Unlike the rest of the cavern, the hallway was lined with brilliant white marble. Brilliant, golden braziers were lit in even intervals along the walls. At the end of the hall, were large, ornate steps. At the top of the steps was a large, golden pedestal, on top of which sat a beautifully crafted chest.

As Lara walked down the hall, her temples began to throb once more. She doubled over, her hands on her head as the singing began once more. This time louder, clearer, more forceful than before.

Her teeth gnashed together, and through bleary eyes, stinging with tears of pain, Lara pushed forward. But she moved at an agonizingly slow pace. With every step, the singing seemed to grow louder. The throbbing became more painful. But with the pain, with the confusion, came a deeper desire for Lara to push onwards. To come to the root of the problem and discover exactly what was going on.

As she came up to the steps, she paused. Doing her best to ignore the throbbing in her temples, she examined the marble staircase.

It was elegant, seemingly untouched by time and the elements. Each step was lavishly decorated and painted. Depicting famous scenes from Greek Mythology. At a glance, Lara recognized Jason and the argonauts, Odysseus' odyssey, and even the Gigantomachy. But there were even more scenes that Lara didn't recognize. One depicting a large pit in what Lara presumed to be the underworld, with an ungodly looking demonic creature crawling free. Another with what looked like seven warriors fighting off a giant of some sort.

She pulled out her phone, and took pictures of the stairs. She didn't know if the murals would mean anything useful, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

It was a very strange and surreal experience, she was beginning to realize. This entire situation was just so strange and out of this world, that she had to remind herself that she was actually awake and this wasn't some strange fever dream. She'd tried briefly to try and justify the strange hallway, but nothing added up. Even if she were to ignore how the hallway was discovered in the first place. The marble, while it was a durable and lasting material, would not be this pristine. The braziers had shown no signs of aging. The paintings should have bee diluted dulled with age or damaged from the moisture of being underground but were perfectly preserved.

It was all just so strange, but she supposed that she had given up on having a normal life eight years ago.

She reached the top of the stairs, and very nearly fell back down them again. She screamed, collapsing to the ground once more. It felt like she was being burned alive. Her organs liquifying as someone repeatedly drove the edge of an axe into her skull over and over and over again. She couldn't see. Not really. The pain was literally blinding. She was losing sense of where she was, who she was. What was up and what was down. Her world became little more than singing and pain.

She needed to do something. Needed to stop the pain. A sinister part of her, told her that she could end this nightmare by simply throwing herself down the stairs.

And she very nearly listened to that voice. But then that voice was drowned out, and Lara suddenly felt her body moving once more on its own. Was she being possessed once more, or was it her doing? She couldn't say. She couldn't think. She couldn't really register much of anything at the moment.

She was numbly aware that she was crawling, inch by inch, closer to the pedestal and the chest. With every inch, the pain grew more intense. But she continued forward. Her fingers dug into the marble of the pedestal. Finding the small grooves and ridges of the intricately carved piece. With a snarl. Drool dribbling down her chin, she pulled herself up along the pedestal. Tightly gripping onto the sides and heaving herself onto the platform holding the chest.

She knew that whatever was going on, likely delved around the chest. That opening the chest was likely the absolute last thing that she should be doing at the moment. But she also felt instinctively that by opening the chest, she would stop the pain. And at the moment, that's all that wanted. More than anything. She just wanted the pain to stop.

Her hands shaking, blood dripping down from her wounded palm and staining the pristine white of the marble, Lara gripped the sides of the chest. With what felt like tremendous strength, she flipped the lid open.

And it all stopped.

The pain disappeared.

Lara fell from the platform. Curling up in a small ball around the foot of the pedestal. Her body shaking, sweat perspiring down her cheeks. Or maybe they were tears. She didn't know. She felt…violated. Sick. She moved over, and once more she vomited profusely down the edges of the steps. Shuddering violently, she collapsed onto her back and stared up at the ceiling of the cavern.

"…least I took a picture first." She mumbled to herself.

She allowed herself some time to simply lay there. To catch her breath. She shuddered once more. What the hell had she gotten herself into? What was this? What was going on? And what was her father doing, looking into these things? Had he known? Had he known that these kinds of things were real?

