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	Message: : For those of us keeping score, it is now: Perseus 1 - Circumstances 0 :). : That's right, the next maps are up, and so without further ado, I bring : you: : : Tempus Irae 4 Downward Spiral & Repository Three : Last time on Tour of Duty, we ran around a castle, thinking about how water : flows. I wonder what Da Vinci would have made of MC Escher’s waterfall :). : We encountered various inaccessible areas with Juggernauts and Cyborgs, : including one that has since been pointed out to contain 5d space! And : curiously, given that they could have so easily just not had the areas : overlapping. Oh well. We finished up in another small maze, and then : delivered our second manuscript – now we’re off to a church of sorts, to : find a third one. : We start in a courtyard, in the shadow of a huge stone cross that reaches for : the sky behind us – this is a really nice implementation, although the : spoiler guide describes it as a complete sham – ahh ignorance was bliss : lol. : : In front of us appears a magnum and some ammo for it, plus some for the : shotgun. Beyond is one of those doors that awaits a key. It is another : lovely day here in Italy! Unfortunately, as we advance through the : courtyard, our admiring of the weather, and of a nice sculpted wall : texture around the building with the door, is rudely interrupted by a : typical TI-style ambush, in front and behind, with Fighters, Troopers, and : Hunters. Plus an Enforcer, in another group through some windows. What a : party! At least for the benefit of the scratchstarter, there is a shotgun : sitting nearby as well, but really, not the sort of welcome we were hoping : for. : The room with the windows is behind another door we can’t open yet. Off to : the right is the only one around here that we can! And it leads us down : some stairs. This is actually a good place to run to escape all that : action up front – tactical retreat! It leads us into the arms of a few : Fighters and a Trooper, but there is also a health canister at the top of : the stairs, so it is for sure the safer option! : I guess now would be a time to take a look at the map! Ooh it’s a complicated : one, and this is where the 3d render really comes into its own, clearly : explaining the level name, as well as its apparently being a Nine Inch : Nails album – good for them! Just thinking about what Narcogen said : regarding the stained-glass windows underground later in the level. The : spoiler guide says we start the level on the roof, so I guess it actually : has a shot at making sense – we are up quite high by the looks of things. : Interesting. The walls are just a bit too tall up there to see parts of : the map nearby from the roof. We are near the “top” of both versions of : the map, anyway. : : : There’s also a little map writing crediting the designer; haven’t seen that : sort of thing in a while – not polygon writing but labelling … and it : doesn’t seem to show up on the 3d render ;). : Back to the action, around the corner to the left there are doors on both : sides. The right one takes us to a terminal that reveals itself based on : our proximity, and then closes while we read it, but we don’t get kicked : out :). I also just realised that I have the power to invert the terminal : images just as Narcogen did, so that’s how they’ll be from here on, except : with the text still the right way around. This terminal talks of our : protagonist’s work on cadavers and thoughts about perfection and the human : body. The golden ratio comes from the body? I always thought it had to do : with paper sizes…. He’s getting proper suspicious of the priests here, and : one can’t help but chuckle at the line about meeting an honest priest. And : of course, we fully expect to find that the manuscript has been moved to : lower levels! There is also the sound of a crackling fire here, but no : other evidence of such…. : : : : : : : Back out in the corridor, the door opposite finds us in the company of an : Enforcer and some Fighters, in a room with various wooden obstacles, and a : switch, which opens a door just outside in the corridor, leading up some : stairs. These lead us, via some stairway combat with an angry Trooper, to : the room we looked into from the roof. Even if we killed everyone in there : through the windows, there is another Fighter ready to teleport in! : There’s also some ammo, and the key to that door on the roof, and a switch : to get us out of here. : Through that key door is a narrow ledge above a long drop. Some Fighters : spawn on the ledge, and we also hear an Enforcer wake up, most annoyingly, : down the bottom. This makes the drop quite scary, especially as we haven’t : had a pattern buffer here yet! *phew* I got him. But it doesn’t end there! : Having taken the drop, we then proceed on more of an upward spiral : staircase, find more Fighters, a Hunter, and then some larger rooms of the : church, with still more, including an ambush behind us again … not : friendly! Thankfully on this playthrough at least, the Fighters got mad at : the Enforcer and killed it, and then didn’t try to follow me on my : retreat. Equally thankfully, the beam-in sounds as I advanced across the : room, were ammo and health!! rather than more Pfhor :). : Here we have the stained-glass windows, and although it makes the building : rather tall overall, these ones make fine sense now, and I’m glad I’ve : cleared that up in my mind! We could have gone left or right from the top : of the spiral staircase just earlier, so now we can either go back or : carry on around the block. The other side is much the same but includes a : Trooper, and more damned ambushes from behind. Surprise Pfhor FTL! It : really is a wonder that I’m so fond of this scenario. At least the health : canister is there on both sides as well. : The passage around the back that connects the two side rooms has an Enforcer : who just stays put in there, true Enforcer style. I chose to beat him at : his own gun. Therein is a door heading back towards the side rooms, : revealing an Enforcer, sight of that crackling fire at long last, a Jesus : save terminal plus a panel that opens to reveal a more official one – in : case we hadn’t worked out