Tomb Raider

[Atomix]

[spoiler=Tomb Raider I]

The story opens with a prologue in Los Alamos County, New Mexico. A nuclear test causes an earthquake which exposes an ancient device buried beneath the desert. The device is set into motion and reveals a frozen lifeform. The story then continues in the present day.

 

After Lara Croft returns from an expedition in the Himalayas she is contacted by an American named Larson, who works for the wealthy businesswoman Jacqueline Natla, owner of Natla Technologies. At Natla's request, Lara sets out on an expedition to recover a mysterious artefact called the Scion from the lost tomb of Qualopec, in the mountains of Peru. However after successfully retrieving the object, she is nearly robbed of it when Larson attempts to kill her outside the tomb. Wasting no time, Lara sets out to discover why Natla double-crossed her, and breaks into her office to find out more about the truth behind the artefact, of which there appears to be more than one piece. She discovers a medieval manuscript which reveals the whereabouts of a second piece of the Scion, which is buried beneath an ancient monastery of St. Francis in Greece. It appears Natla has sent Pierre Dupont, a rival French archaeologist, to recover the fragment from the site. Hot on each others trail, Lara and Pierre race each other through the catacombs of the monastery to get to the second Scion first. The battle comes to a head at the tomb of Tihocan, where Lara recovers the second Scion and finally kills Pierre Dupont. An inscription inside the tomb reveals that Tihocan was one of three joint rulers of Atlantis. At some point a calamity struck which sunk the continent into the ocean and scattered their culture over the world. Qualopec continued to rule in South America, Tihocan in Greece, and it appears a third ruler thrived in Egypt.

 

Miss Jacqueline Natla, the game's primary antagonist.Lara travels to the Valley of the Kings where she quickly discovers the third Scion, and is faced with Larson one last time. Upon leaving the tomb however, she is awaited by Natla and her henchmen, who steal the three artefacts from her and nearly kill her. Lara escapes and follows their trail to a remote island, where mining operations of Natla Technologies have partially exposed the Great Pyramid of Atlantis. After making her way through the mines dispatching Natla's goons, Lara reaches the heart of the pyramid chamber, where the three Scions are fused together as a source of power. In a flashback, it is revealed that Natla was the third ruler of Atlantis, and that she betrayed her co-rulers by abusing the power of the Scion amulet for genetic experimentation. As punishment, she was locked into a stasis cell by Qualopec and Tihocan, and buried beneath the ground. The power released by the pyramid and the Scion caused a major cataclysm destroying the once powerful and advanced civilization. As a result (similar to Easter Island) the survivors lost all their knowledge and power, and had to slowly rebuild from the ground up. Centuries later Natla awoke when the cell was exposed by an atomic bomb testing in Los Alamos during the 1940's. With her cunning and knowledge she quickly became incredibly rich and powerful around the world.

 

Having regained the power of the artefacts, Natla attempts to restore her former power with an army of genetic mutants. However, Lara manages to destroy the Scion and defeats Natla. The pyramid is destroyed along with the mutants, and the remains of the Atlantean civilization.

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider II]

The story of Tomb Raider II concerns the mythical Dagger of Xian, a weapon which according to the game was used by the Emperor of China to command his army. By plunging the Dagger into its owner's heart, the weapon has the power to turn its wearer into a dragon. A flashback reveals that the last battle which was fought with the Dagger ended in defeat when the warrior monks of Tibet succeeded in removing the knife from the Emperor's heart. The Dagger was then returned to its resting place within the Great Wall and locked up for centuries.

 

The game opens in the present time near the remains of the Great Wall, where Lara Croft is investigating the truth behind the legend of the Dagger. When she discovers the entrance to the chamber of the artifact, it appears that the key to the door lock mechanism is missing, and she is suddenly attacked by an Italian who claims to work for a man named Marco Bartoli. Lara soon learns that Bartoli is a Venetian mob leader who has founded a cult obsessed with the ancient lore of the Dagger. She travels to Venice, travels through his hideout, and then follows Bartoli on board his airplane, headed toward an oil rig in the Adriatic. At the site, the cult is carrying out excavations on a sunken ship called the Maria Doria, which once belonged to Bartoli's father Gianni Bartoli. Lara learns from an imprisoned Tibetan monk, brother Chan, that the shipwreck carries an ancient Tibetan artifact called the Seraph. For generations the monks of the Barkhang monastery have been dedicated to preserving the Talion, the key to the door lock mechanism of the Dagger of Xian, even going as far as to sink the Maria Doria.

