|
Lara Croft, adventuress nonpareil, having just survived an
apocalyptic battle against the last of the three ancient rulers of the
fabled continent of Atlantis, is now piloting a yacht away from
the former location of the island continent. Huge plumes of smoke,
caused by the huge explosion that has consumed the island of Atlantis,
billow up from the sea.2
As she speeds westward across the Mediterranean Sea, her thoughts
repeatedly return to the strangely beautiful cat statues that she came
across in the city of Khamoon. It's a shame I had to leave Egypt
so abruptly3, Lara thinks to herself,
I would have enjoyed spending more time examining the artifacts
there. Unable to take her mind off of those statues, she changes
course, southeast, towards Egypt. Ahh well, I haven't anything
else on my agenda today, Lara smiles to herself.
Souvenirs
|
Back in Egypt, Lara contacts the Egyptian government and with
their help, she leads a team of archaeologists back to the ruined
city of Khamoon. Upon entering the city, she finds one of the
beautiful statues. She runs her hand along the finely carved statue.
Even in this dimly lit cave, the jewel encrusted statue still sparkles
after so many centuries.
"I cannot help noticing your fascination with that statue,"
Professor Nassar Malik, the head Egyptian archaeologist, nods to
Lara.
"Yes," Lara smiles, "It is beautiful." Not looking up
from the statue. Malik, feeling a bit ignored, smiles and walks
away.
As the day wanes, Lara leads the archaeology team back to the
surface to return to their camp site. With a sigh, Lara turns to
Malik and asks, "Well, I think you should be able to find your way
about the city now? I think it's time I should be heading home. This
dig seems to be in capable hands." Lara scans the camp site and waves
to a few of the other archaeologists.
"Leaving us so soon?" Malik asks. "We would be terrible hosts if
we let you leave here empty-handed," Malik begins to smile. "Surely
you'd accept a little souvenir as a token of our appreciation." Malik
waves to a couple of the crew, who haul up a large object wrapped in a
tarp.
Lara's face begins to brighten, as her hand slips one corner of
the tarp aside. "Nassar, you mustn't," she whispers "This belongs
to Egypt."
"Without you we would not have known that these ruins existed
at all. I have already spoken to my government, and we would like to
present this statue to you for your private collection," Malik
announces in a stately voice.
Lara graciously accepts the gift and the crew loads it into her
rented Land Rover. She says her goodbyes and climbs aboard.
"Be careful driving back to Cairo," Malik cautions, "for some
reason, this region is experiencing particularly severe flooding this
year and several of the roads are washed out. In fact, I'm afraid we
may not have much more time to spend at this site, because the flood
waters may even reach here." Lara nods in acknowledgment.
Driving away, she glances at herself in the rear-view mirror.
Goodness,she thinks, I can certainly use a good washing and
a cup of tea.
Lara finally returns to her home in Surrey, England and places the
statue in the gallery in her basement. She climbs the steps and turns
off the lights. She steps out of the stairwell and locks the door
behind her.
A Second Look
|
A few weeks later, Lara finally finds the time to take another
look at her latest acquisition. The cat statue's haunting stare
beckoned Lara to examine it more closely. Barely visible on the
statue's back are tiny inscriptions and hieroglyphics. Quickly
deciphering the portions of the text that she could recognize, Lara
discovers there is more to this statue than its beauty.
Lara transcribes the hieroglyphics and brings them to her
library. She consults her collection of archaeological texts and
learns that, among inhabitants of the Khamoon region, there was a
powerful religious sect that promoted the worship of cats. They
revered the cat as a diety and sculpted many images of cats. This
included a marvelous giant cat statue whose size rivaled the ancient
Colossus at Rhodes4. However, the
existence of this monolithic statue had always been considered a myth
by archaeologists. To Lara's amazement, the cat statue that she
brought back had a faded inscription describing the approximate
location of this giant statue.
Furthermore, the inscription on the statue documented that,
although the waters of the Nile overflow its banks yearly, once every
several hundred years the flood waters are so violent that the
resulting flood would reveal huge portions of the city of Khamoon that
was hidden beneath the sands of Egypt. Could it be... Lara's
heart begins to pound with excitement as she recalls the floods she
encountered in Egypt just weeks ago. Lara does the math in her
head, converting from the dating system the ancient Egyptians use to
the modern Gregorian calendar. How convenient. Apparently this
year will be one of those flood years.
Always the archaeologist, Lara embarks on an expedition back to
Khamoon to see if its ruins still exist. She is puzzled that such a
gigantic statue could hide so long from mankind, especially these
days with sophisticated geographical surveying satellites. Even
finding the ruins of such a structure, would be significant. She
arrives in Khamoon just at the end of the flood season as the waters
that had swollen beyond the banks of the river Nile are starting to
slowly recede.
Curious, Lara perplexes. the landscape of this entire area
has completely changed. If I weren't following my maps so carefully,
I'd swear this wasn't the location of the entrance to Khamoon.
Strangely, the original entrance to Khamoon appears to have been
sealed. Night is rapidly approaching as Lara searches for another way
in. She climbs the nearby cliff face and drops down into a large
opening that leads to a large trapdoor in the ground. Hmm... I'm
certain there wasn't a door here before...
|
Footnotes:
- The backplot provided is a fabrication of the staff here at the Tomb Raiders Traveler's
Guide. The "official notes" for these levels as given by Eidos
Interactive and Philip Campbell, the level designer are as
follows:
- In the TWO EXPERT LEVELS of "Shadow of the Cat" Lara returns to
the city of Khamoon to discover the secret of the strangely beautiful
cat statue, and sets off on a new adventure following the trail of the
cat to it's deadly and mysterious conclusion.
- "The cat statue discovered in the original game triggered off a
series of ideas - what if Lara returned to Khamoon to
investigate?....what if the ruins had become flooded?.....what if the
cat statue actually pointed the way to an undiscovered tomb -
dedicated to the legendary Egyptian cat-goddesses? - we developed a
story with a very strong cat motif, in murals, in hieroglyphics,
benevolent cats that guide, malevolent cats out for your blood!
Puzzles were developed based on the Egyptian interpretation of the
'nine lives of the cat' - so you KNOW that you're not going to have
much luck with Seth's room!" -- Philip Campbell
- Our story picks up at the end of the last full motion video
sequence in the original Tomb Raider.
- Recall that Lara was under fire from Natla's henchmen, and had to
quickly stowaway on her ship before Natla got away.
- One of the "seven wonders of the ancient [European] world"
|
| |