TOMB RAIDER - PERU LEVELS
By Loren Golden

Walkthrough written and provided by the author.

Prologue

One day, when she had finished her exercises on the assault course, Lara was reading through some old papers she had taken from Jacqueline Natla's office. She was sorting through them when she found an old Sanskrit document that spoke of three Ankhs of Power. It seems that in addition to the tripartite pendant, the Scion, the three Atlantean rulers each possessed an Ankh of Power, which, when brought together in the central Atlantean Temple with the focusing device, would allow an individual to travel anywhere in history. After the destruction of the continent, each of the three rulers took their Ankhs with them, lest someone bring them back to the Atlantean Temple. However, even together, the Ankhs of Power were useless without the focusing device, which was apparently destroyed when Atlantis slipped beneath the waves. Turning the page, Lara's blood went cold when she read that Natla Technologies was planning to build a new focusing device.

Suddenly the door creaked, and Lara leaped up instantly, drawing her Pistols and aiming them at the door.

"Please take it easy, Miss Croft," Winston said. "It is only I." He slowly shuffled across the library toward her as she collected the papers she had dropped to the floor in haste. "I've brought the evening paper and your afternoon tea." He poured her a cup as she scanned the paper for anything of interest.

And she found a matter of great interest, for on the front page of the Business Section, the paper quoted Jacqueline Natla saying that Natla Technologies was on the verge of a monumental scientific breakthrough that would make the computer revolution look like Stone Age technology by comparison.

"Will there be anything else, Miss Croft?" Winston asked.

"Yes, Winston," she replied, lowering the paper into her lap and looking sharply at her butler. "Pack your cold weather gear. We're going back to Peru."

RETURN TO PERU

After a two-day harrowing journey by jeep, Lara and Winston finally arrived at the base of the cliff that she and her ill-fated Peruvian guide had visited a few years earlier. Lara stepped out of the jeep and looked at the sheer climb ahead of her.
Winston broke out the tent and the sleeping bags. "You should get a bit of rest before you start out, Miss Croft."

"Winston," Lara protested. "It's not yet noon. I want to get started now. This whole venture should take me no more than five hours."

"Very well," he said. "I know it's useless to try to convince you to change your mind once you've made it up." He opened a crate and pulled out the elephant gun he used from the days he served with Her Majesty's Service in India. "Do you want me to come along?"

She looked at him and bit her tongue lest she say the first thing that came to her mind. Diplomatically, she said, "But Winston, who would watch after the base camp."

"I suppose you're right," he sighed, putting the gun back in its case.

"Besides," she added without smiling, "I think it would be difficult to keep up with you."

"Ah yes," he said. "Don't trouble yourself with the base camp, Miss Croft. I'll take care of setting up. You'd best be moving along. I'd prefer you be back before sunset."

"I'll try," she said, as a warm smile graced her face. "But don't wait up for me."

"Miss Croft," Winston said sternly, "don't do anything foolish. One of these days you'll get trapped in one of these tombs you raid and it'll be the death of me."

She nodded and said, "I'll be careful, Winston."

With that she turned and scaled the cliff face without the benefit of a safety harness.
Scaling the cliff took the better part of an hour, but finally she reached the top, finding herself in a high valley on a plateau overlooking Winston and the landscape below. She rested for a moment before running on ahead.

She ran through a passage among the hills of this high mountain range. She easily ran and jumped across a deep crevasse before sliding down a long slope into a mountain cave. As she passed into the light, she disturbed two bats that she easily dispatched.

She made her way through the cave and emerged at the end of the bottom of a canyon. Looking up, she saw a ladder and some teeth spikes that she realized she could not reach. So she forged ahead. In about the middle of the canyon, she paused and looked up to her right, where she saw a small cave set high in the side of the cliff. She climbed up onto a ledge and grabbed the edge of the ledge above her, shimmying to her left and pulling herself into the cave. She ran inside and found some Flares. She collected them and also dispatched two bats that annoyed her.
Jumping down out of the cave, Lara followed the canyon up around a corner, where it opened into a raging river valley. She slid down backward with a double safety drop onto a ledge on the river amid the mist of a large waterfall. Looking around, she found a rock she could stand on just around a large rock to her left. With a running jump and bend to the left, she safely landed on it. She saw another rock peaking halfway out of the water, and knew that it would not be easy to reach it. So she backed all the way up to the corner next to the rock, and ran and jumped, bending to the right to land safely on the rock. She walked to the edge of the rock closest to another rock that was just barely submerged and made a standing jump onto it. Then, looking to her right, she saw a cave in the bottom of the cliff wall. She set herself, then ran, jumped, and grabbed the edge of the cave mouth, pulling herself up into it.

She ran through the cave to the far end, where she found the remains of an unlucky adventurer who had fallen and broken his neck. Since Lara figured he wouldn't be needing them anymore, she took his Flares.
Looking up, Lara saw that this end of the cave was open through the rock above her to the sky. She stepped up onto a low ledge, and noticing that at one end, the ledge she was standing on was high enough for her to reach the next one, she pulled herself up. Turning to her left, she noticed that a slope was set in the wall above the cave from which she emerged. And above that on the opposite side of this deep pit was another slope. And above this on the side with the first slope was a narrow, snow-filled crack that ran across the rock face to the left of the slopes, leading to an opening into which she could crawl.

So Lara ran to the end of the ledge and backed herself up against the rock opposite the first slope. She ran and jumped without grabbing, landing on the end of the first slope. Immediately, she jumped backward, landing on the end of the second slope. Again, she immediately jumped forward and grabbed the snow-filled crack, saving herself from the plunge that ended the life of the ill-fated adventurer below, and shimmied to the left, pulling herself into the crawlspace.

She emerged from the crawlspace at the top of a long slope leading back down to the river. Remembering that there were some caves at the top of the river canyon that she wanted to investigate, she slid down the right side of the slope, about one or two paces from the cliff wall. Just before the slope ended abruptly, Lara jumped, bending to the right, landing safely on a high ledge above the river, saving herself from a nasty fall into the raging river of death below.
Lara ran to the end of the ledge and jumped across to the next, at the opening of an empty, shallow cave. Looking around, Lara noticed a triangular-shaped ledge on the opposite side of the river that she could run and jump to, and from there, jump onto a wider ledge above it and make her way to the cave on the left, on the opposite side of the river.

But before she did that, Lara noticed another triangular shaped ledge around the corner of a rock to her right. She set herself, and ran and jumped, bending to the right, avoiding the edge of the rock and landing securely on the ledge, lest she plunge to certain death in the river below.
Looking up, Lara saw that she could grab the left edge of the ledge above her. Pulling herself up, she looked around and noticed that she could run and jump across the river, landing on a fairly wide ledge, which she, of course, did. From there, she noticed that with accurate maneuvering, she could run and jump, avoiding a low-hanging rock, to land just inside the cave on the right, where she found a Shotgun with Normal Shotgun Ammo. Collecting these, she left the cave, sliding down to a lower ledge. From here, she grabbed the ledge above her, pulling herself up into the other cave on this side of the river. She ran through it to the end. It appeared to be a dead end, but looking up, she found a high crawlspace that she could squeeze into. Here, she found Secret #1 - a Golden Skull with some Normal Shotgun Ammo and some Uzi Ammo.

After collecting the Secret, Lara ran back and dropped down out of the cave onto the ledge below. Looking around, Lara spied a peaked rock, sloped on both sides. Examining this rock, she realized that if she angled just right, she could run and jump and land on the far side, sliding down onto the first ledge she landed on at the water's edge, or land on the outer edge of the near side, sliding backward onto the second ledge at the water's edge.

Once she was back down on the river, Lara made her way back across, through the cave, and up the pit, to emerge once again at the top of the slope. Running along the east cliff face opposite the slope, Lara saw a place where the plateau above dropped low enough for her to grab onto and pull herself up. Once on the plateau, Lara ran toward a cave up in the southeast corner of the plateau where the mountainside rose up, and ran inside.

Quickly, Lara was brought up short as she nearly stumbled into a deep pit. However, she quickly saw that she could run and jump across it.

Lara ran out of this narrow cave into a large, expansive cave. She ran across to the edge above a subterranean river with a waterfall at its east end, running to the west. Lara realized that this must be the source of the waterfall in the river outside.
Looking to her left, Lara saw a Small Medipak sitting on a small ledge. Lara leapt onto the sloped ledge nearest the waterfall and shimmied over and dropped onto the ledge and collected the Medipak. After this, Lara pulled herself up into a walled-off section of the cave, disturbing a bat in the process, which she quickly dispatched. Looking around, Lara found a crawlspace she could use to return to the main cave.

Returning once again to the river's edge, Lara found a wide crack in the cliff wall to her right, which she could use to shimmy over and drop onto another small ledge. Tumbling around to face the opposite direction, Lara saw that she could run and jump across the river, grabbing the lower lip of a tunnel in the cave wall opposite her. Running up what appeared to be a natural flight of stairs, Lara ran through and emerged back in the main cave on the side of the river opposite from where she had been before. However, the ceiling of the cave was so low as to prohibit further movement.

But just then, Lara remembered that she could shimmy around it. But as she did, two bats swooped down out of the stalactites to pester her. As soon as she reached the other side of the low overhang, she pulled herself up and put the noisome bats out of her misery.

Looking around, Lara found two large rocks in the southeast corner of the cave with open sky above. Try as she might, she couldn't jump and grab the one closer to the ground. However, she noticed that next to it was a waist-high slope that ended just a few paces from the rock. She climbed onto the slope, faced the rock closer to the ground, and jumped forward and grabbed its ledge, pulling herself up. From here, she jumped onto the second rock, then onto the ledge above the cave, and ran and jumped, grabbing an outcropping and pulling herself up onto a high plateau surrounded by mountains.

Lara ran across the plateau and into another cave. Upon entering, another pesky bat started bothering her, though not for very long. Lara found a long slope leading down with a monkey swing above, as well as a tunnel directly ahead that bent around to the right. Lara first followed this around and found some Flares, which she quickly confiscated. She could see daylight ahead, but was unable to reach it due to problems with Tomb Raider physics - she simply could not squeeze into a space that was just large enough for her to crawl in, but whose floor was waist-high.

Lara returned to the long slope to a deep pit, and jumped and monkey swung across to the far side of the pit. When she reached there, two more bats descended to pester her. Since she was past the pit, she dropped down and took out the bats. Running down the tunnel beneath the monkey swing, Lara found a small alcove with Secret #2 - another Golden Skull and a Large Medipak. Having obtained these, Lara ran back to the place where the ceiling above this tunnel was lowest. Here, try as she might, she simply could not jump and grab the monkey swing again.

Then it occurred to her to walk to the edge of the pit, at a corner directly facing a slope that dropped into the pit, with another slope behind her. Then, performing a backflip, Lara jumped off the slope behind her and grabbed the monkey swing above. She was then able to make her way onto a high ledge above the alcove where she found the Secret and emerge from the cave into daylight.

Looking down, Lara saw the earthly remains of another unfortunate adventurer, and her sixth sense told her to draw her Pistols. Sure enough, she was soon beset by two wolves. After putting them down, Lara made her way through the canyon to a wide valley. She looked to one side and saw a pair of slopes: The first, lowest to the ground, faced out into the valley. The second, to the right of the first faced across to a high ledge to the left of the first slope. Lara walked over to the left corner of the first slope and turned so her back was to the second. Then leaping back, Lara jumped and grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up onto the plateau above the valley.
Lara had reached the entrance to the Caves, where her Peruvian guide had met his untimely demise. In a note of sadness, Lara saw his earthly remains laying exposed to the elements. (She had emerged from the Caves in another location in the midst of a blizzard and was unable to return to this entrance to put poor Carlos to rest.)

Lara ran past the guide to the left side of the door, where she found a ladder that led to the top of the lintel. Was that there before? she asked herself. Scurrying up the ladder, Lara found four press-switches. The first was a relief of a potted plant, the second of a helmet, the third of some sort of bird, and the fourth like another potted plant. Lara tried to remember which switch she pressed when she was here before. Choosing one at random, she pressed the third switch. Nothing happened. Then she remembered it was the second switch she had pressed, so she pressed it again, and the doors beneath the lintel opened to reveal the Caves. Lara was about to jump down when she decided to press the other two switches for good measure.

Lara jumped down to the ground, and suddenly, four wolves emerged from the Caves to attack her, just as before. She engaged in a fierce battle with the ravenous wolves, and though she did not emerge from the battle unscarred, she did emerge victorious.
Lara hadn't gone but a half dozen or so paces into the Caves when the doors closed behind her, sealing her in. She dashed past an area of darts, running into the area where she had previously climbed onto a higher ledge to proceed deeper into the Caves when she was here before. To her annoyance, the roof had collapsed in this cave, barring further access. She would just have to find another way. She looked in a small cave where she had found a secret the last time she was here, but now was just an empty cave.

Lara began exploring the cave, seeking a way to continue beyond these caves she was sealed into. Finally, flare in hand, she discovered that the same earthquake that had brought the roof down on the cave above the ledge had also opened a narrow crack in the corner next to the darts that she could squeeze into. After crawling a bit the cave widened enough that she could stand up. In a bit of fortuitous hindsight - Lara couldn't explain how she knew this - she was relieved that she didn't press the fourth switch above the main doors to the Caves before the second, otherwise she would be beset at this time by a pair of bats.
Lara emerged from the crawlspace into a large hallway lit by four torches. One end was destroyed by a cave-in, while the other end was closed off by a pair of large double doors. There was also a small hallway leading off on the side opposite from the crawlspace from which she had emerged. Running down this, Lara found a smaller hallway, parallel to the first, whose west end was likewise ruined, and whose east end was terminated by a small door next to a keyhole. Not having the key, Lara noted its position and returned to the main hall.
As she approached the double doors, Lara was glad that she pressed the fourth switch above the main doors after the second, for these doors opened as she approached, and she was able to collect a Small Medipak and some Uzi Ammo. Turning around, Lara saw that the doors were guarded by a pair of mummies. Fortunately, they didn't awaken at her approach.

Again Lara sought to find a way to proceed. Finally, she returned to the crawlspace with a lit flare, and looking up, saw a high crawlspace. She jumped up and squeezed into the gap, traversing to the opposite end. Looking out, Lara saw that a ledge across from her that she could not reach held some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo. Looking around further, Lara saw another ledge below her to the left. Carefully climbing out of the crawlspace, Lara grabbed the edge of the ledge with her cuticles and shimmied over and landed on the ledge. From there she jumped over and collected the Ammo.
Lara jumped down into the water and swam into a large area graced with a number of columns that must have been some sort of plaza back in the days of the Incans. But Lara had little time to study the architecture, for she soon noticed that she wasn't alone in the plaza. A hungry crocodile was swimming over to have a bite of her. Remaining calm, Lara quickly found a water tunnel leading out to the north of the plaza. She swam out of the tunnel into a cave with a closed portcullis on the north side. Quickly scrambling onto shore, Lara dispatched the crocodile as he emerged from the tunnel. Before jumping back into the water, Lara found the remains of another luckless adventurer who had bequeathed her some Flares.

Lara swam back to explore the plaza. In the center, she noticed a closed trap door. Swimming back to the southeast corner, Lara found a tunnel leading to a pair of portcullises on opposite ends of a hall. The portcullis on the east end opened into a natural cave area, while the portcullis on the west end opened into some sort of room built with large bricks, like the plaza and the tunnels.

Swimming back into the plaza, Lara found an underwater switch in the northeast corner. When she pulled it, the trap door opened. As she swam up into an air chamber, Lara remembered back and was grateful that she didn't press the third switch above the main doors to the Caves after the second, otherwise when she swam beneath the open trap door, a rollingball would have fallen out. Moreover, as she pulled herself into the air chamber, she was grateful that she pressed the third switch before the second, as she found a Shotgun and some Normal Ammo.
On the east wall of the air chamber, Lara found a switch. When she pulled it, the timed portcullis on the east end of the hallway southeast of the plaza opened, and Lara jumped back into the water and swam quickly to make it through the opening before the portcullis closed again.
As Lara entered the underwater cave, she noticed a closed door to her right. She also noticed that she wasn't alone in the cave - two crocodiles had entered the water and were swimming toward her. Bracing herself, Lara dodged the wily crocodiles and climbed up on shore and quickly dispatched them.

As she holstered her Pistols, Lara found a path on the south side of the pool that wound up around the pool to become a ledge on the west side of the cave. Lara followed it around and pulled the switch she found there, opening the underwater door she saw earlier. She jumped back in the water, swimming through the now-open door, and up the cave and into an air chamber, where she climbed out. She ran down a tunnel to emerge onto a ledge on the east side of the large cave. Looking ahead, Lara saw that the ceiling came down so as to prevent her from walking on the ledge to the southeast corner, so she dropped down and shimmied over there, pulling the switch she found there.

Although she knew that the switch opened a door in the cave wall below, Lara's sixth sense told her that the underwater door was now closed and that she should go look behind it. Rather than dropping down into the cave below, Lara shimmied back to the north end of the ledge and ran back down the tunnel into the air chamber. She jumped back into the pool and swam back down to the closed door, finding an opening in the cave wall behind it. She swam into the opening and found an underwater switch. She pulled the underwater switch, opening the timed portcullis next to the switch in the top southeast corner of the main cave. Quickly, she turned around and swam back to the air chamber, wasting no time as she pulled herself on shore, backflipping and turning around at the same time, dashing back down the hall to the ledge above the main cave, running to the end of the ledge, shimmying back across, pulling herself up and making in through the open portcullis in the nick of time. She discovered Secret #3 - a Golden Skull, some Normal and Wideshot Shotgun Ammo, and a Small Medipak.

Leaving the cave, Lara grabbed the ledge and shimmied to the left to avoid taking damage as she dropped to the cave floor. She turned around and climbed into the room behind the door she opened earlier. She pulled the switch there, opening not only the portcullis leading back to the main plaza area, but the portcullis opposite from it as well. Before leaving, Lara looked behind the door, where she found some Uzi Ammo.

Jumping back into the water, Lara swam back out into the tunnels southeast of the plaza. As she passed the tunnel leading back to the plaza, Lara's sense of danger pricked her skin, and she swam back into the plaza to investigate. Two crocodiles were swimming toward her, hoping to make her their next meal. Quickly, Lara turned around and swam back into the cave, drawing the crocodiles after her. She got up on shore and liquidated the crocodiles as they swam up to greet her.

