The Comprehensive and Uncut Plot for Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Dated 10th of July 2001 this document offers the most complete story progression through The Angel of Darkness before it was all cut. This document also includes a completely cut section of Castle Kriegler.

This was previously published elsewhere but without author’s permission. This time we’re publishing the document WITH such permission as we strongly believe it is a right thing to do.

We highly recommend you to visit our The Angel of Darkness section, Kurtis Trent Spinoff Game section and visit Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony.

BULLET POINTS

OPEN WITH CUTSCENE OF INTERWOVEN IMAGES – FLASHBACK #1.

(See chart ‘Flashbacks’.)

Open up on a Jackal headed walking stick, Von Croy’s room badly smashed about, scenes from Egypt, Lara with a mysterious desert Shaman, ugly daubings on a wall, an alchemical symbol. We see the Shaman give Lara an Amulet. Lara gets chased through dark streets by police, loses her backpack to dogs.

START – PARIS ZONE ONE

1/ A BACKSTREET COURTYARD – dark, angular shadows, rainswept – film‘Se7en’. The TRAINING AREA where the SHAMAN and AMULET icon are introduced. Whenever Lara attempts some new task she can choose to enter the training zone and take advice from the Shaman.

1a/ She gets out of the courtyard and is chased by police into an apartment and up onto the rooftops.

  • Over the Police shortwave we hear Lara is a murder suspect.
  • All she has is a name and address on a piece of torn, bloodstained fax sheet, which is also covered in alchemic alphabet letters.
  • She is not armed.
  • Possibly see a newspaper or news poster with the word MONSTRUM amongst other French chatter.

2/ CARVIER’S APARTMENT

  • Lara tells Carvier that Von Croy is dead.
  • Carvier has heard about a Monstrum killing on the news – puts the two together – uncertain of Lara.
  • Lara has no clear recall of events at Von Croy’s – fragmented images.
  • Carvier says Von Croy was fearful because of a 14th century Obscura Painting he was tracing for a sinister client called Eckhardt.
  • Lara has to trick or persuade Carvier out of the notebook then run for it.

3/ DESERTED RAILWAY SIDING – ZONE TWO. A derelict railway carriage. Lara reads VON CROY’S NOTEBOOK. It mentions:

  • the name of the client who is after the  Painting – Eckhardt.
  • The Louvre – where an Obscura Painting might be.
  • Louis Bouchard – a Parisian gangster.
  • Von Croy buying a gun for self protection.
  • Pages of odd archaic symbols including the detail that one crucially potent symbol is hidden beneath the Obscura Painting’s surface.
  • A second Obscura Painting found in Prague by a Mathias Vasiley.

**LARA ADDS HER OWN NOTES TO VON CROY’S NOTEBOOK** She can refer to this throughout the game. On occasion we can hear her read from it.

4/ ON THE STREETS – Lara talking to various street characters asking for Louis Bouchard. Can take various approaches – F (friendly) or U (unfriendly). Some lines of enquiry will also trigger a C (context) linked response. She finds out that;

  • Louis Bouchard is an underground czar of crim.
  • Bouchard ran a club, Le Serpent Rouge, but it is now shut down and deserted.
  • Bouchard has gone underground and now runs a new club called Le Mur.
  • In a café we catch first sight of Kurtis, face hidden in shadows behind a newspaper.
  • We also see one or two more significant characters as customers in shops or elsewhere.

4a/ Lara can also have exchanges at various shops and premises including pawn shop, a news kiosk, a general store, an apothecary and an antique shop. Can purchase health items.

4b/ If Lara comes across the OLD CHURCH at this point she finds a gym on the ground floor. Can make a wager with the trainer to beat one of he heavies sparring in the ring. Win and you get the trainer’s gold watch. Lose and you get bruised.

5/ Possible Routes To Bouchard’s New Club:-

ROUTE A/ Meets café owner Pierre.

ROUTE B/ Meets an Old Geezer who worked at the old club, ex-janitor.

ROUTE C/ Uses a pawnbroker to raise cash for bribes.

5a/ ROUTE A/ – Lara ends up in a Café and meets owner Pierre.

  • Pierre knows Bouchard has gone underground and proposes an exchange with Lara. If she retrieves something he left hidden in Le Serpent Rouge (it’s a Box) he will give her a contact for Bouchard’s relocated secret club – Le Mur (The Wall).
  • Lara retrieves the Box from the old club LE SERPENT ROUGE which is bristling with policemen. She returns to the café and hands it over to Pierre – or she keeps it to use as part of her bribe fund for the gateman.
  • Pierre gives her a contact for his ex in a decrepit apartment block. He provides the address and gatecode to get into the courtyard.
  • At the apartments the contact, Pierre’s ex, Francine, tells Lara how to reach Le Mur from her apartment. It is in an old church nearby.
  • Lara clambers off around buildings and over rooftops, into the cemetery and to the churchyard. Sneaks in through an access underneath a mausoleum slab.

5b/  ROUTE B/ Meets an Old Geezer, ex-janitor at Le Serpent Rouge.