And what exactly were "these kinds of things?" What was happening to her? And why had she allowed herself to get possessed again? She had chosen to come back here by herself. She knew that whatever had been controlling her body had wanted her to be here by herself. So why did she do what it wanted? And what was she even dealing with? Was it another situation like on the island, or was there something else?

With every step forward she seemed to take, it felt like she was taking twelve steps back. She rolled over, taking care not to roll into her own sick, and slowly hauled herself to her feet. She was unsteady, weak. She had to grip the sides of the pedestal just to keep herself from falling over.

It took her a couple of moments before she felt composed and strong enough to be able to hold herself up under her own power. When she was finally able to stand under her own strength, she reached out and gripped the chest, pulling it towards her.

Inside the red velvet interior of the chest, was a single scrap of paper. A small, well-kept, and well-maintained scrap. Reaching down, Lara grabbed the papyrus with care. It had to be at least a couple centuries old, and the absolute last thing she needed was to destroy it. Holding the small paper in front of her, she tried to read the scribbles on the paper. But, and not surprisingly, it was written in what Lara was coming to recognize as ancient Greek. Whatever the message said, had been written in haste. The papyrus was torn around the edges, and had clearly been ripped off a larger piece and thrown into the chest at the last moment.

She sighed, putting the papyrus back in the chest and closing its lid. She would need to show this Percy, which also meant figuring out an excuse for where she'd been and why she hadn't called.

She looked down at her sweat and vomit stained clothes.

Maybe he'd let her shower first before grilling her.

BREAK

Lara grunted, just managing to squeeze herself through the small gap in the rocks. The sun had risen, and the mid-morning light was reflecting off of the sea. Lara frowned, as she glanced down at her phone. She had been inside for nearly four hours, but Percy hadn't called her. Maybe he'd gotten caught up in something too? Maybe he had also found something and hadn't thought to call her? Or maybe he had just gotten bored of waiting around at the hotel and gone to sleep.

One way or the other, Lara wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth for the time being. As long as he wasn't worrying about her, that meant that she could hopefully sneak back to the hotel and shower before he interrogated her.

Reaching back into the rocks, Lara snagged the small chest. She didn't want to walk through town with ornate piece. Doing so seemed like inviting attention. Something which she desperately did not want. Shrugging off her jacket, her nose crinkling at the smell, she wrapped the small chest up in the coat and tucked it against her chest. Given the early morning heat, it wouldn't even look remotely out of place.

She managed to get back to her hotel without difficulty, and after shooting Percy a text telling him she was back and was taking a shower, she spent the next hour cleaning herself up. She allowed herself longer than usual in the shower. Her muscles and body were sore. It felt like she had just gone twelve rounds with a professional boxer, but after she had finished and had dried off, she did indeed feel much better. Exhausted, but at least no longer dead on her feet and covered in grime and her own vomit.

She checked her phone, and saw that there was still no word from Percy. She frowned, the beginning burbles of worry beginning to spring forth in her chest. But she waved them off for the time being. Chances were that he was just asleep. They hadn't had much chances for rest over the last couple of days, and they had just pulled an all nighter around the city. She reasoned that his body had finally caught up with him and he had crashed.

Something she desperately needed to do as well.

She needed rest, and she could call him after she woke back up.

She turned the volume up on her phone, and set it on the end table beside her bed. Her head had been against the pillow for only a few moments, before she slipped off and had fallen into a deep sleep.

She was dreaming again. She didn't know how she knew. Call it instinct, call it intuition. Whatever it was, she was certain that she was right, in spite of the strange black void that surrounded her. She knew what this was. She'd experienced it once before. Right before the dream of the two strange men.

The blackness distorted, warping and twisting before taking shape into something somewhat recognizable. At lest, the voices were recognizable, even if the image was not yet quite clear to her mind. The slavic man, McAvoy…Lara could hear him clearly through the blackness.

"…confirmed that she has the pages. I've sent a team to take care of it."

"And you're sure that it won't be traced back to me?"

"Relax, Grant, I can assure you that your name cannot be connected back to this in any way."

"And you're positive that this woman has the poems?"

"She has some of the poems."

"Some? Some? I thought you said she had the pages!"

"I said that she had some of the pages, not that she had all of them. If she had all of the pages, do you not think she would have announced it to the world?"

"You said the same thing about Croft!"

"And Croft hid one of the pages from you, didn't he? And he did not announce to the world what he'd discovered."

"And Croft was a lunatic!"