Lara swam into the room beyond the other portcullis, and pulled the underwater switch she found in one corner, opening the timed trap door at the top of the room. Swiftly, she swam up to emerge in the air chamber above. She ran down a short hallway to pull the lever she found there.

This opened the timed portcullis back in the cave where she found the skeleton and the flares. Without hesitation, Lara backflipped and twisted around, running into the water. She swam as fast as she could through the plaza and up the tunnel on the north side. Scrambling up on shore, she dashed through the portcullis in the nick of time.

Lara found herself between two short flights of steps. The steps on her right led up to a closed door, and the steps on her left led up to a moveable block. She pushed this as far as it would go, revealing a second moveable block. This, too, she pushed, until it revealed a hallway that she could run down. She ran around until she found the first moveable block and pulled it back. Running back around, Lara found that moving the block now revealed a switch. But her sixth sense told her that there was something behind the second moveable block, and that she wouldn't be able to access it until the first block was out of the way.
Putting off pulling the switch until later, Lara moved the block around until it was directly in front of the switch again. Then running back around, she pushed it into the hall opposite the switch, such that she was able to run completely around the central structure the hall ran around. Next, she pulled the second block back, so she could run around to the hallway that had been hidden behind it. Here she found Secret #4 - a Golden Skull, a Shotgun, and some Normal Ammo.

After collecting the Secret, Lara moved the second block back into position and repositioned the first block so she had a clear shot from the switch to the door at the top of the other flight of steps. She pulled the switch, opening the timed door, and made a mad dash for the door, slipping through it just as it was closing. But Lara couldn't stop, for darts were flying and the floor was giving way beneath her feet. Quickly she ran down the deadly hallway, lest she fall to a spikey death, stopping short just outside the hall, lest she slide to her death at the bottom of a chasm before her.

Looking to her right, Lara spied the ruins of a bridge that once spanned the chasm. She ran to its end, backed up, then ran, jumped, and grabbed the edge of the bridge opposite her. Upon reaching the other side, two wolves ran out of a tunnel to attack her. Quickly, she put them asleep before running down the tunnel from which they emerged.

Lara found herself at the bottom of a deep pit. At the north end, Lara found a pair of slopes she could use to jump up to grab a ledge just above her in the southwest corner of the cave. In the process, she disturbed two bats that descended to disturb her. Soon after, they were lying dead on the cave floor.

Lara climbed a ladder that started at this ledge, leading up to one above her on the middle of the south wall. From here she looked across and saw two more sloped ledges on the north side of the cave, and another ledge above the slope in the northwest corner. Walking to the northwest corner of the ledge she was standing on, Lara positioned herself with the northwest slope on her right. She did a sideways jump onto the slope, backflipping onto the northeast slope, and jumping and grabbing the ledge in the northwest corner. While she was making her maneuvers, three more bothersome bats swooped down to pester her, though they didn't do so for long.

Lara ran around the central column in the cave until she reached a ledge in the southeast corner of the top of the pit with a switch on it. As she did, the ledge in between collapsed beneath her feet. Lara pulled the switch, opening a door on the west side of the plateau north of the chasm with the broken bridge.

Lara did a safety drop onto the ledge behind her, then again to the ledge at the foot of the stairs, and again to the bottom of the pit. She ran back onto the plateau and through the door she had just opened. She leaped over a small pool of water at the bottom of a sloped hallway. She quickly ran up the hallway, arriving in a room hanging with green growth, including one long vine that she could use to swing on. This was especially helpful, for before her was a gaping chasm, the bottom of which she could not see.

Lara swung across the chasm and ran up the stairs on the far side. She dashed through the room, dodging the darts that flew. At the far end, in a beam of sunlight, Lara took the Gold Idol from the plinth. As soon as she did, however, the earth began to quake, and the floor of the room behind her collapsed, revealing a pit full of spikes that she could not jump across.

Initially she thought herself trapped, until she noticed that the indentations in the walls where the darts were coming from made them scalable. Lara jumped onto the wall and climbed down below the darts, making her way above the spikes to the south end, where she climbed back up and dropped onto the south ledge. She ran back down the steps and leaped onto the vine. As she did, two more bats swooped down to attack her. She swung back to the south side of the chasm and put the bats out of her misery. She ran back down the sloping tunnel. But as she did, a boulder fell from the roof and started rolling down after her. Quickly, Lara dashed around the corner, then leaped through the open hallway back to the plateau, barely making it before a portcullis slammed close behind her.

As she emerged from the tunnel with the Gold Idol, Lara's intuition told her that had she pressed the first switch above the main doors to the Caves before the second, she would now be assaulted by a bear. But since she pressed the first switch after the second, the double doors on the plateau now opened at her approach.

As Lara stepped into the arched hallway, a blade began swinging in front of her, and two Dart Emitters began shooting at her from the opposite end of the hall. Making her way down the hall while dodging the blade and the darts, two more blades began swinging that she had to avoid. Finally, Lara emerged from the arched hallway at the edge of a spike pit. Easily, Lara ran and jumped across the pit, grabbing the ledge on the far side and pulling herself into the hallway.

Lara noticed that this hall was guarded by two mummies, but just as before, they did not wake at her approach. She ran down the hall and collected the Uzi Ammo and Wideshot Ammo from the twin plinths at the end of the hall. Lara turned around and saw that there were two doors. Having collected Secrets #1 and #3, the door on the east opened at her approach.

Lara found herself on a plateau high above the canyon she was in earlier, where she saw a ladder and some teeth spikes. Looking down, Lara saw the ladder and teeth spikes on the ledge below them, as well as the remains of an unfortunate adventurer who fell on them. Lara climbed down the ladder and pulled herself into the cave on the side of the cliff.

Lara ran down a flight of stairs to arrive at the south end of a large cavern, the bottom of which she could not see. Across the cavern on its north side, Lara saw a plinth with some objects on it. Since she had collected Secrets #2 and #4, two ropes hung from the ceiling, allowing her to reach the alcove with the plinth. Here she found Secret #5 - a Serpent Stone and a Crossbow.
Lara swung back across the cavern and climbed back up to the plateau and found a bear skulking around. As it attacked her, she put the beast down. She ran back into the hallway and pulled the switch next to the door on the west. The door remained closed, but the blades stopped swinging. Lara jumped back across the spike pit. In one alcove where one of the swinging blades was, she found a Small Medipak. She continued down the arched hallway, triggering the swinging blades behind her. Once clear of the darts and the swinging blades, she crossed the plateau to the closed door east side. As she placed the Gold Idol, the door opened in response. As she stepped into the hallway beyond, she heard the large double doors close behind her. As she approached them, she found that they would not open again.

In the hallway beyond the Gold Idol door, Lara found a moveable block. When she had pushed it as far as it would go, she found another one to her right. She pushed it to the west wall, then again into a slot in the north wall. She pulled the first moveable block in front of a switch, revealing a hallway, then pushed the block into the southwest corner, giving access to both the switch and the hallway. Running up the stairs, Lara was attacked by two wolves, which she quickly killed. Pulling the switch, she opened a timed door at the top of a ladder at the end of the stairs. She swiftly ran up the stairs, and climbed the ladder, even as the top step crumbled beneath her feet. She quickly ran through the door just before it closed on her.

Lara found herself in a hallway lined with Incan faces - some with open mouths, others with mouths closed. At each end of the hall, she found a pair of closed doors with a design she recognized when she had visited Atlantis several years earlier. One door was locked by a Pyramid Keyhole, and neither pair of doors opened for her. As she traversed the hall, two more bats descended to annoy her. These met the same fate as all the bats that pestered her before. As she approached one of the faces at the opposite end of the hall from the end where she had entered, it swung open to reveal a room beyond. At the south end of the room, Lara found a plinth with a Skeleton Key on it, guarded by two mummies, one on either side of the plinth. The mummies remained unmoving as she approached the plinth, and a trapdoor opened when she claimed her prize. As she climbed into the dark tunnel above, the trap door closed behind her.

Lara ran down the tunnel, which narrowed at the far end to a crawl. Making sure she had full health, Lara dropped out of the tunnel into the cave below. She immediately recognized that she had returned to the main cave. She also soon recognized that she was threatened by a bear that was lumbering toward her. After killing the poor beast, Lara ducked into the crawlspace to cross back into the large hall parallel with the main cave. As she emerged into the hall, she was attacked by two more bears that she had to deal with. After the last of her enemies were vanquished, Lara ran back down the side hall to the closed door she had seen earlier. Using the Skeleton Key, she passed through into the dark tunnel beyond.

THE RUINS OF QUINARA

As the door closed behind her, Lara ran through the tunnel and up a flight of stairs to emerge on a ledge overlooking the ruins of Quinara, the city of the Vilcabamba Valley.

As Lara dropped into the valley, she saw a closed door beneath the ledge, noting its location. She also saw a pair of wolves resting. Being one to let sleeping dogs lie, Lara turned her face to the west.
In the center of the valley was a pool traversed by way of a rickety footbridge. She crossed it to the other side to find two large towers - one to the north and another to the south. Between them on the west end of the valley was a low building built into the mountainside. There were three doors built into the low building, as well as a single door at the base of each tower, all facing a common courtyard, and all closed. In the doorway of the north tower was another sleeping wolf.

Two large statues guarded the courtyard - one at the corner of each tower - and two smaller, though identical, statues stood in the midst of the courtyard. And high above the courtyard, a wooden footbridge connected the two towers through open doors.
Exploring behind the north tower, Lara found a pool of water with a grate blocking off the tower's cellar. As she passed the east side of the south tower, Lara noticed a shallow pit where she found some Normal Shotgun Ammo. Around behind the tower, she found two indentations in the back wall - a sloped indentation facing the mountainside to the south fairly low to the ground, and a higher indentation above her reach with a ladder ascending to the tower's top floor.
Facing the cliff behind the south tower, directly in front of the sloped indentation low to the ground, Lara backflipped onto the ledge then jumped, grabbing the edge of the cliff. Shimmying to the left, she pulled herself onto a flat spot on the mountainside, directly opposite the higher indentation. She turned around to face the building, jumping and grabbing the lower ledge of the indentation. She climbed the ladder to find a switch at the top that she pulled, opening a door somewhere inside.

Lara made her way back down to the ground and returned to the central courtyard area. All the doors were still closed, so she went back to the pool in the middle of the valley and jumped in. There were two grates blocking off caves at the north and south ends of the pool. In the north cave, Lara could see a Golden Skull that she was unable to reach.

Against the east wall of the pool, Lara found a shallow cave with an underwater switch. Pulling it, she opened the door in the courtyard leading into the south tower.
Lara swam to the low ledge and pulled herself out of the water. Pulling herself onto the east ledge, the two wolves that had been sleeping suddenly woke and attacked. Lara had to defend herself, putting the poor wolves out of their misery.

As she crossed the bridge to return to the ruins on the west side of the pool, sections in the middle of the bridge collapsed beneath her, sending her plunging back into the water. Lara pulled herself up and again crossed the bridge, jumping over the ruined sections.

Lara entered the south tower, immediately feeling a heightened sense of eeriness. Just inside the entrance was a dark room. Lighting a flare, Lara saw that the room was barren. The only thing that stood out was a grate in the floor, with a flooded cellar beneath. She returned to the hallway to continue deeper into the building when the cursed remains of a conquistador leaped in front of her and started to pursue her.
But Lara had dealt with the likes of this conquistador before. She realized that she couldn't kill this undead thing by conventional means, so she quickly turned around and ran back outside to the edge of the cliff overlooking the water. As the conquistador approached her from behind, Lara blasted it from the cliff with the Shotgun.

As she was putting the Shotgun away, preparing to return to the tower, Lara glanced across the pool and saw that the door beneath the ledge where she arrived in the valley was now open. She crossed the ruined bridge back to the east side and ducked into the darkened room. Darts were flying from side to side, but Lara was undeterred, stepping in to collect Secret #1 - a Golden Skull and a Shotgun with some Wideshot Ammo.

Returning to the south tower, Lara followed the opening hall to the back of the building, finding the middle of an east-west corridor. Following this hallway around to the right, Lara entered another room with a grate above the water-filled cellar. In one side of the room, she saw some debris and an Incan pot. Drawing her Pistols, she shot the pot, but it didn't shatter. Looking up as she reholstered her guns, Lara saw an opening to the second floor, but it was too high for her to reach.

Lara went to the east end of the hall, where she found another room with a grate. In one corner, she found another pair of unshatterable pots. In another, she found a switch. Pulling it, she closed the front door to the tower.

Returning to the main hall, Lara found that closing the door revealed an opening behind it. Stepping inside, she found the unlucky remains of another adventure lying next to the grate. Looking through the grate, Lara found that the poor fellow had dropped a Skeleton Key into the cellar below.

In the corner of the room, Lara found a pole extending through the roof to the second floor. She shimmied up the pole and leaped into a well-lit room. In a corner near the window, an animal skin had been hung to dry.
Lara walked into the next room. In the window, she found some pelts hanging to dry. A table and two chairs adorned the center of the room. Beside the door, Lara pulled a switch. As she did, she heard the sound of rushing water. Returning to the other room, she saw that the first floor was now flooded.

Jumping into the water, Lara swam to the room at the west end of the back hall. Before she climbed out, she noticed that the water had come up through the grates from the cellar below.

Lara recognized the room into which she emerged as the room with the door she had opened with the switch high on the backside of the tower. The room was adorned with four pots - one sitting on a table in a corner, the other three by themselves in the opposite corner. Drawing her Pistols, Lara was able to shatter two of the pots, collecting some Uzi Ammo.

Passing through the door, Lara ran up a flight of stairs to the third floor. As she entered an east-west hallway in the middle of the building, a startled rat ran away from her. There were three other doorways off this hall, besides the one she had just come through. Two of these were in the middle of the hall - one on the left, closed by a door with a keyhole, and the other open on the right. At the end of the hall on the right was another closed door.

Turning into the open hallway, Lara found a pleasant room with a grated window on the east wall. Opposite the door, she found three pots. Two of them shattered when she fired at them, frightening the poor rat that was hiding in one of them to death. He darted past her beneath a table in a corner near the door. Lara walked to the window and picked up the Small Medipak lying there. Turning around, she looked above the table, finding a jump switch. Pulling it, she opened the door at the end of the hall.
Lara returned to the hall and passed through the door and climbed the ladder behind it, reaching the top floor and dropping just to the left of the ladder. Next to the window on the west side of the ladder was a non-shatterable pot. Jumping across the opening in the floor, Lara saw that there were two more pots next to a window on the north side that did shatter, but without giving her any goodies. Continuing around the corner, Lara found a switch next to a closed, grated door. Pulling the switch, Lara opened the left-most door in the low building outside. The door next to her remained closed, however.

Lara returned to the first floor and swam back to the room on the second floor with the switch she had pulled that flooded the first floor. Pulling it again, she drained the first floor. She dropped back down and went to the room in the southeast corner of the first floor, pulling the switch that opened the door to the courtyard. As she returned to the courtyard, the wolf lying in the doorway of the north tower suddenly woke, and as he attacked, he was joined by two other wolves that had wandered down out of the mountains while Lara was inside the south tower.

After putting the three wolves down, Lara entered the door she had opened while she was in the south tower. A short flight of steps led down to a north-south hallway. At the south end was a pool room. On the north end was a pot sitting next to a grate. Looking through the window, she saw an east-west hallway leading deeper into the mountainside to the west and up a short flight of steps to the east. On the other side of this hall, Lara saw another grate, beyond which was another room.

Lara shattered the vase, scaring the rat that was inside, which ran through both grates into the room furthest from her.
As she entered pool room, Lara frightened two rats, which ran away from her in two different directions. Glancing down, she spied a crocodile in the water and, from the safety of the shore, killed it.

There was a serpent statue in each of the four corners of the room. In the northwest corner was a closed door with a switch on the other side. In the southwest corner, opposite from the entrance Lara used, was a cluster of seven pots. Shattering three of these, Lara startled another rat and found some Normal and Wideshot Shotgun Ammo.

Lara dove into the pool and swam through the tunnel to the south. She emerged about in the middle of an east-west tunnel supported intermittently by pillars on the sides. Turning right, she swam out to the south end of a tunnel that led north and was supported by two pillars in the middle. As she swam past the first pillar, she noticed an opening in the roof next to it. Swimming into the opening, she found a high, short tunnel, that ended at a closed trap door.
Lara continued swimming north in the main tunnel into a pool that was a little larger than the first. She pulled herself up onto the ledge, where she found six serpent statues spaced along the sides, and a pot in each of the four corners. Shattering the pot in the northwest corner, she frightened two rats that scurried away as fast as they could. Shattering the pot in the southeast corner, Lara found some Normal Crossbow Ammo.
In the middle of the east wall, a pair of steps led down to a closed door next to a switch that separated the two pool rooms. As she was about to pull the switch, Lara's sixth sense told her not to. That switch wouldn't open the door next to it, but would rather close the southernmost door in the low building, which led to the pool room, and she might want to go back in that way later.

Jumping back in the water, Lara swam back to the east end of the large east-west water tunnel she was in earlier. She followed a tunnel south that was supported by a pillar on either side and into another tunnel leading east that was also supported by pillars in its sides. Suddenly, as she swam into this hallway, she saw a crocodile coming in from the other end. Quickly, she turned around and swam back out. Her first thought was to return to the first pool room, which was closer, but she realized that the water level there was too low, and that she would be unable to climb out. So she led the crocodile back to the second pool room, where she climbed on shore and killed the beast from safety.

Afterward, she jumped back into the pool and swam back to the tunnel where she had found the crocodile. Swimming to the far end, she found a closed portcullis that led to what appeared to be a water maze. Swimming back, Lara found a passage up between two pillars. Following the passage up, Lara found herself in a water maze. Swimming to the east, Lara discovered an opening up to an air chamber, where she found some Uzi Ammo and some Normal Shotgun Ammo.

Jumping back into the water, Lara swam to the west and around the corner and down the tunnel. Within seconds, she heard the sound of another crocodile in the water with her. Quickly, she turned back around and swam back to the air chamber, luring the crocodile after her. When he arrived, she pulled herself into the air chamber and killed the beast.

Lara jumped back in and mapped the water maze.

As she searched the water maze, she found an underwater switch. But because it was in an air pocket beneath one of the grates, she couldn't reach it. Near another grate, in the northwest corner of the water maze, she found a Small Medipak.

Finally, Lara found the Skeleton Key beneath the grate that the skeleton had dropped it through. Picking it up, she opened the trap door that she had found earlier in the high tunnel above the large water tunnel that led to the second pool room.