  • Lara retrieves the Box from Le Serpent Rouge for him and hands it over.
  • Gets a password from Geezer which will get her past the guards at the new club.

5c/ ROUTE C/ Uses a PAWNBROKER to raise cash – pawns the things found in the opening level courtyard or elsewhere. (It’s Daniel Rennes the Forger, as we find out later. Totally paranoid dude.)

  • Get past guards with bribe money.

6/ LE MUR – BOUCHARD’s new club in an old church

  • Lara breaks in/gets in/bribes her way in – comes across mortally wounded henchman in sick bed. Sick guy screams out and a heavy comes to check it out.
  • Another distinctive looking henchman turns up armed and ushers Lara into the basement to meet Bouchard.
  • Bouchard admits helping Von Croy who also wanted access to the Louvre.
  • Bouchard is a guy with a lot on his mind. His own men are being gruesomely killed by someone – serial killer? Things are desperate. Most of his operations have had to close down.
  • Bouchard can provide Lara with the same contact he gave Von Croy. She needs to meet the forger Daniel Rennes who uses the PAWNBROKERS as a front.
  • Gives Lara a package containing Czech passports to take to the Rennes.
  • Rennes will provide maps and stealth gear for the Louvre.
  • Bouchard can’t give or sell Lara any weapons. He needs all the firepower he can get. Rennes is the main man for serious hardware.

NB If Lara takes the wrong tack with Bouchard he whips out a hand cannon and kills her on the spot. Well…you know…he’s been under a lot of pressure lately.

7/ THE FORGER – DANIEL RENNES’ AT THE PAWNBROKER’S.

  • Lara finds Rennes murdered Monstrum style.
  • She helps herself to combat clothes.
  • There is a variety of useful gear lying stacked everywhere. Medical supplies, tools, tazers, tranq gun and darts etc.
  • Lara finds a combination code on Rennes’ body. It opens the safe.
  • In the safe is a backpack with Von Croy’s name on it.  Inside are the Louvre maps and all essential items she will need for tackling the mission (in case the player hasn’t picked up all the necessaries). So obviously Von Croy never made it this far to pick up the bag or get to the Louvre.
  • Essential items: maps, explosives, torch.
  • Lifting the backpack triggers an alarm and booby trap.
  • Lara exits by a trapdoor and jumps a river barge going down river, towards the Louvre. Gets clear just as…
  • …the rigged premises go off in the background. Boom!
  • A figure (Kurtis) watches Lara. From his POV we see he has some special night vision ability – but WITHOUT goggles. [First hint that this character has special abilities.]

8/ On the barge she superimposes maps of the city sewers, the Louvre archaeological dig and the security layouts to find a way in. Von Croy’s notebook says the painting is inside one of the buttresses in the recent dig. There is a weak spot between two walls she might be able to break through with the right explosives.

9/ THE LOUVRE – STORM TUNNELS – ZONE THREE

  • Lara enters through storm tunnel from the river.
  • Being watched – mysterious figure (Kurtis again.)?
  • She can place GPS’s as she goes in order to backtrack if she needs to. These double up as game save locations. Limited number per level. She can also retrieve them and reuse them.
  • Has to negotiate her way against the flow or water, rats and generally slippery conditions.
  • She locates the right spot between tunnel walls and chooses which of two pipes to blow up to get in.
  • One pipe causes an oil slick on the water to ignite. Lara has to reach the gap in the wall by swimming underwater and then clambering over more obstacles.
  • If she blows the other pipe everything collapses around her.
  • She reaches the gap safely and comes up into the Louvre near an ancient underground buttress open to the public.

(See chart ‘Lara in the Louvre’)

10/ THE LOUVRE – MODERN SECTION – ZONE FOUR

Lara’s route to the archaeological dig lies through the publicly available BUTTRESS SECTION. This and the upper galleries and offices are a STEALTH PRACTICE AREA. She must get up into the modern Louvre section which is full of alarms and guards. However badly Lara manages by setting off the alarms NO POLICE arrive in this section. If alerted all the guards do is lock themselves away in their control room and create hindrances by closing automatic doors and corridor shutters. As Lara only has stealth equipment she deals with the guards by knocking them out, not killing them.

10a/ Lara’s route lies past MARGOT CARVIER’S OFFICE. The office has a computer terminal providing an opportunity for some necessary background information:

  • The fact that Von Croy borrowed the OBSCURA ENGRAVINGS. These are documents recording the images and details of the five Obscura Paintings. She will have to go back to his apartment to uncover these engravings.
  • Details on Von Croy’s contact with MATHIAS VASILEY, an art dealer in PRAGUE, who has found a second Obscura Painting.
  • Links to REAL WEBSITES with masses of background history and info.

Lara also picks up a security pass in Carvier’s office to help reach her destination.  The route takes her via the roof and through vents which access the lower levels where the archaeological dig is found.

11/ SECOND CASTLE BUTTRESS – OLD LOUVRE AREA – ZONE FIVE.

This area is separated from the public.

