Thief — an All Difficulty Level complete-loot walkthrough (Original Thief and Thief Gold)

This mission uses a version number (starting with 1.0) independent of the main document.

After completing two missions, I am grateful that the missions are linked together with a storyline. Not strong, but much better than 12 unrelated missions.

In this mission, there are quite some differences in location of treasures among various Difficuty Levels. Choose the difficulty drop box and the walkthrough will adjust accordingly.

At several places, additional information is available as tool tips. Move the mouse on the words looking like these to see them.

Some places are worth visiting, but is not needed to achieve your objectives. They do not even get you any powerups, so it is up to you whether to follow them. I will describe the main route like a regular walkthrough. Then at certain points I will mark excursion routes. At these points, if you want to have a look (and you should), save your game and follow the route. Click the excursion heading in this color and style to expand the route. After the voyage, just reload the game you saved at the Excursion starting point to continue the main route (note that many excursions do not bring you back to the starting point). For those who don’t bother to go (I do not understand why anybody should want to skip the excursions), just ignore the milestone and continue straight on.

There is nothing to pick (that counts toward the pick count in the mission statistic) in this mission.

In this mission, different difficulty levels have access to very different amount of powerups (in later missions, the difference tends to become much smaller). This walkthrough has included the powerups and loots for all three difficulty levels. The two versions (Thief Dark Project and Thief Gold) also has a slight difference in loot location.

Since you do not need to leave the Bonehoard at Normal Difficulty, the sequence of places to visit is slightly different. This is necessary to make sure you get everything before the mission suddenly completes — the mission completes when you fulfil all your objectives, it does not care whether you have collected all the loots or seen all the places. Therefore, some places that Hard and Expert players will visit on their way out of the Manor must be visited in advance by Normal players. During the walkthrough, you will be directed to jump forward and back (following hyperlinks) as required. If you correctly set the difficulty level in the drop boxes above, the cumulative loot and pick count will be adjusted to follow you jumping around.

The walkthrough is written to make use of the advanced features of IE4 and IE5 browsers. The tables will be shown in better shape when viewed from IE5. Otherwise, IE4 and IE5 will show the same effects (but IE5 rendering much faster).

The only thing Cutty left for you is the knowledge about the fabled Horn of Quintus, something that you can sell at a good price to Burrick hunters. Besides the Horn, you can also find other treasures in the Bonehoard. This includes the remains of the Builder’s First Apprentice, whose bones resisted corrosion and have turned into gold. As for his heart and soul, the Clever Mystic captured them in two magical gems somewhere in the Bonehoard.

When you picked up this game, probably you did not think of it as another Tomb Raider. But now you are asked to steal from tombs. And meet Zombies and the just-as-annoying Burricks. And the Zombies here are frightening, not like those lame ones in the mine. This is the first mission that is really difficult to complete without a walkthrough. The main problem is getting lost. Once you know the whereabouts of everything, it is not difficult to complete the mission without killing anything.

Your obvious choise is to buy all Holy Water vials and Water Arrows. I do not know what to do with the remaining cash. Some Health Vials perhaps, or a few Noisemaker Arrows or just throw it away.

I heard that this mission received lots of complaints (and praises) for being too difficult to survive. To make your visit more present, Thief Gold has more Water Arrows to pick up than in Original Thief. Players at Normal or Hard Difficulties even have an additional vial Holy Water for them to collect.

In this mission, Experts will meet a Hammer Haunt for the first time. It will only be a brief encounter, and you will really face them only in a later mission. Thief Gold players at Experts and Hard Difficulties will also see the Fire Shadow, a new AI introduced in Thief Gold.

Before you start, please bear in mind that in this mission, different Difficulty Levels have access to very different treasures. You can as well think of them as three different games. While players at lower Difficulty Levels do not have the Mystic’s Soul and/or Mystic’s Heart, they have instead quite a list of new treasures not accessible to Experts.

When you start, you have the Bonehoard entrance before you, with a Zombie Possum in front of it. Climb the small hill at the right side of the entrance to access the sarcophagus up there (the one to your left and in front, not the empty one to your right). On the floor next to the sarcophagus is a Purple Goblet (0;0;15) (note that while Looking Glass Studios called it purple, it looks more like gold and black; reader RampagingKestrel told me the black is actually a purple, with the color of red wine). Get back to the entrance (while avoiding the Zombie Possum). Run towards the hanging rope to climb down.

Continue move down to some planks. A noisy Zombie is down there, but ignore him. Walk to the North side to have a look: you can see the next room (we shall be there soon) but do not try to jump down. Come back to find another hanging rope in the midst of the planks. Save your game, climb down slowly and stop midway.

Look South: there is a small room there, with nothing useful. When playing at Expert or Hard Difficulties, you need not go to that room at all (although you can go there as an excursion). Look North and find three ledges on the wall. Jump from the rope to the middle ledge. Then run towards the lowest ledge so that you drop squarely on it.

Now wait. At Expert and Hard Difficulties, you only need to run to the far left (South East) corner where the exit of the room is, so wait till the Zombie is well out of your way (usually it will go under your ledge). Jump forward and run there, turn 180 degrees and run into the dark corridor there (going North). Up the stairs to the T-junction on the top.

For Normal Difficulty Level, you still need to run away like the others, but you first need to pick up a Vase in the next room. With the wall behind you, you can see another room on the South side. That room has a sarcophagus, and on top of it a Green Vase (0;0;50) waiting for you. So you have to run forward to get the Vase, and run back out (avoiding the Zombie) and turn right to get into the dark corridor.

Turn left and continue running. Soon you will see a familiar room on your left: we shall get there later, so do not try to jump or climb down from here. Continue forward and at the end turn left up the stairs.

At the dead end, you find the first dead thief (Sutter). Read the Red Book on the floor. Note that the sentence in brackets only appear when playing Expert Difficulty.

The book provides some information about another group of thieves trying to find the Horn. The dead thief came with Felix (who knew about the Horn and escaped from the prison) and at least 3 other thieves. They entered the Hall from the North, travelling in a direction opposite to what we will be going. In panic, Sutter left Felix and escaped up to here, far away from the Zombies.

He noted that Marcus didn’t make the jump across that huge chasm and that Marcus had with him some loots from a poorly-guarded tomb. I was furious to find out later that no treasure is around the dead body of Marcus. And there are no Burricks nearby who might have swallowed the loots, maybe they have dissolved in water.

Then he said that Cather is filled with arrows... octagonal vaults, but I never found Cather (or has anybody?). Also mentioned is a strange X-shaped marks... worth investigating, an obvious hint for something important. Not until recently did I locate the 3 X-shaped marks (are there more?). When you get there, you get another hint for getting the Mystic’s Heart.

If you are playing Normal or Hard Difficulties, get the Purse (100;0;0) near Sutter’s skull.

Go back to the T-junction and follow the other path (straight forward). Follow it to turn and run down a slope to a lower level.

