MAP21: Avenger (Community Chest)

MAP21: Avenger is the twenty-first map of Community Chest. The level is set inside of a town invaded by demons, who you must kill in vengeance for the town's destruction. It was designed by Sphagne, and was originally released standalone. It is the author's tenth level. It uses the theme song of Heretic E1M6: The Cathedral.

Yellow key
Take the northern exit out of the starting room, to the end of the open alley, and turn right/east. As you go under the overpass, you pass a ram-head door to the right/south. Enter, go up the short stairs, and take the lift up. Cross the teleport bridge. Take your first right/north, follow the turn in the passage (left then right), and then take your first left/west. The weird silver corner that is revealed by the ambush wall is not useful yet. Instead, go through the ram-head door at the north of that area, and press the switch to your immediate left. That will open up more of the maze.

Go back through the door, across to the south, and go down the east alley. Beware of chaingunner fire through that window to the south. Go through the door, to the right/north, then left/west and another door. Follow the passage to the end (ignore the spur closed with bars), through that door, and onto a platform. Flip the switch to your left/west, on the southern wall of the platform.

Go back the way you came, and you'll find the bars have opened. Go through there, and turn left/north and loop around to the northwest. That weird silver corner is now a lift down to another area. Take it and proceed around to the left/west, and the south. Press the switch in the nook near the end. Backtrack a bit and you'll find the protruding corner is lowering to reveal more monsters and the yellow skull key.

Blue key
Retrace your steps almost all the way to the start: Up the lift, back over the teleport bridge, back down the lift and short stairs, and out into the alleyway. Turn right/east, and follow the turn to the right/south. You'll come to a courtyard with a small raised blue pool. There are lots of enemies across to the north, in windows, and teleporting in, so be ready for a fight. Use the raised wood block with the candle to jump over the wall and down into the sunken area below.

Go through the yellow door to the north, across the room with the tree, and then through the next yellow door, into an area built of green marble. Loop around to the left/west and then south. The blue key can be found in the room with the wooden platforms and the revenants.

Red key
From the blue key room, go north past the grey-hexagon-stone wall. To the left/west, in the corner nook, is a square green switch. Press that to lower a wall. Kill the monsters, and press the red square switch to lower another wall. Kill the monster, and proceed out the door. You're now back in the alleys north of the start room.

Take the first left/south, then left/east, and continue back to the courtyard with the pool. Across to the south is a vestibule with a blue door. Go through the door and straight ahead to the lion switch. Press it, and use the lowered stub to jump over the wall and then down to get the red key.

Exit
Use the platform the red key was on as a step, and run and leap over the ridge and down into the lowest level of that area. Once you are on the lowest, horseshoe-shaped part, proceed to the northeast corner, and through the door on the eastern wall. Continue into the blinking silver box, which is a teleporter.

You'll come out in a room next to the exit room. There are potentially many enemies in here, loitering and/or teleporting in; this is probably the hardest fight of this map. Take the shallow stairs up. There is an invulnerability sphere on the platform, but it's in the middle of all the monsters. Depending on when you can get to it, you may or may not want to save it for the final exit room.

Open the red door (from the east of the raised platform), kill the waiting monster, and flip the switch. That will open the wall at the north of the raised platform, revealing the exit room. There will be at least one baron -- depending on difficult, more than one, and/or an arch-vile. The teleport pad in that room is the exit.

Other points of interest
There is quite a bit of map outside of the essentials.

The east door out of the start room will eventually take you to the middle level of the area with the red key. Until you complete the essential route, the key is on a raised platform, and cannot be reached, but there are pickups and monsters.

The west door out of the start room leads to a library area, provided you have the yellow key. The south door out of the start room leads to a series of cave-like passageways. The library and caves connect at the southeast corner of the map. To get (back) up to the eastern half of the split raised platforms (close to the south door of the start room), backtrack slightly to the south, then follow an eastern cave spur to a lift. Leap across the open gap and you'll make it to the platform.

