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	Message: : Chapter 5: The Dark Bowers : Last time on Tour of Duty, we went underground for the first time and met : the corpse of Muller. : We also found an Easter treat, an SMG and some treasure we’ll need for deeper : down. Sorry for all those references last time, I’d come up with a few : good ones but got carried away with them. I try to keep them down a notch : or two here. You can expect at least two other ooze ones over the rest of : the floors starting here. : : We begin by the ladder to Feel the Power. I descend down it and put my new : pistol and SMG skills to the test. : : : : : Needless to say; they’re not happy at my newfound gun skills, or the flames : of the red Isfet crystal. Just due north of that last snipshot where I : was, I run into a ghoul and a dead Nazi. My Minecraft sense is tingling : and sure enough, I find one of my two favourite metals lying on the ground : nearby. : I take some damage from oozes while looting Walter for ammo. No sign of the : cedar box though and I can’t remember what floor it’s on. (I am writing : the start of this at My Own Private Lh’owon during the rain.) : Walter says that they did find the box and that they needed 11 bars of gold : plus the one Walter had. He isn’t pleased about my “finding” it. He was : killed by the oozes but they don’t seem to have eaten him. : I explore further south after finding another MP-41 clip and use a save rune : before resting. On the east side of the map, I find a bottle of silver and : a machine gun clip guarded by a bunch of oozes, but it’s a dead end. : I find another save rune in the north corridors and pick up some MA-75 clips… : I mean level up my MP-41 to Novice just as I reach the ladder to the next : floor. : : This ladder is different to the others in that it’s made of yellow crystals, : much like the lower ladders on the other path were blue crystals. : : The next floor is more of the same texture wise; it’s called “A plague of : demons.” It’s only 20 past 1 on Sunday afternoon but it will be night time : soon enough further down. : Hang on, plague you say? What could... : : It’s a blob of pink jelly coming out of nowhere like the ones from Devil’s : Castle II! I sometimes get blocked by thin air just before they appear and : I find them hard to dodge because their source is invisible. What a : horrible night to have a plague. : : Is that a dead Bob? He has a broken M16 and a clip for it. The M16 clips are : useless as none of the ones in the game are in working order. He also has : an HE grenade and a pair of Night-vision goggles. : : I catch a glimpse of something white disappearing as I put them on. I must : have killed the wraith that followed me here without seeing it as I looted : the solider. : This guy is John. He tells us that the others were losing hope and in : trouble. Steven had the bomb and he changed the code after we were lost. : John doesn’t know the new code. : If you ask about John’s name, he will look at you funny and think you’re : pulling his leg. Understandable when only we, the players might not know : his name. : John was killed by the wraiths and the rest of the guys stayed with him until : he died. He seems to have forgotten Jason but he does have high hopes for : Greg. : : Of course he will, just not in the game anyway. He does seem to have vanished : off the face of the Earth in real life however. Maybe the Jjaro gave him a : tux and sunglasses before taking him to their homeworld. Or was it an : overcoat? : I can’t find any more dialog lines as I can’t remember the other soldiers so : I press on. : The room in the southeast of the map has the cedar box so we will head there. : I was able to add the maps and check where it was after getting home : again. : I get jumped by a wraith sneaking up behind me while fighting two others and : an ooze and find some ammo in the north and south ends of the southwestern : passage which is filled with mushrooms. : More wraiths at a 4 way junction bring me down to 0.9 health so I am forced : to drink one of my silvers. : : I come to a bronze door, I think there is a banshee hiding behind it. One of : three actually I think. : I was wrong: there were a bunch of wraiths in there instead. Same with the : door at the end of the room, plus at least 1 ooze. I know that they are : here however, somewhere in the eastern halls. : : I find the box in its room behind a silver door that suspiciously has a : bronze lock of sorts. Good thing I did too, as I am down to my last two : pistol clips and am running out of SMG ammo. : : I continue on through the maze of tight hallways filled with wraiths and : oozes. And come to a bronze door on the left. The room inside is empty… : : Nani Datte?! : : EEEEEEEE! : : Yatta! That red glow is meant to be the red crystal’s fire by the way. You : can’t see these guys with the night vision goggles on so their appearance : here seems to be a practical joke to keep players on their toes as they’d : be so used to fighting wraiths by now. : You’re meant to see nothing in the room and either check the corners or : wander off, then get ambushed by the banshee (like I was) and see that : there’s nothing there unless you take the goggles off. : Past