Another T-junction in front of you. Turn right and arrives soon at the dead end of Alarus. Get the Healing Potion on the floor and go back to the other side of the T. While Normal and Hard Difficulties can pick up (in the whole mission) 6 and 4 vials of Healing Potion, this is the only one for Experts. This is the room you have seen many times from above. It is empty, so go to the near corner on your right (North West corner) to find two exits.

Take the exit on the left to follow a straight dark passage going South. At the end, you arrive at a small ledge above the initial Zombie. Turn to face the hole on the wall and crouch. There is a Chest inside, right click to get 8 Water Arrows. Go back to take the other exit.

Take the stairs up and continue until you see a side branch on your left. Take an excursion to go inside. There is a Holy Water Font, but there is no Zombie nearby. If you want to, you can use the font and rush to the Zombies to finish them off. For Normal Difficulty Level, there are a vial of Holy Water and a Healing Potion here.

Continue the only way to a room with some steps in front of you. There is something on top of one of the sarcophagi on your right, but look carefully at the floor to locate the pressure plates. Throw some corpse parts at the trap to see how it works. Move along the wall to avoid the trap and get the Gold Vase (100;0;0). When playing Normal or Hard Difficulties, get the vial of Healing Potion on top of another sarcophagus (below one with the vase).

Avoid the trap and climb the steps to the next room. There is a Hammer Zombie Possum on the floor but ignore him. Climb the rope on your left down to the next level. My method below stirs up some hostilities. Look also a sneakier method from Heath Campbell in the next section.

Down there on your right is an empty room with a pool. There are three connected pools here, and we shall soon dive from the second pool to the third pool. The room on your left has a Zombie Possum. On the wall next to it is a hole, inside which is a Chest containing a Gemstone (0;100;0). When you open the Chest, the Zombie Possum will start stirring, so run through the doorway to the next room. Run pass another Zombie Possum and jump into another pool (the second pool). If you are playing Normal or Hard Difficulties, take the Purple Goblet (0;0;15) on top of the sarcophagus right before diving.

Keeping diving and when you reach a T-junction, go right (left will go back to first pool, so you can actually start diving from first pool). You emerge from a third pool, and hear the music of this room. Two Chests face each other, with skeletons around and emiter holes on their base. Actually you can assume nearly anything unguarded as trapped (because most AIs cannot avoid traps so they do not patrol trapped areas). Therefore, stand next to them (that is, not between them) to avoid the arrows shooting out from the emiter. Open the left Chest for a Speed Potion, and get 6 Fire Arrows from the right Chest.

Move to the other side of the pool and find the ladder down. Look down and notice the pressure plate at the bottom of the ladder. Stand on it and a boulder drops on your head. So jump from the ladder and run away.

Enter the hole on the wall and carefully follow the red tunnel until you reach the grey tunnel.

This method is submitted by Heath Campbell. To get the chest in the wall, slowly inch towards it. Stay flat against the wall. Go slowly and stop at the point where the zombie would growl if you took another step. At that point, lean forward towards the chest and adjust your viewpoint until you can highlight it. You can just open the chest without arousing the Zombie Possum.

Since you did not wake up the first Zombie Possum, there is no point to ennoy the second one. Dive instead into the unguarded pool. If you are playing Normal or Hard Difficulties, swim through (turn right at the T-junction) to the second pool. Emerge on the far side of the Zombie Possum to take the Purple Goblet (0;0;15) on top of the sarcophagus. With the goblet, dive to third pool as in the previous section.

If playing Expert, there is little point to visit the second pool other than sight seeing (you may as well see it on foot). So you can dive directly to the third pool from the first one.

A Burrick is patroling the grey tunnel ahead. Save and wait till it walks to your right (you can Blackjack it but it is not necessary). Run into the grey tunnel, turn left and proceed to a hole on the ground. Run down the plank (or just drop into the hole) into another tunnel.

You are now safe from the Burrick above, but as you can see, the tunnel ends soon and beyond is Great Burrick Cave. Crouch and peek into the cave. You are overlooking a It is a large round cave with some barrier on the center. It has several openings, and we will visit them one after another. Look at your right, you can see some arrow marks made by Sutter (the dead thief you met earlier).

Turn around and go South. First you meet the plank that can help you get back up to the Upper Vault. The plank was placed by Sutter on his fled from the Halls. Go past the plank and continue till you find a round hole on the ground. Look, it is a deep deep fall. Drop into the hole and resurface.

On your South West is a flooded room, go there. Climb the stairs to a room: see the pressure plates on the floor and the emiter holes on the wall? You can pick up the corpse parts and play with the traps, but stay clear! Crouch and walk on the boundry between two pressure plates. With your two feet on two different pressure plates, you will trigger both emiters behind you. But the arrows from the emiters will fly above your left and right shoulders, so just move forward.

There you find Adolpho and his Purse (100;0;0). If playing Normal Difficulty, Adolpho has also a Tiara (75;50;0) left for you. Adolpho is a famous thief who came here even before Felix. Read the Papyrus next to him, giving you a hint that you should preserve some (actually five) Fire Arrows to get the Mystic’s Soul (when playing Hard or Expert; ignore it when playing Normal). So collect the six Fire Arrows on the table, but avoid the pressure plate in front of it (lean forward to grab the arrows).

Leave the way you came. There is a tunnel opening on the other side of the water. Swim there and enter. Run along the grey tunnel all the way to the end, which leads you back to the Great Burrick Cave.

At the end of the tunnel, save and peek down. On your right at the ground level you can see a tunnel opening. Right on top of the tunnel opening is the first strange X-shaped marks... worth investigating. When the Burricks are away, drop and run into that opening. Run forward until you reach a 4-way junction.

Turn left (ie go West) and continue. The West Tunnel winds upward, and for Thief Gold players, you see some skeletons, and among the skulls is a Silver Nugget (50;0;0) and go back to the junction. For Thief players, the tunnel finally ends in a T-junction. Stop there, turn right and look down to pick up the Silver Nugget (50;0;0). If you continue to the right, the tunnels ends with a big hole where you can drop down to the Great Burrick Cave. Actually it is a good idea to drop from here, given you are not hurt during the fall, and you do not get disoriented. For us, go back to the junction.

Back at the 4-way junction, save your game for an excursion to the X marks

After the excursion, go back to the opening (of the Great Burrick Cave) and get ready for running.

From the opening, you can actually see the destination. Look right and up — beyond the Fly Swarm above the dead Burrick, you can see a greenish tunnel, having a color different from the grey of the Great Burrick Cave. However it is easier to run clockwise in the cave than to run directly towards it. On your left is the opening you dropped from. On your way, you will run past the tunnel with the plank, and will finally arrive at the opening you needed. It has a red stone beneath it so you will not miss it when you are there.

When the Burricks are on your right, start running. Near the red stone, there are more arrow marks by Sutter but you probably do not have time to see them. Jump to the rope and climb up. Follow the short tunnel to the Huge Chasm.

