Spectator's View
Upon reaching the bottom of the sloped passage, Lara approached the spike pit cautiously and caught sight of a few more armoured skeletons of Greek warriors. Their fate was obvious. They clearly fell victim to a painful fall, perhaps during a battle when one or both opposing warriors to lost their balance after not realizing where their steps were taking them. After millennia, their bodies are still mangled and twisted among the sharp spires. Just thinking about it made Lara cringe a little, but it did not bother her too much. Looking to the left of the spike trap, she could see another opening that seemed to lead down another passage. To where though? There was only one way for her to find out, and it would require her to carefully negotiate the spikes in order to reach the passage. Taking a deep breath, Lara started to slowly walk her way through the trap to the other passage.
"Hopefully I don't cut myself." Lara said as she started to slowly walk between the sharp spires. She soon discovered that no matter how carefully she tried to navigate through the trap, the spikes would try to snag on her shirt. Suddenly, Lara somehow made a misstep and felt the sharp edge of one the spikes cut her leg. Although the cut was not too deep, it caused her a great deal of pain and she could feel a small amount of blood seeping from the wound. Still, she carried on through the spikes until she made it safely into the passageway. Before carrying on to the next area, she inspected her injury and applied some antibiotics to it to stop any infection that might have been present. She then applied a bandage to hide the wound.
"That hurt a little." Lara said. "I'm just lucky I didn't end up like those warriors. If only a certain someone would fall down here. I did get his arm pretty good though…" she was of course talking about Pierre. "Oh well. I just care about getting to that tomb before he does. Let's see where this new passage will take me."
Lara walked down the passage and made a left turn into a medium-sized area that was completely in ruin. She saw large towering rocks and boulders that seemed to form a route leading upwards where the light of the sun was seen shining down from arena above. She figured she was right beneath the large rock formation that was in the middle of the arena and that the hole in the ceiling would take to the very top of it. Lara climbed the rocks and to the left where the skylight was located and pulled herself onto an even higher rock ledge. Looking up, she found another ledge and jumped up to pull herself up where she emerged on top of the large rock formation. She took in the view of the coliseum from her new vantage point and could not help but feel the same feeling of awe and wonder from when she first entered. Looking around at all of the ancient seating arrangements, it was not to imagine the noise that once filled the arena. The spectator's balcony was much closer than before and Lara started to look for a possible way to get up there. Just to the right of it was her answer. Near the demolished corner area of the amphitheatre was an exposed area of the ancient seating area where another rock formation in the arena was seen adjacent to it. From where Lara was standing, it was just close enough for her to jump across with no problems.
"I want to see what's in that balcony." she said. "Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll find a route that will lead me to where I need to go… Anything seems possible at this point."
After taking a few steps back, Lara ran to the edge of the rocky ledge and jumped over to the other rock ledge and landed with both intact. She then focussed her attention on the high ledge of the spectator's balcony, which almost looked too high for her to reach by simply jumping and grabbing the edge. After all of the things she had to deal with so far, Lara was not prepared to risk it all. Instead, she focussed her eyes on the cracked and ancient stone that made up the wall below the balcony and saw that the cracks formed a reasonable shimmying obstacle for her to navigate. Lara examined the walls for about a minute and carefully planned her route before she started climbing the wall and began shimmying along the cracks. As she climbed around the first corner, her feet startled to dangle as she hung high above the bottom of the arena. Her strength started to fade, but Lara was thankfully able to find a protruding stone brick to rest her feet while her upper body strength returned. She continued shimmying along the wall until she rounded along the second corner and started climbing up to the balcony ledge. She was about to climb up when she gasped at the sight of danger and almost fell to the ground below.
GORILLA!
Hanging by one hand, Lara was able to regain her grip of the ledge. But the hairy beast was now looming over her and there was no way she would be able to get up unless she somehow managed to shimmy over to the left and out of the gorilla's line of sight.
"Come on, Lara. You can do this." she told herself. "Just focus on the goal ahead of you."
