Sharp Spears and Fire

Walking across the main hall and through the newly opened door, Lara emerged in a rather sinister-looking room that was barely being lit by the light that was coming from the main hall, as well the little bit of light that managed to find its way through a tiny crack in the 'stepped' ceiling. The floor was a dull grey, almost like that of concrete, and there were six slightly raised sections scattered around the room on the floor, all of which were surrounded by large ancient containers filled with ancient and rusted spears, all of which had their sharp ends pointing upward and diagonally toward the ceiling. There was something unusual about the raised sections of floor that Lara did not notice until just a moment ago. They looked almost metallic in nature compared to the rest of the floor, almost as if they were not permanent fixtures. Could they be some kind of mechanism? If so, what? Whatever it was, Lara had the instinct that it might be another puzzle, preferably one that would help her in the long run. Looking around the dim room, she was quick to spot another doorway on the right side of the room leading to what looked like a connected hallway. Carefully manoeuvring her way around the rusted spear blades, Lara walked to the other doorway and admired the carvings of wrestling Greek men on the light brown walls. That was when she noticed another doorway straight across from the room entrance, though it was up near the ceiling and sitting above a container of old sharp weapons and became suspicious.

Why would there be doorway up there? Lara thought. Surely the Greeks designed this place to keep themselves from hurting themselves…unless…unless they were trying to hide something? If they were trying to hide something, then what would they hide? But more importantly, how would they hide it?

Lara looked back down at the slightly raised sections of the floor and instinctively started to follow the invisible curved path that was formed by their arrangement, starting with the one directly below the high doorway and working her way around the left side of the room. Stopping at the sixth and final raised section, Lara realized that she had turned a full circle and was now looking back towards the doorway that she was originally intending to investigate. But something else caught her eye just to the right of it. Looking above the final raised floor section and the sharp spears that surrounded it, she spotted another high doorway leading to a much smaller room that had a Doric pedestal standing in plain sight. Lara took out her binoculars and saw that the pedestal had something resting on top of it. Perhaps an artefact? Or could it be one of the three gold bars that are needed to open that one door?

Damn…I did walk into another puzzle! Lara thought. If only that room wasn't so high above the ground, otherwise I would check it out. But then again, I would probably hurt myself if I tried jumping near those old blades. I'm certainly not in the mood for risking a trip to the hospital for a case of lock-jaw, and I'm especially not in the mood for getting killed! Something has to happen to make that room accessible. But what?

Lara pondered this question as she continued on her original route and entered through the small doorway on the right side of the room. She emerged into a small room that consisted of a concrete ramp leading up to another hallway to her left (that undoubtedly led back into the large 'spear room'). There was also a section of the room just on the other side of the inclined plane that looked rather suspicious. Just before the hallway the top of the ramp was a stone wall in the corner. While most of the wall seemed to blend in the light brown that dominated the ancient walls, the lower square-shaped portion was as grey as the floor and looked as though it did not belong there. Upon closer examination, Lara could see a large gap between the grey upper and lower sections of the wall. She checked the floor next to it and saw linear scratches, which hinted at the possibility that the grey section was moveable. Curious, Lara tried giving the wall a push and was surprised to find that the wall moved. From what she could tell based on the wall's new setup, there was a small hidden area behind it. The only way she could find out for sure was if she pulled the section of wall out. Lara stood there for only a second before she was able to quickly spot an old, rusted metal ring near the bottom of the stone block. She bent down and reached for it before she started pulling back, exerting almost all of her upper body strength to pull the block from the wall. Once the greyish block was far enough from the rest of the wall, Lara rested her body and then proceeded behind it where there was, in fact, a small hidden area where a lever switch was found. She smiled.

"Another lever switch?" Lara said. "What could this possibly do? Surely it must do something of importance, otherwise the ancients would never have hidden it."

Lara pulled the switch and waited for something to happen. At first, nothing seemed to happen. But after just a few seconds, Lara heard the sound of moving stone and metal coming from the larger room. It lasted for about twenty seconds before the sound stopped. By that point, Lara was curious to see what had happened, so she decided to take a look. Re-emerging into the room with the sharp spears, she was surprised to see that the slightly raised sections of the floor were now raised high above the sharp rusted 'traps' and the rest of the floor. Looking around the room, Lara realized that she could now reach the high room containing the mysterious object on top of the pedestal by going up the ramp in the smaller room and down the hallway she had yet to venture through, which undoubtedly led to the other high opening above the first raised platform. She wasted no time in going back to where she was and immediately started up the ramp before rounding a corner to the left up a small set of stairs and making her way down the small dark hall. She made it to the end and turned left once more. Lara was now overlooking the spears and raised platforms just as she suspected she would.

"Now to get to the other side without falling into the spears." Lara said. "It looks as though I'll have to make my way around the room just to get to that other high area. That shouldn't be too difficult."

