The Dark Project

Lore & Background

In the underbelly of a city where the ruling nobility hoards forbidden knowledge, Garrett moves through the streets as a ghost. He takes contracts from those who cannot reach what they want, and he is paid well for his silence. The Dark Project is one such contract: a book, locked away in a noble's private study, is to be lifted before dawn and delivered to a waiting client. What Garrett does not yet know is that the book is a key. It contains references to the Ravnis Eye, an ancient artifact of immense power that the city's elite are quietly assembling. By accepting this small job, Garrett steps onto a path that will lead him through vaults, catacombs, and the very foundations of the city's power structure. The noble whose estate he infiltrates is not merely a mark; he is a node in a network that stretches far above the rooftops. The level's architecture reflects its themes. The estate is a maze of locked doors, hidden passages, and guarded corridors, each room a test of Garrett's patience and precision. The city outside is indifferent, its rain washing away footprints and secrets alike. Nothing here is what it appears, and the book Garrett carries out under his cloak will prove to be the most dangerous thing he has ever touched.

In Their Own Story

The rain has not stopped for three days. Garrett crouches in the shadow of a gargoyle above the estate's east wall, his cloak heavy with water, his breath a thin white thread in the cold. Below, a guard shifts his weight from one boot to the other, his lantern swinging in slow arcs across the wet cobblestones. He counts the seconds between sweeps. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. The window opens. He is through. Inside, the air smells of old paper and beeswax. The study is two rooms deep, and the book he needs sits on a shelf between a cracked globe and a dead moth pinned in glass. His fingers close around the spine. The lock on the inner door clicks behind him as he slips through, and somewhere far below, in the cellar, something ancient shifts in its sleep and does not wake. By the time the guard finishes his round, the book is in Garrett's satchel, and the only evidence is a single drop of rain on the windowsill that will dry before the sun comes up.

Reader's Guide

Garrett is hired to steal a book from a noble's estate. The level is structured around sneaking through the estate's grounds, bypassing or quietly dealing with guards, and navigating the interior to reach the target book in a private study. Completing the job successfully (without raising an alarm) is the primary objective, though the game allows for more aggressive approaches at the cost of a lower score. The book Garrett steals is connected to the larger plot: it contains information that leads him toward the Ravnis Eye, the artifact at the center of the game's overarching conspiracy. The level matters because it establishes the rules of the world. It teaches the player how to manage noise, light, and line-of-sight, and it plants the narrative seed that Garrett's small, quiet jobs are entangled with forces far greater than a single stolen volume. By the end of The Dark Project, the player understands that Garrett is not merely a thief for hire; he is being drawn, book by book, into a conspiracy he did not choose.

Did You Know?

• The level's design emphasizes verticality and hidden routes, encouraging players to use the estate's architecture—rooftops, cellars, and service corridors—as alternatives to direct confrontation.
• The book Garrett steals in this level is a narrative thread that feeds into the Ravnis Eye plot, meaning a seemingly low-stakes job is actually a piece of a much larger conspiracy.