"Yes, but he was a brilliant lunatic. But I digress, I will send a team to Conroy's tomorrow."

"…are you going to kill her?"

"Not if it's avoidable. No need to senselessly spill blood when it isn't necessary."

"Just get it done, and get those pages back to me."

"Have you had any luck tracking down a translator? These pages are only so useful to us as far as we can translate them."

"I found someone, but he's expensive."

"The best usually are."

"I can find someone cheaper."

"You almost could not find someone at all. Besides, with what we stand to gain, money spent now matters little. Would you not agree?"

"…Just keep me updated."

McAvoy's rumbling chuckle faded away, as the blackness seemed to creep closer and closer to Lara. As the blackness swallowed her whole, McAvoy's laughter had faded completely, and Lara knew no more.

She awoke some hours later. The sun had begun to set once more; its orange glow reflecting off of the sea and shinning brilliantly into the room. She groaned, stretching her arms above her, enjoying the way her spine creaked and popped. She flopped back down onto her covers, her mind wandering back to conversation she'd been privy to.

She still didn't understand this strange new ability. If it even was her doing in the first place, given how the last twenty-fours had gone, she rather doubted it.

But Grant…and Conroy. Who were they? Conroy was the pressing concern for Lara at the moment. If these dreams were to be trusted, and she had a strange instinct that they could be, then this Conroy person was in danger. She thought back to what Percy had said the other day, when they'd made the dive on the ship. He said that someone had been there before them. Had gotten to something first. Could that have been this Conroy person?

Frowning, she reached out and snagged her phone from the nightstand, idly noting that Percy still hadn't gotten in touch with her, but she ignored that for a moment. She typed "Conroy archeology" into the search bar, and clicked on the first link that popped up. But after a quick scan of the article, she decided that it wasn't what she was looking for. It was something about a voice actor taking on a particular role for an upcoming television show."

She spent the next several minutes scrolling through the pages, and scanning the links. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of looking, she landed on something that appeared to be promising. Sylvia Conroy was a professor of archeology at New York University in the United States. She had received her doctorate from Oxford some ten years previously, and she specialized in the ancient world. More interestingly, was that according to the article she was reading, Miss Conroy had spent the last six months on sabbatical in Greece.

She worried at her lip for a moment. It wasn't a question of intervening in what was going to happen. She was going to get involved. It was more of a matter of whether or not she included Percy in her plans, and how she even got in touch with this woman. Or more importantly, how Lara could even find the woman at all. The article didn't say where she was staying, only that she was somewhere in Greece.

She began a deep dive into the woman's background. But much of her background and assets weren't listed. Least of all was her known properties or addresses listed. Not that she was surprised at the prospect. Outside of this very specific instance, she didn't think she'd ever give a damn about where this woman lived. She groaned in annoyance, falling back onto her bed and rubbing at her eyes.

She wanted to go back to sleep. She was still exhausted and drained from the last day and a half. But she couldn't go to sleep. Not yet. She needed to figure out where this Conroy woman was cozied up, and she also needed to figure out where the hell Percy was. Reaching out to her phone again, she hit Percy's name and brought the phone to her ear. But as the phone rang, she became aware that she could hear a phone ringing in the room next to hers. She sat up in her bed slowly, and stared at the adjoining room door.

When they'd checked in, Lara had requested rooms with adjoining doors. She hadn't wanted people seeing them going in and out of each other's rooms with different and strange equipment. Lara carefully rose from her bed. Grabbing the small knife that she kept under her pillow. The call went to voicemail, and Lara ended that call and started a new one. Placing her phone gently and silently on the television stand by the door. She wrapped her hand around the handle to the door. She carefully tested the knob. Turning it only just enough that she would be able to tell if it was locked or not.

It was not.

Readjusting her grip on her knife, she opened the door to the adjoining bedroom. She darted into the room, slamming her back against a nearby wall and scanning the environment. But there was nobody there.

Nobody but Percy.

Who was asleep on the bed.

Who looked as though he had been used as a punching bag.

Who's face was so swollen that it genuinely took her a moment to realize who she was looking at. On the bed beside him were a collection of small wrappers of strange, toffee colored candies that Lara didn't recognize. She rolled her eyes as she sat on the bed and inspected his injuries more carefully. Leave it to Percy to think it appropriate to treat his injuries with sugar. That seemed oddly fitting for the man who put an entire sugar jar into his coffee in the morning.