But no sooner had she collected the Skeleton Key than she heard the movement of another crocodile in the water maze with her. Dodging past the beast, Lara swam back to the air chamber, luring the crocodile after her. But she had barely reached the air chamber when she spied another crocodile coming toward her. She swiftly swam up and crawled into the air chamber, where she killed it. She jumped back in the water, luring the crocodile to her location. When he appeared, she swam back into the air chamber and killed him.

Once the crocodiles were dead, Lara swam back to the high tunnel and through the now-open trap door. Suddenly, the current swept her away, and she found herself emerging from the pool in a cross hallway. Ahead of her to the east, a short stair led up to a door that opened as she emerged from the water. To the south, looking through a pair of grated windows, Lara could make out the first pool room. Next to the window was a pot. Shooting it, a rat came out and began attacking her, forcing her to kill it. At the north end of the hall, Lara found a Shotgun and some Flares.

As Lara emerged from the right-most door of the low building, two wolves suddenly attacked her, forcing her to kill them. Exploring around behind the north tower, Lara found that the water had been drained from the cellar. She jumped down and shot out the grate. Suddenly, she heard the familiar footsteps of crocodiles. Running back to the edge above the pool, Lara took out the crocodiles as they emerged. Once they were out of the way, Lara reentered the cellar and was immediately attacked by a rat. After dispensing with it, Lara collected some Flares and lit one.
The cellar was a dangerous death trap full of spike pits. Between two of them and next to one of the tower's supporting pillars, Lara could see a Small Medipak. She threaded her way between the pits to make it around to the Medipak. Once, when she was near the south wall, a rat emerged from the dark to attack her.

In the southeast corner, Lara found a pool of water. She swam to the other side where she had to dispense with another rat. As she took the Medipak, two more crocodiles emerged from the darkness, and she had to dispense with them.

Next, she jumped in the water and swam through some tunnels to emerge in a cavern on the north side of the pool in the middle of the valley. She swam up to the bamboo grate and collected Secret #2 - a Golden Skull, some Uzi Ammo, and some Flares. As soon as she collected the Secret, she noticed a crocodile swimming around nearby. Dodging him, she swam back to the cellar of the north tower and pulled up on shore. Since there wasn't any easy way to draw the crocodile out, Lara decided to let him be, and returned to the courtyard.

As she reentered the south tower, another conquistador skeleton leaped in front of her. Just as before, she lured it to the edge of the pool and blasted it off the cliff. She returned to the south tower, closed the front door, flooded the first floor, swam up to the second floor and climbed the stairs to the third. As she approached the locked door, another skeleton jumped out of the door at the end of the hall, pursuing her as she lured it back to the pool on the second floor, where she blasted it into the pool with the Shotgun.
Lara returned to the third floor, where she unlocked the closed door with the Skeleton Key. She went up a pair of steps into another room, where two more skeletons rose from the grave and pursued her back to the pool room, where Lara blasted them both into the water. Returning to the room where the skeletons emerged, she found three pots - two on a table in the northwest corner and the third on the floor in front of the south wall. One of the pots on the table shattered, giving her some Normal Shotgun Ammo.

Lara ran down the short hall off the southeast corner of the room and ascended the ladder she found there, finally reaching the top floor. Through a grated window, she saw the switch she had pulled earlier that opened the door on the second floor, and through a closed portcullis, she saw what she thought might be another Serpent Stone.
She entered a room with the closed portcullis next to the switch on the other side that she had pulled earlier that opened the left-most door to the low building. The room was littered with debris. In the corner next to the exit to the bridge between the two towers was another skin hanging to dry. In the southeast corner was a table and some chairs. Two pots sat on the table. Shattering these, Lara was able to claim some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo. There was another pot next to the closed portcullis. When she shattered this, a rat came out and attacked her.

Lara crossed the bridge to the north tower. On her left as she entered was a room with some drying skins, some pots, and a closed portcullis. When she shattered one of the pots, a rat came out and attacked her.
Finding nothing of value, Lara proceeded down the hall. Halfway down, however, a pair of mashing doors started opening and closing in front of her. In a dark section of the hallway, she lit a flare and saw a ladder leading up. She climbed up and leaped off it into a high hallway. Crossing to the end of the hall, she dropped into another hall on the other side of the closed portcullis. She went around to the end of the hall and collected Secret #3 from the plinth - a Golden Skull and a Lasersight.

As she approached the portcullis, it opened, then closed behind her. She returned to the hallway and darted through the mashing doors. At the end of the back hallway, she found two openings and a closed door. Passing through the opening next to the closed door, Lara found a switch and some pots. Two of the pots shattered, allowing her to collect some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo. She pulled the switch, opening a door somewhere below her.

She returned to the hall and went through the other opening to a small, narrow room with a switch at one end. She pulled the switch, opening the door and simultaneously closing off access to the room she had just come from. She ran through the now-open door into a narrow back staircase, following it down to the third floor. As she entered the hallway at the foot of the stairs, another skeleton leaped out of the first room in front of her. She ran past it and through another pair of mashing doors at the end of the hall, turning down an adjacent hall, following it to its end at the top of a ladder. The skeleton followed and she blasted it off the top of the ladder with her Shotgun.

Lara climbed down to the second floor. Next to the ladder, she saw a closed door requiring a Gold Idol to open. Not having one, she noted its location. At the end of the hall, Lara found the door she had opened earlier, and looking down the adjacent hall, she found another door that must have opened at the same time. As she approached this latter door, another pair of mashing doors began opening and closing in front of her. She darted through these and through the open door.

In the window, Lara found a Crossbow sitting on a plinth. In the corners next to the plinth were several pots, some on a table and others on the floor. Shattering one of these disturbed a rat that came out to attack her. After taking care of the rat, Lara pulled a switch next to the door, opening another door somewhere below.
Lara returned to the hall, passed through the mashing doors, and entered the other room. A conquistador skeleton lay on the ground in front of her. Combining the Lasersight with the Crossbow, she shot off its head. She crossed the room and took some Normal Crossbow Ammo from the plinth in front of the window. As she did, the now-headless skeleton came to life. On one side of the room were some skins and pelts hanging to dry. On the other side of the hanging pelts from the plinth were some pots that would not shatter. A table with chairs was on the other side of the room, with some more pots on the table that did shatter.

Lara climbed back up the ladder to the third floor and ran back around to the room where the skeleton she had shot off the top of the ladder had jumped out of. On either side of the door were some pots, most of which shattered. There was a rat in one of these that Lara had to dispense with. Opposite the door were two switches beneath Incan faces and above identical trap doors. The Incan face on the left had its mouth open and the Incan face on the right had its mouth closed. Her sixth sense told her that one of these doors must lead to a spikey death in the cellar below. Since she had seen doors with the Incan face with the open mouth on them, Lara chose the left hand switch. Fortunately, she chose life, for the opening trap door plunged her into a pool of water below. Unfortunately, there was also a crocodile in the pool. Quickly, Lara scrambled onto the ledge next to a grated window and killed the crocodile. Afterward, she shattered the pot on the ledge with her and found some Normal Shotgun Ammo.

Lara swam across the pool and jumped down onto the floor beyond. As she did another pair of mashing doors started opening and closing in front of her. She slipped through these into the hall beyond, opening the door in front of her leading out into the courtyard. To her right was the door she had opened with the switch back up on the second floor, and her intuition told her that she shouldn't move any closer to the exit to the courtyard, lest that door close. She turned left instead, entering a dark room with several vases, two of which were a table and the rest on the floor. Smashing these, she found a Small Medipak and some Normal Shotgun Ammo. There was also a switch in the room that she pulled, opening the middle door in the low building outside.

Lara ran back down the hall and through the door she had opened earlier, which closed behind her. At the end of the hall was a ladder that she climbed, emerging on the mountainside just above the red roof of the low building. She slid down onto the roof and crossed to the other side, dropping down into the trench beside the south tower and collecting the Large Medipak there. As she collected it, another skeleton rose from the grave and started moving near her. However, she just leaped past it and climbed back onto the red roof. But before she left, she targeted its skull with her Lasersight and shot of its head with her Crossbow.

Lara jumped down off the roof of the low building and glanced over at the south tower. The door was closed. Then she remembered that its first floor was also flooded, which meant that if she swam back into the water maze now, she could reach the underwater switch. Fortunately, she hadn't pulled the switch between the pool rooms, otherwise the left-most door of the low building would be closed, barring her access to the switch.

Lara ran back into the first pool room, jumping in and swimming back around and up into the water maze, catching her breath in the air chamber. Swiftly, she swam through the water maze to reach the underwater switch, pulling it to open the door to the second part of the water maze she had seen earlier. Quickly she swam back to the air chamber to catch her breath before she swam down to map out the second part of the water maze.

Lara emerged from the water maze in a large cavernous area built up with stone blocks. She swam around to the bamboo grate that partitioned this cave off from the pool in the middle of the valley. Looking up, she spied an air chamber, where she found Secret #4 - a Golden Skull with some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo and some Normal Crossbow Ammo.
Lara jumped back into the water and swam back to the air chamber in the first water maze before swimming on back to the high passage above the north-south tunnel that led to the second pool room, through the current-driven water tunnels, to emerge from the low building from the right-most door.
Looking again at the south tower, Lara remembered the closed door on the top floor. She ran back to the pool in the middle of the valley to pull the switch to drain the first floor and open the door, when she spied a crocodile in the water. She took the crocodile out from the safety of the shore before jumping in and pulling the underwater switch again. She swam back to shore and climbed back onto the east bank, when she was attacked by two more wolves.

Returning to the courtyard, Lara went back into the south tower, closed the front door, flooded the first door, swam up to the second floor, climbed the stairs to the third floor, and ascended the ladder to the fourth floor. Since she had collected Secrets #1 through #4, she found that the portcullis on the top floor near the back of the tower was now open. She ran inside and collected Secret #5 - a Serpent Stone. There were also two pots that she shattered to find a pair of Uzis and some Uzi Ammo. Afterward, she made her way back down to the first floor, draining the first floor and opening the door.

Again returning to the courtyard, Lara ran into the center door of the low building, searching out what lie beneath the mountains beyond.

HERE BE DRAGONS

Lara entered some sort of ancient temple, where water poured into a channel from waterfalls at the north and south ends. This in turn emptied through a channel leaving through the only exit, west, to pour over a waterfall into a river in the large cavern outside.

Lara leaped over the north channel to stand next to the channel at the door. Standing a couple of steps back from the door, at the channel's edge, she hopped back, ran, and jumped through the door and across the channel to land on the north side of the channel on the portico. She stepped over a skeleton and onto the top of the steps beyond.

The temple was at the east end of a large cavern illumined by phosphorescent mosses and filled with lush growth. The climate was also noticeably warmer than the subfreezing temperatures outside. A small river started at the waterfall off the temple portico and wound through the cavern, entering a somewhat smaller cave on the west wall. From there it rounded a bend to the north and disappeared into the rock.

A low, wide cave opened in the southwest corner, and Lara could tell that it branched in two different directions just beyond the mouth. Higher up in that corner, two small ledges protruded from the south wall, with small caves going back into the rock.
On the west wall, above and just north of the cave the river entered, was another small cave. A complex lattice of vines started there, sprawling across the cavern roof, terminating above the southwest corner of the temple.

In the northwest corner, the cave roof lowered over an extension of the cavern. And it was from this that a velociraptor emerged. The ferocious beast ran toward her and Lara drew her Pistols out and, after a prolonged battle, killed the supposedly extinct reptile.

In the northwest corner of the cavern extension, Lara found some Normal Shotgun Ammo. The west wall had been split open, allowing her to crawl through. Making her way around to the northwest, Lara reached a tunnel that terminated at one end in a built up area. Following the tunnel back the other way, she rounded a corner to the west and found a ladder. She climbed down to a long tunnel leading to the north. Next to a closed door, she found some more Normal Shotgun Ammo and some Uzi Ammo.

Lara climbed back up the ladder and went into the built up area, built with mossy stones on the walls and ceiling. As she entered, a scorpion crawled out from underneath a rock, and she dispensed with it. She followed the hallway around to the right. As she made her way around, the floor began crumbling beneath her feet, and she hurried on past as the last tile fell, revealing a spike pit. Nearby, she found a Small Medipak. As she was collecting it, she heard the clicking pincers of a scorpion from behind her.

After killing the bug, Lara made her way through the built up area, running across another crumbling section of floor. After she killed another scorpion, she looked back and noticed that there weren't any spikes beneath where it fell. She continued around to a dead end, where she found some Uzi Ammo.
Lara ran back and entered a tunnel in the northeast corner. Ahead, she saw another Small Medipak. But her sixth sense warned her that something wasn't right. Lighting a flare, she saw a very deep pit in the tunnel in front of her. She turned back and dropped into the shallow pit revealed by the last section of floor that crumbled earlier. Through a crawlspace to the west, she saw the spike pit she crossed earlier. She followed a tunnel to the north that started at the crawlspace. Halfway through the tunnel, she heard some clicking behind her. She quickened her pace and emerged at the west end of a long hallway with stairs at the other end. Turning around, she exterminated another bug. She ran up the hall to find a short north-south hall. The north end was closed off by a portcullis. Next to the portcullis was the foot of a winding staircase. At the south end, the ceiling dropped down, and the hallway turned back to the west. Following this, she collected the Small Medipak she had seen earlier.

Lara climbed the stairs next to the portcullis. At one point, the stairs branched, continuing ahead to the south or turning right to the west. Following the latter passage, Lara came to a dead end at a closed portcullis. Lighting a flare at a corner in the stairs opposite the portcullis, she found a crawlspace.
Squeezing into the crawlspace, Lara felt a bit wary. The atmosphere made her skin crawl. As she rounded a corner, she heard some clicking ahead. Drawing her Pistols, she killed a scorpion as it drew near. Continuing up the passage, she heard another scorpion ahead that she quickly killed. She continued around a block and jumped on a ledge. From up ahead, she heard another scorpion. Dispensing with it, she proceeded on. Soon, she found a place where she could stand. A moment later, another scorpion rounded the corner ahead of her that she quickly eliminated. Lara continued up the passage. Soon, she heard some more clicking, this time behind her. Turning around, she squashed another bug.

Lara made her way to the end of the creepy passage, dropping down into the room that she had seen on the other side of the closed portcullis. Here she collected Secret #1 - a Golden Skull, a Large Medipak, and some Poison Crossbow Ammo. As she picked up the Skull, the portcullis opened, and she heard a velociraptor stalking her on the stairs beyond. As he emerged from around the corner below, she fired a poison Crossbow bolt at him, then finished him off with the Pistols.

Lara ran back down to the fork in the stairs, taking the other passage. As she emerged in a small room at the top of the stairs, two velociraptors started after her, coming from the other two hallways leading from the room. She dispensed with them in the same manner that she had eradicated the last one.

At the end of the hallway to the east, Lara found a closed and locked portcullis for which she needed a key. At the end of the hallway to the south, she found another small room with some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo, some Normal Crossbow Ammo, and an Emerald Key. As she took the Emerald Key, a trap door opened beneath her, plunging her into the water below. She swam through a low tunnel, emerging in the channel back in the temple.

Climbing out of the channel, Lara walked over to the doorway leading out to the portico. Standing next to the channel, she again leaped through the door and over the channel, landing on the south side of the portico. She ran down the stairs and followed along the south side of the river into the cave on the west wall. Near the place where the ceiling came down to prevent any further movement down the bank, she found a Small Medipak.

Lara jumped into the water, and the current carried her downstream to the north. Soon, the subterranean river bent to the west, widening a bit as it carried her along. Just before the river bent around to the north again, Lara spied a crack in the rock on the south side. Fighting the current, she swam into the crack, emerging in a small cave filled with air. Here she found Secret #2 - a Golden Skull and a Crossbow with some Poison Ammo.

She jumped back into the water and the current carried her through a narrow tunnel to the north, expelling her through a high waterfall in a tall cavern. Lara fell into a large pool of water with a small island in the middle. As soon as she hit the water, she realized that she wasn't alone - two crocodiles were swimming hungrily toward her. Swiftly, she swam to the north bank and pulled herself on shore, where she killed the crocodiles from safety.

The cavern was a little taller than it was wide or deep. The south wall was dominated by an enormous waterfall, the spray from which filled the air. A rickety wooden footbridge spanned the top of the cavern between small caves in the east and west walls. The cavern was illumined by a green phosphorescence, and lush growth adorned the cave floor. The pool dominated much of the bottom of the cave, and Lara could make out two small caves at the bottom - one just east of the waterfall and the other just to the west.

The cavern continued up and away from the waterfall to the north. Just beyond an opening in the north wall, Lara entered another cavern. Suddenly, she was attacked by a crocodile emerging from a low cave in the southwest corner. After killing the beast, she ducked inside the cave and found a Small Medipak.

There were ledges on the east and west walls of the cavern. Lara could reach the east ledge, but the west ledge was above her reach. At the end of the west ledge was a closed door. Like the tall cavern with the waterfall, this cavern was lit with green phosphorescence and was adorned with lush growth. In the center of the roof, a long vine grew down, that Lara could use to swing from the east ledge to the west.

Returning to the waterfall cavern, Lara jumped into the pool and swam into the cave to the east of the waterfall. There were three branches in this cave, at the ends of which she found some Flares, a Small Medipak, and a Shotgun with some Normal Ammo.
She swam back out to the waterfall cavern to take a deep breath before diving down into the underwater cave west of the waterfall. Swimming around to its end, Lara found an underwater switch. Pulling it, she opened the timed door at the north end of the west ledge in the cavern north of the tall waterfall cavern. Immediately, she spun around, swam out of the cave and up to shore, sprinting to the north end of the east ledge. She pulled herself up onto the ledge, side jumping twice to the right, landing on the northwest corner of the highest part of the ledge. Angling slightly to the right, she rolled around and ran and jumped, grabbing the vine. Sliding down to the bottom of the vine, she swung across to the west ledge, darting through the door in the nick of time, just as it closed behind her.

Lara followed a short tunnel around to the left, where it led to a long tunnel. In a dark spot of this tunnel, she lit a flare and found a Small Medipak. She ran south up the tunnel, ascending the short flight of steps at the end, rounding a corner to emerge at one end of the footbridge at the top of the waterfall cavern. Two sections of this bridge looked suspicious, so as she ran down the bridge, she leaped over these. As she jumped, her foot actually landed on the first of these, and it dropped beneath her.

