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

Version 1.7 ©Alex Fung, December 2002.
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Mission 9: The Lost City

List loots at Difficulty Level for ,
and you the the Papyrus from Bram Gervaisius during loadout.

Version History

1.7(Dec 2002)
1.6(Feb 2002)
  • Cumulative loot count now changes depending on whether you buy the Gervaisius Papyrus.
  • Several fixes in grammer.
1.5(Dec 2001)
  • Now uses a new script so that the loot count now shows in three components (gold;gem;goods) for easier tracking.
  • You can select the game version (Thief Dark Project or Thief Gold) and the cumulative loot counts will adjust automatically.
  • Finally, total loot is displayed near the end of the mission.
  • Reader Chris Proctor presented a quick way to leave the Tower.
1.4(Jun 2001)
  • Reader Wesley West explains why the Keeper said but one thing before expiring… burning water.
1.3(Feb 2001)
1.2(Apr 2000)
  • Largely modified to accomodate Thief Gold.
1.1(Dec 1999)
  • Fixed descriptions of loots.
  • Fixed information on Marketplace.
  • Missions renumbered, now it is Mission 9.
1.0(Nov 1999)
  • Initial release.

Before you start

About this walkthrough

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

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 am going to describe the main route like a regular walkthrough. Then at certain points I 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.

The game differs a bit in TG vs TDP. You need to follow the hyper links to make appropriate jumps according to the version you are playing. If you correctly set the verion information in the drop boxes above, the cumulative loot and pick count will be adjusted accordingly.

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Story Background

Notice that the missions start to be strongly linked together. Though you may not be aware of it, what started in Mission 5 (Assassins) is becoming a long story.

To unseal the Haunted Cathedral, you need four Talismans. If you are playing Thief Gold, you already have the Talisman of Earth from The Mage Towers. The Keepers hid two (only one for Thief Gold) of the Talismans in the Lost City of Karath-din. Few people knows the whereabouts of the city, and even if they know, the city is sealed. So you start your journey with the Stone Key ready to act Indiana Jones, and reap loads of treasure that filled the city.

In Thief Gold, you have heard that the Mages have taken steps to protect the Talismans, because they knew somebody is coming for them with disastrous results. That is why they have come to Karath-din to guard the Fire Talisman. As to how they arrive without the Stone Key? Michele L. Worley explains:

For players of Thief Gold, even back in Mission 16 (The Mage Towers), you encountered artifacts looted from the Lost City. It means that the Mages have been sending people there and coming out. Eventually, you will learn in Thief 2 that there was another entrance to the Lost City, apart from the one we are going to use. This alternate entrance does not exist in this mission, because you are not supposed to know it is there, so don’t bother to look for it now. The Mages must have been using this entrance, since the Keeper entrance is still sealed at the time of your arrival. Apparently the Keepers either didn’t know about the other entrance, or thought that it was not usable, even though it is big enough to let tomb raiders not only get in and out, but get out with lots of artifacts. On the other hand, maybe they just didn’t realize that Mages could use that entrance, even if nobody else could (the area is flooded with lava, so probably a Fire Mage carry the other mages on his back…)

In the mission briefing, you were told that a Keeper expedition came to map the city. During the mission, you discover that they actually came to hide the Talisman(s). They divided into two parties. In Original Thief, each party hides one of the Talismans. In Thief Gold, it turns out that one of the party had pretty nothing to do except to travel afar and get killed.

Notice one special omission in the mission objectives. For the first and only time, Experts are allowed to kill humans. In Original Thief, the mission do not have any human, so there is no objective saying “do not kill anybody”. In Thief Gold, Craymen are pulled out (actually “not popping up”, you will see why when we come to them) and Mages added in, and nobody remember to add back the anti-homicide rule. As a result, you are licensed to kill. However, I still find that it is much easier to knock a mage than to kill it with arrows.

Preparations

You will meet Spiders and Burricks in the mission. Plus a new friend, the Fire Elementals. They are big balls of fire (looks more like a flying lava ball) that shoots at you if they see you (yes, they do have a front and a back although it is indistinguishable to our eyes). In Original Thief, you also meet Craymen; while in Thief Gold, you also meet Mages. Other than this, Thief Gold is very much like Original Thief, with nice touch ups in several places. But since the Craymen and Mages guards different places and have different behaviours, the parts when they appear is written separately for Original Thief and Thief Gold. Follow the link according to the game version you are running.

I seldom do a mission with less than 2 Rope Arrows, so I suggest buying one. But you may choose to save money for other things: you are likely to lose one Rope Arrow early in the game, and one near the end. However, you will collect a Rope Arrow immediately after you lose the first one, so it is viable to start the mission with a single Rope Arrow. In Thief Gold, you need three Rope Arrows in the King’s Tomb. Since you can pick up one more Rope Arrow just outside the King’s Tomb, you have enough for the mission. I bought one, and you decide whether you want to spend money here.

The single most important thing you should buy is the Papyrus from Bram Gervaisius. He and his collection of masks turn up again in Thief 2. Without the Papyrus, the three Precursor Masks (artifacts described in the Papyrus) you found during the mission will not count as treasure. With the Parayus, your maximum loot is 3205; otherwise, it is 2845. The running total computed in the walkthrough will assume that you bought the Papyrus and hence will benefit from getting the Precursor Masks.

Although expensive (500 each), you really should buy two Gas Arrows for the Burricks of the Library. You will pick up more Fire Arrows than you can use, so forget about buying them. Do not waste money on the Breath Potions: you only dive at the beginning. In case you really get drown, just restart the game. Buy all the Water Arrows, you will need a lot of them. For the remaining money, get two Flash Bombs if you want to.

Entering the Lost City

Overview

Starting from the Upper City, open the seal and make your way into the Lost City of Karath-din, now completely buried underground.

Upper City

You start in the Upper City, where the entrance to Karath-din is hidden. You have no enemies here. Just run forward and play with various buildings as you like (such as climbing up walls or jumping into the well).

Do you recognize the streets? It is the Home Turf of the City you have visited in Assassins. Look at the City map a second time. You start this mission at the Southeast corner of the City. In my map, it is right under the words “Home Turf”

When you reach the river, stop. The entrance to the Lost City is under the river. To your right is more of the Upper City. Go there for an excursion and come back here.

From the river, look West. Behind the dark gate is a small area. At first, I thought it was part of the Lost City and I could access it from the inside, but alas it isn’t. Once you enter the Lost City, you no longer have any chance to get behind the dark gate. You need to do it now.

I have found no perfect way to get the treasures inside: all the ones below have some drawbacks.

Walk up to the wooden gate. Shoot a Rope Arrow to the wooden parts of the wall on your left (the window or the roof, not the wall itself). Climb up, and jump to the top of the gate complex, then drop on the ground inside (if you drop directly down to the ground, you will get hurt). Behind the cart on the right, find two Broadhead Arrows (3 and 4 for Hard and Normal Difficulties) and a Rope Arrow (two for Hard and Normal). There are many wooden boxes, and find behind them a Gold Goblet (25;0;0) and a Gold Plate (50;0;0) in the midst of other useless things.

That is all here. And there is no easy way back. I supposed one can pile up the boxes and jump out, but I never succeeded. How to get out depends on whether you got an extra Rope Arrow.

If you have bought an extra Rope Arrow, then you now have two. And you can get out without losing any of them. Shoot one on the wooden part of the wall nearest to the gate (not at the protruded area connected to the gate). However, it is next to impossible to climb this rope, because it is too close to the wall (you may try jumping from the boxes). Shoot another Rope Arrow some two meters to the right of the first one. Climb the second rope, jump to the first one, and retrieve the second one. Then jump on the top of the gate and drop outside. If you are not hurt, save now. Shoot a Rope Arrow at the wooden part of the protruded area. It should be somewhat between the two Rope Arrows already hanging on the walls. Climb the outer rope, jump to the middle rope. Retrieve the rope inside the wall (you can barely see it, but it is retrievable). Drop on the gate and drop outside (do not fall inside!). Climb the outer rope again to retrieve the middle rope. Retrieve the outer rope and drop to the ground.

If you do not care to lose one of the (three) Rope Arrows, then while inside the gate you just shoot a Rope Arrow up near the gate and jump to the gate to drop outside. If you have not purchased any extra Rope Arrows, I do not know of any method to get out without losing a Rope Arrow (since you picked up one more, you end up with only one for the mission).

Any better method? Reader Roman suggested a very good one. Though being a little difficult, a player can get in, get the loot, and get out without losing anything else except a few minutes for that matter. Simply shoot a Rope Arrow to get into the section, get the loot as above. Take the boxes and stack them all up on the side of the wooden cart, but much closer to the mini roof. Shoot a Rope Arrow to get on top of them, grab the first Rope Arrow back (the one you used to get inside the area) when on top of the stack. Save, and with lots of reloads you can jump over to the other side and get back the arrow that you left on that side.

The Long Dive

The dive will be long, but you have breathing spaces all along. Dive into the river and let the current carry you to the end of the passage. Use the stone key on the wall to open the seal. Swim through the opening and surface. Swim forward until the end of the air bubble, dive and move forward. When the tunnel enlarges to a cave (and you can swim forward no more), rise to the air bubble at the top to regain your breath.

Save your game here, because if you miss the path ahead you will drown. Dive down vertically and then continue West (you have no other choices anyway). Then you see three pillars. Between the two pillars on the left is a hole on the sea floor. Dive into the hole and continue West. Resurface as soon as you can.

Do a quick save as soon as you resurface if you want to try out the mantling exercises below. The river will turn and go South. Quickly catch hold of the right (West) bank, to keep from being swept over the waterfall ahead. If you haven’t moved too far downstream, you should still be at the shadowy end of the bank, furthest from the waterfall. Mantle out and crouch down to avoid being noticed by the Sewer Spiders at the other end. Save your game.

If you are swept over the waterfall (or if you choose not to mantle the bank), you drop into a pool. Mantle up the rocks and you can climb back up to where the Sewer Spiders are.