  • Archaeological equipment has been left by the excavators for the night – lights, geothermal equipment, a generator, scaffolding.
  • A fenced off section protects an uncovered area of paving/mosaic.
  • The Buttress has a brass contraption built into the wall. This must be lined up using symbols engraved into the plates to open the Buttress.
  • Using clues from Von Croy’s notebook and the geothermal equipment to find missing symbols in the paved area Lara must solve the puzzle lock.
  • She clambers up the scaffolding and enters the Buttress – into classic TR territory.

12/ GETS THE PAINTING – Solves the puzzles:

Lara climbs down inside the Buttress negotiating protruding and recessing stone slabs set in the walls. At the bottom she enters:

  • The Chamber of 12 calendar doors with paintings linked to the 12 elements.
  • Circular mosaic of concentric circles inset into the floor which must be correctly aligned according to elements and seasons.
  • Correctly done the puzzle allows Lara to enter four further chambers linked to WATER FIRE AIR and EARTH.
  • Correct elements are assembled from each to start a primitive steam furnace working.
  • Powered by furnace steam-engine a column lifts up from the floor into the final room above the chamber – the Brother Obscura room, full of skeleton architecture – an ossuary.
  • The room has 12 duplicates of the Obscura Painting clutched to the chests of various skeletal statues (possibly some Nephilim carved figures stand guard??).
  • Bro. Obscura’s soul sucking spirit appears and attacks Lara draining energy.
  • An inscription around the roof of the chamber reads “TO SEE THE TRUTH ONE MUST VIEW ALL THROUGH THE SPIRIT OF THE KEEPER.” This is meant literally. Seen through the attacking spirit’s form the genuine Obscura Painting glows – or summat.
  • Lara gets the Painting but sets off a trap. The tunnels and room start to flood. Lara has to swim for it back the way she has come.
  • She exits back into a different part of the modern Louvre complex.

13/ LOUVRE MODERN SECTION AGAIN – ZONE SIX

However well or badly Lara manages the alarms in this section THE POLICE arrive.

(See chart ‘Lara in the Louvre’ – go on, it’s dead good!)

GETTING CAUGHT – If Lara gets captured she is confined in a store room. She can escape from here using only what is in the storeroom. A prompt in Lara’s voice will help in situations where the player might be struggling

  • Time permitting Lara can make use of an X-Ray facility in the lab-restoration room to reveal a metallic symbol hidden in the Painting. Player gets a pront for this as the symbol will be useful later on.
  • Lara makes use of the GUARD’S CONTROL ROOM to clear an escape route.
  • Having avoided the guards, or escaped from the holding room, Lara is on the home stretch. But here she runs into the mysterious stranger/Kurtis who has been shadowing her.

14/ KURTIS – The stranger who has been dogging Lara’s steps appears. At this point Lara has no idea who he is – the Monstrum perhaps. He holds Lara at gunpoint and takes the painting. Lara chases him and the police chase everyone, guns blazing. Mad Keystone Kops ruckus through store rooms of antiquities, stacked crates, shrouded statuary on plinths etc. Kurtis triggers security override to try and trap Lara.

15/ OUTSIDE THE LOUVRE

Cut-scene: we see the stranger/Kurtis heading for freedom with the painting. Lara dashes round the corner, sees Kurtis out cold on the floor. She bends over him to check on him. She gets knocked out too. (This is a chance to remove any items from her backpack inventory that we want her to lose.)

From Lara’s blurry POV we see the figure in guard’s uniform in a tracking shot, as he strides off with the painting. Without breaking stride the guard goes behind a pillar and emerges on the other side as the more distinctive of Bouchard’s thugs we have seen earlier.

Weird alert! (The assailant is Shapeshifter in security guard’s uniform.)

Weird alert! This is the first clear Sh’shifter signal. Any others so far have been much subtler i.e. ShapeShifter’s telltale Nephilim sign during the game are swirls on his skin. When he appears as a normal Parisian citizen the signs are there but subtle, ooh subtle.

[Later on ShapeShifter as Karel always wears gloves – to hide his swirls.]

16/ Lara comes to to find Bouchard slapping her awake. No sign of Kurtis.

  • She wants to get to Von Croy’s apartment. Bouchard offers to take her – says he was monitoring Louvre security and police shortwave and came to help out.
  • Bouchard turns to go and Lara spots a crystal Shard that the stranger/ Kurtis has dropped. She pockets it.
  1. The player gets a prompt to remind them that Lara wants to find the Obscura Engravings that Von Croy borrowed from the Louvre.

NNB. Lara being unconscious is a good opportunity to remove any items from her backpack/inventory that we don’t want her to have later.

17/ VON CROY’S APARTMENT – ZONE SEVEN

Bouchard delivers Lara to Von Croy’s apartment and waits outside in his car. (Bouchard has the Louvre painting in the car boot passed on to him by Sh’Shifter posing as one of his own men.)

  • Bouchard has told Lara about a police report of another Monstrum killing, this time in Prague.
  • As soon as Lara enters the building Bouchard makes a mobile call (to the Cabal) to order a clean-up operation and have Lara taken care of at the same time. He says ‘We have what I came for,’ ie the Painting.

