BENEATH VILCABAMBA

Level by Justin

Walkthrough by Phil Lambeth and Anya Marie McDonald

See the reply post for some very helpful information from Akci.

A brief flyby brings you up a water hole to a small room where this adventure begins. Shoot the vase on the pedestal to your left for some explosive crossbow ammo (which you'll need shortly), then jump into the water and swim diagonally across this area to the SW until you reach a tunnel. Swim down into the tunnel and take the first left. Follow until you reach the end, then pull up into an area where all sorts of choices confront you.

First, locate the crossbow on the floor and pick it up. Equip it with the explosive bolts. Then head to the west wall and go through one of the two openings. As you enter the next room you awaken two skeletons, so blast them into oblivion and run onto the lighter-colored slab and pick up the horseman's gem. A cut scene shows a door opening near some water.

Now exit this room and make a hairpin turn to the right to locate some stairs in the SW corner. Stop to pick up the flares, then locate the ceiling hole in the dark corner and climb up. Push the face button to trigger SECRET #1 and a cut scene showing another door opening to a face panel.

Exit this corner room, go down the stairs and run across the larger room below to the north side and go up the stairs you find there. The closed door to your right opens as you pass it, so go inside and jump into the water hole in the corner. If you go down the chute and turn left. you'll find yourself right back in the main room you visited earlier.

Jump into the central water hole and swim down the chute. Turn left at the bottom and continue, making another left turn, until you reach an ornate indoor swimming pool. Pull up and locate the four bird statues along the west wall and a vase in the NE corner you can shoot for a small medi-pack. Go through the door you opened in the SE corner and use the horseman's gem in its receptacle in the SW corner of the next room. Go to the central hole and climb down the ladder in the west face. Pick up the large medi-pack and crossbow arrows in the north alcove and push the face button to trigger another cut scene.

Reverse roll and go down the stairs until you reach a closed door on your left that opens upon your approach. Stop long enough to pick up the flares in the alcove to your right. Reverse roll and go into the next room. Ahead is a darkened swimming pool area. Go around the ledge to the left until you reach a floor switch in the SW corner. Throw the switch to trigger another cut scene showing a door opening elsewhere. Jump into the water and pick up the ornate handle in one corner.

Surface for air, then go back down and swim through the long west tunnel until you can surface in another pool area. Ignore for now the opening in the SE corner of the pool. Climb out and go through the open doorway in the dark SW corner. (The closed door in the NW corner needs a head piece to go along with your ornate handle.) You'll hear the friendly chimes of SECRET #2. Vault up and over the block, and the nearby door opens silently. Make your way along the lower tunnel until you reach an intersection.

The pit straight ahead contains a sleeping skeleton and an undetectable spike trap guarding a revolver, so avoid it. The dark one to your left hides a large medi-pack, but it's safe to hop down and pick it up. Then go over to the right and hop down into the east hole. The door to your right opens, and so will the one to your left if you walk over that way. Do so and climb up the ladder into a maze-like area with twists, turns and an upper staircase fraught with hidden perils and a pickup here and there. Explore at your own risk, as there are no essential tasks that need to be done here.

When you've finished, go back down and enter the other doorway. Turn around, jump back and grab the edge. Climb down the ladder, and you'll come to another pool area with a nice little waterfall. Explore around the bottom for some flares and a small medi-pack, then climb back up into the alcove with the ladder. Turn around and take a standing jump and grab to the waterfall's edge, pull up and run forward. You'll find yourself magically back in the pool you visited earlier.

Swim into the SE tunnel and fight your way up until you reach the open air. You emerge in a cavernous area before a temple-like structure. Swim or doggie paddle forward, then wade up to the entrance and go inside to take out a couple of skeletons with your crossbow and trusty explosive arrows. Use your pistols to shoot the vase to your right, and pick up the Hathor Effigy. Reverse roll and throw the floor switch, and a cut scene spiced with heroic music shows you something that's a little difficult to decipher in the darkness.

Go past the temple entrance and turn right to trigger the chimes of SECRET #3. Go inside the next room, but don't be tempted to push the face panel in front you. Bad move; spike trap. Same thing goes for the ones in the NW and SE corners. But the one in the SW corner is safe, so go ahead and push it. Now leave this room and look behind the pillar in front of the temple entrance. You'll see that a new area has opened up, allowing access to SECRET #4 and the Grenade Gun.

Leave the temple area and swim back down the long tunnel. Climb out of the pool on the other side, combine the ornate handle and Hathor Effigy to form the Portal Guardian, and use it in the device to open the door in the NW corner. Go inside and trigger a mini-flyby that clarifies the earlier cut scene.