If you are very good at mantling, you can try something even more challenging, suggested to me by a reader. When you resurface (in the river, before you arrive at the waterfall), turn around and swim top speed. The current is too quick for you, but this process slows you down. Turn right to face the East Bank. It is not climbable, but press hard against it to reduce your speed. Just when you reach the waterfall, there is a small slope that you can climb on. If you succeed to climb up there (I didn’t), turn around and you can see the Sewer Spiders on the West Bank. In the main route, we dropped down the waterfall and do some rock climbing to the West Bank, where we shall jump across the river to where you now are. Since you have already arrived at the East Bank, you can forget about the Sewer Spiders on the East Bank and continue (skip forward to where we jump across the river). You may also save the game and jump down the waterfall to try the main route as an excursion.

The Long Run

From the pool, climb from rock to rock until you reach the top, where the Sewer Spiders are. The Sewer Spiders are annoying. They jump on your head and there is no easy way to get rid of them. The only defense is to shoot at them with Broadhead Arrows when they are still far away. When they are close, you have two options: run away or jump into water.

Before you reach the Spider area on the top, look around first. What we need to do is to jump across the river to an opening on the left bank (now on your right because you are facing the river backwards). Climb up and run past the 3 Sewer Spiders and jump across the river.

One more Sewer Spider ahead, so keep running. Drop down the ledge and you are safe. Look carefully: you need to arrive at the last ledge, but there are Sewer Spiders just inside the opening. Drop to the ledge just above them, and shoot the Spiders with Broadhead Arrows. First a small one, then the noise will attract a Huge Spider and two more Sewer Spiders. Very often one of the three Sewer Spiders is missing and you have to run past it later. If none of them come out to investigate, then you have to proceed carefully: lean to shoot a second Sewer Spider from above, then drop down and shoot down the Huge Spider rapidly.

When they are done, drop down to the ledge with dead Spiders and enter the opening. This opening is also the end of the mission: after you have got the Talisman(s), you need to leave the city and get back here. Inside the opening, run forward and at the T-junction, turn left. Excursion: what if you turned right?

Turn right and keep on running, there is no more forks on the road. There are three Sewer Spiders on the way. Do not bother to attack them (actually you may ambush them with Broadhead Arrows). At the end, you can have a look at the Tower housing the Talisman of Fire. The first time you see the Tower, Garrett will say So this is the Lost City, it’s now lost no more. Since we shall restore the game, Garrett will say it again next time we see the Tower.

If you don’t bother to listen to him again, you need not restore game, and can do something useful from here. Look down. It is red color on red, but you can still make out a Fire Elemental on the lava lake. He is slightly on your right. There are three Fire Elementals around the Tower. Another Fire Element is farther away on your left. The third one is not visible from here. While not really necessary, you can douse the one below now, making your trip there a little bit easier. And if you aim high enough, you can douse the far left one also. However, you will notice that I actually leave them alone when I get to the Tower, so you decide what you want to do here.

A reader pointed out to me that this tunnel offers an opportunity to finish the mission in 15 minutes for Thief Gold (but with only very little loot). The idea is that it is possible to jump from the tunnel directly to the Tower. First, go backwards (you had better killed the Spiders beforehand) to get as much running distance as available. Then run and jump and keep run-jumping everytime you fall back to the ground. It is a bug in Thief, by doing this you can attain very high velocities (you can easily outrun Hammer Haunts this way). Using the high speed, you can jump from the tunnel opening to the window of the Tower. Your target is to arrive at the second window, counting from the top. There, you can follow the normal walkthrough to get the Talisman (refer to here).

With the Talisman of Fire, you can descend to the bottom of the Tower and leave via the (only) doorway. Turn left and do another run-jump to a cave across the lava lake. Follow the tunnel up and you arrive back at the Market Place. You can then leave as in the walkthrough (refer to here). Instead of leaving normally, you can also use the recently (22 Dec 2001) added method there to get back ultra fast (read about it at the Tower.

Note that this procedure does not work in Original Thief, because in TDP you also need the Talisman of Water to complete the mission.

In case you skipped the excursion above, note that it also introduces a quick way to get the Talisman and complete the mission (without getting all loots) for Thief Gold.

Go forward (running past a Sewer Spider if you have killed one less) arriving at a fire trap. When you past the trap, you know you are safe. Traps and Spiders do not co-exist. Continue down the tunnel until you are on the roof of a building. Garrett will question How can Keepers keep this place a secret. You will find out soon enough.

Refer to the map. This is the Library at the North East side of the City. BTW, not all areas on the map are accessible. The North (one big building with two small buildings before it), North West (three buildings under a giant) and the East (the building over some water) are not accessible.

Getting to the Center

Overview

You will start your journey to the Talisman(s) from the Market Place at the center of the Lost City. And most important, to get out alive (you have to get back to the waterfall to complete the mission). We will be going through the Library twice: into and out of the city.

On our forward journey, we will also visit the Resident Square on the City East. Actually there is nothing to collect in the Resident Square. If you prefer, you can go directly from Upper Residential Area to the Southern Residential Area.

Library 2/F

From the roof of the Library, turn left to find a hole (at the North East corner). Before you drop down the hole, go South to look over the edge of the roof. You can see the area beyond the Library exit: a small lava pool and the Residential Area beyond.

Drop through the hole of the roof to some solidified lava. And you immediately learn the green feature of the Lost City. Rooms turn on their light when you enter, and turn them off when you leave. The good news is, you can easily tell where the Burricks are, because they turn on/off the light in the same way. Bad news is, you can never hide in the dark (if you really want some shadow, crouch in the doorway between two doors, but the room will light up when the Burrick arrives anyway so you cannot ambush Burricks this way).

Hope you have listened carefully before dropping down from the roof. A Burrick is patroling this floor (2/F). I suggest you knock it down first before exploring the floor. It is not difficult to play hide and seek with the Burrick, but since we are coming back on the same route it is more comfortable to have the path cleared.

The rooms form a big ring: most rooms have two doorways and connect to the next room on the ring. One of the rooms has a third doorway, to the only room with treasure. The 3-doorway room is the one you are now in, but let’s deal with the Burrick first.

Check whether the Burrick is nearby. Leave via the North doorway to an empty room. Find a doorway on your left and enter a U-shaped hallway. You can see three windows on the wall in front of you, and on the other arm of the U-shape are three more windows. The windows are too small for you, so forget about it. Yet this room is the only one without automatic lighting. Stay here and wait for knocking the Burrick.

When the Burrick is down, you can also take this opportunity to ambush a Burrick below. Look down the big windows and wait for him. It is not easy to kill him by Broadhead Arrows or Fire Arrows though, so I shall hit it with Blackjack later. Now go back to the 3-doorway room. You can retrace the path back there, or as an excursion go in the opposite direction. As long as you do not go downstairs, you will always find you way back to the starting point. From the 3-doorway room (where you dropped from the roof), enter the South doorway. This is the only room not on the ring. Get two Purple Goblets (0;0;15) from the window-sill on the left (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).

Library 1/F

Back to the 3-doorway room, and leave via the West doorway this time and continue West. The second room has large window-like openings overlooking the 1/F. You can drop downstairs and sometimes get hurt. Proceed instead to the next room to find the staircase on your left.

The staircase leads to 1/F, and beyond that, leads further down to lava. On 1/F, there are three big halls on the South (West, Central and East: the smallest of them is the West Hall you are in), and two on the North (West and East). They also form a big ring, and is also patrolled by a single Burrick. Again, you can try to evade it. Or better still ambush it because it may give you troubles you when you are handling the Burricks in the Library Basement. Since no where is really dark, you have to stay near the stairs and run from behind it to Blackjack it.

The North doorway goes to the two empty North rooms (go and have a look). So leave via the door on the East to the 1/F Central Hall. The Library exit is on your right (South) but for now continue forward to the 1/F East Hall. You can see a doorway on your left, which goes to the two empty North rooms. Go all way to the South, and descend the steps between the pillars. Turn right and drop down a small ledge to arrive at the Library Basement. Save the game now.

Library Basement

Turn right to look into the Basement Central Hall. Wait till a Burrick comes out and turns around. Run up to knock it down.

Go all the way down (North) the Basement Central Hall and turn left (right hand side is just lava). Now facing West, the first hallway on the left leads to an empty room, but a Burricks is usually waiting there. The wall on your right has a big hole on it, but there is nothing outside. The second (and the last) hallway on the left is where you want to go. But you will have to leave the way you come in, and three Burricks will block your way.

Run slightly into the two hallways to attract the Burricks. When they follow you, move back to lure them tp gather in the Basement Central Hall. If you are in real danger, climb back up to 1/F. Note that their green breath penetrate walls a bit so you may have to leave the stairs and hide further into the 1/F Central Hall if they get too close. Therefore your life is easier if you have knocked down the 1/F Burrick in advance.

Hopefully you get all three Burricks into the Basement Central Hall. One side benefit of knocking the first Burrick here is that, when these three arrive, they are more likely to stay around the unconscious Burrick, making it easier to gas them. Shoot a Gas Arrow among them, putting all of them to sleep. If necessary, look for the chance for a second Gas Arrow. When they are asleep, go to that hallway.

If you were unsuccessful in attracting all three Burricks, usually the last one is waiting in the first hallway. You have to distract (for example, using Broadhead Arrows) and Blackjack it. Or you can throw a Land Mine or two on this path, and then try to lure him come out.

When you can count all four bodies, enter the second hallway (at the North West Corner of the Library Basement) and go all the way South. At the end, turn left into the small room to get the Necklace (75;100;0), Purple Goblet (0;0;15), and a Gemstone (0;50;0) from around the coffin. Read the Scroll to learn more about the City. Unfortunately I never find the parchment, perhaps it is already destroyed. Get back to 1/F.

Go West back to the 1/F Central Hall. Go South to the short ramp and read the Keeper Journal on your right about the Precursors. Walk behind the wall openings to find the Library exit. Before you leave, turn around and look upstairs. If you had jumped from 2/F via the big window openings, you would have arrived just here. Now Leave the Library.

By the way, did you notice the three lit torches burning in the brackets at the exit? Who or what lit the torches? Have other people been inside the Library in the past few hours, such as the Hand Brotherhood expedition? Or else it means something living in the Lost City is capable of lighting torches. Did I told you that you are going to make a new friend?

Residential Area

The Residential Area joins the Library and the Market Place in the center of the city. It also goes to the Resident Square on the City East.

