I'm Lara Croft?

Stepping into the room in the stone, Lara saw Jonah sitting on a stone bench.

He stood up as soon as he noticed her and asked worriedly, "Where did you go?"

Lara pulled out the silver serpent key and tossed it to him. "I went to find this silver coiled snake."

Jonah turned the key over in his hand. "What's it for?"

"It's a key to access a deeper section of a mountain temple nearby," Lara explained. "I want to go there and check out some murals."

Before they could continue, Unuratu entered the room. Having heard that Lara had returned, she came straight to them. "Did you find anything?" she asked.

Lara took the silver serpent key back from Jonah and showed it to Unuratu. "Yeah, this silver danger noodle," she said with a hint of amusement.

Unuratu said. "You can head to the temple now if you want to check it out. There's a door at the far end that has a slot for the serpent key. I can't accompany you because Amaru's forces have become extremely active, and we aren't sure why."

 Jonah stood up, ready to follow her, but before leaving, Lara insisted, "Stay here and help them. I can handle this on my own." She didn't want to risk taking Jonah along.

The Yaaxil are the Paititian "protector goddesses" once charged with safeguarding the Silver Box of Ix Chel, which used to be kept in a cenote near Paititi. However, a Trinity defector named Andrés Lopez walled himself into a tomb under the secret tunnels of the Mission of San Juan with the Silver Box, believing that no one else should possess it. 

The Yaaxil are led by the Crimson Fire, whom Lara also wanted to meet. 

Some time later, after making her way to the temple on the outskirts of Paititi. And evading cultists, priests, and parkour through the dilapidated towers and rocks in the temple that was made in a fucking big and deep cave where she could fall to her death, Lara finally reached a door.

She used the silver serpent key to unlock it and slipped into the next chamber just before the door slammed shut. Moving through a narrow gap that connected the room to the outside, she stopped to look down at the turbulent water going around a circular structure adorned with stone serpent heads. On the flat roof of this structure sat a small gold serpent at the center.

"The Eye of the Serpent look incredible," Lara said, hands on her hips as she looked. "This place has real potential for tourism."

After doing some parkour on nearby rocks, Lara entered the Eye of the Serpent, where she found a large hole in the ground leading to a body of water far below. Without hesitation, she leapt dozens of meters down and plunged into the water. Swimming through an underwater tunnel, she emerged to see a partially submerged temple—the cenote—surrounded by waterfalls cascading into a small, clear lake.

Spotting a nearby platform on the right, Lara made her way toward it. "These guys really love skulls," she muttered as she passed structures made of sticks and skulls. When she reached the edge of the platform, she looked down at the dizzying 100-meter drop. "This is going to be awesome," she said, and jumped. After resurfacing, she gasped for breath. "Or painful. But it was still awesome," she added, then swam onward.

Traversing more of the cenote—through another underwater cave and into a vast cavern—she eventually discovered a Spanish galleon. 'It's too big and rotten to salvage, but maybe I can get some cannons off it,' Lara thought while exploring the ship. She found a statue with a golden plate and made a mental note to retrieve it later. Then she pressed on, heading deeper into the cenote.

Climbing over a ledge, she noticed a man who had been hanged by his neck. She cut him loose, and he dropped to the ground. Checking his body, Lara discovered he had a shotgun. 'I must be close to the Yaaxil,' she remembered that after finding this guy in the game she would also have contact with Yaaxil.

Pushing through a cramped tunnel, she glimpsed a Yaaxil sprinting past. Hunched and garbed in strange, red attire, they reminded her of goblins. She moved carefully, expecting an attack that never came. 'Why aren't they attacking me?' Lara wondered, making her way into a large final chamber.

She dropped down into the vast space, which was crowded with wooden scaffolds, stone structures, and a circular stone door carved with strange symbols. With her heightened perception, Lara realized the Yaaxil were lurking out of sight, observing her. As she worked on the mechanism to open the door, the Yaaxil remained watchful but did not approach.