Before you make the long trek down the center ledge, hop back and grab its left side where it begins. Shimmy to your right around a couple of ledges, and pull up in front of a face door. Push the button, then hop back and shimmy your way back to the ledge. Pull up, turn left and run down the center ledge until you reach a gap. (The last block, which was raised by an action you took earlier, is in semi-darkness.)

Before jumping across the gap, turn and hop back off the right edge of the raised block, and climb down into the inky blackness until you can go no further. Then simply drop to a ledge and angle Lara to the right. Run (not jump) across the corner to the facing ledge, then turn to the left and push the face door you find there. A cut scene shows a block rising in the corner of a room still to come, affording access to the final secret. Angle back to your left, run across the corner to the longer ledge, and climb back up the ladder to the bridge above.

Turn right, take a running jump across the gap and grab the other side. Pull up and run to the other end of the central ledge, and the door opens as you approach it.

Climb up the ladder, and about halfway up you can see an opening to your left partially shrouded in darkness. Shift to the left and drop down into the opening, then turn to your left and crawl through to the alcove where you can pick up the Pharos Pillar. Back out through the crawl space take an angled standing jump to grab the ladder. Climb all the way to the top and pull up. A boulder comes tumbling down and harmlessly goes down the ramp away from you. Follow it down on your hands and knees to avoid the dart traps on either side, then stand up at the bottom to survey a room dominated by tall spikes and pillars.

Take a standing jump forward and notice the fires popping out atop each of the five pillars that are placed against a wall in front of a closed door. But if you step forward onto the adjacent pillar the fires all go out. Turn to your left and face the left pillar against the west fall. Take a running jump toward it, but before you can grab the edge the top erupts into flames again. So don't pull up immediately, but rather shimmy around to your right or left until you reach the wall. Then carefully pull up, and the door will open. Squeeze your way inside.

In the hallway you see two closed doors to your left. As you walk toward them, the one on your right opens. Go inside, and you'll see a spike ball tumbling down a ramp across the room and coming to rest. Run down to your right and pick up the small medi-pack that's hidden in the darkness. Then look around and note the closed door in the SE corner. Go to the dark area between the ramp where the spike ball rolled down and the wall on the other side of which you picked up the medi-pack, and locate the moveable piece nestled in the alcove. Pull it out once, then go to the right side and pull it three times toward the south. Finally, go to the right side again and push it once toward the west, whereupon the closed door behind you opens and two wraiths are released from somewhere ahead of you.

Reverse roll and go through the new opening as you hear another door opening elsewhere. Conventional wisdom says you're to crouch down near the bird statute, but the wraiths seem to detonate themselves faster if you turn left, pick up the second Pharos Pillar, and simply stand there until you hear two explosions behind you.

Return to the room with the moveable piece via the doors that open in front of you, and notice the second spike ball that rolls down from right to left. Run to the west wall and look to your left, and you'll see that the first spike ball to roll down has mysteriously vanished. Jump into the corridor facing south, and another door courteously opens before you. Go up the stairs cautiously on the right side, as two spike balls start rumbling down toward you. You can either take refuge by hopping down into the alcove to your right (not the opposite one on your left, which is a spike trap), or you can wait until the spike ball in front (to your left) passes by, then take an immediate side flip to the left to avoid the second one.

However you decide to do it, continue up the stairs without further incident and use the two Pharos Pillars in their receptacles to open the door at the top. Go inside, turn left and slipe down the slope to another door that opens as you step forward. You find yourself in a large underground room with a hole in the NE corner where you raised the block earlier. Take a standing jump over either slope to the surface of the block and pull up into SECRET #5. For your trouble you get to pick up a large medi-pack, the uzis and some uzi ammo.

Climb back down into what will be referred to hereafter as the main room, and note the large opening in the east wall, and two closed doors in the south wall.

Go through the large opening and turn right at the end of the hall. Draw your crossbow and blast the skeleton away as you near the corner. Turn right, then left again, and continue until you turn right into a wider corridor with a closed door nearby to your right. You can shoot the nearby pot, but there are no goodies hidden inside. Continue forward and spook another skeleton, then turn right and head toward a double archway to the north. As you pass through into a small area, you'll go down some stairs and through a single archway. To your left is another empty pot to shoot; to your right is a bird statue and a pedestal where you take a horseman's gem.

Continue north through the other single archway and up the larger stairs, and another skeleton will be awakened up to your left. After dealing with it, turn right and run down the hallway to the east toward another closed door. It too will open as you approach, but before you get there explore the corridors going off to your right and your left. First, the right one. At the end of the short hall there's a room on the right with nothing in it but an empty pot. The room on the left has some grenade gun ammo, but as soon as you pick it up another sleeping skeleton is aroused.