As soon as you leave the Library, look carefully on your right to find a small Gemstone (0;50;0) on the ground. Then follow the only path to the obelisk. Note that markings on obelisks matches the drawings on your map. Up the ramp is the Upper Residential Area, where a Burrick is patroling. When it goes left, it is going into a blind alley and returns very soon. Therefore, wait till it goes South up the ramp. Enter the district and mantle up on the roof of the first house on your left.

Grab the Gold Goblet (25;0;0) beyond the window. Find a Fire Arrow on top of the wall on your right (South). Take it.

Wait for the Burrick to come back and then wait till it goes up the ramp to the South again. Drop down and follow the Burrick at a distance. Or you can choose to run up and knock him down with a Blackjack: saves you some sneaking now and on the way back. After the left turn, go East and enter the door on your right (before reaching the T-junction). Upstairs, find a Gold Plate (50;0;0). Be careful when getting the plate, because you may be seen from outside the window (the Burrick would not be back that fast, but if you linger inside the house for too long you may be seen). If the Burrick sees you, it will climb the stairs and you will have to fight it head on.

Get down stairs and follow the street to the North when the Burrick is not around. If you want to, you can hide inside the empty building at the North end of the street. Turn around and have a look, there is a street adjacent to the house that you just left. The street goes South to the Southern Residential Area, and the Burrick has gone there for a long walk (if it is still walking). Go East via an arch to the Lower Residential Area.

Lower Residential Area

As long as you do not attract the Burrick to come down here, this area is safe. Go forward and you see on your left two brownish grey building with same texture. Turn left into the narrow space between them. The left (West) building is shorter and the right (East) building is taller. Save the game, because you may have to retry the climb and make lots of noises. At the end of the narrow space is an inclined (natural) wall that works like a short ramp. Run up this ramp as far as you can. When you are at the highest, turn left to mantle up to the roof of the (shorter) left building.

Turn around to face the right (East) building across the narrow space. Jump and mantle to its roof. Turn right to face the green building across the street. Do a running jump to the roof of the green building. Drop through the hole in the ceiling to get three Fire Arrows. Drop back to the street via the big hole in the wall facing West.

Throughout the game, you will be picking up quite a number of Fire Arrows. In Thief Gold, you can try them on the Mages, though I don’t find Fire Arrows a very effective weapon on living things. In Original Thief however, you hardly need to kill anything that can be killed with Fire Arrows. So use them on any Burricks and Craymen for fun or you will end the mission with lots of them unused.

Continue to go East till the big lava pool. There is a building on your left (North). See the slope next to (West of) the building? Run West up the slope, turn right and mantle on the building. Save your game, enter and go downstairs carefully. Beyond the lava at the bottom of the stairs are three Fire Arrows. Crouch and walk carefully as far as you dare and lean forward to get them. Go back upstairs.

Note: the following path goes to the Market Place via the Resident Square. Since there is nothing to collect in the Resident Square, you can use an alternative route (from Upper Residential Area directly to the Southern Residential Area). In order to show you more places, we use this longer path in the forward journey and use the direct path on our return journey.

Stand on the broken brick railing (don’t overshoot and fall into the lava pool) to climb up to the roof. Drop to the roof of the second building, and mantle up the third. Do a running jump to the last roof and run/drop to solid ground. Follow the tunnel up to the city walls of the Resident Square.

Resident Square

Save your game. Peek down. You see the big obelisk of Resident Square, and also two Fire Elementals patrolling the area. You are at the North East corner, and you can barely see the great gate on the East. The Fire Elementals enter the East Gate periodically, but the area inside is flooded with lava and we can never get inside for a look. Opposite on the West is the Southern Residential Area, with three Burricks (four if the one from the Upper Residential Area is still wandering around). The South side has a doorway, but the area beyond is small and empty. Look down: if you just jump down, you fall into lava. To get down there, you will have to climb the city wall and go to the extreme right (West) where you can drop down safely.

Are you still alive? After taking all the time to look around, the Fire Elementals below may have shot you down. Also, one of them may take a long trip through the Residental Area and give you a surprise attack from behind (I was once killed before I can figure out where it is)!

It is easy to handle the Fire Elementals (just a Water Arrow will do, if you do not miss) but the Burricks are troublesome. When both Fire Elementals are near the West doorway, shoot a Broadhead Arrow into the West doorway. Be sure to hit a wall, so that it make noises. A Fire Arrow will be even more effective, and you have lots of them to throw away. It will wake up the Burricks, and also leads the Fire Elementals to go in for an investigation. One of them is going to get killed. In the past, I thought that Burricks are incapable of killing Fire Elementals. However, a reader told me that he has witnessed the opposite. For some reason, the File Elementals stopped attacking, and the Burricks counterattacked with their green gases, which put out the fire!

Don’t just enjoy watching the battle. When both Fire Elementals are occupied with the Burricks, drop from the Westmost side of the wall down to the Resident Square. Run towards to South doorway. Go up a ramp with some lava on your left and look. If you continue to go forward, you enter an empty hall. Turn right. There is a broken ramp going slight up: ignore it (it goes directly to the Southern Residental Area, right through the battlefield). On the left side of the broken ramp is a natural path going down. Follow it, and turn right at the tiny lava pool at the corner. Up the stairs to 2/F, saving the game while you are still on the stairs.

From the 2/F, peek out of the window. If the sound has subdued, it probably means the Burricks are all cooked. Follow from room to room towards the West and then right turn towards the North until you arrive at the balcony (no more roof above your head). Turn right and have a look at the street. All the rooms in the Southern Residential Area are empty except the one opposite (the low building with a hole in the ceiling).

The bad thing about asking the Fire Elementals to take care of the Burricks is that they may now start to patrol the Southern Residential Area as well. When it is safe, drop down to the street and rush into that building. It will not hurt, but if you want to be safe, climb on the roof of the building on your left (North). There, you either jump to the roof across the street (next to the building we are heading to) or continue North until you reach a ledge that facing the street going East, where you can drop down easily. Enter the building you saw. Next to the skeleton is a Tiara (50;50;0). As an excursion, you can now visit the empty houses in this region (or do it on our way back). Watch out for the roaming Fire Elementals though.

Leave the building, turn around and climb on its roof (since the street is not level, it is easier to climb from where the ground is highest). Turn left to climb to the roof of the building to your North. Turn left again, and do a running jump to the roof of the building across the street (the one just to the North of the balcony). Turn left to drop down on the balcony. Turn right to enter a tunnel. Turn left and follow all the way till you have an opening on your left (South). The center of the city is just a few meters from you.

Market Place

Entering

Turning left into the side tunnel may not be the easiest method: you need to do big jumps but you can visit places and get a good snipper position on the Fire Elementals. If you go forward, the end of the tunnel is just two meters ahead. You emerge from the broken wall in front of you to the Northern part of Market Place. Let me call it wall#1: this is one of the three ways to enter the Market Place. However, you can see Fire Elementals flying above lava outside wall#1 so you had better be careful even when you are in the tunnel.

After turning left, you arrive at a small lava pool. On your right is a broken wall: wall#2. The middle part of Market Place is just outside, but we are after something else.

Turn left. Do a running jump across the lava to the tunnel beyond. Follow the tunnel uphill and arrive at the top of a building. Move to the shadows on the right. Below you is a lava lake, and then walls. Behind the walls is the Market Place. Three Fire Elementals are here, but usually only two patrols past the area you can see. Use Water Arrows on them. If you had entered Market Place via the other two means, it would have been less easy to snipper at them.

Now the frightening part: do a running jump and mantle up the wall. If you overshoot, you will fall outside, and sometimes it may hurt. Drop down to the Market Place. If you have only shot down two Fire Elementals, watch out for the third.

There is a great rock pillar on your right, blocking most of your view. In front of you is the West wall also has a big hole on it. Before entering the hole, we visit other things first.

South region

On the South East corner of the Market Place (on your left) is an extinguished campfire where you find and read a Keeper Journal (Original Thief) of the Keeper Expidition. So you know that they are heading towards a tower. Note that in Thief Gold, the content of the Keeper Journal (Thief Gold) has been updated to remove the reference to Water Talisman. Incidentally, it makes more sense after deleting the to drink… the Talismans. Anyway, forget about heating, dehydrating, drinking, and any implications to the danger of carrying the Talismans. By the way a bug makes the second page invisible, and therefore you cannot see the last line of the message. Seems that the problem was found in TDP, and therefore an extra sentence is added to the first page of Thief Gold, which looks more or less the same as the missing sentence of the second page.

Look further South (beyond the city walls): that is the Civic Center and you can see its obelisk from here. For now, walk back towards the hole on West wall. You find on its North a two-storey building, somewhat broken. Enter it via the door on its East (facing an obelisk). You can climb to the upper storey but it is empty. Find a Papyrus to read about a Colosseum (it spells Colosseum most of the time in this mission, but a few scrolls spell Coliseum: Coliseum is the modern word, coloseum is an older word and means specifically arena and amphitheatre) bigger than a village — wait till you arrive there to see how big it is! More important, it tells you that they extend the bridge from below the royal balcony to the Colosseum. Keep this in your head when you get there.

Leave the house: you can see wall#2 right in front of you (behind the obelisk). Go peek inside. On the North West of the obelisk is a narrow passage between the rocks. It leads to wall#1. Go there, and watch out for the third Fire Elemental if you have not yet doused it.

North region

Once you passed the the narrow opening between the rocks, you see some buildings beyond a pair of metal gates ahead to your left (North). I used to called the region behind the gates the Market Place, but now I believe Market Place is the name for the whole area here (everything within city walls, from here to the Keeper campsite).

The area between the buildings and the gates is flooded with lava, and is patrolled by Fire Elemental(s) if you have not yet killed all three. I do not have any success shooting the Fire Elemental through the gate, so ignore them for now. It is not easy to climb inside. At first I even thought that it was not accessible, until I ended the mission short of loots and began to suspect this area. The gates are broken and we cannot enter the area through them. Study the ground: there is a hump on the right side of the gate. Step back and run towards the hump in a direction perpendicular to the broken wall. Do a jump/mantle to the top of the wall (jump before you are too close to the wall). Save your game and shoot down any Fire Elementals inside.