[Hopefully, if anybody bothers to think about it, Bouchard has been got at since he last had dealings with Lara. Poor thing, his men are being brutally killed, his operations are shut down. It’s been a tough time all round and he’s obviously been made an offer he can’t refuse either by a member of the Cabal or even Eckhardt himself.]

18/ INSIDE VON CROY’S APARTMENT – Lara searches the third floor apartment for the Obscura Engravings from the Louvre. The place is a mess recognisable from the OPENING CUTSCENE.

  • Arcane symbols are daubed around the place – in blood!
  • Other hidden info including mention of the ancient Nephilim could be on Von Croy’s laptop.
  • Lara finds copies of faxes between Von Croy and Carvier, like the half torn bloodstained one she had at the beginning of the game.
  • Also faxes between Von Croy and Mathias Vasiley who has found a second Obscura Painting in PRAGUE.
  • Lara picks up the Jackal headed walking stick we saw in the opening FMV. It’s hollow – inside are the Obscura Engravings.
  • One particular SYMBOL on the Engravings triggers a flashback of events between her and Von Croy.

FLASHBACK #2 – (see chart ‘Flashbacks’ – again.)

 The events and images seen this time are more detailed showing Lara and Von Croy arguing. Lara snatching at a fax page Von Croy is waving about. He’s gesticulating wildly with a gun, clearly out of his head with fear. Gunshots – Von Croy clicking on an empty gun. The gun goes spinning under a heavy piece of furniture. Lara glimpses a face of someone stood behind her in a mirror. She gets hit from behind. Fade to black, the SYMBOL dripping gorily on the wall – CRASH!

19/ VON CROY’S APARTMENT – continued

  • Lara is interrupted by the Cabal’s Agency hitman breaking in downstairs – one scary guy, The Assassin.
  • She has minutes, at most, to find the gun. The tranquilliser gun is useless. Out of darts. Von Croy’s weapon has slipped down into a hole in a dark corner beneath the heavy furniture.
  • Game of cat and mouse around the apartment and building with the Assassin. Exciting! Leon territory.
  • Lara sorts the deadly dude out.
  • The dead henchy’s mobile goes off.
  • Bouchard’s voice asks, ‘Is she taken care of yet?’
  • Lara stomps the mobile and takes the hitman’s Luger.
  • Exits through a back window or fire escape.
  • Her next step is Prague and the art dealer with the 2nd painting – Mathias Valisey.

PRAGUE

20/ CZECH BORDER – snowbound ‘Where Eagles Dare’

  • Lara gets off a train at Prague Central Station – OR –
  • Is seen thanking a lorry driver for a lift.

21/ PRAGUE MURDER SCENE

  • Lara turns up at Mathias Vasiley’s premises. Cordoned off by police crimescene tapes.
  • Lara breaks in round the back – steps over what could be a patch of blood.
  • Further inside it resembles Von Croy’s apartment. Mathias Vasiley has been murdered – Monstrum style, blood and symbols daubed everywhere.

22/ Lara comes across Bouchard looking shifty.

  • She duffs him up, takes his gun(s) and frogmarches him to a chair.
  • Ties him into the chair and gives him a grilling.
  • He blabs – says he’s got involved with a heavy dude called Eckhardt who heads a group called the Cabal, a powerful group running things in Prague and elsewhere.
  • He tells her all the murder evidence, and body, have been taken away to a place called the Strahov. It’s a cover up by The Cabal.
  1. He seems terrified, which is out of character for the tough brioche we know him to be. Weird alert! He also has the telltale sign(s) that we realise later is (are) the mark(s) of the ShapeShifter.

23/ Lara asks what he knows about the Obscura Paintings.

  • He says there’s no painting here in the shop. There was but it’s now in the Vault of Trophies, a part of the Strahov.
  • One of the Cabal, Boaz, was here and took the painting.
  • Bouchard says he suspects Boaz is holding out on Eckhardt who has four of the five paintings already.
  • Lara doesn’t believe him. She leaves him tied up and goes to check the premises for herself.

24/ Lara goes through the building – finds all kindsa useful Russian Mafia stuff. She can stock up on ammo, medical stores etc.

  • Loadsa useful info and clues on computer – communications between Von Croy and Vasiley about the Obscura Paintings etc.
  • More background on Nephilim from the art dealer Vasiley’s files – if we need it.

25/ In one of the more remote rooms she comes across Bouchard’s torn, bloodstained jacket containing his wallet and ID.

  • She runs back to where she left him – the chair is empty, with the ropes hanging loose but still knotted – (Weird alert! – this is the second clear Sh’shifter signal since Kurtis lost the painting at the Louvre).
  • Lara next stop is the Strahov and the Vault of Trophies

26/ THE STRAHOV– the massive complex run by the Cabal.

  • Lara enters looking for the Vault of Trophies. Has to evade guards who are everywhere – like a fortress.
  • Part of it is like psychiatric wards but with a high weirdness quotient.
  • Beneath the upper wards she finds subterranean levels with medical experimentation cells an’stuff. Weirdness quotient goes off the scale. This is Boaz’s realm, her area of expertise.
  • Lara finds all the police evidence of the crimescene – and Vasiley’s body? He could be one of the Boaz vivisection experiments – oooooh!
  • Also finds layout-schematic of the Strahov showing the Vault – there is also an unlabelled high security holding zone but no clue what’s in it.

