The Scourge of Mordin

The Scourge of Mordin is the fourth episode of Project Einherjar. It introduces the fewest new enemies of the megawad, but those new enemies are used very frequently. The locale is mountainous with lots of treacherous cliff-faces and eerie monasteries.

Story
Juno awakens in the spiritual mountain colony of Mordin: she has exhausted herself scaling the mountains to reach it, on behalf of the people of Glimmerfell, who are being wiped out by a tuberculosis outbreak. Mordin's leader -- the White Lady of Mordin, an enigmatic priestess and glorified dictator -- has made unparalleled advancements in postnuclear medicine that could save Glimmerfell and the rest of Midgard. However, it is quickly evident that the White Lady is anything but benevolent, when Juno witnesses one of the townsfolk drop dead seemingly by the priestess's will alone. Juno realizes he has somehow been poisoned, and that Mordin's people live in fear for their lives.

After watching the White Lady perform her sermon, she meets the woman face-to-face and discovers she is Contessa Gaul, daughter of the late Dr. Gaul, whom Juno killed in Episode 1. Her medical advances are thanks largely to the doctor's Einherjar project, which Contessa herself dabbles in from time to time. She explains that she has already had Juno poisoned like the rest of her subjects; believing that Juno has been sent to steal her secrets and assassinate her, she then has her locked up in the dungeons beneath the city, to wait out her 48-hour lifespan. Juno manages to escape custody and wreaks havoc all across Mordin in her search for Contessa and a cure. She searches the hospital first, but is met only with armed soldiers and an Einherjar of the late Bloody Althea Rourke, which leaves Juno shaken.

With the Mordin doctors too scared of the White Lady to administer an antidote, Juno has no other recourse but to storm Contessa's personal home and kill her, ironically vindicating the dictator's paranoia. With the maniac dead, the doctors finally begin curing their people of Contessa's poisons, and a new age of New World medicine begins.

Levels
Episode 4: The Scourge of Mordin
 * MAP22: Pit of Woe
 * MAP23: Cliffside City
 * MAP24: Population Control
 * MAP25: Infernal Infirmary
 * MAP26: Mordin's Pass
 * MAP27: The White Lady's Garden
 * MAP28: Castle Agony

Enemies
Though it introduces few new enemies, Episode 4 also reuses bosses from Episode 3, mainly Kestrel as the Vampire Matron miniboss. Sheriff Gallos also appears multiple times on harder difficulties as a generic Sheriff miniboss.

Purger. Masked male soldiers that launch explosive fireballs with a wide but relatively nonlethal blast radius. They are very common and make dodging enemy fire a bit trickier than before.

Sister of Contrition. A cackling amazonian woman with a blue hood and twin auto-shotguns. She is essentially a nerfed Bloody Althea: the hell knight to Althea's baron of hell.

Einherjar Althea. The final boss from Episode 2 has been revived as an especially deadly Einherjar, and possibly the most dangerous enemy in the megawad besides the Vampire Matron. She moves fast like the Thor, and wields three attacks: a volley of small seeker rockets and large Dessler rockets, a rain of shotgun fire, and a devastating spread of gauss cannon fire. She also explodes when killed, so keeping distance from her is essential. She is faced twice: once at the end of Map25: Infernal Infirmary; then again later at the end of Map27: The White Lady's Garden, where she has apparently revived and caught up with Juno.

Contessa Gaul. The villain of the episode. Contessa faces Juno in her priestess garb -- complete with a frightening skull mask -- at the end of Map28: Castle Agony. She goes down relatively quickly under sustained fire, but she attacks with double fireball launchers, and has a habit of dodging to the side before unloading a deadly volley. She is the only villain who does not have a "teaser" encounter partway through her respective episode.