 

The Seraph in turn is the keystone to the chamber which holds the Talion. Before brother Chan reveals more however he is shot by Bartoli. Lara dives to the wreck and successfully retrieves the Seraph, after which her journey takes her to Barkhang monastery in Tibet. With the help from the warrior monks, she opens the tomb to the Talion and recovers the artifact from its resting place.

 

A high speed Jeep chase with Bartoli in pursuit ends back in China, where Lara opens the door to the chamber holding the Dagger. Before she reaches the artifact however, Lara plunges into the catacombs beneath the Great Wall. Meanwhile Bartoli drives the dagger into his heart, thus transforming into a dragon. In the final showdown, Lara manages to temporarily render the creature unconscious and pulls the dagger from Bartoli's heart. In the epilogue, the remainder of Bartoli's men track Lara down to England and invade her mansion.

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider III]

Millions of years ago, a meteoroid strikes Antarctica. In the present day, a corporation called RX Tech excavates the site, and finds that the meteoroid rock has strange properties.

 

When the game begins, Lara Croft is searching for the artefact in the ruins of an ancient Indian temple once inhabited by the Infada tribe. She encounters a researcher working for RX Tech who appears to be insane. After parting ways, the researcher beats Lara to the Infada Stone, gaining supernatural powers. After killing him and taking the artefact, Lara is approached by Dr. Willard, the head of RX Tech, who explains the origins of the Infada Stone.

 

Thousands of years ago, Polynesians came across the meteoroid crater and found that it had incredible power. Using rock from the meteoroid, they crafted four stones, one of which is the Infada Stone. They then fled Antarctica, but, in the nineteenth century, a group of sailors travelling with Charles Darwin came to Antarctica and discovered the artefacts. The four stones were then distributed across the globe. Dr. Willard has been able to track the artefacts by using the diary of one of the sailors. Lara agrees to help find the other three stones.

 

On an island in the South Pacific, Lara fights cannibals and encounters a wounded soldier who tells her of a deity who lives in the hills of the island. Lara pursues the deity and learns from one of the cannibals that one of Darwin's sailors brought one of the artefacts to the island from Antarctica. Lara then infiltrates the deity's temple and faces the god himself, who has immense power granted by the meteor artefact called the Ora Dagger.

 

In Nevada, Lara infiltrates Area 51, where she finds Element 115, one of the four artefacts, in an alien spacecraft guarded by the government.

 

In London, Lara searches for the Eye of Isis, now in the possession of Sophia Leigh, the head of a cosmetics corporation. Targeted by Leigh's hit men, Lara learns that the corporation has performed experiments on humans in order to achieve immortality and eternal youth for Leigh's personal gain. The deformed subjects of Leigh's failed experiments, presumed dead by the corporation, assist Lara in exchange for a bottle of embalming fluid from the Natural History Museum. When Lara finally faces Leigh, she tells her that her human subjects are still alive. Enraged, Leigh attempts to kill her using the powers of the artefact, but Lara defeats her.

 

At last, in possession of the Ora Dagger, the Eye of Isis, Element 115 and the Infada Stone, Lara goes to Antarctica to meet Dr. Willard. She discovers that the power from the meteor is causing genetic mutations, turning many RX Tech employees into vicious monsters. When she meets Dr. Willard and voices her opposition to his operation, Willard betrays her, stealing the artefacts and disappearing into the excavation site. After fighting more mutants and navigating the treacherous ruins of the ancient city built atop the meteor crater, Lara faces Willard, who has now used the power of the four artefacts to activate the even greater power of the meteor. Lara deactivates the meteor, kills the mutated Willard and escapes by helicopter.