She continued on into a short tunnel with a flight of steps leading up to a small room with an Emerald Key sitting on a plinth in the center. In the corners of the room just inside the entrance, Lara found a Small Medipak and some Normal Shotgun Ammo. In the southeast corner was a door that opened when she took the Emerald Key. The roar of two velociraptors came from the other side. As they ran into the room, Lara ran back down the stairs and onto the bridge. The velociraptors, perhaps wary of the poor condition of the bridge didn't risk stepping on it and started running away. Lara started shooting at them. Whenever they ran out of range, she stepped back inside the tunnel, and as they approached, she backed out to the bridge. In this manner, she felled the two dinosaurs.

Lara ran up the hall the velociraptors had come from, scaling the ladder at the end. She found herself in the cave near the built up area where she had earlier encountered the scorpions and the spike pit. She made her way back out to the main cavern. Leaping across the river, she entered the low, wide cave in the southwest corner. Suddenly, she was assaulted by two more velociraptors, which emerged from both of the forks in the cave. Quickly, Lara fired a poison Crossbow bolt at each dinosaur, finishing them off with the Pistols.
Lara ran through the left fork, following a long, wide tunnel that slowly sloped down to a large but shallow cavern dominated by a lake with an island in the center. An Emerald Key sat in the center of the island. Dispensing with the crocodile she found in the water, Lara dove in and found some Flares and some Normal Crossbow Ammo. Afterward, she swam up to the east shore and ran and jumped onto the island.

As she picked up the Emerald Key, the whole cavern was shaken by an earthquake. Three conquistador skeletons rose from their graves in the tunnel that led down to the lake. Fitting the Crossbow with the Lasersight, Lara shot off their heads with normal bolts. She ran and jumped back to shore, running back up the tunnel only to find that the earthquake had brought down the roof at the end, trapping her inside.
Lighting a flare, Lara began to explore the cave. In the north wall, the earthquake had opened a crack at the top of a short slope. She leaped into it and slid down a long slope into the tunnel beyond. As she followed the tunnel around, a boulder that had been loosened by the earthquake fell and began rolling toward her. Ahead of her to the right, she spied a small tunnel leading down. She ran into it, barely missing the boulder. At the bottom of the tunnel, she found some Uzi Ammo.

After the boulder had passed, Lara climbed up the way it had fallen. She pulled herself out of a shallow pit that interrupted a north-south tunnel. To the south was a long slope that she could not ascend. To the north, she climbed some rocks to emerge on a high ledge overlooking the main cavern from its southwest corner.
To the east, Lara saw the other small ledge and jumped over to it, around an overhang in the rock. She stepped inside to find a built up area. She ran down a hallway into a room with two closed portcullises. As she stepped into the room, these opened while a third closed behind her. Two conquistador skeletons, one from behind each of the now-open portcullises, rose from the grave to menace her. Lara ran through the tunnel to the east, passing the skeleton, to arrive at a cliff overlooking a pool below. As the skeletons entered the cave, she blasted them off the edge with the Shotgun.

Lara returned to the room with the three portcullises and climbed the stairs in the hallway to the south. She came into another room where she found some Normal Crossbow Ammo. She went back to the cliff above the pool and looking around. Lighting a flare, she spied a high crawlspace in the southwest corner. She climbed up and made her way down the other side to a pit where she found Secret #3 - a Golden Skull, some Normal Shotgun Ammo, and some Uzi Ammo. As she collected the Secret, two scorpions crawled out of the rock that she had to dispense with.

Lara climbed back out of the pit and returned to the cliff and dove off into the pool, where she found a Small Medipak. She swam into a small cave in the north wall and heard a crocodile swimming in the water ahead. Lara quickly turned around and swam to the bottom of the pool in the southwest corner. As the crocodile swam down to attack, Lara swam straight up then over the crocodile and through the opening in the wall, emerging back in the channel in the temple. She scrambled out of the channel, killing the crocodile as he emerged.

Lara ran back outside into the main cavern and ran back into the low, wide cave in the southwest corner. Seeing the collapsed cave just beyond the left fork, she took the right fork, running up a cave that sloped slightly upward as it progressed to the west. At the west end, the cave forked again. A wide fork led south to a cave with two closed portcullises and a long slope coming down from the south. Behind the portcullis on the east wall, she could see a room with a pulley switch. Behind the portcullis at the end of a small tunnel in the southwest corner, she could see a pit leading down to a another cavern below.

Returning to the fork, Lara climbed the narrow rocky fork to the northwest, emerging on a ledge overlooking an enormous cavern. A long rock bridge crossed the cavern from the ledge she was standing on to the northwest, ending at another ledge with a closed portcullis in the northwest wall. Like everything else, this cavern was illumined by green phosphorescence. At the bottom was a pool in the southern part with a bit of land in the southeast corner. The land, lush and green, was mostly on the north part, and disappeared into a cave to the west.

Higher up, two dark caves could be seen in the rock to the east and northeast that Lara could not reach. On the west wall near the door was another cave that she could not reach, though this was not as dark. Next to this, opposite the door, a rock protruded from the west wall. Below, Lara could see a tall passage leading to a narrower tunnel leading into the rock. At the back of the rock, a small tunnel led into the west wall. Next to the protruding rock, lower down, a slope emerged from between two rocks, discharging just above the pool. Next to the slide, opposite from the rock with the tall passage was another rock.

Lara could see a passage into it on its south face, just above the top of the slope. Around the rock to its west face was a small opening, just above another slope that wound down to discharge above the pool. Looking more closely, Lara spied a crack in the south wall winding from the southeastern ledge across to the small opening in the rock in the southwest corner of the cave.

Running to the west side of the ledge next to the wall, Lara jumped off, grabbing the edge, and shimmied around, using the crack. She pulled herself into the small opening and went forward into the passage that she had seen leading into the south face of the rock. Going through a tunnel to the west, she arrived at a tunnel that led back to the north, with spikes on the floor. High above the end, Lara saw an opening in the rock.
She returned to the opening in the south face of the rock, running and jumping across the slope to land on the rock above the tall passage. She ran into the small tunnel to the west, which shortly turned back to the south to end above the tunnel with the spikes. High above the spikes on the wall directly opposite her, she spied a jump switch. She hopped back, running and jumping to grab the switch. A portcullis at the end of the tall passage opened.
Fortunately, the spikes beneath the jump switch retracted, otherwise she would have impaled herself in the fall.

Lara ran back to the openings to the rock and slid down into the pool using one of the slopes. She swam to shore, but hadn't gone more than a few steps when she noticed some large reptilian prints in the soil, crushing the vegetation. No sooner had she drawn her shot gun when two tyrannosaurs appeared from the large cavern to the west. In a fierce battle, she felled them both.

She ran into the cavern from which the tyrannosaurs had emerged. On the west wall was an enormous rockslide, and on the south wall was a small temple similar to the one back out in the main cavern. But as she ran toward it, she heard thunderous footsteps behind her. Again drawing her shotgun, Lara had to kill yet another tyrannosaur.
Exploring the temple, Lara found the left portcullis missing. In the opening behind it, she collected a Crossbow. In searching near the landslide, she found a Small Medipak in the corner between the landslide and the temple, and some Normal Shotgun Ammo in the corner to the north of the rubble. Back in the arch where the two caverns met, she found a small cave, accessed through a crawlspace in the north wall. Entering the cave, Lara found a deep pit. And beyond, she discovered a ledge. Jumping across, she collected a Lasersight and also found an unlit torch on the wall. Returning to the large cavern, she found another unlit torch at the top of a hill in the northeast corner, and a third on the island in the southeast corner.

Lara returned to the temple and, looking up, found a metal ball suspended by a chain from the rock above. Fitting her Crossbow with the Lasersight, Lara fired a normal bolt at the ball. When she did, the plinth from which she took the Crossbow was set ablaze.
She ran back to the cavern with the pool and climbed the ladder to the tall passage. At the end, she found and collected a Torch. She tossed it out onto the ground outside, climbed down the ladder, picked it up again, and returned to the burning plinth to light it.

With the lit Torch in hand, Lara returned to the pool, running and jumping over it at its east end, to light the torch on the island. Next, she scaled the hill in the northeast corner of the cavern to light the torch at the top. She returned to the small cave with the pit, jumping across the pit on the east side to the ledge to light the torch there. She returned to the temple and tossed the Torch over by the right portcullis. She ran back and jumped in the pool, where she found an underwater switch. Pulling it, she opened the timed portcullis, next to where she left the Torch. She spun around and swam as fast as she could to the shore, then sprinted back to the temple, collected the Torch, and dashed through the open door before the portcullis closed again.
She hadn't gone more than a few steps when she heard velociraptors ahead of her.

Throwing the torch back toward the portcullis, she climbed the stairs until she found two more dinosaurs that she felled with the shotgun. She returned to collect the Torch, then climbed to the top of the stairs. The stairs ended at a hall that led back to the top of the landslide, where she found and lit the last torch. Above the landslide, she noticed a cave leading up to the east above the cavern below. Noting its location, she slid down the rockslide and returned to the temple. The center portcullis was now open, allowing her to take the Emerald Key from the plinth.
Suddenly, she heard thunderous footsteps behind her, and she rushed out to do battle with two more tyrannosaurs, emerging victorious. Afterward, she returned to the pool, pulled the underwater switch, and climbed the stairs back to the top of the rockslide. She ran and jumped over the landslide, grabbing the edge of the cave mouth, pulling herself in. As she ran up the cave, she passed a small side tunnel, leading back to the northwest. She found and pulled a pulley switch, opening the portcullis set into the northwest wall of the top of the large cavern at the end of the rock bridge. She continued up the cave, emerging from the now-open portcullis, ran across the bridge, and returned to the fork in the cave.

Taking the fork to the south, Lara found the portcullis on the east wall was now open. Inside, she pulled the pulley switch, opening the portcullis in the southwest corner leading to the pit. Before she left, she looked up above the door. Lighting a flare, she saw a crawlspace and climbed in. She passed through a long crawlspace, emerging in a shallow pit on the east end of a room where she found a Large Medipak. Looking up, she saw a high crawlspace above the pit that she could not reach. Lighting a flare, she found another crawlspace in the southwest corner. She climbed in and, flare in hand, found another pulley switch. When she pulled it, the bottom of the pit rose. She climbed back down into the room, then climbed into the crawlspace above the now-filled pit, where she found Secret #4 - a Golden Skull, some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo, and some Uzi Ammo. She left the room through the doorway to the west, slid down the slope into the cave below, and killed the velociraptor she found there.

At the southwest corner of the cave, Lara dropped into the pit, sliding down the slope below. As she entered a north-south cave, she jumped and grabbed the vines, swinging over to the west wall, where she dropped down and pulled a jump switch. As she landed, she was attacked by three velociraptors, which she killed with the Shotgun. Afterward, she ran to the north end of the cave, rounded a corner and emerged at the bottom of another enormous cavern.

The west side was filled with water drained through a tunnel to the north. The cavern floor was mostly rocky, but had a fair amount of green growth. There was a ledge in the northeast corner that ended with the ceiling coming down at the west end, and which disappeared into the east wall at its south end, passing behind and beneath a larger opening in the east wall. A ladder at the top of a slope in the northwest corner of the cavern led up to another ledge, where Lara spied a pulley switch. On the south side of the cavern, across from the ledge with the pulley switch, a rickety wooden footbridge crossed between two built-in tunnels directly in front of a cave with a dragon. There was another ledge higher up on the east wall with a door at the north end. At the top of the cave on the east wall was a small ledge with a passage into the rock. In the southeast corner, on top of a high section of rock, a lone velociraptor stalked, looking down on the entire cavern. The roof of the cavern was adorned with a lattice of vines, similar to the vines in the main cavern.
A large outcropping protruded from the west wall. There was a closed portcullis in the west wall at the root of the outcropping. And in the center of the outcropping was a plinth with an Emerald Key.

Lara returned to the north-south cave and ran to the south end. As she turned to the west, she found herself face-to-face with another dragon. She sprinted past the dragon and through the nearby portcullis that she had opened with the jump switch. She leaped up on the ledge, narrowly avoiding the dragon's fire. Swiftly, she scaled the ladder as swarms of locusts descended on her. She climbed into a long hallway where she did battle with another velociraptor. She reached another hallway at the end of the first. To the right, the hallway ended at a closed portcullis.

Following the hallway to the left, Lara emerged back into the large cavern and crossed the footbridge, leaping over the two middle sections, lest they give way and plunge her to her death below, and avoiding the first dragon's fire. She ducked into the hallway on the other side and entered a room where she found Secret #5 - a Golden Skull, a Large Medipak, a pair of Uzis, some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo, and some Poison Crossbow Ammo.

Afterward, she ran back across the bridge and into the other hallway, traversing it to the end, where she found that the portcullis was now open. There was a ladder in front of her leading up to the east ledge, but she chose to drop down, running out to the northeast ledge.

She crossed to the south end of the ledge, jumping up on to the highest end. She jumped off the ledge, grabbing the edge. Using a nearly invisible crack in the north wall, Lara shimmied to the ledge with the pulley switch, which she pulled, opening the timed door at the north end of the high east ledge. Lara quickly dropped down the ladder to the ground and sprinted back to the northeast corner, pulling herself back onto the ledge. She ran through the opening to the east and pulled herself onto the ledge where she emerged from the hallways with the last Secret. She turned around and jumped onto the ladder, climbing to the top. She darted across the ledge, slipping through the door at the north end just as it closed. She had no time to rest, however, for she had to dispense with another velociraptor.

Lara ran around to the end of the tunnel, scaling the ladder she found there. She emerged from a short tunnel on the small ledge at the top of the east wall. Bracing herself, she jumped up and grabbed the vines, swinging over to the outcropping while being eaten alive by the dragon's locust swarms. Once, she had to recharge from a Medipak while she was hanging.
Lara dropped onto the outcropping and took the Emerald Key from the plinth. Since she had collected Secrets #1 through #5, the door at the end of the outcropping opened when she took the Emerald Key. Just inside, she found another portcullis. Next to it were two open serpent mouths. Placing the Serpent Stones she had found with the final Secrets of Return to Peru and The Ruins of Quinara, she opened the portcullis and ran down the hall to the ladder at the end.

CRASH IN THE ANDES
(Secret Bonus Level #1)

Lara remembered the day that Jacqueline Natla had recruited her to find Qualopec's piece of the Atlantean Scion. That big lout, Larson, had brought a laptop to Calcutta with him, propping it up so Lara could have a video conference with Natla. Natla asked her how she liked the then-new technology, to which Lara responded, "I'm sorry - I only play for sport."

Natla came back saying, "Then you'll like a big park - Peru? Vast mountain ranges to cover," she said. "Sheer walls of ice," she said. "Rocky crags, savage winds," she said.
Lara's first visit to Peru didn't quite live up to Natla's promise, and so far this trip hadn't fared much better. Little did she know that at last, that was about to change.

Lara climbed the ladder into a low, wide cave. She emerged into a winding valley somewhere high in the mountains. As soon as she did, she was attacked by six wolves.
After taking care of the wolves, Lara decided to do a bit of exploring. Following the valley around to the southeast, she came to the foot of an unscalable mountain. At the top of its slope was a cave, disappearing into the mountains to the south.
Lara returned to the wide area of the valley where she emerged from the cave and followed the valley to the west. After passing beneath a wide natural bridge over a narrow spot in the valley, she caught herself before falling down a hidden slope into a deep pit. Easily leaping over the pit, she continued down the narrow valley until it bent to the south, where a long slope leading down and to the west began. Looking up, she spied a thin, narrow natural bridge spanning the valley where the slope began.
Lara climbed up on a ledge above the start of the slope on the east at the point closest to the ground that wasn't sloped. She ran south along the slope to the start of the bridge, then crossed the bridge, entering a cave to the northeast. Her presence startled two bats that she had to dispense with. Near the back of the cave was a shallow spike pit, and sitting on a ledge just beyond the pit, she found some Flares and a Small Medipak. Looking down into the pit, she could see a crawlspace with a Golden Skull just inside. But because of the spikes, she was unable to climb into the pit to retrieve it.

Lara left the cave and climbed back down to the ground. She decided to explore the valley some more before seeing what was down that long slope. She returned to the wide area of the valley and found a small cave she had to crouch in near the southwest corner, opposite from the cave she had emerged from earlier. She squeezed into the cave and dropped down a ledge. Hearing the flutter of bat wings, she drew her Pistols and took care of them when they flew into view.

Two low crawls led away from where she stood - one to the west and another to the south. Taking the south fork, she soon turned a corner to the west and found another fork, again to the west or to the south. Taking the west crawl, she soon arrived at the edge of a pit. Though she could not climb back up to this ledge from below, it looked shallow enough that she wouldn't be hurt by dropping down. Looking across the pit first, she saw some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo that she could not reach.

As she dropped down, she heard the clicking of little feet and soon had to squash a pair of scorpions. Lara looked up. She was at the bottom of a shaft that ascended quite some distance up to the surface. Just above her, between the east and west crawls that she could not reach, were ledges for crawls to the north and south that she could. Looking down, she saw four identical crawls leading away from the central pit. Taking one of these, she found a circular crawl that circumscribed the pit, where she found some Flares and some Normal and Poison Crossbow Ammo.

Lara jumped and grabbed the north ledge, crawling out of the pit. A short dead end led ahead of her and to the left. Taking the east crawl to her right, she rounded a corner to another fork. A crawl to the east ended in a dead end, so she continued up the path to the north. Near the top of the crawl, the cave branched again to the east. However, Lara continued north and dropped into a pit at the end.

When she dropped to the floor, she was attacked by another scorpion. After dispensing with it, she crawled into the low cave it had emerged from to the east. She followed the narrow tunnel around until it emerged into a cave with a low ceiling and a very deep pit. A large stalactite dominated the center of the roof, and both the north and south sides of the pit were sloped. The slope on the south side was not as wide as the slope on the north, so Lara walked to the southwest corner of the ledge, standing against the wall and facing the slope. She ran and jumped across the slope, landing just a bit higher on the east ledge, where she found some Normal Shotgun Ammo and some Uzi Ammo.

She returned to the west slope, and as she approached the low crawl to leave, a scorpion emerged that she had to squash. Lara crawled back down the tunnel to the west and climbed out of the pit, taking the east fork near the mouth. She followed another low tunnel around to the southeast, emerging at the bottom of the first pit she had dropped into. She crawled back out and emerged in the wide area of the valley.
Lara went back down the valley to the west, near the wide natural bridge just before the concealed pit. Looking at the ledge to the north, she found a spot she could climb onto. From there, she jumped over a short slope to the bridge, crossed it and entered a high, narrow canyon. Immediately she was attacked by a pair of wolves.

