A stone dais is a special device that serves as a transportation network from any parts of the world to Helheim. They play a big role in Tomb Raider: Legend and a smaller role in Tomb Raider: Underworld. With the use of the Excalibur sword, an individual could travel anywhere in the network. A stone dais usually consists of five stone pillars, a giant stone circle that serves as a portal, and an Excalibur sword as the final key to travel.
Tomb Raider: Legends
Prior to the main events of Legends, Lara first encounters a stone dais in Nepal at a young age. When a plane carrying a group of passengers crash, Lara and her mother Amelia Croft are the only living survivors of the accident. Young Lara stumbles across a stone dais with a sword in the pedestal. She accidentally touches the sword, which causes the stone dais to become activated. Amelia runs over to Lara in hopes to protect her from the device, but pulls the sword from the pedestal after hearing a voice telling her to do so through the giant stone circle. The device then collapses, and transports Amelia to Helheim.
Years later, Lara comes across a stone dais in Bolivia which is similar to the one she encounters in Nepal. This one was missing a sword though. She later learns that an old friend by the name of Amanda Evert is trying to find the missing pieces of Excalibur sword, which is needed to be placed in the stone dais in order for one to travel to Avalon. After traveling the world to find the missing pieces, Lara finally returns to Bolivia with the completed sword. After a long fought battle with Amanda, Lara places Excalibur into the stone dais. The stone dais becomes unstable though and explodes after Amanda warned Lara to pull the sword out.
Tomb Raider: Underworld
The stone dais play a smaller role in Underworld. Lara comes across a stone dais while trying to escape from a crumbling Helheim. Noticing that her mom was trying to use the stone dais to escape, Lara realizes that one of the stone pillars was not intact, which made the portal unusable. After reconstructing the portal, Amanda and Lara use it to escape the dilapidating Helheim. It later returns to them to the same stone dais that Amelia used to transport to Helheim in the first place.
Portal locations
Lara comes across at least three stone daises while trying to find a way to Avalon. It is unknown if there are more stone dais locations, but its possible that more exist and are never fully explored in the game.
- Nepal - Lara first comes across this stone dais at a young age after her mom and her were the only survivors of a plane crash. Lara comes across the stone dais and activates it by touching the sword in the dais. Amelia then runs to the portal and pulls the sword out of the pedestal after hearing someone telling her to pull the sword out. This causes the stone dais to collapse and transport Amelia to Helheim. Lara is able to fix the device later on in Helheim, which causes her and Amanda to be transported back to Nepal.
- Bolivia - Lara comes across this stone dais while traveling through Bolivia. She notices that this stone dais is exactly the same dais that her mother pulled the sword from in Nepal. However, this dais did not have a sword in the pedestal like the one in Nepal. As Lara sets out to find the remaining pieces of Excalibur, with Amanda and her goons in hot pursuit, she manages to reach Bolivia again. After a battle with Amanda, Lara places the sword into the dais but is warned that the dais will explode if Lara didn't remove the sword. Amanda's words eventually becomes true, and the dais becomes unstable and explodes.
- England - Inside King Arthur's tomb, there is a dilapidated stone dais. This dais seems unusable, as there are no pillars or stone ring and the pedestal for the sword is in ruins.
- Helheim - There is a partially broken stone dais in the chamber that housed the Atlantean device that would wake the Midgard Serpent.