MAP27: Fort Hades (Memento Mori)

MAP27: Fort Hades is the twenty-seventh level of Memento Mori. It was designed by Scott Lampert  and uses the music track "DLA" by Mark Klem.

Essentials
Start and Yellow Key

Head straight out the door in front of you into an outdoor area, with a circular walkway around a nukage pit. Take out the zombiemen, shotgun guy and imp on the walkway. As you cross into the part of the walkway that is in shadow, up to three cacodemons will appear from a trap in the north. Dispose of them and flip the switch in their trap, which raises a bridge across the nukage, allowing access to a berserk pack. Considering the large amount of lighter enemies in this level, this will come in handy.

Go through the doorway in the west and follow the corridor all the way around until you descend two flights of stairs. Opposition is fairly minimal along this part of the level. Once that is done, turn south and head towards a room with a bright square on the floor (be wary of imps from the west, east and south). This central room will be called the "nexus", and will be a reference point for navigating the rest of the level.

First, head to the eastern arm of the "nexus" and go through the door. Clear out the demons (if any), kill the lone shotgun guy in the room in the east, clear the high ground of former humans, then turn your attention to the Hell knight (Hey, not too rough and below) or baron of Hell (Hurt me plenty and above) protecting a switch in the west side of this area. Kill it and flip the switch to raise stairs to the high ground. Go through the room in the east, then ascend the stairs to the top. From here, you can snipe out the monsters in the red key room (up to two mancubi, two revenants and a chaingunner).

Open the small door in the east of the "high ground", and follow the corridor down to a yellow door (which cannot be opened yet). Drop into the nukage river and head north to pick up a radiation suit from an alcove. From there, head south, then east along the nukage river, watching for an assortment of monsters. At the point where the river goes into a dark tunnel, make sure that you have picked up the yellow key before continuing forward.

At the end of the nukage river is a cavern with armor, two imps and up to three spectres lying in ambush. Clear them out, then find the switch in the northeastern side of the room. use it to lower a platform and ride it back up to the south arm of the "nexus".

Red Key and Blue Key

Head to the eastern arm of the "nexus" and ascend the staircase back to the "high ground" in that area. Go through the door in the east, then open the yellow door across the slime river. Follow this corridor around to the red key room, then grab the red key. The blue door is here, but you can't open it yet.

Backtrack to the "nexus". This time, go to the western arm, ascend the stairs and open the door at the top to enter an open area. The floor has two imps and on Hurt me plenty and above, two zombiemen. The western ledge has more shotgun guys and a zombieman The eastern ledge has an imp or two, but on Hurt me plenty and above, there is also an arch-vile there. (If the arch-vile is not there, it has teleported to the western ledge.) Kill the arch-vile first, then clear everyone else out.

Climb the grey steps up to a door. This computer room is full of former humans. Follow it around to a door in the southwest. Kill the lone chaingunner ahead. From this room, you can see into the blue key courtyard and take out some of the monsters in there early. Your most important job here, though, is to face east and find the portion of the wall with large cracks. Shoot it with an impact weapon, and it will open, allowing access to the blue key courtyard.

Once again, return to the "nexus". This time, take the red door in the western arm, and ascend the steps to a wooden door. Go through it, and you will be on the western ledge in the open area where you fought the arch-vile. A large part of the western wall should have opened up to allow access to the blue key courtyard.

Enter the courtyard and find the switch in the northeast which lowers the blue key pedestal to the ground. When you grab the blue key, a trap opens in the north. This is a boss battle - on Hey, not too rough and below, you face two barons of Hell; on Hurt me plenty and above, you face a cyberdemon. On Hurt me plenty and below, you can grab an invulnerability from the trap, which will vastly reduce the difficulty of this encounter. Kite the boss(es) around the southern tree for maximum efficiency. The exit will be revealed in this area later, so you are advised to kill the boss(es) now.

Exit

Backtrack to the "nexus". This time, go to the north arm and ascend the eastern staircase to find a room with four teleporters. Open the red door in the east. This room may look intimidating, but the only trap that opens as you approach the switch is a sole chaingunner. Flip the switch to raise a bridge behind the blue door.

Return to the red key room. Open the blue door at the west side of the room. Clear the cage to your left (and on Ultra-Violence and above, the arachnotron on the bridge]], then proceed forward. As you continue along the bridge, the bridge will lower, exposing you to two imps (and on Hurt me plenty and above, another arachnotron). Stay on the bridge until it raises - going through the two doors will only force more backtracking. Once the bridge has raised up again, continue into the opening ahead.