After dispensing with the wolves, Lara looked around the high valley she found herself in. In the middle was a small but deep pit that she recognized as the place where she had earlier found the Flares and Crossbow Ammo. She entered a low cave in the mountainside to the southwest. Through a low crack just to her right, she spied a Large Medipak. But because of the tight proximity of the cave roof to the floor, she was unable to reach it.

Lara ran down a tunnel leading out of the back of the cave to the south. She turned a corner and slid down a short slope to land on a narrow ledge in the northwest corner of a cave with a deep pit. Slopes surrounded the pit on three sides, except on the south side, which was a sheer drop. Looking up, she saw handholds in the ceiling that she could use to traverse the cave, except that she could not reach them.

She found a crack on the west wall that started just off the ledge and wound around to the southwest corner. She used this to shimmy around to a dead-end tunnel. However, she was able to jump and reach the handholds and monkey swing across the cave to a tunnel in the southeast corner. She ran through the tunnel and emerged at the west end of a natural bridge that traversed the top of a large cavern.

The bottom of the cavern had been built up, walled in by large blocks on all four sides. There was some sort of structure in the center of the cavern floor directly beneath her, but even the roof of this was too far below her to safely drop onto. There was a closed portcullis in the middle of the north cavern wall just below her, and a rope hung from the bridge directly across from it. There was another cave that started at a ledge to the southwest that bent around and out of sight to the southeast. However, because of the low ceiling between the bridge and the cave, Lara could not reach it.

She entered a small cave at the east end of the bridge. She pulled a switch that she found in the back of the cave, hidden behind a large rock, opening a portcullis in a built-up wall somewhere. Afterward, she ran back across the bridge and through the tunnel to the cave with the pit and the handholds in the roof. Jumping up, she used the handholds to cross the cave back to the northwest ledge. She leaped over the short slope and ran back out through the cave and into the high valley, where she was attacked by another pair of wolves.

After dispensing with the wolves, Lara returned to the winding valley and ran back to the top of the long slope at the valley's west end. She slid down and jumped over to the south side of the slope as it dropped away to the west. As she approached a wide crevasse at the end of the slope, she looked up and spied a tunnel in the wall ahead of her. As she neared it, she jumped from the slope, bending to the left, landing just inside the tunnel mouth.

Lara ran through the tunnel, emerging high
on the north wall of a large cavern. Two mouths on the west wall opened into the crevasse to the west - one high up and near her, yet too sloped and too far for her to reach, and the other far below her on the cavern floor. The roof of the cavern sloped down to the east, where it became the roof of a cave that entered the rock fairly high above the cavern floor, yet too far away for her to jump to. Another small cave exited the cavern from the southeast corner far below.

Lara used handholds in the ceiling to traverse the cavern to the southwest corner, where she pulled the switch she found there, opening a trapdoor somewhere near a Small Medipak. She swung back across the cavern using the handholds and ran through the tunnel back to the slope.

She dropped back onto the slope, facing the crevasse. At the end of the slope, just before she plunged to her death, she leaped across and grabbed the ledge opposite her. Looking around, she spied a ledge on the cliff wall behind her a ways to her left. She shimmied over to a spot where the snow had drifted down the cliff face as much as it had in the spot where she had grabbed the ledge. She pulled herself onto the sloped ledge and backflipped onto the ledge behind her. She found herself in the higher of the two mouths of the large cavern. But because the slope into the cavern led only to a sheer drop, she could not make her way inside.

Looking across the crevasse, Lara found a ledge above the one she had shimmied over on. She ran and jumped across the crevasse, grabbing the ledge and pulling herself up. In the southwest corner, she found a tall tunnel entering the mountain to the west. Just inside, the tunnel forked to the west and northwest. Following the west fork, she soon ended up in what appeared to be a dead end. But lighting a Flare and looking up, she found a high crawlspace at the end of the tunnel. Climbing in, she traversed to the end, where she collected a Small Medipak. To the west, the tunnel ended high in a mountainside overlooking the fuselage of a plane that had crashed in the Andes long ago.

Lara returned to the tall tunnel and took the northwest fork, emerging at the south end of a cave that sloped up to the northwest. She dropped into the pit in the middle of the cave, collecting the Uzi Ammo she found there. She climbed out of the cave and went up into the tunnel at the northwest end of the cave.

As she came to a fork at the north end of the tunnel, two boulders suddenly came rolling out of the tunnels to the northwest and east. Immediately, Lara ran over to the north wall, directly opposite the tunnel, and the boulders passed harmlessly behind her, rolling through the tunnel back to the south.

Just over a rise, the fork to the northwest sloped down to the west. Lara decided to explore the east tunnel instead. As she passed through a dark, low crawl in the tunnel, she lit a flare and discovered a shallow pit to the south. Dropping into it, she ducked as the ceiling came down. She turned the corner to the right and found the trap door she had opened earlier. She dropped into the pit beneath it, then crawled onto the ledge on the far side, collecting a Small Medipak.

When she dropped back down into the pit, she realized that she couldn't reach the ledge on the east side. But she noticed a low crawl to the south east. She followed a low, winding tunnel around until she found some Explosive Crossbow Ammo. Above her, she found a high crawl. Climbing into it, she discovered Secret #1 - a Golden Skull and a Large Medipak. But she immediately had need for that Medipak. Unable to go back because of the height of the ledge, she had to proceed through a spike pit. She crawled into it and climbed out as quickly as she could. Nevertheless, she sustained injuries that she had to patch up before proceeding.

She found herself in the cave near the top of the long slope down to the crevasse where she had earlier been attacked by two bats and collected some Flares and a Small Medipak. She ran out, back across the narrow natural bridge to the southeast and dropped back down into the valley below. She slid back down to the crevasse, shimmied back over and backflipped onto the ledge at the high mouth of the large cavern, jumped back across the crevasse and reentered the tall tunnel in the mountainside. One of the boulders had lodged itself in the south opening of the cave, and she had to vault over it. The other had fallen into the pit in the midst of the cave. She ran back through the tunnel leading out from the northwest corner and again took the east fork.

Lara passed the shallow pit that she had earlier dropped down to find the Secret. Instead, she continued through the winding tunnel, to emerge on a ledge high above the west side of the crevasse at the north end, giving her a wide view of the mountains around her. She climbed onto a higher ledge above her and ran to the south. A cleft passed through the mountainside to the west, leading to a high overhead view of the fuselage she had seen earlier. Opposite the cleft, a natural bridge passed high above the crevasse to the east.

Lara crossed to the east side of the crevasse, following the gentle slope of the mountainside down to the southeast. Leaving the crevasse behind, she found herself high above the east end of a narrow valley. She continued around to the south, finally dropping down into a small north-south canyon. At its northern end, the canyon ended at a slope leading down into the valley.

Three wolves emerged from places in the rocks as Lara progressed westward through the valley. After putting them out of her misery, she crossed to the west end. A crack in the north wall afforded a front-end view of the fuselage. Here she found a Small Medipak.

Exploring the valley further, Lara found three small canyons leading north into the rock. The westernmost of these ended abruptly. Likewise the easternmost came to a dead end. But there was a high crawlspace in the west face of the canyon wall at its northern end. Climbing into it, she found her way into a small cave where she was attacked by two bats, and where she found a Cockpit Key.

The middle canyon opened at its end to a pair of slopes, leading out to the deep valley where the fuselage had miraculously come to rest. Exploring around it, Lara discovered a small door on the west side of the plane. She kicked it open and stepped inside. The remains of some poor soul with a fedora and a bullwhip was behind a locked cage in the back of the plane, surrounded by three venomous cobras. Shelves lined the sides of the plane and another locked cage was at the forward end. Crates were strewn across the floor. Shattering these, Lara found some Flares and a Small Medipak.
Lara ran up the ramp to the upper deck. Like the lower deck, the sides were lined with shelves and there was a locked cage at the aft end, and a locked door to the cockpit forward. Shattering the crates, she found some Normal and Poison Crossbow Ammo.
She unlocked the cockpit with the key she had found earlier. Inside, she found two lever switches. Pushing them, she opened the aft cage door on the upper deck and the forward cage door on the lower deck. Entering the cages, Lara shattered the crates, finding a Shotgun with some Normal Ammo in one cage and a pair of Uzis with some Ammo in the other.

Returning outside, Lara slid down a slope into a cave. There was an opening in the roof, with a slope leading down from above which she could not reach. Her intuition told her that this was where the northwest fork where she had encountered the two boulders led. She departed the cave through a tunnel in the northeast corner that went north a ways before it forked to the northeast and northwest. Taking the northeast tunnel, she followed it around to a cave with a built-up east wall. Two torches were lit high up, and between them was a closed door.

Lara went back and took the northwest fork, ending up in a fair-sized cave with a shallow pool in its midst. High up in the northwest corner was a switch on top of a steep hill. Looking overhead, she noticed some handholds carved by nature into the roof of the cave. They wound from above the switch, among the stalactites, to disappear in the southwest corner of the cave, above a long slope.

Lara went back out to the tunnel to the south, scrutinizing the roof and walls. Near a bend in the tunnel, where she climbed onto a waist-high ledge, Lara spied a high crawlspace on the west wall. From the ledge, she jumped forward and grabbed the lower ledge of the crawlspace and climbed in. She made her way down the tunnel as it gradually opened up. Near the top of the slope down into the cave, she jumped and grabbed the handholds. As she swung across the cave roof using the handholds, she disturbed three bats, which came and attacked her. Once she had dropped down onto the hill with the switch, she dispensed with them.

Lara pulled the switch, opening the timed door in the other cave between the two torches. As soon as she pulled the switch, she hopped sideways to the left, rolling around immediately when her feet hit the ground. She darted as fast as she could back up the tunnel to the south, hopping onto the waist-high ledge, running back to the fork. Taking the northeast fork, she sprinted through the tunnel, hopping over a troublesome spot in the floor, and darting through the door just before it closed behind her.

She had emerged on a ledge in the southwest corner of a cave with a deep pit. Many columns rose from this pit and were topped with slopes. A low crawlspace left the ledge to the south.

Directly ahead of her to the east was a thin ledge at the end of a slope. She ran and jumped, grabbing the edge of the ledge and pulling herself up. As she did, the ledge began crumbling beneath her feet. Immediately she side-jumped to the left, landing on another thin ledge that crumbled beneath her feet. She wasted no time in hopping back against the wall behind her to run and jump onto a third thin ledge that also crumbled as she leaped from it to grab a crack in the east wall. She shimmied left and pulled herself into a small cave where she found Secret #2 - a Golden Skull, a Grenade Gun, a Small Medipak, and a Large Medipak.

Lara returned to the edge overlooking the pit. She stood near the north end, facing a rock that sloped away from her to the west. Running and jumping, she grabbed the top edge of the rock and shimmied to the left. She pulled herself up and slid down. Just before the ledge spilled her into the pit, she jumped forward, bending to the left, to land on a column that sloped southward. Near the end, she jumped, landing on the east slope of a rock built onto the central column in the cave. She grabbed the edge as she fell off and shimmied all the way to the left. She pulled herself back onto the ledge and backflipped and twisted in midair, bearing to the right as she did, landing on a slope facing west. She had just begun sliding backward when she backflipped and twisted again, bearing left, to land on the south slope of the rock on the central column. As she slid down, she jumped again onto a slope facing west, from which she jumped to land once again on the ledge in the southwest corner of the cave.

Lara entered a low crawling maze off the south end of the ledge. Although there was essentially only one way for her to proceed, she found goodies in most of the dead ends - a Small Medipak, some Normal Shotgun Ammo, some Normal and Poison Crossbow Ammo, and some Uzi Ammo.

Lara dropped out of the crawlspace into the bottom of the deep crevasse that she had crossed twice earlier. She could see the sky high above her. She ran to the south end and entered the large cavern she had been in earlier, higher up, when she pulled the switch that opened the trap door that gave her access to Secret #1. As she entered the cavern from the northwest corner, a bear entered from the southeast corner. After she put the bear to sleep, she looked around the cavern.

Beneath a column near the opening, she found a pit that she dropped into, collecting some Normal Shotgun Ammo. Entering the cave from which the bear had emerged, she found some Uzi Ammo, but as she collected it, four scorpions emerged from the rocks that she had to squash.

A sizeable cave led out of the cave to the east, and Lara could see a large rolling door at its end. However, the ledge of the cave to the east was well above her head. There was a crack on the north wall, and she could make out some kind of cave beyond it. But this crack, like the east cave, was above her reach. A slope at the top of a column near the mouth of the cave faced it, but it too was out of her reach.

Lara ran back outside into the crevasse. Some snow had packed and piled up in the southeast corner of the cavern entrance. She jumped up on it and was able to jump and grab a low column to her right. Looking over, she realized that she could reach the sloping column. Standing at the north edge of the column, with the sloping column directly behind her, Lara backflipped onto the sloping column, grabbing its ledge as she fell off. She pulled herself up and immediately backflipped, twisting in midair, to grab the crack on the north wall. She shimmied to the right and pulled herself in, dropping into the cave on the other side, where she found some Flares.

She ducked through a low crawl and ran up a tunnel that ended at a ledge with a switch. She pulled the switch, causing a rock to rise for a short period of time near the cave exiting the large cavern to the east. Immediately, she turned around and ran back down the hall, ducked under the low spot in the tunnel, crawled back into the crack, and dropped down to the cavern floor. She darted outside, jumped on the packed snowbank, and jumped and grabbed the column on her right. She ran, jumped, and grabbed the rock that had temporarily raised out of the ground when she pulled the switch, and jumped into the cave to the east before the rock lowered back down into the ground.

[Lara ran up the cave to the large rolling door, which closed off the end of the cave. To the right of the rolling door was a closed portcullis set into the built-up south wall. Beyond, she could see a switch. Lara hopped onto a rock against the north wall and pulled herself into a high tunnel, which had more a look of a hallway. She followed it around to a dead end. As she walked back to the entrance, she lit a flare in the dark northwest corner and looked up. She was at the bottom of a ladder. Climbing it, she emerged into a small cave. A low tunnel exited up to the west. Following it around, she found a Large Medipak, but as she collected it, two scorpions crawled in from a cave on the other side of the crack at the north end of the tunnel. After squashing them, Lara returned to the cave and climbed back down the ladder.

She returned to the opening of the tunnel, just above the cave with the large rolling door, and looked up. There were three sloped ledges - a slope just above the tunnel mouth facing north that she could reach, another adjacent to it facing west, and another slope higher up that she could not reach facing east. Directly above her was a ladder set into the ceiling, leading back above the cave outside to the south.
Lara jumped and grabbed the lower lip of the slope facing west. She pulled herself up, backflipping onto the slope facing east, and immediately jumping and grabbing the ladder on the ceiling. Using the ladder, she passed over the slope facing north and landed in the tunnel. She turned a corner to the west and immediately came to the tunnel's end. Lighting a flare, she found and climbed another ladder, reaching a higher tunnel leading north. This tunnel narrowed to a crawl then bent around, eventually emerging at the top of a pit. At the end of the tunnel, she found some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo.

When she dropped down into the pit, Lara recognized it as the pit she had dropped into earlier where she killed a pair of scorpions and collected some Flares and Crossbow Ammo. She jumped and grabbed the south ledge, pulling herself out of the pit. She crawled up the hallway to the east, turning a corner to the north. She soon arrived at the bottom of the pit where she had earlier encountered a pair of bats. Climbing into the high crawl, she soon emerged from the cave in the winding valley where she had earlier battled the six wolves.]

Lara ran up the cave to the large rolling door, which closed off the end of the cave. To the left of the rolling door was a tunnel set high in the north wall that she could not reach. Next to the rolling door was an open portcullis set into the built-up south wall. She entered the room beyond, pulling the switch she found there. The enormous door rolled ponderously open. Once she had passed through, it rolled closed behind her.
Steps led down into a sizeable built-up room at the bottom of a large cavern. Torches lighted the walls at the northwest entrance, where she stood, and at the northeast entrance. In the middle of the cavern was a large pool beneath some sort of structure supported by four European-style columns. The pool was shallow, but deep enough that she couldn't stand up in it. High above the structure, Lara recognized the bridge she had crossed to pull the switch to open the portcullis on the other side of the rolling door.

In the hallway beyond the northeast entrance, a conquistador crossed the hall into a room where his mount waited. This was not a skeleton, as were the conquistadors she had encountered in The Ruins of Quinara, but a live one, perhaps a living descendant of those who conquered South America centuries earlier, part of a cult wanting to keep the "old ways" alive. The conquistador rode out, axe in hand, to do battle with Lara Croft.

The fight that ensued was fierce. Lara had to jump quickly to avoid the conquistador's axe strokes. She had to struggle to keep firing at his most sensitive spot - a diamond set into the center of his chest armor. But eventually, the conquistador fell from his horse - but he was not dead yet. He continued to attack Lara on foot, but eventually fell to her superior firepower. After he had fallen, Lara took his Skeleton Key and opened the door at the end of the hall that led past the room where the conquistador kept his horse.

Lara found herself at the bottom of a large cavern, but not the very bottom - a crevasse plunged to unseen depths at the east end of the cavern, and the floor of the cavern sloped toward it. A natural bridge passed above her, leading from a tunnel in the south wall to a hallway in the west wall that led back to the room where she fought the conquistador. Higher still, the roof of the cave sloped back to the west, above another cave exceedingly high above her. Across the crevasse was a sloped ledge that spilled out into the crevasse while gently sloping up from south to north. Above this slope were two ledges, and a portcullis in the southeast corner, set into the south wall. Around the corner from the entrance and opposite the highest part of the ledge on the east side of the crevasse, a ladder scaled from the slope to the roof of the cavern.

South of the door from which she just emerged, Lara found a Small Medipak. Near this, she found two sloped columns at the south end of the cavern facing each other. The slope facing east was closer to the ground. Grabbing this and shimmying to the north end, Lara pulled herself up, backflipped onto the slope facing west, and jumped and grabbed the handholds in the rock beneath the bridge. Using the handholds, she swung north beneath the bridge and dropped and pulled the jump switch she found at the end, opening the portcullis in the southeast corner.

