-The Caverns
Leaving the brilliance of the Treasure chambers behind, the environment had changed drastically from the wonderful properly built structure of the chambers, to a damp, cold and mouldy area. It had been disgusting and grotesque. Lara stepped forward and immediately in front of her was what looked like a pool of waste. It was full of dirt, smelly and strangely of a dark purple colour. It felt more like a sewer than a cave for Lara, as she was nearly tempted to hold her nose in, while travelling through. But she needed that second hand for what was about to be upcoming.
Another ledge was on the other side of the purple coloured pool, so Lara prepared herself for a big jump, not wanting to end up inside the pool of waste. She stepped backwards, and did a run-and-jump. To Lara's relief both of her feet had ended up on the ledge of the landing. It was a small landing though, and again Lara was faced with another pool of waste. Only this time it had been a lot bigger, and the other ledge was about 50 meters away from her. Knowing that she would be unable to make the jump, Lara scanned her surroundings. She found above in the ceiling that vines were dangling down, possibly capable of supporting Lara's weight, as she might give monkey swinging on them a go.
'Just keep looking straight ahead, concentrate on getting to the other side'. Lara continuously thought to herself, not wanting to look down at the purple goo. She dropped onto the ledge, having made it pass through the large pool of wastage goo. Immediately it was only a small ledge, as it had lead Lara into another spike pit, one of the worst condition ones she had encountered. The spikes had decayed and rusted to a point, where it nearly looked no longer like your average daunting spike trap.
Lara took no chances, and another ledge ahead of it was already in sight. She hopped over the trap, and now she had made it to a dead-end. Lara scanned everywhere for a passage to proceed onwards. Just at that moment she spotted a manhole there integrated onto the muddy underground ledge she was on. Hoping it wasn't another pool of purple goo, she examined it. All it seemed to be was an underground water tunnel, similar to the one when she faced while looking for the red, yellow and blue handle earlier.
It was very freezing, like jumping into an arctic pool with nothing to protect you from the cold bitterness. Taking a few deep breaths, Lara dunked her whole body into the reservoir and started to swim underneath the depths of the underwater tunnel. She managed to see okay underneath, but it had been nearly full of falling muck from the landings above.
After dodging a few electric eels and ferocious-looking fish that seemed to take pride that this passage was their home, Lara had nearly ran out of reversed breath. She needed to find an air pocket within the passage, or else she would drown. Breathing at a quick pace, she had found a small air pocket, above the passage where she was swimming, and dashed up there for a breather. It took a few moments and Lara saw something small glinting covered underneath where she was treading water.
She looked down making sure it wasn't her just seeing things, and again right under the water, she saw a slight red glint dug underground. Sucking in as much air as she can, Lara dived back underwater and swam towards the glistening red object. She brushed aside the dust surrounding the object, and finally saw what it was. A circular ruby red orb shone within the darkness of the underground water passage, Lara picked it up and it was quite heavy for what it was. Thinking ahead that she may need it later, and probably worth some value, she unhooked her backpack and placed the orb inside.
Lara continued her journey though the underground passage until out of the blue, there it was, another ledge for her to hoist herself out of the freezing pool. She swam upwards and quickly got out of the manhole, not feeling any better. In front of her was one of the scariest doorway's she had ever come across. It was a dark red accented bat figured door, shaped and crafted, as the bats mouth is the only way to enter through. Lara got closer to the ghastly doorway and inspected its fearsome properties. Brass steel doors were blocking the way forward, and these too were shaded and patterned in a dark red tone.
Lara was unable to get though, until she had noticed the two stands beside the door. One was on the left of it, while the other to the right side. Then she remembered what she had collected from the treasure room in the treasure chambers. That jewellery box containing those two diamonds, it had said that the two would open the way to the snake's lair. Lara took out the jewellery box, and opened it while observing the two stands, both had indents saying which diamond goes where. Lara inserted the blue diamond into the left side, and as for the right side, she inserted the red diamond. A shudder emerged from the doorway, as it gave a loud creak whilst opening, revealing stairs leading downwards into the core. Unsure what she may face down there, Lara's heartbeat started to increase in pace as she followed the stairs going down.