Lara's Lamia Lament (Tomb Raider MCTF) (Patreon)

Whoops, accidentally posted a story twice - looks like my filing system got jumbled. Here, have this one instead!

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“Shift the dial three more to the left, and… Aha…” Lara Croft was no stranger to ancient traps and devices, but it still drew a smile from her when she heard the telltale rumble of a puzzle correctly solved. The door in front of her, ancient and stone, with little snake carvings that had probably once been quite elegant, was now rolling aside, revealing her goal.

“At long last,” she said, smiling as she stepped through. “The Vault of Baroda. I was starting to think it really was a myth…”

Treasure glittered in front of her, gold coins and colourful jewels sparkling through a layer of dust that had been left untouched for centuries. None of it really caught her eye, though – at this point in her career, the Tomb Raider had collected enough treasure to retire and fund a truly debauched lifestyle for herself and at least three descendants…

But treasure wasn’t why she was out here, anyway. It certainly wasn’t why she spent her time exploring the dark corners of the earth and leaving a trail of bullet casing in her wake. Despite what a lot of the more unsavoury titles she had collected over the years implied, she was an archaeologist first and foremost. She was here to learn, to explore, to recover and record. Across the world, the lives of ancient peoples had been lost to history – the lessons they had wanted to impart, the stories they could tell, blown away like dust on the wind. And while she could never undo all the damage that time had wrought, she was capable of at least trying to recover those old memories. Of properly immortalizing the fallen in history’s grand tapestry.

The fact that she was something of an adrenaline junkie was completely unrelated to the whole thing, thank you. Those articles were nothing but slanderous libel. Hmph.

And no one would have been left in any doubt about the fact as they watched the blue topped, shorts wearing adventurer carefully traverse the ancient chamber, gingerly stepping around every pile of loot and plunder – leaving it undisturbed for proper cataloguing later. Her dual pistols remained sheathed, thought they hung on her hips in easy reach just in case there was one last unpleasant surprise waiting for her in here. If at all possible, she wanted to leave this place in roughly the same state as she found it. Any discoveries she found here would be recorded with her eyes and ears alone – until she came back with a camera, anyway.

Honestly, she wished she had one on her now – the architecture in here was far better preserved than everything in the temple outside. The murals on the walls, depicting what seemed to be a worship ritual focused on a feminine looking snake-like figure, were clear as day, and the carvings in the walls and floors still held all their intricate beauty. The place felt untouched by the ravages of time.

But that was the drawback of her expeditions – she needed to stay light on her feet when performing these first explorations. Lara favoured dangerous sites – again, nothing to do with being an adrenaline junky, not at all! – and when you were jumping over ravines or dodging brutal traps or sprinting between a switch and a timed door on the other side of the complex…

Well, you just couldn’t afford to carry anything that wasn’t absolutely essential. You know, like guns, or medipacks, that kind of thing.

It was sights like this that really made her regret that, though. Finding something like this… It was as though she’d stepped hundreds of years into the past, as though the high priestess had only just sealed the vault a moment ago before rushing to lead her followers out of the region during a lengthy famine. A tragic event that had resulted in the Temple being lost – until today, at least.

Now, there was just one thing left to do – check for traps and secrets within the vault itself, of course. She wasn’t going to let her guard down just because she’d found the treasure. Hell, this was the most dangerous time for an archaeologist. Too many would be treasure hunters got this far, only to end up triggering a final trap and bringing the entire ruin down upon them. Lara was not about to make that mistake here.

Her eyes traced the room – again alighting on the murals. She couldn’t help but grin as she took them in. “Heh. ‘She was clearly a rat god’, was she Dr. Henderson? I think this much evidence might shut even you up. In fact…”

She looked towards the centre of the room – where, on a round stone plinth, a small stone sculpture sat. It depicted a coiled snake, reared up, its fangs bared… Simple enough. It wasn’t decorated with gems or lined with gold. It was fantastically mundane. Suspiciously so, in fact.

“An idol to their goddess,” Lara muttered, carefully walking closer. “But given no ornamentation or special materials… In the heart of their holy temple. Mm, no no, I don’t think I buy that at all.”