Standing at the edge of the opening, Lara hopped across to the first platform with ease. Turning around to her right, she saw the next closest platform and made a running jump before landing without any trouble. So far so good. The third raised platform was located diagonally across from Lara's current position to the left and was against the far wall and looked as though it would not require much more effort to reach just like the previous two jumps. That was when Lara noticed the unforgiving sound of moving stone coming from behind her. Turning around, she gasped to find that the first raised platform was starting to sink back into the floor below and could already start to feel the platform beneath her feet start to sink as well. Wasting no time, Lara quickly jumped to the third platform and was barely able to reach it. Luckily, none of the spear traps below were near her feet and legs during the jump. With the third platform now starting to make movements, Lara quickly turned left to the fourth raised platform and made another running jump. Once she landed there, she immediately turned left again to face the fifth platform, which was started to make movements just as the fourth platform started to go down. Lara knew she needed to hurry if she wanted to reach the secret room, so she jumped across without even thinking about it and then jumped straight across to the sixth and last raised platform, barely missing a large spearhead that was sticking straight up in the air. With the secret room right in front of her now, Lara made one last standing jump as she started to sink and grabbed the ledge of the opening while barely getting away from falling to a rather gruesome death. She pulled herself up and into the room where the single pedestal stood.

"Damn! That was close!" Lara said as all of the platforms inside the spear room sank back to their original configurations.

Sitting on top of the pedestal was evidently one of the bars that Lara needed to open the door that requires three of them. However, there was one small problem: the bar that Lara now had in her hands was the right size to fit in the hole, but it was made of lead instead of gold.

"A lead bar? What am supposed to do with this if I can't use it? Wait a minute…"

Lara thought back to when she discovered the large Midas statue.

"The Hand of Midas…It makes sense now! I need the Hand of Midas to turn lead into gold!" Lara said. "Never did I think that would could come into good use! That is very clever… But first, I need to find two more bars. More than likely, they'll be hidden behind those two other doors in the main hall and be made of lead as well. I just hope that I don't have to go through too much trouble to obtain them. Either way, it should be interesting to see what happens."

Putting the dense lead bar in her backpack, Lara headed back towards the opening to the deadly spear room and carefully dropped back down to the floor between two large spears. She carefully made her way back through the sharp points and made her way back into the main hall with the five lever switches.

Since the next door over had a missing symbol, Lara decided to skip that one for now and open the door on the opposite end of the grand hall relative to the tall balcony with the wooden banisters. She first went back up to the switch balcony via the hollow stairway below it and readjusted the switches to their original 'up' configurations.

"I wonder what the symbol combination of that door was." Lara said as she took out her binoculars. Walking over to her right, she looked down at the doorway and saw the five symbol combination with clarity: ΥΩΩΩΩ

"Looks like I only need to pull the leftmost switch." Lara said. "Seem easy enough."

She walked back over to the switches and pulled the first switch before hearing the faint sound of a door opening on the ground below and made her way back down to the ground. She made her way around the lower stone walls of the balcony and straight for the newly opened door. Once she was there, Lara slowly made her way inside and started observing her new environment, where she was confronted with yet another interesting setup. Overlooking from the top of a sand-coloured balcony, Lara observed a large pool of water that extended across to the other side of the long room where another balcony stood. In between the two high points were five tall column-like platform structures, two of which were connected to each of the opposite balconies. At the top of each platform in the centre was a hole, coupled with large cracks that radiated from them. Lara guessed that there used to be bridges connecting the platforms, but why were there holes in the centre of each of them? As perplexing as it was, it still did not capture Lara's attention as much as what was lying across the room on the other balcony. Taking out her binoculars, she looked across the dim room and was able to spot another pedestal with appeared to be another lead bar resting on top of it. She could also see the walls where primarily made of ancient brickwork, with the exception of more artistic carvings of wrestling Greek men near the pool of water down below.

"If this place could get any weirder, I have no idea how it would." she said. "At least this room seems much easier to navigate than the previous room. However, something just doesn't seem right, and I can't put my finger on it. Am I missing something?"

Lara continued forward toward the first platform. The room seemed utterly harmless despite the strange setup, so she continued forward. It was right before Lara could reach the edge of the platform when the floor suddenly sank beneath her a few centimetres by surprise, almost causing her to lose her balance and fall into the water below. The room was then suddenly ablaze with a bright orange light as fire rose from the holes in each of the five platforms, hence preventing Lara from easily getting to the other side of the room. She looked down at her feet and realized that she had stepped on a well-hidden pressure pad. If that was not bad enough, Lara could now see that the water below was populated by a couple of hungry crocodiles, hissing away as they swam near the surface of the water just below where Lara was now standing. Looking over to the other side, she now understood that getting the second bar was going to be a real challenge, even more so than the room with the giant spears. Lara could only stand there and listen the burning flames in front of her whilst she kept wondering how should would get to the other side without being burnt alive.

