Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Chapter


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Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Chapter

Posted By: Lion O Cyborg Date: 1/31/19 11:42 a.m.

Final Chapter: Wherever Chaos exists…
Last time on Tour of Duty, I drank a bottle of raw sewage so the typhoid diarrhoea monsters would leave me alone, met Barney on steroids, got poisoned by syphilis carrying spiders, found a circle of ghast dust and finally found the W’rkncacnter’s cryo capsule, manifesting as a blue glass vial. Javier had opened the vial, releasing the slightly less powerful projection of the W’rk itself; how it may appear in its own dreams. I also found the last Isfet crystal and I am currently by the teleporter maze at the end of the last floor.

That map is required for knowing how to get through the maze as it’s trial and error otherwise. Several of the rooms contain greater nightmares that ambush you as you enter. The tear in front of me leads just through the wall to the southeast part of the maze. I have to go through the north tear to the west one in the southwest room, then take the east one to the northwest, and finally turn around and go back through the teleporter I entered to get to the last floor and by extension the final boss.

You have no hope of seeing that signature outside of the Torch engine editor as it’s made with map tiles, and the boss cave is the only part we can go to. At least, I think Torch is tiled based like Wolfenstein 3D and Rise of the Triad: Dark War. It just allows differently shaped ones besides squares, hence the better variety of wall angles.
Before I go through the final tear to the boss room, I get some last minute sleep to make more SABOT clips and HE grenades and say I prayer to Solaris before I reach the body of the Dreaming God at long last.

There he is! The red swirly S’pht like thing in the middle of the cave is the dream induced avatar of the W’rkncacnter, the Dreaming God itself. According to the Pathways into Darkness story page and the annotated maps, the W’rkncacnter’s avatar is referred to as Deceit. Oh how it very much is so, but I’ll get to that.
His initial attacks are just to summon waves of all the monsters I’ve fought before him, except bosses and otherwise unkillable ones; no Big Blue Barons of Hell, evil kids show characters, diseased anthopomorphised shit or Cultist Monks here. I’ll take snipshots of every wave so you can see what we’re up against. These guys are easy to deal with. Prime the green Isfet crystal with the Ruby Ring before entering this floor and you can wipe them out in a single earthquake. Any stragglers can be finished off with the assault rifle.

After every wave, a tear opens in the north end of the room that leads to an identical room with the next wave. The skeletons can be dealt with more or less the same way.

Oh god! Banshees! This is where I recommend using a violet potion for the first time in the fight. You will have to switch to the violet crystal as I don’t think earthquakes work on banshees. I switch to the red one when only two remain. I’ll need the charges.

Use either the green crystal or violet one on the ghouls. Just gun them down if you can as you should have plenty of ammo for it not to matter.

You need to use violet here. Same tactics as before but that is subject to change right now.

Now for the shittiest wave so far. Lightning attacks coupled with a bottle of alien Ramune or alien Red Bull. I made it through with just lightning and the assault rifle.

What the hell?! Oh!

Aaaahhh! Just blast them all with the assault rifle and take either a red or violet potion here. You will definitely need it. …Or not as the case appeared to be this time.

Uh oh, it’s a whole swarm of anti-escape balloons! And me without a spork on hand. I definitely need a potion here to deal with the rover sentries. They burn so I take some colloidal silver too. It only just occurred to me today but maybe the shocking spheres are actually giant plasma globes like you get in fancy toy stores like Menkind? You are actually conducting their plasma flares and this time there is no glass to protect you.

The skitters are piss easy but it’s very hard if not impossible to avoid getting hit by their webs. I drink more silver to heal.

I deflate the jellyfish ones in the Nether with their own fireballs, I can rattle your bones too! Use the violet crystal for obvious reasons. I also recommend a red potion to help you kill them in time before they cause their earthquakes.

Take a violet potion immediately and only take some silver if you are hit when the effect wears off. I also point out that the invincibility flash when absorbing damage in Marathon’s Overshield chip comes from the violet potion in this game.

Final wave. This is what the black crystal is for. Charge it before teleporting, drink a violet and red potion as soon as you enter and petrify as many greater nightmares as you can without the crystal shattering. I think it shatters after 10 uses but I’m not sure. You’ll need to count them. However, I’ve run out of violet potions so I am forced to tank the ball lightning and drink silver to heal up. Finish off the rest with the Boomstick. I do so after killing 8 with the black crystal.

KAP’s just in time for her big date. (That’s my friend by the way, star of Path of KAP) I have to say I am surprised how good I was at the final boss on my emulator. On my physical Mac, the faster speed makes this entire boss fight a nightmare to overcome, making me use far more potions than I did here. I guess I was overprepared, as the slower speed of my emulator allows me better reaction time, making red potions a joke and violet ones lasting longer.
Now to fight the final boss, the W’rkcacnter itself! As soon as I attack it, it will likely make me fight it in a 3D/2.5D bullet hell attack like Mum’s Heart in the Binding of Isaac Rebirth crossed with The One God virus from Strife. Here I come you creep! EAT YOUR VEGGIES!