Climb down the rope at the end of the tunnel to a thin ledge. Walk along the ledge, but before you reach the other rope, you see a big red tunnel on the other side of the chasm. Save your game for an excursion to the bottom of the chasm.

Now to the home of our undead friends. The octagonal halls here are very disorienting, so I included a simplified map here:

Level 1 (ground level):

	1	2	3	4	5
B		Ramp	4 Ladder	2 Pillar
C		pool	door	cave
D	Golden Bone	ladder-bridge	stairs	unnamed	start

The alphabet on the left and the digit on the top are for coordinate references. It starts with B2 because we do not have access to row A or column 1 on level 1.

Let me start explaining the naming from the SE corner, working first W and then N. It may be confusing because you haven’t yet seen any of the rooms, but the explanation here serves to help to identify which room is which in the remaining sections. After explaining the map, you start visiting the rooms in the next section (Visiting two enclosed places).

• We starts at Start Hall (D5), which is connected to D4.
• The Stairs Hall at D3 is the only hall with a staircase, spiraling down to the Flooded Area below. After jumping into the Flooded Area (there are two other halls with access to the Flooded Area), the only way out is via this staircase. Fortunately, the Zombies seldom cluster here waiting for you. Instead, their favorite location is around the Door Room.
• Ladder-Bridge Hall at D2 has a narrow bridge across a pool of water, and at the end of the bridge is a single ladder climbing up.
• Golden Bone Room at D1 is not where the Golden Bones are (well two of them are there), but where you should place them. The room is not accessible from level 1. We shall climb down there from the Hammer Graves at 2D1.
• Cave Hall at C4 is enclosed on all sides with a single opening towards D4. The curved narrow hallway on its outside traps many Zombies and makes moving around very difficult.
• Door Room at C3 is the only hall with a door. And the loot inside is the most difficult to get. Note that the tiny space between the door and the hallway is dark enough for hiding.
• Pool Hall at C2 has nothing but a big pool, with a circular ledge surrounding it. The burrick caves lead to a big hole below the ledge. The pool below is actually one of three connected, submerged rooms.
• 2 Pillar Hall at B4 has two pillars in the middle (or 3, if you count the pillar integrated with the wall), supporting the Y-shaped catwalk above.
• 4 Ladder Hall at B3 is accessed from a dark tunnel next to the door of Door Room. 4 Ladder Hall is one of the good places to run to, because Zombies do not climb ladders. Moreover, two of the ladders lead to the Fireball Room above, which is another safe place.
• Ramp Hall at B2 is obvious. It has a great ramp leading to Level 2. Yes, Zombies can climb the ramp, provided that you tease them properly. They do not have a brain so they always walk towards you in a straight line (if they see you at all). Why should I want to tease them up the ramp? It is because the Fireball Room above is a good Zombie killer!

Save your game and enter Start hall (D5). If playing Normal or Hard Difficulties, go to the statue on your right. At the feet of the status is a Healing Potion standing on the floor (Normal and Hard Difficulties only). Continue to the next hall (D4) and keep to your right.

Bypass Cave Hall whose doorway is on your right. On your left are four giant columns of the unnamed hall. What remains accessible of the hall are a pair of intersecting corridors meeting at the center of the hall. Go to the center for a brief look. On three sides, the corridors join to other halls. On the North East, it ends at a wall where a sarcophagus rests. Attractive? It has nothing for the Experts though. For Normal and Hard Difficulties, run behind the sarcophagus to find a Bottle of Fine Wine (0;0;50).

Go back to the doorway of the Cave Hall. Enter the hallway surrounding the West side of Cave Hall to reach the Door Room. Open the door. Thief player just wait for the boulders to drop. Thief Gold player should approach the entrance and retreat when the boulders drop. Anyway, throw them away (inside! if you throw outside, you are blocking your own exit).

I have never succeeded to jump over the two Zombie Possums without waking up at least one of them. However, Heath Campbell said it was OK. that if you sped across the room into the boulders at the far side, they would growl but not rise. See if you can make it.

In the alcove opposite the door are two boulders and a Gold Vase. Remove the right boulder (or remove both) to get the Gold Vase (100;0;0). Since the Zombie Possum is stirring up, use Holy Water and Water Arrow him. Possibly other Zombies are entering the door, so kill any in sight. Just watch your timer: kill as many as you can but stay around this area. Plenty Zombies should present themselves in this narrow corridor so you should have little trouble killing about four (including the one inside the Door Room) with a single vial of Holy Water.

Do a quick save and work back to the Cave Hall. There are five Zombie Possums here, but they do not matter. Even if you wake them up, they seldom leave this room and so will not give you troubles. Pick up the Golden Bone on your right (near the entrance). These are the bones of the First Apprentice of the Master Builder. There are a total of five sets, and you can help by burying them in the Golden Bone Room.

Run up the small ramp at the center to get an Indigo Vase (0;0;100). If playing Hard/Normal Difficulties, collect also one/two vials of Healing Potion next to the vase. Rush out of the room and leave the stirring Zombies behind. If the doorway is blocked by incoming Zombies, use another Holy Water and send them Water Arrows. Remember to shoot incoming Zombies and fight your way out, ignoring the five original Zombies of this room.

You can continue directly with the next section, but for me, I prefer to rush out the red tunnel again to have some rest, and for a saved game.

Run to Stairs Hall. When you enter (from the East), look down and collect the second set of Golden Bones on the floor. Then go to the left (South) side of the Stairs Hall. On the wall at about the height of your forehead is a Silver Nugget (50;0;0).

Continue West to the Ladder-Bridge Hall. You have to go around its walls (clockwise is slightly better) to find the doorway to its interior. Run across the central bridge, but jump over the trap at the middle. An energy ball will be shot at you from directly in front of you. I somehow have the memory that the bridge breaks in TDP. P1ague corrected me that it is always a fire ball, and I find that it is really so: I cannot break the bridge now. If you have also seen the bridge broken, let me know.

Climb the ladder. You are safe here because undeads do not climb ladders. On top of the highest sarcophagus on your right is a Green Vase (0;0;50). When playing Normal Difficulty, turn around to find another Green Vase (0;0;50) on the sarcophagus on the other side. Take it and save your game for an excursion to visit Felix.

Jump into the pool. There are three submerged rooms, and they are connected together. The one under Pool Hall is empty. If you did not take the previuos excursion, you have to dive North to get there. Starting from the pool under Pool Hall (with the Burrick tunnel visible but not accessible to you), dive South. When playing Thief Gold, note the left. On top of a “frame” at the left wall (underwater) are two Water Arrows. They were not present in Original Thief, the developers must have heard me complaining abuot the emptiness of these submerged rooms.

Continue South and resurface at the submerged room under Ladder-Bridge Hall. Floating on the water surface is the third Golden Bone (don’t ask me why gold floats).