He was definitely still breathing, but he was also most certainly hurting. His right eye was swollen shut. His nose looked like it had been recently broken and he had forced it back into place himself. His lip was split, and there was a nasty yellowish-purple bruise swelling on his left cheek.

Then she began the inspection of his body, and she nearly toppled from the bed. He had been recently stabbed. By what, she didn't know, but she could tell that it had been large. There was a tremendous gash over his left breast. Percy must have had some first aid training in his background, because the wound had been sewed back together. Though it was far from an elegant job. It was no small wonder that he hadn't been calling her.

But why hadn't he gone to the hospital? And how had he gotten back to the hotel without freaking someone out. Realizing something else, she checked the bed, and then she checked the floor.

"How the hell did you manage that…" She muttered to herself. In spite of the rather impressive wound in his breast, there was no sign of blood anywhere in the room. Nothing was stained. Not the bed, not the floor, not the carpet.

Nothing.

Maybe he had gone to the hospital and that was the best that Greek medical care had to offer? Though she supremely doubted that was the case. Even a day one nurse would have done a better job stitching Percy together than he clearly had.

She poked him in the cheek.

"Percy, wake up."

He grunted, swatting at her hand.

"You don't get to get your ass kicked, go silent on me, and then stay asleep. Now get up." She jabbed him, though not roughly, in the kidney. He gasped out, his eyes shooting open as he jolted upright. But the sudden movement was a little too much than his body could handle at the moment. His face welded shut in pain, as he collapsed backwards back onto the bed.

"Lara…" he groaned. "What the hell was that for?"

"You've been asleep all day," she looked him over again. "And you look like you tried to fight a lorry and lost. Badly."

Percy grimaced. Though Lara wasn't certain whether it was from pain or embarrassment.

"Got jumped last night," he grumbled. "Should see the other guy though."

"I'm sure tough guy, now what the hell happened?"

"I told you," he said indignantly. "I was just looking around the district, then I got jumped by a couple freaks. Must have thought that I'd be easy pickings." He grinned nastily at her, "But I'm more than just a good-looking geek." We winked, but the expression was lost as a pitiable expression passed over him and he groaned.

"Joking aside," said Lara, "What are you doing here? Why didn't you go to the hospital, and why didn't you call me?"

"I tried calling you." "No you didn't."

"Yes, I did. But it went straight to voicemail. I figured wherever you were, you were somewhere without service."

"You didn't think I was in trouble? After you got jumped?"

"You're a big girl,"

Lara smiled wryly in spite of herself.

"Clearly bigger than you are, look at the utter state of you."

Percy reached out to the pillow beside him and flung it at her. Lara squawked indignantly as the pillow smacked her in the side of the head and threw her from the bed. But she laughed as she hauled herself back onto the bed.

"But seriously, I never got your call." Percy frowned, and reached over to his bedside and grabbed his phone. He scrolled through it for a moment, before tossing it at her. Lara glanced down and frowned. Sure enough, Percy had called her at least six times last night and early that morning. She checked her own phone, and found that there were still no calls appearing on her phone.

"Weird," she muttered, "Probably just a bug."

"Whatever," grumbled Percy, taking his phone back and tossing it beside him before laying down once more.

"So where have you been?" He asked, "You weren't here when I got back, and since you don't look like shit, I'm guessing you found something?"

"Yeah, one sec." Lara got up from the bed and walked back to her room. She grabbed the chest from its protective bundle and brought it over to Percy. His expression lit up when he saw the chest, and he heaved himself into a sitting position. Lara pressed the chest into his lap, and he greedily opened it and examined the small paper inside.

"Can you grab me a pair of gloves, please?"

Lara nodded, and wandered over to his suitcase. After rifling through it for a moment, she found a pair of latex gloves and tossed them at him. He snagged them out of the air without glancing up from the paper and began snapping them onto his hands.

"Showoff," she muttered, rolling her eyes, though she was still smiling. As Percy reached into the chest and began examining the document, Lara leaned back, her hands between Percy's calves. She glanced over her shoulder, spying one of the still unopened candies on the bed. Her stomach growled, she hadn't eaten anything all day and she realized how ravenously hungry she was. Without saying anything, she leaned further back and snagged one of the candies from the bed. She was just about to begin unwrapping it, when Percy's hand darted out and latched onto her wrist.