…WHAT. THAT’S IT?! NO PROPER FIGHT WITH THE VERY BEING I CAME HERE TO FIGHT?! I JUST FIGHT WAVES OF HIS FLUNKIES AND THE GOD ITSELF “DIES” IN 1 FUCKING HIT?! BOOOOOO! I’m sorry everyone. This boss fight sucks balls and it’s only the first in a long line of Bungie being lazy assholes and never making proper boss fights.
The next time they did this was the controller cyborg Pfhor in Marathon, with all subsequent boss fights being the EXACT. SAME. COPY-PASTED. BORING. JUGGERNAUT FIGHT. No boss against Admiral Tfear in either Marathon 2 or infinity, no true W’rkncacnter boss fight in both Aye Mak Sicur and the final Vidmaster level as an apology for this garbage excuse for a final boss, NOTHING! I bitch about this a lot in my Steam screenshots of Marathon, especially my Infinity ones.
In Halo, there’s no boss fights but it makes up for it by having the Pillar of Autumn’s reactor destruction and timed escape sequence. I still would have liked to have us fight Guilty Spark during the former though, even if we just stun him.
Halo 2 averts this by having true boss fights at long last and it’s better for it. I don’t care if they’re basic or cryptic, it’s something.
Anyway, the W’rkncacnter’s avatar leaves behind the alien gemstone like I thought.

Hang on, I feel very sick and my health is draining rapidly. Due to the emulator’s speed, it appears slower to the naked eye here.

This ladies and gentlemen, is why we need the lead box. The gemstone is radioactive. If I don’t have the box nor think or dropping it now and then to rest or otherwise drink some silver, I will die of radiation poisoning long before I reach the surface. Quickly, I shove the gemstone in the box and slam the lid shut.
Now to plant the bomb at long last. First, I lay the Isfet crystals down in a circle and say another prayer to Solaris and other gods for their power to grant me safe passage out of the pyramid. I provide the main prayer as I spoke it and its English translation. Hopefully I can say the last part properly this time, unlike the gross mispronunciation I made when using the yellow crystal for the first time. Oops.

Okonaumonoshi wa, muttsu no konton.
Konton wa chikara. Chikara wa kokoroniyorite chikara tari.
Osaerumonoshi wa, konton wo suberumono.
What must be done. The 6 chaos.
Chaos is power. Power comes from the heart.
The master of that is the one who controls chaos.
KLAATU! BARADA! NIKTO!

It took me at least 4 years, but finally, I’ve made it to the end. I hope 14 hours is enough to grab the gold and make it to the surface on time, including the 8 hours it will take to run away. Normally I’d take a radio beacon but I intend to drop mine once I get to the top and escape on foot. This is only because I don’t think this ending is the one that gets showcased a lot, let alone all of the bad endings.
I’ve also decided not to eat my Easter Egg and attempt to get the second gemstone. I don’t have the time nor resources to do all that and survive so I’ll keep my Easter Egg as a reward dessert once I get home. If I die before I can make it to safety, I’ll reload, set the timer for a slightly higher time and try again. Damn no way I’m coming this far just to take a hot bath.

Activating Final Countdown Timer. When it reaches 0 the bomb will go off. The explosion will generate a temperature of just shy of 100,000,000 degres Celsius, possibly even higher. It will also collapse the God’s crater and flood the entire region of the rainforest with gamma radiation. Don’t be here when it blows. The final tear leads to a locked hallway behind one of the monster closets on I’d Rather be Surfing. If you neglected to open the monster closet and survived the W’rkncacnter, you’d be trapped here until you run out of time. Either until the bomb goes off or the W’rkncacnter wakes. There’s no stopping the timer so you really have to hurry. Any shortcuts you can get to the gold and out are valuable.

The labyrinth slowed me down more than it needed to as I went to the wrong ladder at first. I can never remember which ladder goes up there so good thing for maps. Time to see what’s inside.

Wow, they weren’t kidding. There’s a ton of gold ingots here. And they are all MINE! The final dead Nazi is amnesic too. Even after the recent updates to the OSX version of Pathways, the conversation with him IS STILL BUGGED. I tried this using the latest version on my physical Mac and runs into the same thing: attempting to speak to him causes some of his lines to fail, such as when you ask about Muller, preventing him from answering and making his dialog box not close when you try to, even after picking other options.
Sorry to finish the conversations with the dead on a bad note but I’m forced to cheat for this one and just link to his conversation page on the PID Story Page.
http://pid.bungie.org/deadbeware.html
He lived on Prague before Czechoslovakia split from Nazi Germany and become the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He agrees that Muller was a greedy bastard. I think the original use for this gold was as a necessary puzzle item to put on scales to unlock a door. However, the puzzle was never finished so they kept the gold room as an optional reward after beating the final boss. Walter murdered this man so he could take the gold for himself but he got killed before he had a chance to get far enough with just one ingot, just one floor below the surface in fact.
He tells us about the alien gemstone’s purpose though we already know that after speaking to Javier. When he mentions the box, it implies that Walter intended to print more gold using the box –never mind the bars don’t actually fit- which is why he only took one. Maybe the box would have been able to do so at one point, which was needed for the scales puzzle. Before over-encumbrance was removed (due to not being fun), the Forever Bag could have been intended to allow you to carry all the gold found and printed for the puzzle, as well as anything else you had, without being weighed down, as gold is a very heavy metal as it is.
He has something interesting to say about the monsters:
“Haven't you seen them? It takes them a while to wake up after a group passes through, but then they stay awake for years.”
They were already awake when we arrived. Now they get to go to sleep again…FOREVER! Well, not really but you know what I mean. The German is happy for us to take the gold as he is unable to use it. I do so, and I take his propaganda and rusted pistol for shits and giggles.