After you got the bones, dive East to the last submerged room. Find a hole on the ceiling and swim up. Save your game and climb up the spiraling stairs to get back to the Stairs Hall.

Reader Andrew Shaffer taught me an effective way to gather the Zombies for killing. Go to the Stairs Hall and mantle on the railing surrounding the stairwell. Now the Zombies can’t hurt you any more!

Once in the invulnerable possible, all you need to do is to attract the Zombies to gather around you. This is not simple, because they usually stop walking as soon as you are in sight. There are around 11 Zombies in this level, plus a handful of Zombie Possums. It is easy to gather 7 or 8 Zombies into the hall, but it is best if you can gather as many as you can. It is best if you run around the halls to wake up the Zombie Possums, and attract all the Zombies to follow you here, before you mantle up the railing.

When you are satisfied, save game and start using Holy Water. You can typically kill all the Zombies you gathered using just two vials of Holy Water. There is little need to wipe out the rest. Zombies are such slow creatures that you can just run past him when you meet one.

Reader Commander Robey taught me an even more effective way to gather the Zombies for killing. Similar to Andrew Shaffer, he started with mantling on the railing surrounding the stairwell of the Stairs Hall. His insight is to locate a particular spot at in inside corner of the railing. You may have to cross the corner a few times to get it accurately, so quick save beforehand, in case you fall. When in the right position, the zombies will start walking again. They will go down the steps and congregate under where you are standing. Even zombies you do not see will come out. CommanderRobey also prepared a video showing how to do it, called Meeting Adjourned. Request it from +Ronald Robey or +Alex Fung on Google+.

You can even leave them there (for a few seconds), run inside the Cave Hall, wake up the five Zombie Possums here (guarding the Golden Bone), and get back to the railing. This way, the five of them will join the party of eleven downstairs.

The all the zombies crowded togehter, you can easily finish all of them using a couple of Fire Arrows or Holy Water vials.

Odyseeos reminded me that there is another way to wipe out the Zombies. When you explore Level 2, you’ll find the Fireball Room. Just lead the a handful of Zombies to follow you up the great ramp of the Ramp Hall to the Fireball Room, and the fire balls will bring them down for you.

Go back to the corridor on the left of Cave Hall. Go forward but ignore the Door Room on your left. Continue until you see a doorway on your left (if you go miss the doorway, you will eventually arrive at the 2 Pillar Hall).

Follow the dark and narrow corridor into the 4-Ladder Hall. Refer to the map: this hall is actually between Ramp Hall and 2 Pillar Hall. And it is the dark narrow corridor that blocks one of the pathway between these two halls, producing two dangerous blind alleys.

In the center of this hall is a Hammer Zombie Possum. Avoid him and climb the (West) ladder opposite the entrance. At the top, turn left to get a Gold Goblet (25;0;0) on the sarcophagus.

Climb down the ladder and climb the one on your left (North ladder). And you find that it goes through the ceiling to the room above. If you are playing Normal or Hard Difficulty, study the middle sarcophagus on your left. A Necklace (100;100;0) is there, though not easy to make out even when you are staring at it.

Climb through the ceiling and we arrived on Level 2.

	1	2	3	4	5
A				Marad
B		Ramp	Fireball	Y	X
C		E	I	Spiral
D	Hammer	O
E		5-torches
F		Soul

Since the upper levels are visited en route when we are moving to our four destinatins (Horn of Quintus, Mystic’s Heart, Mystic’s Soul, Exit), they are grouped together under one heading. First we look at the map of Level 2, starting from the Ramp-Hall (2B2, now with a leading 2 because we are on level 2 now), because it is the natural starting point of level 2 (although we did not really start there).

• There is nothing in Ramp Hall Level 2. Just that the big ramp joining the two levels.
• Fireball Room (2B3) emits a fireball regularly towards its entrance, which is next to the top of the ramp. It is a good place to kill any Zombie who wants to follow you to level 2. Or you may wake up the Zombie Possum at the top of the ramp and lead him here to rid of him. Two of the ladders leads down to 4 Ladder Hall.
• Y Hall (2B4) has only a Y-shaped catwalk on level 2. It is an important octagonal vault. Below, there are two pillars on level 1 supporting this catwalk. Above, a slanted walkway leads from level 3 (3B4-S, connecting to Spiral Hall at 3C4) to level 4 (4B4-N, 4 Pillar Hall).
• From Y Hall, you can jump to Marad at 2A4 for a tiny loot. It is disappointing to find so little there, maybe it is what is left after having robbed by Felix.
• X Hall (2B5) has two slanted walkways perpendicular to each other (that is why I called it X). The first one (2B5→3B5) leads from level 2 (2B5-W, connecting to the catwalk of the Y Hall) to level 3 (3B5-E), where a circular ledge joins it to the other slanted walkway. The second one (3B5→4B5) leads from there (3B5-S) to level 4 (4B5-N), connecting to the 3 Pillar Room at 4A5. The base of the second slanted walkway (3B5-S) also leads to the exit of the Bonehoard. Down below, the level 1 of X Hall is an isolated, inaccessible (unless you want to get trapped there), dark and empty hall.
• E Hall (2C2) looks like an E: a semicircular ledge with a walkway attached to the middle. Since it is above the Pool Hall, you can see the Flooded Area if you look down. From the top of the Ramp Hall ramp, go right (jump over the Zombie Possum) and you arrive at the North East part of this E Hall. From E Hall, you can access the O Hall (2D2) to the South via the semicircular ledge, and the I Hall (2C3) to the East via the walkway in the middle.
• I Hall (2C3) has a single walkway: below it is the roof of Door Room (1C3). It goes slightly uphill and you can run and jump to the Spiral Hall at 2C4.
• Spiral Hall (2C4) has a spiraling ledge from level 2 (joining the side branch of the catwalk of Y Hall) going counterclockwise (nearly a full circle) up to level 3 (joining the slanted walkway of 3B4→4B4 at 3B4-S). If you do not what to jump over the Zombie Possum next to the top of the Ramp, you can access the E Hall by going to Y Hall, Spiral Hall and I Hall.
• O Hall (2D2) is a circular ledge around a hollow column. Inside the column is the ladder of Ladder-Bridge Hall (1D2). The O Hall joins the E Hall on the North to the Hammer Graves on the West and the 5-Torches Room on the South.
• Hammer Graves (2D1) has a great hammer image on the floor. Two ladders down to the Golden Bone Room (D1).
• 5 Torches Room at 2E2 has five torches and five doors keeping five Zombies.
• Soul Hall at 2F2 holds the Mystic’s Soul. Climb back via 3E2 to leave.

