(A second story I write of Lara Croft some time ago. Sorry for any misspelling).
Lara spent several weeks reading the diary she obtained in India and planning her expedition, which began on a dusty airstrip in a forgotten corner of Southeast Asia. She is determined to visit the area and verify the existence of the ruins described not only by the European explorer, but also by other visitors to the area who left records in forgotten texts that Lara found during her research in the library of the Croft Manor and in the university.
When she gets off the plane, she picks up her bag and exchanges a few words with the pilot to whom she cancels a part of the trip.
"When I'm ready I'll contact you and give you the rest!" she says over the noise of the plane's engine.
"Deal!" replies the pilot who takes off quickly once Lara disembarks her belongings.
From a distance, she notices several people watching her attentively and with unfriendly faces. Before traveling, she gathered information about the area and learned of the presence of criminal gangs, which is why she came armed on this occasion.
"Welcome to this abandoned corner of the world, babe!" says a guy who approaches her quite impudently.
"Thank you" replies Lara while inspecting her equipment.
"My name is Joe and I offer my services".
"And what kind of services do you offer?"
"Well, whatever you want, I can take you anywhere, I know this jungle like the palm of my hand, and I also know some quite paradisiacal places if you want to relax a little"
"Thank you for the offer, but I'm not here as a tourist"
"Seriously and what are you coming for then?"
"I'm an archaeologist" replies Lara inserting a magazine into one of her pistols.
"And since when do archaeologists carry high-caliber pistols?"
"Because it is necessary to protect yourself, you never know what kind of dangers you may encounter," adds Lara, loading the second pistol.
"Well, I assure you that the people of the area don't have much love for foreigners and even less with archaeologists or scientists, they have already given us enough problems"
Lara is surprised to hear that comment, "What kind of problems?"
"That information has its price" says Joe while he observes in a rather shameless way the body of Lara who catch him on the spot, but she chooses to ignore it.
"Look, let's make a deal, take me where I want to go, tell me what you know and you'll make money" and Lara shows him some dollars, but only gives him half, "the rest at the end",
"Maybe the other half you could pay me in another way" and approaches him in a rather provocative way, but Lara gives him a cold look and makes him back away.
"Just kidding, okay, we got a deal" and the two shake hands.
"The first thing is to get out of here quickly, I don't think your presence will be very welcome" and gestures to Lara indicating some guys who are watching them attentively. Lara gets into the jeep and shows her a map indicating where she wants to go.
"Gorgeous, you're going into a war zone" Joe tells her with a rather serious expression on his face, "come on, we'll talk in a safe place" and they quickly set off.
Lara is suspicious when Joe takes her to a nearby village and not to the town as she wanted.
"That place is full of criminals, by now they should know about your arrival" he replies, and Lara is intrigued by what is happening. Arriving at their destination, they both go to a small food stall where they have a drink and Joe explains the situation to her.
"A few months ago, a large expedition arrived in the area and set up a camp here, in this place on the banks of the river" Lara realizes that this site was precisely one of the places she intends to visit.
"Who sent that expedition?" Joe shrugs.
"I have no idea; we only know that about twenty scientists or whatever they arrived along with a company of mercenaries for security because there are criminal groups. As soon as they reach that place, they set up a large camp and began to hire the inhabitants of some nearby villages to work on the excavations".
"What did they find?".
"I honestly don't know, but they say that they are very valuable things, so valuable that the mercenaries took control of the excavation and began to exploit people".
"Great" says Lara.
"It is known that they found a network of underground ruins in that place from where they recovered several objects, but before they could get anything else out there was a huge collapse and many people died trapped, as other workers fled and these mercenaries attacked several villages of natives and use them as slaves to continue digging".
"How disgusting, and the authorities don't do anything".
"There are no authorities here. Since then, it's been a war zone, there's a tribe of natives who are fighting the mercenaries, they use the jungle to ambush them when they can and they're also headhunters, are you sure you want to go?".
Lara thinks about it for a moment, "yeah I'm sure, I've already come this far so, I won't give up now."
Joe points Lara to the only unguarded access point as the river separates the jungle into two large areas.
"There is a rope bridge here, no one uses it because it is dangerous, but it is the only entry route".
Lara realizes that this would leave her further away from her destination, but there is no other option.
"Very well take me to that place" and again they leave in Joe's vehicle that takes her to the bridge in a journey of a couple of hours on rugged roads.
"This is as close as I can get, I hope you know what you're doing".
"Thank you for your concern".
"Yes well, I don't want anything to happen to you before you pay me babe, contact me when you get out of the jungle and good luck, you're going to need it" and he quickly leaves. Lara checks her gear one last time and crosses the bridge as the rushing river runs several dozen meters below and into the jungle.
The plan at first was to explore some places marked on the map she made before leaving, they are areas where the explorer reported that there were ruins of ancient constructions, but unfortunately, they just set up a camp on top of one of the sites that Lara intended to visit. At first, she had decided to avoid it, however on the way she ran into a patrol of mercenaries and after spying on them for a moment they mentioned that a series of artifacts of great value had been discovered so after thinking about it a lot, decided to visit the camp.
Lara arrives at the perimeter when it is already starting to get dark and in the distance, using binoculars, she observes it noticing the deployment of guards, watchtowers and sees the workers carrying a series of pieces to a construction that serves as a warehouse. She makes a mental note of everything. She moves around looking for some weak spot and finds a corpse impaled on the chest by a stake. She looks for the radio and despite how damaged it is, she manages to make it work for an instant listening to some transmissions where there is talk of problems with the generator and several dead workers, so she decides to help them too, she is not willing to let them continue to use them as slaves.
As night falls, Lara infiltrates the camp. Distracting one of the guards, she approaches the generator and sabotages it, turning off all the main lights, leaving only the emergency ones. Several armed guards are deployed with flashlights to patrol as they begin to check what went wrong this time. From a distance, observe the holding cells where the natives are kept locked up. She immediately slips away and with a quick movement knocks the two guards' unconscious and takes the keys from them, giving them to a man who watches her, surprised, in his cage. Lara gestures at him of silence and he nods his head, they discreetly begin to leave the cell to go into the jungle where they get to safety while she disappears into the darkness.
With a heavy blow to the head, Lara subdues another guard and enters the warehouse where she begins to review what they have found.
"Who are you?" she hears a voice behind, and Lara turns around with her bow at the ready. A woman immediately raises her hands and falls to the ground in fright.
"It's none of your business, who are you?".
"Ilsa, my name is Ilsa, I was part of an archaeological team, but Victor killed the rest when they refused to cooperate and now, I'm forced to work with him!" she replies frightened. Lara lowers the bow.