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider IV]

The story begins with Lara's teenaged tomb raiding origins, accompanied by her former mentor Werner Von Croy. They travel to the temple of Angkor Wat, Cambodia in the hope of finding the mystical "Iris." However, the trip is cut short by an accident where Lara is forced to abandon her companion in order to save her own life. Back in the year 2000 Egypt (this is the only game in the series to keep the globehopping to a minimum, aside from the prequel level the entire game takes place in one country), Lara Croft uncovers an ancient tomb where a fearsome Egyptian God Set was once imprisoned. She unwittingly unleashes him and finds herself in a deadly race against time to restore the god to his resting place before an apocalypse befalls Earth. Unfortunately, Von Croy becomes Lara's new rival as he is possessed by Set himself and he makes things considerably more difficult. Lara travels across Egypt to collect the pieces of Horus's armour in order to defeat Set. They are found in Pharos, Temple of Isis, Temple of Poseidon and Cleopatra's Palaces. She combines them (with the Amulet of Horus) in the Temple of Horus to finally defeat her enemy. However before Horus can be summoned, Set arrives and destroys the armour, knocking the amulet into the water. Lara quickly recovers it and exits the Temple sealing the entrance shut with the amulet. She must leave it in place to keep Set imprisoned for eternity. As she reaches the exit of the temple, injured and exhausted, she is confronted by Von Croy. Fearful that he may still be possessed she is reluctant to hold onto his hands and so falls into the darkness.

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider V]

Tomb Raider Chronicles opens just days after the events of The Last Revelation. Lara is still missing and presumed dead. A memorial service at Croft Manor brings together three old friends of Lara: Winston, Charles Kane and Father Patrick Dunstan. While the rain outside is pouring, the three reminisce about Lara's earlier adventures: The hunt for the Philosopher's Stone in Rome, a deep sea dive off the coast of Russia in search of the Spear of Destiny, a brush with Hell spawn in old Ireland, and a foray into a high-tech office complex to retrieve the Iris artefact. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away Werner Von Croy coordinates the frantic dig searching for answers buried deep beneath the Egyptian desert.

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider VI]

Accused of the murder of her one-time mentor, Werner Von Croy, Lara is forced into hiding. Following notes written in a journal by Von Croy, Lara races to recover five hidden paintings before a secret organisation whose ultimate goal is world domination and immortality with the assistance of an ancient biblical race known as the Nephilim.

 

Pieter Van Eckhardt is the main villain of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. A normal 15th century alchemist, he was contacted later in his mortal life by the Nephilim and entered a blood pact with them in exchange for immortality, and was tasked with the creation of a powerful weapon known as the Sanglyph (literally 'blood-stone'). To keep the Sanglyph safe, Eckhardt split it into five pieces and hid each piece behind five paintings he created depicting evil imagery.

 

 

The 1st Obscura PaintingAs time went on, Eckhardt grew ever more evil and powerful, and eventually form a group known as the Cabal, four individuals who all shared the same desire for immortality. To attain this immortality, the Cabal prepared to resurrect an extinct race known as the Nephilim (the product of relationships held between fallen angels and humans). Eckhardt believed that by using the Nephilim he would attain immortality and, in the end, dominate over all. However, an order that splintered off of the Knights Templar in the 15th century called the Lux Veritatis (Latin for 'Light of Truth') were able to put a halt on Eckhardt's plans. The Lux Veritatis acquired three ancient weapons of light called the Periapt Shards and, led by Brother Obscura, used them to seal Eckhardt in a deep pit. The seal on Eckhardt would only last if the three Periapt shards were combined. Brother Obscura then confiscated the five paintings that contained the pieces of the Sanglyph, and painted over the previous images of evil with new religious images. These were hidden throughout Europe in locations known only to the Lux Veritatis, and were christened the Obscura Paintings. A copy was made of each, referred to as the Obscura Engravings, with each engraving containing an encoded map to the location of the original painting.

