through a lot of trouble just to open one of the three gates, but she has also, for the first time in her adventure, encountered something that could not be explained using the scientific method (and by that, I mean logic and reasoning). Not much has changed here from the game, except for the fact that I made Lara swing across a vine to get places, as well as have her fall through the ceiling of the large room from the passage above and saving herself from a nasty fall. For those of you wondering about Larson's whereabouts, I'll be sure to check up on him in the next chapter. But for now, I will see you the next time I update! :)
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