Lara approached the slope as far north as she could go without falling. She jumped down to the bottom of the slope at the south end, and just before she fell off, she jumped and grabbed the sloped ledge on the east side of the crevasse. She shimmied all the way north, pulled herself up, and backflipped and twisted in midair, grabbing the ladder that was behind her. She climbed the ladder to the top and backflipped and twisted again, grabbing the edge of the sloped ledge behind her. She shimmied to the right and pulled herself up onto the corner of the ledge that wasn't sloped. Facing the ledge to the south of her, she jumped and grabbed its edge, pulling herself up before running, jumping, and grabbing the ledge at the bottom of the opened portcullis.
She ran through the hallway beyond and emerged on a ledge near the bridge. She crossed the bridge into the tall hallway beyond, returning to the cavern where she had fought the conquistador. From here she ran and jumped, grabbing the edge of the top of the structure above the pool and pulling herself up. She crossed to the darkened southwest corner and lit a flare. On the ledge below her, above the southwestern column supporting this structure, she found some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo.

From the ledge, she ran, jumped, and grabbed the edge of the opening in the west wall, pulling herself up. She hopped onto the ledge ahead of her and ran up the sloped hallway to the north. She hopped onto the ledge above the end of this hallway and ran into a small room with a large cog switch in the middle. A hallway left this room to the east, terminating with a closed portcullis, from which Lara could jump to grab the rope hanging from beneath the bridge, were the portcullis open.

Lara pulled the cog switch several times, opening the portcullis. She sprinted down the hall, leaped from the open doorway, grabbing the rope. She twisted around on the rope, then swung and jumped from it to land on the ledge of a cave that led out of the southwest corner of the cavern, bending around to the east.

As she landed in the cave, two more conquistadors approached her from the direction of a closed portcullis high on the east wall. After a fierce battle, Lara finally subdued them, taking the Small Medipak one of them was carrying.
Another cog switch sat on a small ledge that protruded from the south wall. Lighting a Flare in the southwest corner, Lara discovered a ladder on a column that started a few meters in the air above a sloped ledge. From a rock that protruded from the cave floor a couple of meters away from the slope, Lara jumped onto the slope a little below the top and from there jumped and grabbed the ladder. She climbed up to a place where she could climb around onto a portion of the ladder above the ledge, then jumped off. She pulled the cog switch several times, opening the portcullis on the east wall. She hopped of the ledge, darted up to the east wall, and pulled herself into the doorway before the portcullis closed again.

Lara ran up several steps to the top of a wide slope that led down to a high fall to the east. Lara pulled herself up onto a ledge above her on the west side of the cavern, at the ledge's southeast corner. She could see the exit to the cave ahead of her to the northeast. Before she made her way around the ledges on the west and north sides of the cavern, however, she happened to glance to her right. There was another ledge that appeared to disappear into a room to the south. She ran and jumped across the cavern onto the ledge and went into the room to find Secret #3 - a Golden Skull and a Revolver with some Ammo.

After retrieving the final Secret, Lara returned to the slope on the west side of the cavern and made her way around to the cave opening. She emerged from the cave and slid down to the southeast end of the winding valley. As she was making her way back to the cave to return to her quest for Qualopec's Ankh of Power, she was attacked by two wolves. After putting them down, she reentered the cave, climbed down the ladder, and ran back down the hallway to return to the outcropping where she had collected the fifth Emerald Key.

HERE BE DRAGONS - Resumed

As Lara stepped onto the outcropping, the portcullis between the two Serpent Stones slammed shut behind her. Since she had finished everything she had wanted to accomplish on the outcropping and in the large cavern, she stepped off the outcropping, plunging into the lake below. The current swept her through a subterranean river to the north, winding away to the northeast, to expel her from the high waterfall in the same cavern she had been in before. And just as before, two crocodiles were swimming toward her from tunnels in the rock. Quickly, she swam to shore where she dispatched them from the relative safety of the bank.

Lara walked back into the cavern to the
north, where a velociraptor emerged to attack her. After eliminating that threat, she jumped back into the water and swam into the west tunnel and pulled the underwater switch, again opening the timed door at the end of the west ledge in the north cavern. Just as before, she swam, sprinted, climbed, and swung over to the west ledge, and darted through the door just before it closed. As soon as it did, she had to exterminate another velociraptor.

She ran back across the rickety wooden footbridge, through the chamber where she had found an Emerald Key, through the tunnel behind it, and up the ladder to arrive in the cave behind the crack in the west wall of the northwest extension off the main cavern. However, rather than returning to the main cavern, she lit a Flare and found a dark passage leading off the south end of this low save, back to the west.

Lara followed the dark passage to its end at the bottom of a pit. Looking up, she spied two openings - one higher up that she could not reach in the west wall, and a crawlspace just above her head in the north wall. She jumped and grabbed the latter, climbing inside and crawling west-northwest to its end at a large room, where she dropped down.
In this room were three moveable blocks and three slots in the walls. When she put the blocks in the slots, two rocks rose out of the ground, giving her access to an opening high on the north wall leading out of the room, and a door in the northwest corner opened, giving a velociraptor access to Lara Croft. After killing the beast, she investigated the dead-end tunnel from which it emerged, and found some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo.

Lara used the rocks that had risen from the ground to access the high passage. Soon she came to a labyrinth swarming with velociraptors. As she progressed through the labyrinth, she found a Small Medipak, some Normal Shotgun Ammo, some Uzi Ammo, and some Flares. She also found and killed seven velociraptors.

She emerged from the labyrinth in an opening high on the west wall of the main cavern. Using vines on the ceiling, she crossed the cavern to land on the southwest corner of the temple roof. Lighting a flare, she found some Uzi Ammo in the southeast corner, next to a pillar.

Lara ducked into a low crawl in the east wall at the northeast corner of the roof. Soon it opened into a hallway in which she could stand, and she arrived in a room with a closed portcullis and five slots on the walls. When she placed all five Emerald Keys she had collected in the slots, the portcullis opened, allowing her to take the Gold Idol from the plinth behind it.

She returned to the roof and dropped down, reentering the temple by jumping across the river into it. She ran back into the tunnel leading back to The Ruins of Quinara.

THE RUINS OF QUINARA - Revisited

Two wolves pounced on Lara as she emerged from the low building into the courtyard. After dispatching them, she reentered the south tower. As she approached the switch room at the east end of the hallway in the back of the tower, a conquistador skeleton leaped out and started to pursue her. As with the previous walking corpses, Lara led it to the bluff overlooking the pool in the middle of the valley and blasted it off.
Lara returned to the switch room and closed the front door. She scaled the pole to the second floor, but as she approached the opening to the room with the switch used to flood the first floor, a pair of mashing doors began opening and closing in front of her. She dashed through to pull the switch, flooding the first floor, then dashed back through and jumped in the water. She swam around to the pool room in the southwest corner of the second floor and ran up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, she was attacked by two rats.

As she approached the door she had opened much earlier with the Skeleton Key, another pair of mashing doors started opening and closing in front of her. She dashed through, but as she approached the ladder leading to the top floor of the tower, yet another pair of mashing doors started opening and closing. Slipping through, she climbed the ladder to the top floor and crossed the footbridge to the north tower.
The mashing doors started opening and closing before her when Lara reached the middle of the hall. This time, however, a skeleton jumped out of the adjacent hall behind them. Lara knocked it over with the Shotgun. Running through the mashing doors and past the skeleton, she led the undead thing down to the pit she had opened on the third floor, leading down to the pool on the first floor, and blasted the thing into the pit. In the meantime, another skeleton came in from the north-south hallway at the west end of the third floor, and she sent it to the same place.

Darting through the second pair of mashing doors, Lara ran back up the west hall and dropped down the ladder to the second floor. She placed the Gold Idol in the slot next to the door at the end of the hall and passed through into the hallway beyond.

TEMPLE OF THE FEATHERED SERPENT

Lara entered a hallway leading away to the north. Several portcullises along the hallway were closed, though some doorways were open. One forbidding room was lined with skulls on the top part of all the walls, with a closed portcullis in the corner opposite the hall. Another room was decorated with Incan pictograms on the top part of the walls - a helmet, a potted plant, and some sort of bird. There was another closed portcullis on the north wall of the room guarded by two Incan statues.
As she entered the only other room, which was accessed to the north from the west end of a hall, Lara was attacked by a golden serpent with feathered wings. After dispatching it, she looked around the room. The room was two-storied with the upper floor simply a walkway around the lower floor, guarded by a banister. Columns on the upper floor supported the ceiling. Much of the upper floor was obscured by the banister, but Lara could make out a closed portcullis on the west wall, a closed door on the north wall, an open passageway on the east wall, and a switch on the south wall.
On the lower floor where she was, Lara saw closed portcullises like those in the hallway on the east and west walls. The north wall was dominated by three bas-relief switches that resembled the pictograms she had seen in another room, though not in the same order.

After pressing the bas-relief switches in the order she had seen earlier, Lara returned to that room to find the portcullis open. Just beyond was a short hallway ending in a pool of water. She jumped in and the current swept her a short way downstream. She emerged at the south end of a wide, tall hallway. Looking to her right, she noticed that one of the wall sections had a ring on the bottom of it. She tugged on it, pulling a moveable block out of the wall. Pushing it aside, she ran into a short hallway that ended at a ladder. She climbed into a small room where she found Secret #1 - a Golden Skull with some Normal Shotgun Ammo and a Small Medipak. In the alcove from which she took the Medipak, Lara looked out over another room with a closed portcullis at its west end leading back to the hall. Above the portcullis, she saw another set of the same pictograms in another order - bird, potted plant, and helmet.

She returned to the main hallway and was attacked by another feathered serpent that she disposed of. The tops of the walls of the hall were adorned with the pictograms in the same repeated pattern. There were two portcullises at the north end. The door to the east blocked off the room she had seen earlier with the pictograms. This portcullis, however, had no opening mechanism that she could see. The portcullis on the west wall, by contrast, was opened by the switch next to it. But as she pulled it, another feathered serpent swooped down from an alcove set high in the west wall.

After killing the thing, she ran into a parallel hallway. The roof of this hallway was arched in an A-frame type of construction, with three alcoves on each side. A swinging blade blocked the passage at each pair of alcoves. Lara made her way down the hall while avoiding the blades. As she passed the last blade, she glanced into the alcove on the left, where she found and collected a Small Medipak.

A set of winding stairs led up out of the hall to the south. Near the top of the stairs, a short hallway branched to end at a closed portcullis. Just beyond, Lara could see a room with a pit in the center and another room beyond, through a short passage to the south guarded by two Incan statues. In this second room, she could see a switch. She also noticed a hall leading out of the first room from the northwest corner.
Lara finished climbing the stairs and emerged into the upper floor of the room she had been in earlier with the three bas-relief switches. She ran to the south end of the room and pulled the switch. Turning around, she saw the two portcullises on the lower floor opening. The portcullis on the upper floor remained closed, however. She was also able to tell that the closed door at the north end of the upper floor was locked by an empty receptacle that looked identical to the ones in which she had placed the Emerald Keys in earlier, back in Here Be Dragons.

She jumped down to the lower floor and ducked inside the open doorway to the west. Running down a short flight of stairs, she emerged in a small room similar to the one she found earlier with the pictograms and the portcullis. This one was similar in most ways, except that the pictograms were in a different order - helmet, bird, potted plant. Lara returned to the main room and pressed the bas-relief switches in the same order. She returned and passed through the open doorway, just before the portcullis closed behind her.

Lara ran down a flight of stairs into a smelly sewer. A rapidly flowing stream passed the foot of the stairs from an open doorway to the south to a large chamber to the north. She jumped into the shallow end of the stream near the open doorway and waded through into a tall chamber. Three waterfalls fed the chamber, and the water spilled out the open doorway through the channel beyond. At the bottom of the pool, Lara found some Normal Shotgun Ammo.
She found a hallway hidden behind the west waterfall. At the other end, she found another arched hallway. In the middle was a deep pit, just barely wide enough for her to jump across. However, two columns of flame shot up between her and the pit, and a blade was swinging above the pit. Carefully maneuvering between the two columns, Lara gauged her timing just right, then ran and jumped across the pit, grabbing the ledge on the far side and pulling herself up. At the south end of the hallway, she found Secret #2 - a Golden Skull and some Uzis.

Crossing the pit once again and avoiding the columns of fire, Lara ran back down the hallway to the waterfall room. She reentered the channel and was swept by the current into the large chamber beyond. The chamber was fairly wide, both east and west as well as north and south. But it was also extremely deep. It was also dominated by an enormous version of the Incan statues she had seen guarding the entrance to the Caves in Return to Peru and also guarding the courtyard in The Ruins of Quinara. The chamber was almost entirely filled with water, and the statue was immersed to its neck. There were several submerged openings in the north wall of the chamber - two near the top of the water, one about halfway down, and a fourth near the bottom of the chamber. There were also three openings in the backside of the statue - one near the top, one directly across a submerged bridge from the middle opening in the north wall, and one halfway between the middle opening and the bottom of the chamber. Lara swam into that opening and found a vertical tunnel. There was nothing at the bottom, but she found and pulled an underwater switch at the top.

Nearly out of breath, Lara returned to the surface. Taking another deep breath, she swam back down, entering the eastern opening on the north wall. At the end of a short tunnel, she found a portcullis that she had opened with the underwater switch. Just beyond, she found Secret #3 - a Golden Skull with some Normal Shotgun Ammo and some Uzi Ammo.

After swimming back up to the surface to catch her breath, Lara swam back down, this time to the bottom of the chamber, where she found a passage between the feet of the statue. Swimming up, she found and pulled another underwater switch. She heard an enormous sound of rushing water. She swam out and back to the surface of the water, to discover that water no longer poured out from the channel high above, and that the water level had lowered dramatically to about half its previous level. All but the lowest openings on the north wall and the statue were now above her, out of her reach. The previously submerged bridge was now about two meters above the water.
Lara dove back down and swam into the lowest opening on the north wall. Within seconds, she realized that she was in a three-dimensional water maze. Being the experienced and intrepid adventurer she was, she soon had the maze mapped out.

In one isolated corner of the water maze, Lara found a Shotgun with some Normal Ammo.
Lara emerged from the water maze in a small air chamber with a door leading south out of the southwest corner. She ran out into the chamber and crossed the wooden footbridge into the back of the statue. Turning around, she saw a ladder leading up, which she climbed. At the top, she looked back toward the north wall. Slightly down and to her right was an opening she could reach. She ran and jumped without grabbing, landing just inside the opening. Just around a corner, she opened a door by pulling the switch next to it.

As she stepped inside, she was attacked by two feathered serpents. After dispatching them, she pulled the switch at the north end of the room, opening the portcullis leading back to the room with the three bas-relief sculptures. She climbed a firepole in the middle of the room and jumped off at the foot of a winding staircase with a few dead ends.

She made her way up the stairs to emerge at an opening at the very top of the north wall in the large chamber. Ahead of her, she could see the top of the statue, with a plinth sitting on top of its head. She jumped up and grabbed some handholds in the ceiling, using them to monkey swing over the statue. She dropped down and took the Pyramid Key from the plinth. She grabbed the handholds above her again and continued across the chamber until she was above the now-dry channel. The door at the south end of the channel was closed, preventing the water from emptying into the channel. Lara climbed up into the staircase and followed it back to the room with the bas-relief switches.

Lara entered the doorway on the east side of the room and found another room with a closed portcullis guarded by two Incan statues, with pictograms on the top of the walls, this time in the order of bird, helmet, potted plant. After pressing the bas-relief switches in this order, she ran through the doorway, with the portcullis again closing behind her.

She ran down a long hallway and emerged in a tall chamber with a small pool at the bottom. There was a walkway on the south and east sides of the pool, with a moveable block in the southwest corner. About seven meters up, ledges emerged from openings in the north and south walls. At the same level, a grate separated the pool room from a hallway on the west wall. There were ledges in the east and west walls at the top of the pool room, with a closed grate just inside the opening on the west wall. A single rope dangled from the center of the ceiling.

Diving into the pool, Lara opened an underwater door in the north wall and pulled the underwater switch she found at the end of the tunnel on the other side, opening the portcullis on the ledge on the south wall. Climbing back on shore, she pulled the moveable block out of the wall and pushed it back in the corner, out of the way. She went into the opening and turned around to find a ladder leading up. She climbed the ladder and ran down the hallway separated by the grate from the pool room, emerging on the ledge above the pool on the north wall. As she stepped onto the ledge, a feathered serpent flew off the high ledge on the west wall and began attacking her.

After taking care of the flying beast, Lara ran and jumped across the pool, grabbing the ledge on the south side. She ran through the open doorway into the east-west hallway beyond. Through a grate in the south wall, she could see another room with a Small Medipak on the other side of the grate. To the west, the hallway was blocked by a moveable block. Following a staircase leading up to the east, then rounding a corner and continuing up to the north, Lara found another moveable block resting on the top stair.

Returning to the opening to the pool room, Lara pushed the moveable block as far as it would go, revealing another hallway leading to the north in the process. She followed this to its end at a ladder leading up to another hallway that led back to the east. She ran up the hallway and around the corner to find the second moveable block, which she pulled almost to the corner. She ran back around and continued moving it until it was in the middle of a wide space in the northern east-west hallway, allowing her to move completely around the loop in freedom. Returning to the first moveable block, she pulled it back about two meters, until it just blocked the passage to the north. Running back around to the north side of it, she pulled it back just inside the hall leading back to the ladder, allowing for the shortest distance between the switch and the opening at the top of the stairs at the east end of the top of the pool room.

After positioning the blocks, Lara returned to the timed switch that was revealed by pulling the first moveable block back. She pulled it, opening the portcullis at the west end of the top of the pool room. Immediately, she turned around and sprinted up the hall, ran up the stairs, jumped across to the rope in the middle of the pool room, and swung across to the west ledge, rolling through the portcullis just before it closed.

Lara was in a long hallway to the west with three Incan statues on each side and a switch at the west end of the hall. She pulled the switch, opening the portcullis leading back to the room with the bas-relief switches.

As she explored the hall, she discovered a moveable block behind the middle statue on the south side of the hall. She pushed it as far as it would go, revealing a room to the west. At the far end, she took another Pyramid Key from the plinth. Before she left the dais, her sixth sense warned her of danger, and she sprinted back to the hallway as enormous blades crashed out of the walls and ceiling behind her. She returned to the first hallway, and the portcullis at the east end opened at her approach.

Somehow, the pool had drained, and four columns of fire spewed from the walkway around the drained pool. Lara ran, jumped, and grabbed the rope. As she did, two feathered serpents flew up from the ledges below to attack her. Quickly, she swung across to the stairway leading down to the east. She rolled around and dispatched the serpents before running back down to the south ledge. She jumped back across to the north ledge, ran back around and climbed down the stairs, and dropped into the empty pool. She ran across to the east side and pulled herself back onto the walkway, running back up the hall to the main room with the bas-relief switches.

