MAGIC AMULET OF BASTET

Beyond the Basics Egypt (2024) – Level by Die Basis

Walkthrough by Treeble

As the level begins, run down the ramp and take a sharp right to find a suspended wooden platform. Climb up to the balcony nearby and run around to the other end to find a sneakily hidden crawlspace behind the foliage. Get some yellow light sticks halfway through the corridor leading to a giant button, which in turn raises that wooden platform you've just seen. Crawl back out and hop onto it to pull open the door above.

Throw a switch on the left alcove and then proceed a bit further to find another door you can pull open. The switch opened the gate right across the gap, so jump there and drop into the next room. In the back, hoist yourself to the ledge with the plant and grab the ceiling to monkey swing to a tall tile in the corner: the red knife-like glyph disarms a spike trap. Now you can slide down the passage and jump over the gap to climb the ladder to the top, where the spikes have been disabled.

Follow the corridor around to wind up on a balcony with a DJED PILLAR right in front of you. Safety drop to the initial plaza and find a lever beneath the tent in the very center, it opens the door in the balcony next to the wooden platform you were on just a second ago. Climb back up there and slot in the pillar to open a door to the basement of the building, inside which you get the first FORGOTTEN SHOVEL. The camera hint shows you where to use it.

On the opposite end of this plaza, go through the opening behind a fountain and loop around to the right (pedestals like the one in this area show hints for your next goal when you approach them, keep that in mind), go up the ramp in the corner to find a MUSIC SCROLL. When you collect it, a trapdoor in the plaza pool drops open, so retrace your steps back there. Get out of the water in the other end of the passage to find yourself in a music room; use the scroll to play the harp and two doors open.

Exit and go left, just past that fountain is a small alcove which you've just opened housing the second FORGOTTEN SHOVEL. Now go through the doorway behind the fountain again and use the shovels on the mirroring gardens (approach the "dig at your own risk" barricades and tap Action to bring up the shovel), unearthing both SMALL WATERSKIN and LARGE WATERSKIN. In the left garden you can also find a giant scarab button, push it to open the central door leading to the scale puzzle.

Above the scale you see two identical glyphs of women holding a jar of water. Let's assume each jar means 1 liter, so for the puzzle we'll be needing a waterskin with 2 liters. (Just fill the large waterskin once and combine it with the small one). Pour the 2 liters into the scale jar and a spike trap outside is disarmed. Take the EYE OF HORUS from the plinth behind the scale and go back outside, you can now safely inspect that reach-in hole by the pool to open the door.

At the top of the stairs you can throw a switch to see a flyby of the next massive area, if you'd like. Otherwise, go on ahead and down to the left to the ruined cat shrine area. Climb on the central pillar and grab the ledge attached to the wall, shimmying to the right past the pillars and cat statues until you can pull up. Jump to the nearby rooftop and find an EMBLEM on the plinth in the back: that's SECRET #1.

Safety drop and go up the stairs, using the ledge on the left to circle around the building. You'll see a lever you can't throw and a door missing a key. From the SW corner, look to the right of the obelisk next to a waterfall to spot a shootable target in the far end. Shoot it with your pistols to unlock a passage for a secret much later in the level, then resume circling around the ledge to find a closed door over a crevice. For now, jump into the water below to throw the underwater lever you saw in the flyby, then swim through the crawlspace to be sucked into the other pool.

Get some shotgun shells beneath the waterfall then swim all the way around back to solid ground. Work your way back up to that crevice door, which is now open, and shimmy inside. There's a closed gate to the right which you open with a switch in the far left, then go through this gate into a residence of sorts. Pull up on the right side to walk out onto a balcony where the HORUS KEY is basking in the sun. Back inside, go downstairs and push the giant button to return to the initial plaza. Go up the stairs by the pool to return to the second area.

With the key in hand, go halfway through that ledge circling the building to the right and unlock the door flanked by two giant cat statues. Inside, find the receptacle for the eye just behind the doorway and place it to rotate that lever. Throw it and the massive doors at the top of the staircase open.

Get the shotgun shells and first aid kit from the alcove behind the small pyramid and drop through either of the openings in the floor to slide to an area where two harpies will be attacking your golden double. Dispose of the harpies and the mimicry comes to an end, leaving a SAPPHIRE KEY behind. An opening next to the windowsill is your way out, but don't go there just yet. Instead, from the central block do a running jump to grab the crack in the west wall and vault upwards, then backflip (tap backwards while hanging) to land on the catwalk above, where you'll find a first aid kit and an EMBLEM — indeed, that's SECRET #2.