Walk to the right end of the wall (if you are at the broken part, you cannot jump well). From the wall, do a running jump to the ground beyond the lava (not the small piece of land at the foot of the wall). Look for a big Moss Crystal on your front right, giving you ten Moss Arrows near the buildings ahead. In Original Thief, you find another Moss Crystal beneath the big crystal, but in Thief Gold, both are visible to you at the same time.

Explore the buildings. From the first one on the right, get a quiver of 10 Broadhead Arrows. And if playing Normal Difficulty, you have two more Broadhead Arrows on the ground. The second one gives you a Necklace (50;100;0). The last one offers a Fire Arrow (if you were playing Hard/Normal Difficulties, you would get two/three Fire Arrows instead). Do a quick save, for it is the tough part. From the ground in front of the last building, do a running jump back to the wall. If you overshoot, you drop into lava! From the wall, do a running jump back to the ground.

Leaving

Go back to the South side (near the Keeper campsite) and enter the hole on West wall. Enter and turn left. Excursion: what if you have turned right instead?

Turn right and follow the lava river. At the end, you arrive at a tunnel openning near the ground (or lava lake) level where you can have a look at the Tower housing the Talisman of Fire from the East. Again Garrett will say So this is the Lost City, it’s now lost no more. Again you cannot access the Tower from here.

Go along the gray ramp on the left through a confusing slope until you cannot go South and have a choice of left (down) and right (up). To the right the ramp will go up to a passage (with green walls) and this is the way to the Tower housing the Talisman of Fire. However, we first go to the King’s Tomb. So turn left down (towards the East) the gray ramp.

At the bottom of the ramp, continue forward until you are at the doorways. The Market Place is on your left, and we have seen everything on its Southern half. The road forward goes to a dead end. Turn right into the Civic Center

King’s Tomb

Overview

In Original Thief, the Talisman of Water is hidden in the South East, inside King’s Tomb. In Thief Gold, the King’s Tomb has only normal treasures. Yet since the Lever for operating the Arena drawbridge is also kept there, you should visit the King’s Tomb first no matter which version of Thief you are playing. You will also find half of the Keeper Expedition, and quite some treasure.

The path there is behind the Civic Centre on the South of the Market Place. There are two ways to get there: many walkthroughs first loot the Civic Center and then go to the King’s Tomb. We shall do it in reverse order, and you will find out the difference when we come back.

Journey to the King’s Tomb

The first courtyard has a obelisk at its center. Behind it is a doorway to the Civic Center Courtyard with two patrolling Fire Elementals. Usually, walkthrough goes to the King’s Tomb from the Theatre inside the Civic Center Courtyard. We are going to do something different.

At the obelisk, turn left: there is an opening to a lava pool. Enter and walk to the left to mantle up. There is no enemy all the way so run up until the end of the tunnel.

Look down. A tunnel goes forward, and there is another tunnel opening below you, to your right. That tunnel opening goes back to the Theatre. We shall take that on return trip (because we cannot climb back up to the tunnel we came from).

Drop down and follow the tunnel running forward. You arrive at another obelisk with lots of small houses. Follow the street to the last one that does not touch lava. Mantle to its roof (climb on the slope next to it if necessary). Jump from roof to roof (saving your game as necessary). Some roofs need running jump, and some just need running (without jump), depending on the distance and relative height of the roofs.

Since the walkthrough for Tomb is quite different between Original Thief and Thief Gold, I write them separately below. For Original Thief, proceed to the next section. For Thief Gold, please skip to Keeper Expedition (Thief Gold).

Keeper Expedition (Original Thief)

After you jumped/dropped from a series of roof at the same height to the a lower roof, look right. There is a big obelisk lying in the lava. Note a shiny dot in front of its tip.

Since the whole area (including the tomb itself) is void of AIs, you can relax here. At your landing place, you find the campsite of the Keeper’s expedition. It is the Shanti party — they splitted from the other party to explore the South and find a place to hide the Water Talisman. Near the skeleton, collect the Purse (50;20;0) and the Medallion. This is the first of the two Keeper Medallions you needed for your mission. Read the Scroll about treasures and traps in the tomb. Read also Keeper Journal about the expedition being attacked by Fire Elementals. The log book in Thief Gold is a bit different from this version. Probably the development team could not figure out how Hodge can be “relentlessly” burned, and changed the adverb in Thief Gold. Although the log book has two pages, but a bug in the Dark Engine (in both versions) hides the second page. On the hidden page, Hodge clawed “the alien abysmal ground”, and the word “alien” was removed in Thief Gold. I didn’t understand what “buring water” means until reader Wesley West explains it to me. It is from the movie Dragonslayer. In the movie Dragonslayer is a character also named Hodge, the servant of a wizard. When the wizard is killed, his naive apprentice agrees to go on the journey to kill the dragon. Hodge goes along. Hodge is killed on the journey and tries to tell the apprentice about throwing the wizards ashes into the lake of fire in the dragon’s lair. Hodge yells, “burning water” as he dies.

Why aren’t any Fire Elementals nearby? In fact, you haven’t met many of them in the city. Have the Keepers killed all of them? You will find out why when we located the second Keeper party.

We are now in the South East corner of the map. Before you enter the cave opening, climb the obelisk on your right (East, lying in the lava). Walk carefully to the end to locate the gem. You cannot grab it from up here, so save the game and jump to the wall. Press yourself against the wall so you do not fall into the lava. Collect the Silver Nugget (50;0;0). We cannot jump back to the obelisk. Instead, walk along the edge of the pool (counter-clockwise, towards your left if you are facing the wall with the back towards the lava) while pressing yourself against the wall on your right.

King’s Tomb (Original Thief)

Back on safe grounds, turn right to see the tomb entrance. This tomb largely resembles the tombs of Pharaohs. Except for the opening, which is unreasonable: it is built as if the tomb is openned for visitors. Go down to the lowered platform with two great braziers. Descend the first set of steep stairs, and then run down the second flight of stairs. You arrive at a doorway whose the (steel colored) pillar on the right is dislocated. Slow down and look.

A few meters ahead is a well shaft. Many Egyptian tombs are like this: with a big vertical shaft for the unwary to fall through. The KV57: tomb of Horemheb, last pharaoh of Dynasty 18 is exactly like this: two suites of steep stairways/corridors leading to a well shaft. After you have visited the whole tomb, compare with KV57 and you’ll find they look pretty the same. It is safe to do a running jump across to the room with a brazier burning. You can alternatively shoot a Rope Arrow up to the beam and jump across in two steps. Disappointedly there is nothing down the shaft except lava.

The room beyond the well shaft has four pillars around the brazier. The next room ahead has a sarcophagus and nothing else. Is this the end? Why have we taken so much trouble to come here? Like some tombs, there are false burial chambers to distract the tomb raiders. Go back to the four-pillar room and check. At the South East corner is a hole with a ladder going down.

Down there, run forward and down the stairs. And a trap is immediately ahead, just beyond the rusty colored protrusions on the walls. I prefer to keep on running. The ceiling will drop but will miss you: you will hear the noise but will not know what happened. Or you can crawl pass the area, giving you the chance to see the trap clearly.

Burial Chamber (Original Thief)

Finally you arrive at a room with six pillars arranged in three pairs. The three pairs of pillars (and you also) are on a platform a few steps higher than the sarcophagus ahead. On the platform there are four doorways. The two rear (North, near the ceiling trap) doorways lead to empty rooms. The front right doorway is only an empty niche. So enter the front left doorway and get the Lever on the pedestal. The Lever operates the draw bridge from the Palace to the Colosseum.

Back to the six-pillar room. Go ahead down the steps to the sarcophagus. Look up: the ceiling is filled with (drawn) stars. It is typical of Egyptian burial chambers as well. Get from the niche on the left (East) a Canopic Jar (0;0;100). Now this is really Egyptian. When preparing a mummy, the internal orgrans are removed and preserved separately in four Canopic Jars. Somebody must have stolen the other three, because I have never heard of a lone Canopic Jar. The doorway next to the niche leads to an empty room. Usually that room is the treasury, but it is empty now. The sarcophagus itself is also empty.

Enter the doorway on the West to a room with a Large Jar (0;0;20), a Small Jar (0;0;20), and a Tapestry (0;0;150). The Large Jar looks like a vase, it is tall and has a golden top. The Small Jar is a spherical cup with a pentagonal golden top. Tapestry is wrapped like a bamboo shoot, and is green too! By the way, I made up the names of the Jars (large, small and later pointed) because it sounds better than the original names (Jar1, Jar2, and Jar3 respectively).

Enter the hole on the South wall behind the sarcophagus. Swim forward and dive to the end to collect the Talisman of Water. Dive back. Save your game and retrace your path to leave the tomb.

If you are interested in Egyptian tombs and mummies, go to my page on an Egyptian vacation. I included a lot of Egyptian information in my Trip to the Mediterraneans.

Leaving (Original Thief)

Leave the tomb the way you come in (remember to jump over the well shaft). When you are climbing the long flight of steps back to the surface, you should have heard the noises outside. There are three Craymen waiting for you.

They (and all the Craymen you will see in the rest of the game) are brought to existence by your collecting the Talisman of Water. Well it is not part of the story, but that is how the game behaved. If you let the Talisman of Water stay, you can roam the rest of the places peacefully, but it hardly worth the trouble of coming here a second time to pick it up.

The Craymen are not much faster than Zombies, so take a breath and run past them. The Craymen slowed my PC to a crawl (I think it may be because of my SB!Live), but fortunately everything is slowed down and Garrett still outran them easily. Since they cannot jump across the lava, once you made your first jump to the roofs you are safe. Now skip over the Thief Gold walkthrough of the tomb and proceed to Return to Civic Center.

Keeper Expedition (Thief Gold)

After some roof jumping, you can see a roof fused with a column of solidified lava right in front of you (ie you will be jumping to this roof). That one is the last “high” roof, because the next roof beyond it is must lower (closer to lava surface). And beyond the low roof is a ledge connected to dry land. Look left before you jump to the last high roof. There is a row of buildings nearly completely swallowed by the solidified lava, leaving only a thin edge visible to you. On the top of the thin edge is a Water Arrow waiting for you. It is not very visible. Turn left to face the edge of the swallowed building, the crystal is near the right hand corner. After you have got it, turn right and continue forward. If you have played Original Thief before and don’t want me to spoil your fun, do not read on until you arrive at the Keeper campsite.