It sure is. I’m keeping this as bonus pay. All the treasures I’ve found as well, in between having scientists research them. Now I resume running away.

I’m finally back at the surface! All the monsters that attacked me from the exit from the final floor to here are a joke. It is now 2:29 in the afternoon on Monday, I have a total of 44 XP, 28 health & $889.3 thousand worth in treasure. How much is that in pounds sterling? Doesn’t matter right now. Freedom lies at the end of the antechamber where I entered here so long ago! I can taste the fresh air now!

OH NO, YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO STOP ME NOW!

I better hurry now, I’m cutting it close! I can only make it to safety in 8 hours if I run!

I ran into one, final, puny headless on the way out whom I punished with a hitscan grenade to the radula mouth but I finally made it. I finally escaped the pyramid after being trapped here IRL in these writeups for at least 4 long years. Now to sit back and watch the fireworks.

I have killed 1495 monsters, inflicted 98815 health points of pain, taken 4261 health points of injuries myself with a ratio of 23.19 and near perfect accuracy. My bonus XP are 5 for every 250 monsters killed, 4 for 10% over 40% accuracy, 8 for all my treasure, 8 for time left minus on foot penalty (I think), 5 for completing my mission along with the game and a whopping 10 XP for actually surviving. That brings me to a GRAND TOTAL OF 84 XP! Let’s see Doom have a stats screen like this one! I can now safely say I cracked the Isfet Crystal Maze.
Would it be possible for Hamish to archive all my Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty writeups on the main story page like he did for the main Tour of Duty for the Marathon trilogy? I would be so grateful.
Thank all of you for putting up with me and my errant ramblings through all those years. It has been an honour to be part of the Tour of Duty series. After a break including time to play the original trilogy on my Mac with HD graphics off (sans monsters in the later games), I hope to resume Tour of Duty this time in Marathon itself, namely Marathon Eternal X Omega (the non 1.2 version). I do hope to include as many differences in Eternal X Omega v1.2 in a bonus writeup of that.
After Eternal, I’d love to cover Halo Combat Evolved PC: Single Player Version 3 as my contribution to Halo writeups.
This is Lion O Cyborg AKA Dark Redshift, disciple of Solaris/Iblis & Mephiles, Rampant Dreamer, signing off. See you all starside. :)
FATAL ERROR Your terminal is infecccc....

DID YOU THINK ME DEFEATED?! WHEREVER CHAOS EXISTS, THE W'RKNCACNTER LIVE! THE W'RKNCACNTER LIVE! THE W'RKNCACNRER LIIIIVE!

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Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Chapter Lion O Cyborg 1/31/19 11:42 a.m.