Safety drop down and push open the double doors in the corner to find yourself back in the lower outside area. Go straight ahead and swim a bit to the right to pull yourself onto a short flight of stairs with a keyhole for which you now have a key. Inside, head left and pull up on the block there, then use the slopes above to backflip back and forth until you can shimmy (or hard steer) left or right to one of the flat surfaces at the top. Shoot the vases in the alcoves for a first aid kit, small date branch, and yellow light sticks, in that order, then step into a lovely veranda outside.

Find the gap in the railing and drop to a ledge just beneath, then do a standing jump to land on the lower ornate tile and finally get to that switch in the alcove. When you throw it, the ornate tile becomes a bouncing pad, enabling you to quickly return to the trapdoor you've just raised. Negotiate a string of jumps across swing poles until you land on the opposite end of the building, pick a first aid kit up and then take an angled running jump to grab the jump switch nearby.

You land in a small water hole, pull out and find an open trapdoor in the sandstone slope, it was concealing the SCARAB. You need to retrace your steps to that veranda, and as you pull out of this small pit you'll notice the gate above the small water hole is now open. It's a handy shortcut, so get in and negotiate the slope jumps to the top of the room again.

Open the double doors on the left with the scarab and go in. Get first aid kit and shotgun shells in the alcove, then light a flare and throw it into the pit to find a safe way down to claim that SHOTGUN. Climb back up and painfully shimmy past the swinging chain to pull up on the other side. A vase hidden in an alcove to the left holds shotgun shells, and there is a small date branch inside one of the other two vases.

As you cross the threshold into the next area, two skeletons rise. You could shoot them into the pit but we won't linger around here, so just rush to the green chain and pull it once to open a gate elsewhere (ignore the red chain, it's tagged with the same glyph as the spike trap from earlier on...) and again shimmy past the chain incurring some more damage.

Back at the veranda, run straight ahead to the doorway behind the pillar with the cat statue and climb into the now open crawlspace on the left. Slide down to an obviously trapped artifact. We need to raise those cat statues on the ground, so find a crawlspace next to the slope, on the other side of which don't be hasty but instead shimmy left to steer clear from the spike trap, and throw a lever there. Crawl back to the cat statues and simply drag them to the inner row of marked tiles, doing so disarms the other spike trap and you can collect the SEAL OF ANUBIS. Get out the same way you came in by using the ladder over the slope.

Crawl back out and place the seal on the pillar with the cat statue. A block rises nearby, but we need fire, so go back into the building through which you first came in and find a newly opened door on the right side. Slide backwards to grab a jump switch at the bottom of the short slope and you'll land right in front of an opening gate with a sarcophagus behind. Push it open and get the TORCH inside. A door to your immediate left opens, go in there to find fire (and spare torches as well, but you shouldn't ever need them).

Burning torch in hand, hop onto the block and jump back and forth over the slopes again, except this time you're forced to veer off to either side at the top so choose one at the bottom and start your jumps as close to the edge as possible. Hop around to the veranda and use the risen block to jump to the cat statue, then jump over the railing to the balcony at the top. Light up the bowl and the tall door opens (the vanishing torch means it's fulfilled its purpose).

Inside, shoot the vases to find a small date branch and shotgun shells, plus an ANKH on the pedestal. Back to that room with the slope jumps, do a long jump across the central pit to the alcove with the gate and use the ankh to open it. Finally grab hold of the zipline and glide down to a small sphinx, where two panthers try to ambush you.

Don't ever fall into the water, but instead work your way up that sandy slope to the right to an upper area with a small pyramid and an obelisk. Behind the obelisk there are two doorways with blocks inside. First, pull the left block once, then go around to the right doorway and push that one in, circling around to its left and pulling it backwards once, "locking" yourself in. Roll and run to the end of this tunnel to find a reach-in hole. Examine it to open a gate elsewhere, then push the nearby block twice to get back outside. Loop around to the other opening again and now you can see an alcove which would have otherwise be hidden by the block, take the EMBLEM you find there to add SECRET #3 to your collection.

The latest door you've opened is in the wall behind the small pyramid, hop inside and check the two windowsills on the left for a first aid kit and small date branch. On the opposite side, pull up into a passage with a lit torch (which will be very useful in a moment), and notice there's a crack by one of the openings. Heal up, grab and shimmy around the ledge, then vault upwards to grab a jump switch high up before dropping to an ornate block in the pit.

The spike trap at the bottom of the pit gets disabled. Before taking the TORCH, you might want to snatch shotgun shells from the small corridor at the bottom, and when you do grab the torch, two small scorpions crawl out of a tiny crevice. You need to take that torch to the top of the room, and the only way of doing so is using the ornate blocks in the middle. Approach them, jump straight up and at the apex of the jump, tap the "1" key (hotkey to draw pistols), which makes Lara instantly drop the torch. Pull up and repeat the process, then grab the torch and jump to the outer ledge and into that small passage with the fire so that you can light up your torch and bring it to the obelisk outside.

Save your game before lighting up the two bowls from the corners, as otherwise you can go up in flames yourself, and go inside as the torch vanishes. Get the HORUS CANOPIC JAR and the two mummies will reanimate. Shoot them to pieces (your pistols will do fine) and the flame trap on the pole will be gone. Climb up and backflip to the open door at the top to emerge out of the pyramid. Go down to the lower area on the right and place the jar to open the trapdoor between the sphinx' paws. Run in to load up the second half of the level.

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Run ahead and climb out of the pit to be among two pyramid-shaped doorways. From the lower blocks you can climb on, do an angled running jump to grab that ledge jutting out of the W doorway, then you can hop over the taller blocks to the top of the opposite doorway. If you look into the alcove, you'll see a shiny blue gem you can shatter with your pistols to lower a raising block right beneath you. Enter the doorway and pull the jump switch, then repeat the jumping routine in order to jump to the open door from the first tall block.

Kill two crocodiles then find a small date branch hidden in the plants in the NE corner. Climb the nearby ornate block to a closed door above, then turn around and shoot that gong in the far back. This causes a boulder to drop down into a gap in the floor which, in turn, shifts the obelisk to the side revealing a lever. Throw it and the door above the block opens, so get back up there.

Inside, find the BULL KEY on the pedestal and return to the pyramid doorways to use it on the lock above the west one. After the flyby, safety drop to the next area and go left. As you've shot a target much, much earlier on, the passage is clear and you can go inside a small passage to find one last EMBLEM for SECRET #4.

Shoot the vases flanking the central bridges for two first aid kits, then find a trapdoor you can pull open in the southwest corner of the area with the many waterfalls. Swim through the narrow path to find a ceiling lever in the far end, then return and go to the cat shrine near the entrance. Safety drop through the open trapdoor to land by the PYRAMID KEY. Jump to the lower ledges surrounding the room and go up the steps to emerge at the bottom of the bridges. Use the block to grab the gap in the bridge and pull up.

Go to the back of the area and open the doors with your key. Watch out for the blade swinging statues and pull up onto the small platform on the lap of the statue to the right to open the trapdoors in the back, also unleashing a swarm of beetles. Save your game and slide down to the first boss encounter, just after a deadly gap which will also trap the beetles.

Kill the mummy warrior (I'd suggest saving some shotgun for the next encounter). When it's done for, a PICKAXE spawns on the pedestal nearby, take it and climb the pole in the center of the room to backflip at the top, where you'll find a first aid kit and a broken lever you can activate with the pickaxe to roll out a rope nearby. Use it to swing to a flat spot ahead, run through a tight corridor around the hall and monkey swing across it. Get another first aid kit and pick that other broken lever.

You can either safety drop sacrificing a bit of health or retrace your steps all the way to the pole in the middle of the room. Either way, go through the lowered gate and save your game as you reach the safe ground after the rows of break-away tile before the second boss encounter. The guardian of the amulet loves spamming fireballs which will definitely make short work of you (apparently you can use the nearby waterfall to douse the flames, but I'd suggest save scumming your way past the battle instead), so use that shotgun to try and destroy it as quickly as possible.

When it's finally out of the way, hop over the lava to take the sought-after MAGIC AMULET OF BASTET and a nearby bridge rolls out for you. Jump towards it and run through the upwards hallway back to the surface to wrap things up here.