Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness - Plot

Plot

Lara Croft receives a message from her former mentor and friend, Werner Von Croy. Going to Paris and finding in his apartment, Von Croy tells her that he is tracking five mysterious Obscura Paintings for a client named Pieter van Eckhardt. But Von Croy has learned that Eckhardt is a psychopath who plans to use the paintings for evil purposes. Lara angrily refuses to help him, Werner pulls a gun and a fight ensues, with Lara being knocked unconscious. When she recovers, she finds Von Croy dead, seemingly killed by the Monstrum, a notorious serial killer who has been terrorizing Paris. Forced to go on the run from the police and sneak through Paris, she finds Margot Cavier, a friend and colleague of Von Croy. Though suspicious of Lara, Cavier gives her Von Croy’s journal. Lara finds out that Von Croy had located the fourth Painting under the Louvre and had contacted a local gang leader called Louis Bouchard for the necessary equipment. Lara finds Bouchard and he allows her to take the equipment herself from one of his agents, Daniel Rennes. But, when she goes to the shop where Rennes works, she encounters a man who she later remembers to have been Von Croy’s attacker. She also finds that Rennes is dead, killed by the Monstrum. When she recovers all the equipment, she sets off a bomb, but is able to escape in time.

After recovering, Lara infiltrates the Louvre via the underground drains. While there, she finds Carvier's Office, and finds out that Carvier too has been working under Eckhardt. Soon after visiting the archeological dig, she finds her way into the Hall of Seasons, a strange fortress defended by the undead knights (hidden underneath an archaeological dig within the Vaults of the Louvre). There, she recovers the Fourth Obscura Painting from an angered red ghost before escaping the flooding vaults. When back in the Louvre after eliminating a team of assassins led by Marten Gunderson, an agent of Eckhardt, she is ambushed by Kurtis again, who steals the painting. Then she has to pursue him while evading mercenaries. After escaping, she is knocked out after finding him unconscious. After waking up, she picks up a mysterious dagger with a blade of black crystal. She is found by Bouchard, who tells her of another Monstrum killing in Prague, an art dealer named Vasiley, then takes her to Von Croy’s apartment at her behest. There, she finds further clues about the organization Eckhardt represents, a black-magic cult called the Cabal. She also remembers clearly the attack made on her and Von Croy by Eckhardt. She is then attacked by a soldier called "The Cleaner" sent by Bouchard. Lara is able to kill him, finding a card on his body with Vasiley's address. Bouchard calls the dead man's phone to ascertain that Lara is dead, only for her to tell him that she is coming for him.

Arriving in Prague, she makes contact with a journalist called Thomas Luddick, who tells her that the Mafia is running Prague, and that the primary members live in a place called the Strahov. She recognizes Bouchard and Eckhardt among those who Luddick has seen and photographed. After making a deal with Luddick, she goes to Vasiley’s apartment and finds Bouchard there, cuffed to a radiator. He tells her that Eckhardt (revealed to be the Monstrum himself), who has been using the Mafia as a front to find the Five Paintings, plans to awaken a being called "the Sleeper", last member of the diabolical Nephilim race. Lara finds the final Obscura Engraving, which shows where the final painting is under the Strahov, but returns to find Bouchard dead. Infiltrating the Strahov, Lara sees experiments being conducted using Nephilim cells on plants, animals and human inmates. She also sees Eckhardt killing Luddick using a mystic glove, one of the tools he has been using as the Monstrum. To get further inside the Strahov, she switches off the power, releasing all the inmates and animals, together with a rabid creature called the Proto-Nephilim, created by the Cabal's scientist Boaz. Lara sees a scene later while exploring the Greenhouse area in the Strahov where, after confessing to her superiors that she suppressed the creature’s existence (she was meant to destroy it), Boaz is 'fed' to a monstrous pod-mutant created by another of Eckhardt's scientists, Muller (whom Lara had met earlier in the Strahov). Later on, Lara is locked in a containment area by Kurtis so he can turn the power back on without interference. Kurtis succeeds, finding his way through the Sanatorium and killing the Proto-Nephilim.

Returning to Lara, the two of them finally find out about each other. Kurtis says that he is the last surviving member of the Lux Veritatis (Latin for 'Light of Truth'), an ancient secret society who oppose the Cabal. He tells her that the blade Lara picked up is a Periapt Shard, one of three magical weapons which, when used together, can kill Eckhardt. Kurtis reveals that Eckhardt is actually a Black Alchemist who has become immortal and invulnerable to normal injury, and that the Paintings contain pieces of a magical talisman, the Sanglyph (Blood Sign), which can help resurrect the Nephilim. Lara and Kurtis split up, with Lara going down into the Lux Veritatis fortress beneath the Strahov, known as the 'Vault of Trophies' and Kurtis going to find the third Periapt Shard, which Eckhardt stole. Lara obtains the painting within the Vault, but comes back to find that Eckhardt is holding Kurtis hostage, with the price being the fifth painting. Lara agrees, then Eckhardt releases Boaz, now bonded within the pod-mutant. Eckhardt also feeds Muller to the mutant, since Muller has "failed" him too. Kurtis helps Lara to escape before giving her the two Periapt Shards, staying behind to fight Boaz. After battling the woman in her pod form and in a mature winged form, Kurtis is badly wounded by her, but uses a bladed disc-weapon he possesses to behead her before slumping to the floor.

Lara goes deeper into the Strahov complex, finding the third Periapt Shard in Eckhardt’s lab, then enters the chamber where the Sleeper is held. Within, Eckhardt has created the Sanglyph and is preparing to resurrect the Sleeper. After battling him, she succeeds in stabbing him with two of the Shards. Before she can finish him off, she is ambushed by Eckhardt’s right-hand man, Karel. Eckhardt orders Karel to kill Lara but instead, he betrays Eckhardt, turns and stabs him with the third Shard, killing him permanently. He then reveals that he is the last existing/living Nephilim, manipulating the Cabal in secret. He offers Lara the chance to join him and shows that he helped her in Paris and Prague in various forms and shapes. In the process,Lara sees a Nephilim symbol on his hand. It is then that Lara remembers that, after Von Croy's murder, Eckhardt morphed into Karel after he had painted the symbols on the wall. Karel attacks her, but Lara manages to grab the Sanglyph and uses it on the Sleeper. She just escapes as Karel is speared by a beam of energy and the whole room blows up, killing Karel and destroying the Nephilim race for good. Limping away into Boaz's chamber, she finds Kurtis' disc-weapon lying where his body should be. Picking it up, the disc activates and pulls her towards the exit. Smiling, Lara walks through the door into shadow, ending the game.