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	Message: : *Continued from Part 1* : Act 4: Crisis City : : Marcus Jones : Crisis City : Occupied City Centre : 6 hours after drop : Ugh…Solaris? I didn’t train to be a pilot. Please tell me I don’t have : anymore flying to do today? : : So, is that a yes or a no? : : Amen. : : Heh, Cute. : : I’m in an office building in the same part of the city. Judging by their : occupants, these must be the executive elevators. : : Look at this! I turned those things into beef tartare salad! : : : Like Eddy Buck and his squad before me in Africa on Third Earth centuries : ago, maybe I can escape via the Central City Metro. It looks like the : escalators and lights still run, so the trains must too. : : Hold on tight. The ride might get a little…bloody. It looks like I have a : smooth ride to the main city centre at Prince’s Street. The overland trams : are a no-no with the city torn up and flooded with magma, as seen earlier. : Wait, what was that? : : I should have known those eldritch bastards booby trapped this subway. : : This whole area is destroyed. I need to climb over the fence nearby. : : Sections of the city nearby are flooded with lava so this way is where I need : to go. Something tells me that was planned… Good thing is I found a : Thundertank nearby! : : Sweet Iblis’s smoky todger why are there 6 pedals when there are only 4 : directions?! : : : I don’t like the look of… : : : OH HELL NO! IS THAT TORNADO FLINGING CARS?! DON’T GO TOO SLOW AND LET IT GET : TOO CLOSE! IT WILL INCINERATE YOU! Aw crap, here comes a billboard! : : : : HELP! WE’RE BEING SUCKED IN! : : : : That…was too close. : : : Parts of the what used to be Princes’ Street and the park down below are : flooded with lava, others with neck deep blood, which is boiling in the : heat of Sekhment's flames like the deep fat fryer in Club Lux’s fish & : chips shop. I climb, jump and scramble my way across the buildings and : cars floating in the blood fissures. The collapsed and burning buildings : like the monument tower above the mall lead me into the lava lake fissure : that used to be Princes’ Park, while the city castle looms on the hills : overhead, its windows aflame and streaming with molten rock in the form of : glass, like Sekhmet’s tears, the real goddess or the former human Flames : of Disaster that share her name. : : The ruined hills and seating above the ex park give me a good view of the : fire whirl that threw me here. A little too good a view as I soon find : out. : : : Not again. I wonder how far these flames in the fire whirl go to? : : At least it was nice enough to throw me through the windows of the Waverley : Mall. I’m directly above where the metro I was riding would have come out, : but now it’s flooded with lava and filled with Ayakashi. In the non : flooded but burning section of the atrium, I get some rather big ones to : kill each other. : : Anyone got any popcorn? : : : I can’t resist a glass elevator ride, OK? Nice fountains. : : : OK, for real this time. : : : So, Hathor is fighting me herself in a new form huh? Today, you will be : finished for all you put me through! : : : Now all Hathor needs is to make a thumbs up as she sinks back into her : flaming pool of glowing hot jelly as a reference to both Doom Eternal and : Terminator 2. That would make my day. : Like this: : : Act 5: Clear and Present Dangers : : OK, my trip to the lava filled lake that used to be Prince’s Park where I : just fought Hathor wasn’t all a waste: I found out in one of the shops in : the mall’s flooded and burning areas that there’s a second cybernetic : junction signal up ahead, but…It’s coming from the city castle on top of : what used to be an extinct volcano. Now it’s very much active and adding : even more lava to the flooded city. I mean I gotta go through there, up : the volcano and into the castle yes, but the signal is deep underground in : the recesses of its lava chamber. : I could just stay here, but then I’d just be yet another piece of garbage : for Hathor to incinerate when she comes back: she’s immortal now, so I : can only defeat her for a short time. No doubt she’s sleeping inside the : magma chamber. Waiting for me… : : : The run up the slopes to the castle is even more dangerous than the city not : counting Hathor taking the form of that fire whirl before our fight, as : I’m right next to the lava. Then again, considering the fabric of : spacetime itself is burning, all hazards are more or less equal now. : : : The burn of lava is carrying those basalt floes downstream back over the : lavafalls I just climbed up. I try to power through the stuff, but the : fire has gotten strong enough that my shields don’t matter so jumping into : flowing glass lava does what you’d expect. Heh, Burn. Lava, Scottish name : for creek. Get it? : : https://youtu.be/OAuJEi2MovM?t=150 : : : https://youtu.be/OAuJEi2MovM?t=61 : Take 2! : : : : There’s the castle wall! The crust’s energy is out of control from the flames : of disaster reaching inside all planets, moons etc. too. The rock may well : be boiling and condensing from gas form as it gets closer to the : surface, coming out like an artesian well. : : The volcano’s crater is filled with blood and magma lava as well as glass. : Hmm. The castle looks a little less detailed by the entrance here. : : : The lava is coming from somewhere inside the castle. The main shaft must have : formed a new exit fissure under it. : : Oh crap! Remember back on Inti Station the sun had grown bigger than the : other levels? Well, it’s a red giant now and Earth is falling into it! : With that in mind I quickly run into the castle, following the walkways : between the turrets. : : : : : Remind me never to try the castle kitchen’s soup. There are acid or heat : resistant enzymes in those blood pools. After