She crouched down in front of it, staring at it eye to eye with a grin. “What are you – a switch? A secret door, perhaps? Or do you disarm the traps that’ll go off if I touch any of this treasure? Well now, let’s take a look…”

The archaeologist reached out, gently tracing a finger along the top of the statue’s head, testing to see if it could be nudged or turned…

And suddenly everything went dark. The light from outside dimmed to near nothingness as the ground rumbled. Lara flinched, worried she’d done the exact opposite of what she’d hoped to do – but before she could get up and start running, the eyes of the snake sculpture flashed with a bright green glow, and green mist began to spill from its open mouth. Fearing poison, the Tomb Raider immediately tried to cover her face, but she found that she couldn’t tear her eyes away from that glowing green gaze…

The mist swirled around her, circling the room, growing larger, thicker, until it had taken the form of a gigantic snake-like figure, with the tail of a serpent, and the upper body of a tall, scaley woman – even forming the outline of a cobra’s hood behind her head. Lightning crackled around the room, a rush of air like the breath of a waking leviathan scattering the centuries of dust, and the light from the sculpture drifted upwards, carrying Lara’s locked gaze with it, until it settled in the apparition’s face…

And Lara Croft found herself staring into the amused, slitted eyes of a goddess.

“And what do we have here…?” A melodic voice hissed as the snake woman’s tongue tasted the air. “You’re not wearing the garb of my priesthood. My my, could it be that the great Baroda has caught a delicious little intruder…?”

Now, the Tomb Raider was no stranger to the supernatural. She’d seen her fair share of ghosts, demons, dragons, witches, Atlanteans, ancient weather queens, immortals, gods… The list goes on. And almost none of them had left a good impression. No, most of them had, in fact, tried to kill her. Nor did this one did not seem to be an exception, given her choice of words.

How an ancient apparition could communicate in English was a question that Lara had long learned not to worry about.

So, when confronted with such a situation unfurling in front of her – quite literally, as she could see the snake’s tail growing longer and longer behind her – she acted just as these past encounters had taught her she always should.

Which is to say that she, with an incredible act of willpower few mortals could hope to match, drew her pistols and started firing. You might be surprised how many problems that could solve.

Unfortunately, the smoky image of a smirking snake goddess was not one of them. The bullets just passed through her harmlessly, embedding themselves in the stone roof instead (and making Lara’s inner archaeologist flinch). If anything, her attempt at an attack just make the goddess laugh.

“Ahhh, yes, definitely an intruder,” she said, her words echoing in the explorer’s ears without ever seeming to travel through the air to reach them. “And not a very bright one! My, to think the priestesses would grow so lax that someone like you could break into my vault. I’ll need to install some proper discipline the next time they perform my rituals… But what to do with you in the meantime…?”

Lara was not a fool, despite what some may have called her after hearing her wilder stories. She knew when to call it quits. Giant snake goddess impervious to bullets and openly scheming about what she should do with you? It was time to run, and run fast.

Lifting her guns had been hard – looking away from those glowing green eyes was harder. Something about them was just inhumanly captivating. But she hadn’t come this far by being weak of will, and with supreme will, she wrenched her gaze away, and started sprinting for the exit.

Alas, the goddess was faster. Before the Tomb Raider could even take three steps, the snake-like and shockingly solid coils seized around her, squeezing her legs together and pinning her arms to her sides as she found herself cocooned from the neck down. She struggled, of course – but soon she found herself looking up at the buxom figure of Baroda towering over her.

“Now now,” the goddess giggled, her scaled hands clasping the sides of Lara’s head and holding it steady, denying her the ability to look away. “It’s far too late for that, little thief. You’ve shown me that my vault needs a new guardian to protect its treasures – and so my new guardian you shall be~”

“Nnn-Nuh…” Lara gasped, trying to speak even as the air was squeezed from her lungs. “I- I’m not…!”

That was as far as she got before Baroda interrupted, leaning down so that they were face to face. “The time for words has passed, little thief,” she said, her tone commanding absolute obedience. “The time has come for you to look into my eyes.”

And helplessly, Lara did just that. There was simply nowhere else to look.

A green, glowing abyss was waiting for her, the mists that made up Baroda’s form swirling down into infinity. They twisted and turned around one another, dragging her gaze in, forcing it to follow on, to follow down. Unable to look away, she couldn’t refuse their invitation. Her eyelids fluttered, her jaw going slack as she felt something behind her eyes flow away from her, down, down, down into the infinite abyss. Like her very sense of self was slowly draining away into those glowing green slits…

Her steely will faltered, her sharp mind blunted. The Tomb Raider slumped, going lax in the snake goddess’s coils. Her mouth hung open, her eyes glowing bright green as the power of the goddess filled her empty vessel.

“Much better,” Baroda nodded, giving her captive another squeeze. “Now, let’s give you an appropriate form for your new higher calling…”

She leaned in, planting a kiss upon the intruder’s lips – before her solid form burst back into mist, and flowed straight into Lara’s open mouth. As she did, the coils released her, allowing her to drop – no longer concerned about the intruder trying to make an escape.

