Tomb Raider: Legend Of The Nightmare Stone Chapter 7: Volcanic Temple, a tomb raider fanfic

-Volcanic Temple

Hot, the word and the current thought that crossed Lara's mind, as she made it through the bat doorway and the stairs. The temperature was blazing hot compared to the caverns. Lara had entered into a huge hallway, unbelievable to be sure, there was lava covering almost nearly everywhere. At first, there was a lava stream flowing over two sides of the hall. Next there were small reservoirs of lava pits surrounding the hall. All were steaming away with a puff and a hiss. Because of this, the hall was very smoky and quite difficult to see in, but Lara was able to make out where she needed to go.

The environment of the hall wasn't a very pleasant one, as the texture all around was very rough. For example, the ground wasn't flat, but was very hard-stoned and the walls were covered in boulders, looking like they are going to be shot out of the wall. Despite this, Lara still carried onwards into the hallway. Minding every step she takes, so she wouldn't be in danger of plunging into the deathly lava. A few minutes had passed, and Lara managed to get herself to the end of the hallway. But this time around, it wasn't another door she had come across or had expected to. Instead it was another spooky statue that had been shaped as a long thin dragon. It was curved amazingly as every detail on the statue was made to exact measurement. It was coloured in a shaded light green, and it was incredible that it hadn't wore away from the intense heat inside.

The statue had a very wide opening, as if something was meant to be placed there. Lara found it hard not to imagine a dragon opening its mouth wide, and seeing the insides of it. She wondered what needed to be inserted into the dragon's mouth, and began to examine the width and length of what the object could be. 'Of course, the red orb I picked up back in the caverns!' Lara quickly rummaged through her backpack and got out the red orb. She inserted it straight into the mouth core of the dragon.

Unsteadily the ground started to shake, and one of the barricaded doorways started to open up, along with a secret opening to the left of it. Lava was now spitting out because of the sudden shake, Lara had to be careful where she treaded, not wanting her heel to touch any of the puddles from the spitting lava. While nearly tripping over the unlevel floor, Lara had made it to see what was hidden in the secret compartment. 'Another Panel Piece'!

The bright panel piece was glowing throughout the dark hall. Lara grabbed it, and set it aside along with the rest of the collected pieces in her backpack. She thought they must be all linked somehow, and moved onto the newly revealed passageway.

'Whoa!' Lara gasped. As she stepped onto the stairs of the newly revealed passageway, immediately by some sort of magic or mechanics, the stairs had been converted into one big slope. She slid down it with quite some speed, since it was very oily for some reason, and it had brought her into a huge pit with a strange statue or doorway. Lara dropped down, and rushed quickly to the centre, where the statue/doorway was built upon. She then realized what it had been.

It was a large doorway shaped into the head of a cobra snake, with glowing yellow flame eyes and mouth wide open, wanting to grab and take you inside. Lara looked through the doorway, but can only see a short drop onto a slope leading down. She had guessed that the snake guardian was down there, waiting for any intruder or prey that dared to enter inside. She had finally reached the snake guardian! The final key of unlocking the Nightmare Stone in the altar above, her heartbeat was going crazy, but she had to prepare herself for battle. Taking out her pistols, making sure they were fully reloaded ready for the snake guardian encounter, she took a few deep breaths, turned and dropped down into the abyss.

Right in the middle of sliding down upon the slope, Lara had finally seen the monster. There had been a huge nest, where the snake guardian was a king-sized gigantic cobra snake. It had sat there waiting for Lara's arrival, hissing away to its self. Until it finally saw Lara coming down the slope with her weapons aiming for its head. Lara came down from the slippery slope and into the guardian cobra snake's lair. Instantly the snake was preparing itself for a full on attack on Lara!

With its mouth raised wide open, the cobra was absorbing some kind of energy, and creating a ball to unleash on Lara. Automatically Lara could see the snake guardian had unnatural magical properties, and it was attacking in a similar fashion to the skeleton reaper. With the energy ball now prepared, the snake rapidly unleashed it upon Lara, who had to dash and jump out of the way from its impact. At this point, Lara was already shooting the snake as quick as she possibly can with her pistols, but the impacts from them were taking their time to really damage the snake. After dodging a few energy balls, the snake had enough of creating them, since they were not taking effect against Lara. The cobra then decided it would go for Lara itself, with its humungous fangs!

Able to foresee this change in its tactics, Lara withdrew from her shooting. As the snake slithered towards in her direction, she prepared herself for a huge roll going to one side of the room. It happened. The snake all of a sudden plunged forward at a speedy pace, while Lara moved as fast as she could to the other side, avoiding the venomous fangs in the process. The snake had nearly knocked down the whole ceiling, as it tried to attack Lara by hitting the wall instead.