27/ LARA HEADS OFF TOWARDS THE VAULT OF TROPHIES. WHILST EVADING GUARDS AND INTERFERING WITH THE SECURITY SYSTEMS LARA CUTS OFF POWER TO CERTAIN AREAS. WITHOUT KNOWING SHE ALSO UNLOCKS THE HI-SEC HOLDING ZONE AND SETS THE PROTO-NEPHILIM LOOSE IN THE LABYRINTH.

A WARNING KLAXON SOUNDS.

NB – THE PROTONEPHILIM is an experiment of Eckhardt’s that went wrong. It’s been kept locked away. It’s vicious and powerful. And now it’s out and it’s good at hunting in the dark! It goes on a rampage around the levels killing guards and intruders alike. But Lara doesn’t run into it. Kurtis does later on.

28/ Lara runs across some members of the Cabal – Eckhardt, Boaz, Karel, Gunderson and Rouzic the Illusionist. It’s our first view of the scary nutters.

  • Gunderson is directing security forces to deal with the escaped Proto-Nephilim.
  • Full flashback in which Lara recognises Eckhardt from the flashback at Von Croy’s. Now she knows who killed Vonnie boy.
  • Eckhardt is impressing  Kristina Boaz with his alchemic abilities.  Uses‘The Alchemy Glove’ on some poor victim – ooh messy! This shows Eckhardt for what he is, a really scary dude, totally outclassing the Cabal members.
  • Eckhardt tackles Kristina Boaz about the last remaining painting. They don’t have the last one yet from here in Prague – “Why?”   He’s pissed.
  • “And where is Bouchard? Is he back from Vasiley’s shop yet?”
  • “And why the hell is that klaxon still blaring? Deal with it!”
  • Lara decides to leave them to it and get to the Vault of Trophies fast.
  • She plots her route using the map. First area on the way to the Vault of Trophies is the Botanical Area.

*Note on Bouchard:- he may turn up strapped down on a table somewhere in one of the medical cells awaiting evil attention. But the Proto-Nephilim gets him. Yeah! TO BE DECIDED.

29/ STRAHOV BOTANICAL AREA.

Lara enters a different part of the complex, an area of botanical experiments and highly convincing scary bio-mutants. The PROTO-NEPHILIM klaxon/strobe is still sounding/flaring.

  • The area is cordoned off by a series of pressurized decontamination chambers.
  • Lara fights her way through hordes of highly convincing and scary bio-mutants grunties reared and cared for by Grant Muller head of botanical mutations for The Cabal.
  • Different stages of experimental failures line the vaults (like Aliens 4).
  • Chambers of pods with with ‘orrid ‘alf formed muties about to burst out.
  • Lara beats ‘em all and gets to the far side of the area, another set of pressurized decontamination chambers.

30/ As she enters the chamber Kurtis appears (on the outside, seen through a bullet proof window) and locks her in.

  • Lara is furious and cool. Kurtis is just cool.
  • They can communicate through button intercoms but can’t reach each other.
  • Accusations – he stole her Louvre painting. He admits he lost it.
  • She has his crystal Shard from the Louvre and waves it at him. It’s a standoff. ‘Grrr, snarl.’ etc.
  • He coolly tells her he has to go and tidy up the little problem she’s created by loosing the PROTO-NEPHILIM. It blocks the way he wants to go (which, like Lara, is the Vault of Trophies).
  • But he’ll be back for his Shard.

31/ PLAY KURTIS

  • Kurtis heads off and soon finds the PROTO-NEPHILIM by following the screams.
  • It’s rampagin’ an’ lurkin’ an’ killin’ everything in the tunnels.
  • We see Kurtis using a very low key occult power of some sort to combat or evade Cabal guards who are being hunted by the PROTO-NEPHILIM.
  • Huge monster battle in which he sorts the PROTO-NEPHILIM out using his occult power and the one Shard he still has.
  • Then he heads back to the botanical section and Lara.

32/ Lara has calmed down and figured that the Shard is important to Kurtis. No way is she just going to hand it over. And she has the map of the Strahov.

  • They negotiate. Kurtis needs the Shard and has to agree to an uneasy truce.
  • They are still wary of each other but prepared not to blow the other away. It’s all a bit ‘buddy’ movie stuff at this point, begrudging tolerance that could go either way.
  • Kutis lets her out of the chamber.
  • She gives him back his crystal Shard – ‘Don’t think this means we’re married or anything.’
  • They agree to combine forces – for now.

33/ Kurtis gives Lara a brief background to his involvement with Eckhardt, his dad being the last Lux Veritatis killed by Eckhardt. It’s revenge time.

  • Kurtis has inherited two of the three Periapt Shards of power used to keep Eckhardt captive until 1945.
  • He needs the third and last of the Shards to combat Eckhardt.
  • He needs to find the Vault of Trophies too.
  • As they talk Lara suddenly whips out her twin cannons and blasts a mutie that’s been creeping up on Kurtis.
  • They agree to combine talents to find the Vault of Trophies.

