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	Message: : : Last time on tour of duty (and the time before that), Martin and Perseus : Spartacus found a lot of secrets I didn't even know about thanks to : "cheating" by using weland, or rather, a map-generating script : to find them ;) (or in Martin's case, sheer grit and determination to find : a contact for bug reports that's probably a long-defunct email by now. : Such is the case as these scenarios age). : We enter our second chapter in this map, as we’re presented a screen with a : MoaH on a balcony that says “Treachery.” : : Treachery, eh? Is Merlin going to turn on us? (Spoilers from the future: I’m : pretty sure he’s still ordering you around in Excalibur, so the plot must : be thickening with another treacherous element). : We start out in a long hallway with a fighter on the other end advancing on : us, and this place has a very Acme-Station aesthetic going on, but at : least here we can kick back and enjoy the scenery with no vacuum. : Notably, the rooms are very dark, but lined with high windows that are very : bright for contrast. The first big room has nothing in it but fighters and : a door to the left, and this time I have to put down my fists and put up : the pistols for projectile fighters. : The next room fills us with dread as we hear a trooper SMG-ing away in : another room above, but he can’t fit through the window, so we’re safe : from him until we get up there ourselves. There’s a terminal here, from : what appears to be a new AI named Mithrandir: : : : : : : : : It’s good for us to have some bearings. Now we know to go down the south : hallway to get to that pattern buffer, but it’s windowless, and man is it : dark. We make it out and see the structure where the PB should be and a : trooper lobs a grenade at us! It’s time to bring out the bigger guns and : wipe him out. The big problem is he follows us into that long, dark : hallway, and he fires some more before we can see him. : After killing that guy, another trooper and… err, oh yeah, I mean, another : “pirate” and some “galaxans” sneak up from behind him to jump us, but we : survive the encounter with our trusty fusion pistol, or whatever the hell : the gun is called in this universe. : The sound of trooper grenades spook us as we emerge out again, but it’s more : troopers that can’t get us from the high windows. There’s a f’lick’ta in : the PB room, and it doesn’t seem to be hurt by our SMG fire. We attempt to : run in after it, but a force pushes us back with a liquid splash sound. A : force field. Well, that’s just great. Are we supposed to go to the upper : left corner of the map where Mithrandir showed us to turn it off? : *goes back to reread terminal. You get to have this full map:* : : Okay, so that room does have more than nothing, but we can’t get up to that : terminal yet. At least there’s a shield recharger in one of the cubbyholes : in the big area. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything else there we can : access. What do we do? There is no spoiler guide for this scenario for us : to consult on this one. We have to rely on our own brainpower (which, in : FPS terms, means bumbling around and letting our time drain down a sink : until we find… SOMETHING.) : Well, it turns out there was another exit in the terminal room. We find some : odd stairs decorated with those teal slab-thingies on either end. The : stairs are just a dead-end (that will obviously open up seeing that it’s a : red polygon on the map), and the slabs are blocking the other exits. It : seems we’re trapped until we figure out how to run-jump around the other : side of the slabs. : On the other end of the un-lowered platform are some more fighters, and the : darkness of this map makes combat feel like a bit of a crapshoot. We can : see their glowy staves, but it doesn’t give away the color of their armor : to tipoff whether we should punch or shoot. : Some shotgun shells are tucked away in an obscure corner, which wakes up some : fighters on a balcony. There’s a terminal up there we can’t reach, and if : memory serves from my playthrough of the M1 version, that’s got to be a : secret terminal that we need the SPNKR to access (the rockets we can see : up there are definitely a hint to that conclusion). But there’s another : terminal down here we can read: : : : : : : : Contained specimens, eh? Something treacherous must be afoot here, indeed. : We can walk up to a platform to our obvious launch-spot, but we don’t have : the rocket launcher yet, so we must pass it up for now and proceed. : We enter yet another dark hallway, but this one is very narrow and lined with : those school ceiling-light things that are all turned off (but making that : ambient, repetitive hum). We climb up to the hallway above the large area : with the pattern buffer, so we know a trooper must be here, but we can’t : see him; not even a blip on the