scrambling through : collapsed, burning hallways and navigating flagstone steps with lava : oozing around them like stairs in a waterfall, I find what appears to be : an inner great hall with what used to be stairs and balconies, but they’ve : now broken up and slid about the room, at least those that haven’t melted. : This is because there’s a giant fuck-off hole in the middle of the room and : what lava hasn’t gone far enough uphill in this room is flowing back into : it. At regular intervals the hole shoots out lava and flames as the : volcano erupts, flooding the room. Good thing it hasn’t reached this : doorway yet, though I need to wait a few seconds for the lava to drain : from the stepping stones in the great hall. : : : The sun has almost reached the surface! There’s no more time! I have to get : inside the volcano now! : Now, I don’t advocate doing this under any circumstances for obvious reasons : but after the 7th eruption, I leave the doorway and hop over the blackish : grey stair and walkway debris stepping stones before diving down the : crater’s lava shaft before it erupts again. After a long fall, I end up in : one of many lava chambers in the volcano. : : : I continue on through the basalt and obsidian walls and tunnels, looking for : tubes leading down: the lava chambers up here are full of glass. The lava : I’m looking for is magma, whose difference is not “it’s underground”, but : more that it has a lot more minerals and elements mixed in, it’s much : hotter and more runny than glass, though it’s hard to tell given all lava : is thicker than water anyway. Magma deposits a lot of its stuff on the way : up, leaving glass once it gets to either the magma chamber or the surface. : That’s where the confusion comes in as only naturally occurring magma : can be found underground, but it can be made artificially by simply : melting a bunch of rocks to suicidal levels and throwing a bunch of stuff : in it, especially metals and crystals. : Anyway, the Junction signal is coming from a lava chamber with actual magma : in it, which is of course deeper underground. I shudder to think how some : of the lava I saw topside was turned into magma while others remained : glass. : : : Man, there’s more cracks down here than a catholic priest’s trojan filled CP : collection. Dunno why they’d choose to download copies of Civil Protection : from anywhere other than youtube or the Accursed Farms website in the : first place though. : : There’s a lava tube curving down up ahead. Lava shoots out of fissures in the : walls and floor in bursts. Yes, Hathor’s flames are still going, literally : burning the air and the toxic lava fumes around me. There’s no escaping : Honou no Saiyaku. : : : Good! Just a bit further on. : : : What the hell? It’s all gone dark! Even the magma isn’t showing much light : either. : : Those glowing purple balls down in here seem to light the way ahead. The : magma further in even has just barely enough light to see, by way of the : rocks’ silhouettes. : : : : : Whew! Out at last! : : : There’s the other junction! It appears to be from a different being to : Hathor. No sooner do I touch it than… : : : : Back for more? Let’s go, Hathor! This is the end！ : : : : : : After defeating Hathor as the flames of disaster a second time, I quickly use : the junction and teleport back to the Inti Station. : : Act 6: The Ensurance Trap Redux : I’m back on Inti Station at last but I made sure to teleport into the pattern : buffer room. Now I quickly head for the umbilical switch near the hanger : as I did so often before. The way to the hanger via the T-junction to : Hathor’s terminal is locked. I’ll have to get in via the other hanger. : Someone opens the right hanger door when I arrive and the Bobs explosively : decompress, surviving for a short time before the vacuum fully gets them, : just like in real life, believe it or not. : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/survival-in-space-unprotected-possible/ : : I go and close the door using the switch on the balcony after opening the : umbilical and saving. But the door just reopens automatically as soon as : it completely shuts. While the flames of disaster can penetrate metal and : burn it too, flammable or not, Hathor seems to want to keep the door open : so I asphyxiate while on fire. Maybe the flames wouldn’t so much consume : me as they burn as they do steal my oxygen. Then again, vacuum. Of course, : this fire is just the flames i.e. plasma as opposed to actual combustion, : and all matter or lack thereof is her fuel anyway. : Closing the bulkhead when I leave keeps the air in and my breath returns. : Good thing the other hanger at the end doesn’t have a vacuum. The door : reopens later, but I’m behind a couple of other vacuum sealed doors so I’m : safe. : Hathor’s terminal displays the same message but this time she doesn’t : teleport me into the future, back to Earth and to 2 other games, (one just : as criminally underrated as Marathon itself, sharing plot elements with : Infinity and even parts of Eternal) probably because I’m already in that : future and she’s partly out cold back on Fourth Earth. : I continue through to Durandal and see what he has to say. : : What. That’s a ridicules oxymoron. That’s like saying that cats bark, or : Donald Trump is benevolent. : : : : : : I’ve nothing meaningful to add here, though it could be Hathor/Sekhmet's fire : searing my brain. With Thoth finishing Durandal’s words for him, I warp : back to Mighty Philanthropy during Dread Not. Be sure to check out the : main tour entry for this stage too. : http://forums.bungie.org/story/?noframes;read=73093 : Tune in next time for when I succeed in destroying the ship’s Electric Sheep : and the aftermath in Stage 3: Revelation. Don’t miss it!
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