another room with some wraiths, a banshee and a save rune in it at the : north end of the map, is a long hallway with wraiths that you can’t dodge : unless you dive into the short hallway with the third banshee in it soon : before the end. : Expect to take some hits here as they’ll see you before you see them, even : with both the goggles and torch on. The banshee times his attack just as : I’m preoccupied dealing with the wraiths that chased me into his hallway. : : Finally I can take off those damn night vision goggles. (For now) : : : : : : Ah, this looks nice. : : : We start in the square room with the yellow crystal columns in the centre on : the map. I won’t use many screenshots for this floor because it primarily : consists of big rooms with square pillars in them like on EUPMD. We want : to go to the northeast corner. I am in two minds whether to get the purple : crystal first or go to Need a Light. : : This save rune is just outside the bronze door in the last snipshot. As you : may have guessed from the level name, this floor is flooded with : nightmares and also a couple of oozes. The small spaces juxtaposed with : little clearings here and there allow them to ambush you quite easily, : even if you are able to dodge. : As soon as I reload after coming back to this writeup, I get jumped by two : nightmares right off the bat, but are able to dodge them. : : Is that…? Kuso, it wasn’t the diamond necklace; it was just a clod of dirt. A : couple of oozes, nightmares and bronze doors later, we find an MP-41 clip : and the real diamond necklace, just about north and south of each other. : : Any idea what the bit in parenthesis means? Some entries in the PID story : page try to encourage you to take it off but don’t listen. While it : doesn’t appear to have any power like other treasures, it still looks : great as unisex jewellery. : If I see Kristina again, she might like this lovely treasure to go with that : blue crystal image on her blog, of which seems to have mysteriously : vanished. She must have deleted it for some unknown reason. (the blog that : is) : Maybe I could also spend 3.62p in the nearest wishing well so another 5D : being can send an exact mineral 3D photocopy across time and space to his : human friend, signed in the name of “Empty Vacuum (in space terms).” : I now have 23 XP so the next treasure item will grant me more health, of : which there are a couple on the following floors. : The area past the next door is flooded with nightmares and an ooze tries to : jump me from the left as I enter. In the southeast corner of the map is a : gold door, behind which is the gold that Walter was sent to find, but we : can’t get in because we have no key. : Up a short hall with pillars in the east is a save rune and a small room : behind a bronze door with the ladder to the next floor. : : This ladder is purple crystal. Yes, that’s right: this is the other path’s : entrance to the labyrinth. I’ve decided to go to Need a Light first before : getting the crystal after all. : We all know that this floor is randomised every time we go to it, much like : Minotaur: the Labyrinth’s of Crete (I still want a modernised rerelease : for Windows and OSX with a botmatch option) or the Binding of Isaac as a : more recent example. : Still though, what are those flying electric balls? : : Besides all of the Lovecraft. Evil Dead, Alien and Bevis and Butthead : references of early Bungie games, are the shocking spheres a reference to : the Prisoner? : It takes me a long time to go through the labyrinth; until 8 past 4 in the : afternoon on Sunday, though mainly because I slept upstairs to make more : ammo. The ladder we want is in the southwest but the floor isn’t making it : easy to get there. : The spheres are everywhere and the décor of this floor gets me wondering: : What is this glowing purple crystal ore in the walls? Is this a weird : dream? Where is the kuso ladder? Going by the trippy texture on the : ceiling and floor, would this texture set appear in a Terry the Termite : WAD if this was Doom? : I actually have to use turbo to backtrack to a path I missed, because I : noticed I was just going to loop back, and drink some more silver because : my burns were too much. I even levelled up my SMG soon before I got to the : ladder down. : : We have to go in the east door and make our way to the small intestine area : to the south. Our squad is there waiting for us and we don’t want those : accursed ayakashi to get them first. Texture wise, this floor is the same : as HHCC and doesn’t have any secrets. Secrets in this game are rare anyway : except treasure hidden in alcoves or cul-de sacs. : Our ladder is in the middle if the centre square and we must go north to the : save rune and the aforementioned east and west doors to the outer square. : : Typo police spoil your sentence. Eddy is found in the southeast of the middle : square and is glad we’re alive. He’s apologetic about our name question : due to a bloody face and his missing an arm. : Ed was killed by a nightmare and taken over here out of the way. I promise : him to tell his girlfriend Anna what happened and how brave he was. Now I : just have to survive the escape… : : Greg had taken the bomb for some reason. He doesn’t