Lara went back into the hallways she had been in when she first arrived in the temple and discovered that two of the portcullises had opened. Only the portcullis closest to the Gold Idol door remained closed. Lara walked through the open portcullis closest to the room with the bas-relief switches. Here, she found another room with a closed portcullis guarded by two Incan statues with pictograms at the top of the walls in the order of potted plant, bird, helmet. Pressing the bas-relief switches, she opened the portcullis in this room.

When the portcullis closed this time, Lara was attacked by five Incan mummies come to life from the alcoves. She was grateful, however, that she had collected the first and second Secrets from Crash in the Andes, for she was armed with explosive ammo. When the mummies were drawn close together around her, she drew her Grenade Gun and blasted them to smithereens.

Lara emerged from the north side of a large pool room. The center of the room was dominated by a large pool with an elaborate structure in the water. The top of the structure emerged from the center of the pool and formed a small island. A wide walkway surrounded the pool, with an alcove in each wall. Lara jumped in the water to explore the structure and found some Normal Shotgun Ammo, some Uzi Ammo, some Normal Crossbow Ammo, and a Skeleton Key. In the northwest corner of the inner portion of the structure, near the bottom of the pool, Lara found a tunnel that led to the center of the structure. At the bottom of an underwater shaft in the center of the structure, she pulled an underwater switch, opening the portcullis leading back to the main room with the bas-relief switches.

She swam back to shore and entered the east alcove. In the southeast corner of the alcove, she found a moveable block which she pushed to reveal a switch. She pulled the switch and ran around the pool to the west alcove. In the southwest corner, she found another moveable block. Pushing it, she revealed a ladder that she climbed to a north-south hallway with mummies in the alcoves. Bringing the mummies together, she blew them apart with some explosive ammo.
Lara pulled the switches she found in two of the alcoves, opening the portcullis at the north end. She pulled the switch in the room beyond, opening the portcullis in the southwest corner of the southern alcove off the pool room below. She returned to the pool room and ran through the doorway she opened. She ran through the short hall beyond to a north-south hallway with a jump switch at the south end.

HERE BE DRAGONS - Revisited

Lara jumped and grabbed the switch. She fell into a lower hallway beneath the upper one. As she fell, a portcullis opened at the south end. She emerged at the juncture of some hallways that seemed familiar to her. She ran up the stairs to her left, and when the stairs forked, she took the left fork. She emerged in a room where she remembered battling two velociraptors earlier. She ran through the hallway leading to the east. She followed it around to a locked portcullis. Using the Skeleton Key she found in the structure in the large pool, she opened it. Inside, she took the Emerald Key from the plinth.

She had no sooner claimed her prize when she heard two more velociraptors roaring from beyond the open doorway. She dispatched them as she had the others before running back down the stairs. Near the portcullis she had opened with the jump switch, she was attacked by another velociraptor. After exterminating it, she ran back through the open doorway, climbed back into the upper hallway and turned back into the hallway to return to the pool room.

TEMPLE OF THE FEATHERED SERPENT - Resumed

Lara had no sooner reentered the southern alcove when she heard the cry of two feathered serpents. Once she had put them out of her misery, she ran back through the hallway off the northern alcove and returned to the hallway leading to the main room with the bas-relief switches.

She entered the room on the other side of the other portcullis in the hallway that she had opened much earlier. Again she found a room with a closed portcullis guarded by two Incan statues. However, there were no pictograms at the top of the walls. As she collected the Small Medipak hidden behind one of the statues, she remembered the pictograms above the closed portcullis at the end of the large hall on the other side of the pool of water with the current.

Lara returned to the main room and pressed the sequence from the pictogram she had seen there - bird, potted plant, helmet. Afterward, she ran back up the hall and reentered the first room in which she had seen the pictograms, ran through the open doorway and jumped into the water. She emerged from the pool at the end of the hall and ran to the north end to find the portcullis to the east now open.

As the portcullis closed behind her, a feathered serpent flew out of a high alcove at the east end of the room to attack her. Once she had killed it, she ran down a hallway from that end of the room to emerge in an area that was entirely familiar to her, as she had visited it before on her quest for Qualopec's piece of the Scion.
She bypassed the switch in the first room she came to and dropped into the large room beyond. She ran into the hall with the stairway to the west, but as she neared the corner, she noticed that one of the sections of the west wall had a ring on the bottom of it. She pushed the moveable block twice to reveal another to her left. She pushed it to reveal a switch. As she ran to pull it, the floor crumbled beneath her feet. She was safely across before it collapsed altogether. She pulled the switch, opening a portcullis somewhere ahead, before returning to the hall.

When she reached the top of the stairs in the northwest corner of the large room, a feathered serpent flew out of the opening in the southeast corner to attack her. Once she had taken care of it, she jumped and grabbed the ledge of the opening to the west, pulling herself up. She continued pulling herself onto blocks until she reached a hallway that passed over the large room. She dropped down on the other side and emerged in the southeast corner of the large room.

Lara jumped into the opening on the east wall and found a switch next to the portcullis she had opened earlier. She ran through the doorway, following a hallway to a north-south room she remembered, with a statue standing just outside an alcove in the west wall, and a switch in an alcove in the east wall. She remembered that the statue had been in the alcove, so she pushed it back into position. When she did, a portcullis opened somewhere ahead.

She ran to the switch in the other alcove. As she did, the floor crumbled beneath her feet and she fell into another room below. She had taken no more than a few steps when two feathered serpents emerged from alcoves in the northeast and southeast corners to attack her. After she killed them, she ran up to a ledge on the west side of the room and pulled a moveable block out of the wall and pushed it out of the way. When she had moved it, another feathered serpent flew out that she had to take care of.

Lara ran up the stairs on the other side of the opening revealed by pulling the moveable block out of the wall. She leaped over a spike pit and continued up to a high chamber. Beyond the portcullis she had opened just a few minutes earlier, she found a Feathered Serpent Key and took it from the plinth.

She dropped through a hole in the floor to the hallway below and returned through the portcullis at the west end of the hall to pull the switch next to it. The raising block in the northwest corner of the large room outside lowered while the raising block in the middle of the north wall rose. Also, a feathered serpent descended from the top of the room to attack Lara.

After dispatching the last feathered serpent, Lara returned to the first room, where she had passed a switch earlier, and pulled the switch, lowering the raising block in the southeast corner of the large room and causing another a few meters to the north to rise. Lara passed beneath the open portcullis next to the switch to return to the southeast corner of the large room. From there, she jumped across the two raising blocks to the room in the northeast corner, where she blasted a mummy that was waiting for her in the corner before pulling the switch to open the portcullis leading back out to the hallway. Before she left, she collected the Small Medipak and some Normal Shotgun Ammo that she found there.

Lara ran back the way she came to the hallway, crossing it to the parallel hallway with the swinging blades. Dodging them, she made her way up the stairs to the upper floor of the main room with the bas-relief switches. She opened the door at the north end of the room with the Emerald Key. In the room beyond, she collected a Small Medipak and some Normal Shotgun Ammo. She ran through a hallway to the east and a pair of long hallways leading to the north to arrive at a pair of closed Atlantean doors. She opened these using one of the Pyramid Keys.

Lara passed through the doors, recognizing the hallway with the Incan faces and the doors with the Atlantean design she had seen much earlier in this quest. Through the open door to the south, she saw the empty plinth from which she had taken the Skeleton Key much earlier that she used to access the Ruins of Quinara in the Vilcabamba Valley. The plinth was still guarded by the two mummies, but now they awoke at her approach and she had to blast them.

Lara used the other Pyramid Key to open the second pair of Atlantean doors, revealing a section of the temple that was decidedly Atlantean in its design. As she passed through the doors, the two mummies just inside came awake and moved to attack, so she blew them away.

Long hallways led away from this central
room to the north and south. There were closed doors at the north end of the long hall, neither with a switch nearby. Lara ran to the south end of the hall and turned into a narrow sloping hallway to the east. She had gone no more than a half dozen meters when a boulder crashed out of the ceiling and began rolling down the hallway toward her. Immediately, she turned around and ran back into the first hallway, getting out of the way of the boulder in the nick of time.

At the top end of the sloping hallway, Lara placed the Feathered Serpent Key, opening the portcullis to Qualopec's throne room. On the dais in the center of the room stood the empty plinth from which she had taken the Scion all those years ago. Qualopec's corpse still sat on his throne, guarded by two mummified servants. There was a closed portcullis on the north side of the room and a switch on the south side. Lara pulled this last one, opening one of the portcullises at the north end of the hall outside.

As she was about to leave, the mummy she had "killed" on her earlier visit came back to life, and the other came to life as she approached. She led them both away from Qualopec (for he was one of the two just rulers of the lost continent of Atlantis and didn't want to disturb his remains), and blew them away. She ran back down to the main hall, then to the north end and through the open doorway.

Lara entered a large chamber with a pulsating energy beam in the center. Beneath this beam was Qualopec's Ankh of Power. However, Lara realized that to step into the beam was instant death.

The Ankh rested on a very large structure that was surrounded by a precipitous drop on all four sides, save for the narrow bridge that led back to the tall, narrow hallway to the east. On the centers of each of the other three walls, just on the other side of the precipices, was a closed portcullis with a switch just beyond. As Lara looked around the structure, she discovered that it was hollow beneath. She dropped over the edge, grabbing the ledge of the structure. She let go and grabbed the ledge beneath, pulling herself into the tunnel. There were three such openings, each directly opposite a closed portcullis. Just inside each opening was a switch. When she pulled a switch down, the corresponding portcullis would open, but a block would emerge from wall to block her in. When she pulled the switch up, the block would retract, but the portcullis would slam shut.

In the center of the structure was a moveable block. If she dropped down into the west opening, she could push the block out of the way and pull all three switches, opening all three portcullises, but that would leave her blocked in.

Finally, it occurred to her that if she dropped down on the north or south sides, she could pull the switch just inside to open the portcullis and extend the block from the wall. Then she could push the moveable block out of the way, drop out from the west opening and shimmy around to the other opening. From there, she could pull the switch on that side, push the moveable block out of the way, pull the switch at the west opening, then run up the hallway and the short flight of stairs and return to the top of the structure.

Lara pulled the three switches beyond the
open portcullises, deactivating the energy beam. Once the beam was no longer active, she went to the dais in the center of the structure and took the Ankh from the plinth. As she did, the Gold Idol door opened to allow her to escape back to Quinara.

She had barely stepped into the hallway outside, however, when two goons dressed in snow suits and ski masks, bearing the logo of Natla Technologies on their coats, approached and started firing their machine guns. After killing them, Lara collected their Uzi Ammo. She ran back into the hallway with the Incan faces as another one of Natla's snow goons emerged from the side room. Lara terminated him and took his Uzi Ammo. Lara ran back down the halls to emerge in the main room with the bas-relief switches. She had no sooner jumped down to the lower floor when another snow goon appeared in the doorway. She killed him and continued back up the hall. As she turned the corner from one hall to another, another snow goon emerged. Lara took his Uzi Ammo too.

Lara returned to the main room and pressed the one combination of bas-relief switches that she had not yet pressed - the sequence of potted plant, helmet, bird. She went to the room just off the corner of the two hallways with the skulls at the top of the room. The portcullis was open down in the northeast corner. It closed behind her once she had passed through.

She sprinted through the first room she came to, dodging blades that crashed down behind her from the ceiling and walls. In the hall beyond, she had to jump lively to avoid floor blades and sliding blades. At the end of the hall, she lit a flare and saw that she had to jump quickly over a spike pit to avoid a boulder that fell behind her when she landed in the room beyond. There were two pits in the room. The pit on the west was full of spikes. In the pit on the east, Lara found Secret #4 - a Golden Skull and a Large Medipak. She pulled the switch opening the door back to the room with the skulls and the hallways beyond. She returned the way she came, again avoiding the floor blades and sliding blades in the hall.

When she had returned to the hallways, Lara found that the first portcullis she had seen in the temple was now open. Just inside, there were four Incan statues in the alcoves. Behind the statue in the northeast corner, she found some Poison Crossbow Ammo.
Lara pulled the switch on the west wall, opening the portcullis on the north wall of Qualopec's throne room. Immediately, she backflipped, twisting in midair, and ran back out into the hall, sprinted back to the first room with the pictograms, jumped in the water, and swam back to the large hallway. She sprinted down that hallway, ran into the parallel hallway, sprinted up that hallway while avoiding the swinging blades, and leaped up the stairs. Lara ran around the upper floor of the main room and through the door at the north end. She sprinted up the hallways to the Atlantean section, and sprinted up the hallways leading to Qualopec's throne room, darting into the open hallway just in the nick of time. At the collapsed end of the hall, Lara collected Secret #5 - a Golden Skull, some Revolver Ammo, and some Grenades.
As she was leaving, Lara encountered another snow goon coming up the narrow hall to Qualopec's throne room. She ran back to the main room, jumped to the first floor, and ran back through the halls, out through the open Gold Idol door.

THE RUINS OF QUINARA - Revisited Again

[Disappointed that she didn't find all the Secrets in the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Lara returned to the Ruins of Quinara, the Gold Idol door closing behind her. But she had no time to dwell on the mistakes of her past, for a snow goon appeared as she rounded the corner. Dispatching him, she collected his Uzi Ammo.
Lara entered the room at the end of the hall. Looking out through the grated window, she saw a helicopter in the middle of the courtyard. She also saw that snow now covered the ground and night had fallen. This venture had taken much longer than the five hours she had promised Winston. Before leaving the room, she shattered the vases behind the skins and took the Flares and Small Medipak.
As she entered the adjacent hall, the mashing doors started opening and closing, and a rat emerged from the room at the end. After killing the rat, Lara entered the room. Shattering the remaining vases, a rat ran out of one and darted underneath the table in the southwest corner.

Lara climbed the ladder to the third floor, where she was fired upon by another snow goon. After sending him to meet his maker, she turned the corner, passed through the mashing doors, and was attacked by yet another snow goon. She terminated him too and took his Uzi Ammo.

Since the door at the top of the stairs was closed, Lara reentered the room with the two switches. She shattered the remaining vase and killed the rat that came out to attack her. She dropped into the open trap door to the pool beneath, catching the ledge on her way down. The pool had frozen over, and she took a little damage when she landed on the ice.

Lara passed through the mashing doors into the hallway beyond, where she was attacked by another snow goon. She dispatched him and collected his Uzi Ammo.

She left the north tower and commandeered the helicopter, ending the first chapter of her attempts to collect the Atlantean Ankhs of Power.]

INVASION OF THE VILCABAMBA VALLEY
(Secret Bonus Level #2)

The Gold Idol door closed behind Lara as she rounded the corner to confront another of Natla's snow goons. She collected his Uzi Ammo and noticed that both of the other doors on this level were closed. She climbed the ladder to battle another snow goon. Passing through the mashing doors, she faced down another snow goon, taking his Uzi Ammo.

Lara climbed the stairs to the top floor and ran through the mashing doors to return to the south tower. However, as she approached the bridge spanning the courtyard, a snow goon guarding the upper entrance to the tower cut the bridge loose, causing it to fall. Infuriated by his actions, Lara engaged in a gunfight with him across the courtyard and cut him down.

Looking around, she found a Small Medipak in the high passage that crossed from the eastern north-south hallway to the western hallway. At the end of the western hallway, where she had earlier found the Lasersight, she collected some Uzi Ammo.

Passing once again through the mashing doors, Lara entered the small room across the hall from the stairs and pulled the lever, closing the door to the stairs while closing the door to the room at the end of the hall. She pulled the lever in that room to open the doors down on the second floor before returning to the other room to reopen the door to the stairs.

Lara ran back down the stairs, passed through the mashing doors on the third floor and dropped down the ladder to the second floor. In the west room, she shattered some pottery in the corner behind some skins and collected some Flares and a Small Medipak. As she approached the door to the east room, the mashing doors at the end of the hall started opening and closing, and a rat skittered out of the room to bite at Lara's heels. Inside the east room, she pulled the lever opening the door in the southwest corner of the first floor that gave her access to the roof of the low building earlier. As she did, she heard what sounded like a trap door closing, but she couldn't be sure. While she was still in the room, she shattered the remaining pots. From one of the pots, a maddened rat emerged to nibble on her toes.

She climbed back up the ladder to the third floor, passed through the mashing doors and reentered the room with the two switches. When she shattered the last pot, a rat emerged and started attacking her.

Before dropping down through the open trapdoor to the first floor, Lara's curiosity finally got the better of her and she pulled the lever on the right and opened the trap door beneath it. However, instead of falling to a spikey death in the cellar below as she had feared, she fell only a short way to land on a closed trap door. From here she was able to squeeze into a tight crawlspace where she found Secret #1 - a Golden Skull and a Revolver with some Ammo.
Lara climbed out of the pit and dropped into the open trap door in the northwest corner, briefly grabbing the edge of the opening for a safety drop. The pool had frozen over and she hurt herself a little when she fell.
She dropped down onto the floor and passed through the mashing doors to confront another snow goon. After dispatching him, she took his Uzi Ammo. She ran through the open door at the west end of the front hall and jumped up on the ladder as the door closed behind her. She climbed back onto the roof and dropped down into the trench where the skeleton had come to life much earlier. It had finally fallen to the ground, no longer animated by whatever magic power that resided in these ruins. But it had left a Gold Idol when it finally expired, which Lara promptly took.

Lara dropped back down into the courtyard. Except for the door to the north tower, all the doors in the courtyard were closed once again, just as when she had arrived earlier that afternoon. She ducked back into the tower and entered the room at the east end of the front hall, where she pulled the lever in the corner.

As the middle door in the low building between the towers opened, two velociraptors emerged. However, two of Natla's snow goons were patrolling the area and entered into a lengthy battle with the dinosaurs. In the end, however, the vicious velociraptors were victorious. Their victory was short-lived, however, as Lara emerged from the north tower to finish the reptiles. Before entering the door from which they had emerged, Lara took the Small Medipak and Uzi Ammo the fallen goons had left.

When she reentered the temple accessed from the low building, Lara discovered that Natla's goons had been busy. An explosion had apparently collapsed the roof of the temple, and the resulting landslide completely blocked the exit to the cavern to the west. The explosion must have also blocked off the flow of water from the waterfalls at the north and south ends of the room, for water no longer flowed, and the channel was completely dry.