	1	2	3	4	5
A	Burrick				Face
B		unnamed		unnamed	X
C				Spiral	Exit
D
E		unnamed

• After you climbed the ramp of Ramp Hall (B2) and then the ladder outside the Fireball Room (2B3), turn around and jump to the circular ledge of 3B2. Look down the big hole at the center and you see the ramp below. Go West to the Burrick Hall.
• The Burrick Hall has a lone Burrick at the center. Further West is the vault to the Mystic’s Heart.
• From the Spiral Hall, you ascend from level 2 (2C4) to level 3 (3C4). On level 3 here, you can pass from Spiral Hall to 3B4-S (slanted walkway above Y-Hall) to climb up to level 4 (4B4-N).
• X Hall (3B5) has two slanted walkways perpendicular to each other. The first one goes West and leads down to level 2 (2B5-W), and is joint to the Y Hall (2B4). The other goes North and leads up to level 4 (4B5-N), connecting to the 3 Pillar Room at 4A5. Finally, you can leave X Hall on the South, leading to the exit of the Bonehoard (which is the entry used by the Felix group).
• The Face Room is the one with a Face (with two Gemstone eyes). It is not connected to other rooms of Level 3, and you have to get there via the 3 Pillar Room (4B6) on Level 4.
• 3E2 is a tunnel above the 5 Torches Room.
• Although I marked 3C5 as the Exit, it isn’t. However, the path starting here leads all the way to the exit, without passing any other useful locations.

	4	5
A		3 Pillar
B	4-Pillar	X

• From 3B4-S, you can climb to the 4 Pillar Hall at 4B4-N via the slanted walkway. Leave via the North exit to find the Horn of Quintus.
• From 3B5-S, you can climb to 4B5-N via the slanted walkway, leading to the 3 Pillar Room where you can use a Rope Arrow to climb down to the Face Room below.

Carefully leave the Fireball Room and go left when outside the doorway. You will see a ladder at the top of the great ramp. There is a Zombie Possum on the other side of the ladder. You should be able to finish the mission without waking him up. However, if you stir him up, consider luring him to the Fireball Room to blast him with fireballs.

Also, you may try to lure all the Zombies downstairs up the ramp to the fireball trap. To do so, remember that Zombies goes directly at you. You have to attract them to walk to the base of the ramp, and then attract them up the ramp. At the top of the ramp, turn left and run across the trap, waiting for the Zombie to be blasted.

Climb the ladder to the top and turn around. While it is not difficult to jump directly to the circular ledge on your West, it is safer to first climb first to the small platform on either side of you and then climb up to the ledge. Once on the circular ledge, turn around to look at the the vault to the left of the ladder. You can see another platform at about your height, a statue and a hallway opening. That is the way to Quintus, our next destination.

For now, leave the circular ledge at the North West (the only exit) to the Burrick Hall. There is a Burrick in the room at the center of the hall. When playing at Expert Difficulty Level, the room is empty so you can run along the slopes on either side of the hall and avoid the Burrick (keep running past the hall and it will ignore you). On the other side of the hall, following the corridor to the end (do not fall!). Then skip the next two paragraphs and continue with the next section (Descending).

When playing Normal or Hard Difficulty Levels, you need to Blackjack the Burrick to get two Purple Vases (0;0;50) it is guarding. Then you find a door on the other side of the hall but it would not open. The door leads to the Mystic’s Heart, which is not part of your mission objectives. Players of Hard Difficulty Level should go back down the ladder (to the top of the ramp) and skip to the next section (Horn of Quintus: Climbing to the top).

Players of Normal Difficulty Level however must not get the Horn of Quintus so early. Since it is the only mission objective for Normal Difficulty, the game ends as soon as you lay your hands on the Horn. You must visit places and get all treasures before you try to achieve the last objective. Therefore, go back down the ladder, then go past the doorway of the Fireball Room. At the Y Hall, take the side branch on the right to arrive at the Spiral Hall. Skip forward section after next (Mystic’s Soul: Going West). You will visit the remaining rooms in the sections “Mystic’s Soul” and “Leaving” before going back to find the Horn.

Look down the vault of bridges and fireball traps. There are several beams to help you descend to the bottom of the vault, but fireballs are flying in many directions. Keep making saved games when you make progress: it is too easy to fall or be killed by the fireballs.

Walk to the center of the top beam and turn right to face North. Look at the next beam below. Fireballs shoot regularly from the North end to the South end. When a fireball passed you, drop to that beam and run to the North end. Quickly drop (from either side of the beam) to the ledge below the North end of the beam.

Turn to face the East end of the small ledge. Fireballs shoot from the wall a little ahead, going down towards South West. Time and jump to the beam (on your East side) beyond the fireball. It is a dangerous jump, because if you overshoot you fall off the other side of the beam. The alternative is to jump towards the West beam (both the East beam and the West beam runs from North to South) on your right, with a tiny platform in between. I think the East beam is better because the West beam is higher than the East beam.

The East beam is safe, so save your game and move to its center. Face West and look down on the next beam. This is the most difficult jump. Time the fireballs shooting from West and drop on the beam below. You do not have a lot of time and thus you should jump early from the East beam because when you drop to the trapped beam the fireball will have travelled several meters. Run forward (West) along the East-West beam to the center of the beam. Drop on the North-South beam below, which is perpendicular to the beam you are on. This is the tough part, because you have to stop running and drop at the center: if you stopped too early or too late, you will miss the beam below. And you usually do not have the time to straff and aim, because the next fireball is coming.

Fortunately it is the last beam. Walk to the South end (which further reduces your distance from the ground below) and drop to the floor. Proceed to the next hall.

How shall we get back to the top? Let’s worry about it later.

Before you enter the hall, read the Floor Plate on the floor. Actually you have learnt about this from Dranko when you were in the Burrick caves. Each status stands on a sharp triangular base, and if a triangle points to you, you are roasted (a fast energy ball flies at you). It is OK if there is a pillar between you and the triangle (so that you are hidden from the Guardians). Therefore, the statue and pillars form unseen lines that you cannot cross over.

If you need help to pass through this hall, refer to my hand-drawn sketch. The red circles are pillars, red lines are lines-of-sight of the Guardians. You enter from the top (North) and leave on the bottom (South). Follow the green path to avoid the Guardians.

The next hall looks empty, but do not enter yet. You can see four statues (they are not guardians, at least not those who kill) under spot lights. On the far end, you can see a white area: that is the exit of the hall. In front of the exit you can make out a dark object sitting on a grey stand. The dark object is a Blue Chest, not locked, containing the Mystic’s Heart.

First of all, save your game. Move quietly into the empty hall. Suddenly the spot lights changed, At the center of the hall you can see a Hammer Haunt. He moves fast and is very good at the sword so never underestimate Haunts.

Unfortunately your location is also under spot light. Move quickly to the shadows and probably the Hammer Haunt has not yet noticed you. You can now move slowly around the dark areas of the hall to get the Chest. Much simpler is to restore your game to the point before entering this hall. Just run into this hall, speeding towards the Chest. Run past the Hammer Haunt, it takes quite some time for him to see you and start running himself. Run up to the right side of the Chest, open it to get the Mystic’s Heart (0;1000;0). Resume running into the white area behind the Chest.