Realizing there was no other way to avoid the gorilla, Lara quickly shimmied to the left and around a third corner. By now, Lara's back was facing the opposite side of the coliseum from which she came and she was at risk of falling to her death. Unable to tell if it was safe to climb up into the balcony, she took a gamble and used the remaining part of her strength to climb up anyway. The gorilla was close by and not hesitant in bringing the archaeologist to her knees. Lara quickly drew her pistols and started pounding lead into the beast as it tried charging at her and quickly glanced to her left to spot another gorilla that was trying to kill her.
"Oh, bloody hell!"
Finishing off the first gorilla with a few shots to the head, Lara sprinted to the other side of the room to avoid getting beaten by the other. In an act of desperation, as well as to save her pistol bullets, Lara wielded her shotgun and blasted the ape in the head, miraculously killing it in just a single shot. She breathed a sigh of relief and decided to rest a little before continuing her exploration, though it did not stop her from looking around and examining the ancient architecture.
"Well…I'm glad that's over." Lara said. "I think I'll take a minute to just take in the view from this vantage point."
Looking around the room she was in, she caught sight of an ancient lounge chair close to the edge of the balcony, presumably where the spectator of the ancient athletic games sat during each game and watch the action take place. It was made of stone, as well as tarnished metallic decorative trimmings (silver?). Amazingly, even with the presence of destructive animals and natural forces, the piece of furniture was still intact and looked as though it was ready to be used for the next upcoming competition. On the right side of the sand-coloured room (the side closest to destroyed corner area of the coliseum), there was a closed gate blocking off a stairway that had a keyhole next to it. Whatever was behind the vertical metal bars, Lara seemed to get the idea that it would lead to somewhere of importance, as with the other locked doors she encountered in her travels up to this point, but she did not like the idea of having to find another key. When she tried opening it, she was dismayed to find that it was locked.
"Damn…" Lara said. "Maybe there's another way to get to where I need to go. I should try checking the rooms in each of the corners of the amphitheatre. Hopefully I'll find more clues in those areas."
Looking back out into the main arena, the grandeur of the amphitheatre looked even more spectacular than when she first entered. Lara was seeing the area the way the ancient spectator would have seen it. From her slightly higher vantage point, she could also barely able to see the tips of the Greek mountains through the large open skylight, which made for a perfect snapshot. Sadly, Lara once again neglected to bring her camera so she was unable to take any photographs.
"I really wonder why this place went undiscovered." Lara said. "I would've thought people would have been able to find this place and simply look down to see all of this wonderful ancient work. Hmm…I guess people just aren't interested in searching for ancient sites these days…"
Looking around at each of the walled-off rooms in the three unaltered corners of the coliseum, she cringed at the thought of retracing her steps. But if it meant finding another possible path to the Tomb of Tihocan, it would be better than finding nothing at all. Either way, it would simply add on to her massive inventory of archaeological findings. Before she decided to go back, Lara decided to look around the spectator's balcony in depth to see if there was another way. Turning back in the other direction, the first thing she saw was a large decorated wall with carvings of Greek men wrestling similar to what see saw back in St. Francis' Folly (which seemed fitting for an ancient site for athletic competition). Behind the wall, the room continued around it and was connected by a large doorway to another room that lead down to an ancient staircase. At the bottom of the hallway was a large set of double doors stood ajar and seemed to lead somewhere. Lara walked down the dark stairway and entered the doors, only to find that it lead to a dead end.
"I wonder where this used to lead." Lara said as she examined the stone wreckage. She tried to see if there were gaps in the rubble, but there were none in sight. Realizing her only remaining option, Lara headed back up the stairway and back onto the balcony and started looking for a safe way to get back down to the bottom of the arena.
Time to search the corner rooms. she thought. If only I had just a little bit more luck…
Hey everyone, I'm back! Sorry for the terrible delay. I've been busy with my continuing college life and I haven't had the chance to update this story. Hopefully this chapter doesn't seem too plain. I was going to have this be the last chapter for the Coliseum level, but I ended up deciding to break this into two chapters instead. The chapter after the next chapter will be the start of Palace Midas, so stay tuned for that. Don't forget to leave a review and I will be back as soon as I can with the next chapter. See you then :)
saturn95