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: : : Final Chapter: Wherever Chaos exists… : Last time on Tour of Duty, I drank a bottle of raw sewage so the typhoid : diarrhoea monsters would leave me alone, met Barney on steroids, got : poisoned by syphilis carrying spiders, found a circle of ghast dust and : finally found the W’rkncacnter’s cryo capsule, manifesting as a blue glass : vial. Javier had opened the vial, releasing the slightly less powerful : projection of the W’rk itself; how it may appear in its own dreams. I also : found the last Isfet crystal and I am currently by the teleporter maze at : the end of the last floor. : : : That map is required for knowing how to get through the maze as it’s trial : and error otherwise. Several of the rooms contain greater nightmares that : ambush you as you enter. The tear in front of me leads just through the : wall to the southeast part of the maze. I have to go through the north : tear to the west one in the southwest room, then take the east one to the : northwest, and finally turn around and go back through the teleporter I : entered to get to the last floor and by extension the final boss. : : : You have no hope of seeing that signature outside of the Torch engine editor : as it’s made with map tiles, and the boss cave is the only part we can go : to. At least, I think Torch is tiled based like Wolfenstein 3D and Rise of : the Triad: Dark War. It just allows differently shaped ones besides : squares, hence the better variety of wall angles. : Before I go through the final tear to the boss room, I get some last minute : sleep to make more SABOT clips and HE grenades and say I prayer to Solaris : before I reach the body of the Dreaming God at long last. : : : There he is! The red swirly S’pht like thing in the middle of the cave is the : dream induced avatar of the W’rkncacnter, the Dreaming God itself. : According to the Pathways into Darkness story page and the annotated maps, : the W’rkncacnter’s avatar is referred to as Deceit. Oh how it very much is : so, but I’ll get to that. : His initial attacks are just to summon waves of all the monsters I’ve fought : before him, except bosses and otherwise unkillable ones; no Big Blue : Barons of Hell, evil kids show characters, diseased anthopomorphised shit : or Cultist Monks here. I’ll take snipshots of every wave so you can see : what we’re up against. These guys are easy to deal with. Prime the green : Isfet crystal with the Ruby Ring before entering this floor and you can : wipe them out in a single earthquake. Any stragglers can be finished off : with the assault rifle. : : : After every wave, a tear opens in the north end of the room that leads to an : identical room with the next wave. The skeletons can be dealt with more or : less the same way. : : : Oh god! Banshees! This is where I recommend using a violet potion for the : first time in the fight. You will have to switch to the violet crystal as : I don’t think earthquakes work on banshees. I switch to the red one when : only two remain. I’ll need the charges. : : : Use either the green crystal or violet one on the ghouls. Just gun them down : if you can as you should have plenty of ammo for it not to matter. : : : You need to use violet here. Same tactics as before but that is subject to : change right now. : : : Now for the shittiest wave so far. Lightning attacks coupled with a bottle of : alien Ramune or alien Red Bull. I made it through with just lightning and : the assault rifle. : : : What the hell?! Oh! : : : Aaaahhh! Just blast them all with the assault rifle and take either a red or : violet potion here. You will definitely need it. …Or not as the case : appeared to be this time. : : : Uh oh, it’s a whole swarm of anti-escape balloons! And me without a spork on : hand. I definitely need a potion here to deal with the rover sentries. : They burn so I take some colloidal silver too. It only just occurred to me : today but maybe the shocking spheres are actually giant plasma globes like : you get in fancy toy stores like Menkind? You are actually conducting : their plasma flares and this time there is no glass to protect you. : : : The skitters are piss easy but it’s very hard if not impossible to avoid : getting hit by their webs. I drink more silver to heal. : : : I deflate the jellyfish ones in the Nether with their own fireballs, I can : rattle your bones too! Use the violet crystal for obvious reasons. I also : recommend a red potion to help you kill them in time before they cause : their earthquakes. : : : Take a violet potion immediately and only take some silver if you are hit : when the effect wears off. I also point out that the invincibility flash : when absorbing damage in Marathon’s Overshield chip comes from the violet : potion in this game. : : : Final wave. This is what the black crystal is for. Charge it before : teleporting, drink a violet and red potion as soon as you enter and : petrify as many greater nightmares as you can without the crystal : shattering. I think it shatters after 10 uses but I’m not sure. You’ll : need to count them. However, I’ve run out of violet potions so I am forced : to tank the ball lightning and drink silver to heal up. Finish off the : rest with the Boomstick. I do so after killing 8 with the black crystal. : : : KAP’s just in time for her big date. (That’s my friend by the way, star of : Path of KAP) I have to say I am surprised how good I was at the final boss : on my emulator. On my physical Mac, the faster speed makes this entire : boss fight a nightmare to overcome, making me use far more potions than I : did here. I guess I was overprepared, as the slower speed of my emulator : allows me better reaction time, making red potions a joke and violet ones : lasting longer. : Now to fight the final boss, the W’rkcacnter itself! As soon as I attack it, : it will likely make me fight it in a 3D/2.5D bullet hell attack like Mum’s : Heart in the Binding of Isaac Rebirth crossed with The One God virus from : Strife. Here I come you creep! EAT YOUR VEGGIES! : : : …WHAT. THAT’S IT?! NO PROPER FIGHT WITH THE VERY BEING I CAME HERE TO FIGHT?! : I JUST FIGHT WAVES OF HIS FLUNKIES AND THE GOD ITSELF “DIES” IN 1 FUCKING : HIT?! BOOOOOO! I’m sorry everyone. This boss fight sucks balls and it’s : only the first in a long line of Bungie being lazy assholes and never : making proper boss fights. : The next time they did this was the controller cyborg Pfhor in Marathon, with : all subsequent boss fights being the EXACT. SAME. COPY-PASTED. BORING. : JUGGERNAUT FIGHT. No boss against Admiral Tfear in either Marathon 2 or : infinity, no true W’rkncacnter boss fight in both Aye Mak Sicur and the : final Vidmaster level as an apology for this garbage excuse for a final : boss, NOTHING! I bitch about this a lot in my Steam screenshots of : Marathon, especially my Infinity ones. : In Halo, there’s no boss fights but it makes up for it by having the Pillar : of Autumn’s reactor destruction and timed escape sequence. I still would : have liked to have us fight Guilty Spark during the former though, even if : we just stun him. : Halo 2 averts this by having true boss fights at long last and it’s better : for it. I don’t care if they’re basic or cryptic, it’s something. : Anyway, the W’rkncacnter’s avatar leaves behind the alien gemstone like I : thought. : : : Hang on, I feel very sick and my health is draining rapidly. Due to the : emulator’s speed, it appears slower to the naked eye here. : : : This ladies and gentlemen, is why we need the lead box. The gemstone is : radioactive. If I don’t have the box nor think or dropping it now and then : to rest or otherwise drink some silver, I will die of radiation poisoning : long before I reach the surface. Quickly, I