the Cross thing? It would have been a real : effort getting this far then! It seems this was the Enforcer’s bedroom – : what do Enforcers dream of? And finally, there’s a switch that opens a : door to … WTH? The corridor with the terminal room – how on Earth did they : fit this map together quite so? We fell down a long way, climbed up some : stairs, and I didn’t even realise there was enough empty space where we’ve : just been to accommodate all that other stuff – and I can’t make it out : well enough from the 3d render to see if we’re talking 5d space here : again. Never mind. The switch also closes the door again unless you turn : it off – one of those – and of course, I forgot and went through it. At : least the path to saviour was clear! : Back out in the -other- corridor, there is a door opposite that leads to a : proper big downward spiral staircase, and we’re well pleased we are now : saved. The Pfhor initially react but then seem to run away down the stairs : – at least until we start heading down. The first door on our right : reveals a rather empty room, except for the Pfhor – just a couple of : Fighters, but they are soon joined by a whole flock coming in the door. : When they’re all dealt with, another door takes us further into this : distraction, and a well-earned health canister. Thankfully the next door : doesn’t open, and doesn’t appear to go anywhere secret either. : The second door, down the stairs further, takes us to a room with obstacles, : and a Trooper behind one of them. This is a save after every room kind of : place, not least because fighting on stairs sucks, and the ambushes back : up the stairs keep coming! This aside is also two rooms deep with a health : canister, but while there are a lot of bookcases, none of them seem to : hold secrets – aww. The third room … well you get the idea; this time : there’s an Enforcer as well, another fireplace, and another cross save. : But still no secrets. I recall these guys do like secrets where you have : to climb up things, but this room doesn’t have a high enough ceiling, and : I’ve got all polygons on the map :). : Our next stop is the bottom of the staircase! This leads to Fighters and : Enforcers that aren’t pleased to see us, a keyed door, another that is : just a façade, and the entrance to the main church room … uhh, yeah that’s : all I’ve got to describe it off the top of my head sorry. More : stained-glass windows, lots of pillars, a couple of statues, although no : pews to speak of, and far more Pfhor than one might expect. They don’t : seem to want to come out though, so we can take potshots from just : outside. : At first it is Fighters, Troopers and Enforcers, but we advance through the : room expecting more at every step. And more do come, finally when we reach : the back corner. This time there’s a blue Hunter in the mix, and we’re : supposed to have used the earlier peace to access the secret rocket : launcher and 3x health. What!? It’s actually a secret SMG? I was sure : there was a SPNKR here, and I was planning to try some exploring from the : roof. Oh well, still useful! To access it, you have to run up the stairs : in this area and climb onto the raised platform at their top. This opens a : door from the ledge around to the right, and if you jump to it around the : pillar to the right, you can get in before that door closes. There’s also : a pattern buffer in there, so it is definitely useful for the blue Hunter : fight, especially with no hidden rocket launcher…. Instead as I had : spawned him earlier, I took potshots from outside again, mainly with the : shotgun as the alien weapon struggles to get over the little ledge that is : right there. : At the other end of the church here we have the confessionals, with some : amazing doors that actually spring open – I thought the spoiler guide : mentioned those as well, but it doesn’t seem to. Quite impressive with the : engine. What it does mention is that this cathedral area – ahh yes, that : -is- what it is called – was pretty taxing on many CPUs of the time! It is : large, and pretty, and with quite a fight, so not a huge surprise, but : always fun to think of such things as being taxing :). It also mentions a : secret I missed earlier, in the rear corridor back up top – and now I know : that “wainscoting” is apparently the horizontal surface on an indented : wall section? Just a small room with 2x health and some ammo – but man, : that would have been handy for the stairs! : Back to the point, one of the confessionals also had a 2x health canister, : and the other had a key, such that we can open the door back at stair : bottom. It leads to more stairs, just in case we were missing them, and : then down into the crypt we heard about earlier. More Pfhor, a couple of : nicely done tombs, and a wall of text … Latin text. And as we advance : towards it, stuff blows up – apparently some tricky nuclear death Ticks, : and suddenly there are more Pfhor behind us, and a path into some rather : organic-looking underground tunnels. : These run a fair distance, and include a sewer flow, but the main point is : for us to work a jumping puzzle, which eventually brings us out to a : manmade area again, more Pfhor, and an oddly shaped wall. I’m not sure if : it is from auctioning or just running around in the little moat, but the : middle section opens, revealing our manuscript sitting in front of a fire : – how the hell long has that thing been burning with no one around and no : ventilation? Anyway, looking back at the wall with that section open, we : see a happy face. There’s also another explosion, this time on the side of : the wall of text from earlier. Fighters and Drones lie in wait in another : sewer, and finally our Vitruvian Man exit. : Back on board, we can fail again: : : : But it’s much more fun to get the highest of S’pht praise: SATISFACTORY. OMG, : praise overwhelming. We read that the Pfhor Secondary Command Mecha is : kind of offline, but it doesn’t seem that important when their primary one : is doing just fine! : : : : : And now they’re reading our damn travel guide just to make sure they arrive : before us … or you know, are in teleport range or, whatever. Back we go : again!
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