The first time I dropped to the low roof, my heart nearly popped out of my mouth. A Fire Mage is ahead. You see, er, there was no AIs here in Original Thief so I just jump around merrily, and nearly bumped into him. Before jumping to the last ledge, look right. There is a big obelisk lying in the lava. Note a shiny dot in front of its tip.

Wait till the Fire Mage turns around and jump to the last ledge. In front of the last ledge are several big stones. It is dark enough to hide on the left side of these stones. When the Fire Mage shows his back to you, walk up to him and knock him down. Throw him into lava, so his body could not be discovered (Fire Mage can be drown inside lava even if you are not allowed to kill him).

At your landing place, you find the campsite of the Keeper’s expedition. It is the Shanti party — they splitted from the other party to explore the South. Near the skeleton, collect the Purse (50;20;0) and the Medallion. This is the first of the two Keeper Medallions you needed for your mission. Read the Scroll about treasures and traps in the tomb. Read also Keeper Journal about the expedition being attacked by Fire Elementals. The log book in Thief Gold has received some amendments. In Original Thief, Hodge was “relentlessly” burned, and I suppose the development team later cannot figure out how one can be relentlessly burned and uplifted the adverb. In both versions, the log book has two pages, but a bug in the both versions of the Dark Engine hides the second page. On the second page, Hodge of Original Thief clawed “the alien abysmal ground” from which the word “alien” was now removed. I didn’t understand waht “buring water” means until reader Wesley West explains it to me. It is from the movie Dragonslayer. In the movie Dragonslayer is a character also named Hodge, the servant of a wizard. When the wizard is killed, his naive apprentice agrees to go on the journey to kill the dragon. Hodge goes along. Hodge is killed on the journey and tries to tell the apprentice about throwing the wizards ashes into the lake of fire in the dragon’s lair. Hodge yells, “burning water” as he dies.

Why aren’t any Fire Elementals nearby? In fact, you haven’t met many of them in the city. Have the Keepers killed all of them? You will find out why when we located the second Keeper party.

Collect a Fire Arrow and a Rope Arrow (standing upright) at the campsite. Before you enter the cave opening, climb the obelisk on your right (East, lying in the lava). Walk carefully to the end to locate the gem. You cannot grab it from up here, so save the game and jump to the wall. Press yourself against the wall so you do not fall into the lava. Collect the Silver Nugget (50;0;0) and the Gas Arrow next to it. We cannot jump back to the obelisk. Instead, walk along the edge of the pool (counter-clockwise, towards your left if you are facing the wall with the back towards the lava) while pressing yourself against the wall on your right.

Entering King’s Tomb (Thief Gold)

Move quietly to the next area (on the South) where you can see the tomb entrance. See the Air Mage and Earth Mage on the far left side facing each other? Do not send them Gas Arrows, because the Air Mage is immune to these things. Get close and listen to their talk. Crawl slowly along the South edge (along wall of the tomb and of the cave) until you crouch in front of them, facing West (do not move too close, stay a meter away). Then the easy part remains: stand up and knock both in quick succssion. If you pause a split second between the two knocks, then sometimes you can hear one of them (the conscious one) start talking (such as “may wisdom guide you, fallen one”). Take the bodies away (such as into the lava).

After they are down, move quietly to the tomb entrance. This tomb largely resembles the tombs of Pharaohs. Except for the opening, which is unreasonable: it is built as if the tomb is openned for visitors. Descend the steps to a platform with two braziers. From the one on the right, grab a Fire Arrow (don’t bother to douse them).

A Water Mage patrols the entrance, but he is currently staying far down below. Save your game and take the stairs down quietly. Douse the first torch, and continue down. After the first flight of stairs, you will notice a ledge on the left side of the second flight of stairs. When you get near the second flight of stairs, you have triggered the Water Mage to start walking up. Move over to the ledge quickly and douse the remaining torch down the stairs. Prepare your Blackjack. When the Water Mage walk past you, knock him down. If you let him go, he will walk up to the tomb exit and stay there. He will not come back until you walk up the stairs to another trigger point. So you need to climb the steps till near the exit to trigger him and then rush back to the ledge to knock him (the stairs are too narrow to evade him any where else).

King’s Tomb (Thief Gold)

Down the second flight of stairs and you arrive at a doorway whose the pillar on the right is dislocated. A few meters ahead is a well shaft. Many Egyptian tombs are like this: with a big vertical shaft for the unwary to fall through. The KV57: tomb of Horemheb, last pharaoh of Dynasty 18 is exactly like this: two suites of steep stairways/corridors leading to a well shaft. After you have visited the whole tomb, compare with KV57 and you’ll find they look pretty the same. In Original Thief, it used to be safe to do a running jump across to the room with a brazier burning. In Thief Gold, the well shaft is far too wide to jump. Save game, shoot three Rope Arrows to the three beams and jump from rope to rope. Leave the Rope Arrows here, we need them on our way back.

The next room has four pillars. The room ahead has a sarcophagus and nothing else. Smoke emits when you open the sarcophagus, but it does no harm to you.

Is this the end? Why have we taken so much trouble to come here? Like some tombs, there are false burial chambers to distract the tomb raiders. Go back to the four-pillar room and check. At the South East corner is a hole with a ladder going down.

Down there, run forward and down the stairs. And a trap is immediately ahead, just beyond the rusty colored protrusions on the walls. While you can avoid the trap by running (the ceiling will drop but will miss you: you will hear the noise but will not know what happened), you had better crawl pass the area. Therefore, when you get near the rusty colored protrusions (and see the skeleton on the floor), slow down and crouch. Besides giving you the chance to see the trap clearly, you will avoid arousing the Mages ahead. When you are crawling past the trap, collect two Water Arrows beneath the dead Fire Mage and another Water Arrow at the far right corner.

Burial Chamber (Thief Gold)

Finally you arrive at a room with six pillars arranged in three pairs. Your first task is to settle the patrolling Fire Mage. Move forward and stay in the shadow between the farthest (Southmost) pair of pillars. A Fire Mage is patroling in front of you. When he passes by, knock him down and leave him in the shadow between the pillars.

You (and the Fire Mage and the six pillars) are on a platform a few steps higher than the sarcophagus ahead. On the platform there are four doorways. The two rear (North, near the ceiling trap) doorways lead to empty rooms (you may hide the Fire Mage here if you want to). The front right doorway is only an empty niche. So only one doorway is left. It holds the Lever that operates the draw bridge from the Palace to the Colosseum.

Before going for the Lever, look at the braziers on either side of the steps (they are on your South East and South West). Each has a Fire Arrow among its flames. Grab both Fire Arrows and douse both braziers. Do all this on the platform without descending the steps.

Crawl into the doorway on South East. Do not move too far, because there are more braziers in the room and the shadow ends earlier than you think. Wait for the Air Mage to walk past you to knock him down. Take the Lever on the pedestal and back to the platform with six pillars.

Go ahead down the steps to the sarcophagus. Look up: the ceiling is filled with (drawn) stars. It is typical of Egyptian burial chambers as well. Get from the niche on the left (East) a Canopic Jar (0;0;100). Now this is really Egyptian. When preparing a mummy, the internal orgrans are removed and preserved separately in four Canopic Jars. Somebody must have stolen the other three, because I have never heard of a lone Canopic Jar.

The doorway next to the niche leads to an empty room. Usually that room is the treasury, but it is empty now. The sarcophagus itself is empty. Again, harmless smoke emits when you open the sarcophagus. If you have played Original Thief, you will notice that the hole on the wall is no longer here.

Crawl into the doorway on the West of the sarcophagus. In the room are a Large Jar (0;0;20), a Small Jar (0;0;20), and a Tapestry (0;0;150). The Large Jar looks like a vase, it is tall and has a golden top. The Small Jar is a spherical cup with a pentagonal golden top. Tapestry is wrapped like a bamboo shoot, and is green too! By the way, I made up the names of the Jars (large, small and later pointed) because it sounds better than the original names (Jar1, Jar2, and Jar3 respectively).

In the same room you also find two mages: a Fire Mage and an Air Mage. Again, you cannot gas them. Either just grab everything, or knock both down before looting. Retrace your path to leave the tomb. Now the two versions of walkthrough converge.

If you are interested in Egyptian tombs and mummies, go to my page on an Egyptian vacation. I included a lot of Egyptian information in my Trip to the Mediterraneans.

Return to Civic Center

Save your game, do the roof jumping and find your way back to to the tunnel from where you dropped down on the forward trip. Since we cannot climb back up there, we have to enter the tunnel opening on our left. Notice the change in the ground texture. You are now on the ceiling of the Civic Center. Pass the hole above the Civic Center Courtyard, and continue all the way South to the apparent end of the tunnel. Drop from the ceiling to some natural rocks, turn right to continue on a narrow tunnel down. On your right is a broken wall opening into 2/F of the Civic Center.

You are inside the Civic Center now. Run along the corridor to find a corridor on your left running North South. This is the Theatre Corridor behind the rear-most seats of the Theatre. The Theatre Corridor is a hub connecting many things and we will come back to again. Listen. In Original Thief, three new friends have arrived in the Civic Center. When you arrive here, you wake them up, and the Fire Elementals start to attack them. That is why it is better to leave the Fire Elementals here: if we had watered them, then we would have had to evade the Craymen now (which is in fact not really difficult, but why bother?). And we can snipper at the Fire Elementals easier from the inside.

Ignore the Theatre Corridor and continue running forward (to the East). Slow down when you are entering the first room. This is the South part of the East Wing. Remember rooms have auto lighting, so you know in advance whether somebody is ahead.

There is a doorway in front (East) and a walkway on your left (North). Enter the doorway first, to a room with a Scroll telling you that Va-Toran closed the Colosseum for a year and a day. Save your game, leave that room and go to the walkway on the North. Look to your left: you can see the Southern part of the Civic Center Courtyard from the window. If the Craymen noises (Original Thief only) have died down, the Fire Elementals have probably completed their job. Snipper at the Fire Elementals from the window. If you can shoot down one of them from here, the remaining one will be much easier to handle down there.