In the maze-like area reached with the teleport bridge, there are several additional rooms and sections. There is a second stairway up/down to the alleys. There is a second teleport bridge, leading to a northern section. In that northern section, there is another lift down to the yellow key area. There is also a red square switch at coordinates -310x1810 that will open a block with monsters and a super-shotgun.

In the sunken area with the yellow door, there is a lift in a nook at the northeast. This will take you to the penultimate room, but the way up to the exit platform is blocked, until you lower the red key platform elsewhere. You can, however, continue south and then through a western passage, to a platform overlooking that sunken area. Step on the wooden block with a candle here to be teleported back to the area with the blue pool. This is the only way out if you jump down without the yellow key.

Official

 * 1) In the room east of the starting area, a section of the hole in the southern wall with a candle sitting on it counts as a secret. (sector 35) However, it is impossible to trigger, as it is too small for you to step on.
 * 2) Enter secret #1, drop down, and quickly run into the compartment to the west before it closes to obtain a box of shells. (sector 435)
 * 3) In the room east of the starting area, the alcove in the north contains a pair of cacodemon corpses.  To the west of them is a stairway.  Enter the hole, go down the stairway, and then hit the switch in the northwest of the next room to find a soul sphere. (sector 65)
 * 4) In the room west of the starting area, run up to the yellow door, and then enter the northern room.  Enter the hole that has opened in the western wall before it closes, and head along the walkway.  At the end of the path is a pair of rockets, and a rocket launcher. (sector 332)
 * 5) At the end of the tunnel south of the library, there is a large gap separating the tunnel and a set of rocky steps.  Jump across this gap, and climb up the steps.  In the northwest of the next tunnel is an alcove containing two cells and a plasma rifle. (sector 383)
 * 6) Go through the south door in the starting area and navigate the caverns until you reach a dead end. Look to the west to spot a ledge above and press the wall below it to reveal a teleporter to the north, leading to the southeast of the level. This secret, located in the sector before the teleporter, is hard to trigger due to its small size.  It is best to enter the sector as slowly as you can. (sector 385) An alternate way to get this secret is by entering secret #5, then go back down the steps and onto the lower floor to find said teleporter. However, this alternate way renders the secret impossible to trigger in some source ports, since its linedef trigger removes the sector's effect.
 * 7) In the marble room in the northeast, there is a flight of steps leading to a medikit, a box of bullets, and a chaingun.  From the apex zenith of the stairway, jump to the platform in the northwest of the room.  After this, drop into the hole, and you will obtain a berserk pack.  Walk forward to find a teleporter with a box of rockets sitting in it, as well as a switch. (sector 267) Flip the switch to lower a pillar holding combat armor.  Enter the teleporter to return to the marble room.
 * 8) After flipping the switch that lowers the red key, climb onto the railing, and walk along to the eastern pillar, which bears a switch on its eastern side.  Flip it, and jump down to the east side of the room.  Run into the opening to the north to enter a secret hallway leading to a bulk cell. (sector 134)
 * 9) In secret #8, a portion of the northern wall has white markings on it.  Open it to find a lift.  Take the lift up to find a box of rockets and combat armor. (sector 295)

Non-official

 * Take the north exit from the "library", and turn right (east). Just before the ladder/stairway is an invisible line (linedef 2427) that, when crossed, briefly opens a hidden door.  Go up the ladder, turn left (north), and enter the revealed doorway.  You'll find imps, a cacodemon, a medkit, and a box of rockets.  (sector 362)

Bugs
Because you cannot step on secret #1, you can only obtain 88% Secrets on this level.

Current records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on January 13, 2022.

Player spawns
This level contains eight spawn points:
 * 1) facing north-east. (thing 697)
 * 2) facing east. (thing 698)
 * 3) facing south. (thing 699)
 * 4) facing south. (thing 700)
 * 5) facing south. (thing 701)
 * 6) facing west. (thing 702)
 * 7) facing south. (thing 703)
 * 8) facing north. (thing 704)

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