Hub 1: Guardian of Fire

Guardian of Fire is the fourth map in Hexen. It is considered somewhat easy and shorter than other maps.

''In the molten depths of the world, death wears a mask of lava and fire. You must brave searing destruction in order to continue onward.''

Walkthrough
This map has a lot of damaging floors and some particularly deadly pitfalls. Beating it requires vigilance.

First visit

Walk into the first room. Be ready for the scripted event (some Efreeti and lava appear as it often happens in this quite fiery level). When it is over, go to the room to your right. There you have stairs running on both sides of a small lava pool. There is a switch in the middle of one of those stairs. Pull it, along with the two in the Guardian of Steel, they open a new gate in the Seven Portals. In the room with the lava pillar, there is a wall with a mask on it (the first one to your left). Open it, it will reveal a bridge. Stepping on it makes it crumble so run as fast as possible. The door at the end of it will close, however, so you will have to jump on the small ledge that is on a wall on one side of the room and walk along it carefully until you reach a niche that leads back to the room you came from. There is also a switch in that niche, opening the door that closed on the end of the bridge. Pull it, walk back along the ledge, jump back on the bridge and get the Flame Mask. That is pretty much all you can do for now so just go back to the Seven Portals.

Second visit

After coming back with the Fire key go to any of the two Fire key doors and open it. The room it will lead to contains on one side a lift that will take you down to the central lower room (the one you can see through the bars behind the lava pillar). Kill the monsters there and go to its southern end, where there is another wall with a flame mask. Lifts on your side will lower momentarily. Again, take either of them to get to a small labyrinth. Go through it, killing monsters as you go, until you reach the central point, where there will be a teleporter. It will take you to the other part of this small maze. There you will find some monsters and a switch to pull. Pull it. Then you can either go back through any side of the maze, where the flame mask wall will move, letting you back to the first part of the maze and eventually to the Portal to Seven Portals. Or you can just go to the place the teleporter took you to and there behind you there is a switch on the wall that takes you back to Seven Portals.

Third visit

You appear in a completely new area that is not connected to the original part of this level for now. The steel wall in front of you opens and lets you into a room with a big fire pit and a ledge going around it. Kill all the Efreeti and start walking around the ledge to your left (there is a gap in the ledge on your right). Be careful as the northern wall is a trap that will push you into the pit, so run quickly past it. When you get to the other side of it, a couple of events will trigger. A bridge will rise, allowing you to access the small "island" in the middle of the pit, the lava level in the pit will rise, waking up some more Efreeti and finally, the pillar in the middle of the pit will reveal a chain switch. When you pull it, a message will tell you that half of the puzzle (the one leading to the secret level, that is) is solved. Then go through the corridor that opened on the east of the room to return to the part of the Guardian of Fire that you already know. Finally, get to the portal and back to the Seven Portals.

Secrets and tricks
Instead of braving the long set of jumping across pillars to get the Flame Mask, there is a secret door in the lava fountain room that leads to an alcove that connects to a small ledge; run across the ledge (note, in some source ports this does not work).