The Tomb Raider landed on her feet, her arms still slack at her sides. For a moment, she swayed, still stunned from her hypnotic captivation. And then, slowly, she began to feel… strange.

Her body felt warm. The power inside her pulsing in joint thrum with her heartbeat. As vapid as she was, she could feel the presence of her goddess – and Baroda was her goddess now, that fact sang through her soul in the sweet whispers of a forked tongue -  inside her, swirling around, reshaping her as she pleased. The human had been reduced to little more than wet clay in the goddess’s grip… And that would soon ensure she wouldn’t be human at all.

She moaned as she felt it build up inside her, and then screamed in holy ecstasy as the power focused itself on her back. It burst out of her in a torrent, new muscles and bones weaving together into a second pair of arms that stretched out beneath her old ones – utterly shredding her top as they did so.

There was little time to process the shift, though. The next moment she nearly fell to the floor, her legs suddenly giving way beneath her. Her shorts and guns made the full trip – the fabric and her gunbelt severed completely in twain as her thighs merged together from the waist down. She felt her goddess’s scaled palms smoothing her out from the inside, kneading her knees, then her ankles, then her feet into a single, coiled limb that lengthened along the floor behind her. A new tail that felt so smooth and sleek against the cold stone floor.

Lara sighed, gasping for air as her naked body cooled, bare breasts heaving as green, shiny scales began to grow along her skin. They were spattered about her upper body, almost at random, before growing thicker lower down, becoming a full snake-skin from her hips on down. The transformation was full and complete – in a matter of moments, she’d gone from an athletic human to a towering Lamia.

Well, almost complete. She could still feel the wonderful thumbs of her goddess working on her essence, sliding back up her body and kneading into her mind directly. The snakegirl gasped as she felt that electric touch stir up her thoughts, and then quivered as her mental landscape began to simplify. A low, purring moan echoed from her lips as the creases and folds in her brain were smoothed out, her vigorous intelligence massaged and kneaded away. She didn’t need any silly things like that up here. All she needed was the ability to understand her goddess, and to obey her in all things~

‘You serve Baroda’, the words were written into her soul with a delicate hand.

“I… Serve… Baroda…” The thought echoed in the lamia’s head and stammered from her lips as it took hold.

‘You Belong to Baroda…’ They continued, sinking into the core of her very existence.

“I… Belong… to Baroda!” More stammering, but gaining in strength as she went.

‘Baroda is all.’ Gentle, cursive handwriting wrote itself over everything else that had previously been there – Lara’s name, her memories, her calling, her life-

“Baroda is all!” And the former Lara accepted it without hesitation, her old self completely forgotten, overwritten by this new existence as a simple servant of the divine.

‘Baroda.’ A simple word, carved directly into the former human’s soul as a final touch. A full stop, completing the goddess’s holy work.

“Baroda!” A fierce cry, confirming her success, the lamia proclaiming her worship proudly.

“Baroda!” Louder. Her voice bounced off the hills, carrying her subservient love for the goddess with it. All would know the glory of the goddess.

“Baroda!!!” A heart wrenching yell to the heavens, everything sliding into place completely. Baroda was all.

A sense of satisfaction filled her, warming her heart and tingling down her spine. “Much better,” Baroda’s voice echoed again in her ears. “Now, I charge you – protect this chamber against all intruders. Oh, and if you see any of my priestesses, tell them to clean this place up before the next ritual. They really have let this place get dreadfully messy…”

The words uttered by her goddess imprinted themselves on the Lamia’s soul as she felt the presence leave her, emerging from her mouth again as green mist, and flowing back into the statue. Soon, everything was quiet once more – the vault silent, the glow retreated. There was only one occupant left in the room.

Her brown hair hung wild and free behind her shoulders. Her eyes glowed bright with the power of her goddess’s might. Her four arms reached out, each summoning a golden scimitar to her hands, worthy tools of following her goddess’s will. Her green scaled tail coiled beneath her, powerful and quick, her body now perfect for carrying out her instructions.

Protect the vault!

Protect the treasure!

Protect the idol!

All hail Baroda!

The words filled her mind to the brim, pushing out all else. A guardian didn’t need a complicated head, after all. Baroda had created the perfect custodian of her sacred treasures – a simple, devoted lamia. Anything that had gone before no longer mattered, and had been forgotten.

No longer was she Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, explorer, scholar. Now, she was simply the guardian of Baroda’s vault – a job she intended to do to perfection, for the rest of eternity…