34/ THE VAULT OF TROPHIES and ANCIENT ALCHEMIST LAB COMBINED.

  • They stealth their way through the Stahov corridors and tunnels.
  • Outside the Vault they fight one of the Cabal, Luther Rouzic, the Illusionist! He runs off before getting thoroughly dead – coward.
  • Lara finds a cunning and secret way into the Vault-Lab (don’t ask!).
  • It’s full of grisly trophies of Eckhardt’s and the Cabal’s defeated enemies like skulls, pickled Nephilim, pickled dads…
  • Somewhere in the Vault are some Lux Veritatis symbols Kurtis needs to find the correct Lux Veritatis Trancing Room at Castle Kreigler (there are several possibles).
  • Kurtis wants to go back to Castle Kreigler and use the Trancing Room to discover where the third and last Periapt Shard was left in 1945 when Eckhardt escaped. All three Shards combined can be used to re-imprison Eckhardt.

NOTE: VAULT OF TROPHIES AND ALCHEMY LAB CONTAINS:

  • Stolen Lux Veritatis treasures – the LV SYMBOLS Kurtis is looking for, for use in the Trancing Room at Castle Kriegler.
  • The last Obscura Painting hidden by Boaz from Eckhardt.
  • Eckhardt’s alchemic gloves prototypes and early alchemic experiments.
  • A preserved Nephilim (echoing the statues Lara saw in the archaeological section underneath the Louvre).

OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION POSSIBLY AVAILABLE HERE:

  • 3D schematic of final Ritual Chamber with its channels, water system and details of chemicals/elements being used.
  • Prototype circuit for transformation ritual.
  • Basic alchemic principles of Eckhardt’s abilities.

 

OTHER POSSIBLY AVAILABLE HERE OR IN OTHER ROOMS IN THE STRAHOV:

History of how Eckhardt created the Five Obscura Paintings in the 1440’s – originally called the Sanglyph Paintings (Bro. Obscura’s involvement came later).

Info on Eckhardt’s pact with the Nephilim.

Eckhardt notes/journal on meetings with the Nephilim and betrayal of the five alchemists of the early Cabal in 1400’s.

The nature of the Nephilim, what they are, the fading race, their appearance etc.

 

35/ SPECIALLY BRIEF 1945 CUTSCENE – RELATED BY KURTIS.

  • How Eckhardt escaped at the end of WW II from a castle prison guarded by a single Lux Veritatis Guardian, Kurtis’ grandfather.
  • Castle Kriegler bombed by Allied aircraft and Eckhardt breaking free.
  1. This version told by Kurtis is brief and only a partial version of what happened.

36/  KURTIS FINDS THE SYMBOLS HE NEEDS

  • The symbols are tattooed on his dead, pickled dad’s bod displayed in a big jamjar…aw go on.

37/ LARA FINDS THE PAINTING.

  • Lara finds the painting cunningly hidden. To get at it they both need to operate some cunning system of levers, cunning locks or summat cunning.
  • There are ten duplicate Obscura Paintings and only one true one.
  • Kurtis shows how he can reveal the hidden metallic symbol in the painting using the crystal Shards – ‘A little Lux Veritatis trick.’
  • The hidden symbol glows and it’s one we’ve seen before in the opening cutscene ( and was recorded in Von Croy’s notes).
  • Kurtis says it’s time to head off to the Castle Kriegler ruins for the last Shard.
  • They do just that.

38/ THE GATHERING OF THE CABAL AND ECKHARDT – UNSEEN BY LARA & KURTIS

CUTSCENE – in some unspecified part of the Strahov we see Kristina Boaz talking to another of the Cabal, Joachim Karel.

  • She is very agitated. The painting they have been holding back from Eckhardt has been stolen!
  • Karel reassures her that Eckhardt can never know who has betrayed him.

39/ Cut to the Great Hall.

  • We see the Illusionist having a word in Eckhardt’s ear as the rest of the Cabal enter.
  • Eckhardt tells the Cabal that plans for the final move to the underground base are almost complete – (Castle Kriegler but the name is not given away.)
  • Eckhardt suddenly turns on Boaz. She has kept a painting from him – “THE LAST ONE – AND NOW YOU’RE TELLING ME IT’S BEEN STOLEN!”
  • He denounces her as unworthy and kills her as a traitor, Monstrum style – ugh! Messy! (OK, just in silhouette or as shadows thrown up on a wall.)
  • End of Prague – phew, and a good thing too.

 

CASTLE KRIEGLER – GERMAN-CZECH BORDER­­­­­­­­­_- MOUNTAIN COUNTRY

40/ Lara and Kurtis arrive at German-Czech border on Kurtis’ Land Rover bike

  • Kurtis draws the guards off and Lara heads for the castle through forest.

41/ LARA ARRIVES AT THE CASTLE (see Rich’s great map.)