Continue North and take two right turns to find the exit of the building. When the Fire Elementals are not watching, rush out and hide in the dark corner on the left. Take stock of the situation and shoot down all remaining Fire Elementals. Now we can explore the buildings in peace.

North East doorway

You just entered the Civic Center Courtyard from a doorway on the East side. There are two doorways on the East, the one you used is on the right (South). Let us enter the other one (the one on the North).

The first room has two exits, both leading to the same room behind. But the room behind has a knee-high barrier in the middle, so follow the exit on the right to avoid extra jumping. In the room behind, turn right into a hall. Near the brazier, read the Scroll: Earth had been crying and people was told that she mourned for Va-Taraq. The Guild knew more and decided to protect the Tower. But you can see the result: the tears of Earth are all over the city now.

Leave the hall and jump over the low barrier. In front of you is a hole on the wall. Crawl inside to get two Fire Arrows (the skeleton is useless). Get back out and turn left to climb and stairs on your left. It is dark here. After a few steps, turn left again and run towards the brazier. When you run past several small windows on your right, stop and have a look. They opens to the obelisk outside the center. Continue forward to the Theatre Corridor.

Leaving Civic Center

Descend to the Theatre via the seats. Climb on the stage to collect two Precursor Masks (0;0;120). If you did not purchased the Papyrus (from Bram Gervaisius) when you started the mission, the masks will become worthless objects that you can only throw away. Leave via the lower exit (the one among the seats) back to Civic Center Courtyard. Notice that you enter it from the West now.

Continue counter-clockwise in the Civic Center Courtyard and check the next doorway on your right (South). The South doorway on the West wall leads to nowhere but lava. So continue to the South Wall. The only doorway is blocked by solidified lava. So you have visited all the doorways here.

Grab the Blue Gem (0;15;0) on the ground. Look around: there are blue gems all along the wall. Get them all: there are 22 Blue Gems (0;15;0) on the walls. Leave Civic Center Courtyard via the (only) North exit to the obelisk. Instead of entering the Market Place, turn left and going up the gray ramp.

Talisman of Fire

Overview

To get the Talisman of Fire, we will climb the gray ramp on the South of the Market Place to go to the South Western side of the City. We have to pass through the Colosseum and meet the second Keeper expedition party. The Talisman of Fire is kept in the Tower you have already seen twice. After we get it, then we will retrace our steps back to the Market Place and leave.

To the South West

At the top of the ramp, climb at the South West corner up and continue the gray path. Run along the tunnel all the way up, until you have a big lava pool in front. The lava pool has a great rectangular pillar in the middle of it. We shall arrive at the other side of this pool later.

Turn left to follow the path down the ramp. At the bottom turn right and stop at the ground level. A house is in front of you, a tunnel to the South is on your left. Go forward to the house first.

Again I was disappointed that the greenish house hides nothing, not even on its beams. The smaller bluish house half soaked in lava has 3 Fire Arrows. You can get them from outside the house (just walk as far as you dare and lean into the doorway), or you can simply run inside to get them and run out again. In Thief Gold, you can safely crawl into the house to get them and crawl out again. Go back to enter the tunnel going South.

In the cave ahead there are two houses soaked in lava. Climb on the first roof to get two Water Arrows. Jump back to solid ground and ignore the other house. Continue to the next cave, where you have a very narrow bridge in front of you. It is safe to cross it, but walk instead along the wall on your left. Pressing yourself to the wall to avoid falling. Collect four Water Arrows on the far end, and continue along the wall to the other side.

Continue along the only path to descend down to the lava river with some stepping stones. Jump across and get inside the building. Turn left and go upstairs. Turn right and run forward: all the rooms are empty here. Slow down to descend down the ramp. At the bottom, turn right and walk slowly forward.

There is a building in front of you (to the East). From various documents, I think this is the Palace even though it is formally called the Arena Area. On your left (North) is a big lava lake. In the middle of the lava lake is a structure built of rock.

Palace

Walk forward. There are some steps on your right, and just before you enter the Palace there is a ramp on your right. In Original Thief, a Crayman may be here among the steps, with its back towards you. I have only seen it once but watch out for it anyway.

Climb up the ramp on your right. There is nothing here, but look back: you can have a better view of the big lava lake from here. That rock structure is the Colosseum which they said is bigger than their village. Poor village people! Note also that a doorway of the Palace faces the Colloseum, but they are disconnected: remember the Colloseum was closed for a year and a day, but the closure period happened to last eternally. That is where we want to go to. In Thief Gold, note also an Earth Mage at that doorway. If you have ample Gas Arrows, you can send him one. Or just Blackjack him when we get there.

Back down the ramp and prepare to enter the Palace. In Original Thief, several Craymen are waiting for you (if you have taken the Water Talisman). In Thief Gold, several Mages are here (and are always here). So I have to separate the thread again. For Original Thief, proceed to the next section. For Thief Gold, please skip the following sections and jump to Palace (Thief Gold).

Palace (Original Thief)

Quietly enter the Palace via the doorway in front of you. Most of the time, a Crayman has his back towards you in this room. Use the Blackjack on it. If the room is empty, wait outside the Palace. One will come soon.

There are several Craymen in the Palace. Do not bother to use Water Arrows to put out the lights. Save them for the Fire Elementals (on our way to the Tower, and on our way back to the Residential Area)

There is another Crayman here on 1/F. Leave the room into a corridor going East. If you have waited for the Crayman to arrive, then hide yourself in the doorway filled with solidified lava (the doorway immeidately in front of you). You do not have a good shadow unless you climb well up, but it doesn’t matter because the Crayman is not going to notice you as long as you are not standing in the corridor. Wait and listen. I have seen at least two scenarios. The other Crayman may come your way, or it may go meditating in another hall far away. So save your game and wait a minute and listen carefully. In the first scenario, the Crayman will come your way and enter the first room to find his friend unconscious (perhaps he hears him screaming when I knock him down, I don’t know for sure). So knock him when he has passed your doorway. If he doesn’t come, forget about him. He will be at the hall at the far North. I shall remind you again when we get there.

If the first Crayman is in the first room waiting for you, then the second Crayman is at a different location. Walk quietly along the corridor to the T-junction at the end (right in front of the brazier, not at the center just past the steps). Peek round the left corner — he should be there. Walk quietly back: we will get him from behind.

Back to the only branch of the corridor near the steps. Walk quietly up the slope, the room lights up as you enter. On your left are windows viewing the Colosseum. On the leftmost window-sill is a Tiara (50;50;0).

Leave via the other doorway on the East. Before you plunder this room, quietly go to the other doorway on the East to see who is outside. The second Crayman is often here on your right, with the back towards you. Knock him down and come back to loot the room. This building is full of treasures. On the North East corner of the room collect the Large Jar (0;0;20), Small Jar (0;0;20) and the Pointed Jar (0;0;20) (like a short green bamboo shoot with a sharp point).

Leave the room via the East exit again, to the Palace Main Corridor running North-South. Go to the South end to have a look: the corridor turns right and down to lava. Come back and visit the rooms one by one starting from the South. The first room on your left has near the entrance a Large Jar (0;0;20) and two Small Jars (0;0;20). On the far end of the room is a Tapestry (0;0;150) (a Tapestry is longer than a Pointer Jar and doesn’t have a sharp point, and worths much more). Leave the room and continue on the Palace Main Corridor.

Beyond the brazier, the doorway on your left is where you come from. So enter the doorway on your right. Near the entrance are a Large Jar (0;0;20) and two Small Jars (0;0;20). On the South East corner of the room is a hole you can crawl through. Climb down a ladder to find three Pointed Jars (0;0;20) and a Tapestry (0;0;150) on the floor. From the chest, take the Gold Ring (50;0;0). Read the Scroll: it tells you where the key to the Colosseum was. So in case you came here without the Lever, you have an idea where to look for it.

Get back to the Palace Main Corridor. Continue North to a room with stairs at the South East corner, and on the North East corner a few steps go up. Take the stairs down to the Palace Basement. After two left turns, you arrive at a hall. The wall on your right has a hole you can crawl through, but the room inside is empty. Go to the machine at the end of the hall. Insert the Lever into the machine, and activate it to extend the Drawbridge to the Colosseum. The room here has another corridor leading to a staircase, but it is blocked by solidified lava. Go back upstairs.

Palace upper level (Original Thief)

Walk quietly, no matter how many Craymen you have met, you have one more upstairs who can hear you. Take the steps on the North East to a room with two exits: one to the North and one to the West. We have left the South Wing and are now in the middle of the building. The last 1/F Crayman may be waiting ahead in the North Wing.

Enter the North Wing ahead. If he is here, he has his back towards you. Walk slowly towards him and knock him down. The North Wing consists of this single hall, and its exit on the North had been blocked by solidified lava. So leave the way you came and enter the West wing.

Look up. There is a balcony over your head, and the Crayman is wandering on 2/F. Walk to the other side of the beam and shoot a Rope Arrow at it (if you shoot from below the balcony, you do not have sufficient space to climb up). Do not shoot at the ceiling. The beam doesn’t look like wood, but it is. Remember this texture, because it comes up frequently. Climb up and see where the Crayman is. If he is not around, climb up to the beam and walk to the left (North) end to rush to some shadow area. Wait for him to come back and knock him out. If when you are climbing to the beam you found him staring at you, try wait and see if he is moving away. Otherwise, just climb up to the beam and send him a few Fire Arrows. It is not as neat, but you have more than you can throw away anyway.

Go East past either doorway to a hall with braziers and several large windows. Outside the windows is the lava pool with a great rectangular pillar on it. Remember we saw it from the other side when we start going South West? We are now on the other side of the pool.

Get the third and final Precursor Mask (0;0;120) between the braziers. Back to the 2/F corridor (the only corridor between the balcony and the hall with Precursor Mask) and go all the way to the South. There is a room on either side of you. From the room on the East (left), collect a Large Jar (0;0;20) and a Small Jar (0;0;20) on the left, and a Tapestry (0;0;150) on the right. Come back to climb over the solidified lava to the room on the West to get a Large Jar (0;0;20) and a Small Jar (0;0;20). Immedately next to the doorway, get a Tiara (75;50;0), which is easy to overlook. Leave the room and back to the balcony. The North side is blocked by solidified lava, so climb back down and retrieve the Rope Arrow. Proceed to Leaving Palace where Original Thief and Thief Gold converges.