"How did I not see that one coming?" Lara asked. "I had no idea that the Greeks were capable of these kinds of violent trap setups! I wonder what keeps these fires going. Could it be that they used some kind of flammable gas? That's another mystery I'll have to figure out later. But right now, I need to figure out how to get to the other side and not burn myself or become crocodile food. There seems to be some kind of pattern in the way that the flames are burning."

Indeed, the flames were not static, but seemed to move from platform to platform as they alternated turns burning for about ten seconds each time in a seemingly continuous cycle. That was when Lara started developing a strategy to get across to the other side. She knew that the only way she would be able to succeed was if she moved fast and stayed clear of the flames. But Lara figured that by jumping to the next platform while the flame was out, she could make stay clear of the fire by hanging from the edge of the platform in the event that the flame decided to turn back on. Once the flame went out once more, she could ready herself for the next jump. However, in doing so, Lara would also have to be wary of the crocodiles that were swimming down below in the water. One wrong move could send her into the water and ultimately lead to certain death if the reptilian beasts got a hold of her with their sharp jaws. Lara tried thinking of another strategy that was less dangerous, but was unable to. By now, the temperature inside the room was beginning to soar as the fire continued to warm the air inside. She nervously stepped onto the first platform as soon the flame went out and anxiously waited for the next platform to go out. About ten seconds later, the flame on the second platform disappeared and Lara wasted no time in jumping across just as the first platform started to warm back up.

"Talk about playing with fire." Lara said out loud. "I hope I don't get myself killed!"

Lara quickly jumped to the third platform just before the flames could get to her and hung from the edge until the fire was cleared. She pulled herself up and immediately jumped to the fourth platform and then jumped across again to the fifth and final platform as the flames quickly encroached their way towards her. She was no on the other balcony where the next lead bar was waiting for her on the pedestal. Stepping forward, Lara met another hidden pressure pad and fire started blazing from the walls surrounding the pedestal, therefore preventing her from easily acquiring it.

"Damn!" Lara said. "This place is just rigged with fire traps! When will I ever see the end of it?"

Studying the fire around the pedestal, the flames burst from the walls in huge plumes every two to three seconds. It was in this small gap of time that Lara needed to snag the lead bar from its resting place. However, she knew that it would be more difficult than it seemed, considering the fact that there were still amounts of fire coming from the wall after each fiery explosion. Therefore, Lara had to ensure that she would be able to steer clear of any flames in the time that she needed to grab the bar, which would undoubtedly be hot to the touch by the time she could grab it. Nevertheless, she waited for the perfect time to grab the lead bar. Once the flames quickly died down after three cycles, Lara grabbed the lead bar from the pedestal and immediately dropped it on the ground after feeling how hot it was just as she narrowly escaped a fiery death by the flames bursting forth from the inside wall. She waited about a minute before picking it up off the ground. The bar was still hot to the touch, even with her black leather fingerless gloves on, but it was now safe enough for her to place in her backpack with the other bar already in her possession. Lara had survived the gauntlet of fire.

"One more lead bar to find." Lara said. "Now to get back to the other side without getting eaten."

Looking back towards the entrance, she could see a small square platform on the left side below the balcony that could be used for her to climb back up. The crocodiles were on the other side of the water but closer to where Lara was currently standing, so she decided to make a quick swim towards the exit. After a deep breath, Lara ran to the end of the ledge and jumped across the room before splashing down into the cold water below. The crocodiles could sense her presence in the water and quickly started swimming towards her to see what the commotion was. They immediately spotted Lara and started moving faster. Meanwhile, Lara could hear the reptilian threats get closer to her and responded by picking up the pace herself. Luckily, it was not long before she was able to pull herself out of the water before the crocodiles had a chance to get to her, though they tried snapping at her legs just as she left the edge of the water. Lara walked up to the base of the balcony wall and jumped up before pulling herself back up onto the entrance balcony and then left the room to re-emerge into the main hall. There was now only one more door for Lara to open and it had a missing symbol on it, but she was determined to figure out the right combination. With only one more lead bar to find, she was certain that it was hidden in the room beyond it.

Lara now has two of the three bars that are needed to open the door that will supposedly take her away from the Palace of King Midas. But before she can use them, she still has to return to the Hand of Midas to change them into golden bars in order for them to work properly. What kinds of surprises will await Lara when she opens the final door? Find out in the next chapter.

At this point, I am projecting that Palace Midas will take up two more chapters, after which I'll finally be able to write about the next level! I might end up making the next level a little shorter, since there were a few elements from the original game that seemed very repetitive and partly because I am anxious to start part 3. However, I will still make it long enough to where it has an important part in the overall plot, unlike what happened in Tomb Raider: Anniversary when they smashed the last two Greek levels into one and took a lot of areas out. The being said, I will also continue to implement elements from both the original and revised versions of the game to keep things interesting. See you in the next chapter!

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