  • Lara heads down into a primeval misty gorge where she battle bears ‘n’ wolves, jumps the river and swims potholing pools.
  • Negotiates a waterfall.
  • She climbs into the castle ruins and makes her way down into the tunnels.
  1. Lara may also be battling scary illusions created by the Cabal Illusionist Rouzic. They get more powerful as she approaches the castle.

42/ CASTLE KRIEGLER

  • Lara sorts out a few Cabal guards but then runs into Eckhardt.
  • Eckhardt is there waiting in the mid levels beneath the castle.
  • Rouzic the Illusionist is with him.
  • Big ding dong with the Illusionist who traps her with his mind melting tricks.
  • He relieves her out of the painting which he hands over to Eckhardt.
  • Eckhardt asks, “Where’s your headstrong companion?” – no answer from Lara of course but we cut back to the border:-

43/ KURTIS AT THE BORDER– PLAY KURTIS.

Kurtis is banged up in a guards’ shed or van.

  • He busts out and heads off to the castle by a different to Lara.
  • Finds the secret tunnel entrance used by his granddad in 1945.
  • He enters the mid regions of the subterranean levels.
  • He uses the Lux Veritatis symbols from the Trophy Vault to find the correct Trance Chamber – there are ten of them.
  • Trances back to 1945 to see what happened to the last Periapt Shard.
  • He sees what really happened there: –

44/ THE TRANCE:

THE FINAL HOURS AT THE CASTLE BEFORE ECKHARDT ESCAPED WERE NOT AS KURTIS HAD BEEN TOLD. HE SEES THE LAST LUX VERITATIS GUARDIAN, HIS GRANDFATHER, TAKING TWO OF THE PERIAPT SHARDS AND ESCAPING WHILST THE ALLIED BOMBS DEMOLISH THE CASTLE.

ECKHARDT ESCAPES THE MAYHEM HELPED BY MEMBERS OF THE CABAL (or just one of them – Karel?) AND TAKING THE THIRD AND LAST SHARD. IT HAD NEVER BEEN LEFT IN THE RUINS AT ALL. ECKHARDT HAS HAD IT SINCE 1945.

45/ Kurtis comes out of his trance to find Eckhardt standing over him triumphant and eyes a bit mad and starey like. Kurtis’ Shard has been snatched by Eckhardt’s cronies. Eckhardt now has all three Shards. Shit!

(Note: Eckhardt can’t touch the three united Periapt Shards – Kryptonite for him.)

  • Huge running fight amongst the catacombs. Monsters, illusions, exploding walls, withering sarcasm, unhelpful criticisms, snide comments – the lot.
  • Kurtis knows Lara must be somewhere in the ruins. He comes across the trap she is in.
  • He sacrifices vital moments to set in motion some mechanism that will help Lara escape.
  • Kurtis is fighting a losing battle without his Shards but further sacrifices himself by drawing the baddies away from where Lara is, giving her some extra time.
  • He gets captured, worked over and damn near killed
  • As a touch of villainous irony Eckhardt imprisons Kurtis where he had planned to re-trap Eckhardt. The chain pit. Curtains for Kurtis.

46/ Eckhardt is triumphant.

  • He exits with the painting taken from Lara and the three Shards, carried safely for him by Rouzic the Illusionist – flunky!
  • They use a deep shaft transit system going down below this level. It seals off with huge metal shutter doors.
  • His parting shot is to activate a golem-monstrosity and sets it loose as a guardian after they seal up the level

47/ PLAY LARA – SHE ESCAPES

  • Lara escapes the prison area and pursued by the golem comes across evidence that makes her think Kurtis has been killed.
  • She battles the golem-thing (and several henchmen?).
  • Lara takes out the henchies and kills the Golem using an unexploded Allied bomb left in the rubble.
  • The bomb explodes the Golem through a gaping hole into the transit shaft. We see it bouncing on the sides as it crashes out of sight.

48/ LARA ENTERS THE LOWER REALMS.

  • Lara climbs down to the first level of the bizarre transit system of tracks and drop shafts.
  • The place is full of mad alchemy-hi tech hybrid labs.
  • Vaults of human experiments in vats.
  • Weird Nephilim architecture.
  1. Eckhardt has been dismantling Nephilim temple innards and transporting them piece by piece to his own subterranean fortress since 1945 – exactly like the British Museum looted half the Greek temples and national treasures. Lara recognises the Nephilim style carvings and artefacts from earlier in the game. The history of the ancient race is told in stone engravings and images.

49/ JOACHIM KAREL – (ShapeShifter)

One of the Cabal, Joachim Karel, approaches Lara. Says he needs her help to stop Eckhardt because the Alchemist has become treacherously unstable – he killed Boaz, one of their own. Karel fears for his life – (that’s his story anyway).

  • To gain her confidence he shows Lara other faces he has used to help her during the game – ‘I’ve never harmed you’, kind of thing. Lara takes this FACE GALLERY in her stride because she has run into the Illusionist several times and merely thinks of it as more tricks. (No hints of the Nephilim ShapeShifter element yet.)
  • Karel wants help to stop Eckhardt’s whole plan which is:

A FINAL RITUAL

A/ some insane RITUAL to transform himself into a more evolved being.

