LEVEL 31: THE MASTABAS
Secrets: 1**
The diagram at right shows the layout of this level and the beginning of the next (THE GREAT PYRAMID). The thick, gray lines represent the above-ground buildings. The broken lines show the underground rooms and tunnels. The rooms are numbered in both diagram and text in the order you explore them. Special thanks to Theresa from tombraiders.com for this diagram (used with permission).
GAS STATION AND FIRST MASTABA: (1 and 2 in the diagram) As you explore, a wild dog comes out from between the two buildings ahead and to the left. There's another dog slinking around the truck parked by the gas station, a little farther to the left (north). After clearing the area, pick up the JERRYCAN near the gas pumps.
(2) Return to the boarded-up door with the "Danger" sign near where you began the level. Shoot the boards, enter the building and kill a couple of bats. It looks like there's nothing here, but wait. There's a cleverly concealed trapdoor in the middle of the floor. Lighting a flare might help you spot it. It's the one square that's divided into smaller squares. Position Lara facing this square, standing just outside it, with her back to the entrance. (As in this screenshot.) Press Action to lift the trapdoor. Climb down the ladder to the bottom of the shaft, where you'll find a large medipak. This is secret #1 (67/70). Climb back out of the pit. Exit and go to the right between this building and the next.
(3) NORTHWEST MASTABA: Kick open the door (Action key) and enter the next building. Pick up revolver ammo in one corner. The trapdoor in this room is much more obvious. Stand near the handle and press Action to open it. Drop into the tunnel and kill a wild dog. Follow the tunnel. At the split, go left (east). Continue to a room with 2 more dogs.
(4) ROOM WITH THREE GOLDEN LIONS' HEADS: Pick up normal arrows and a small medipak from the floor. Use the pistols to shoot each of the gems in the lions' mouths. You don't need to waster revolver ammo here. Instead draw pistols, stand Lara in front of each lion's head and jump while shooting. When all of the gems are broken, the door will open. There are 2 mummies lurking in the alcove. You can destroy both with a single grenade or explosive arrow. (Other weapons are ineffective.) Go into the alcove and pick up the SMALL WATERSKIN.
Follow the tunnel back to the split. This time head left (south). You'll meet 2 more dogs as you go. At the end of the passage, climb through the opening in the ceiling to another ruined mastaba.
(5) SOUTHWEST MASTABA: Kill 2 bats and a black scorpion (normal size). Exit and go the right (east). You'll meet a wild dog just around the corner. Take a running jump across the excavation pit to the building with the "Danger" sign.
(6) SOUTHWEST CENTRAL MASTABA: Shoot the boards, open the door and kill 2 bats and a dog inside the ruined building. Open the trapdoor and hop down into the pit. Follow the tunnel and, when it forks, go right (east).
(7) ANOTHER ROOM WITH THREE GOLDEN LIONS' HEADS: Kill 2 wild dogs and a bat. I found it helped to advance slowly down the stairs to trigger only the dogs, deal with them using the shotgun, then switch to pistols and enter the room to kill the bat. Now repeat the business of shooting the gems in the lions' mouths (see ROOM WITH THREE GOLDEN LIONS' HEADS, above). The same as before, when you shatter all the gems, the alcove door opens, releasing 2 mummies. Only this time there are also 2 more bats, which make targeting a bit more difficult. I recommend first using a grenade, which should take care of the mummies, then switching over to pistols for the bats if they're still alive. Pick up the BAG OF SAND in the alcove.
Return along the passage to the fork. This time, go right (north). You will soon come to two left turns, one after the other. There's a wild dog waiting here. Take the first left, kill another dog just around the corner, and continue to a dead end where you'll find a large medipak and revolver ammo. Return to the intersection and turn left, then left again. Continue to an opening where you can climb up.
(8) WEST CENTRAL MASTABA: Shoot several bats inside the ruined tomb. Then shoot the boards across the door and exit. Take a running jump across the excavation pit to the small ledge at the corner of the next building (on the right/northwest). Take a standing jump from there to the ledge in front of the building. (Use the directional keys to pivot in the air if necessary to help land these tricky jumps.)
(9) NORTHWEST CENTRAL MASTABA: Enter the building and kill 2 scorpions. Open the trapdoor and drop down into the tunnel. Follow the tunnel, turning right (west) at the T intersection. Kill the wild dog in the passage and pick up the WOODEN TORCH at the end. Return eastward along the passage, past turn where you came in from the surface. When you come to the stairs leading down to the next room, drop the torch and draw weapons. (Remember where you left the torch, since you'll be needing it shortly.)
(10) ANTEROOM WITH GOLDEN LIONS' HEADS/ROOM WITH THREE SCALES: Kill 3 dogs and 2 bats. Again, I found it easier to trigger the dogs first, use the shotgun to kill them, then switch to pistols and enter the room to kill the bats. Then repeat the process of shooting the gems in the lions' mouths to open the door (see ROOM WITH THREE GOLDEN LIONS' HEADS, above). Enter the next room and kill 2 more bats. Here is a puzzle involving three scales. These are labeled with symbols for water (wavy blue lines), fire (sun) and earth (pyramid).
Walk around behind the scales and stand Lara in the small pool. Select the SMALL WATERSKIN from your inventory and press Action to fill it with water. Return to the front of the scales, step up onto the low platform and position Lara in front of the scale with the water symbol. Use the filled waterskin to pour water into the scale.
Next, position Lara in front of the scale with the sun symbol. Pour gasoline from the JERRYCAN into the scale. Go back through the LIONS' HEADS room to get the WOODEN TORCH from where you dropped it. Light it on one of the lit torches and use it to ignite the gasoline in the scale.