Palace (Thief Gold)

This building is full of treasures and the Mages are far from you, so just walk quietly when you are inside. You will hear loud noises from them but just ignore them. Leave the initial room into a corridor going East. You can see that the end of this corridor intersects a North-South corridor. That is the Palace Main Corridor, and we will go there via other rooms. For now, turn left at the (first) T-junction up a small ramp.

The room lights up as you enter. On your left are windows viewing the Colosseum. On the leftmost window-sill is a Tiara (50;50;0).

Leave via the other doorway on the East. On the North East corner of the room collect the Large Jar (0;0;20), Small Jar (0;0;20) and the Pointed Jar (0;0;20) (like a short green bamboo shoot with a sharp point).

Leave the room via the East exit again, to the Palace Main Corridor. Go to the South end to have a look: the corridor turns right and down to lava. And a Fire Mage is standing in the lava — so leave quickly. Come back and visit the rooms one by one starting from the South. The first room on your left has near the entrance a Large Jar (0;0;20) and two Small Jars (0;0;20). On the far end of the room is a Tapestry (0;0;150) (a Tapestry is longer than a Pointer Jar and doesn’t have a sharp point, and worths much more). Leave the room and continue on the Palace Main Corridor.

Beyond the brazier, the doorway on your left is where you came from. So enter the doorway on your right. Near the entrance are a Large Jar (0;0;20) and two Small Jars (0;0;20). On the South East corner of the room is a hole you can crawl through. Climb down a ladder to find three Pointed Jars (0;0;20) and a Tapestry (0;0;150) on the floor. From the chest, take the Gold Ring (50;0;0). Read the Scroll: it tells you where the key to the Colosseum was. So in case you came here without the Lever, you have an idea where to look for it.

Get back to the Palace Main Corridor. Continue North to a room with stairs at the South East corner, and on the North East corner a few steps go up. The stairs at the South East corner goes down to the Palace Basement. But the Palace Basement can wait, since we will give it some time to let things develop downstairs.

Palace upper level (Thief Gold)

Take the steps on the North East to a room with two exits: one to the North and one to the West. We have left the South Wing and are now in the middle of the building. The last 1/F Mage is waiting ahead on the West.

Enter the North Wing to have a look. The North Wing consists of this single hall, and its exit on the North had been blocked by solidified lava. So leave the way you came and enter the West wing.

The Earth Mage at the exit has his back to you. So just crawl towards him and knock him down. For the rest of your time in the Palace, I am not sure whether you should continue to move quietly or make noises. If you hear combat noises downstairs, then they are already triggered and you should refrain from making new noises. Otherwise, flip a coin and choose: there are both benefits and risks in making noises. I will talk about it again when we go to the Palace Basement.

Look up. There is a balcony over your head. Walk to the West side of the beam and shoot a Rope Arrow at it (if you shoot from below the balcony, you do not have sufficient space to climb up). Do not shoot at the ceiling. The beam doesn’t look like wood, but it is. Remember this texture, because it comes up frequently. Climb up to the beam and drop to the 2/F. No AIs upstairs.

Go East past either doorway to a hall with braziers and several large windows. Outside the windows is the lava pool with a great rectangular pillar on it. Remember we saw it from the other side when we start going South West? We are now on the other side of the pool.

Get the third and final Precursor Mask (0;0;120) between the braziers. Back to the 2/F corridor (the only corridor between the balcony and the hall with Precursor Mask) and go all the way to the South. There is a room on either side of you. From the room on the East (left), collect a Large Jar (0;0;20) and a Small Jar (0;0;20) on the left, and a Tapestry (0;0;150) on the right. Come back to climb over the solidified lava to the room on the West to get a Large Jar (0;0;20) and a Small Jar (0;0;20). Immedately next to the doorway, get a Tiara (75;50;0), which is easy to overlook. Leave the room and back to the balcony.

On the North side of the balcony is a new empty area not appearing in Original Thief. It looks like there is another balcony opening to the outside, but it is blocked by a big disc-shaped stone. Look up: there is a hole on the roof (is this what blocks the balcony?). We cannot climb up from here, we will come back to this hole on our return trip. Climb back down and retrieve the Rope Arrow.

Palace Basement (Thief Gold)

Go East and back to the stairs leading to the Palace Basement. Save game and take the stairs down. Descend carefully because you may run into an Air Mage. After a left turn, peek ahead the corner. At the far end is the machine. A Fire Mage and an Air Mage are there, but sometimes the Fire Mage kills the Air Mage if you wake them up. That’s why I said it may be better to make noises when you are upstairs. If you are quiet throughout, two Mages will be waiting for you here: Fire Mage near the machine, Air Mage patrolling around. However, when you are noisy, sometimes you will attract the Air Mage to walk upstairs to find you (yet I think it is still easy to handle than his patrolling downstairs).

If the Air Mage is patrolling then you have to hide on the stairs and wait for an opportunity to knock him. You may need to use some Moss Arrows so that you can run behind him. When the Air Mage is out, douse the brazier near the machine. The wall on the other side of the corridor has a hole you can crawl through. Get a Fire Arrow, a Gas Arrow and a Healing Potion inside. Crawl quietly towards the machine and knock down the Fire Mage. Whenever you have trouble, rush into the hole (where you got the Gas Arrow) — AIs cannot follow you into the room inside! So even if you aroused the Fire Mage, just go back in and wait till he calms down.

When both Mages are down, go to the machine. Insert the Lever into the machine, and activate it to extend the Drawbridge to the Colosseum. The room here has another corridor leading to a staircase, but it is blocked by solidified lava. Go back upstairs to the exit on the West (where you knocked the Earth Mage). Now the two walkthrough version converge again. Continue with the next section.

Leaving Palace

Leave the Palace via the doorway on the West. Quick check: did you walk over a bridge (and then jump over the rim) to the Colosseum or did you jump down to the Colosseum (directly from the Palace)? In Original Thief there are two very unforgiving mistakes you can made (documented in the file thiefpat.txt installed with the v1.33 patch). If you make them, you could only find out very much later. If you are fortunate, you still have a saved game made before commiting the mistake. That already means replaying a large part of the game. If you save games often, you may have lost all saved games made before the commit point, and you have to restart the mission from the beginning.

Here is the second of the two unforgiving mistakes: even if you do not extend the bridge, you can still easily jump to the Colosseum. But if you jump across, go all the way to get the Talisman of Fire and come back, you will find out that it is impossible to jump back to the Palace! The distance looks like a jump and mantle is possible, but the doorway is specially designed so that this cannot be done. In that case, hopefully you have kept a game saved before the jump. BTW the other unforgiving mistake is in Mission 4 (Horn of Quintus). If you do not keep five Fire Arrows in stock, you will not be able to get the Mystic’s Soul. Thief Gold is more lenient in both missions, as we shall see on our way back.

Leave the bigger-than-village Colosseum on the other side. Climb on the rocks to the top of walls over lava to the broken walls on the West. Turn right and mantle along the bricks of the wall towards the North. Before climbing to the last brick, look right. In Thief Gold, there is an opening on the rocky wall. We will explore it on our way back.

Continue North into the building. The rooms are both sides of you are empty. At the corner, turn right and go downstairs. At the end, carefully drop to the ledge outside.

Second Keeper Party

You can now see a large area with a great staircase. Go towards your left to climb up. Walk around the area: there is nothing much to see. Descend the steps to the ground level below.

Beyond the opening is a big obelisk resting on the ground. Below its tip is the remains of the second half of the Keeper Expedition. The second Medallion (near the skull of the skeleton) is nearly melted, but still counts good in fulfilling your Mission Goal. Read the Keeper Journal near his hand. Note that the first part about the Water Talisman is only availble in Original Thief. A bug in the engine hides all but the first page. Therefore you can only see part of the message.

The first issue is that the Keeper expedition splitted. In Original Thief, Shanti took the Water Talisman and brought it to King’s Tomb (so this book help you to find the other Talisman in case you came here first; but in that case you are domed because you evidently did not have the Lever to extend the draw bridge). In Thief Gold, you still find the Shanti party at the King’s Tomb, but you can hardly figure out why they went there.

Then both versions talk about the Tower. You have seen the Tower earlier (in two excursions above) so the journal now confirms you that the Fire Talisman is inside that Tower. It also tells you how to climb up there. Finally it hinted that the Fire Elementals will appear from their hiding place when you have the Fire Talisman with you. You are yet not attacked by the Roaming Elementals (mentioned in the Keeper Journal of the first Keeper party because you are not carrying the Fire Talisman.

Collect from their remains 5 Water Arrows and 3 Rope Arrows. Continue to make a big right turn around the corner and run towards the South. Near the end where the skeleton lies, there is a cave opening on your left. Enter.

Statue Area

Walk forward till you see the creepy Statue in front of you. If you have read books from H. P. Lovecraft, you would have recognized it as the status of Cthulhu. There are buildings on both sides of you. You cannot enter any of the ones on your left (North). Give them a try (there is a slope on the West side, but doesn’t help much).

So we proceed with the South buildings. On your right are two houses. The first one is tall and greenish, and second one is short and bluish (like everywhere else). Look through the window of the bluish house. You will see two shinny stuff. Bravely run into the house to collect two Silver Nuggets (50;0;0), and run back out again.

Enter the greenish house and look up. Shoot a Rope Arrow at the beam and climb/jump to the remains of the second floor. Retrieve your Rope Arrow and do a running jump to the roof of the bluish house. Turn around. Jump (vertically) upwards and look. Something shiny is on the roof of the greenish house.

Save your game. Stand on the North West corner of the roof. Face the West direction and mantle on the roof of the greenish house. Get the two Fire Arrows and the shiny Gemstone (0;50;0) on the roof. Drop back down to the roof of the bluish house.

Do a running jump towards the North East to the area behind the statue. Follow the path around to the broken wall, we are going to visit the North buildings now. Enter the hole and drop carefully to a dark triangular ledge below and to the right. Look through the window slit on your right, you can see the Tower and the patroling Fire Elementals now. Jump to the platform ahead and mantle up the ledge behind. Walk across the roof of the second building and into the third. Save your game and drop down to the solidified lava below, descending to ground level. Hide yourself behind the doorway (on either side, I mean).