I think it is the only teleporter in the whole game you can use (there are other teleporters but you cannot use them in the game). Suddenly you are transported to the corridor leading to the vault with fireball traps. Turn left and go back to the Burrick Hall. Sneak past the Burrick again and get back down the ladder.

Reader P666 came up with a brilliant idea to handle the Hammer Haunt. After you triggered the spot lights of the Hall of Mystic’s Heart, go backwards (following again the winding path) to stand between the middle two of the four pillars. Make some noise so that the Hammer Haunt turns and seek you (shoot him a Broadhead Arrow if you so wish). He will follow a straight line towards you. The “gaze of the Guardians” will then fall upon him and you can explore the hall in peace.

From the ladder, go past the doorway of the Fireball Room (don’t forget to avoid the fireballs). Continue to the Y Hall where you can see a Y-shaped bridge. One path going directly ahead and in the middle of it a side branch goes to your right. Before you walk on this Y bridge, look left. There is a ledge a little above you.

Save your game first. From where you are (the ledge on the West side of the Y bridge), do a running jump towards the edge on the ledge. Grab the ledge and mantle up. Enter the doorway there.

From the plate on the floor you know you found Marad. Unfortunely, hardly any treasure is left here. Try find it yourself (the place is not big after all). Click here for the answer.

Once on the bridge you should hear other noisy fireballs, which are high above our heads (but Garrett is not capable of looking vertically up). Cross the Y Bridge but take the side branch on the right. It takes you into the Spiral Hall. Follow the spiral for a full circle to rise up to Level 3 (3B4-S). Take the ramp (which is on top of the Y Bridge) going North to Level 4 (4B4-N).

At the top are four poles emitting fireballs towards the left (counterclockwise). Walk towards the pole in front of you (on the left side of the Torch), and stand on its right side (the side it is not firing towards). Now move between the pole and the vault wall. Walk along the wall, keeping the fireballs on your left and vault wall on your right. You find an opening on the wall. Follow the hallway till you meet the torch in front of a hallway. Sightly ahead is a statue: this is the statue and hallway opening you saw on your way to get the Mystic’s Heart. Turn right (North) into the hallway to the dead end. There is a big hole on your right. Into the Burricks terrain.

Since the Horn is soothing the Burricks, they are peaceful now. Do not try to Blackjack them because his noise will anger his friends. Just wander around and remember your way.

Descending from the tunnel you arrive at the Initial Cave. There are three big (and multiply connected) caves here and this is your first one. You see three exits from this cave: a wide one on the left, a narrow one (with a Barrack) in the middle, and an empty one on the right. Go via the wide exit on the left into the Big Cave.

The Big Cave has lots of Burricks and two more exits (not including the one we come from). The rightmost one leads to the Star Cave, to which we will go later. For now, take the other exit.

Midway in the tunnel you see a Burrick. Past him is a T-junction. If you continue forward, you arrive at the Star Cave. Instead, take the side branch on the left.

It is a long walk and passes through several caves, but you never have any choice to make. At the end, you arrive at an empty area with several Burricks on your right and a doorway (finally some human structure) on your left. Look at the plate on the right side of the doorway: this is Quintus.

Do not enter yet. You should first get familiar with the way out. Rehearse several times if you wish — you do not want to get lost among half a dozen Burricks when you are leaving.

Turn around. There are three ways to leave this area: via the tunnel you came from, via the exit with two Burricks, and via the exit on the left with a single Burrick. It is not easy to leave the way we come from, because at one point on the way back it is difficult to climb quickly. The exit with two Burricks is a good choice, except that their fat body are blocking the exit. Enter the exit on the left. The single Burrick leaves you ample room to run past it when you are leaving.

Past the Burrick you arrive at a small empty cave. Leave via the only exit on your right, you arrive at the Star Cave. Not that there is any stars, but this cave has six exits arranged in sort of a star pattern. Start counting counterclockwise from where we are, the second exit goes to the twin fat Burricks. The third exit leads to a T-junction, one side going to Quintus, the other to the Big Cave (on your forward journey, you came from Big Cave to that T-junction and turned left to go to Quintus). The fourth exit goes directly to the Big Cave (go and have a look). Both the fifth and the sixth leads to the Initial Cave, but the fifth has a Burrick while the sixth doesn’t.

Therefore your escape route is like this. From Quintus, leave via the leftmost exit by running past the lone Burrick. Into the next small cave and take the first (only) exit on your right. Into Star Cave, take the first exit on your left (what we called sixth exit above). It takes you back to the Initial Cave without passing a Burrick. Back at Initial Cave, locate the up-going tunnel on your left and climb into it. Practise this. When you are done, enter Quintus.

Into the new wing. When playing Normal or Hard Difficulties, have a look at the top of the sarcophagus on your two sides. On top of the second pair are two Gemstones (0;100;0).

When you arrive at the vault, Garrett will murmur that he is not afraid of heights. Time for climbing.

From the ground, locate the ladder on your left leading to the first ring-ledge. Get off the ladder and move to the opposite side to find the next ladder going to the next ring-ledge. On the second ring-ledge, go counterclockwise from the second ladder and you find the third ladder (this one is not very visible and I often missed it) before you make half a circle. From the top of the third ladder, you need to jump to the third ring-ledge, which is not easy. Save your game before jumping because you will get badly hurt if you overshoot.

Walk around the ring-ledge to find an opening into the center. Jump at the ladder there and climb to the top. Off the ladder and Garrett will confirm that you have found the Horn. Get it.

For players at Normal Difficilty, this is the end of the mission. The others should save the game again, because getting down is just as dangerous. It is not possible to jump from the center ladder back to the ring-ledges, so you need an alternate route down. I am not describing the details here: just look around and find the ledges via which you can drop (in general, run and drop instead of run-jump) down (eventually) to the third ring-ledge. From there, you descend the ladders and get back to the ground.

Reader misterhaan added a hint for easier jumping. From the ring nearest the top, turn around and look along one of the angled edges. Jump as far as you can. The gap is short enough that you can easily make it that far, and it gives you a longer landing surface.

Leave Quintus and you know the way. Take the first left past the lone Burrick, then immediate on the right. From Star Cave, take the first left and continue till you find the tunnel on your left leaving the caves.

Go back to the 4 Pillar Hall. Cling on the left wall and move past the pillar emiting fireballs. Move down the ramp to Spiral Hall.

There are several places on the West we have not visited. Descend halfway down the Spiral Hall and jump into the I Hall across the gap. On the other end, cross the central bridge of E Hall. Now you are in the middle of the arc-ledge: on your right it goes to the ladder on top of the Ramp (where the Zombie Possum is), turn left instead.

On the South end, proceed to O Hall, but all you see is just a circular ledge outside the vault. The three sarcophasus are empty for Expert and Hard Difficulties. Do not bother climbing the ladder in front of you unless you are at Normal Difficulty, in which case you should climb to the top get get a Gold Vase (100;0;0). Go right and enter the first doorway into Hammer Graves.