As you reach the end of the opening, you will arrive in an alcove overlooking the blue key courtyard. The walkway in the blue key courtyard will be lowering by now, releasing up to two pain elementals and an assortment of imps and revenants. Drop down into the blue key courtyard and deal with them. The exit door is in the southwest, but it is locked. To open it, go into the eastern trap (where the imps and revenants came from) and flip the switch to temporarily open the exit door. The first time you walk into this trap, another trap will open with up to five demons. If the exit door closes on you while fighting them, just flip the switch again to re-open it.

On Hurt me plenty and above, the exit room has one last cacodemon for you to deal with. Step into the teleporter to exit the level.

Official

 * 1) At the start of the level, go directly to the north, and a hidden elevator will take you down to an underground corridor (sector 193) where you encounter two (none on easy skill levels) imps and five (two on easy skills) sergeants. It leads to a room containing a shotgun, a set of shells, a box of shotgun shells and a health bonus.
 * 2) From the map start go west. In the hallway west of the nukage pit, approach the outside area to open two small caves behind you containing enemies, dispose of them. Follow the hallway westwards and go south after descending the stairs. Take the eastern path at the nexus to enter another outdoor area. Push the switch behind the chaingun to raise some stairs that you climb. After passing the door upstairs, you are in front of the southeastern yellow door, follow the sewers northwards to a shadow region (containing a backpack that could be seen from the nukage pit). Stepping into the shadow will connect aforementioned caves to a corridor. Return to this corridor to find a teleporter. Enter it and you will be taken into a sewage tunnel containing a megasphere. Approach the bulk cell in the dead end and the wall will open to the north revealing a teleporter leading back into the nexus. The passageway to the teleporter counts as a secret. (sector 287)
 * 3) After obtaining the yellow key, ascend the stairs in the west of the nexus. Cross the outdoor area to enter the northwestern computer room; open the yellow door and flip the switch to lower the mainframes. This reveals a blue, circular room (sector 262) with a switch, (two sergeants on medium an hard skills, an arch-vile on hard skills,) a trooper and a stimpack.
 * 4) Flip the switch in secret #3 and you will be taken up to a compartment (sector 266) containing two (one on easy) chaingunners and a soul sphere. Flip the switch to head back down.
 * 5) While taking the eastern stairway up in the north of the nexus, press on the eastern wall to find an elevator; take it up to enter a normally inaccessible area (sector 76) containing (skill dependent) none/one/two sergeants, a stimpack and a blur artifact. Flip the southern switch to open the way into the room with the four blue teleports.
 * 6) In the room with the four blue teleports, open the northern wall (sector 53) right west of the stairs leading down to find a medikit, three sets of shells and a super shotgun.
 * 7) In the water section that can only be reached with the blue key, open the misaligned part of the northeastern wall (sector 252) to find a health bonus and a teleporter. This leads into the southeastern cage, containing a blue armor and an imp (as well as a chaingunner and a box of shells on Hurt Me Plenty or higher).
 * 8) Enter the teleporter in secret #7 and open the eastern wall (sector 256) to find another teleporter. This leads to a secret room with a Hell knight, two spectres, (skill dependent) none/one/two imps, two medikits, a rocket launcher, five boxes of rockets, a box of bullets and a box of shells. Enter the teleporter in this room to return to the nexus.
 * 9) During a multiplayer battle, when you are killed, one of the places in which you can respawn is in a short, narrow tunnel (sector 276) in the southwest of the map. Press on either end of the tunnel to open paths into the demons' compartment, and a teleporter that leads to a (multiplayer-only) BFG9000. The eastern door sector (sector 278) counts as a secret. Because of its location, however, it is impossible to obtain this secret in single-player or coop mode unless the player uses the  cheat.

Non-official

 * 1) In the northwestern computer room mentioned in official secret #3, press on the gray, western terminal from the south, and it will lower to reveal an invulnerability.

Bugs
Because one secret is placed in a deathmatch-only area, you can only obtain 88% Secrets on this level.

A spectre (Thing 137) in the south-east has no flags set for any of the three difficulty classes, so it does not actually appear in the level.

Current records
The Compet-N records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on April 18, 2014.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: