With the key from the Keeper hideout, Garrett now makes his way down beneath the City and into the ruins of a buried precursor civilisation to grab the Talisman of Fire.

I have mixed feelings about this mission. On one hand, the initial City section and descent through waterlogged caves is really cool- and the secret loot in the City part is a nice touch. On the other hand, the buried precursor town is a pain to navigate. The map's useless and mostly just there for flavour, and confusing labyrinthine tunnels with repetitive texturing make it easy to keep going around in circles.

More interesting is the archaeology you end up doing. Through readables and information gleaned from the environment, you learn the interesting story of the city's final years, of its last rulers and the political wrangling as everything started going bad. You learn that the Keepers were wise to hide the Talisman of Fire down here, because it's a dangerous place even for them, and you even get to meet your old pals the Hand Brotherhood.

The atmosphere and story are much stronger than the gameplay, which unfortunately gets annoying. Aside from the Tower, the initial spider cave, and one or two of the tombs, not enough use is made of verticality. And the use of burricks and fire elementals gets tedious. Burricks are just annoying- they get stuck and block narrow passages, and fighting packs of them in brightly lit open areas isn't any fun either. And fire elementals get frustrating because it's hard to tell which way they're facing.

Overall this is a solid filler mission, interesting for the lore but not the strongest in terms of game play.