See the hammer shaped light pattern on the floor? Be careful. It is not the light that is dangerous (it is just the light fused through the hammer shaped ceiling), but the floor itself. Look carefully and you find a hammer-shaped area with a different tiling, roughly the same area as the light, but a little smaller. Step on it and fire rains on you.

In the room are three extensions with a sarcophagus each. On the three sarcophagi, take a total of three Purple Goblet (0;0;15). At the end of the room are two ladders going down. Choose one and climb down.

At the bottom is a Holy Water Font. Here you find one more Golden Limb on the floor, and the Golden Skull on the rim of the sarcophagus. Together with the three you have gathered (from Flooded Area, Cave Hall, and Stairs Hall) you got the whole skeleton of the Builder’s First Apprentice. Throw all the Gold Bones into the sarcophagus. In Original Thief, the bones will just disappear, but in Thief Gold you get a reassuring “ding” sound to denote that something is happening. When you are done, goodies will suddenly appear around you as a reward of your deeds. Collect 8 Water Arrows, 4 Fire Arrows, and a vial of Holy Water. Leave the Hammer Graves the way you came.

If you are playing Hard or Expert Difficulty Levels, skip this paragraph and proceed with the next section (Five Torches). Playing Normal Difficulty, the Mystic’s Soul is not part of your mission objectives. As a result, the 5 Torches Room is not accessible to you. If you leave the Hammer Graves and turn right, you will only find a door you cannot open. Therefore, go back to E Hall. At the middle of the arc-ledge, cross the central bridge and enter I Hall. Actually you do not have to go back to the surface. However, you should still follow the walkthrough to leave, or else you will miss serveral treasures. When the others are really going out, I will tell you to go back to get the Horn of Quintus. For now, skip this section (Mystic’s Soul) and continue with next section (Leaving: Going East).

Starting from here, continue reading this and the next two sections (Five Torches Again and Without Lighting Torches) before you take any action. Those two sections introduces two alternatives to that presented in this section.

From the Hammer Graves, turn right and continue counterclockwise around the O Hall. There you find another doorway (there is nothing else beyond this doorway). Inside the doorway is an outer hall and an inner room. Although the inner room is noisy with Zombies, they cannot reach you so ignore them. While original Thief players can proceed directly to inner room, Thief Gold players should enter the outer hall carefully.

A new enemy is introduced in Thief Gold. And he is guarding the inner room. Move quietly into the outer hall and into the left side-room. Proceed quietly and peek into the inner room. The Fire Shadow is a dark shadow with flames flying around his limbs. And his attacks are very deadly.

Prepare your Water Arrows to splash him. I have never been able to defeat him with a single Water Arrow, so shoot two. When is hurt, he run away like Superman (stand in his way and he is fun to look at). You find a Fire Arrow at the place where you hit him. Probably the developers do not want to punish too hard the thieves who did not remember to keep 5 Fire Arrows (you already get 4 Fire Arrows from the Builder’s First Apprentice and do not yet have any chance to lose them).

Thief and Thief Gold players both continue at the inner room. Thief Gold players should act quickly here. The Fire Shadow is immortal, soon he will come back. If you want to, you can wait for him to get more Fire Arrows (if you have that many Water Arrows). By the way, he does not really run away and run back. If you “watch” carefully, he disappears soon after he is out of your sight. And he reappears inside the outer room. It seems that if I stand near the place he reappears, he will never come back (or put it this way, he takes a longer time than my patience run out). As soon as I turn around, he will appear behind me. In Thief, things do not appear before your eyes — you always need to look away before they can apparat.

Odyseeos pointed out that instead of using Water Arrows (which are in short supply), you can lead the Fire Shadow to the Fireball room. After a number of hits, he will drop a Fire Arrow and run away. So you grab the Fire Arrow and come back here to repeat the action indefinitely. Odyseeos succeeded in collecting 15 Fire Arrows!

Stand in the center of the inner room. In front of you are some metal mechanism on the floor, but you cannot use it. Around you are five metal doors. Five Zombies are waiting inside, making horrible noises. Above the five rooms are five torches. After saving your game, light up the five torches with five Fire Arrows.

In Original Thief there are two very unforgiving mistakes you can made (documented in the file thiefpat.txt installed with the v1.33 patch). The first of them is here in this mission. If you did not keep five Fire Arrows, you cannot proceed from here. Actually, you just got four from the Builder’s First Apprentice and therefore this is not asking you much. In Thief Gold, they are more lenient and you can get additional Fire Arrows from the Fire Shadow. By the way, the second unforgiving mistake is in mission 9 (The Lost City).

Five doors open, and five Zombies crowd upon you. The mechanism on the floor opens, so drop quickly into the now opened hole. It is not easy to squeeze into the hole and that is why I told you to save your game first. BTW if you ever come back to clean up the Zombies, you will find that their five cubicles are empty, with only a switch to open the metal door in case you are trapped inside.

Odyseeos pointed out that instead of running away from the Zombies, you can lead them to the Fireball room to put them to rest. You can usually attract two or three Zombies to follow you there in one go.

Reader Michele L. Worley taught me another way to handle the Fire Shadow (for Thief Gold) and the five Zombies. You will also get several Water Arrows using this method. Enter the outer hall as above, and hide at the shadows just outside the inner room. Look at the pillars of the inner room. The lower part is wood, while the ring on top of them is metal. Shoot a Rope Arrow at the top of the wooden pillar.

When the Fire Shadow is away in the outer hall, climb up the rope and mantle to the ring. Up on the ring, there is a skeleton (how did he get up here?) and two Water Arrows (three for Hard Difficulty). Note these arrows are not available in Original Thief.

From the ring, save game and shoot Fire Arrows to light up the torches. The Fire Shadow may or may not see you, but he cannot do anything from below. Then you can kill all the Zombies. Unfortunately, the Zombies here do not like to crowd together (because you are not down there to attract them), so you probably need to kill them with Fire Arrows (you have plenty afterall). Or just leave the Zombies alone.

When you are ready, shoot two Water Arrows at the Fire Shadow (is that what those Water Arrows on the ring are for?) to send him away. Crouch and drop down from the ring (and receive a little damage). Rush into the hole if the Zombies are still at wild. If you have burnt down all five Zombies, then you can leisurely visit their cubicles before going down the hole.

Reader P666 told me an annovative way to try getting in. Unfortunately, the method doesn’t work. However, the approach deserves mentioning here.

In the middle of the outer hall, look up between the two inner yellow pillars. You see a hole at the ceiling, with a ladder above the hole. In fact, after you got the Mystic’s Soul, you climb down the ladder and drop back here. So why don’t we get inside via the ladder?