radar. This map suddenly turned into : Slender: The Eight Pages. Except we’re armed with more than a little : flashlight ;) (but the flashlight would be nice to alleviate the darkness) : We run into some corpses of pirates we didn’t kill. Did the trooper blow : himself up with his buddies? : : None of those look like a trooper corpse, so he’s got to still be wandering : around somewhere. Man, is this all creepy. : *goes all the way around* : well, it would seem he’s not up here, so let’s move on. It looks like we’re : about to get to that place where the AI told us to go to turn off that : force field. We enter another area, and on our right, I SWEAR I saw a : galaxan’s head silhouette against the window move away, but maybe I : imagined it. I’m not going down there first, because the button we need is : on the other side. There’s a terminal with what looks like a bob in front : of it. : : I’m just starting to realize this dark, claustrophobic design is very M1-ish. : Another consequence of this scenario’s origins. : Oh, but it’s not a bob, it’s a galaxan! AHHH!!!! : Luckily, I must have picked up some fusion batteries on the way over here. I : thought I was all out. Here’s the terminal: : : : : Oh, F’lick’ta, I’m pressing ESC out of that one! Lets mosey on over to the : other side we didn’t check out yet. There’s, err, speak of the devil, a : long room with those azure f’lict’ta. Easy enough. There isn’t anywhere to : go after dispatching them. I have to take that teleporter. I’ll get right : on that after I go back to recharge my shield. : Err, except we walked off a ledge, right at this spot. : : I didn’t notice in the dark. We can’t go back. I’m boned. Well, let’s get : this encounter over with. Except oh, we totally can go back, thanks to a : secret trigger we step on near the terminal that opens up one of the : windows for us to jump down! : Brb. : Okay, I’m ready, and… but that’s a level exit? But We didn’t turn off the : force fields! : I’m not gonna bother describing the next map, because we just instantly get : killed and have to replay all this ‘cuz we couldn’t save >=( : So now I can describe what we missed the first time. : Well, after a lot of bumbling wall-hugging, we find a secret 2x recharger and : 3x canister! : : And a secret door in the big room that’s just a shortcut for backtracking. : : The 3x canister apparently respawns after failed experiments with : grenade-climbing. : After a lot more stumbling, and thinking about that strange useless 2x : recharger in the column as a hint, We find the secret opening in another : column where the SPNKR is hidden! : : Apologies for grabbing the SPNKR off the shelf before taking that : screenshot. : A f’lickta jumps us from another opening from behind, so watch out! : I think I didn’t waste TOO many grenades getting to this point, so let’s : blast up to that previously-inaccessible terminal and see the oh-so secret : message. On your marks, ready, set… : : : Made it! : : : : : : Ah, so Froody is that word I had to look up when I made it here in the M1 : version! (There were Hulks on this map in the M1 version, too, IIRC). : This must have been written before the ultimate Road-To-Nowhere that is all : of the non-endings of the X-files series that P*&*&ed off everybody that : bothered to be invested in it. As for Hitchiker’s, well, as of now I’m two : books in and still have three books to go on that series. I’m thinking of : using Zaphod Beeblebrox as an anonymous moniker when I ever have the : opportunity ;) : Well, guess that’s it. Does the Pattern Buffer area ever open, at all? There : are two curious buttons in there driving me nuts. : : Holy f’licta, I’m in! There appears to be a weak spot in one of the walls : where we can slip in, as most parts still blast us away; or did we unlock : it by doing something? Ah, well, I’m just happy to be able to save! : edit: Since first writing this, Martin/Perseus linked me to a DiaBD spoiler : guide and one of the four corner-lights of the area will teleport you in : when standing on it. : We push the two buttons and take the teleporter out. : as for those buttons… : One of them did just what I thought: it lowered that bridge that we had to : awkwardly maneuver around this whole time. : : Was this the intentional route of the map? Is this some metroid-esque : sequence-breaking design? : It looks like the other button opened one more secret passage in that bridge : room. : : Taking it reveals… another shortcut to the rocket hopping room? Eh, It’s a : living. Guess we can safely call this writeup a wrap, secure in having : found all the secrets. Heh, looking back at one of the terminals, the : secret rocket launcher’s location was cleverly given away in one of the : pics! Can you spot it? : Well, we still have 8 grenade packs, and now we can go into the next map with : a save and a 3x shield, so… apology accepted.
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