MAP15: End of the Line (Scythe 2)

MAP15: End of the Line is the fifteenth map of the megawad Scythe 2. It was designed by Erik Alm and uses the music track "Gut Wrencher" by Robert Prince from Duke Nukem 3D. It is the last map of the industrial episode, and there is an entry to the secret map, MAP31: Secret.

Essentials
At the start, use the step in front of you to climb up to the upper area. Go to your left, go up the stairs and enter the passageway in the middle. Continue forward until you reach a wide open area with two pillars. Move left, go down the stairs and flip the switch to your left to open the bars nearby. Go through them into a room with the red key on a pillar inside the nukage pit. Approach the pit to lower the pillar then drop down to grab the key.

When the pillar has finished raising again, run out of the pit, then go through the red door in this room. Open another red door to reach the starting area. Retrace your steps to the wide open area with two pillars but this time enter the red door to the left just before the entrance. Continue forward and press the switch to your left to lower a lift outside the room just behind you. Take the lift, move straight ahead and turn left into a strobing lights room.

Go right, past a partial invisibility into a room with a switch. Use it then backtrack to the entrance of the strobing lights room. Go left, move past another room to your left (remember its location) and go up the stairs in front. Drop down into the water to your left and turn left again as you get near the pillar to find another switch: flip it then use the teleporter behind you. Continue forward and this time enter the middle room you skipped earlier.

Press the switches on both sides to lower the bars blocking access to the blue key. Exit this room and go left, past the stairs and drop down to the wide open area with two pillars again. Open the blue door slightly to your right, then move left and use the switch. A switch on the other side of the room is now accessible, so press it and return to the location of the previous switch, where you have to flip another switch to open the bars to the right. Past the bars, climb up the stairs to your right and go through the opening to your right. Climb up another set of stairs and find a passage to the yellow key. Grab the key then go through the yellow door. Continue forward and use the switch on the ground to raise the lift. In the outside area that follows, go up the left set of stairs and flip the switch inside the dark room. Repeat the process on the right side. Once the sequence is complete, go down the stairs again and enter the hallway to your right. Approach the blinking red wall to trigger the death exit.

Accessing the secret exit
Immediately from the start point, you can see a yellow keycard on a tall pillar some distance to the north. Exit the starting tunnel and make your way to the northwestern corner of the chamber. From there, straferun eastwards and try to land on a stack of crates nearby; do not decelerate, run up the crate stack and you should be having enough momentum to grab the keycard from the pillar. Go through the yellow-keyed door and note the switch panel outside the elevator (not the one in the elevator car). It opens an entrance to the secret level on the surface.

Take note that said switch will not be there if you play through this level in the conventional way as it is lowered by a walkover linedef (3452) located at the entrance of the sewer tunnel that leads to the yellow keycard, behind the revenant (thing 174). It can be operated even after it has been hidden in the floor, however.

Secrets

 * 1) The slimy passageway in the final room that leads to the secret exit is opened by a switch at the end of the hallway behind the yellow door. Picking up the yellow key via the normal route later in the level will trip a linedef that sinks the switch into the floor, making it invisible, though it can still be activated even in the ground. The "proper" way to get the yellow key is to first straferun onto the boxes to the left of the pillar the key sits on and then from there run against the pillar itself. Now you can open the yellow door and press the switch before triggering the linedef later on that hides the switch. (sector 1202)

Bugs
There is a room in the middle of the map (sectors 290, 297, 320 make up the main part) with a super shotgun on a pillar. This room can be reached by a door not far from the starting point. When approached from that side, the door opens and stays open. However, the room is also reachable by jumping down from sector 682. If you take the latter course without first opening the door, you will become trapped, as the door does not open from the inside.

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