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 many damaging lava floors and pitfalls. Beating it requires vigilance.

First visit
The wall opens in front of you, and 0-2 afrit attack. As you step forward, the floor around your outcropping breaks up and explodes, and lava rises up. You’ll have to run/jump across the damaging lava to the entrance on the right. Here, you’ll enter a large area with a lava pool just ahead, from which several Afrit rise up. On either side are two staircases leading down to a main area with ettins and a lava flow. On the right, an alcove contains a Falcon Shield, and a puzzle switch behind it. Pull it to solve one third of the puzzle on Seven Portals. If you are the mage in a higher difficulty, you will find Frost Shards on the platform at the bottom of the stairs. The main area with the lava flow has several ettins. As you approach, four pillars will open, and more ettins will teleport in. Once you’ve cleared the wave, you can heal with the Crystal Vials on the stairs. The two fire key doors on either side won’t open yet.

To the left/east, a door with a mask on it will open into a new area with a long, narrow bridge over a precipice. As you attempt to cross, the room will quake, the bridge will break up into stepping stones, and the stone door closes at the end. There are fléchettes on the bridge, ettins in higher difficulties, and many afrit in the lava far below. Before attempting to cross the chasm, you should go back to the main lava room and to the eastern sweeping staircase. On the side, you’ll find a new passage has opened. It will have a bullhead switch that opens the stone door at the far end of the precipice room. It also leads to a narrow ledge along the wall you can walk across (see Secrets for more info). At the end, you can simply make one jump back and forth to get the Flame Mask, a puzzle item you’ll need later on. If you choose to take the hard route and cross the stepping stones, the up/down look function will come in useful. You may also want to save before making the attempt.

Once you've attained the Flame Mask and pulled the puzzle switch, it's time to head back to the Seven Portals through the portal at the beginning.

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 an elevator 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. Elevators 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 Afrits 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 Afrits 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.

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).