 

In 1945, something happened and one of the shards became separated from the other two. Eckhardt escaped the pit and vowed revenge against the Lux Veritatis, then revived the Cabal basing it out of Prague. The new Cabal became devoted to hunting down any members of the Lux Veritatis. Eckhardt also managed to obtain the Periapt from the Lux Veritatis. He hid these shards in his old laboratory, deep underground beneath the Strahov, the headquarters of the Cabal. Eckhardt and the Cabal set out to reclaim the five Obscura paintings, in order to acquire the Sanglyph. By the time Lara became involved in the plot, the Cabal had already attained three of the five paintings. Eckhardt then hired Werner Von Croy to find the last two; Von Croy did learn of the location of the fourth painting beneath the Louvre from the Obscura engravings, but he never informed Eckhardt. Von Croy then asked for Lara Croft to assist in finding the paintings, shortly before his murder.

 

 

The Sanglyph whose five pieces are hidden behind the Obscura paintings and gives the bearer immense powersLara found the two remaining paintings in Paris and Prague, though Eckhardt reclaimed from her before retreating to his old laboratory, where he started reviving the Nephilim race. The Cabal had retrieved the last Nephilim specimen from Turkey: a Nephilim body which had been named "the Sleeper". During the final confrontation with Lara, Eckhardt starts the process of reviving the Sleeper. He battles Lara using the Sanglyph, but he is eventually killed by Karel, his right-hand man, who stabs Eckhardt with the third Periapt Shard. Karel revealed himself to be the last surviving/living Nephilim and that all the people who have helped Lara died at his hands to avoid the destruction of the Sleeper. He then offers Lara a chance to join him in his resurrection. Lara refuses, and decides to put an end to it by using the Sanglyph on the Sleeper--thus destroying it and Karel.

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider VII]

It is revealed in various flashbacks in the game that when Lara Croft was nine years old, the plane carrying her and her mother crashed into the Himalayas, apparently leaving them as the only survivors. After taking shelter in the ruins of an ancient temple, Lara discovered an ornate stone dais holding a sword whilst searching for firewood. Unwittingly activating the ancient artifact, Lara watched in horror as her mother vanished in front of her eyes into a portal.

 

Years after the plane crash, Lara, now an adult, travels to Bolivia after one of her friends, Anaya Imanu, mentions a stone dais located in the ruins of Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan civilisation. After following a twisting rocky path, she runs into a group of mercenaries who are under orders to attack her on sight. After killing them, she proceeds to a temple encountering more mercenaries and dangerous native wildlife along the way. On the other side of the temple, she sees the dais and finds James Rutland, an American socialite and self-proclaimed adventurer. Rutland mentions Amanda Evert, a friend of Lara's who supposedly died years before, and then orders his mercenaries to kill Lara. She overcomes them and reaches the dais, confirming that it was the same as the Himalayan one.

 

Lara meets Anaya at a village in Peru, and after another battle with Rutland's mercenaries, they reach the tomb in Paraíso, where a tragedy befell them years ago. A flashback sequence shows Lara on an archaeological excavation with her university colleagues, where she and Amanda witness an unknown entity kill the rest of the team. The entity vanishes when Amanda removes a mysterious glowing stone from a wall, but this also causes a cave-in that floods the cavern. Amanda becomes trapped under a pile of rubble, leaving Lara with no choice but to escape or drown: she flees the cavern, seemingly leaving Amanda to her death.

 

 

Excalibur reforged (left with Ghalali Key in the upper opening) and in its four pieces that were spread across the globe.Back in the present, Lara discovers the artifact she is seeking may be linked to Excalibur -- part of the King Arthur legends -- and that Amanda survived the cave-in and is looking for the sword, which reportedly had been broken into four fragments which are now spread across the globe. Lara, now realising what she is looking for, recalls that one piece is in the 'care' of Yakuza boss Shogo Takamoto, who had it stolen from Waseda University. Lara travels to Japan, where her friend in the Japanese media, Toru Nishimura, assists her in setting up a meeting to negotiate with Takamoto for his fragment. Takamoto refuses to negotiate, claims he has no idea what she is talking about, and orders his goons to kill Lara. Lara dispatches the goons and chases Takamoto across the rooftops of Tokyo all the way to the roof of his penthouse apartment. Takamoto uses the power of the fragment to attack Lara but she kills him and recovers it.

