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Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo Two
Posted By: MartinDate: 4/14/15 11:31 a.m.

:Sorry for not catching up with ToD - PS, where are my next map pics? ;)

Oh, there they are, thanks!




Tempus Irae
3
Like A Well-Filled Day
&
Repository Two

Last time on Tour of Duty, we ran around an Italian convent, appreciating works of art, architecture, writing, and the fact that there were plenty of Pfhor to kill, because that makes us happy. We found a key in the middle of a hedge maze, a manuscript behind a suspicious bookcase, and a fireplace behind a rather angular armchair. Then we found our way out to install the manuscript in the Repository room aboard the Sh’aptide, where they are awaiting many more. Now it’s back to Italy for us, for another search mission!

We start out looking at a water channel that runs the length of this room, and beyond, with several curious pillars of water at different points. The water is in quite a hurry. We turn to see an overly-decorative door frame, and a switch ready to open it – again with the crazy design! There’s also a door that doesn’t open at all. At least the one that does has a switch on both sides, although it is hard to see why anyone would want to come through all of those doors just to access this dead-end of a place. I mean it’s not like they were teleporting people in in 15th Century Italy.

A corridor leads us to another door with a switch, one that is meshed over, and what appears to be a boarded-up window. The door leads to a room where some magnum ammo beams in, and a second magnum (for the scratchstarter). Then the textures change from bricks to stone, and around another corner, we find a new style pattern buffer – the kind we were just told about in the Repository room.

The path carries on down some winding stairs, where we encounter a couple of blue Fighters, and then further along, some pink ones hiding out in an alcove, before more stairs downward. Then we come to an open room, with windows to outside, from whence a few Drones come in to join the party. There are also some Fighters off in a room we can’t get to at the moment, so let’s just leave them. The outside areas are huge, and actually make up most of the map of the level; so odd when we cannot access them at all – or get them on the map, so here we really have to use that plugin to show the whole map!

See, huge! And the only outside bits we go into are parts in the top-right and bottom-left. It’s actually hard to figure out how the bits we -can- get to all link up in the 3d render.

Back to progress, there is a little ammo nearby, and then some stairs going -up- in a new direction. There’s a small landing, and a passage to the left reveals another door with a switch. Through that door, quite a few Drones come at us through a window. There is a little ammo, and another door that doesn’t open, but not really enough to justify even going in there. Later on we acquire an assault rifle, and then we can come back and blast ourselves through the window. But there’s even less reason to do that. All it allows us to do is explore the nearby room with Pfhor that we couldn’t reach before, see that the very thin wall outside it causes animation issues for them, get a close-up on the statue from our pattern buffer, and find the way out, in the form of a wall that opens when we get near it … rather than, say, using the door that is -right there-! No more ammo or anything :(.

Back up at the landing, we can go around to the right as well, to find a blue Fighter, and then we can see some of his friends on the ledge far above. It is easier to shoot them from down here, and maybe coax more down, than to fight them on the stairs, so I do. And then up the stairs we go. Finish off the Fighters and watch more water running through channels. Then a corridor to the left brings us some ammo, a terminal, a switch, a secret door, and an ambush involving a Trooper. Annoying for the scratchstarter for sure.

The terminal carries on our story, with ideas about the properties of flowing water and flowing air. We are apparently inside a castle now, and there is certainly a lot of flowing water about the place, so it’s all topical stuff. And then there’s another vision with the shadowy follower, and that results in the waters flooding the place – inventions turned to pointless destruction. I think we could probably relate to that.

Just to the right of the terminal, one of the wall panels opens up as a door. This sort of secret reminds me of Wolfenstein 3d :). Beyond, there is a normal door, with a switch, and a half-open one off to the left. When we get near that one, an SMG with ammo and a 3x recharger canister beam in beyond the door, but we can’t fit through it, and there don’t appear to be any “drink me” potions handy :(. The other door leads to a consolation prize, some ammo and a 1x recharge canister that we can get to. Then back out by the terminal, there is still the switch. It doesn’t seem to do anything within earshot.