shove the gemstone in the box : and slam the lid shut. : Now to plant the bomb at long last. First, I lay the Isfet crystals down in a : circle and say another prayer to Solaris and other gods for their power to : grant me safe passage out of the pyramid. I provide the main prayer as I : spoke it and its English translation. Hopefully I can say the last part : properly this time, unlike the gross mispronunciation I made when using : the yellow crystal for the first time. Oops. : : : Okonaumonoshi wa, muttsu no konton. : Konton wa chikara. Chikara wa kokoroniyorite chikara tari. : Osaerumonoshi wa, konton wo suberumono. : What must be done. The 6 chaos. : Chaos is power. Power comes from the heart. : The master of that is the one who controls chaos. : KLAATU! BARADA! NIKTO! : : : It took me at least 4 years, but finally, I’ve made it to the end. I hope 14 : hours is enough to grab the gold and make it to the surface on time, : including the 8 hours it will take to run away. Normally I’d take a radio : beacon but I intend to drop mine once I get to the top and escape on foot. : This is only because I don’t think this ending is the one that gets : showcased a lot, let alone all of the bad endings. : I’ve also decided not to eat my Easter Egg and attempt to get the second : gemstone. I don’t have the time nor resources to do all that and survive : so I’ll keep my Easter Egg as a reward dessert once I get home. If I die : before I can make it to safety, I’ll reload, set the timer for a slightly : higher time and try again. Damn no way I’m coming this far just to take a : hot bath. : : : Activating Final Countdown Timer. When it reaches 0 the bomb will go off. The : explosion will generate a temperature of just shy of 100,000,000 degres : Celsius, possibly even higher. It will also collapse the God’s crater and : flood the entire region of the rainforest with gamma radiation. Don’t be : here when it blows. The final tear leads to a locked hallway behind one of : the monster closets on I’d Rather be Surfing. If you neglected to open the : monster closet and survived the W’rkncacnter, you’d be trapped here until : you run out of time. Either until the bomb goes off or the W’rkncacnter : wakes. There’s no stopping the timer so you really have to hurry. Any : shortcuts you can get to the gold and out are valuable. : : : : : The labyrinth slowed me down more than it needed to as I went to the wrong : ladder at first. I can never remember which ladder goes up there so good : thing for maps. Time to see what’s inside. : : : Wow, they weren’t kidding. There’s a ton of gold ingots here. And they are : all MINE! The final dead Nazi is amnesic too. Even after the recent : updates to the OSX version of Pathways, the conversation with him IS STILL : BUGGED. I tried this using the latest version on my physical Mac and runs : into the same thing: attempting to speak to him causes some of his lines : to fail, such as when you ask about Muller, preventing him from answering : and making his dialog box not close when you try to, even after picking : other options. : Sorry to finish the conversations with the dead on a bad note but I’m forced : to cheat for this one and just link to his conversation page on the PID : Story Page. : http://pid.bungie.org/deadbeware.html : He lived on Prague before Czechoslovakia split from Nazi Germany and become : the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He agrees that Muller was a greedy : bastard. I think the original use for this gold was as a necessary puzzle : item to put on scales to unlock a door. However, the puzzle was never : finished so they kept the gold room as an optional reward after beating : the final boss. Walter murdered this man so he could take the gold for : himself but he got killed before he had a chance to get far enough with : just one ingot, just one floor below the surface in fact. : He tells us about the alien gemstone’s purpose though we already know that : after speaking to Javier. When he mentions the box, it implies that Walter : intended to print more gold using the box –never mind the bars don’t : actually fit- which is why he only took one. Maybe the box would have been : able to do so at one point, which was needed for the scales puzzle. Before : over-encumbrance was removed (due to not being fun), the Forever Bag could : have been intended to allow you to carry all the gold found and printed : for the puzzle, as well as anything else you had, without being weighed : down, as gold is a very heavy metal as it is. : He has something interesting to say about the monsters: “Haven't you seen : them? It takes them a while to wake up after a group passes through, but : then they stay awake for years.” : They were already awake when we arrived. Now they get to go to sleep : again…FOREVER! Well, not really but you know what I mean. The German is : happy for us to take the gold as he is unable to use it. I do so, and I : take his propaganda and rusted pistol for shits and giggles. : : : It sure is. I’m keeping this as bonus pay. All the treasures I’ve found as : well, in between having scientists research them. Now I resume running : away. : : : I’m finally back at the surface! All the monsters that attacked me from the : exit from the final floor to here are a joke. It is now 2:29 in the : afternoon on Monday, I have a total of 44 XP, 28 health & $889.3 : thousand worth in treasure. How much is that in pounds sterling? Doesn’t : matter right now. Freedom lies at the end of the antechamber where I : entered here so long ago! I can taste the fresh air now! : : : OH NO, YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO STOP ME NOW! : : : I better hurry now, I’m cutting it close! I can only make it to safety in 8 : hours if I run! : : : I ran into one, final, puny headless on the way out whom I punished with a : hitscan grenade to the radula mouth but I finally made it. I finally : escaped the pyramid after being trapped here IRL in these writeups for at : least 4 long years. Now to sit back and watch the fireworks. : : : : : I have killed 1495 monsters, inflicted 98815 health points of pain, taken : 4261 health points of injuries myself with a ratio of 23.19 and near : perfect accuracy. My bonus XP are 5 for every 250 monsters killed, 4 for : 10% over 40% accuracy, 8 for all my treasure, 8 for time left minus on : foot penalty (I think), 5 for completing my mission along with the game : and a whopping 10 XP for actually surviving. That brings me to a GRAND : TOTAL OF 84 XP! Let’s see Doom have a stats screen like this one! I can : now safely say I cracked the Isfet Crystal Maze. : Would it be possible for Hamish to archive all my Pathways into Darkness Tour : of Duty writeups on the main story page like he did for the main Tour of : Duty for the Marathon trilogy? I would be so grateful. : Thank all of you for putting up with me and my errant ramblings through all : those years. It has been an honour to be part of the Tour of Duty series. : After a break including time to play the original trilogy on my Mac with : HD graphics off (sans monsters in the later games), I hope to resume Tour : of Duty this time in Marathon itself, namely Marathon Eternal X Omega (the : non 1.2 version). I do hope to include as many differences in Eternal X : Omega v1.2 in a bonus writeup of that. : After Eternal, I’d love to cover Halo Combat Evolved PC: Single Player : Version 3 as my contribution to Halo writeups. : This is Lion O Cyborg AKA Dark Redshift, disciple of Solaris/Iblis & : Mephiles, Rampant Dreamer, signing off. See you all starside. :) : FATAL ERROR Your terminal is infecccc.... : DID YOU THINK ME DEFEATED?! WHEREVER CHAOS EXISTS, THE W'RKNCACNTER LIVE! : THE W'RKNCACNTER LIVE! THE W'RKNCACNRER LIIIIVE!