Finally, the stone door opened, and the Yaaxil began to move closer. Lara ascended the steps, expecting them to swarm, but they halted at the bottom. "Are we playing red light, green light, or Simon Says?" she joked, eyeing them warily. Just then, she heard a golden door open and walked through it. The Yaaxil followed but paused at the threshold.

A figure then appeared: a woman adorned in minimal yet ornate red fabric and intricate metal-and-bone jewelry. Her face was painted red and white, and her styled black hair looked almost ceremonial. Her upper lip had been removed, permanently exposing her teeth; large scars on her cheeks gave her the appearance of a Glasgow smile. She stopped right in front of Lara.

"Crimson Fire?" Lara said aloud, recalling her appearance from the game. She felt an odd connection to this woman—similar to a sensation Jacob once described feeling toward Lara. As the door began to close—differing from what Lara remembered—Crimson Fire strode forward and entered alongside her.

Lara looked Crimson Fire right in the face and said, "You broke the rules. Simon didn't say you could move."

Crimson Fire appeared annoyed and let out a demonic shriek.

Understanding, Lara retorted, "Are you calling me childish? Look who's talking—look at that lip."

Before she could register what was happening, Crimson Fire bitch slapped her hard, sending her sprawling to the ground. Another demonic sound issued from Crimson Fire.

"Okay, okay—I get it," Lara said, rubbing her cheek as she stood back up. "It was a trendy back then, and now you regret it. You sure are strong."

'That slap was insanely powerful—it knocked me down, and I'm at super-soldier levels.' Looking around Lara noticed Crimson Fire was nowhere to be seen in the room.

Continuing forward, Lara examined the murals on the walls. As in the game, they depicted the Yaaxil and the Silver Box of Ix Chel, warning that neither false gods nor zealots would be allowed to pass.

Entering another chamber—a larger, circular room lit by sunlight, where the Silver Box was supposed to be—Lara found Crimson Fire again. Crimson Fire stomped the ground with her foot.

"What are you d—" Lara began, only to be interrupted as dark stone plaques around the room started falling revealing something behind them.

"These must be more murals," Lara remarked, looking at images painted on the walls from where the stone plaques were falling.

They depicted an armored giant in the silhouette of a woman who had come to Earth, then was convinced by a man from the east to journey to the Sun, where she gave birth. Her child, who resembled her but was male, absorbed tremendous amounts of solar energy in his birth. Another man brought him back to Earth, where he studied under humankind, learned something involving numbers, went mad, traveled in time with another man, and was ultimately defeated by that man's son—who reclaimed the equivalent of the solar energy. Finally, Xquic built the Silver Box to contain that energy.

'Who are these people?' Lara wondered, scanning the murals.

'Wait, these giants look like Celestials. A feminine Celestial?' she thought, analyzing the images.

"Madonna," Lara said aloud.

She recognized the figure as the Celestial Madonna, who was the first Celestial to become pregnant and give birth—though the process destroyed her. She had given birth in the Sun. The Star Child was her offspring—a juvenile Celestial who was brought to the Immortal City by Leonardo da Vinci and raised by the Brotherhood of the Shield. At age four, he went mad after discovering Isaac Newton's "Quiet Math," a proof indicating the world would end in 2060.

'So the man who brought him back must be Leonardo da Vinci. And the "numbers" he learned is Quiet Math. He traveled with Newton, and they were defeated by Leonid—Newton's half-human, half-Deviant son—who took back the Sun's energy. Then that energy ended up in the Silver Box of Ix Chel, crafted by Xquic. But who is Xquic? What is she in this world? A deviant? Old god? Eternal?' Lara wondered.

'None of this makes sense chronologically. The Star Child was born in 1956, and he and Newton were defeated much later, so how was a box containing energy taken from him in Paititi's hands for hundreds or thousand of years before he was even born? Did Leonardo pull some sort of time-travel shenanigans? Or are these mural a mess with truths and lies?' she speculated.