Two of the snow goons remained. One of them, obviously dead, lay on the floor to the north. The other was still alive, but for how much longer was in serious doubt. He had apparently sustained massive injuries, though Lara could not tell whether it was because of the landslide or from the attacks of the velociraptors. She was surprised, though, when she recognized him.
Dr. Willard made a feeble attempt to raise his machine gun. Lara snapped her Pistols out and pointed them at his head. "Don't even think about it," she said.

Willard let the weapon drop and started laughing, which almost immediately turned into coughing. "I suppose you've found the little trinket our Miss Natla has sent us here t' fetch," he said. He tried to lift his head to look up at her, but failed.
"That's right," Lara said, holstering her guns. "Has she found the other two Ankhs yet?"

"Not quite," he said, breaking into another coughing fit. Blood came up this time. "Her goons are in northern Greece, combing Mt. Athos for it."

"And her own Ankh in Khamoon?"

"Nobody knows, actually. Apparently the Temple in Khamoon was ransacked in the late eighteenth century by tomb raiders, who spirited the Ankh away. Records in Alexandria indicate that Napoleon came into possession of the Ankh in July 1798, but failed to recognize its significance. He had it loaded onto a ship with some of his other early plunders to be sent back to France. However, pirates from the Barbary Coast commandeered the ship just off the coast of Libya. I was in Tripoli, trying to track it down when my employer recalled me and sent me here to see to the recovery of Qualopec's Ankh, which you now carry in your back pocket."

"Your employer? I thought you worked for RX Tech."

"After that little incident down in Antarctica, the top brass decided to hush up the whole affair. Our drilling teams were recalled and reassigned. I was dismissed. Because they didn't want the debacle to become public, they didn't press charges. However, they threatened they would if I ever brought the story to light."

"So how did you end up working for Jacqueline Natla?"

"Funny you should ask. My former assistant in Antarctica was actually a corporate spy for Natla Technologies. One day, he dropped by my wee place up in Loch Ness for a visit with Miss Natla in tow. She's wanting to restart her breeding program to advance her race of Atlanteans, giving them greater intelligence, reflexes, and strength. The same sort of thing I was trying to achieve in Antarctica. Naturally, I saw that our objectives coincided."

"Naturally."

"She's needing a power source - something that has the power to transform life and make it what she wants. She's made some progress in the area of intelligence, though often at the expense of strength or reflexes. She's even been able to create new breeds. However, she needs this power source to positively control the direction of evolution and make the breakthroughs she's trying to achieve."

"But why the Ankhs? From what I've read, their power is time travel, not transmogrification. The only power source I know of is..."

"The Atlantean Scion," Willard interrupted. "Miss Natla indicated that it had been destroyed some time back."

"I know. I was there."

"Aye. She told me that too. She's needing the Ankhs to power this time machine she's building so she can go back in time before the Ankhs were destroyed to retrieve them, so she can implement her master plan."

Suddenly suspicious, Lara drew her guns again. "Why are you telling me all this?" she demanded.

"Lassie," Willard said, coughing up blood again, "ye may have noticed that I'm not long for this world. I'm along on this expedition to try to retrieve the Ankhs to stop her. I've seen her master plan, and it makes Hitler look like a rank amateur by comparison. She plans to raise a race of super-Atlanteans that will displace the entire human population on the planet."
"Wasn't that what you were trying to achieve with your mutants in Antarctica?"

"No, lassie. I was attempting to see the results of an entirely natural acceleration of evolution. Unfortunately, your interference forced me into test the effects on myself. Fortunately, you see, the effects wore off after a period of time. Miss Natla wants to cause the extinction of the entire human race, something that's not supposed to happen for millennia. I realized that if I were to find the Ankhs first, under the guise of helping her to find them, then I would be able to travel back in time and prevent the atomic bomb test in New Mexico that released her from her icy prison."

"So you want me to finish your work for you - to stop Jacqueline Natla from implementing her 'master plan'."

"You've done it before, or so I'm told."

"Is there anybody else in Natla's organization that you can trust?"

"Nay, lassie. And there's something else I neglected to tell you. I'm in charge of the mission, but I'm not in charge of the expedition. Two of Miss Natla's Atlantean lads are here in Quinara. They have this deadly venom that has the effect of stripping a normal human being of his will entirely. They're conscious, of course, and you can see the fear and agony in their eyes - it's like a silent scream. But they cannot do anything of their own will. After a few days - a week at most - this venom works its way completely through the human body, ending in agonizing death. And the effect on the body, especially in the latter stages, is not at all pretty.

"But in the meantime, the Atlantean lads have complete mental control over those they bite. Those who have been bitten serve as the eyes and ears of the Atlanteans. And everyone in this valley, except the two of us, has been bitten. The Atlanteans know you're here, and they know you have Qualopec's Ankh of Power." He broke into another fit of coughing.

"You know what you have to do, lassie. Good luck." With those words, he slipped from consciousness.

Lara turned and looked around the room. Moving the corpse, she found a Prybar. Looking further, she discovered that the vines growing on the wall next to the door could support her weight. Using these and handholds in the rock that was exposed by the explosion, she climbed into the upper room.

She recognized the room where she had obtained that Gold Idol that had given her access to the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Natla's snow goons had apparently been here and had taken all but one of the Emerald Keys. Using the Prybar, she took the last one from its socket.
Suddenly, she heard a bloodcurdling scream from below. She dropped down to discover that a velociraptor had somehow managed to get into the temple and finish poor Dr. Willard. After a fierce battle, she killed it.

Next, she explored the crawlspaces through which the water had flowed earlier. The south crawlspace led to the now-drained pool, which was completely empty. To the north, beneath the closed trap door, Lara discovered a jump switch on the south wall above the crawlspace that she pulled.
She returned outside to the courtyard and started to look for a way into the south tower. When she had been here earlier, she had been able to use the underwater switch in the pool in the middle of the valley to open the door off the courtyard. However, the pool was completely frozen over now, and she was unable to break the ice to reach it. She looked around behind the tower for the ledge she had stood on to reach the high alcove with the ladder leading up to the switch on the top floor, but the fallen snow had accumulated that she simply slipped off, and was unable to stand.

Giving up on the tower, Lara crossed the pond to the east. The door to the dart room where she had collected the first Secret in The Ruins of Quinara was still closed. However, using the Prybar, she managed to force it open. On the other end of the room, she recognized the door she had opened with the jump switch, that led to a part of Quinara she had visited in her earlier trip here.

No sooner had she sprinted past the darts and through the open door than two dragonflies buzzed out of nowhere to attack her. However, using her Uzis, she killed the insects with a good dose of bug spray. Afterward, she lit a Flare in the area from which the dragonflies had come and found some Normal Uzi Ammo in the dark near the west cave wall just south of the door.
Exploring down the tunnel to the north, near the corner with a tunnel that led back to the east, Lara was attacked by another dragonfly that she had to exterminate. She found a Small Medipak nearby. She ran down the tunnel to the east and had to squash another bug. Lighting a Flare, she found some Revolver Ammo.

In the central square, Lara found the first pool that she had swum in on her first visit to the Vilcabamba Valley. However, it had since been completely drained of water. She dropped down into it to explore. She ran down the tunnel to the east and hopped down into the north-south tunnel. The southern end of the tunnel sloped up so much toward the room above it that it was impossible to climb. Instead, Lara ran to the north end, then ran up the tunnel to the empty pool in the room with the serpent statues.
Unfortunately, the ledge was above her reach, and she was unable to proceed on in this room.

She returned to the central square and entered the barn to the east. In the southeast corner of the barn behind a feed trough, she found a Small Medipak. She climbed into the hayloft and initially found nothing. But turning around and looking up, she discovered a jump switch. She leaped and grabbed it, pulling it as she fell. She sprinted out the north door, heading west-northwest toward the timed door she opened. She barely squeezed through in time before it closed.

She was in a large room that had apparently served as a living space for an Incan family centuries earlier. At the east end of the room, some skins were drying, and behind these, she found some Poison Crossbow Ammo. Lara ran up the stairs and into the high opening overlooking the large hallway outside. She ran and jumped, grabbing to keep from hitting her head against the wall above the opening on the far wall in which she landed. She hopped down onto a thin ledge that crumbled as she stood on it. It fell to the earth beneath, but not before she had a chance to use it as a launching point for running, jumping, and grabbing the ledge at the south end of the room, where she found some Grenade Gun Ammo.

Lara jumped to the ground and ran through the small tunnel to the south. When she emerged in the other room, two dragonflies flew down from the upper level to attack her. After filling them full of lead, she shattered the vase in the alcove and found some Normal Shotgun Ammo. She hopped onto a ledge at the south end of the room and found a Skeleton Key in the northeast corner. When she took it, a block moved out of the pool room she had been in earlier. In the northwest corner, she found a Gold Idol door that she opened by placing the Gold Idol she had found earlier. Behind it, she found Secret #2 - a Golden Skull, some Revolver Ammo, and some Explosive Crossbow Ammo.
After getting off the ledge, Lara hopped up onto the block in the middle of the room and climbed up onto the upper floor. When she hopped in the open window on the east wall, two dragonflies flew up from outside to attack. After exterminating them, she dropped down to the ground and returned to the drained pool. Once again, she dropped inside and made her way around to the pool where the block had extended out of the wall. She climbed onto the ledge above the drained pool using the extended block, and used the Prybar to open the door in the northwest corner. In the northeast corner of the cave beyond the door, she found a receptacle like the ones she had placed the Emerald Keys in earlier. When she put the one in her position into the receptacle, she heard the loud sound of rushing water. Returning to the pool room outside, she discovered that the pool was now full of water.

Diving into the pool, Lara swam through the tunnels, emerging in a large room with many pillars. As she climbed out of the pool, three dragonflies flew out of the dark corners of the room to attack her. Once she had squashed them all, she lit a Flare to explore the room, finding some Flares, a Small Medipak, some Normal Shotgun Ammo, and some Uzi Ammo. In the northwest corner of the room, she found and pulled a switch, opening a door on the south end of the central square above.

Lara jumped back into the water and swam back to the square, running into the small room at the south end. She pulled a switch in the southeast corner, opening two pairs of double doors nearby. Before leaving, she smashed the pottery, opening a trap door next to them in the process. Lighting a Flare and looking below the open trap door, she found and pulled a jump switch on the north wall, just beneath the pots. When she did, the portcullis between the two pool rooms in the low building between the towers at the west end of the Vilcabamba Valley opened.

She dropped into the large room with the pillars, and from there jumped into the pool and swam back up to the central square. She ran up the stairs at the south end of the square, and through both pairs of double doors. She was at the north end of a long hall with sloping sides. Darts flew from side to side near the middle of the room. A bamboo grate blocked off the south end of the room from the cave beyond.

Lara climbed some fallen rocks next to the door. She was in a room with some rocks breaking up through the floor. In the middle of the room, some of these stood beneath an opening in the ceiling. Openings in the east wall looked out into the room beyond. On the far side of the room with the sloping walls, Lara could see another room with openings just like these.
The door at the south end of the room was closed, so Lara walked through the southernmost opening to the top of the slope. She leaped across the slope to the south to land in another opening in the room just beyond. While there, she used the Prybar to open the door.

Lara ran and jumped across a gap at the south end of the room with the sloping walls and entered the room on the east side. There was only one door here, in the northeast corner, and it was closed. She went into the northernmost opening overlooking the sloped room, facing a block to the east of the main doors. She ran and jumped, landing on the block, and collecting the Uzi Ammo she found there.

She slid down into the room below and climbed back up into the room to the west, and using the rocks beneath the opening, climbed into the room above. She ran down the wide staircase to the north, sprinting past the darts that shot across the middle of the stairs, and collected some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo before turning to the west. The double doors at the foot of the stairs were closed, but in the southeast corner, before the stairs turned back up to the south, Lara found and pulled a switch, opening the timed door in the northeast corner of the room on the east side of the long room with the sloping walls.

Immediately, Lara turned and ran and jumped up the stairs. In the room at the top, she dropped down onto the rocks below and hopped off, sprinting through the door she opened earlier with the Prybar, not missing a beat. As she ran, however, a dragonfly began following her. Rather than miss the opportunity, she continued sprinting and running, jumping across to the room on the east side, then finally sprinting through the door just as it closed. Once she was through, however, it opened back up.

Drawing her Uzis, Lara waited for the dragonfly, and killed it when it arrived.
Lara pulled the switch she found in the southwest corner of the small room, opening the southern door in the low building between the two towers at the western end of the Vilcabamba Valley. She ran back out and slid down into the room below. As she entered the tunnel leading back to the square, two dragonflies entered from the other way, and she had to exterminate them.
She ran back outside and crossed the ruined bridge. She found and dealt with the two snow goons who were patrolling the courtyard between the towers before entering the door she had just opened. When she arrived in the first pool room, she shattered the remaining pottery in the southwest corner and had to deal with the rat that had been sleeping in one of them.

She jumped into the pool, swimming through the tunnel to the south, and swam around to the air chamber near the start of the water maze. Taking a deep breath, she jumped back in and navigated the water maze, finding some Uzi Ammo and some Wideshot Shotgun Ammo in a couple of the dead ends. When she was beneath the south tower, she swam to the space beneath the southwest grate and pulled the underwater switch, opening the northwest grate. She swam around and emerged in the northwest room in the tower.

The snow goons' explosion in the temple at the east end of the system of caverns with the dinosaurs had apparently wreaked havoc with the water system of the tower, since the first floor was covered with knee-deep water. Also, the explosion apparently had caused all the wooden floors in this tower to collapse, as Lara could see through the gaping hole into the room above. She ran down the halls to the southeastern room on the first floor. She pulled the switch that she had used earlier to open and close the door back to the courtyard. However, nothing happened. She ran back down the halls to the northeastern room and shimmied up the pole, leaping onto the ledge which was all that remained of the second floor. She darted through the mashing doors and pulled the switch that she had earlier used to flood and drain the first floor.
However, pulling it instead opened a portcullis on the top floor.

Before she dropped down to the floor, Lara glanced through the window and noticed that the northern door of the low building between the towers was now open. She dropped down into the water maze and navigated back to the air chamber. She took a deep breath before swimming back to the second pool room. She shattered the two remaining pots, finding some Flares and a rat that she had to kill. She ran through the portcullis she had opened earlier into the first pool room, bypassing the switch next to it altogether, and ran back out into the courtyard.

She entered the northern door into the low building. The small pool at the foot of the stairs had frozen over, and sitting on top of it was Secret #3 - a Golden Skull, some Grenade Gun Ammo, and some Explosive Crossbow Ammo. When she emerged into the courtyard, she confronted two more snow goons who were on patrol and took their Uzi Ammo. She reentered the southern door of the low building and found that the first pool had frozen over, so she jumped in the second pool instead and swam back through the water maze into the south tower.

Lara entered the southwestern room on the first floor. Sections of the collapsed floor had been stacked in the southeast corner, high enough that she could reach the second floor. Before she jumped up, however, she shattered the pot in the corner and collected a Small Medipak.

The ceiling of the southwestern room of the second floor had collapsed as well and Lara could see the room above, even though she could not reach it. She shattered the pot sitting on the table in the corner and took some Uzi Ammo. Since she hadn't been able to reach the switch to open the door in the southeast corner, she opened it with the Prybar instead. Another snow goon was waiting for her in the stairwell beyond, and Lara had to take care of him.

Lara arrived at the hallway in the middle of the third floor. The door next to the keyhole was still open, though the mashing doors started closing and opening at her approach, but the door at the end of the hall was closed. Lara entered the room on the north side of the middle of the hall, but found that the jump switch she had pulled much earlier to open the door at the end of the hall was still in the down position, and was therefore unable to be used to open the door again.

She reentered the room through the mashing doors. Most of the floor had collapsed, except for a ledge over the floor below. Lara jumped over to the ledge and crossed it to its end, where she shattered a pot and collected some Uzi Ammo.

There was a jump switch on the middle of the east wall, between the two doorways to the room, dropping down to the room below. Lara ran, jumped, and grabbed the switch, pulling it to open the timed door at the end of the hallway at the west end of the hallway on the third floor. Quickly, she ran back up the stairs and sprinted down the hallway. As she approached the door, two more mashing doors started opening and closing just before the door. But she quickly darted through the door before it closed.

Using the ladder, Lara climbed to the top floor and made her way down the hall to the closed portcullis. She pulled the switch that she had earlier used to open the southern door of the low building outside. This time, however, the portcullis next to her opened. As she entered the room beyond, she was attacked by three of Natla's snow goons. After dispatching them, she took their Uzi Ammo and Small Medipak. She also took the Revolver Ammo of the goon who had cut the bridge, who she had killed earlier.
Lara passed beneath the portcullis she had opened with the switches on the first and second floors into the room where she had taken the second Serpent Stone much earlier. Using the Skeleton Key, she opened the other portcullis, giving her access to the ladder leading up to the roof.

She had no sooner set foot on the roof when she was attacked by the two Atlantean demigods that Dr. Willard had warned her about earlier. However, after a fierce gun battle, Lara finished the Atlanteans. She claimed the Helicopter Keys left by one of the Atlanteans and used it to start the helicopter that was here on the roof.
Lara flew the helicopter back to the base camp at the foot of the cliff where she had left Winston. The helicopter caused quite a bit of wind as Lara set it down in the small clearing.

"You're late!" Winston chided as the helicopter motor wound down. "I expected you fifteen minutes ago."

Lara shrugged. "I had a bit of difficulty with a couple of the timed doors. Is the gear all packed and ready to go?"

"Yes. Yes. I had it all stowed..."

"Fifteen minutes ago," Lara interrupted, finishing his sentence.

"I do want you to have some tea, Miss Croft," the butler insisted. "It's not hot, but it is still warm. It's dastardly cold out here, you know, and the sooner you get this tea inside of you, the better I'll feel."

"Thank you," Lara said gratefully. "It is a bit chilly out here."

"Now are we going to be taking the helicopter back to Lima or the jeep? Or did you want me to drive back separately?"

"No, we'll need to transfer the gear to the helicopter. We need to get going right away."

"Well, at least we'll be getting out of this blasted cold sooner," Winston said gruffly. "But I suppose this means this means that we'll also be canceling our time for rest and relaxation at the resort."

"I'm afraid so," Lara said consolingly.

"Drat! And I was so looking forward to playing several matches of sand volleyball with the other tourists. There was this young lady who caught my eye at the hotel, you know."

Lara smiled politely. "Once we're in the air, I'll need you to radio the airport to have the Concorde standing by."

"So soon?" Winston was a little startled. "Where in the world are we going to now?"

"Northern Greece. There's a little monastery on Mt. Athos I need to visit, and there's not a moment to lose."

To Be Continued ...