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Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Chapter	Lion O Cyborg	1/31/19 11:42 a.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	VikingBoyBilly	2/2/19 4:49 p.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	Lion O Cyborg	2/3/19 6:55 a.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	VikingBoyBilly	2/3/19 6:57 a.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	Lion O Cyborg	2/3/19 7:17 a.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	Shining Raven	2/3/19 10:45 a.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	Lion O Cyborg	2/4/19 2:49 a.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Shining Raven	2/4/19 9:16 p.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Lion O Cyborg	2/7/19 12:50 p.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Shining Raven	2/7/19 5:33 p.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Lion O Cyborg	2/22/19 1:12 p.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Shining Raven	2/22/19 2:36 p.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Lion O Cyborg	2/22/19 3:17 p.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Bob-B-Q	2/23/19 10:31 a.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Lion O Cyborg	2/24/19 3:05 a.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	VikingBoyBilly	2/23/19 7:46 a.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Shining Raven	2/23/19 11:15 a.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Lion O Cyborg	2/24/19 3:59 p.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	VikingBoyBilly	2/23/19 7:44 a.m.
Re: Marathon 1 Redux	Lion O Cyborg	2/24/19 3:04 a.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	xcalibur	2/4/19 3:03 a.m.
Re: Pathways into Darkness Tour of Duty: Final Cha	Lion O Cyborg	2/4/19 3:20 a.m.