The problem is, no climbable object is nearby, and no soft surface to target your Rope Arrows. Actually, the only climbable object is very far away. In Thief Gold, I won’t even consider it as a possibility: with the Fire Shadow roaming around, you can never have the leisure to mantle on anything and jump at the ladder. In Original Thief, it is a sensible move. Go back to the top of the great ramp (leading down to level 1). Have you settled the Zombie Possum there? If no, wake him up and lead him to the entrance of the Fireball room. Otherwise, he will be blocking your path on your way back.

Go past the Fireball room to the Y-bridge (2B4, level 2 of Y Hall). Go straight forward (East, instead of turning right) and you arrive at the X Hall. Continue East up the ramp to level 3. Turn right to go a quarter of the full circle (the whole level is a circular ledge) and turn left to leave. Starting from here, it is the path (no forks until nearly the end) to leave the Bone Hoard (described in detailed in the Getting Out section). The journey is safe, because there aren’t very many AIs above level 1, most of which are waiting inside the inner room with Five Torches.

Before you arrive at the actual exit, you find two barrels. Get the one next to the statue on your right (stay alive! don’t fall off the ledges). Push it all the way back (P666 assured me that it is not at all easy, and takes many minutes to completed). When you get back to the X Hall (with the circular ledge), do not try to push the barrel down the steep ramp back to level 2 the way you came. It won’t work (save game and give it a try). Instead, push the barrel along the circular ledge clockwise to the West side. Save game and push the barrel out of the window. It will drop on the Y Bridge below.

Then you need to push it all the way back. When you arrive at the Fireball Room doorway, save your game. When the barrel is hit by the fireballs, it bounces in strange ways. You need to time it well: you have about just enough time to push the barrel so that the fireball will hit it on the right (when viewed from inside the room). The explosion will then push it forward past the doorway. If you are unlucky, the explosion topples the barrel and it will lie on it side. In that case, keep pushing it back to the entrance and let it be hit a few more times. Once I got it thrown down the ramp, but it manage to stand on its top (not bottom!). Of course, you need to stay alive and therefore avoid being hit by the fireballs yourself.

Past that, you can push the barrel all the way to the outer hall peacefully. Unfortunately, even if you successfully jumped on the well placed barrel (this is very difficult in itself), you can never grab the ladder from the top of the barrel. The ceiling looks within reach, but I have jumped enough times to give up.

Although this method doesn’t works, I decided to include this because the process itself is interesting. Remember: this game is about making good uses of the givens to tackle your problems.

Either way, down in the hole. Or did you? First I assured you that Garrett is getting fat and have quite some problem in passing through narrow places. Moreover, if you are curious, you may have tried to play with the four floor plates coving the hole. Unfortunately, if you “use” them, they will close. After they close, they won’t open again. The only way to open them a second time is to douse the torches and light them up again, if you have that many Fire Arrows.

Down the hole, dive to the other end. If you are playing Thief Gold at Hard Difficulty, collect two Water Arrows midway. Surface and mantle into a room full of traps.

Move forward. At the pillars, stay on the left side of the left pillars. Study the floor: in front of the stairs are many pressure plates. You are safe behind the pillars, so pick up something and throw it at the trap for fun.

Move carefully towards the banisters of the stairs. There are two ways to get to the top. First, you can climb up the banisters, where you can safely run all the way up to the top. You can also stick to the leftmost side of the stairs. Walk sideways: facing the other banister and straffing to your left. You will be triggering all the traps, but they will miss you.

Anyway you are at the top, and time for making a saved game. No more pressure plates, but do not grab the Soul yet. Have you watched Raiders of the Lost Ark? As soon as you take the gem, the plate it is sitting on will raise, and all sorts of things will fire at you. There are two ways to get it. The dramatic one is to follow Dr. Jones. Pick up a skull and place it on the pressure plate along side with the gem. Take the gem, and all is well. The other way is to stand far away: from the banister, inch forward until you can lean and highlight the gem. Take it from there, and the fireballs cannot reach you. And you can enjoy the dynamics of the trap.

Anyway, take the Mystic’s Soul (0;500;0), save your game and descend the stairs the way you climbed it. Or you can do a running jump to fly over all the traps (not easy). Go back towards the water. Do a running jump to the ladder behind it. Climb to the top.

You find an empty corridor, and at the end is another ladder going down. The Fire Shadow and the five Zombies are probably waiting for you. Climb down the ladder, turn around to face the ladder (face North), drop and run.

You should be facing the exit of the room. Leave and turn left. Run past the Hammer Graves and connect to the E Hall. The Zombies will not be able to follow you, but the Fire Shadow can, so keep running if you are playing Thief Gold. At the middle of the arc-ledge, cross the central bridge and enter I Hall.

You are safe now but just keep running to save time. Run along the narrow corridor and at the end, jump to the Spiral Hall. Turn left to descend the spiral and into the Y Hall. You will be standing on the (right) side branch of the Y-ledge (with Marad in front of you). Turn right to go East to the X Hall.

Climb the ramp going 2B5-W to 3B5-E. Turn right and run along the circular ledge to the next ramp. Up the ramp to go North up to Level 4, where you arrive at 3 Pillar Hall.

Look down: there are many skeleton below. Shoot a Rope Arrow to the ceiling and climb down. When shooting and climbing, stay on the side, keeping away from where the Face faces.

In Thief, the Face fires at you only when you grab the eyes. In Thief Gold, it fires as soon as you walk near the face, so watch out. The fireballs will hit the pillars and the explosion blows the skulls on the floor towards the Face. A nice effect to watch. Anyway grab the two Gemstones (0;100;0) from the eyeball sockets of the Face. Behind the pillar opposite the Face is a Chest containing four Rope Arrows. In case you do not have any Rope Arrows and have fallen down here, you still can climb away from here. Climb back up, retrieve the Rope Arrow if you want to (we no longer need any). Leave the room.

Descend the ramp back to Level 3. Enter the doorway there. The corridor will continue South for several meters (rising back to Level 4), and then turn right to go West in the dark (4D4). Then across the plank to the next vault (4C4) which is above the Spiral Hall and the Cave Hall. Cross the walkway into next vault (4C3) which is above the Door Room, where you make a left turn and go South in the dark.

Emerge from darkness and enter the doorway on your right (or you can walk past the torch and around the vault, arriving at the same point on the other side of the vault). Via the other side, you meet a wood barrel — if you run past the barrel, you will drop into the pool beyond (it is the Ladder-Bridge Hall)! If playing Normal Difficulty, turn right to find a statue wearing a Tiara (75;50;0) on his head.

Turn left and find a small opening on the left side of the wall opposite a Torch. Players at Hard or Expert Difficulties now crawl into it and get back to the outside, completing the mission. For players at Normal Difficulty, you do not need to leave the Bonehoard (you can go out for a look and come back). Instead, you should now proceed to get the Horn of Quintus by finding your way back to the ladder (at the top of the big ramp) and jump back to the previous section (Horn of Quintus: Climbing to the top).