Onward down the corridor, we get another look at an outside area, with a Juggernaut taking potshots at us, so it’s best just to run past. And then we find another door that opens on proximity and leads us back to much earlier in the level, just around from the pattern buffer. And that switch has opened up a staircase leading up from that room. It takes us past another window to outside, with Drones waking up and heading towards us. They seem almost too big for the window, so it can be quite freaky to find them coming in!

Up the top there are two pink Fighters, and then another door with a switch. The next corridor also affords us a view of yet another outdoor area, this time with a moat going around the west side of the castle, and a Cyborg patrolling its far side. The blue lake, green hills, blue sky landscape is displayed out past them, and it is fun to see the two interpretations of water juxtaposed so. This corridor is surprisingly devoid of ambushes, but around the next corner we see a Trooper and Fighter in the distance. Advancing, we also find an assault rifle and a 1x recharge canister beaming in, but the latter is definitely best left until really needed.

What I really like about the earlier part of the level, is that you can just ignore the Pfhor, and run all the way around from the pattern buffer to the terminal, hit the switch, and get out alive – then, you might need the 1x canister here :). And at the end of this corridor, we get to go outside for real, through a switch door. It’s quite a large grassy courtyard, and the wind is up. High up on the walls that surround us are decorative arches, and as we continue, we find some Fighters trying to throw things at us from up there … but they are easily ignored. As are other Pfhor from behind windows in more places we can’t access.

We then come to an inside space again, with a loop around a central structure hiding some ammo; an Enforcer and quite a few other Pfhor hiding a quick death, and a staircase to a far door hiding our manuscript, and a 1x recharge canister, which we almost certainly need by now!

Heading back the way we came, we eventually find a spot where a platform has dropped in the wall. Falling down the hole also causes a door to open that links us back up with our pattern buffer via a staircase. And we also find the door to the last part of the level, outside again, via an airlock of sorts. And this time there is no way back – no switches behind these doors!

The final area is another maze-like one, but the walls are much less tall, to the point that Drones happily fly over them, and other Pfhor can get confused trying to shoot through them – there are also impassable structures about the place, but the whole area shows as continuous on the map. The fighting in here is quite intense, with lots of Drones and blue Fighters, and a Trooper. There are a few dead-ends, although one, to the southeast, rewards a 1x recharge canister, and there are a few pockets of ammo about the place. As we keep exploring, we eventually find the southwest point, where a tree drops down to reveal a pool of water, and beyond that, our Vitruvian Man appears.

Back on the ship,

we can see that same fail message again, but note that the alphanumeric code on the login screen keeps incrementing.

Once we install our second manuscript, we read that we are heading to a church as the next destination – well, a place for human group neural-network activity :). The humans have been scared away from the area … well that answers one of my questions from last time, kind of. It doesn’t seem to make sense that the presence of the Pfhor could -not- change history under these conditions, though.

And the battle rages on in space, with damage inflicted upon the K’alima, but they -might- still be able to transport Pfhor to Earth … yeah I think we can be confident of that lol. And finally, how could we not love the comment about our need for weapons?

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwoMartin 4/14/15 11:31 a.m.
     Re: Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwPerseusSpartacus 4/14/15 11:47 a.m.
           Re: Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwMartin 4/14/15 1:42 p.m.
     Re: Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwHokuto 4/16/15 4:22 a.m.
     Re: Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwVikingBoyBilly 4/17/15 7:11 a.m.
           Re: Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwMartin 4/18/15 7:43 p.m.
                 Re: Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwVikingBoyBilly 4/22/15 1:34 p.m.
                       Re: Tour of Duty: Like A Well-Filled Day / Repo TwMartin 4/22/15 2:02 p.m.
                             5-D spacesHopper 4/25/15 4:14 p.m.
                                   Re: 5-D spacesMartin 4/27/15 1:09 p.m.

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Pre-2004 Posts

 

 

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