 

Lara proceeds to Ghana, to a site her parents worked on before her birth, where she finds Rutland again, who is also in possession of a sword fragment. She follows him into an ancient temple hidden behind a waterfall. When she reaches Rutland, he mentions an artifact called the Ghalali Key, believing that Lara's father found it and it is now in Lara's possession. Lara appears to have no knowledge of the key and this frustrates him. Rutland then attacks her using his sword fragment but Lara subdues him and grabs the second fragment. She then receives news from Zip and Alister that Amanda raided Croft Manor looking for the Ghalali Key only moments ago. She offers to return to the Manor to see if they are alright, but they persuade her to try and beat Amanda to Kazakhstan, the apparent location of the third fragment.

 

When Lara arrives in Kazakhstan, she discovers that Rutland's men have taken over a Soviet lab where experiments on a sword fragment were conducted by the KGB fifty years ago. Lara catches up with Amanda, who is still bitter about being left to die in Paraíso. Lara goes after her and finds her conducting experiments on the third sword fragment. Amanda is also using the glowing stone she pulled out of the wall in Paraíso to control the unknown entity that attacked them. Lara avoids the entity since it can not be defeated yet, while she recovers the third sword fragment.

 

Following a map on the back of a shield (supposedly Lancelot's) also found in the Soviet lab, Lara's search brings her home to England. She discovers the real King Arthur's tomb hidden under a tacky and now-derelict King Arthur tourist attraction in Cornwall, along with the final sword fragment. Inside the tomb, Lara discovers that after Arthur's death, three of his knights -Percival, Galahad and Bors- took fragments of the sword to locations around the world, while the final fragment was left with Arthur by Bedivere in the hope of resurrecting the Once and Future King. After slaying a giant sea serpent that guards the tomb, and a group of mercenaries that have followed her, Lara returns to Croft Manor to figure out how to put the four sword fragments back together.

 

Lara realizes that the Ghalali Key was in fact a pendant given by her father to her mother, and that her mother had it with her when their plane crashed in the Himalayas. Lara returns to the crash site in Nepal to find the Ghalali Key (it had been in her mother's possession, given by her father to replace a locket she lost on the Ghana expedition). After traversing high ledges to reach the ruins of the plane, she finds the key in the wreckage, then narrowly escapes as the plane topples over the edge of a cliff. Lara then proceeds, emotionally shaken, to the temple she and her mother found after the crash. She runs into Rutland's mercenaries, quickly defeats them and enters the temple to restore Excalibur. She wonders if the dais is still active, but it merely collapses when she places the sword in the stone.

 

Lara returns to the stone dais in Bolivia, where Amanda, Rutland and their mercenaries await. Lara uses Excalibur to kill the mercenaries and inadvertently kills Rutland as well. Amanda rushes over to him, and he dies in her arms. Lara apologises and tries to patch up the rift with Amanda, suggesting they use the sword together. Amanda angrily refuses and releases the entity again, this time merging with it to become more powerful. With the power of Excalibur, Lara defeats the entity and separates it from Amanda, destroying it this time.

 

Lara uses Excalibur on the dais to reopen the portal and discovers what happened to her mother. Lara realizes that the portal spans time and she is seeing her mother moments before she disappears. Amanda gets up and shouts at Lara to pull out the sword or the dais will explode. Lara's mother hears this through the portal, pulls out the sword, and the dais explodes. Amanda berates Lara for her actions: however, Lara is unconcerned, furious at the realisation that Amanda was the one who 'killed' her mother across time.

 

Lara fires a hail of bullets around Amanda and places her gun to Amanda's head, threatening to kill her if she doesn't explain. Amanda states that Lara's mother isn't dead, but in Avalon, where Amanda herself wanted to go. She hisses that she is wasting her breath, that Lara will never understand. Lara knocks Amanda out with her pistol, snarling that "From this moment, your every breath is a gift from me". The game ends as Lara,

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider VIII]

Adding Soon

 

 

[spoiler=Tomb Raider VIIII]

Adding Soon

 

 

[starwebs1]

Whoa, that must of taken you forever to type!

[Atomix]

No, I just copy/paste off wiki but it did slow it down.