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	Message: : : : Final Chapter: Wherever Chaos exists… : Last time on Tour of Duty, I drank a bottle of raw sewage so the typhoid : diarrhoea monsters would leave me alone, met Barney on steroids, got : poisoned by syphilis carrying spiders, found a circle of ghast dust and : finally found the W’rkncacnter’s cryo capsule, manifesting as a blue glass : vial. Javier had opened the vial, releasing the slightly less powerful : projection of the W’rk itself; how it may appear in its own dreams. I also : found the last Isfet crystal and I am currently by the teleporter maze at : the end of the last floor. : : : That map is required for knowing how to get through the maze as it’s trial : and error otherwise. Several of the rooms contain greater nightmares that : ambush you as you enter. The tear in front of me leads just through the : wall to the southeast part of the maze. I have to go through the north : tear to the west one in the southwest room, then take the east one to the : northwest, and finally turn around and go back through the teleporter I : entered to get to the last floor and by extension the final boss. : : : You have no hope of seeing that signature outside of the Torch engine editor : as it’s made with map tiles, and the boss cave is the only part we can go : to. At least, I think Torch is tiled based like Wolfenstein 3D and Rise of : the Triad: Dark War. It just allows differently shaped ones besides : squares, hence the better variety of wall angles. : Before I go through the final tear to the boss room, I get some last minute : sleep to make more SABOT clips and HE grenades and say I prayer to Solaris : before I reach the body of the Dreaming God at long last. : : : There he is! The red swirly S’pht like thing in the middle of the cave is the : dream induced avatar of the W’rkncacnter, the Dreaming God itself. : According to the Pathways into Darkness story page and the annotated maps, : the W’rkncacnter’s avatar is referred to as Deceit. Oh how it very much is : so, but I’ll get to that. : His initial attacks are just to summon waves of all the monsters I’ve fought : before him, except bosses and otherwise unkillable ones; no Big Blue : Barons of Hell, evil kids show characters, diseased anthopomorphised shit : or Cultist Monks here. I’ll take snipshots of every wave so you can see : what we’re up against. These guys are easy to deal with. Prime the green : Isfet crystal with the Ruby Ring before entering this floor and you can : wipe them out in a single earthquake. Any stragglers can be finished off : with the assault rifle. : : : After every wave, a tear opens in the north end of the room that leads to an : identical room with the next wave. The skeletons can be dealt with more or : less the same way. : : : Oh god! Banshees! This is where I recommend using a violet potion for the : first time in the fight. You will have to switch to the violet crystal as : I don’t think earthquakes work on banshees. I switch to the red one when : only two remain. I’ll need the charges. : : : Use either the green crystal or violet one on the ghouls. Just gun them down : if you can as you should have plenty of ammo for it not to matter. : : : You need to use violet here. Same tactics as before but that is subject to : change right now. : : : Now for the shittiest wave so far. Lightning attacks coupled with a bottle of : alien Ramune or alien Red Bull. I made it through with just lightning and : the assault rifle. : : : What the hell?! Oh! : : : Aaaahhh! Just blast them all with the assault rifle and take either a red or : violet potion here. You will definitely need it. …Or not as the case : appeared to be this time. : : : Uh oh, it’s a whole swarm of anti-escape balloons! And me without a spork on : hand. I definitely need a potion here to deal with the rover sentries. : They burn so I take some colloidal silver too. It only just occurred to me : today but maybe the shocking spheres are actually giant plasma globes like : you get in fancy toy stores like Menkind? You are actually conducting : their plasma flares and this time there is no glass to protect you. : : : The skitters are piss easy but it’s very hard if not impossible to avoid : getting hit by their webs. I drink more silver to heal. : : : I deflate the jellyfish ones in the Nether with their own fireballs, I can : rattle your bones too! Use the violet crystal for obvious reasons. I also : recommend a red potion to help you kill them in time before they cause : their earthquakes. : : : Take a violet potion immediately and only take some silver if you are hit : when the effect wears off. I also point out that the invincibility flash : when absorbing damage in Marathon’s Overshield chip comes from the violet : potion in this game. : : : Final wave. This is what the black crystal is for. Charge it before : teleporting, drink a violet and red potion as soon as you enter and : petrify as many greater nightmares as you can without the crystal : shattering. I think it shatters after 10 uses but I’m not sure. You’ll : need to count them. However, I’ve run out of violet potions so I am forced : to tank the ball lightning and drink silver to heal up. Finish off the : rest with the Boomstick. I do so after killing 8 with the black crystal. : : : KAP’s just in time for her big date. (That’s my friend by the way, star of : Path of KAP) I have to say I am surprised how good I was at the final boss : on my emulator. On my physical Mac, the faster speed makes this entire : boss fight a nightmare to overcome, making me use far more potions than I : did here. I guess I was overprepared, as the slower speed of my emulator : allows me better reaction time, making red potions a joke and violet ones : lasting longer. : Now to fight the final boss, the W’rkcacnter itself! As soon as I attack it, : it will likely make me fight it in a 3D/2.5D bullet hell attack like Mum’s : Heart in the Binding of Isaac Rebirth crossed with The One God virus from : Strife. Here I come you creep! EAT YOUR VEGGIES! : : : …WHAT. THAT’S IT?! NO PROPER FIGHT WITH THE VERY BEING I CAME HERE TO FIGHT?! : I JUST FIGHT WAVES OF HIS FLUNKIES AND THE GOD ITSELF “DIES” IN 1 FUCKING : HIT?! BOOOOOO! I’m sorry everyone. This boss fight sucks balls and it’s : only the first in a long line of Bungie being lazy assholes and never : making proper boss fights. : The next time they did this was the controller cyborg Pfhor in Marathon, with : all subsequent boss fights being the EXACT. SAME. COPY-PASTED. BORING. : JUGGERNAUT FIGHT. No boss against Admiral Tfear in either Marathon 2 or : infinity, no true W’rkncacnter boss fight in both Aye Mak Sicur and the : final Vidmaster level as an apology for this garbage excuse for a final : boss, NOTHING! I bitch about this a lot in my Steam screenshots of : Marathon, especially my Infinity ones. : In Halo, there’s no boss fights but it makes up for it by having the Pillar : of Autumn’s reactor destruction and timed escape sequence. I still would : have liked to have us fight Guilty Spark during the former though, even if : we just stun him. : Halo 2 averts this by having true boss fights at long last and it’s better : for it. I don’t care if they’re basic or cryptic, it’s something. : Anyway, the W’rkncacnter’s avatar leaves behind the alien gemstone like I : thought. : : : Hang on, I feel very sick and my health is draining rapidly. Due to the : emulator’s speed, it appears slower to the naked eye here. : : : This ladies and gentlemen, is why we need the lead box. The gemstone is : radioactive. If I don’t have the box nor think or dropping it now and then : to rest or otherwise drink some silver, I will die of radiation poisoning : long before I reach the surface. Quickly, I shove the gemstone