Sarah Grey sprinted down the passageway, feeling the ground crack between her feet. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she moved her feet as fast as they would go.
What had looked like solid rock before her had proved to be just a thin skin of stone. Sarah didn't know what was beneath her but didn't want to find out. It didn't break immediately but it cracked and fell away just behind her steps.
So if she just kept going fast enough she could maybe, just maybe, keep ahead of the cracks as they chased after her.
She could see an archway up ahead at the end of the passageway. It was so close, but she could feel the cracks catching up with her. The whole floor was about to come down, taking her with it.
The archway was only six feet away. Now five, now four. But not close enough, with an almighty crack the whole ground gave way beneath her feet. She could feel herself drop.
She had just enough purchase to push off against the rocks beneath her feet as she fell. For a weightless moment she was suspended in mid air but by some miracle she just managed to grab onto the edge of the solid stone lintel of the archway.
The weight of her body threatened to pull her down and tear her fingers off the lintel but she managed to steady herself somehow as her body slammed into solid rock ahead of her, knocking the wind from her chest.
Sarah was dangling from her fingertips on the edge of a pit that had opened up where the passageway had been. The archway was above her now. She didn't dare look down but she knew enough about the tricks of this old temple to know it wasn't going to be nice.
Her boots scrambled against the rough wall in front of her and luckily there were some bits of rock sticking out that they were able to rest on.
Most of the weight, though, was on her arms and they were soon starting to ache unbearably. She wasn't sure how much longer she could just dangle there.
Thinking that all that time in the gym was definitely paying off, she began to pull herself up. She was lucky that there was enough purchase on the wall for her boots to be able to push herself up.
Slowly, painfully, she pulled herself up onto solid ground, black spots spinning before her eyes.
She lay on her back next to the pit for a moment, trying to get her breath back, her chest rising and falling raggardly.
After a while she got unsteadily to her feet and looked down behind her. Rows of razor sharp spikes glinted up from the bottom of a deep pit.
Sarah gulped and looked back down the length of the now lethally impassable passageway.
Hopefully there was another way out. Still, it would stop those goons from following her.
Sarah Grey was not the kind of girl to dwell on near misses. As she turned away from the pit she steadied her mind on where she was and what she was doing.
Was she finally here, at the last resting place of the Goddess Alessia?
It had taken two years of planning, three months trekking through the jungle and hours and hours of lethal traps through this insane temple to get here. Not to mention pretty much a whole mercenary army on her trail.
But here she was at last, or so she very much hoped.
The archway opened out into a wide circular chamber, lit by a weird, murky, underwater sort of green light.
The room was empty apart from a series of square slabs on the walls with carvings on them. Above each slab was a crystal, glowing with the eery dim light that filled the room.
There was a man in the room. He had his back to Sarah and was looking at the carvings. From his combat fatigues, broad shoulders and blonde buzzcut, Sarah recognised him immediately.
Clifford Finch. Fucking Clifford. How the hell had he got here ahead of her?
He must have been aware of her but he didn't look around, just kept on looking at the carvings.
For a moment, it occured to Sarah that she could end these years of insane rivalry right now and have the Necklace of the Goddess for herself.
Her fingers stroked the handle of the gun in the holster on her hip. But something stopped her.
Instead, she just walked across the room to stand by Clifford to examine the carving as well.
Not taking his eyes off it or even really acknowledging her presence, Clifford slightly tilted his head and spoke softly to her.
"Horny bunch, weren't they?"
The carvings must have been thousands of years old but they were astonishingly well preserved. The detail and workmanship was incredible, better than anything Sarah had ever seen in the Louvre or the Uffizi.
Clifford was right though, in his usually crude way. The carving they were both looking at was one of the most erotic things Sarah had ever seen.
It depicted a young and beautiful woman in profile. She was naked and crouching on all fours, while a tall handsome man was behind her, his large hard penis penetrating her from behind.
Sarah didn't miss that hanging down from the woman's body, just in front of her extremely large round breasts, was the Necklace of Alessia.
Sarah walked away from Clifford to look at the other carvings. Each one showed the same couple in various different positions of sexual congress. The figures were always completely naked except that the necklace was prominently displayed in each one.
Despite herself, Sarah couldn't help but feeling a little turned on as she looked at the depictions of the couple deep in the throes of passion. The carvings looked so real it was almost like watching a real thing.
"She kind of looks like you."
"Oh shut up, Clifford."
This was classic Clifford and his clumsy, brutish attempt at flirting. Sarah had no doubt that this was mostly a reference to her own large breasts.