Recovering from the side roll, Lara redrew her pistols and carried on counter-attacking the cobra. Finally the bullets from the pistols came into effect, as the snake was shaking continuously, trying to shake of the firing bullets. The cobra went for one final strategy, as if its life depended on this tactic. It slowly trailed around Lara, as if it was ready to bind her at once. Luckily, Lara foresaw this attack coming, so she waited until the snake thought it would have upper hand advantage. Without warning the snake squeezed it body into a wrap against Lara!

But unknown to it, Lara had jumped backwards out of the trap it had tried to set up. While the snake guardian was still thinking it had got her in its power, Lara aimed straight at the back of its hood. Four bullets later, the snake had given up on pursuing Lara, and had tried to regenerate itself by curling up into something that resembled a ball. But it was too late, Lara had gained up on the snake, and with one final blow the guardian cobra snake was no more.

As it had fallen, Lara examined the dead remains. The snake's mouth had been left open and Lara saw inside was some sort of crystal. This was the final key of unlocking the Nightmare Stone! 'The Crystal'! She gasped, and took it out from the snake's mouth as it began to rot. Lara stashed it into her backpack and got out the map, the deceased Illiat had given her a while ago. According to it, there should be an exit near where she was, so she began to make her way there.

It was exactly correct, as a doorway which Lara had never encountered before, she went though it and was immediately outside. Fresh air had been inhaled by Lara, as she had spent a long time inside that temple, 'Now time to get to the altar!' On the double, using the map as a guide, Lara made her way back to the altar with the 'X' orb. She approached it carefully, and re-examined it again after last time. There were four holes, for where Lara had guessed the four panel pieces go. One by one she placed each panel into their respective correct holes. They slowly turned by the mechanics hidden away at the altar, and it was time for Lara to offer the final key of unlocking the Nightmare Stone, the crystal.

Using the crystal and touching the flashing white 'X' orb, Lara reached out for the now unlocked Nightmare Stone. At last she was finally holding it in the palms of her hands! 'So this is the Nightmare Stone'. Lara could feel the amount of evil energy surrounding it, wanting to be unleashed into the world, so it can consume the whole world with its dark pleads. Lara then thought back to what Illiat had told her. 'Destroy the Nightmare Stone Lara... It is PURE EVIL'!

'Illiat was right, it must be destroyed' she thought, and Lara had made her way back into the volcanic temple, where she approached a pool of lava.

Giving it one final look, Lara held it upwards in her palms and threw it into the depths of the lava. It was there afloat on top of the lava for a short while, as if it wanted to reach out for Lara, and take her along it too into the boiling lava. Suddenly it began to crack, but afterwards began to sink into the lava, never to be seen again by a living soul, Quaxet's soul was finally destroyed. 'There, it's finally over!' A happy thought blew over Lara, but it did not last long.

Unexpectedly the lava began to erupt, and this eruption nearly splashed over Lara, "OH NO!" she shouted as the lava continuously erupted. Lara thought better, and decided to run towards the doorway leading outside. However as she was making her way, the volcanic temple started to shake violently. 'The whole place is collapsing! I've got to get out of here'! She ran as quickly as she could to the doorway, but just then a collapsing boulder just fell onto the passage out. Lara was unable to get out! 'Blast! The exit is blocked. I better find another way out of here'!

Stranded, Lara quickly thought of where she had seen possibly another exit, and then she remembered. 'Of course, the cobra's lair had an opening!' Swift as she can be, Lara made her way back into the guardian's lair. At the very end of the pit, there was indeed a hidden ladder leading straight upwards. Desperately wanting to save herself from the collapsing temple, Lara, under pressure rushed herself upwards, as hastily as her body capacity was capable. The lava started to rise up, and was disintegrating the lower part of the ladder!

On the double, Lara climbed up on the ladder, until finally she got to the end. Hoisting herself up, Lara saw bright light at the end of the tunnel, to where the ladder had led her. She sprinted as fast as she can to the light, as the temple began collapsing under its own weight. The light was beginning to fade, and using her last attempt, she jumped out towards the light. Fresh air was once again was rushing into her lungs. Not taking any more chances, Lara with all her remaining strength left, sprinted away from the temple. Black smoke began to rise from it. She must have travelled about a mile, before Lara thought she was within safe distance from the temple. She turned her back and saw the result of what happened.

The temple had exploded. Lava was erupting and pouring out of the remains covering around 400 metres of the circular ground around it, killing anything in its path. Lara then turned her attention to the crystal, which she had kept after unlocking the Nightmare Stone. Smiling to herself while panting, she thought 'Well at least the trip wasn't a total waste'. The crystal was glowing bright green, as Lara turned away from the wreckage of the temple and walked into the sunset.

Along the way, Lara had two things on her mind for when she would eventually return back home. First she would phone the professor, and tell him all about her exhausting adventure and the sad loss of Illiat. Without him, Lara wouldn't have been able to complete the journey. Finally, she would store the precious crystal within the trophy room in her mansion, along with all her precious collections and findings from previous adventures.

The End

Tomb Raider: Legend of the Nightmare Stone (Based On 'Tomb Raider' Game Boy Colour Game)

Tomb Raider and Lara Croft