Leave these rooms and go north to the other side of the crossing corridor. You'll come to a corridor to your left leading up to some stairs, but don't go there yet. Continue into the long sandy-floored room and locate the floor switch to your left. Throw it to arouse a pair of skeletons on the other side of this room. After blowing them away, go to where they came from and notice that blocks have arisen in the alcoves on either side. Go outside, take an immediate right and go up those stairs you bypassed just now. At the top of the stairs you can use the raised blocks to reach the other side with a running jump.

Once across, pull up into the higher corridor and turn right to pick up the second horseman's gem. When you do so the door to your left opens, so go inside and pull up into the next corridor. Run down the slope and you'll come to an intersection. To the left is a closed door, so take a right instead and go through the open door at the top. Inside you'll find an alcoved area with two shootable pots and a floor switch. The pot on your right will get you some uzi ammo; the pot on your left is empty. Throw the floor switch to open the door at the top of the opposite, or east ramp. Run up there, turn left and light a flare to see in the darkness. Follow the corridor to another floor switch and two more empty pots. Throw the switch and you'll hear the sound of another door opening.

Leave this room and run south into another area where you'll find five pots to shoot. Only one will get you anything (some uzi ammo). Throw the nearby floor switch to hear the sound of yet another door opening.

Return to the four-way intersection below and continue south in the only direction you haven't yet investigated. At the top of the ramp you'll find a closed door on your left but an open door on your right. Go inside. You know the drill; more pots (for some revolver ammo) and a floor switch. The switch opens the door on the opposite side of the ramp, so go inside and deal with the awakened skeleton. Where he came from is a third horseman's gem, which when taken rewards you with a cut scene showing a door opening down below.

Throw the floor switch before leaving, then go down the nearby ramp and along another long tunnel. (The pot is empty.) At the end, jump up to grab the ceiling, then monkeyswing into the opposite alcove and pick up the revolver ammo. Drop down into the opening just outside the large room, and go inside to locate the open doorway in the south wall. Enter and run along the ledge, blasting away the skeleton as you advance, and pull up into the alcove at the end. Guess what happens; the door in front of you opens, but silently this time.

Turn left, pull up and drop down into a long room with columns. At the far (north) end you can wake up and kill another skeleton. There's also a hole you can drop down into and crawl until you reach another room with a floor switch. Throwing it opens the other door in the south wall down in the main room. There don't appear to be any pickups in this room, so crawl back to the other side. On the south side of the long room, the door to your left opens as you approach, so go inside and return to a familiar corridor. Turn left and make your way along the corridor back to the main room.

Go inside the main room and turn left to locate the open doorway in the SW corner. Go inside, and flames immediately start erupting to block your progress. Jump up, however, and grab the ceiling, and monkeyswing along, taking the first fork to the right and releasing at the end. In the dark room below you'll find receptacles for the three horseman's gems you're carrying, so use them. Then monkeyswing in the other direction and release onto a ledge. Turn right and climb up the blocks until you reach an indoor pool. Wade across toward the other side, and the exit trigger completes the level.

Addendum by Akci: I have found the way to pick up the revolver. It seems to me the trigger point to it, is just in a wrong place, namely inside a block, so I guess it's an error in the level.
It's located near the crossbow ammo, which on a square which sets on fire if you arrive from a shorter way. Stand on the sandy square next to it, so you have the crossbow bolts behind, and the stairs to the left, then turn right a bit and go into the corner, faceing the corner. The blocks meet there by their edges, so if you jump forward arrive in the corridor you came in. But instead of jump, push crouch then forward, like if you want to do the corner bug. If won't work try to stand in the corner in a slightly different angle. When you make it, Lara will get, well, inside the block, then three things happen. The fire at the crossbow ammo lights up, the flyby with the long dark bridge shows up, and the skeleton next to revolver wakes up. Sometimes not all three happens, while in the block make some moves - jumps, crouches - until you can hear bony's steps. Make your way out of the block, go back down, blast him, and pick up the revolver without the spikes coming up. I know it's far from legal gameplay, but if I'm right and caused by a trigger misplace, than this is the only way.
Also found a 6th secret. In that dark, longer way you go for that very crossbow ammo I mentioned above, there is a well hidden place you can jump up and collect lot of goodies. Crossbow explosive ammo, large medi, grenade gun ammo, uzi ammo.
The two things might be connected. I found that one square of that 3by3 secret room is right above the block, we trying to get inside to trigger the spikes and the aweakening of the skeleton. Which block is right above the revolver.
That two surely connected; I mean the spikes and skeleton, if you spike up Lara at the revolver, you can see bony wake up.
So my theory goes; that trigger was intended when Lara goes over the spikes, a few stories above inside the secret room, but it won't take place. But using the corner bug, we can trigger it someplace else, between.
Or there is still something to be found.