Just bear with the odd point-of-view changes, I'm still working the kinks out of it.

Chapter 2

"Right...this shouldn't be too hard."

Lara pulled the switch down and somersaulted under the door before the mechanism gave way and slammed the solid stone door down again. She stood up once more and brushed dust off her jacket-not that it mattered; the thing was a magnet for anything unsightly.

Hand resting on one of her pistols, she glanced around the crypt for any possible trap systems. As far as she could tell, there was nothing harmful around, so she relaxed a little and unhooked the torch from her belt. She flicked the switch on and thoroughly scanned the area for pressure pads, tripwires, trapdoors; anything that could deploy some sort of trap.

She pointed the torch down at the pedestal, but found nothing there. She thought to herself, What the hell? It was supposed to be here! Don't tell me I'm too late!

There had to be something either inside the ornate stand, or it was somewhere written on the walls. She studied the pedestal, feeling around for a button that could reveal some secret compartment.

Nothing.

"Damn..." She scanned the walls once more, this time noticing the button on the far wall. But there wasn't a way to climb up to it and trigger the mechanism. Not that this was a problem. Lara drew one of the pistols from her legs and shot at the button, missing slightly. She pulled the trigger again, this time successfully hitting the button.

She heard the rudimentary mechanism begin to activate, revealing a secret passageway under the pedestal. "Now that's more like it..." Lara pointed the flashlight down the stairway that had been revealed as she slowly stepped down. She looked around the narrow corridor, noticing that the architecture that she could see definitely wasn't Andean. It looked Norse more than anything.

She muttered, "This is interesting..." and slowly stepped into another sort of crypt. She thought to herself, What could be down here that needs so much protecting?

As she moved the torch across the walls, some of the images in the walls seemed to shimmer when the light hit them. In the corner of her eye, Lara thought she saw one of them continue to glow.

"Is this some sort of puzzle?" She noticed that the carvings were depicting various parts of the final battle of Ragnorok. Her train of thought began wandering off into what she remembered from the story: Thor used Mjolnir to destroy the Midgard Serpent once and for all. But these carvings showed details of the battle that Lara had never heard of before.

It seemed to be that she would have to guess her way through this time. She sighed and pointed her torch all over the wall, hoping that this would activate an unlocking mechanism.

After moving the light over every image, she switched the light off and studied the wall, waiting to see if her guess was correct.

The images glowed brighter for about a second, and a deep rumble began to sound...Hopefully this wasn't a booby trap meant for those who failed the puzzle. The explorer watched intently as the wall slowly separated into two segments that moved away from each other just enough to allow an average-sized man through.

The passage was pitch black. Lara flicked the torch on again and shone it through the doors to check for any traps.

When she was absolutely sure it was safe, she took her hand off her pistol and serenely continued into the newly revealed room.

This time the plinth in the center of the room actually had what she'd been looking for: a strange, as-of-yet unknown artefact. Miss Croft smiled and sauntered toward it, wary of a pressure pad that could trigger a defense mechanism of some sort, slicing her head clean off or riddling her with rudimentary arrows. She murmured to herself, "What is this thing? This is definitely Norse in origin."

The artefact in question was a metal gauntlet that was still gleaming like it had been made only weeks before. Lara studied it more closely, seeing the intricate designs etched into the surface. These designs seemed to tell a story of some sort. As far as Lara could tell, the series of etchings containing a large, hideous woman were probably telling a story related to the ruler of the Norse Underworld, Hel. What Lara assumed was the first etching looked somewhat like five people: Loki, Angrboda, an infant, Jormungandr, and the Fenrir wolf. The infant was half dark-coloured and half light-colored, a telltale sign that it must have been Hel.

A vine extended from this etching and swam through dozens of leaves, stopping at another etching of Hel. She was a grown woman this time, and a one-eyed god-Odin-appeared to be chastising her for something, probably her appearance. This bit of Hel's story was a lot more familiar to Lara: The moment Odin banishes Hel to be the ruler of her own personal realm of the Nine Worlds, Helheim. Hel was known for not being particularly attractive, what with her skin being half dark and half light and any beauty she had was only on the lighter part of her.

Then, a final etching showed Hel sitting upon a dark misty throne, her face triumphant as she wore two gauntlets resembling the one the image was engraved upon. Lara asked herself, "This didn't happen...is it some obscure myth no one bothered to write down?"

She checked the plinth for a pressure pad before gently picking the artefact up and placing it into her rucksack. She waited for a few seconds for a defense mechanism to deploy, but nothing happened. She let go of the breath she'd been unknowingly holding and retraced her steps to get out of the crypt under the abandoned Norwegian cathedral.

Upon throwing the front doors open, she was greeted by the man she would have rather had the fortune to never see again.