"Don't eat that," he said seriously.

Lara rolled her eyes. "Oh come off it Percy, it's just a candy. You can buy another one."

"It's not a candy," said Percy sharply, "They're specifically made for my digestive system and metabolism. If someone without the right bodily requirements were to eat one, they could get seriously, seriously sick."

"Seriously?" "As a tumor."

Lara dropped the candy into Percy's gloved palm, who unwrapped it and tossed it into his mouth.

"That was all bullshit wasn't it?"

"Could have been."

"I hate you,"

"Lies."

"Just shut up and tell me what the damn note says."

Percy's smile dropped.

"It's weird," he scratched behind his ear. "Whoever wrote it, it's almost like they were trying to apologize to Sappho."

"So Sappho didn't write it?"

Percy shook his head, and leaned over to show her the end of the note.

"This, I think, says Erinna."

"Who?"

"Another classical poet. A contemporary of Sappho. You would probably recognize the painting of her and Sappho in the garden. It's been rumored that they were in a sexual relationship."

"The garden?" Asked Sappho, "Like the one my father was talking about?"

Percy shook his head, "Nah, just some garden here in town. Don't know if it's even still here."

Lara's eyes nearly bugged out of her skull.

"Holy shit…"

"What?"

"That's how I found this." She pointed excitedly at the note. "I was in a park, and I saw this logo carved in the bench!" She hesitated, and decided to lie a little. It looked like it was pointing at something, so I followed it. There was another of the symbols carved into a post a couple yards away, so I just followed the trail, and it eventually led me to a small cave. Would have completely missed it if I wasn't looking for something."

She prayed that Percy was tired enough not to see through the obvious nonsense of her story. Thankfully, it looked like he was.

"Good work Croft." He smiled, raising a hand in the air. Lara smiled, shyly. Feeling oddly guilty for lying to the man, even as she clapped his hand with her own.

"Thanks…"

Percy's expression dropped back into one of perplexity. "Going back to the note…it…doesn't make a lot of sense."

"What does it say?"

"It says, 'I am sorry, I know for what you have done and for why. But I cannot pass up this opportunity. Not when it is so close. Not when it is at the tips of my fingers. I can only hope that you may one day forgive me for what I have done, and what I am about to do. Erinna.'"

Lara's heart hammered into ribs. There really was something going on with these pages. She wasn't going insane. They meant something. They had power, or at least someone else had clearly believed that they held power. She wasn't going insane. She wasn't cracking. It felt as though a weight she hadn't known she'd been carrying was lifted off of her shoulder.

"So it sounds like we need to start tracking down this Erinna woman, then." Percy didn't respond. He looked deep in thought.

"Percy?" She poked him in the thigh, and he jumped a little. Though this time, he didn't wince.

"Sorry, yeah. Yeah we can…we should start looking into this a bit. I can make some calls. I know of Erinna, but knowledge of her is…fairly limited."

Lara nodded, it felt like they were finally making progress. But unfortunately, their look into this mysterious woman would have to wait.

"That's going to have to wait a few days though."

"Why's that?"

"I think I know for certain where some more of the pages are."

Percy perked up.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, doses the name Sylvia Conroy mean anything to you?"

Percy's eyes bulged, "Dr. Conroy has the pages?!"

"Wait…do you know her?"

"Know her?" Snorted Percy, "She was my advisor in grad school. She's an angel." His smile faded into a frown. "She never mentioned to me she was looking into something like this."

"Does she have a place here in Greece?"

Percy nodded. "Yeah, she has a townhouse in Athens. She likes to go there during her time off."

"Excellent." Lara clapped her hands together. "Well you'll have a chance to ask her all about it, because we're going to go pay her a visit."

"We are?" Percy stared at her incredulously. "Why? Not that I'm complaining mind you, but wouldn't it make more sense to leave the pages that are safe and secure and focus on the ones we know nothing about?"

"It would," agreed Lara. "But I got a call from an old friend. It sounds like we aren't the only ones hunting down these pages…" She trailed off and Percy's expression darkened. He didn't need it spelled out for him.

"I'll be ready in fifteen."

AN: Happy Birthday Percy. Join my Discord in my profile, the EL; I'm there, Greed's there, my sweet baby boi Double is there. Be there or be square. Oh, and I'm back, I guess.