B/ breeding the Nephilim race again by interbreeding with humans.

C/ …oh and er…yeah, ruling the world.

* THE FINAL RITUAL HAS YET TO BE WORKED OUT IN DETAIL BUT THERE WILL BE MUCH ALCHEMY, WATER, HOST BODIES(?), WEIRD SHIT AND EXCITING THINGS INVOLVED.

50/ The rest of the Cabal think he’s going to reward them with longevity.

  • Karel tells Lara how the final ritual can be sabotaged.
  • Following Karel’s directions Lara hoofs off to find the way to the bit in the thingy where she can clobber Eckie.
  • Half formed mutant critters everywhere? Big fights?

51/ ECKHARDT’S UNDERGROUND ALCHEMY BASE.

  • Lara has to find her way through the multi level labyrinth.
  • The style is a weird hybrid of Alchemy and hi-tech.
  • This is where Eckhardt has been preparing the final stages of his own transformation since 1945.
  • The Five Obscura Paintings have been incorporated into a massive mosaic circuit set out on the floor.

SOME SUGGESTED IDEAS FOR THE FINAL RITUAL AND HOW TO SABOTAGE IT:

  • A massive rotating mosaic circuit pattern with the Five Paintings set in the floor. Each ring of the mosaic rotates independently.
  • Channels or circuits are completed by molten metals being trickled around the floor pattern.
  • The metal symbols in the Paintings are circuit triggers set in specific places on the pattern.
  • A host body at the centre of the mosaic.
  • Below this is the massive coolant-birthing amniotic pool (yeuch!).
  • Lara has to sabotage the mechanics below water – she maybe introduces impurities into Eckhardt’s purified elements or shift the circuits around or summat.
  • There are extensive engineering works underwater, extensions of the transit system. Lara can get a scuba kit here and swim about.

52/ THE FINAL RITUAL – whatever it is.

We see Eckhardt and the remaining Cabal members assemble. Everything is ready for his big transformation.

  • The Five Paintings are in place.
  • The three Shards are locked safely in a room guarded by one of the mutie creatures. Eckhardt can’t use them himself but he want to make sure no one else can either.
  • The four Cabal members and Eckhardt take their places on the huge mosaic circuit layout.
  • Eckhardt has on his Alchemy Glove.
  • The Ritual starts – yeah, to be worked out yet.
  • The Ritual goes wrong:-

1) Eckhardt transforms into a grotesque form and collapses.

2) Karel appears briefly in an unstable Nephilim form.

3) The other members of the Cabal disintegrate.

53/ Lara comes up all dripping and wet from the pool to find:

  • Eckhardt looking crushed, finished.
  • Karel-Sh’Shifter appears to be dying.
  • Eckhardt crawls off into an adjacent chamber still wearing his Alchemy Glove and disappears.

54/ KAREL-SHAPESHIFTER DYING

  • Karel appears to be dying – his form shifts and flickers – Nephilim – human – Nephilim –hu…you get the idea.
  • He tells Lara Eckhardt must still be stopped.
  • The three Shards will protect her against Eckhardt.
  • He also give her any other information we decide she needs at this point.
  • Karel-Shapeshifter then dies/dissolves in light. (Is he gone? Is he dead? Well, is he? – see Game II.)
  • Lara has to get the three Shards from the mutie guarded chamber. Big fight.
  • She follows Eckhardt into the last chamber.

55/ THE LAST BATTLE.

Eckhardt is physically a wreck. He has taken refuge in the final chamber on a huge triangular throne style arrangement between two massive Nephilim pillars. Though physically screwed he has one last resort, the incredibly boosted mental abilities by which he can create dangerous realities from Lara’s past and try to kill her in them – Nightmare On Elm Street style.

What we had before was:

  • Himalayan plane crash
  • Peru – dinosaurs
  • Egypt, having to escape from the tomb – again
  1. Point of interest in the Enochian gospels there are five secret subterranean chambers. The lowest chamber contains two pillars named Joachim and Boaz made of purified elements. They guard a triangular golden tablet. Lucky coincidence eh.

56/ LARA TRIUMPHANT

  • Lara defeats Eckhardt in each reality by stabbing him in the bod with one of the Shards.
  • Each time she stabs him that reality shuts down and Lara briefly returns to the ‘real’ world of the throne room to see Eckhardt with a Shard slammed into him.
  • When Lara defeats him in all three realities she has successfully recreated the original three Shard configuration which kept Eckhardt prisoner for 500 years. He is trapped helpless unable to move but still unable to die or be killed.
  • But he can speak: he raves – taunts her with what happened to Kurtis – not dead after all.
  • Eckhardt has no recollection of killing Von Croy – who he?
  • His Alchemy Glove has fallen to the ground.
  • Lara takes the Glove and uses it to alchemically invert his body elements. He erupts into shards of primary elements – dies messily, gobbets of still living bloodied flesh scattering throughout the chamber – yeah – death to all nutters!…er.

57/ THE LAST SCENE – TO BE DECIDED.

  • Lara goes back for Kurtis…?

 

 

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