in the box : and slam the lid shut. : Now to plant the bomb at long last. First, I lay the Isfet crystals down in a : circle and say another prayer to Solaris and other gods for their power to : grant me safe passage out of the pyramid. I provide the main prayer as I : spoke it and its English translation. Hopefully I can say the last part : properly this time, unlike the gross mispronunciation I made when using : the yellow crystal for the first time. Oops. : : : Okonaumonoshi wa, muttsu no konton. : Konton wa chikara. Chikara wa kokoroniyorite chikara tari. : Osaerumonoshi wa, konton wo suberumono. : What must be done. The 6 chaos. : Chaos is power. Power comes from the heart. : The master of that is the one who controls chaos. : KLAATU! BARADA! NIKTO! : : : It took me at least 4 years, but finally, I’ve made it to the end. I hope 14 : hours is enough to grab the gold and make it to the surface on time, : including the 8 hours it will take to run away. Normally I’d take a radio : beacon but I intend to drop mine once I get to the top and escape on foot. : This is only because I don’t think this ending is the one that gets : showcased a lot, let alone all of the bad endings. : I’ve also decided not to eat my Easter Egg and attempt to get the second : gemstone. I don’t have the time nor resources to do all that and survive : so I’ll keep my Easter Egg as a reward dessert once I get home. If I die : before I can make it to safety, I’ll reload, set the timer for a slightly : higher time and try again. Damn no way I’m coming this far just to take a : hot bath. : : : Activating Final Countdown Timer. When it reaches 0 the bomb will go off. The : explosion will generate a temperature of just shy of 100,000,000 degres : Celsius, possibly even higher. It will also collapse the God’s crater and : flood the entire region of the rainforest with gamma radiation. Don’t be : here when it blows. The final tear leads to a locked hallway behind one of : the monster closets on I’d Rather be Surfing. If you neglected to open the : monster closet and survived the W’rkncacnter, you’d be trapped here until : you run out of time. Either until the bomb goes off or the W’rkncacnter : wakes. There’s no stopping the timer so you really have to hurry. Any : shortcuts you can get to the gold and out are valuable. : : : : : The labyrinth slowed me down more than it needed to as I went to the wrong : ladder at first. I can never remember which ladder goes up there so good : thing for maps. Time to see what’s inside. : : : Wow, they weren’t kidding. There’s a ton of gold ingots here. And they are : all MINE! The final dead Nazi is amnesic too. Even after the recent : updates to the OSX version of Pathways, the conversation with him IS STILL : BUGGED. I tried this using the latest version on my physical Mac and runs : into the same thing: attempting to speak to him causes some of his lines : to fail, such as when you ask about Muller, preventing him from answering : and making his dialog box not close when you try to, even after picking : other options. : Sorry to finish the conversations with the dead on a bad note but I’m forced : to cheat for this one and just link to his conversation page on the PID : Story Page. : http://pid.bungie.org/deadbeware.html : He lived on Prague before Czechoslovakia split from Nazi Germany and become : the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He agrees that Muller was a greedy : bastard. I think the original use for this gold was as a necessary puzzle : item to put on scales to unlock a door. However, the puzzle was never : finished so they kept the gold room as an optional reward after beating : the final boss. Walter murdered this man so he could take the gold for : himself but he got killed before he had a chance to get far enough with : just one ingot, just one floor below the surface in fact. : He tells us about the alien gemstone’s purpose though we already know that : after speaking to Javier. When he mentions the box, it implies that Walter : intended to print more gold using the box –never mind the bars don’t : actually fit- which is why he only took one. Maybe the box would have been : able to do so at one point, which was needed for the scales puzzle. Before : over-encumbrance was removed (due to not being fun), the Forever Bag could : have been intended to allow you to carry all the gold found and printed : for the puzzle, as well as anything else you had, without being weighed : down, as gold is a very heavy metal as it is. : He has something interesting to say about the monsters: “Haven't you seen : them? It takes them a while to wake up after a group passes through, but : then they stay awake for years.” : They were already awake when we arrived. Now they get to go to sleep : again…FOREVER! Well, not really but you know what I mean. The German is : happy for us to take the gold as he is unable to use it. I do so, and I : take his propaganda and rusted pistol for shits and giggles. : : : It sure is. I’m keeping this as bonus pay. All the treasures I’ve found as : well, in between having scientists research them. Now I resume running : away. : : : I’m finally back at the surface! All the monsters that attacked me from the : exit from the final floor to here are a joke. It is now 2:29 in the : afternoon on Monday, I have a total of 44 XP, 28 health & $889.3 : thousand worth in treasure. How much is that in pounds sterling? Doesn’t : matter right now. Freedom lies at the end of the antechamber where I : entered here so long ago! I can taste the fresh air now! : : : OH NO, YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO STOP ME NOW! : : : I better hurry now, I’m cutting it close! I can only make it to safety in 8 : hours if I run! : : : I ran into one, final, puny headless on the way out whom I punished with a : hitscan grenade to the radula mouth but I finally made it. I finally : escaped the pyramid after being trapped here IRL in these writeups for at : least 4 long years. Now to sit back and watch the fireworks. : : : : : I have killed 1495 monsters, inflicted 98815 health points of pain, taken : 4261 health points of injuries myself with a ratio of 23.19 and near : perfect accuracy. My bonus XP are 5 for every 250 monsters killed, 4 for : 10% over 40% accuracy, 8 for all my treasure, 8 for time left minus on : foot penalty (I think), 5 for completing my mission along with the game : and a whopping 10 XP for actually surviving. That brings me to a GRAND : TOTAL OF 84 XP! Let’s see Doom have a stats screen like this one! I can : now safely say I cracked the Isfet Crystal Maze. : Would it be possible for Hamish to archive all my Pathways into Darkness Tour : of Duty writeups on the main story page like he did for the main Tour of : Duty for the Marathon trilogy? I would be so grateful. : Thank all of you for putting up with me and my errant ramblings through all : those years. It has been an honour to be part of the Tour of Duty series. : After a break including time to play the original trilogy on my Mac with : HD graphics off (sans monsters in the later games), I hope to resume Tour : of Duty this time in Marathon itself, namely Marathon Eternal X Omega (the : non 1.2 version). I do hope to include as many differences in Eternal X : Omega v1.2 in a bonus writeup of that. : After Eternal, I’d love to cover Halo Combat Evolved PC: Single Player : Version 3 as my contribution to Halo writeups. : This is Lion O Cyborg AKA Dark Redshift, disciple of Solaris/Iblis & : Mephiles, Rampant Dreamer, signing off. See you all starside. :) : FATAL ERROR Your terminal is infecccc.... : DID YOU THINK ME DEFEATED?! WHEREVER CHAOS EXISTS, THE W'RKNCACNTER LIVE! : THE W'RKNCACNTER LIVE! THE W'RKNCACNRER LIIIIVE!
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