remember how John died : and didn’t see what happened to the others. He doesn’t even respond to : asking for the code. : : I leave Ed to his devices and head back to the doors. After a long battle : against tons of monsters in the east half of the outer square, I enter the : intestine and the door locks behind me. The first door locked too to stop : newer players from chickening out too late. : : : : : This is an amnesiac friend. He tells us that the others are all dead and we : will follow. If you hadn’t played System Shock 1 and 2 before or- if : you’re just joining us- Bioshock, then this would be more of a shock than : it is today. : The issues here are memory reasons on the floppy disks, how many monsters a : Torch engine map can have anyway and maybe because they wanted to be : original, only for System Shock to do something similar next year, along : with Marathon 1. : Sean is next, around the corner. I take the other guy’s Grenade Launcher and : cartridges before talking to him.(Maybe he’s Jason?) He wants us to find : Greg because he has the bomb, but he doesn’t know the code. Since Steve : changed it, we should ask him but he died first so whatever’s down here : will be very close by. : So wait, a Nightmare killed them? But they just shoot lightning and their : death explosion is shock only; they’re not cacodemons. Steven’s body is : just where the koi jumped me. And look what he has! : : I’ll be taking that! We levelled up our health again with the grenade : launcher and this gives us 25 XP. : : Sorry, this is Jason, but it doesn’t matter (apparently). The thing that : killed him and the others is blue, huge and grins. If you’re reading this : entry in bed at night on your PDA or phone, perhaps it’s hiding under your : sheets with its shark face on right now… : : I don’t think he’d take my 3.26p for my 5D girl’s diamond necklace copy now, : but maybe he still might if he does get the jok… : : : : AAAAAAHHH! : : : : : : : It’s not the cheesy grin that scared me; it’s the fireballs it shot out of : its hands into my face. We now have met Greed, a stronger nightmare than : the others and the first boss of the whole game. I’ve described him before : as a Doom Baron of Hell crossed with a Mancubus from Doom 2. : Unlike the second boss Malice, or Selfishness as he may also be called (not : really the same thing), Greed is killable through sheer bullet hell and : liberal use of Isfet Crystals. He isn’t even immune to fire, despite being : able to launch it: : Greed will give you plenty of time to fire on him and back up around the : corners because his firing animation is quite long before he actually : fires. The green columns are there in the bigger sections to give the : false impression that you can try to dodge the fireballs. : It takes me less time to kill it than before as I use both the blue and red : Isfet crystals on it as I’m firing. Just as I go around one of the middle : bends in the intestine, my bullets must have punctured his armour because : Greed bursts into flames and evaporates. : : I picked up the next soldier’s dropped flashlight at the start of the boss : fight, so I drop it and charge up the yellow crystal to speak to the next : man. : The guy in question is Steven. He’s glad we’re alive and we may be the last : hope. (no surprise there) Were he not dead he would be pissed we don’t : recognise him if we ask his name. : : : So according to the OSX version’s built in PDF of the manual, the new code is : 6580334. I am reminded of System Shock 1 again when I think of the bomb : code, as you also need to find a code in that game to send a Space : Colony’s reactor into meltdown, and then escape from an upper level. (not : after the final boss this time). : : Hang on, we all arrived here very early this morning didn’t we? It’s only : 6:54 PM Sunday evening. I guess Bungie weren’t expecting us to arrive at : this floor before Monday, so they left his dialog the way it is and we : weren’t supposed to notice. : At the end of the intestine just before the door to the west side of the : outer square (I guess that would be the large intestine), there is a : potion of all three kinds so far in the small room along with a mysterious : ring. : : Actually, the ring will make our crystals recharge much slower if we wear it. : It’s a stupid idea to do so unless you like the challenge so don’t bother. : Keep it anyway for the treasure value. : I now make my way through the outer square again to the west door to the : middle and centre squares. There are nightmares and oozes to kill along : the way, including a posse who wait just outside the intestine door to : ambush you while you go for the treasure. I test out my new grenade : launcher on them. I should conserve ammo though; later enemies will need : those HE rounds to kill. : I save on the save rune in the middle square and rest until after 20:00 to : make some more HE grenades, killing a nightmare who ambushes me in my : sleep before I get enough grenades. : That’s all for now, join me next time when we will tackle the Labyrinth : properly at last and move downstairs again to Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi : Ch'Intrate in Chapter 6: WTDVC.
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