Tower

Outside the building you can see the Tower that the Guild of Enlightenment tried to save. If Garrett have not seen the Tower in the earlier excursions (or you have restored after the excursions), he will mutter so this is the lost city, it’s now lost no more again. The Tower is surrounded by lava on the other three sides. A Fire Elemental is patroling around the Tower, two more are standing on the lava pool on the right (East). I don’t know why two of them are now on your right, because as you saw earlier in the very first excursion, the three were initially separated apart. Of course, if you have doused one or two fo them at that time, then you have less Fire Elementals now.

When the Fire Elemental has past you, run into the Tower. While not necessary, you may consider using Water Arrows on the File Elementals here. Because they will be more agitated on your way out.

Climb the stairs all the way up to Level 3. Near the South East corner collect a Tapestry (0;0;150) and from behind the broken Chest a Gold Goblet (25;0;0). Read the Scroll at the South West corner about the final attempts of the Guild of Enlightenment. N’lahotep is a god of Karath-din. You may have recognized that it is a reference to the Temple of Nyarlathotep from the books of H. P. Lovecraft. But it is never mentioned where the temple actually is.

The stairs to Level 4 is broken, so you had better try elsewhere. If you have read all the pages of the Keeper journal, then you know how to proceed. Save your game and climb outside the North window and carefully lower to the ledge outside. Be careful because it is a long way down. In front of you and a little to the right, you can see a tunnel opening on the wall beyond the lava lake. That is the tunnel from the initial waterfall (at the very first excursion). Look down and you can locate two Fire Elementals just above the lava.

Look up: there are windows on Level 4, but there is no way to get up there. Walk towards the right (East) to find out that the ledge is broken at the corner (and Garrett will tell you that I’d better off looking for another way round). Turn around and walk back towards the West (counter clockwise around the Tower). After the corner, you notice that there is a beam above the window. So you will be able to shoot a Rope Arrow to climb up to that window. Hope you didn’t.

Remember what is there behind the window? The broken staircase! You can barely jump from the window to Level 4, but I have reload the game several times to do it. Better turn two more corners to the East wall, taking the opportunity to have a good look around. On the South side, you can see the buildings through which you arrive at the Tower. On the East side, you can see another tunnel opening on the rocky wall. This time, the opening is very low, near the lava lake. It is the tunnel from the Market Place (tunnel beyond the hole on the West wall in the Market Place excursion).

Shoot a Rope Arrow up to the beam over the window. Carefully climb up the rope (I always find it difficult to climb on a rope, especially here where there isn’t much place to stand on — so save game first) and get into the window. And this Rope Arrow is not retrievable; well at least not worth retrieving, becuase you do not need it any more. There are several chests on Level 4, but all of them are empty in Expert difficulty (the one near the broken staircase contains a Healing Potion in Normal and Hard). Simply grab the Talisman of Fire in the center. I am surprised that grabing it doesn’t trigger any traps. The trap is more subtle and you will learn that soon.

Before you leave the room, look at the drawings on the wall. Wind Blows. When you are descending down the tower, note the design of each level. 2/F has water and waves, 1/F has a earth like look (same as the one at the Theatre of the Civic Center), and G/F has a shining sun. The people here loves the four elements as much as the Mages. I have heard a speculation that both the Mages and the Keepers were descendent of the Guild of Enlightenment. You decide whether to believe in it.

Leaving the Tower

Time to get out of the city alive. There are two methods: first, the long way starting in the next section, retracing your way back to the Library. You will have a minor surprises on the way. Here is another method suggested by reader Chris Proctor.

After you've gotten the talisman of Fire, lean out the window opposite the door in the talisman room. Shoot a Rope Arrow near the top of one of the blocks above the window. Climb the rope (save first, it’s tricky), mantle onto the block, and then onto the roof of the Tower.

A few things you can do from here. Firstly, you can shoot rope arrows into two places, just above and just below the high tunnel (the one on the far North, leading to the initial waterfall). Above, aim for the lip just above the top of the tunnel. Below, aim for a bit of the pavement stuff just before the tunnel ends. Whether either of these helps is debatable.

Do a super-speed jump starting from the opposite edge: run, jump, jump (the second jump has to be right from the edge) and you fly straight into the tunnel. It might be possible to catch a rope if you don’t make it into the tunnel entrance. From there, you can directly run back to the waterfall and finish the mission.

Leaving the Tower, the long way

Just retrace back to Market Place. From Tower Level 4, you can either drop down to Level 3 via the broken stairs, or if you are afraid of getting hurt, down via outside the window (dropping from the rope down to the ledge is just as frightening). Back to ground level.

Now that you have taken the Fire Talisman, the Fire Elementals become restless, so be careful. When the Fire Elemental is not watching, get back to the building with solidified lava and climb back up to the roof of the building next to it. Drop down to the Statue Area, run back to the Keeper campsite carefully. Taking the Talisman of Fire triggers new friends waiting for you, so do not run into them on your return journey thinking that the path is void of AIs. A Fire Elemental is either near the Keeper campsite or around the great staircase. Since you are meeting it head on, you had better use a Water Arrow on it.

Find you way back to the Colosseum. Original Thief players need to use the draw bridge to go back to the Palace (you haven’t?! Reload the game before you leave the Palace — there is no way back). Thief Gold players can now return to the Palace via an alternate route, without using the drawbridge. Remember the rocky wall openning I pointed out in our forward journey? When you get back to the broken wall, turn left and jump over the lava into the openning.

It is a tunnel, run till the end. At the other end, you can see the walls of the Northern part of the Palace. Look up to see the blocked balcony you have seen earlier in Palace 2/F.

Climb the rocks till you arrive at the balcony. You cannot enter via the balcony, since it is blocked. You can however go to its (North) side wall and mantle to its top. Drop through the ceiling hole and arrive at the 2/F of the Palace. Go South and drop down to the Palace 1/F. Afterthought: why bother to find the Lever in the King’s Tomb?

Back to Market Place

Once you get inside the Palace, go West to the Palace Main Corridor and turn right. Go South till the T-junction and turn right again to go back to the initial room where you can leave the Palace. Continue your way back by going West and then turn left up the ramp, turn left through the building and then down the stairs. Be careful if playing Thief Gold: when you leave the building to the lava river with stepping stones, a Fire Elemental is patroling around. Just wait till it moves to the left side and jump along the stepping stones (or of course you can kill the Fire Elemental but there are more on the way).

Across the lava river, follow the path up and across the narrow bridge. In Thief Gold, another Fire Elemental is ahead (in the area where two houses soak in lava). Wait till it turns away and move forward to the shadows between your cave (with narrow bridge) and its cave (with two houses soaked in lava). Douse the Fire Elemental, because it is not as easy to sneak around this one). Continue your way back. When you go up the ramp, you will arrive at a lava pool on your left with a great rectangular pillar in the middle (you have seen the pillar twice, once in the forward journey and then from Palace 2/F). In Thief Gold, a new File Elemental is wandering in the lava pool, so stop beforehand. Wait till it turns away and run past the area to go back. Descend the grey ramp and arrive back at the Market Place.

Leaving the Lost City

Overview

Find your way back to the Residential Area. Re-enter the Library and escape to the waterfall.

North East

Entering the Market Place via the South, go all the way North. A new File Elemental is patroling here so watch out. Pass the Keeper campsite on your right, rock pillar on your left, wall-hole on your left, another rock pillar on your right, building on your left, to the obelisk. Pass either side of the obelisk and through the narrow opening between the rock pillars, you will see some buildings beyond a pair of metal gates ahead to your left. Enter the broken walls on your right to leave the city center.

Residential Area

Follow the tunnel back to the balcony of the Southern Residential Area. We will leave via a path different from the one we came.

Drop to the ground and go left (North). After the right turn and the left turn, you will arrive back at the Upper Residential Area. Did you remember what you have done with the Burrick here? If you didn’t put him out, be careful now and do not run into it.

For Thief Gold players, if you go forward and investigate the right, you find a new Fire Elemental in the Lower Residential Area. It is usually around the lava pool there, but may wander to the buildings in the Lower Residential Area. Since they are not on our way, forget about them. Just pick up the way back to the Library. After a left turn and a right turn, you descend the ramp to the obelisk in front of the Library. Thief Gold players will encounter yet another Fire Elemental in the lava pool betwen Upper Residential Area and the Library. Douse it and go back to the Library.

Library

What did you do to the Burricks on Levels 1 and 2? Sneak if they are still around, run otherwise. From the main hall, go left to access the stairs up to Level 2. Leave via either doorway and go all the way East back to the room with a hole in the ceiling. Climb on the solidified lava to mantle up to the roof.

Run down the tunnel. At the junction, turn, heading towards the waterfall (if you continued forward, you would run into the Spider infested tunnel leading to the opening overlooking the Tower). When you reach the ledge overlooking the river and the mission ends.

Did you expect gratitude from the Keepers? You know better than that. A “You have returned to us what is ours” is all you will receive for all your troubles. Anyway, you now have two Talismans (Fire and Water if you are playing regular Thief, Earth and Fire if you are playing Thief Gold) — half way to unsealing the Haunted Cathedral.

Total total loot, and total.

Afterwards

Lost City is one of the big missions with lots of area for you to run around and get lost. After your encounter in the Haunted Cathedral, it will be an easy mission. The Burricks in the Library are annoying, but the Craymen or Mages are easy to deal with. Lost City is also one of the few missions with such an interesting difference between TDP and TG: all Craymen were replaced with Mages! Their responses are different, and more important, their actual locations are different (especially in King’s Tomb). That’t why the walkthrough need to be written in separate pargraphs to describe them one at a time.

When Thief Gold was being developed, the released information said Garrett will find a note in the King’s Tomb saying that the Mages had taken away the Water Talisman. Later LGS changed their mind and the Mages ended up keeping another one (the Earth Talisman), perhaps because they could not find a good excuss for the Hammer Temple Talismans to get lost like this. Therefore, now in Thief Gold the Keepers deliberately placed the Talismans at four different locations instead of two.


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