(NOTE: If you're missing the jerrycan you'll need to go back to the beginning of the level to do this. If you're missing the torch, it's just down the hall a bit. Go through the ROOM WITH GOLDEN LIONS' HEADS and follow the hallway westward to a dead end, where you'll find the torch on the ground.)
Finally, position Lara in front of the scale with the pyramid symbol. Use the BAG OF SAND to pour sand into the scale. After filling all three scales correctly, the left (west) door in the SCALE ROOM opens. Enter the WEST ROOM (11 in the diagram) and kill the 2 mummies. Use the CROWBAR to pry the NORTHERN SHAFT KEY off the wall. When you do, the east door in the SCALE ROOM opens. Go through the SCALE ROOM into the EAST ROOM (12 in the diagram). Pick up poisoned arrows and revolver ammo near the ramp. Kill the 2 dogs in the stairway opposite and exit up these stairs.
Follow the passage. After a few bends take the first left and continue to a dead end where there's a large medipak. Here 2 wild dogs attack from behind. Backtrack to the intersection, turn left and continue to the opening in the ceiling where you can climb out of the tunnel.
(NOTE: Before exiting this area, you can also shoot some more gems in the other lions' mouths and relight the torches that go out. However, I haven't found that this accomplishes anything.)
(13) NORTHEAST CENTRAL MASTABA: Kill a black scorpion in the ruined building, exit and kill another scorpion outside. Take a running jump to the north side of the excavation pit, tapping the left directional key in-flight to land the jump. Turn right an take a running jump across the pit to grab the rim on the south side. Be sure to jump across at the left side where the ledges are closer together. (See the yellow area with arrows in the diagram.)
(14) SOUTHEAST CENTRAL MASTABA: Open the door of the building on the right (southwest), enter and kill several bats. Open the trapdoor and drop down into the tunnel. You might want to walk along this tunnel with pistols drawn, since Lara can probably see the scorpions before you do. You'll encounter three of them as you go. The first is just inside the tunnel. Turn left (north) at the first and only intersection. Continue to another scorpion and, a little farther on, some revolver ammo. Follow the tunnel back to the intersection, then go left (east). Kill another scorpion and continue to where you can climb out into another ruined mastaba.
(15) SOUTHEAST MASTABA: There's a wild dog lurking in the doorway. Just outside is another boarded up ruin.
(16) NORTHEAST MASTABA: Shoot the boards, kick open the door and enter. Kill 2 bats and open the trapdoor. Follow the tunnel to a T intersection. To the right is an obvious dead end. There's a small medipak on the ground here. when you pick it up a dog attacks from behind. Continue eastward to yet another ANTEROOM WITH GOLDEN LIONS' HEADS (17). Take care of the twin dogs and twin bats, and shoot the gems to open the door. (Is it just me, or is this getting a little tedious?)
(18) ROOM WITH MONKEY STATUES: Here we have something a little different. Three monkey statues in the classic poses "hear no evil," "see no evil" and "speak no evil." Each statue has a lever mechanism in front of it. You'll need to use the CROWBAR as a handle to operate each lever. If you like, you can avoid using all but the lever on the right. This one releases a friendly monkey that climbs up onto the high ledge and uses the switch there to open the door to the right (east).
If curiosity overrides compassion, you can release the other monkeys just to check them out. Use the CROWBAR to operate each of the other lever mechanisms. The one on the left ("hear no evil") releases a black monkey that attacks Lara. The middle lever ("see no evil") releases a ghostly monkey, which also attacks Lara. These guys make nice little explosions when you kill them.
[NOTE: If you accidentally kill the friendly monkey before it can open the door, use the crowbar again to operate the lever on the right. On the PC version, at least, you'll need to position Lara facing the lever mechanism from the other side (i.e., with her back to the statue). The monkey will appear again and climb the wall to pull the switch.]
The EAST ROOM (19), contains 2 mummies. If you wait for them to move near each other, you can destroy both with a single grenade or explosive arrow. When the area is clear, go in and pry the SOUTHERN SHAFT KEY off the wall. When you do, the west door in the MONKEY ROOM opens. Go through the MONKEY ROOM into the WEST ROOM (20). (Again, you can shoot the gems if you like, but I found this didn't do anything.) Follow the passage out of the west room and follow the passage to the end of the level.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not leave this level without three shaft keys. The first, the WESTERN SHAFT KEY, you should have found in the last level, INSIDE MENKAURE'S PYRAMID. The other two, the NORTHERN and SOUTHERN SHAFT KEYS, you should have found here in the MASTABAS. (You'll get the EASTERN SHAFT KEY in the next level, KHUFU'S QUEEN'S PYRAMIDS.) You will need all of the keys when you get to the level INSIDE THE GREAT PYRAMID. Once you enter the next level, you won't be able to backtrack to this level.
*FYI: Mastabas are tombs for the families and entourage of kings and queens. They were designed so that the actual burial chamber was at the bottom of a deep vertical shaft below a flat-roofed stone building. For more on mastabas, visit the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
**NOTE: There are 70 secrets in the entire game. These are marked "(x/70)" in this walkthrough. To check your progress in-game, press Pause and choose Statistics.
Copyright © 2000 - Stellalune (e-mail stella@tombraiders.net). Thanks are given to the participants in the alt.games.tombraider newsgroup, without whom some parts of this walkthrough couldn't have been written. Thanks also to Darth Vader for help with this level, and special thanks to Eric R. for his help with the monkey room puzzle. Feel free to copy, distribute and quote this walkthrough, but please include this credit line so people can send me their corrections, comments and suggestions. Also, if you'd like to offer this on your own web site, please read and follow the instructions here.
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